Global News Podcast - First TV debate confirmed between Trump and Harris

Episode Date: August 8, 2024

The first TV debate has been confirmed between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. It will be hosted by ABC on September 10th. Mr Trump has said he wants another two debates in the same month. Also: Muhammad Yunus is sworn in as head of an interim government in Bangladesh, and the drones that could save the forests of Madagascar.

Hello, this is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service, with reports and analysis from across the world. The latest news seven days a week. BBC World Service podcasts are supported by advertising. If you're hearing this, you're probably already listening to BBC's award-winning news podcasts. But did you know that you can listen to them without ads? Get current affairs podcasts like Thank you. Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC Podcasts. You're listening to the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. Hello, I'm Oliver Conway. This edition is published in the early hours of Friday the 9th of August.

Donald Trump does a U-turn and agrees to debate Kamala Harris on the 10th of September. Muhammad Yunus has been sworn in as head of an interim government in Bangladesh days after the authoritarian prime minister was ousted. And Ukraine's president says Russia is feeling the consequences of bringing war to his country. Also in the podcast... Using the drones enabled us to get to close forest areas that we wouldn't be able to get to on the ground. We can see super high-resolution imagery

and we can start looking at real detail at mapping what's going on. How drones could help save the forests of Madagascar. Is Donald Trump starting to worry that the battle for the White House will be tougher than expected? Since Kamala Harris became the Democratic candidate, momentum has swung away from the Republican hopeful. A recent Ipsos poll put him five points behind the vice president. In order to try to regain the initiative, the former president has given a news conference in his Florida resort. And despite previously backing out of a planned presidential TV debate hosted by ABC News, Mr Trump has now agreed to do it

and offered two more dates as well. And he suggested his opponent would struggle to debate him. The other side has to agree to the terms. They may or may not agree. I don't know if they're going to agree. She hasn't done an interview. She can't do an interview. She's barely competent and she can't do an interview. But I look forward to the debates because I think we have to set the record straight.

I asked our North America correspondent David Willis what he made of it all. Well, this was the first press conference, of course, that Donald Trump has held, Oliver, since Joe Biden announced that he was withdrawing from the election campaign just a few weeks ago. And it was pretty classic Donald Trump, wasn't it, attacking his new opponent, Kamala Harris, making some dubious, perhaps outrightly false claims about the size of crowds at her rallies compared to his and about the state of the American economy. The main news line, as you identified, was this announcement only days after he said he was pulling out of a scheduled debate with Kamala Harris next month, that he proposed three debates with three separate networks that very same month. And the US network ABC has in fact since confirmed that the two candidates have agreed to hold a debate

on the 10th of September in just over a month's time. And I think that Donald Trump sees a televised debate as a possible means of regaining some of the momentum perhaps that his campaign has lost since Kamala Harris was thrust into the spotlight just a couple of weeks ago. Yeah, does that U-turn over the ABC debate suggest the Trump campaign is rattled by the current polls? Well, it's interesting. I mean, Donald Trump was asked in this press conference if he had adapted his campaign style in recognition of the fact that he's now facing

a very different kind of opponent in Kamala Harris, and he denied that that was happening. He did acknowledge, however, some changing patterns among them. The fact that he said he might not be as popular as he once was with black female voters. That's one of the Republicans' key voting blocs, traditionally, of course. Now, officials with the Trump campaign are saying that they believe that a Kamala Harris honeymoon period will wear off. But, you know, we heard evidence that Mr Trump is rattled by the current level of support that Kamala Harris is generating.

And he went back to those old claims about the size of attendance at his rallies compared to the attendance at hers. Of course, we know from the past, don't we, that size does matter to Donald Trump. Just after he was inaugurated, he sent his press spokesman, Sean Spicer, out to declare that the crowd for that event was the biggest of its kind ever. Well, today he told reporters that attendance at his rally on the 6th of January 2021 was bigger than that at the famous March on Washington back in 1963 that was led by Dr Martin Luther King. Quite a claim that. David Willis there. Three days after Sheikh Hasina was overthrown as Prime Minister of Bangladesh,

a new leader has been sworn in. The 84-year-old economist Mohamed Younis was chosen to run the interim government by the protest leaders. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for helping lift millions from poverty through microfinance, providing small loans to those too poor to access traditional banks. But he clashed with Bangladesh's long-term ruler, Sheikh Hasina, and she accused him of sucking blood from the poor. Mary Houghton, who worked with him, has a different view.

What you see is that he's very charming. He's highly intelligent. He's quite charismatic. He listens closely. He's completely passionate about the work of his bank, which is essentially to deliver small loans to rural people, mainly women. So you just see him as an entrepreneur who's resourceful, a good manager, has a very strong leadership ability, not only with his own employees and customers,

but I think he's been a good leader in his relationships with people all around the world who've been interested in the bank. Years later, he remembered verbatim what people had said to him about what they would need in Arkansas if they were to get a small loan. Muhammad Yunus left Bangladesh earlier this year after being sentenced to what he said was a politically motivated jail term. He arrived back on Thursday afternoon saying Bangladesh was celebrating a second independence. Our South Asia correspondent Samira Hussain caught up with him at the airport. How do you feel? I feel good. I'm back. A lot of work to be done. People are excited.

You know that something new opportunities have arrived. What is your message for people here? Discipline. Discipline, hard work and get it done. Mohammed Yunus. I heard more about the immediate challenges facing him from our correspondent in Dhaka, Akbar Hussain. First of all, he has to ensure the safety and security of the people, which he promised. Because in many parts of the country, we have seen violence is going on. Many people were targeted, their houses were vandalized, their properties, businesses were cremated. The second thing is the politics in Bangladesh, because this is very complex.

Professor Yunus is not a politician. He will have to deal with politics. Sheikh Hasina ruled the country for last 15 years. She built up a very strong army, police and the civil administration and many people loyal to her still serving in the administration. So Professor Yunus will have to deal with those people. And third and last but not the least, it is the economy of Bangladesh, because all indicators in the economy is very bad. Foreign debt is very high. Inflation is extremely high. So Professor Yunus will have to deal with the economy as well. So it's a long list. And I think it won't be a very easy journey for him to fix everything. What might he do in terms of practical measures in the next few days? The first thing is to establish the bring back normalcy in

the country. And second thing, you know, he will have to assure that this government is capable of delivering their aspirations. So that is the most important thing. The security forces, will they be loyal to Mohammed Yunus? That's a big question. We have seen today all chiefs of the security forces in Bangladesh, they have decided to take very tough action against the criminals. They said that the way disorder is going on, this is unacceptable. Around 500 police stations were set on fire during violence and many police officers, they went under hiding because they are scared of public backlash. So

now there is no police in any police stations. Students are directing traffic in Dhaka and elsewhere in the country because there is no traffic police on the streets. So Professor Mohamed Younos will have to restructure the whole force so that the safety and security can be established. Akbar Hussain in the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka. In our earlier podcast, we heard that police in Austria had arrested two teenagers accused of planning an attack on Taylor Swift concerts in Vienna. The authorities there have now revealed details of the alleged plot, which prompted the cancellation of the three shows. I heard more

from our security correspondent, Gordon Carrera. It does sound like a significant plot, which was apparently disrupted, really quite close to it potentially being carried out. A 19-year-old who was said to be planning an attack outside the venue where the concert was taking place, possibly ramming with a car, possibly using knives or other weapons, but also potentially explosives. And some devices and chemicals

seem to have been found at a search of his house. Also another individual, another teenager, also arrested, alleged to be an accomplice who had got a job working at events management at the site itself. And I think that's all a sign that this is potentially quite serious. How far it was directed by another group, that's less clear. But the 19-year-old is said to have sworn an oath of allegiance to the group calling itself Islamic State and potentially to have been radicalised online. So we don't know if they were formerly part of a group, but they were certainly influenced?

I think that's what it looks like at the moment, that there was influence and radicalisation, but not necessarily a directed or trained attack. But that's what it looks like so far. And are they still looking for other people? The authorities have indicated that they're not. There was some talk that there might be a couple of other people they were looking for, but they've played that down. And they've suggested that the concrete threat to the concerts has gone away as a result of their arrests. Although that obviously hasn't stopped the promoters cancelling them, left a lot of people disappointed, obviously. Yeah. And some of those disappointed fans have been joining forces, singing Taylor Swift songs, getting together. Are they at risk there? Well the authorities have suggested that

they've disrupted this plot so I don't think they will feel that there's any greater risk than there was before. I think it is interesting that the plot perhaps was outside the venue where people do gather often and where there might be less security than inside a venue so that was the original concern but that doesn't necessarily mean it's continued beyond what you'd normally expect given that there have been arrests. And the significance of targeting a Taylor Swift concert just because it's a big event or specifically her do you think? I mean she's the biggest superstar there is so I think if you want the maximum publicity which is often what these groups or individuals want then nothing probably could be bigger than targeting a Taylor Swift concert. So I think beyond killing people or doing that

kind of damage, it is about the publicity for such groups. And I think that's likely why it was maybe perhaps a symbol of the United States as well. Now, after these cancelled shows in Austria, Taylor Swift is supposed to be heading here to London to play at Wembley. Do you think that will go ahead? Are there threats there? Well, the Metropolitan Police have suggested that what's happened in Austria has no direct bearing on the UK, suggesting they don't have any intelligence or information about any specific threats. And the Mayor of London has also said that he will be working with the police and other authorities to make sure the concerts do take place. Our security correspondent Gordon Carrera. Three days into a reported Ukrainian cross-border

incursion into Russia, President Putin's forces have still not been able to dislodge the attackers. Ukraine hasn't acknowledged carrying out the daring assault on the Kursk region, but in his nightly address, President Zelensky told the Ukrainian people, Russia brought the war to our land and should feel what it's done. In Russia itself, there is shock and anger, as Steve Rosenberg reports from Moscow. This week, lots of dramatic images have come out of Russia. From Kursk region, phone footage of low-flying fighter jets, bombed-out streets, Russian soldiers surrendering in Russia. But for me, it was a video of Vladimir Putin more than anything, which spoke volumes about what is happening right now. When the chief of the general staff told President Putin that up

to a thousand Ukrainian soldiers had attacked and crossed into Russia. The Kremlin leader looked livid, as if he was restraining himself from shouting. For Moscow, this is a huge embarrassment. The cross-border attack took the country's political and military leadership by surprise. Today, Russia's hawkish former president, Dmitry Medvedev, called on Moscow to respond by seizing more Ukrainian land, up to Kiev and beyond. And yet, after three days of fierce fighting, Russia has been unable to restore control over its own territory in Kursk region. The authorities will almost certainly try to use what is happening to rally the Russian public around the flag

and to bolster the Kremlin's false narrative that Russia is not the aggressor in this war. In reality, it was Russia that invaded Ukraine. Our Russia editor, Steve Rosenberg, in Moscow. The Indian wrestler, Vinesh Fogart, has announced her retirement a day after she was disqualified from her Olympic final for being 100 grams overweight. The 29-year-old, who is well known in India for campaigning against sexist attitudes in women's wrestling, even cut her hair to try to make the weight for the gold medal bout against American Sarah Hildebrandt.

Here's our South Asia regional editor, Anbarasan Etirajan. Vinesh Pugat is one of India's most decorated wrestlers and only an Olympic medal was missing from her collection. She was just one fight away from becoming the first woman from India to win gold in any Olympic sport. But she was disqualified before her final match for being overweight in the 50-kilogram category. Not much, roughly the weight of a small banana. Pogat had reportedly starved herself for

a week, spent hours in the sauna and cut her hair to lose weight for the contest. Her disqualification broke a billion hearts in India and triggered a near meltdown on social media. The whole of the Indian people are very angry. They are very sad. The whole of India was looking for a gold from her and it was a disaster for Indian wrestling, for Indian sports. Just 100 gram, 100 gram is nothing. Fogart is known at home for spearheading a protest last year against alleged sexual harassment of young female wrestlers by their federation chief, Brijbhushan Singh, a charge he denies. It was called the Me Too

moment in Indian sports. Announcing her retirement from the sport on social media, Pogod said she no longer had the strength to carry on. Wrestling won and I lost, she wrote. My dreams are shattered. And still to come on the Global News Podcast, the eight-day trip into space that could end up lasting eight months. Thank you. plus other great BBC podcasts from history to comedy to true crime, all ad-free. Simply subscribe to BBC Podcasts Premium on Apple Podcasts or listen to Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC Podcasts. In the 11 days since Nicolas Maduro was controversially declared the winner of the presidential election in Venezuela,

an estimated 2,000 people have been detained. The opposition, led by Maria Corina Machado, has denounced the official result as fraudulent and called for mass demonstrations. The protests have been met by a severe crackdown, and the security forces have more people in their sights. Jesus Salamas, a campaign manager for the opposition coalition in Caracas state, is currently in hiding. He spoke to James Menendez. Right now, hundreds of activists in Venezuela are in hiding because the repression is brutal. For example, two days ago, one of the members of Maria Corina's team was kidnapped by some member of the special police of Nicolás Maduro, and she record everything in Instagram.

So that was really brutal for us to watch. And in higher because I fear that maybe the Nicolás Maduro special police is coming for me. I can be jailed just because I'm part of the María Corina Machado and Edmundo González team. And your colleague who you spoke about, who was taken by the police, do you know where she is now, where she's been held, what will happen to her? No, that's the main thing about this. It's not only that they are taken without any legal order. They are kidnapped and nobody knows where they are. Do you feel fear? Yes, of course.

All Venezuelans that want a different country feel fear right now. But at the same time, we feel hope because we won the election. We have the proof and we want to fight peacefully, of course, to bring back democracy to our country. And that presumably is the tactic of the government to make opposition activists like yourself fearful so that you don't go out onto the street. And that way they will win won't they? Yes of course and it's not only about activists we have 2,000 people jaded and they're not only activists they are also normal citizens that went to the street in a peaceful way but at the same time we are going to keep the fight going on. But how are you going to do that if, like yourself, you're hiding

out somewhere? What is the tactic for the opposition to contest the result? In one hand, the Chilean government, Brazilian, Mexican and Colombian government are trying to explore a diplomatic way. In the other hand, we are still organising citizens every day. And I think we can keep protesting the streets, but in a very strategic, peaceful way. Eventually, we will win. How confident are you that, for example, Brazil and Mexico will continue to press the government? They've said, for example, that the Supreme Court should decide that it should be the judicial system that resolves this dispute over the election. But you as the opposition, you don't have any confidence in the Supreme Court, do you?

No, everything is controlled by Nicolás Maduro. But I think that these diplomatic efforts of Brazil, Mexico and Colombia are important because they can show the international left and centre-left parties that Nicolás Maduro is lying. We want to show the world that Nicolás Maduro is a dictator. Jesús Armas talking to James Menendez. As many as 90% of the plant and animal species on Madagascar are unique to the island, which sits in the Indian Ocean about 400 kilometres east of the African continent. But despite its unique ecosystem, Madagascar's precious rainforest has for decades been destroyed by illegal logging and the burning of timber for charcoal. Now a team from the Royal

Botanic Gardens in Kew in London is using drone footage to map the forests and try to find ways to restore it. Jenny Williams is a senior analyst at Kew. Part of the problem in Madagascar is, well, it's the fourth largest island in the world, so it's massive. It's the poorest non-waterborne country in the world, so there's very limited resources for a lot of things.

50% of the forests have been lost since the 50s. So there's very limited resources for a lot of things. 50% of the forests have been lost since the 50s. So there's massive losses. It's a big place. What can we do to have a look at the forests that survive? So looking at satellite imagery, we can have a look at where the forest patches seem to be. But my interest was running that a little bit smaller. So we can see that there are big losses due to deforestation and fires and things like that. But what's the value of the forest that we still have? We know that carbon gets locked up in forests and that's our big resource and a big storage of carbon and helping mitigate climate change and things like that. So what are the state of the forests that are currently there at the moment? And using the drones enabled us to get to closed forest areas that we wouldn't be able to

get to on the ground. We can see super high resolution imagery, which is absolutely stunning. And then on top of that, we can really start drilling down to having a look at areas that we wouldn't be able to see with satellite imagery because it's under cloud cover. We can fly them when we want if there's a seasonality in the trees and we can start looking at real detail at mapping what's going on. There's massive holes in the forest that you wouldn't be able to's massive holes in the forest that you wouldn't be able to see. So in the front, you look like an intact clear forest. And then you fly the drone over and you show the local communities it looks like a Swiss cheese. Jenny Williams,

a senior analyst at Kew Gardens. Australia's national airline Qantas has taken a hit to its reputation in recent years. And as a result, it's now trying to claw back nearly $6 million from its former chief executive, Alan Joyce. James Thompson from the Australian Financial Review in Melbourne told Will Bain more about the story. This is quite an unprecedented move. Joyce left the airline in about September last year after it hit some reputational crises around a series of things, really. It's treatment of customers in the wake of the pandemic, its relationship with the Australian federal government, and I guess the record profit that it delivered last year, which was sort of seen to come at the

expense of staff and customers. Yeah, a long-running row with passengers over refunds, as you say, but also a long-running row with passengers over refunds, as you say, but also a long-running row with its own staff too. Yeah, that's right. During the pandemic, in a move to cut costs, it sacked a bunch of baggage handlers and ground crew who went to the federal court in Australia to protest or to sue the company for that move and won. They won in several courts. Qantas fought them all the way through the Australian legal system, but was found to have sacked those workers illegally. So there's been this wrong running stash between Qantas and its staff,

which is added to, I guess, the heightened tensions around this company. Plenty of reasons, I guess, N PR reasons amongst them to make the move you were outlining. But contractually, I mean, is that it? Is it all clear cut? Is this done? Or are we about to have a legal battle over this cash? No, you're right. It is not clear cut. The board has taken what I think is a calculated gamble here that Alan Joyce won't want to sort of continue to fight this, want this to get to court. But you're right. Joyce had earned these bonuses under the terms of his contract and under the remuneration, the pay framework that Qantas had set out. So it is an interesting question. Will Joyce and other executives look

to challenge? I'm not sure that could set up a sticky legal fight for both them and the company, but the company has taken a bit of a risk here. And if that becomes the case, it becomes yet another headache for an airline that's got plenty of them right now. I mean, operationally, we know Performance, you will know better than anybody, I'm sure, James. Performance has been an issue too for this company, away from any scandal. It has. I mean, they suffered like all airlines during the pandemic from sort of poor on-time performance, lots of cancellations, lots of supply chain issues. They have come out of that fairly well in the last six to 12 months. So they have turned around more planes flying in the air.

They've put a bit more redundancy in their network. They're generally doing a better job for customers. So that started to have an effect. And I think it's really calmed down the really inflamed tensions with the Australian public last year. But yeah, they do have a way to go to restoring their brand. And I'm sure the last thing they want is to be fighting their executives in court. But I think they're betting that the last thing that those executives want to do is to prolong the agony as well. James Thompson from the Australian Financial Review. It was supposed to be an eight day trip into space for two American astronauts, and they were delighted when they arrived at the International Space Station.

I'm not sure we could have gotten a better welcome. It was great. It was such a great welcome, a little dance party, and that's the way to get things going. And we're just happy as can be to be up in space. So it got off to a good start, but then NASA detected a problem with their Boeing Starliner spacecraft. And more than eight weeks on, they are still stuck up there with no sign they could be coming home any time soon. In fact, NASA is now considering leaving them there until February next year when they could join the return leg of a future mission. Helen Sharman was the first British astronaut.

Nuala McGovern asked her if this enforced stay was an occupational hazard. I don't think they'd be freaking out, but yes, occupational hazard, absolutely. They've trained for all sorts of missions and being a flight test, this is always going to be a particularly risky mission. However, you don't really expect eight days to turn into, you know, eight months or so. And of course, it's the ramifications, not just for this particular, the two people whose mission is extended potentially a long time. We still think they may come back on Starliner, actually, but still it's looking less likely. But the other crew that's on board the space station with them, they were expecting to return to Earth at the end of August time.

That's now going to be put back by probably five or six weeks or so in order to accommodate the movings around that NASA's having to think about. So, yes, so it's not just these two. Everybody's, well, the other four at least, are also now thinking about now that they're going to have to tell their family, oh, you know what, I'm going to miss your birthday or we're not going to be back for that particular party. But, yes, it's one of those things. You pace yourself, don't you, when you're going away for a while. And these people will have paced themselves for a certain length of time. Suddenly, when that becomes potentially much longer, that's when it

starts to really sink home a bit and you have to settle it in your own mind how you're going to deal with that. And how about having to spend that amount of time with another human being in very close quarters? Well, it's not just the two of them, of course. So there's the four crew dragon and also the three people who went up on a Soyuz spacecraft. It's not just one on one. The people who I flew into space with, they did spend six months with just one other person for company. So it's quite, you know, it's humanly possible. It's not ideal, of course.

Although they'll do the occasional spacewalk while they're up there, there's still, by and large, they are fairly contained in their spacecraft. It's big, you know, you can, there's plenty of room to stretch out in and plenty of room to go to a part where you can't be with other people if you want. Helen Sharman, the first British astronaut. And that is all from us for now, but the Global News podcast will be back very soon. This edition was mixed by Charlotte Hardroy-Torjimska and produced by Oliver Burlout. Our editors, Karen Martin. I'm Oliver Conway. Until next time, goodbye. If you're hearing this, you're probably already listening to BBC's award-winning news podcasts.

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