Global News Podcast - Burkina Faso army kills 223 villagers in revenge attack

Episode Date: April 25, 2024

Human Rights Watch report says children were among those killed in what it calls one of the worst army abuse incidents in Burkina Faso in nearly a decade. Also: The US Secretary of State is in Beijing as the world's largest economies try to mend their relationship - will it work? We hear mixed reactions to a new tourist tax in Venice, and how did the famous Moulin Rouge cabaret club in Paris lose the sails of its windmill?

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. This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Andrew Peach and at 13 Hours GMT on Thursday the 25th of April, these are our main stories.

Human Rights Watch accuses the army in Burkina Faso of massacring more than 200 villagers in a single day. The US Secretary of State is in Beijing as the world's largest economy is trying to mend their strained relationship. Israel says it's still planning a ground operation in southern Gaza. Also in this podcast, the whole world comes here to take pictures of the Moulin Rouge. I think that the owners will do their utmost to reinstall the sails quickly. It's like the Eiffel Tower falling down. Mystery in Paris as the Moulin Rouge loses the sails of its windmill overnight.

For almost a decade now, the authorities in the landlocked African state of Burkina Faso have been battling an Islamist insurgency with devastating consequences for the country. Thousands of people have died. More than two million have been displaced. The military government, which came into power two years ago in a coup, has been accused of targeting civilians in their campaign against Islamist fighters. The extent of the violence has been highlighted in a report by Human Rights Watch. Africa editor Richard Hamilton has been telling me more. It is absolutely shocking. They're saying that on the 25th of February, in one single day, the army from

Burkina Faso killed 223 civilians, including at least 56 children, including babies. These attacks occurred in two villages called Soro and Nondin. And Human Rights Watch has described these mass killings as among the worst army abuses in the country in nearly 10 years. Villagers who survived, their eyewitnesses told the rights organisation that a military convoy of more than 100 soldiers, some in motorbikes, descended on the first village about half an hour after jihadists had been in the area. The soldiers went door to door, pulling residents out of their homes, rounding them up and opening fire on them. They then did the same in the next village about five kilometres away.

And in both places, the soldiers also shot at those who attempted to flee. Now, these mass killings are believed to be in retaliation by the military, which accused the villagers of aiding and abetting these Islamist militants. And it followed an attack by jihadists on a nearby military camp in the same province, which is called Yatenga. So a terrible, terrible toll. And it's only just really coming to full light at the moment. Yes, I was going to ask you about that.

It's not the most important part of the story, but listeners might well be thinking, how is it possible for something like this to have happened and for nothing to have been known about it for two months? That's right. It's partly because Human Rights Watch has been conducting a very thorough investigation. And they didn't want to, you know, put any false news out there. So they interviewed more than 20 survivors, they verified videos and photos that were shared by eyewitnesses.

So they conducted a thorough investigation. The other thing is that there's been Russian disinformation. There's also it was a very remote location and people are scared about speaking out. And finally, because of the international media's focus on, you know, legitimately large stories like Ukraine and Gaza, Unfortunately, what happens in this obscure, remote, landlocked African country doesn't hit the headlines until, of course, either you get a terrorism incident closer to home in Europe or United States, or you get people fleeing these sorts of African countries and trying to get into Europe as well. So that's when people wake up to the story,

but often it's too late. And that was our Africa editor, Richard Hamilton. Relations between the United States and China really matter. That's the message from the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, as he continues a closely watched visit to China. He's been speaking about the need for direct engagement and said China and the US must resolve their differences together. After a day meeting business leaders and students in Shanghai, Mr Blinken has travelled to Beijing where talks are expected to get somewhat tougher. Our China correspondent Laura Bicker has more. The fast footsteps you can hear and the studs of boots on the astroturf are young people warming up for a game

you might not expect in China. They're donning helmets, shoulder pads, knee pads and gearing up for a game of American football. Yeah, there are teams. Yeah, it's very hard.

And it's tough, physically and mentally. It is very difficult to defeat yourself. You can defeat the fear, you know. Henry is the oldest player in the Beijing Cyclones. This sport, which is an expression of America's national identity, has made it to the capital of China. There are only a few thousand players in the country, but millions of fans. It is very interesting to culture communicate through this game. Chinese people play American sports, Interesting to culture communicate through this game.

Chinese people play American sports and American people come to China. They are very welcome to see each other, to know each other, to make friends with each other. Peace, not war. That's something that will be on the US Secretary of State's mind as he heads to Beijing. In Shanghai, he met students and business leaders, ate meat buns and watched baseball. But the tough conversations are still to come. It's thought he may meet President Xi on Friday. I think it's important to underscore the value, in fact the necessity, of direct engagement, of sustained engagement, of speaking to each other, laying out our differences which are real,

seeking to work through them, as also looking for ways to build cooperation where we can. We have an obligation for our people and indeed an obligation for the world to manage the relationship between our two countries. The talks are already off to a contentious start. The US has announced more military aid for the self-governing island of Taiwan.

As fears grow, China will take it by force. Beijing sees the island as its territory and is furious. The US also believes China's exports to Russia are helping Moscow with its war effort, an accusation Beijing says is groundless. But Mr Blinken will push for that trade to stop. Back on the football field, their minds are on the sporting season, not the political one. Quarterback Mu Yang once commentated for Chinese fans during a Super Bowl game in Los Angeles. The biggest game in the world. I think more and more superstars in the NFL come to China to support us, to make some training camp, to teach us how to play elite football.

That's a good thing for us. These are the kind of sporting exchanges both Beijing and Washington would like to see. But superstars are more likely to come to China when the two superpowers find some common ground. Our China correspondent Laura Bicker reporting. Eight years in jail, that's the sentence for a Vietnamese businessman convicted of a multi-million dollar fraud. The case of Trung Quy Tain, who runs a soft drinks business, is the latest of a number of high-profile corruption

trials in Vietnam. I found out more from our Asia-Pacific regional editor Celia Hatton. This is a man who actually built up a massive fizzy drink empire. He was one of the biggest beverage sellers in Vietnam, made millions off of it. And Chun Kui Tain, though, his downfall really has been property. So he was found guilty of basically offering to lend people money, but wanting their property as collateral in these loans that he was doing on the side alongside his two grown daughters. When people would pay back the money owed and interest, then Trinh Quy Tain and his daughters would refuse to hand back the property. And so they built up a small property empire by doing this, by basically defrauding people of their property. And so that's why

he's gone to prison for eight years, his daughters as well, for lesser sentences. It's the context that's interesting here, isn't it? The context of Vietnam going after some of these big fish, some of these big corruption cases. Yeah, that's right. I mean, we have to remember this comes just a few weeks after we saw the biggest corruption case in Vietnam's history come to a close. That's the case of Chuong Minh Lan. She was also a billionaire, luxury property developer, who defrauded a bank of more than $40 billion. Now, the wider context to all of this is an ongoing anti-corruption campaign taking place across Vietnam, in which more than 4,000 people have been charged with criminal offenses. We've already seen the downfall of two Vietnamese leaders because of this, countless entrepreneurs. And really, it's exposed this operation, which is called Blazing Furnace,

this ongoing campaign, has really exposed how weak the banking rules have been in Vietnam, how many bad property loans there are. And there are some people who are thinking that if this continues, this is really going to slow down the entire Vietnamese economy, because really it's exposing that this huge, fast-growing economy that we thought was doing really, really well has really been built on very, very shaky foundations. Our Asia-Pacific editor, Celia Hatton. The Moulin Rouge Cabaret Club has been a Paris landmark for more than 100 years, but residents of the French capital woke up on Thursday to find the windmill on top of the club had lost its sails.

It's a symbol of Montmartre, of its village, the bohemian way of life, of Paris. The whole world comes here to take pictures of the Moulin Rouge. I think that the owners will do their utmost to reinstall the sails quickly, because even if it's just a sign that falls down, it is the sign of Moulin Rouge. It's like the Eiffel Tower falling down. The blades came off in the early hours of the morning, falling onto the street below. So what more do we know about what happened? A question for our correspondent in Paris, Hugh Schofield. What they seem to have done in the few hours since it happened is rule out foul play. That's the latest from the police and the management.

But what happened was that in the middle of the night, between two and three o'clock in the morning, the four blades or sails, I mean, they didn't function. They were just decorative, but they were the blades of the windmill, which is very obviously there above Place Pigalle. They fell off and they were found on the road with the letters of the MULA, the first three letters of the MULA M-O-U also having come off. It wasn't a particularly windy night. It's very unclear why this should have happened. Apparently there were regular security checks. So no bad weather, no foul play, and yet part of a historic building that's been fine since 1915 is suddenly in the road. Yeah, it is odd.

It's been functioning, as you say, for 100 and something years. The only big event in the past was in 1915 when there was a fire. And what we have there now is the rebuilt structure and the actual blades of the windmill are quite new as well. They were replaced, I think, about 20 years ago with a lighter aluminium structure. All we know is that the management is ruling out foul play. They say, no, there was no one there. It wasn't vandalism, it was a problem of maintenance. But why, when they say themselves they have regular checks, it's just not clear.

Hugh Schofield with a mystery of the Moulin Rouge in Paris. Still to come on this podcast... I'm by the Grand Canal, I'm seeing the gondoliers float past me, gorgeous bridges over the Grand Canal and the incredible buildings that line this wonderful, unique city. Venice is glorious, but it's also creaking under the weight of mass tourism. A new tourist tax in Venice. 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 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. More than a million displaced Palestinians have sought refuge in the city of Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip. Israel says several battalions of Hamas fighters are there too and it's adamant it'll soon launch a major military operation to root them out. Israel's

war cabinet has been meeting to talk about its next move. Aurélie Goddard is head of medical activities in Gaza for Médecins Sans Frontières. She says the situation facing civilians in Rafa is dreadful. The situation is very, I would say, on the brink. It's tense. Like, people don't know what's going to happen, nor when, of course. They had started to, well, kind of resettle in something that was very far away from being normal,

but they had a bit more quietness or peace over the last few weeks. And they're getting very yeah very tense very anxious and they're exhausted so that the the idea of the invasion which is already terrifying for them is comes after almost seven months of very difficult life so it's they don't know where to go if they have to move from Rafah. Living conditions are still disastrous. Many, unfortunately, or fortunately for us, unfortunately for the country, left as well for Egypt just to seek for safety. The ones who can

pay have seen an exodus of doctors, nurses, more and more over the last weeks but the answer is always the same there's nowhere safe i i struggle for them to see the future they they completely erase the country everything is flattened there's no schools no university it has all been destroyed no hospitals i can't at all imagine what they're going through but if you're an unmother, you have small children, there's no school, you're a doctor, a nurse, you can't do what you've been trained for and you're not safe. And then I think it's as well,

maybe part of the strategy to push them out of Gaza. So there's actually no future. So because they're exhausted, they can't take it more. They're used to war. Unfortunately, they've been through all of them, even the youngest one and the new generation.

They need a future. They need a future in Gaza. Aurélie Goddard from Médecins Sans Frontières. In the former Soviet Republic of Georgia, thousands of people have been protesting against a government plan to reintroduce a controversial law on foreign funding, which the critics have dubbed the Russian law. This is the second attempt to bring the law onto the statute books after it was abandoned last year in the face of mass protests. This time the stakes are higher, though, because for the Georgian youth leading these protests, the proposed legislation seems to mean losing a chance

to join the European Union. Ray and Dimitri sent this report from the Georgian capital, Tbilisi. Thousands of protesters, mainly students draped in EU and Georgian flags, marched down the capital, Tbilisi's main avenue, to say no to the proposed bill on the transparency of foreign funding. They call it the Russian law. No to the Russian law, they chant. In 2012, Russia adopted its version of the law, labelling government critics as foreign agents, cutting off funding and imposing fines. Over time, the expansion of the law has hollowed out Russia's civil society.

Outside Georgia's parliament last week, as MPs from the governing Georgian Dream Party passed the first reading of the bill, protesters chanted, Rusev! Rusev! Rusev! Rusev, Russians and traitors. The Georgian government rejects any similarity with the Russian law and says the legislation is needed to ensure transparency. Nikola Samharadze is an MP from the Georgian Dream Party. We have 25,000 active non-governmental organizations and 90% of those non-governmental organizations get their funding from foreign sources. And there is no accountability, there is no transparency of where the funds come from

and for what purposes these funds are spent for. For us, this is important to ensure the transparency of foreign funding. But the protesters are not convinced. They say almost all NGOs in Georgia are funded by the EU and the US in programs aimed at strengthening democracy. Information about donors is already openly available. Tamara Oniani is a representative of the Young Lawyers Association, a leading government watchdog set to be targeted by the proposed bill.

And this law actually, it's not about transparency, it's about suppressing civil society, and we think that it's in the interest of Russia, and that's why we are here, because it's not only the issue on the local level, we think that it's issue of foreign policy for Georgia, because it shifts countries past from EU to Russia. Georgia is currently a candidate country for EU membership. It was granted the long-awaited status last December. But with reintroduction of the foreign funding bill, both Brussels and Washington openly stated its adoption would derail Georgia from the European path.

To counter the growing discontent, the Governing Dream Party called on its supporters to gather on April 29, as it said in a statement, to say no to black money funding a revolution, political intervention, attacks on the Orthodox Church and LGBT propaganda. But against the backdrop of growing disinformation and confusion surrounding the bill, the Georgian youth, the driving force behind the protests, are clear about their goals to continue to fight for what they say is Georgia's future as part of Europe, not Russia. Ryan Dimitri reporting from Tbilisi. Late on Wednesday, shares in Meta, the owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, plunged on Wall Street, despite the technology giant posting better than expected earnings. Oliver Conway got the details from our business

reporter Monica Miller. Well, first quarter revenue rose 27% to more than $36 billion. I mean, 2023, according to Mark Zuckerberg, was the year for efficiency, which made investors happy early on. The stock soared up until now, up to about 40% for this year. It made investors realize that they were kind of getting their fiscal house in order. However, in the latest earnings call, Meta announced that it's going to basically be switching gears. Moving forward, Meta said it expects in its April to June revenue, it's going to be in the range of $36.5 billion to $39 billion, which is less than what analysts had expected. But what is really striking is during this call is when Mr. Zuckerberg starts to talk about his new investments in AI products. You literally can see the stock on the chart. It

drops like a stone. It lost roughly more than 15% of its shares because this makes investors incredibly nervous. Now, I see that Meta no longer reports daily active users or monthly active users. Why is that? And has that had an impact on the value? I think there are two reasons for that. One, Facebook is now owned by Meta and there's multiple different apps that go along with this. It's not just Facebook, it's WhatsApp, it's Instagram. So they pack in the family of apps when they look at these numbers. And those numbers were up about $3.2 billion in March 2024, a 7% increase. But one of the other things, and we've seen this with Netflix as well, is that subscribers have started to decline. And for Meta, one of the big competitors is TikTok and some of the other things in this space.

So it's not always advantageous to be reporting these. But when you have a whole family of different apps that people use for different reasons, that might be, in their case, a more accurate description of what their products offer. Now, today is St. Mark's Day, the feast day of the patron saint of Venice, and traditionally one of the busiest days of the year in a city that often feels swamped, not just by rising water levels, but by tides of tourists crowding its canal sides. It's also been chosen as the day to launch a World First, a new initiative that'll see day-trippers pay a five-euro fee for the privilege of going to Venice during peak periods. And not everyone in this lagoon city seems convinced.

This is not fair. I consider Venice to be the most beautiful city in the world, so to deprive a person on a low budget of the opportunity to come here for an hour or two to enjoy this city is surely a shame for tourists. This is not a natural park. It is not a museum. This is a city where we have to fight to have houses lived in by families and we have to reopen local shops. This would also limit this wild tourism. I've been talking to our correspondent Mark Lowen, who's in Venice. Venice is a fragile city.

It's threatened by climate change, rising sea waters, but also by over-tourism. So the city has finally decided to try to tackle this by a system that has started this morning. And it's in place around me right now, actually, because I'm talking to you from outside the city's main train station, Santa Lucia train station, where there are people in yellow and orange and white high-vis jackets that are checking people's phones to see if they have a QR code.

Now, if you are a day-tripper coming to Venice, now, on around 30 days between now and July in this trial phase, you will have to have paid €5, that's about $4.50, to enter the city. Now you pay on your phone and you get a QR code and then it is checked at random points around the city, including here outside the train station. There are exemptions for people who are young, who are students, who are residents, who are staying overnight, but you also have to have a QR code even if you're exempt. And the city authorities say that this is a way of trying to tackle mass tourism, to stop people from just coming here for a few days or crowding into certain sites,

the Rialto Bridge, St Mark's Square, on certain days, and to try to encourage people to space out their visits at different times. Needless to say, critics say that this doesn't address the fundamental problems of Venice, which include the fact that it is becoming a shell for its local residents. The local resident population has now fallen below 50,000 for the first time ever. That's about a third of what it was in the 1950s. Because it's a very unusual tourist economy in Venice. It's a real day trip venue.

Last time I was there, we actually stayed. And it's mad busy through the mid-morning and the afternoon period. In the evening, there's virtually nobody there. Yeah, we find that every time we're here. I mean, I was on St Mark's Square yesterday and seeing the tour groups and people who were coming just for a few hours. But you do get people who are just saying, oh, I'm here for a few hours. I'm going to go and see like a few sites, get my obligatory selfie, buy a sort of kit souvenir and then leave. And they don't really contribute to the overall economy. And that's what Venetians are really quite frustrated about,

because they feel that that's not the way to see a jewel of humanity, which is Venice. I was going to say, they probably have no idea really what the balance will be. Does it actually reduce the number of day trippers? Does it make people stay longer? Does it just raise a pile of cash to do something good with? Yeah, I mean, when I spoke to the local tourism councillor yesterday, he said, I said, look, five euros is less than the cost of a drink in a bar. Is it really going to deter people? And he said, look, for a family of four, it could make them think again about coming on a specific day and space out their visits.

And it is a trial. And he said, you know, we could extend the number of days, we could extend the price of it. Let's see how this goes, and we'll take it from there. And just finally, Mark, it sounds very busy in Venice right now around you. It always is. You know, I'm by the Grand Canal, I'm seeing the gondoliers float past me, I'm seeing the gorgeous bridges over the Grand Canal and the incredible buildings that line this wonderful, unique city. Venice is glorious, it is unique, but it's also creaking under the weight of mass tourism. Mark Lowen in Venice. The mastermind behind some of the UK's biggest bank robberies, Brian Reader, has died at the age of 84. He made millions from a string of heists,

and some of the stolen money and jewels have never been found. Here's Wendy Urquhart. Hacking the gardens. Easter, no one at home. We go down the shaft like Spider-Man. Then through the wall. And the vault is ours. The 2015 Hatton Garden heist was the real-life bank raid that was turned into an award-winning movie starring Michael Caine. It was carried out by six career criminals. The youngest was 49, the oldest 77. John Collins, Daniel Jones,

Terry Perkins, Carl Wood, Hugh Doyle and William Lincoln were handpicked by Brian Reader. He was the brains behind the operation and he travelled to the robbery on a bus using a pensioner's pass. Brian Reader spent three years planning the robbery and the gang even carried out reconnaissance missions before choosing the date. Most businesses were shut for four days for Easter and Passover, which provided the perfect cover. Police have said this is the biggest robbery in UK history. Everyone thinks you've lost your nerve. Well, I don't want to get caught again. I am not stupid. The crew entered the building by the lift shaft, took apart the alarm, drilled through walls that were 50 centimetres thick, then climbed through a tiny 45 centimetre wide hole to get to the loot.

They emptied more than 70 safety deposit boxes and got away with a stash of more than $17 million in cash and jewellery. After the event, police poured over CCTV to try to find out who was involved. What they discovered was that a white Mercedes and another car were parked near the scene of the robbery. They checked the number plates to find out who owned them, then bugged the cars. The gang were heard bragging about the heist and incriminated themselves, giving police enough information to raid their homes. Four of the robbers were jailed for seven years, two were given six years and Hugh Doyle received a suspended sentence. Brian Reader was sentenced to six years and three months but he was released

early on health grounds. Police had a tip-off that some of the jewellery had been buried under tombstones in a cemetery in London but they only managed to recover about a third of what was stolen and to this day no one except the criminals involved has any idea where the rest is. Those stingbats, they've mucked us all up. Yeah, like a pack of starving rats. It's the blind leading the deaf. And that's a report from Wendy Urquhart. And that's all from us for now.

There'll be a new edition of Global News to download later. If you'd like to comment on this edition, drop us an email anytime, globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk, or find us on X, where we are at globalnewspod. This edition was mixed by James Piper. The producer was Rebecca Wood. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Andrew Peach. Thanks for listening.

And until next time, goodbye. 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 Global News,icast 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