Global News Podcast - King strips Andrew of 'prince' title amid Epstein scandal

Episode Date: October 31, 2025

Britain's King Charles has begun the process of removing his younger brother's "prince" title and told him to vacate the Royal Lodge in Windsor. It comes as controversy swirls over Andrew’s friendship with the late child sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein, and allegations of sexual assault by Virginia Giuffre. In a statement, Giuffre's family call her "an ordinary American girl who brought down a British prince". Andrew has denied, and continues to deny, all allegations made against him. Also: relief efforts are being stepped up in Jamaica following Hurricane Melissa; Victoria becomes the first Australian state to approve a treaty with its Indigenous peoples; the BBC speaks to Russians refusing to be silent in the face of Putin's repression; Hamas returns the bodies of another two hostages to Israel under the Gaza ceasefire deal; President Trump caps refugee admissions with priority given to white South Africans; a squeeze in US public broadcasting funding forces Radio Free Asia off the air; what causes brain fog; and the bizarre deathball sponge lurking on the deep sea floor. 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]

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Hello, I'm Oliver Conway, and we're recording this at 430 GMT on Friday the 31st of October. The British royal family loses a prince. Andrew is stripped of his title over his links to the sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein. Relief efforts are stepped up in Jamaica. Laker, with soldiers traveling on foot to reach areas devastated by Hurricane Melissa, and a landmark moment in Australia as the state of Victoria approves the first treaty with indigenous peoples. Also in this podcast, the Russians refusing to be silent in the face of Putin's repression. They told me that I discredited our soldiers. How? By calling for peace?

and what causes brain fog Three days after he was heckled over Prince Andrew's relationship with Geoffrey Epstein King Charles has taken action against his younger brother Andrew is being stripped of his titles he'll no longer be able to call himself a prince or his royal highness and forced to leave his huge mansion near Windsor Castle eight in line to the British throne he had already agreed to give up his title of Duke of York,

but he has now, in effect, been banished from public life. Here's historian Anthony Selden. In some ways, you go back to the abdication, or indeed back to 1917, the last time that princes had their titles stripped from them for misbehavior in that case, it was fighting on the German side in the First World War. So we haven't seen something like this for 100 years.

It is a huge moment in the role. our family, but I think it will be a turning point. The scandal erupted when Virginia Dufray accused Andrew of sexual assault and sued him in a New York court. He denied the claims but agreed to pay her a reported $15 million settlement. She took her own life six months ago, but her explosive memoir was published last week. Today, her family said an ordinary American girl from an ordinary American family brought down a British prince with her truth and extraordinary courage. Her brother and sister-in-law spoke to the BBC.

It's a bittersweet moment. We feel like it's a very vindicated moment for our sister, but it's also very surreal. It is surreal that she's not here and that she didn't get a chance to see this in her lifetime. But it's amazing, and everything that she fought for was not in vain. It truly is a moment for her and all survivors. The former prince will now be known simply as Andrew Mountbatten, Windsor. For someone said to have been Queen Elizabeth's favourite child, it is a humiliating loss of status.

Robert Hardman is a royal biographer. He took these things very seriously. I mean, he always liked to have, you know, the Duke of York, KG, on all his stationery. I mean, he was a great one for the use of titles. Even, you know, when somebody just referred to the Queen Mother, he got very cross and said, don't you know, it's Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother.

You know, he stood on the ceremony. And it is, I think, a rather stark illustration of the old adage Be nice to people on the way up because you'll need them on the way down and it doesn't look like there's anyone there on his way down. Our UK correspondent Rob Watson told me what he made of it all. The first thing to note about it is just how astonishingly ruthless King Charles has been in dealing with his younger brother, a stripping away of his title. And secondly, banishment.

I mean, he's being sent from the very large 30-room mansion that he has in the grounds of Windsor Castle just outside London to Sandringham, which is in North Wales. in the east of England, a long way away from London, where presumably we're hardly ever going to ever see him again. Yeah, roofless, in contrast to his mother, Queen Elizabeth, but there had been some suggestion that he could have acted a bit sooner, the king. Why has he done it now?

Well, I think the reason why he's done it now is because he is extremely anxious to stop any contagion from Andrew to the broader standing of himself and his reign as King Charles, but also the monarchy and the wider royal family. I don't think there's any secret that King Charles has been very unhappy with Andrew for some time. I mean, it was undoubtedly pressure from King Charles and from his son and heir Prince William that forced Andrew to drop the title, if you remember, of Duke of York and certain other titles. But I think looking around, King Charles decided this couldn't go on.

The scandal wasn't going to die down. People would not only ask questions about Andrew, but yes, would ask questions, well, why didn't Queen Elizabeth do more? Why hasn't King Charles done more? And I think he decided, enough is enough. So out of sight, out of mind. But could there still be some lasting damage to the royal family? They'll be hoping not.

Interestingly, it doesn't seem to have affected the personal popularity of the leading members of the royal family, including King Charles, his wife, Queen Camilla, his heir, Prince William, and his wife Catherine. I think the problem is more for Andrew himself, because any idea that somehow either this or the move to a bit weeks ago Oliver where he got rid of being called the Duke of York was somehow going to say, okay, let's not look at Andrew anymore. That just doesn't seem to be working out that way. There's all of the Epstein Files material is still in the hands of the United States Congress.

Presumably some of that is going to be published and people will just keep digging and digging because, you know, this is a story of our age, the idea of the rich, the powerful and privileged who've been alleged to have been taken. advantage of young women and I just don't see that public interest in that and investigative interest in that is going to die down. Of course, in his younger days, Andrew was seen as a hero in the Falklands War, something of a dashing prince. How did he allow himself to become embroiled in this situation? It's a very good question and I guess his critics will say it's partly his personality that he was born into privilege and some people just end up up being more entitled than others. So they would say it's partly a personality flaw. And I guess

others would point to something, again, that you've seen over the last thousand years of the British monarchy, and that is, what do you do with those siblings who are not going to become king? What do you do to the spares, as they're known Oliver? And it's always been difficult over the ages to give those who are not going to inherit the crown something useful and meaningful to do. And Andrew has clearly really struggled with that ever since leaving the military, whether it was, his efforts as a trade envoy. You know, he was always seen as on the lookout for money being dazzled by other people who were powerful and who had large financial means.

Rob Watson. Hurricane Melissa has been picking up speed as it moves past Bermuda, though it's expected to weaken in the next few hours. At least 44 people died as the storm swept across the Caribbean, most in the impoverished nation of Haiti. Jamaica was the first to be hit when Melissa was at its most powerful, and the death toll there has risen to 19 as relief efforts are stepped up. Two days on from the storm, residents in flip-flops have been struggling to patch up their roofs

and clear fallen trees with machetes. I spoke to our correspondent Nedatoufique in the town of Santa Cruz in the west of the country. Jamaica very much feels like two different islands. We landed in Kingston and it's pretty much unscathed. The airport was open. Everything felt normal. And as we drove, you know, the roads just became more and more destroyed. More and more trees were downed, power lines down.

You could see just where the floodwaters were before they receded. And here where I am now in Santa Cruz, you know, people are literally still cleaning out the thick mud from their shops. They're trying to put the zinc roofs back on their board homes. Those lucky enough that still had homes after the storm swept through here. And one of the women I spoke to in her shops, she's on a generator, of course, because there's, no power. She just spoke about how she was just absolutely stunned, that she could have never prepared herself for the intensity of the hurricane, and that she is concerned in the coming days. She said she doesn't expect that they will get massive help, that that will go to those

who are much more in need. And so she is just trying to conserve. She says the gas for her generator and the supplies that her and her family will need. Yeah, I was going to ask you about help. Are people actually getting it at the moment, or are they still waiting? Well, aid hasn't come in any meaningful form yet to this area. We actually, on our flight into Kingston, there were a few aid groups on that flight. They also had a cargo plane coming from Florida. We actually have a BBC team who was also on another cargo flight with aid from Florida landing in Kingston.

And then, of course, the UN and others have supplies coming from Antigua, Dominican Republic, other countries. But it will take some time. They're hoping later today, tomorrow, that aid will finally get to these areas where it's needed because you still have 13,000 people in shelters. As I mentioned, there are areas that are just completely cut off further west of here. You have officials saying the military going on foot to try to clear roads and clear a path to get to those communities to be able to deliver aid when it arrives. And also the death toll.

Officials expect that to rise, and the Jamaican defense forces are actually. sending out helicopters to survey and locate any potential bodies. Now, I know you're on your way to some of those even more badly hit areas, but from what you've seen so far, how long will it take to rebuild those destroyed structures and get life back to normal? You know, it's so difficult because I was speaking to one resident who said, what if we just fix up these board homes and another hurricane comes? So there is a real question about how to prepare for the future.

You know, we've heard estimates that it could take a decade altogether. Now, certainly, power will come together. One woman was telling me she expects to get power within three weeks, hopefully, because keep in mind that two-thirds of the island is still without power, and the prime minister has said the priority is trying to get utilities back up and running for people. But if you look at the infrastructure and the destruction, the financial hit as well will really, impact Jamaica's ability to recover.

Neda Tafiq in Santa Cruz. Australia's first treaty with its indigenous peoples has passed the Victoria State Parliament to cheers and tears in the public gallery. The legislation will be signed in the coming weeks giving Aboriginal communities the power to shape policies and services affecting them. I heard more from our Sydney correspondent, Katie Watson.

This will establish a body called the Gulen Wall Body and it will be consulted on laws and policies, policies that affect indigenous people, but it's also going to include a truth-telling body and an accountability body. So what that will mean is that the government will have to commit to what's known as closing the gap. This is a government initiative. It's a national agreement aimed at reducing inequality for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. So, you know, it's a significant treaty. That's the issue. It's the first state to adopt a voice, a treaty and truth. And these are pillars of reform that were requested from the Uluru statement from the

heart, which was back in 2017, which called for more to be done to be able to realize indigenous rights. Now, two years ago, we saw Australia vote against creating a national body for indigenous people. So does what we've seen today, does that mark a change in attitudes in Australia? I think after what we saw back in 2023, I mean, there's certainly been a wider push across Australia to engage in reconciliation process with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. It's certainly a very political issue, but there is growing pressure to do more to address the issues and this issue of closing the gap and drawing down the inequalities with Indigenous people here in Australia. Certainly, it's a positive, it's certainly

a massive step in doing that. And what concrete changes would these communities like to see as a result of this? I think if you look at all the indicators, there are clearly huge inequalities. So when it comes to health, when it comes to education, you know, when it comes to political representation, all of these things are issues. So in terms of picking out the top, I mean, health and education are clearly priorities, but I think this is about reducing those inequalities across the board and having that representation, having indigenous people have a voice when it comes to policies that will affect them. Casey Watson, do you ever suffer from brain fog in the morning the feeling of being confused, distracted or forgetful after a bad night of sleep?

Scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US say they found out why we get it. Our reporter Stephanie Prentiss told us more. Scientists took a group of people and essentially deprived them of sleep in a lab, then let them have a good night's sleep, tested them both times to monitor their cognitive functions. So let's put our so's in their shoes for one of these tasks. We're tired. We haven't slept. We have to watch a screen and press a button when a cross turns into a square or press a button when we hear a beeping sound. Unsurprisingly, those tired people didn't do well.

But in the background, scientists were monitoring a few things, including the flow of something called cerebrospinal fluid or CSF. And this fluid, they say, holds the key to this kind of brain. fog. So during sleep, the CSF fluid is flushing out waste products from the brain without sleep or proper sleep. That process just isn't finished by the time people wake up. The body then continues on and tries to keep flushing out the brain while you are awake. And that scientists say is when people get that fogging feeling, that sort of zoning out. So in the cross example I just mentioned, the scientist saw a flux of CSF out of the brain just as does lapses in concentration. occurred. After each lapse, when attention recovered, CSF flowed back. So our brains need to do this sort of deep cleaning. Some studies have actually called it vital. And some scientists say has an important role in our long-term health. One of them, in fact, had a very neat little phrase. They called it refreshing cellular housekeeping. Stephanie Prentice. And still to come on the global news podcast. It's a pretty incredible.

incredible specimen, and it is a series of ping-pong balls on stems. We learn about the deathball sponge discovered in the deep sea. If you eat too many ultra-processed foods, you could be starving your gut microbes, and they'll get hungry. That's one of many things I learned after working on a new audio course about the gut microbiome. You can learn how to keep your gut happy by listening to Try This from the Washington Post. I'm Christina Quinn. I host Try This. Dig in with me on practical advice for life's common challenges. Follow Try This Right Now wherever you're listening. Seriously, try it. Russia has been remembering the victims of the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.

Hundreds of thousands of people were killed in what's known as the Great Terror. The annual commemoration comes at a time of growing political repression inside Russia today. As Steve Rosenberg reports. In a forest near St. Petersburg, they're gathering to remember. Buried here are believed to be at least 20,000 victims of Joseph Stalin's great terror, possibly as many as 45,000 people denounced as enemies of the state, shot and then dumped in mass graves. This killing field is a reminder, a warning of what state terror can lead to. It's a timely warning.

In Russia, repression is on the rise. In a St. Petersburg courtroom, a judge finds 18-year-old music student, Dianna Logineva, guilty of discrediting the Russian armed forces with a song about a soldier. You're a soldier. soldier Diana had sung, and whatever war you're fighting, I'm sorry, I'll be on the other side. Diana is lead singer with the band Stop Time. Her boyfriend, Alexander Arlov, is the guitarist, with Vladislav Ljantiev on drums.

On the streets of St. Petersburg, Stop Time had been attracting crowds of young fans and attention from the authorities. Some of the songs they'd been performing were written by exiled Russian artists who were critical of the Kremlin and of the war in Ukraine. Early this month, the three band members were arrested. The discreditation conviction that ended in a fine. It was another charge that put the three of them in jail, organization of a public gathering, violating public order.

I'm surprised how things have been exaggerated, Diana tells me. We've been accused of lots of things we never did. All we were doing was bringing the music we like to a mass audience. Across town, 84-year-old Ludmila Vasileva is cooking dinner. Like Diana, Ludmila too has been convicted of discrediting the Russian armed forces, a survivor of the Nazi siege of Leningrad. This year, Ludmila took to the streets to protest against Russia's war in Ukraine. They told me that I discredited our soldiers, Ludmila recalls. How? By calling for peace, Ludmila believes that increasing authoritarianism

is the result of those in power fearing the public. People are scared, she should. admits, but the authorities are more scared. That's why they're tightening the screws. That report by our Russia editor, Steve Rosenberg. Hamas has returned the bodies of another two hostages to Israel as part of the ceasefire agreement. It means 13 dead captives still remain in Gaza. Frank Gardner reports from Jerusalem. Phase one of the Trump-brokered ceasefire plan is still in process. For Israel, it's very important that those dead hostages are handed back. They're saying it's very late. They think that Hamas is deliberately dragging its feet over it. Hamas say, look, hang on, it's rubble. We've got to be able to clear the rubble, and we need more time

to excavate it, and we need to get equipment in. All of this, though, is, this is tactical. The big strategic picture is still a long way off being resolved. So under the Trump plan, The idea is to get this big international stabilization force into Gaza. It hasn't even been formed yet. They haven't worked out what the rules of engagement are. We are told that there have been very sensitive discussions about that, which probably means trying to encourage some countries to join that force. Then Hamas needs to disarm, according to the plan.

That's not going to be easy. They may not want to give up all their guns. And then finally, getting a new technocratic government into Gaza and rebuilding it. All of that, though, is still a long way off. Frank Gardner. The Trump administration has announced it will limit the number of refugees admitted to the United States to 7.5,000. The lowest level on record and a dramatic cut from the 125,000 allowed under Joe Biden. There was no reason given for the cut, but a notice published online said it was justified by humanitarian concerns or is otherwise in the national interest.

Bernd de Musman at the White House has this assessment. It is a very, very controversial move. In the document which was published on the website of the Federal Register, they said explicitly that of those 7,500 refugees, the vast majority would be white South Africans. Over the last few months, we've seen repeatedly, including in an Oval Office kind of encounter with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, the Trump administration repeat claims, which they've provided no evidence, that white South Africans are facing genocide in their country. Already refugee advocates who have seen this move coming for quite some time, I've said

that this is very unfair to other persecuted minorities around the world. Even former US allies in Afghanistan and the Middle East, they're essentially not allowed to come as refugees. And the Trump administration has opened the door very specifically to this one group of refugees from South Africa. For almost three decades, Radio Free Asia has been an independent voice throughout the region, particularly in countries where governments try to control the media. Once a beacon of U.S. soft power, the service has been starved of funding by President Trump and had already scaled back its operations.

Now it says it's suspending all news production. Our global affairs reporter, and Brassan Etirajan spoke to Anka Desai about the role that Radio Free Asia has played. This is one of the important voices of information for people living beyond communists or very autocratic countries in Asia, particularly in China, in Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia. So this was kind of a lifeline for many of these exiled communities, even Tibetans. And it was started in 1996 under this U.S. agency for global media, like Voice of America and other outlets. Now, what happened, as you all know, after President Trump assumed power?

He cut down funding for many of these public institutions. And Radio Free Asia was one of the victims, and they cut down most of the staff in the US for the last few months. Now, because of this shutdown by the U.S. federal government, because of the ongoing tussle between the Congress and President Trump, especially Democrats. Now, the funding has been cut down totally. So now the Radio Free Asia is saying they're ending all their operations from Friday onwards. And many people have expressed the disappointment and sadness. They had about 60 million listeners a week in different languages. Is there anything that can replace it?

It is an end of an institution where, for example, like many people point out, when the Uyghur population, more than a million people were put on internment camps in Xinjiang in China, it was radio free Asia was one of the first to report on that, and then the rest of the international media picked it up. And also during the anti-juntar protests in Myanmar against the military in 2021, again Radio Free Asia, played a cruise. crucial role. People are pointing out, many of the American diplomats and analysts point out at a time when Russia and China, they're investing billions of dollars, promoting their own

media, put forward their own views, and then whereas the Western world going in a reverse mode. Is this something that can get challenged or could there be a U-turn in the future? And there have been court cases regarding this funding model, and we don't know when these court cases will come to an end. But they've been struggling. to run, already they cut down 90% of the US-based staff. Now, if you look at the other broadcasters like the BBC, BBC has got language services in Burmese and many other languages or the Deutsche Weller, so these are some of the services that can replace that model. But even many of the international broadcasters like the BBC are also facing funding constraints.

So how to reach out to the people in countries like in Myanmar, that will be a big, big challenge. The deathball sponge, zombie worms, colossal squid. Scientists have discovered dozens of new species deep in the southern ocean, one of the most remote parts of the world. Dr Michelle Taylor led the expedition and told Rebecca Kesby about her findings, starting with the carnivorous sponge that's covered in tiny hooks. It's a pretty incredible specimen, and it is a series of ping-pong balls on stems, so it is quite distinctive.

And sponges generally don't eat animal flesh. They normally just filter feed all of the little particles that are in the water. So this is a very unusual section of the kind of sponge taxa, in that they actually capture small amphipods, like little crustaceans. They have very sharp hooks. So on a really tiny scale, they're covered in hooks. And these animals get caught in the hooks and then are slowly enveloped over a period of time until all of the nutrient is kind of squeezed out of them into the sponge.

Oh, that sounds grisly. They're absolutely fascinating. So it sort of absorbs the creatures that it catches then. Yeah. Tell us about your research down into the depths because the environment down there is so hostile to most life forms, including scientists, no doubt. Tell us about some of the challenges involved.

I'd argue that there's some evidence that life began in deep sea areas and it's definitely been around for millions and millions and millions of years. So the animals down there are quite happy in that environment. It's just something that's so different for us. It's incredible pressure, super high pressures. And that means that when we send equipment down, for example, like cameras and such like, it has to be able to withstand all of that pressure, which is why it's so rare, because it's expensive, it's very specialised.

By the time you get down to about 1,000 metres depth, not even a photon of light can be seen from the surface. But there are, obviously, a myriad of animals wandering around with eyes, so eyes must still be useful for some things. And it's believed that actually bioluminescence and that beautiful blue shine that animals sometimes emit could actually be the most common form of communication on the planet, either, you know, get away from me or don't eat me or, ooh, look, I'm over here and I'm very attractive. Come and find me.

Wow. So the other beautiful, amazing things we found down there include some pretty grisly things like zombie worms and these are worms that live on the skeleton of dead animals, usually dead mammals. Wow. Just coming up to the COP Summit again and one of the biggest issues is going to be plastics and waste in our seas. Is that something you've also been looking at and does that impact the deep sea? Antarctica is one of the only places where we haven't found big chunks of plastic in the environment. Every other deep sea exploration that I've done, we've found one form of human influence or another, which I think really goes to showing how rare the Southern Ocean

remains, because it is so challenging, it's so cold. The areas that we went to took eight days of steaming on a ship to get there and then eight days to get back. The closest human beings were on the International Space Station. Wow. Yeah, it's incredibly isolated. And those places are really precious and should be protected because there's very few of them left. Michelle Taylor from the Ocean Census Expedition. And that's all from us for now, but the Global News podcast will be back very soon. This edition was mixed by Zabihullah Karush and produced by Stephanie Zackerson. Our editors, Karen Martin.

I'm Oliver Conway. Until next time, goodbye. If you eat too many ultra-processed foods, you could be starving your gut microbes, and they'll get hangary. That's one of many things I learned. after working on a new audio course about the gut microbiome. You can learn how to keep your gut happy by listening to Try This from the Washington Post. I'm Christina Quinn. I host Try This. Dig in with me on practical advice for life's common challenges.

Follow Try This Right Now, wherever you're listening. Seriously, try it.