Global News Podcast - Mexico unveils emergency strategy to protect its migrants in US

Episode Date: December 28, 2024

Mexico has announced an emergency strategy to protect migrants in the US, after president-elect, Donald Trump, threatened to deport millions of illegal people. Also: the virtual blaze that is an internet success.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. You are bound to devote yourself to the long conflict between the light and the dark. The Dark is Rising, an immersive audio adventure, adapting Susan Cooper's classic fantasy novel into a gripping 12 part family drama. Everything had changed. The dark is rising. Find it wherever you get your BBC podcasts. This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Nick Miles and in the early hours of Saturday the 28th of December these are our main stories. The Mexican government has unveiled an emergency measure to protect migrants in the United

States who might face deportation once Donald Trump takes office. The White House says North Korean troops are experiencing mass casualties in what it calls hopeless assaults against Ukrainian positions in Russia's Kursk region. A senior Houthi official in Yemen has told the BBC the movement will continue attacking Israel despite intensified Israeli airstrikes. Also in this podcast, we meet the baboon expert on what they reveal about us. They've got nine hours of free time every day and they spend all of it devoted to generating psychological stress for each other.

Mexico's government has announced an emergency strategy to protect migrants in the United States ahead of the inauguration of the president-elect Donald Trump next month. Mr Trump has threatened to deport millions of illegal migrants. Now one of the measures involves mobile phones and the Mexican Foreign Minister Juan Ramon de la Fuente explained how it could work. It's an information and assistance centre for Mexican people, a call centre that's already operating 24-7, and soon it will also be active through a very simple procedure, an alert button that's already been implemented on a small scale in some places and appears to

be working very well. You push the alert button and that sends a signal to the nearest consulate and to the relatives whose contact details you've saved on the app. I asked our America's regional editor Leonardo Rocha to tell us more about the new measures. What the Mexican government is expecting is the worst for millions of Mexicans, an estimated 4.8 million Mexicans who live without a working visa in the US. So what they think might happen is people will be at home or they'll be stopped in traffic or they might be on some government list and immigration officers will just come to their door to their work and just take them to a detention centre.

Before they're taken there or before they can ask for a lawyer or anything, this panic button, let's call it that way, it's a map, will alert one of the 53 Mexican consulates in the US or their families or a call center that's already working 24 hours a day to say, look, such person has been taken by the immigration authorities. Then they will get in touch with hundreds of lawyers. They've just hired more than 300 other lawyers and there are many who have volunteered to basically start the legal process to assist them and if necessary stop this deportation process because once that gets going, if the person doesn't know their rights in the US,

especially migrants who are there who don't speak proper English, they might just be taken to a centre on the border or taken abroad and that might be too late for them. I mean these measures from the Mexican government are likely to anger Donald Trump and his supporters because they could be seen as a way of scupper what Donald Trump wants to do, which is get rid of certain numbers of illegal migrants. And the Mexican government has got to tread a fine line here, hasn't he? Because there are also threats from Donald Trump to put tariffs on Mexican goods.

I find the beginning of this left-wing government of Claudia Sheinbaum taking over from President López Obrador, I find it much more difficult than López Obrador faced in the first administration with Donald Trump. Because I think Donald Trump is much more outspoken. He threatened to impose tariffs of 25% if they don't control the influx of fentanyl, which is this synthetic opioid that's causing thousands of deaths in the U.S.

But it's something very difficult to do to control the influx of drugs. So I think the language is very inflammatory. I think the Mexican government very inflammatory. I think the Mexican government is feeling that they will have a very difficult time because it involves migration, it involves tariffs, and I haven't seen much in terms of building bridges or anything at this stage. Three weeks from the inauguration of Donald Trump, the Mexican government is preparing a strategy to help millions of Mexicans abroad. It's likely that will anger the American government. Something we'll have to do to build those relations which are

essential for both sides of the border. Leonardo Russia. The White House says North Korean troops are suffering mass casualties in what it calls hopeless human wave attacks against Ukrainian forces. According to a national security spokesman, John Kirby, a thousand North Koreans have been killed or wounded in Russia's Kursk region. Here's our State Department correspondent, Tom Bateman. John Kirby said that North Korean troops were highly indoctrinated, pushing attacks even when it was clear they were futile, with the generals seeing the troops as expendable.

He said there were reports of some soldiers even taking their own lives rather than surrendering, likely out of fear of reprisal against their families in North Korea in the event that they were captured. The BBC is not able to independently verify the claims. The US believes up to 12,000 North Korean troops have been sent to Russia with the two countries this month putting into effect a landmark defense pact Tom Bateman Now to the Yemeni capital Sanaa Where tens of thousands of people have been chanting and holding rifles above their heads as they listen to anti Israeli speeches their heads as they listened to anti-Israeli speeches. It came a day after a series of Israeli airstrikes on sites across the country, including Sonar's International Airport. A UN humanitarian team was there at the time. The BBC spoke to Mohamed Al-Bukhaiti, a member of the Houthi's

political bureau, about how they would respond to the Israeli attacks. Bureau about how they would respond to the Israeli attacks. We are committed to continuing our military operation in support of Gaza and we will not stop until the genocide crimes and the siege on Gaza stop. We are going to escalate our military targeting of Israel. The aggression in Yemen started in 2015, and this aggression has destroyed the infrastructure and caused a lot of suffering for the Yemeni people. This aggression was an American-British Zionist aggression, but done through tools of these three countries in the region and inside Yemen.

What's now happening is that the Yemenis are moving to a direct confrontation. This will only unify the Yemeni people and create more sympathy for the Yemeni cause in the region. Shima Khalil is following developments from Jerusalem. She told us more about the Yemeni reaction. It is difficult to get a handle on exactly how big their firepower is or the capacity but what we've seen on the ground is a significant rise in the number of attacks that are being launched from Yemen into Israeli

territory. This week alone for example we'd seen at least four missile attacks some of those were not intercepted in fact on Saturday for example the Israeli military said that they had failed to intercept a missile coming from Yemen. It fell into Israeli territory. It fell in a public park in Tel Aviv and injured more than a dozen people, albeit slight injuries from shrapnel and flying glass. But it is, as far as the Israeli government is concerned, this is an escalation. It's an escalation of Houthi aggression as they see it on Israeli territory. And so this defiance that we're seeing from the Houthi movement, from their leaders, is also backed by the fact that we've seen the sharp rise in their attacks. And if you look at the early months of the war, for example, the Houthis have started their activity, their military

activities very early on after the beginning of the war. For example, they targeted international shipping, if you remember, and that caused a crisis of its own in the beginning. And you're seeing them now with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon having suffered these devastating losses. They're trying to regroup on the ground. There is a ceasefire in Lebanon now between Israel and Hezbollah, albeit fragile. Israel continues with its military campaign against Hamas in northern Gaza. What you're seeing is the

Houthis coming to the fore, if you will, and saying we're going to intensify, we're going to escalate and we're going to keep doing that until the war in Gaza ends. And Shima, to what extent does their political legitimacy within Yemen stem from these acts of military defiance? I think it's important to remind our listeners that Yemen is a very divided country. The Houthis do not speak for the whole of the country. The Houthis are an Iran backed movement and that has taken over the capital Sana'a from the Yemeni government that control the northwest of Yemen. But remember there's the the Yemeni government in parts of Yemen, but also there's the Southern Transitional Council in the country's south in terms of firepower, in terms of engagement

in the regional conflict, in terms of being part of an Iran-led axis of resistance against Israel and the United States. The Houthis in Yemen have been quite visible, they've been quite vocal, and if you will, they've made a military mark on the ground with these attacks. But I think what's worrying the United Nations, for example, and other aid agencies is that the humanitarian situation in Yemen is quite dire. And it's been quite dire for many, many years since this conflict that started in 2015. Oh, Shyamak Allil. So what exactly is the US stance on what is currently happening in Yemen? There's an internal standoff between the Iranian-backed Houthis and the internationally

recognised Germany government. The Houthis have been disrupting shipping moving towards the Suez Canal and the US, UK and Israel have been attacking targets in Yemen with air strikes. Regarding the Israeli attack on the airport in Sana'a, Julian Hanes, the UN coordinator in Yemen, said the complex had a crucial function for the people of Yemen. It is the location whereby all of the international humanitarian aid workers who work in the north of the country come in and leave by. So if that airport is disabled, it will paralyze the humanitarian operations. It's also the airport by which thousands of Yemenis who

are unable to get decent advanced health care in the country leave to go either to Jordan or to Cairo or eventually to Mumbai to get advanced health care. Tim Lenderking was appointed US envoy to Yemen in 2021. He gave Owen Bennett-Jones his assessment on the current tensions with Israel. The context here is that the Houthis have been attacking Israel mostly without a response from the Israelis over months and months and months. I think Israeli patience is clearly wearing thin and that's why they've chosen to strike back.

So you're concerned about that, Bobing. I mean, do you think they shouldn't do it? Well I do think there's a distinction between military targets and civilian targets. I mean, if you look at the strikes that this coalition is doing, led by the United States, involving the UK and other countries, these are specifically targeted on military targets, those assets that the Houthis use to attack ships in the Red Sea. And we've been very precise about hitting those targets and not other targets outside of that framework with minimal loss of civilian life.

So does that mean you're asking Israel not to do this? You know, I think we have to be clear about what is being targeted, why it's being targeted. In this particular instance, obviously, it was extremely awkward that the director general of the WHO was at the airport at the time. My understanding is that the Israelis were not aware of that. I don't think there was any intention to strike near him had they known that he was there, but we don't have all of the details yet. But I think as Mr. Harnas said earlier, the ports of the airport are vital arteries to move humanitarian and commercial supplies into Yemen. So if you take those out or damage them, it is putting, you know,

spreading a lot of hurt on the Yemeni people writ large, not just the Houthis. I'm sorry to press you on this, but you see what you don't think that should happen? We think that there should not be attacks on civilian targets. I mean, if there's something that we need to know about those targets, then we should know that. The US envoy to Yemen, Tim Lenderking. What can humans learn from baboons? Well, quite a lot, it seems, if you're as observant as the renowned American primatologist Robert Sapolsky. He's become an internet sensation thanks to his groundbreaking undergraduate lecture series at Stanford University on human

behavior which draws heavily on his baboon research at a national park in East Africa. Evan Davis spoke to him and began by asking whether the baboons know who he is. They do and they have mixed opinions about me. The only direct interaction I've ever had with a baboon, there's a facial expression a baboon gives. If you're some low-ranking baboon and you're clearly about to be just pummeled by some high-ranking guy, you look around and you give this facial expression to see if anybody else is willing to come to your defense. And this poor kid was

just about to get it and was looking this way and that way and was having no luck at all. And then he looked at me and he did the facial expression at me. I found it most demeaning that clearly I was the last choice on his team. Baboons, humans, we're not the same thing, but you must obviously find yourself drawing comparisons between the two of us. They're actually perfect for what I study because of their human nature. I study what stress does to the brain. So studying stress out in the wild animal, oh my God, all they're going to be doing is

like worrying about predators. Baboons are different. They live in these big troops, 50 to 100 animals. Predators don't mess with them very often. They can get their day's food from about three hours of foraging. There's a critical implication to that, which is they've got nine hours of free time every day and they spent all of it devoted to generating psychological stress for each other. They're perfect models for westernized stress. You've sort of implied they're great to look at but you don't necessarily admire the social norms. Do you like human beings?

If I'm in a movie theater and somebody's walking down the aisle and I'm kind of looking at their butt and trying to figure out how much anesthetic I would need to dart them, at a time like that, you know, humans seem like a perfectly appealing primate to study. Humans have their good properties. Yeah, we actually are capable of achieving great things and collaborating and collaborating with each other and great generosity. And indeed, I think all the evidence is that we get a pleasure out of giving to others to be appreciated that way. Yes, because we do something no other organism can do. We can have an internal image as to how we think of ourselves and we could decide, that's not who I am.

I'm a better person than that. That's what makes us a very strange species. We're particularly peculiar in that we're simultaneously the most aggressive and competitive and violent, and we're the most altruistic and cooperative and empathic and often it's the same person who can generate those two extremes and often it's the same behavior and which extreme it counts as is in the eye of the beholder. We're a very peculiar primate. We are just emergent biological organisms that are the end product of all the hiccups that came before. Robert Sapolsky.

Still to come. The Netflix blaze craze that's outperforming its top shows at this time of year. The podcast exploring the minds, motives and the money of some of the world's wealthiest individuals. I'm Zing Zing and each week my co-presenter Simon Jack and I take a closer look at the world's mega rich and we try to decide whether they're good, bad or just another billionaire. From celebs and CEOs to sports stars and tech titans, find out how billionaires made their money and how they use it. Good Bad Billionaire from the BBC World Service. All episodes of season one and two are available now wherever you get your BBC podcasts and click follow or subscribe so you never miss a new episode. Now to Kazakhstan and investigations continue into what caused the crash of an Azerbaijani

passenger plane in the country on Christmas Day. Representatives of Azerbaijan Airlines speak of external physical and technical interference but they don't say what that could have been. 38 people died in that crash but there were some survivors. The plane had originally tried to land at Grozny airport in southern Russia, but was denied permission and diverted to Kazakhstan, where it crashed near the airport at Aktau. Well, the head of Russia's aviation watchdog, Dmitry Yadvrov, said the diversion was necessary because of a difficult situation around Grozny airport. I should note that the situation in the area of Grozny airport that day during those hours was quite difficult.

Ukrainian combat drones were mounting terrorist attacks on civilian infrastructure in the cities of Grozny and Vladikavkaz. Because of this, all aircraft had to leave the indicated airspace immediately. Our Europe regional editor Paul Moss told me more. It's very interesting, isn't it, to hear that a senior Russian aviation official acknowledged that at the time that plane was supposed to be landing in Grozhny, the city was under attack from Ukrainian drones. I mean, first of all, I have to say it makes you wonder why a civilian airline has been regularly flying passages into what is effectively a war zone. And in fact, Friday has seen several airlines suspend their flights to a lot of southern Russia, fly Dubai, El Al and Kazakh air. But more importantly, if drones were attacking Grozhny, it seems very likely that the military there would be firing missiles into the sky to stop them.

Now that doesn't provide proof, but it does add weight to the theory that a Russian missile might have accidentally hit the Azerbaijani aircraft. That would explain why it flew away in such a strange fashion. People who've studied its flight path say it looks like a plane flown by a pilot unable to control it. But then we also have the reports from passengers on board who say they heard one or more explosions when the plane was near Grozhny. Subonkol Rakimov was one of them. He's now given an interview and you can hear him mention right at the start a bang which he heard. When the first bang happened I looked around, quickly assessed the situation and I thought that the plane was going to fall apart. I thought that I should start praying. I started saying words. I started to remember the almighty God. I thought that those were probably my last words.

Meanwhile, Paul, the investigation is ongoing. What do we know? Well, it seems to be moving rather quickly. Azerbaijan's transport minister has already said that the plane seems to have suffered external interference. Now that covers a multitude of possibilities. It could refer to hitting a flock of birds. That's what the Russian authorities claimed right away had happened. But we are also hearing about leaks from the team carrying out the investigation.

Various people quoting unnamed sources saying they've already decided that the plane was hit by a Russian missile. Now bear in mind this is a very sensitive issue for the Azerbaijani government. Azerbaijan is an ally of Russia. It really doesn't want trouble with its very large and powerful neighbor. But the media in Azerbaijan is not totally controlled. Everyone there has been able to read these claims about Russia shooting the plane down. The government there will not be able to ignore what's likely to be a lot of public anger. I'm also struck that Russia seems to have gone relatively quiet on this subject. I mean, often when Russia is accused of doing wrong, you get politicians and preface officers

quickly mobilized to issue these stringent denials, even when it looks like Russia's been caught red-handed doing something. Now, it hasn't been like that this time. It is possible that they are preparing the ground for one big mayor-culper. This could be one of the few times when Russia is forced to admit that it's made a fatal mistake, but that is far from certain. We'll have to wait and see. Paul Moss. He is accused of having set a woman on fire on a subway train in New York six days ago and on Friday Sebastian Zapeta was charged with murder. He was not present at the hearing. Lucy Hawkins spoke to the BBC's North America correspondent Rowan Bridge and asked him for the background to the incident. This was

about 7.30 in the morning when police say this woman was apparently asleep on a subway train when, as you say, a person went over to her with a lighter and set her alight. They say she was engulfed in flames within a matter of seconds, in part because those flames were fanned by the person holding a shirt. Police became aware of what was happening and rushed to the scene. They used a fire extinguisher to try and put out the flames, but sadly the woman died at the scene. At the moment, she hasnher to try and put out the flames but sadly the woman died at the scene. At the moment she hasn't been identified. It's thought she may have been a homeless person but they are now trying to use DNA and fingerprint, advanced fingerprint

techniques to identify who she might be. Sebastian Zapata was arrested soon afterwards because he was caught on surveillance cameras and police body worn camera footage and was recognised by some school children who alerted the authorities. He was arrested soon afterwards and there was a court hearing where he was charged with a number of offences including murder one which is the most serious murder offence you can face that carries in the state of New York a sentence of life without parole if convicted. He also faces an arson charge and a number of other murder charges. He is due to appear in court

again at the start of the new year. Do we know any more details about Home Rule and about Sebastian Zapeta? Yes, so he was illegally in the country and had been deported. He was from Central America. He had been deported and had then returned to the country at some point illegally, but it's not clear how exactly he came to be back in the country. And at the moment, the police don't believe he had any relationship with the person that he set alight.

But at the moment, the circumstances as to exactly what happened and what the motive was behind this attack still remain uncertain. And has this caused further conversations to be had about things like safety on the subway system at the moment? Yeah, I mean I think it's something that New Yorkers are aware of because millions of them travel on the New York subway system every day. There has been an increase this year in murders on the New York subway trains compared to

last year from five to nine but obviously millions of people ride the subway system every day and murders thankfully and deaths of this kind on the subway system are thankfully very rare. Rowan Bridge. Homelessness is a growing problem worldwide that many cities are struggling to deal with but one Canadian city is trying a different approach. Instead of banning tent encampments, the authorities in Halifax are regulating them. But as Nadine Youssef reports, not everyone is happy about it. Surviving, you know, wake up and survive.

This is Andrew Goodsell, a homeless man in Halifax, a city on Canada's Atlantic coast. He lives in a small orange tent on a grassy patch downtown, nestled between apartment buildings, a hospital and a university. I wake up in an area I don't want to be. I'd much rather wake up in a spot where I could take a shower and maybe make myself something to eat. His tent is part of an encampment that was chosen by the city as a place where people without housing can lawfully camp outside.

The sites were approved this summer as a temporary, but some argue necessary, solution as indoor shelters are constantly full. It is a departure from policies of the past, where encampments were instead forcibly removed in so-called street sweeps, and potentially a new solution to address persisting homelessness in Canadian cities. One of the largest groups of homelessness we see growing is simply people who don't have enough money to pay rent. Max Chauvin, Halifax's director of housing and homelessness, says that the number of homeless people in his city

has grown more than tenfold since 2018. It became especially visible after the COVID-19 pandemic. He says it is mostly due to how expensive rent has become. What used to be a $700 a month apartment in the city can now run people up to $2,000. Among the city's homeless, he says, are students, senior citizens, and even entire families. There are now five designated encampments in the city's public parks where people can shelter outside in tents. All are equipped with portable toilets by the city, and outreach workers come bi-weekly to drop off bottled water and check in on residents. The new scheme is designed to buy time for the government while it tries to ramp up

housing and shelter construction. But most encampments are already over capacity. But Halifax's approach to designate encampments is not without its critics. This used to be a fun field where the kids could come out and play. We played baseball, kickball. Now we can't even do that because we're too worried about stepping on a needle, stepping on a pipe. Clarissa is a mother of three who lives right next to one of Halifax's designated encampment sites.

She tells the BBC that she and her neighbors were not consulted prior to the site being set up next to them, and that it has since brought crime and litter to her neighborhood. When I spoke to people who lived in those tents, they told me that they are desperate for city officials to come up with a long-term solution, one that includes permanent and dignified affordable housing.

Despite the opposition, the lawful encampments are here to stay, for now. Nadine Youssef reporting. In the days between Christmas and New Year many people are found around their television sets and in between the new shows and nostalgic films there might be little to worry about other than what to watch but this year on Netflix something has attracted a surprising amount of attention Alfie Haberschen has been investigating. attention. Alfie Haberschen has been investigating. Christmas isn't really a big deal in South Korea, but the creators of Squid Game knew

what they were doing when they released the second series on Boxing Day, when the long family lunches are probably over but a return to working life has not yet begun. Series one is the most watched show ever on Netflix but it seems the dystopian thriller isn't quite matching the Christmas mood as this year in the US and the UK something else was more popular. But it wasn't any of the Christmas classics either. How the Grinch stole Christmas, Santa Claus and the holiday were all beaten by something more appealing and more captivating. An hour-long video of a crackling fire, or as Netflix calls it, birch logs that set the

mood with glowing embers and dancing flames. It may be in demand because it eases Christmas tension when families spend more time together than they might be used to. In fact, the University of Alabama says watching a fire on a screen actually lowers your blood pressure and after spending tens of millions on Squid Game 2, Netflix might also be feeling more relaxed after drawing people in with something a little cheaper. Alfie Habershon. And that's 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 globalpodcast

at bbc.co.uk. This edition was mixed by Mohammed Massoud Ibrahim Khayel. The producer was Liam McSheffrey. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Nick Miles and until next time, goodbye. Do you ever find yourself missing out on episodes of your favorite podcasts because you didn't know a new one's out? Well, here's an easy way to get new episodes automatically. Whether it's World of Secrets or any of your other favorite BBC World Service podcasts, just find the show on your podcast app and click follow or subscribe. And if you switch on notifications, you'll get a reminder too. It's that easy. Follow or subscribe and never miss an episode.