Global News Podcast - Canadian PM Mark Carney says he want to reduce security reliance on the US

Episode Date: March 18, 2025

Canada's new PM, Mark Carney, has said his country must reduce its reliance on the US and would instead turn towards what he described as its reliable European allies. Also: Antarctic base rocked by a...lleged assault.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Zing Zing. And I'm Simon Jack. And together we host Good Bad Billionaire. The podcast exploring the lives of some of the world's richest people. In the new season, we're setting our sights on some big names. Yep. LeBron James and Martha Stewart, to name just a few. And as always, Simon and I are trying to decide whether we think they're good,
Starting point is 00:00:23 bad or just another billionaire. That's Good Bad Billionaire from the BBC World Service. Listen now wherever you get your BBC podcasts. This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Janet Jaleel and in the early hours of Tuesday, the 18th of March, these are our main stories. The new Canadian Prime Minister has said he wants to reduce security reliance on the United States.
Starting point is 00:00:55 The wave of trade tariffs initiated by Donald Trump has prompted the OECD to downgrade its global economic growth forecast. Rwanda has expelled all Belgian diplomats in a dramatic worsening of relations BCD to downgrade its global economic growth forecast. Rwanda has expelled all Belgian diplomats in a dramatic worsening of relations linked to the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Also in this podcast, you get to know everything about the other person.
Starting point is 00:01:20 You know exactly how they put their coffee cup down and what direction the handle points in. You know that they scratch their nose three times before they sit down. An isolated team of scientists in Antarctica appeals for help after one member is accused of physical assault. Tradition has it that a new Prime Minister of Canada goes to the United States for their first visit abroad. But with tensions fraught between the two neighbours, in particular over Donald
Starting point is 00:01:50 Trump's trade tariffs, Mark Carney chose to come to Europe instead. His first stop was Paris to meet President Emmanuel Macron, followed by London for talks with King Charles and Prime Minister Keir Starmer. At a news conference after the meeting, Mr. Carney said he had achieved a great deal during his meetings. This 36 hours away from Canada, the focus is on security, deepening security partnerships with France, with the United Kingdom.
Starting point is 00:02:20 I'm encouraged by the progress that's been made. Secondly, advancing the support for Ukraine is very necessary. We are taking back a lot, but we're also taking back a deepening of our core partnerships, which is the objective. Our chief international correspondent, Lise Doucet, was at Mr Carney's news conference and I asked her if the Canadian Prime Minister had achieved a great deal, as he claims, with his meetings. He certainly went into great detail about, without he said there were certain things
Starting point is 00:02:49 that were in his words very sensitive, but he wanted to convey a very strong impression that first of all these alliances were very very strong and getting stronger, that they had very detailed discussions on strengthening security including when it came to Ukraine and on issues like critical minerals, artificial intelligence. He said that a free trade deal with Britain wasn't the priority on this visit. So you got a sense that it was the broader sort of economic and strategic partnerships. But he was asked repeatedly by almost all the Canadian journalists about there's a concern
Starting point is 00:03:25 in Canada that Canada's allies are not really standing up for it when President Trump keeps saying things like, I'm going to make Canada the 51st state, Canada would be better off in that way. And when Mark Carney was asked about that, he basically said, well, he was very diplomatic about it, let me say, saying we don't need anyone to stand up for us. What he did get from Sir Keir Stammer was the word sovereignty. And of course, King Charles also emphasised the sovereignty. And he felt that that was good enough, combined with what he got behind closed doors. And this all comes, as he's expected, to crawl a general election with Canadians really
Starting point is 00:04:05 alarmed by Donald Trump's rhetoric. It has completely transformed the Canadian political landscape. Before President Trump returned to the White House, the Liberal Party, now headed by Mark Carney, was way behind in the polls. They were not going to lose the next general election, they were going to lose badly. First there was what they call a Trudeau bump. When he said I'm stepping down, the Liberal Party inched up in the polls. Then when President Trump started threatening Canada, Canadians made that the top priority and Mark Carney wants to present the image. He's a guy who knows
Starting point is 00:04:39 all about trading tariffs. He criticizes his main opposition figure as being too much like Trump. So now the two main opposition figure as being too much like Trump. So now the two main parties are neck and neck. And it's been weeks now since we've heard Donald Trump talking about Canada becoming the 50th state, referring to Justin Trudeau's Governor Trudeau. It still seems very hard to believe that the US could try to annex Canada. It's extraordinary. I think Canadians initially were disappointed that this was coming from such a key ally. Then there was disbelief.
Starting point is 00:05:09 How can they – in 2025, how can he possibly be saying this? And now there's like huge defiance saying that it's just – to use Mark Carney's terms, this is never, ever going to happen, not in any way, shape or form. The latest poll by the Angus Reed Institute said that 91% of Canadians said they don't want to be the 51st state, which of course raises the question, who are the 9%? There are a few flying the Canadian flag. But the concern is, and this is partly behind Mark Carney's visit, is the Canadian economy, 80% of Canada's exports go to the United States.
Starting point is 00:05:48 Canada's 10% of the size of the United States. The former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that what President Trump was trying to do was collapse the Canadian economy to force Canada to join. And Mark Carney made it clear tonight there's a limit to which Canada will not be able to match dollar for dollar as he says the American tariffs. Lisa Doucette, the US has told EU officials that it's withdrawing from an international group investigating Russian leaders for crimes associated with the invasion of Ukraine. It's part of a foreign policy shift by the Trump administration as it pushes for a Ukrainian peace deal. Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin will hold a phone
Starting point is 00:06:29 conversation on Tuesday. Mr Trump has said the two men will talk about dividing up land and power plants. Moscow has been accused of dragging its feet in the peace discussions after a US ceasefire deal was backed by Ukraine last week. Our correspondent in Kyiv, James Landell, reports. Donald Trump is bent on keeping the diplomatic ball moving. He wants an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine. Vladimir Putin says yes, maybe, but first let's discuss Russia's terms and conditions. In the face of what some see as stalling tactics, President Trump will call his Russian counterpart to maintain momentum in the negotiations. Speaking on a rather noisy Air Force One, he claimed there was a very good chance of peace.
Starting point is 00:07:13 I think we'll be talking about land. It's a lot different than it was before the wars, you know. We'll be talking about power plants. That's a big question. But I think we have a lot of it already discussed very much by both sides, Ukraine and Russia. We're already talking about that, dividing up certain assets.
Starting point is 00:07:37 So what might that mean? It's not entirely clear, but it's thought there are discussions about how best to draw up a ceasefire line in areas where the front line bisects towns and villages. The president was also referring to the future of the massive nuclear power plant at Zaporizhzhia and a neighboring town all currently under Russian control. But President Putin says any ceasefire must not only address questions of detail such as this, but also
Starting point is 00:08:05 what he sees as the root causes of the war, namely an expanding NATO and a sovereign Ukraine. All this is making European leaders cautious, including the EU foreign affairs chief, Kaya Kalas. Those conditions that they have presented, it shows that they don't really want peace, actually, because they are presenting as conditions all their ultimate goals that they don't really want peace actually because they are presenting as conditions all their ultimate goals that they want to achieve from the war. As for Ukraine they too have read lines as set out by Oleksandr Merezhko, chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Ukrainian Parliament in an interview with the BBC. Well we will never agree to any territorial
Starting point is 00:08:44 concessions. Second, it's about our membership in international organisations, in particular in NATO. Putin shouldn't decide that. And finally, we cannot agree to Putin's suggesting some kind of limits on our defence capabilities. So much now depends on the call between the two leaders. Will Mr Putin dig in or give ground? Will
Starting point is 00:09:05 Mr Trump threaten consequences or offer concessions? For the people here in Ukraine, much will be at stake. James Landell. So what can we expect from this now much anticipated telephone call between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin? Rebecca Kesby spoke to Scott Lucas, professor of US and international politics at the Clinton Institute at University College Dublin. The bottom line here is that this is going to be the Kremlin's attempt to flip Donald Trump by giving him something shiny, this long-awaited call with Vladimir Putin to overtake the narrative of the Ukraine-US ceasefire deal, which is there on the table
Starting point is 00:09:47 and which of course, Moscow is rejecting. We've known that for almost a decade that this is what Putin does to Donald Trump. He pulls him aside like he did in 2017 at a G20 meeting in Germany. He gets him at a summit like he did in 2018 at Finland. And through a combination of both flattering Trump and then putting Trump down, he actually advances Moscow's goals. And we need to be very clear what those goals are here. Putin and the Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov are still pushing the maximalist Russian position here. They want recognition of Russia's occupation, seizure of almost 25% of Ukraine. They want a lifting of the
Starting point is 00:10:26 US sanctions on Moscow. And they want Ukraine to be weak and demilitarized with not only with no path into NATO, but with really no security guarantees from the West. And the Kremlin thinks they can get Trump to move towards those conditions with this call. So you're using the word flip. I wonder if you could just explain what that actually means and from what you're saying then, is President Trump likely to be exposed and why has his team allowed him to be in that position? Well, I mean, the reason why the team allows him to be in this position is Donald Trump gets what he wants when it comes to photo opportunities and invitations. We saw that
Starting point is 00:11:04 with North Korea in the first term. We've seen it with other leaders. In terms of why I say flip, remember that only two and a half weeks ago, we were talking about Donald Trump pushing the Kremlin's lines that Vladimir Zelensky was a dictator, that he had no public support. And then we had that catastrophic meeting in the White House where JD Vance almost ambushed Zelensky. But then there are others in the Trump administration who still favor backing Ukraine. They don't want to side with Putin.
Starting point is 00:11:34 So they worked with the Ukrainians and with Europeans, including Kirsten Starmann here in the UK, to get this Ukraine-US ceasefire proposal on the table. That put the Kremlin on the defensive. Now they couldn't advance their goals. They had to look like the bad guys by rejecting the ceasefire or by trying to shift the narrative. And that brings us to this call, which is if they get Trump to sort of support on social media, which will be his first reaction, their lines, then they've overtaken that ceasefire proposal and they've given the initiative back to those in the
Starting point is 00:12:09 Trump administration, including JD Vance, who favor no assistance to Ukraine. But doesn't Moscow owe Mr. Trump something because he has taken a lot of flak for speaking to Putin in the first place, something that Joe Biden never did directly. And, you know, Mr. Trump's been accused of giving away too many concessions of appeasement, almost. He's really sort of gone out to try and extend the hand to Moscow, potentially, you know, risk to his own political reputation. Yeah, but what they owe Trump, what they give Trump, is the shiny object of the call itself and playing to Trump's ego that he is, as he likes to frame himself, the peacemaker. Scott Lucas from the Clinton Institute at University College, Dublin.
Starting point is 00:12:57 A new global economic forecast has predicted that the trade war unleashed by Donald Trump will hit growth and raise inflation around the world. The OECD's chief economist, Alvaro Pereira, told the BBC the organisation was cutting growth forecasts for almost all major economies. Michelle Flurry reports. The OECD is attempting to assess the impact of President Trump's trade war in its latest update on the global economy. It concludes that tariffs will be bad for global economic growth and have a significant effect on living standards. Growth in the US is forecast to slow dramatically according to the Paris-based group, with inflation likely to pick up this year.
Starting point is 00:13:39 And the outlook for Canada and Mexico is even worse. President Trump has imposed tariffs on once-cl close allies like Canada, Mexico and the European Union as well as rivals like China with more tariffs expected at the start of April. Michelle Flurry, in yet another example of how the Trump administration is escalating its controversial immigration policies a medical professor was deported to Lebanon this weekend despite having a valid work visa. The Brown University professor Rasha Al-Aweer, a kidney transplant specialist, had flown back to the US after a trip to Lebanon but she was deported despite a judge's order blocking the move. The Department of Homeland Security says this was
Starting point is 00:14:23 because she had attended the funeral of the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Her deportation came as the US also deported more than 250 mainly Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador, despite a judge also ordering a halt to those flights. Our North America correspondent Nomiya Iqbal has the latest. Rasha Alouia is 34. She's a transplant doctor and assistant professor at Brown University based in Rhode Island. And she'd been in the US since 2018 on an H1B visa. So these are visas typically issued to foreigners who've got special skills for a job that an employer would say they can't get an American to do. But court documents show that in February she went to Lebanon for what she thought would be a short visit but was delayed in returning while trying to get paperwork
Starting point is 00:15:08 from the US consulate in Beirut and her cousin filed a petition on her behalf. You had a US District Court judge on Friday saying that the federal government must give 48 hours notice to the court before her removal from the country. But she was already put on a flight back to Lebanon by US Customs and Border Protection. Do we have any indications why she's been deported given that she has this visa and her skills are in short supply apparently in the US? Well Homeland Security has sent us a statement alleging that she told agents during her detainment that she had traveled
Starting point is 00:15:45 to Beirut last month to attend the funeral of the dead Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Now, tens of thousands of people attended the funeral. It was held at a 48,000-seat stadium in Beirut. But of course, Hezbollah is considered a terrorist group by the U.S. They also claimed she had pictures of the Iran's Ayatollah on her phone, but she reportedly said that this was not a political reason why she went to the funeral or why she had the pictures, but it was more of a religious one. As a Shia Muslim, she said that they were important religious figures and it wasn't anything political.
Starting point is 00:16:20 Nonetheless, the university has sent an email advising international students and faculty members to avoid international travel due to potential changes in travel restrictions and travel bans. This all comes at a time when the Trump administration is really ramping up its efforts to deport people. Nomiya Iqbal, a Lithuanian chief prosecutor has said Russia's military intelligence service was behind an arson attack on an Ikea furniture store in Vilnius last year and on shops in Poland. The Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk says Lithuania's revelations about arson attacks on businesses in Warsaw had confirmed his government's suspicions. Arrests have been
Starting point is 00:17:01 made in both countries. Our Eastern Europe correspondent Sarah Rainsford, who's in Warsaw, told us more about the attacks, starting with the one in Lithuania. This is an attack in Vilnius, as you say, on an Ikea store there in the city. It was a huge fire. It caused around about half a million euros worth of damage to the store. And now what Lithuanian prosecutors are saying is that there was an explosive device that was planted in the store just before it closed for the evening and they have linked two teenagers to that what they're categorizing a terrorist attack. They say they've got very detailed evidence about
Starting point is 00:17:36 how the two operated, they say there was a whole organized group with multiple people involved, they now have one young man who has been detained in Lithuania and one who's been detained here in Poland. Both of them linked to this attack. And they say that they were traveling back and forth before they bought the materials that they used to carry out the attack, that they filmed the fire afterwards. And the Lithuanian authorities are linking this quite directly, they say, to Russian intelligence. They're saying that the whole operation was run by Russian military intelligence, and they're describing that agency as a serious adversary which operates without rules.
Starting point is 00:18:14 That was the quote from the chief prosecutor who is involved in investigating this particular case. And were the teenagers, were they Russian? No, they were Ukrainian and that's a kind of curious twist to this whole plot. But it's not the only time when Ukrainians have been involved in this kind of thing. As you said, there has been a surge of sabotage and arson attacks across Eastern Europe, particularly the Baltics and here in Poland in recent months over the past year or so. And in many of those cases, some of the nationals involved have been Ukrainian. Now, in some cases that I've looked into,
Starting point is 00:18:49 those have been pro-Russian Ukrainians, particularly one that was just prosecuted in Western Poland a few weeks ago and was given eight years for plotting an act of arson there. In other cases, as in this case, what the prosecutors are saying is, these are people who are acting for cash. They're saying that the pair involved in the attack on Ikea were given a BMW afterwards
Starting point is 00:19:10 and they were promised 10,000 euros payment for the attack. So there is this very curious trend of using Ukrainians in particular and I would suggest that probably from the Russian side, that's also about making people across Europe suspicious of Ukrainian nationals and undermining support for helping Ukraine in its war against Russia. It's all, I think, part of what Russia's up to. Sarah Rainsford speaking to Sarah Montague. Still to come. Emotions are overflowing in Pochani. Young people took out their anger on a town centre café bar.
Starting point is 00:19:50 We hear how protests are escalating in North Macedonia as people demand justice and an end to corruption after a nightclub fire that killed 59 people. I'm Zing Zing. And I'm Simon Jack. And together we host Good Bad Billionaire. The podcast exploring the lives of some of the world's richest people. In the new season, we're setting our sights on some big names. Yep, LeBron James and Martha Stewart to name just a few. And as always, Simon and I are trying to decide whether we think they're good, bad or just
Starting point is 00:20:26 another billionaire. That's Good Bad Billionaire from the BBC World Service. Listen now wherever you get your BBC podcasts. You're listening to the Global News Podcast. When the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was overthrown last December by Islamist rebels, there was a small flicker of hope that perhaps this would mark an end to a decade of war and destruction that has seen hundreds of thousands killed, millions forced to flee Syria and large swathes of the country reduced to ruins. But those faint hopes were shaken this month after an outbreak of fighting in which hundreds
Starting point is 00:21:09 of civilians, mostly from the same Alawite minority as the Yassar family, were killed by security forces. With Syria's new Islamist rulers pledging to bring the perpetrators to justice, they have, for the first time, been taking part in an annual conference to gather aid pledges that Syrians desperately need. The European Union is hosting the conference in Brussels. Announcing an aid package of $2.7 billion, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, all Syrians to build. Those who always fought for freedom and those who just discovered hope.
Starting point is 00:21:50 Those who fled and those who stayed. This must be the promise of the new Syria. And we will do everything that is possible so that this can be fulfilled. But despite the dire situation in Syria with 16 million people in need of humanitarian assistance, the funding fell short of last year's pledges after the US, which has been the biggest single donor, cut foreign aid. In all, more than six billion dollars were pledged. I asked BBC Arabic's Reda El-Mawi, who was at the aid conference, whether it was enough to help start rebuilding Syria in a meaningful way.
Starting point is 00:22:28 In addition to the $2.7 billion pledged by the EU today, the European Investment Bank just announced it was allocating $1.5 billion to the neighbouring countries. Other countries that are not part of the EU, like Britain, for example. The UK pledged around £160 million for this year. Switzerland pledged 60 million Swiss francs or $68 million. The World Bank as well mentioned the possibility of contributing up to $200 million. Is this enough to help rebuilding Syria in a meaningful way? No. The Secretary General of the UN, who was talking today, said that during 14 years of war, Syria's economy has lost an estimated of 800 billion in GDP. Whole cities need to be rebuilt. Whole economic sectors have been decimated, not only by the
Starting point is 00:23:17 war, but also by the sanctions that were gradually imposed on Syria since the start of the war in 2011. And for the first time a member of the Syrian government is attending this aid conference, the new foreign minister, Assad al-Shabani. What has he been saying? Assad al-Shabani commended the suspension of some sanctions on vital sectors such as energy and transportation. But he said these measures have yet to meet the aspirations of the Syrian people. He called the international community to continue lifting more economic sanctions on the country and he described this as a humanitarian and moral necessity.
Starting point is 00:23:56 He also called on countries to contribute to their reconstruction efforts and also to encourage investment into Syria. But European nations, while they want to help Syria, they also want to see its rulers do more to ensure a peaceful political transition, especially after the violence that we saw this month. Yes, Gai Kallas, the head of diplomacy in the EU, even before the conference, said some new sanctions might be imposed if the Syrian government doesn't conduct impartial and transparent investigation into these last events. But during the conference itself,
Starting point is 00:24:33 there was no much mention about this. They indeed said it is very important that all parts of Syrian society, ethnic groups and religious groups, should be protected and should be also represented in future governments. They also mentioned about the importance of the return of many refugees in Europe to Syria. So I sense that the EU also needs a stable Syrian government in order to tackle the problems back home in Europe, the refugee problems over there, a great number of refugees in countries like Germany, for example. Rada El Mawi. Rwanda and Belgium have announced tit-for-tat expulsions of each other's diplomats as relations between the two countries worsen over the war in the Democratic Republic of
Starting point is 00:25:16 Congo. UN experts say that Rwanda is backing rebels in Congo that have seized large swathes of territory, a charge Kigali denies. Anne Soy reports. Rwanda accuses Brussels of undermining its government, taking sides in the conflict in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo and of using what it calls lies and manipulation to secure unjustified hostile opinion of the East African nation. The European Union has recently suspended defence ties and announced a review of a critical minerals deal with Rwanda over its alleged role in the DRC conflict.
Starting point is 00:25:54 Rwanda sees Brussels as a key instigator of these moves. It has now demanded that Belgian diplomats leave its territory in 48 hours. Brussels has in turn also expelled Rwanda's representatives. The complete breakdown of relations comes a day after President Paul Kagame threatened to stand up to his country's former colonial master. Rwanda suspended development cooperation with Belgium a month ago. And so, thousands of people have taken part in protests in North Macedonia demanding justice and action against corruption after a nightclub fire killed 59 people in the town of
Starting point is 00:26:32 Cochene at the weekend, many of them teenagers. The venue was allowed to operate despite not having a license and one of its two exit doors was locked when the fire broke out. Our Balkans correspondent Guy Delaney reports from Kocheny. Emotions are overflowing in Kocheny. Young people took out their anger on a town centre cafe bar they believed had the same owner as the nightclub where a fire killed 59 people. The government says the barely converted carpet warehouse was operating with a fraudulent license. It only had one exit and the ceiling proved highly flammable when the band on stage
Starting point is 00:27:14 lit pyrotechnics. In fact justice was the word on thousands of lips in Kocani. People came for a vigil-cum protest in the small central park. Many queued to sign a book of condolence. Others simply stood and held up signs articulating what they were feeling. Unbearable and corruption were two of the most prevalent words. That reflects the anger that people feel about the way things work in North Macedonia. An invitation to the protest said the system didn't provide security, wellbeing and justice. This man's cousin lost his only child in the
Starting point is 00:27:51 fire, a 19-year-old young man. So many young people have died. They were aged from 16 to 24. That's a whole generation in Kotchini. That's all I can say. We're suffering. The government is aware it needs to move swiftly and decisively to avoid anger spreading across the country. Prime Minister Christian Mitskoski has repeated his warning that there'll be no mercy for anyone found to be responsible for the fire. But there have already been calls for nationwide gatherings and the name of the the organizing group indicates the mood. Who's next?
Starting point is 00:28:27 Guy Delaney in North Macedonia. Taiwan has rejected Chinese accusations that four of its officials have carried out cyber attacks against China. The Chinese Ministry of State Security released pictures of the four Taiwanese men, saying they'd been hired by a cyber warfare agency, the Information Communications and Electronic Force Command or ISEFCOM,
Starting point is 00:28:49 to carry out such attacks against the Chinese mainland. The agency has responded by calling the accusations an ungrounded fabrication aimed at intimidating the Taiwanese public. Our China analyst Kerry Allen told us more. Chinese state media have been putting out pictures today of four Taiwanese officials, Ling Yushu, Cai Jiehong, Nian Xiaofan, Wang Haoming. They're all members of the ISFCOM and they're saying that these individuals operated using the name Anonymous 64 and they spread false information on social media, very much to push a message of pro-independence for Taiwan. China's Ministry of State Security says they did this in a number of ways. So it alleges that they infiltrated key information infrastructure on the mainland, including
Starting point is 00:29:35 water, electricity, gas, heat, communications and networked cameras. It says they also steal logging credentials to gain control and insert Taiwanese propaganda. Now as you mentioned, the department in Taiwan has called this an ungrounded fabrication. They've said that this isn't true whatsoever and their comment today is that this message from Beijing is aimed at intimidating the Taiwanese public. And has Beijing produced any evidence to back up its claims? It doesn't appear they have, no. So this all comes at a time of rising tensions between Taiwan and China and growing worries
Starting point is 00:30:12 about Chinese influence operations against democratic Taiwan. And it's expelled a Chinese influencer for saying that China should invade the island. It does, yes. There have been increased tensions in recent years. And I would say ever since Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party came to power in 2016, but they have particularly amplified in the last year since Taiwan's President Lai Qingte came to power. He's made some strong statements about Beijing. In fact, in the last week, he labeled China as a foreign hostile force. And that was widely regarded as being some of his strongest rhetoric yet. As for this influencer who's been expelled from Taiwan, one of the concerns of Taiwan
Starting point is 00:30:52 is that China is trying to increasingly use its soft power to influence opinion within Taiwan and to very much push a pro-Beijing message, a message of unification with mainland China. Kerry Allen. It sounds like something out of a movie. An isolated South African research team in the Antarctic has appealed for help after one member was accused of physical assault and making death threats. The group of scientists has called for immediate action to be taken. Our climate editor, Justin Rolat, who has been to the Antarctic himself, reports. The Sinai base is one of the most remote places on Earth. Ten people were preparing to spend the Antarctic winter there.
Starting point is 00:31:37 The extreme weather and 24-hour darkness meant they didn't expect to see another human being for six months or so. Then, an email last week claimed there'd been a violent attack. It said there'd been threats to kill, creating an environment of fear and intimidation. Today, the South African authorities confirmed to the BBC there had been an assault. It said it followed a dispute over a weather dependent task that required a schedule change. Now it doesn't sound like much but those who've spent time in Antarctica say overwintering on a base can be an incredibly intense experience. Dr. Gabriel Walker is the author of a
Starting point is 00:32:21 book on Antarctica. You get to know everything about the other person. You know exactly how they put their coffee cup down and what direction the handbook points in. You know that they scratch their nose three times before they sit down. You know everything about them. And in the bad circumstances, it can start to irritate you. If he does that thing one more time, it's going to drive me crazy because there's nothing else.
Starting point is 00:32:43 There's no other stimulus and you're with people 24-7. Sources in the Antarctic community say they understand the plan is to send a team to the base to help resolve the issue. But with average temperatures of minus 23 Celsius and wind speeds of up to 135 miles an hour, getting that rescue team in is going to be very challenging. Just in Rolat. 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, you can send us an email. The address is globalpodcast.bbc.co.uk. This edition was mixed by Caroline Driscoll, the producer was Liam McShepard,
Starting point is 00:33:26 the editor is Karen Martin. I'm Janet Jaleel, until next time, goodbye. and we would like to tell you about the new series of The Infinite Monkey Cage. We're going to have a planet on... Jupiter versus Saturn! Well, it's very well done that, because in the script it does say, wrestling voice. After all of that, it's going to kind of chill out a bit and talk about ice. And also in this series, we're discussing history of music, recording with Brian Eno and looking at nature's shapes. So listen wherever you get your podcasts.

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