Global News Podcast - Donald Trump threatens to sue BBC

Episode Date: November 10, 2025

The BBC says it will respond in due course to a threat of legal action over a documentary which misrepresented a speech made by President Trump. The BBC chairman apologised for an "error of judgement" over an edit of comments Mr Trump made to his supporters who stormed the Capitol building in January 2021. Also: the Syrian president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, is in the US to hold talks with President Trump. The BBC has been speaking to minority groups in Syria who say he's failing to protect them. A court in Paris has granted the former French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, early release from jail, just weeks after he started a five-year sentence. The Cop30 summit opens in Brazil, as the host insists the summit must lead to implementation of critical climate change measures. The former South Korean president, Yoon Suk Yeol,is facing new charges, related to his decision to declare emergency martial law in December, 2024. And: A cyber-criminal who spent almost 10 years on the FBI's most wanted list has been speaking to the BBC, in an exclusive interview from prison.The Global News Podcast brings you the breaking news you need to hear, as it happens. Listen for the latest headlines and current affairs from around the world. Politics, economics, climate, business, technology, health – we cover it all with expert analysis and insight. Get the news that matters, delivered twice a day on weekdays and daily at weekends, plus special bonus episodes reacting to urgent breaking stories. Follow or subscribe now and never miss a moment. Get in touch: [e-mail]

This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Nick Miles, and at 16 hours GMT on Monday the 10th of November, these are our main stories. President Trump threatens to sue the BBC over a documentary which misrepresented comments he made to his supporters who stormed the Capitol building in January 2021. With the Syrian president in Washington for talks with Donald Trump, we hear from minority groups in Syria who say he's failing to be. protect them. We wanted to start new businesses, but there is no security. My dearest friends are dead. I will have to leave the country again. And as another UN climate change conference is getting underway in Brazil, for many delegates, it's personal. You know, I'm a new dad. My son's almost three. So the ways that I think about the climate crisis now is so wild. So my orientation to the climate crisis

is so much more. And it's something that's often at the back of my mind, right? Also in this podcast. We set up vague websites selling fake goods. Did you ever feel guilty? We didn't think about consequences. What were you buying? I was changing cars like changing clothes. An exclusive interview with a former cybercriminal

who helped swindle people out of hundreds of millions of dollars. It has been described as an extraordinary moment in the history of the BBC. The resignations of Tim Davy, who was in overall charge of the corporation and his head of news, Deborah Ternis. As you may have heard in our earlier edition, it all came about after a leaked memo criticized a BBC TV documentary program about President Trump, which was broadcast weeks before he won the election a year ago. The specific error at the heart of the crisis was about the editing of a speech made by the president on the day of the riots on Capitol Hill in 2020. The programme put two parts of the President's speech together, so he appeared to explicitly encourage the rioting that day. That wasn't made clear to viewers. Questions are now being raised about

the impartiality of the BBC, one of its key commitments to its viewers and listeners, and there's been a furious reaction from Washington, where President Trump has said some BBC journalists are corrupt. In the last couple of hours, the BBC chairman, Samir Shah, has apologised on behalf of the corporation. He explained to the BBC's Katie Razl what he was apologising for. The apologising is for the way the team edited President Trump's speech to his supporters on January the 6th. And that was the wrong call? It was a mistake. Is that what you're saying? Yes. And are you going to be, are you apologising directly to President Trump personally on behalf of the BBC? We have received a communication from President Trump and his people

and we are at the moment considering how to reply to him. Has he said that he's going to be suing the BBC? I do not know that yet, but he's a litigious fellow. So we should be prepared for all outcomes. And since that interview was recorded, BBC News has learned that President Donald Trump has sent a letter to the BBC threatening legal action. When something goes seriously wrong at the BBC, it matters, not only because of the role the corporation plays in British public life,

but also because of its reach and influence around the world. Rob Watson is our UK affairs correspondent. So what more has Samir Shah said, and where does this take us? He spoke to Julian Warwicka. So the second part of his letter, you basically heard the first part there, which is an apology for editing Donald Trump the way that the BBC had. The second part is to say that memo, now infamous memo, most Julian that has leaked, which essentially was internal criticism of the BBC, whether it was

reporting, it's reporting of Israel, trans rights. What he has said is that, look, we have addressed some of those issues because the memo basically said, look, all these reports went to the BBC's senior management and they, you know, didn't implement stuff. They didn't seem to take it very seriously. He's saying, no, actually, you know, a lot of the points made in there, we have taken action. So, for example, the letter talks about new leadership in certain areas, new editorial guidelines, people were disciplined, and that corrections were made. I mentioned President Trump's reaction. What have political reaction here in Britain to all of this? Well, it's varied along the political spectrum. So the more you go to the right is more the

sense that the BBC has a fundamental problem that there is a systemic bias, that it's a sort of a liberal bias against Israel in favour of trans rights against Donald Trump. And then the more you move to the other end of the spectrum, it's the idea that actually the BBC has been victim of a political coup and that those on the BBC's board who were appointed by the previous Conservative government were somehow gunning for Tim Davy and the director of news Deborah Turner, who's left.

So it's a broad spectrum. I think the sort of shred of good news for the BBC, if one could put it that way, is that a lot of the criticism has said, look, we recognise that the BBC is a national and international asset, it's by and large a force for good. So to that extent, you know, the BBC can maybe breathe a little bit of a sigh of relief, just a little bit, Julian.

What of the timing of all of this with regards to the future of the BBC and particularly the charter that has to be renewed at intervals, which establishes its commitment to what the government requires of it? I mean, the timing could not be worse for the BBC. You're right. The BBC is an unusual organisation that's not controlled by the government, but it's not a commercial organisation. It's established by a Royal Charter. And every 10 years, that's reviewed. And what's meant by that review is, what does the BBC's role here in the UK and in the world?

How should it be funded? How should it be regulated? That case now needs to be made to British society, to parliament, to parliamentarians, to politicians. Now it's going to be someone new making that case because the BBC has lost its director general and someone's going to have to make a pretty compelling case. And that someone, I mean, the challenge facing whoever takes on that role is enormous. It is. And one thing that Tim Davy had said, I think, I don't know whether it's privately or publicly, well, I'm making it public now anyway, is, you know, he said if you, you know, if you look at his inbox as the director general of the BBC, it's just terrifying. And that's because, although here we are on the World Service talking about news, Julian,

the BBC is massive, right? It does drama. It does entertainment. It does sport, it's radio, it's television, it's online, and it employs lots of people, so things are going wrong as well as right all the time. So it's a pretty high pressure job, that's for sure. But on the other hand, you have an awful lot of influence in British society in that job and as you do at the BBC. Rob Watson, as we record this podcast, the Syrian president Ahmed al-Shara is due to be holding talks with President Trump. The US once had a $10 million bounty on Mr Shara's head.

head when he led a group affiliated with al-Qaeda. He will be the first Syrian leader to visit the White House since the country's independence nearly 80 years ago. Here's our US State Department correspondent Tom Bateman on the significance of President Scharer's visit to Washington. This makes history in more than one way. I mean, it is in fact the first visit by a Syrian president ever to the White House since the independence of the country in 1946.

So that is saying something. and it gives you a sense, I think, of the embrace that the Americans are very keen to put around Ahmed al-Shara and in particular because what they see in terms of the win for the Americans and their allies in the region is trying to solidify the dramatic shifts we've seen so the collapse of Russian and Iranian influence in Syria

and try to try to shore up Damascus and the current momentum under al-Shada's leadership to try and put Damascus firmly in the Orchard's leadership to try and put Damascus firmly in the Orchus. orbit of the Americans and their allies in the region. Since ousting President Bashar al-Assad last December, Mr. Shara, has promised to be a president for all Syrians, not just the Sunni Muslim majority, but minority communities in the country fear for the future, as our senior international correspondent Ola Gairin now reports from

Homs province in Western Syria. This was the hail of bullets that killed with Sam and Shafir. Rafiq Mansour, recorded on CCTV. Their friend was shot in the hand, but escaped in the chaos, breaking his ankle as he fled. He agreed to speak to us but fears for his safety. His words are spoken by a producer. To this day, I don't believe what's happened.

When the regime fell, we all came back to Syria, but there is no security. My dearest friends are dead. There are many extremists and hardline groups. I don't know where Syria is going. Many in the valley are now feeling vulnerable. Before the regime fell, they backed Assad, as many Christians did, and he backed them.

Wissam was part of a local pro-Assad militia. Some here say that's why he was taught. The two bodies have been brought through the streets to the church. There is a deep sense in this village of loss and grief. They're asking if their community will be targeted again and what the future is for them in the new Syria. Less than an hour's drive away, we found another community in fear,

Alawites, the sect of Bisham. Al-Assad. In the old days, that could bring benefits. Now, it's a curse. Allowites are the main targets for revenge killings. I'm in a family home in the city of Homs and there's a very large, framed photograph. This girl was 14 years old and she was killed recently. I'm with her mum. Could I ask you to tell me what happened? We were on the balcony at around 11 at night with some neighbours. Suddenly a motorbike passed by, and there was a lot of shooting. She tried to run into the house but couldn't make it.

She'd been shot in the chest and died in my arms. Do you feel that you were targeted because your family are alowite? Yes. Have you had any follow-up from? from the police or security services. Nothing. They never came back with any results. I'm standing in front of a supermarket

and pinned to the front, there's a death notice for Shaban as a dean. This was his shop where he was shot dead. His brother Adnan says Shaban never harmed anyone, but being an Al-Alawite in the new Syria can be a death sentence. They have been chanting sectarian slogans since the revolution began in 2011. They used to shout, Allahites to the coffins, Christians to Beirut.

What's happening right now is the seed of forced immigration. It's just the beginning. I lost my brother, others lost their loved ones. If we are all going to get killed, it's better we flee. Adnan Azadine, ending that report by Alla Geryn. A court in Paris has granted the former French president, Nicola Sarkozy, early release from jail, just weeks after he started a five-year sentence. Mr Sarkozy was found guilty of conspiring to obtain election campaign funds from the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

The former president insisted he was innocent and complained about conditions in the La Sante prison in Paris. I got more from our Paris correspondent, Hugh Schofield. It's a twist, but it's a totally predictable twist and one that no one is surprised by. His lawyers, at the end of the last week, lodged a plea before a judge who decides on these matters. That plea was that he should be released straight away because he has an appeal now scheduled for early next year and has surprised absolutely no one that this judge has ruled that, yes, he should be released. And it would be quite clear. I mean, this is no special treatment for him or anything like that. This is perfectly in accordance with all sorts of procedure.

But when we reported his jailing three weeks ago, we were all saying that he probably won't stay there very long because there will be this bid put in very quickly by his lawyers to get him out again. And that's what's happened. He was found guilty of criminal conspiracy to obtain election campaign funds from the late Libyan dictator, Mamma Gaddafi. What is the argument of Mr Sarko's lawyers with regards to his appeal? Well, he has argued from the start that he's innocent. His lawyers made out that they were very angry after the conviction because the judges in the first trial that ended three or four weeks ago ruled that he was to be acquitted on the main charges,

that is of having illegally financed his campaign, of having conducted illegal funding, but they found him guilty on what seemed to be at the time, the lesser charge of criminal association. And the accusation was that he'd let his... His subordinates go and try unsuccessfully, as it turned out, to raise money from Colonel Gaddafi. Now, his contention would be, and his lawyer's contention, would be that that is ridiculous. The main charge was one of illegally financing his campaign.

It never happened. Not a cent was proved to have arrived in his campaign's accounts. And he would say they didn't prove that he knew of what his subordinates were allegedly doing, trying to raise money from Colonel Gaddafi's associates. So, you know, it's a very complicated case. but they feel that they've got a strong defence, which they'll be putting at the appeal next year. And he will be out of jail until that appeal and possibly after.

What's the time frame for him? Nothing surprised about this. He's 70 years old. French prisons are overcrowded. They do what they can to get people out of jail, and that's what's happening. And then he'll be at home presumably on some kind of restricted movement and certainly not allowed to associate with any of his co-convicted people in the trial.

And then, yes, the appeal trial will take place in the special. spring of next year. Hugh Schofield. Still to come in this podcast, we go to the Netherlands where the electricity grid can't cope with green energy. Grid congestion is like a traffic jam on the power grid, so it's caused by either too much power demand in a certain area or too much power supply, so too much power being put on the grid. The annual UN climate change talks, COP 30, are starting in Brazil, with the host nation suggesting that the world's most developed countries are losing enthusiasm for the fight against climate change.

Diplomats have the talks in Berlin are trying to hammer out the finer details to plans to move away from fossil fuels, help poorer countries deal with the effects of global warming, and protect rainforests. The UK's special envoy for climate, Rachel Kite, is among them. Sarah Montague asked her if the people were right to have a lack of faith in the cop process. There shouldn't be a lack of faith. There should be some righteous indignation that political leaders are not driving change as fast as they need to.

But this is the first day. So President Lula called world leaders together last week and some came. some very important things were sort of signalled at that point. But now the world is arriving for the negotiations. And I think what's difficult for the public to grasp is that, well, first of all, we reached an agreement 10 years ago in Paris. And then for the last 10 years, we've sort of been negotiating how to do that and adding bits and pieces to the agreement. And now we've got to implement everything that we said we were going to do. You know, it's difficult to have like one big banner headline because we're now into the, you know, messy, deeply political business of

and how are we going to transform the energy sector and how are we transforming our agricultural sector and how are we investing to make sure that the storms don't cause extraordinary damage every year? And that's tough to report on. Okay, but is it too slow? Well, to be as effective as it needs to be? Yeah, we're not on track.

So that's actually the conversation. Okay, so how do we go faster? Okay, can we speed up the way that we're getting methane emissions out of the economy? Can we speed up the way that we're changing the nitrogen? cycle and fertilisers to be able to feed people but with less emissions. These are complex conversations and that's what's going on here. Does it matter that the US is pulling out? Matters for Americans because they're going to start seeing energy price inflation,

et cetera, because of the slowdown of their transition away from dirty energy and the rest of the world is electrifying quicker than ever. It matters globally because we need everybody in this conversation because we only have one planet, as everybody says. But 195 countries who signed Paris minus one is not zero. It's 194 and everybody else is getting on with it. Indeed. But it's not just the likes of President Trump. We've had others, like you take someone like Bill Gates, who's arguing that climate change isn't going to wipe out humanity, past efforts to get to zero carbon emissions, have made progress. But he argues too much money is going into wasteful things. And actually,

the money should be spent on disease and poverty. Those are the problems. Well, I think we have to be intelligent enough to hold two ideas in our minds at the same time. So, you know, there's no amount of investment in health systems in Jamaica that would have prevented Melissa from barreling through and causing, at the last estimates, more than $10 billion of damage. So we have to reduce emissions. We have to build resilience. And resilience includes investing in healthcare systems and protecting. people, and we have to be able to do both. It's not an either-or. Do you think, though, that argument, which one hears increasingly, that net zero, that the focus on net zero, it's sucked up too much energy and that there should be a dilution?

Well, I think that, look, there's a deliberate attempt to sort of weaponise net zero, but let's break down what net zero means. Net zero means, are you going to have access to clean, reliable, affordable energy? Because that's going to come, it is coming from battery storage and storage and renewable energy, and that gives us energy security as well. Are you going to be able to invest in flood defences? Are you going to have access to clean air? Are you going to be able to have schools that can operate in the summer because we now have extreme heat at times of the year that we never had?

That's what people want. That's what this is about the moniker of net zero, which was negotiated, is something that has been weaponised politically, but what people want and what people need are still the same things. and that's what we're trying to work out how to deliver affordably here. Well, as the COP 30 climate change conference begins in Brazil, a story now from the Netherlands about problems caused by the transition to green energy. The Netherlands has thousands of homes and businesses waiting to connect to its electricity grid

and thousands more waiting to inject power back into the system via solar panels and other power generation methods. The reason the grid cannot cope with the green energy. transition. The BBC's John Lawrensen reports from Rotterdam. When we all use electricity at the same time, our power grid gets overloaded, explains

this TV public service announcements. This can cause malfunctions, so use as little electricity as possible between 4 and 9. Flip the switch. Transport, heating, cooking, the host of rechargeable devices we now use,

The Netherlands is electrifying extremely fast. It has the highest number of electric vehicle charging points per capita in Europe, for example. As for electricity production, the Netherlands has replaced gas from its large North Sea reserves with wind and solar, leading the way in Europe for the number of solar panels per person. More than one third of Dutch homes have solar panels fitted. But the grid can't cope. Kisian Rameau is the CEO of the Dutch energy producer and supplier Enocho, 70% of whose electricity is now solar and wind.

Grid congestion is like a traffic jam on the power grid, so it's caused by either too much power demand in a certain area or too much power supply, so too much power being put on the grid, more than the grid and the transformers can handle. The grid, he says, was designed when electricity was generated by a small number of big, mainly gas-fired power plants. Then we used to have a grid with very big power lines close to those power plants and increasingly smaller power lines as you got more towards the households.

And nowadays we're switching to renewable power and that means that there's a lot of power also being injected into the grid in the outskirts of the grid where there's only relatively small power lines. Here we're in the virtual power plant of Ineko. At his company's head office in Rotterdam, Ketian Ramo shows me a very large control panel. It's their virtual power plant that uses AI to help balance the grid. The Dutch have been skillful in managing challenges to the grid so far, largely avoiding blackouts. When production is too high, they turn wind turbines away from the wind and turn off solar panels.

They also offer special contracts which give customers a lower price in exchange for being able to stop or low. lower electricity supply when demand is too high. But for people and companies who want to scale up their use of electricity with a new or larger grid connection, that increasingly is just not possible. Eugene Buying's is in charge of grid congestion with Tenet, the company that runs the national electricity grid. We have about 8,000 companies who want to feed in electricity and produce with either solar panels or wind farms. And we've got about 12,000 organizations, so factories and the bakery and the larger industries who want to take off and consume electricity off the grid. And for both categories, the grid is congested.

For some of the members of the Dutch Chemical Association, for example, whose president is Ninka Homan. Grid congestion is putting the future of the Dutch chemical industry at risk. And in other countries, it will be easier to invest. And while the problem with chemical industry is, they're all value change. And chemical processes are mostly combined processes. And if you lose a part of that, then it can have a chain reaction. Grid company Tenet says it'll need $230 billion of investment in the grid to make it fit for purpose by 2040. That report by John Lawrenson. And you can hear more by searching for Business Daily wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Back in December 2020, The former South Korean president, Yun Suk Yul, declared emergency martial law,

citing threats from what he called North Korean communist forces and anti-state elements. It was seen as a serious constitutional breach, and the decree only lasted a few hours before the National Assembly rejected it. He's been in and out of detention since then, and now he's facing new charges related to that time. Our reporter Jake Kwan told me more from Seoul. The latest is that Mr. Yu, is now accused of aiding the enemy state by weakening or hurting South Korean military.

So back in October last year, a couple months before the martial law that you mentioned, North Korea accused South Korea of flying a drone and dropping propaganda leaflets over their capital city, Pyongyang. And many of us in Seoul were confused because, one, South Korea neither confirmed or denied it. And second, it was very unusual for South Korea to drop the leaflets all the way up in Pyongyang. And for what goal? It wasn't very clear. Now we're hearing from the South Korean authorities that it was, in fact, the President Yun himself who ordered it. And it becomes even more difficult to believe the more we learn about it, because the accusation is that Mr. Yun wanted the North Korean to strike back, at which point

there could be a limited war between the two Koreas, which would have been used as a pretext to declare the martial law and he would have eliminated his political opponents by imprisoning or worse, possibly. Now, Mr. Yun is denying any of these accusations, including the insurrection charges for which he is sending trial, and he has maintained that he declared martial law only to bring the public's attention to his lame duck status and any wrongdoing by his opposition. It does seem extraordinary. He denies all these charges that would indicate a sort of desperate attempt to stay in power at all costs. How has that left South Korea's society? Is it left it pretty divided still, or are things coming back to normal?

Well, South Korea has a new president now, and he has been making it very clear that South Korea is back. I mean, he just hosted the APEC summit where a lot of the world leaders were in Korea, including President Trump, and his message has been consistent. South Korea is back from the chaos, its shops are open, and it's ready to engage the world. Not only the country's invited to the summit, but the one country that was missing, North Korea. He extended the olive branch, saying, let's let bygones be bygones, we can forget the old president and his hostility towards the north, and that his inauguration is a chance at a fresh start. However, North Korea had sworn off any contact with Seoul before, and we will have to see whether North Korean leader

Kim Jong-un reaches out. That was Jake Kwan. A cybercriminal who spent almost 10 years on the FBI's most wanted list has been speaking to the BBC in an exclusive interview from prison. Vachislav Penchikov, known as Tank, was the leader of two separate hacking gangs accused of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from people around the world. The BBC's cyber correspondent, Joe Tidy spent six hours with him in prison in Colorado for a new podcast from the World Service called Cyberhack Evil Corps. Here's a clip of the interview with Tank

where he talks about starting out as a hacker. His words here are spoken by a producer. We set up fake websites selling fake goods. Then you stole in credit card details to buy those products from ourselves. The credit card companies would pay out like it was a real sale. It was a popular trick. Did you ever feel?

guilty. We didn't think about consequences. We wanted freedom, independence from our families. What were you buying? Beer, good clothes, expensive shoes, and I would show off the money at school. What teenager doesn't like to brag a bit? I was changing cars like changing clothes. How many did you have? At one point, I had six, all expensive German ones. Well, Joe Tidy told me more about his investigation. So he started off doing this sort of scamming or as a teenager. And I found that part of it really interesting because I've obviously covered lots of attacks by teenagers around the world and particularly kind of English speaking. But there is that kind of mirror image really of his start in cybercrime coming from cheating on computer

games like Counterstrike and FIFA, moving into more serious hacking campaigns. And then eventually he went into this gang called Jabezus, which he led in the late 2000s. And that's where they were stealing money directly from people's bank accounts, medium and small businesses. going into their accounts and just siphoning off thousands. And obviously that money adds up. And then eventually he moved into far more serious, what we call big game hunting, where they go after multinational corporations

with things like ransomware. Of course, ransomware is the most pernicious and problematic former cyber attack of our lifetimes. The likes of Marks and Spencers in the UK, the co-op, Jaguarian Rover, we think, being hit by ransomware. So it's a really insightful interview that he gave us. And it's obviously still a process of,

the authorities trying to play catch-up with the hackers who are finding more and more fiendish ways of getting round security. What is the situation now? Are the authorities sort of pretty much on the heels of the hackers? No. I wouldn't say so.

I mean, if you look at this year, we have had some absolutely enormous cyber attacks on companies in the UK and around the world. We've seen a wave of new teenage cyber criminals, English speaking, coming up and using that ransomware technique to get into corporations encrypt the data, steal lots of data,

and then hold them to ransom usually for millions or tens of millions of pounds or dollars in Bitcoin. And I think what you get when you speak to someone like Tank and Pensacov is you kind of understand the mindset really because he was a man who caused huge amount of damage and disruption and heartache for all those people, all those companies that we spoke to. And there was no real remorse there.

According to him and a lot of the Russian-speaking cybercrime, crime underworld. This is all rich Western companies. There's insurance. There's no real victims. The way they talk about it, there's no remorse there at all. And I think that is the problem we face around the world. Joe Tidy. And that is all from us for now, but there will be a new edition of the Global News podcast later on. If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email. The address is global podcast at bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X at BBC World Service. Use the hashtag Global News Pot. This edition was mixed by Charlotte Hadroitogimska. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Nick Miles. And until

next time, goodbye.