Global News Podcast - Obama says US is ready for a new chapter with Harris

Episode Date: August 21, 2024

Barack and Michelle Obama electrify Democrats at the party convention but warn of a tight race for the White House. Also: a new law in Hungary could make Ukrainians homeless, and Jennifer Lopez files for divorce from Ben Affleck.

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. This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Janet Jalil and at 13 Hours GMT on Wednesday the 21st of August, these are our main stories. Barack and Michelle Obama have given impassioned endorsements of Kamala Harris at the Democratic National Convention.

We hear why thousands of Ukrainian refugees in Hungary could become homeless or be forced to return to Ukraine. New research suggests processed meat like ham could raise the risk of type 2 diabetes. Also in this podcast, Bennifer no more. It's not a surprise. I mean, Ben has already bought a $20 million home and he's living there separately from her. Jennifer Lopez files for divorce from Ben Affleck. We start in Chicago at the Democratic National Convention, where two of the Democratic Party's most popular figures, the former President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle, have used their star power to throw their backing behind Kamala Harris, saying that she inspired the same sense of hope

and excitement that led to Mr. Obama becoming America's first black president. In back-to-back speeches that electrified the audience in the packed arena in Chicago, they tore into Donald Trump, describing him as weird and stale and mocking his obsession with crowd sizes and his use of the term black jobs. Our correspondent Emma Vardy sent this report from there. Chicago, are you ready? There was a DJ on the decks, a rapper on the mic, and a party atmosphere in the arena. People danced as state by state. Delegates cast their votes, choosing Kamala Harris as the Democrats' presidential

nominee. But this was only symbolic. The official process had happened two weeks earlier to meet ballot deadlines, but states delivered their endorsements with enthusiasm. Illinois cast 176 votes for the next president of the United States. The delegates at the Democratic National Convention, well, they just completed their roll call. Kamala Harris joined live over video from her rally in the swing state of Wisconsin. And they have nominated Coach Walls and me to be the next vice president and president of the United States of America.

We are ready for a president, Kamala Harris. There was always going to be huge importance placed on the words of former President Barack Obama. And first, he paid tribute to Joe Biden. History will remember Joe Biden as an outstanding president who defended democracy at a moment of great danger. And he delivered a scathing characterization of Donald Trump, portraying him as a man of the past. It is one of the oldest tricks in politics from a guy whose act has, let's face it, gotten pretty stale. We do not need four more years of bluster and bumbling and chaos. We have seen that movie before and we all know that the sequel is usually worse. And one of the most popular figures in U.S. politics, Michelle Obama, received a standing ovation. Hope is making a comeback. The former

first lady, who famously said she doesn't like politics, had this political crowd electrified. And she went after Donald Trump for his recent comment, which backfired over black jobs. See, his limited, narrow view of the world made him feel threatened by the existence of two hard-working, highly educated, successful people who happen to be black. I want to know. I want to know. Who's going to tell him that the job he's currently seeking might just be one of those black jobs? It was a personal touch as Kamala Harris's family took to the stage. Her husband Doug revealing that she delights in replaying his awkward first date voicemail back to him every anniversary. I got Kamala's voicemail and I just started

rambling. Hey, it's Doug. From the sea to the river. rambling. Hey, it's Doug. Outside, pro-Palestinian protesters clashed with police in a second night of large demonstrations which are set to continue. But in this arena, tonight will be remembered as the moment that the Obamas lent their star appeal, born out of victories past, to Kamala Harris in a bid to persuade voters to choose her as the future. That report by Emma Vardy in Chicago. Well, my colleague Justin Webb is also in Chicago, and he gave this analysis of Barack Obama's convention speech. His sole job, really, was to set a course for this entire convention towards that famous phrase that he made famous when he was running,

and he used it right at the beginning of his speech. And the phrase is, I don't know about you, I'm feeling fired up and ready to go. It is good to be home and I don't know about you, but I'm feeling fired up. And he used to say that. I heard him say it again and again in the 2008 campaign and it worked brilliantly because, although it's vague,

it persuaded people that something was stirring, and it was something positive that was stirring. That is what Obama's job was today, he and Michelle, and that's what unquestionably, at least inside this hall, he has achieved. So not a list of policies, nothing like that, but this sense that there is something afoot and it's something positive and it's something that can lead to victory in November.

Is there always a sort of positive reaction after the hoo-ha and the jamboree of a convention? Well, yeah, I mean, there always has been in the past. You look for a bounce, a polling bounce. It's a bit different this year because so many peculiar things, unprecedented things have happened, really, or certainly the fact of them all happening together is unprecedented. This has been the oddest summer in American politics, certainly in modern times. So who knows whether there'll be a polling bounce. gruelling work starts once September comes and specifically, I suppose, once this debate happens between her and Donald Trump on September the 10th. Until then, I think it's impossible to say really that anything important in opinion terms comes from this convention. It's more the setting of the stage for the kind of campaign that the Democrats want to fight and think can be successful. That's the importance of this week. Justin Webb speaking to Simon Jack.

A new law has come into force in Hungary, which means only Ukrainian refugees from areas directly affected by fighting will be supported by the Hungarian state. It's believed around 31,000 Ukrainians are in Hungary because of Russia's invasion. Hungary currently holds the EU's rotating presidency and not long after assuming it, the Hungarian leader Viktor Orban angered many in the EU by going to Moscow for what he dubbed peace talks to try to end the war in Ukraine, days after he'd visited Kiev. I got more on this with our reporter in Budapest, Nick Thorpe. But first, I asked him what this new law means for Ukrainian refugees in Hungary. The UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, has calculated it could affect 2,000 to 3,000 people of the

31,000 or so that are believed to be in the country from Ukraine at the moment. What it means for them, it's pretty serious, because most of those people have come from areas of Ukraine. Obviously, the whole country is affected by war, but only 13 regions, oblasts of Ukraine, are listed in the law where people can continue to receive state support. So in a nutshell, it means that several thousand people who've been getting state support, that's for shelter, food and so on, will no longer be able to receive that. And this comes just weeks after Viktor Orban controversially visited Ukraine and Russia,

casting himself as a peacemaker. That's right. Mr. Orban's policies towards Ukraine have really stood out as rather different from the rest of the EU. He's been very keen to stress the amount of humanitarian aid Hungary gives to Ukraine, especially to western Ukraine, where there's a sizable Hungarian minority. But at the same time, his policies have been very much against supplying weapons of any kind or allowing the transit of weapons to Ukraine across Hungarian territory. Of course, that's not so important to Ukraine because they can get weapons through other directions. But it's really put Hungary at odds. And so it seems almost everything Mr. Orban does

is pretty controversial when it comes to Ukraine. Yes, and that includes easing the entry requirements for Russians and Belarusians. And this is really increasing tensions with the EU at a time when Hungary holds a rotating presidency. Yes, exactly. This happened beginning of July. So pretty much every month something happens which increases these tensions between the Hungarian government and the EU presidency. Basically, they had a list of countries which could apply for a national card, they could come to work easily in Hungary, a sort of fast-track procedure, and Russians and Belarusians were added to that in a new decree which came into force in July. Nick Thorpe in Hungary. Meanwhile in Ukraine itself the fighting grinds on in the east around the strategically important city of Pokrovsk.

Civilians continue to be evacuated as Russian troops advance. Seredovo is one of the affected towns near Pokrovsk. The BBC receives this voice note from a man who was evacuated with his family from that city in eastern Ukraine. He asks that we keep his identity hidden for security reasons. I dealt with the logistics. People are really leaving the Donetsk region. A large number of cars. More and more often, as in the first days of the invasion, people take everything they can, load trailers, and you just see these stuffed cars with Donetsk license plates.

But in Selidovo city itself, I walked today, talked with local people. They say that many people stayed until the end. But often there are people who were there just yesterday and say they will not go anywhere. And then they go. Many people are leaving, and many are still staying, but the pace is increasing. Today, for example, the last ATM was dismantled in Selidovo, and people came and said that we can no longer withdraw money here, that for that we need to go to Prokofsk. I asked the neighbors of my grandparents. They said that they did not have such an opportunity and that there was nowhere to go. If they at least had the opportunity to leave, like I did, they would have left without hesitation. It's also difficult for me. We were speaking with

my grandparents about it for a long time yesterday, but they were determined not to leave. But during all this time there has been heavy shelling. Everything is flying everywhere, including grads, artillery. When I was staying there, things were flying in the sky at night. I woke up several times during the night from very close and loud explosions. It's not just guided aerial bombs. It's most likely artillery, meaning the Russians can reach the city with short-range artillery. While there are fewer and fewer people, people are in panic. There is a big problem with housing because in the nearby

Dnipropetrovsk region, prices have skyrocketed and there is another wave of people fleeing, which is very noticeable. It is even visually visible. The words of a Ukrainian man who has evacuated with his family from Selidovo in eastern Ukraine. Now, do you like a ham sandwich or a sausage roll? Well, if you do, I'm afraid there's some bad news for you. A new worldwide study of more than 2 million people suggests a link between eating processed meat and type 2 diabetes. That's according to scientists at Cambridge University

who found that eating just 50 grams of ham or sausages a day makes people 15% more likely to develop the disease within 10 years. Type 2 diabetes affects more than 400 million people worldwide and can cause blindness, heart disease, strokes and lower limb amputation. Our health editor, Michelle Roberts, told us more about the link this research has found. I think the key word you just said then is link. Now, this can't prove that the diet is causing diabetes. We just don't know. There's been a suggestion for a while that processed meat in particular, by processed I mean things that have salt added or other manufacturing things to extend the shelf life of it or change the taste. So we're talking about

salami, that kind of thing, that might have health risks if you eat a lot of it now what's a lot in this study they're saying that if you're having it daily over the recommended amount which you know we know that lots of healthy eating advice is saying mix in with vegetables don't eat meat necessarily every day so what the researchers were looking at was the more extreme end and they are saying as well as other experts that I've spoken to that this isn't the final word so we do know that processed meat eating a lot of it is quite strongly linked with bowel cancer but with diabetes the question mark's still there. Well this is it because I think a lot of people know about the links with bowel cancer but they'll be surprised that it's been linked to diabetes, because when you think of that,

you tend to think of things like sugar and carbs. You do, but it's all about what's the ingredient. So it might be something to do with the processing, according to these researchers. But also, all foods can have an impact on your blood sugar levels. But with diabetes, there are lots of known strong risk factors. So things like family history, and also your body weight, if you're overweight or obese, that's a real big risk factor for type two diabetes. So it's difficult to tease all of these apart. And that's what is difficult about this research is a good piece of research. But it's really hard when you're asking people to recall what they've eaten. Michelle Roberts.

Still to come. One of the women was just saying to me, it's so important, not just for the women who've been able to come to Scotland, but for all the girls of Afghanistan who know that it's possible, very, very difficult, but possible for them to fulfil their dreams and aspirations. We hear why a group of Afghan women is being welcomed in Scotland. You're 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 Global News, AmeriCast and The Global Story, plus other great BBC podcasts from history to comedy to true crime, all ad-free.

Simply subscribe to BBC Podcast Premium on Apple Podcasts or listen to Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC Podcasts. The Australian government has given the green light to the first stages of what it describes as the country's biggest renewable energy project ever. The plan is to create an enormous solar farm in the Northern Territory Outback which it's hoped will power three million homes as well as send energy to Singapore via undersea cables. Our correspondent in Sydney Phil Mercer told us more about the ambitious project.

This is the Sun Cable project. It will be, according to the government, Australia's biggest solar farm. It will be enormous, about 12,000 hectares in size and built on a former grazing property near the very small town of Elliott in the Northern Territory with a population of just under 400 people. So enormous changes are coming to that part of the red dust of the outback. The government here in Australia says it has the potential to power three million homes and many of those could be in another country. Now, this solar and battery farm would also include an 800 kilometre transmission line to the tropical Australian city of Darwin. And eventually, that undersea cable you mentioned could eventually export electricity to Singapore. And that's a distance from Darwin

to Singapore, including the extra distance to the solar farm would be well over 3000 kilometres. So Phil, what about the environment in the outback? Are there concerns about that? Well, there are strict environmental concerns or strict environmental conditions, I should say, attached to this approval by the Federal Environment Minister, Tanya Plibersek. There have been concerns that this development could change the water flows into one of the Northern Territory's largest inland freshwater lakes and also impact threatened species such as the greater bilby, which is a very well-known marsupial in this country, and also other threatened birds and lizards. But the federal government in Australia says that these strict environmental measures will ensure that the environmental damage of this project will be kept to a minimum.

Phil Mercer. The Italian Coast Guard says it's deployed an underwater robot to help search for the six people who are missing after a super yacht sank off the coast of Sicily on Monday. The luxury sailing ship, which is lying on its side 50 metres down, sank in minutes after a sudden tornado-like weather event. Among the missing is a British technology entrepreneur, Mike Lynch. The body of a man recovered near the yacht is believed to be that of Ricardo Thomas, a Canadian Antiguan chef who was working on the boat. His friends have been paying tribute. Gareth Williams, who lives in Antigua, knew Thomas for 30 years. He's just one of these people that's just in your life,

always been in your life, always been cool. He was always there. He was ready to help you, ready to defend you, and ready to make you laugh. And he just loved his life and he was getting close to retiring you know i fight saying this but you know like he did tell me not too long ago like one more maybe two more seasons and he's done and i'll put my money down and a lot of our friends say that he stayed on that boat because there were people on that boat and he would have stayed there on that boat as long as possible to get other people off he would

not leave that boat without helping whether it's his crew or if it's the guests there were kids on the boat i know i know there's no way and that's how i see it and a lot of us see it like that and i you'll want to think your friend is a hero, right? But that's the human he was, man. He'd have put his life on the line for people. He would have. Gareth Williams there talking about his friend, Ricardo Thomas. In the three years since the Taliban retook control of Afghanistan, human rights groups say gender apartheid has hit Afghanistan's 14 million women and girls, excluding them from almost every aspect of public life, including education. But now a charity has brought 19 Afghan women to the UK so that they can finish their medical

degrees. Ella Bicknell reports. Handshakes, hugs, tears and smiles as 19 medical students walk through the arrivals gate at Edinburgh airport. Since the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan, the students' dreams of becoming doctors have been on hold, but no longer, thanks to a charity set up in memory of a Scottish aid worker. Linda Norgrove was kidnapped by the Taliban in 2010 and died during an attempt to rescue her. Her parents set up a foundation in her name to support projects helping Afghan women and girls. The charity has raised tens of thousands of dollars to get the women to the UK. This process has taken two years. Negotiating living support, free tuition, changes to visa

rules, even a last-minute intervention by British consular staff in Pakistan, making sure the group were allowed to board their plane. A Scotland office minister in the British government, Kirsty McNeill, says it will all be worth it. One of the women was just saying to me it's so important not just for the women who've been able to come to Scotland, but for all the girls of Afghanistan who know that it's possible, very, very difficult, but possible for them to fulfil their dreams and aspirations. Of course, Scotland has a really long tradition in medical science in particular, and in educating women. The fact that they could be here in Scotland means such a huge amount.

I know they'll have a fantastic welcome. For these 19 young women, their education continues. be here in Scotland means such a huge amount. I know they'll have a fantastic welcome. For these 19 young women, their education continues. But for more than a million girls and women who remain in Afghanistan, there's no access to formal education. In fact, it remains the only country that bans school for girls beyond primary school age. Ella Bicknell. BYD is among the Chinese electric vehicle makers facing fresh tariffs on imports to the European Union, tariffs which are designed to try to protect domestic car makers. Turkey is not in the EU, but it is in the customs union.

So what could these tariffs mean for BYD's plans to build a factory in Turkey in a deal potentially worth a billion dollars? Victoria Craig has this report. Manisa is a city on Turkey's west coast, just an hour or so away from key transportation links to Europe. Major automobile makers like Ford, Toyota and Hyundai have factories in the region, and they'll soon be joined by the Chinese electric vehicle company BYD. Turkey is not in the European Union, but it is in the customs union, so it can trade goods freely with EU countries,

meaning that BYD can avoid a new nearly 40% import tariff on Chinese-made electric vehicles by setting up shop in Turkey. It's a stiflingly hot afternoon in Manisa, but factory workers are buzzing over hot cups of Turkish tea about news of the $1 billion BYD investment in their city. A young man named Yasin tells me when multinational companies like Mitsubishi come in, new housing, transportation and schools often follow. His friend Ferdi says because of the current economic crisis, which features inflation of just about 72 percent, people will be desperate to work at the BYD factory.

The company says 5,000 jobs will be on offer, but Ferdi estimates it could get as many as 10,000 applicants. Workers won't have to wait too long to find out, as Manisa's mayor, Ferdi Zeyrek, explains. The owner of BYD said, I want to see my first car on the roads in Manisa in 13 months. To help reach that goal, we will provide all the support we can in the zoning regulation and infrastructure construction, and the construction will start as soon as possible. An aggressive timeline, yes. But he said BYD will bring its own workers from China to help speed up the process. As for what that means for the long-term mix of employment

opportunities? Turkish people will also work here. Engineers from China will also probably come and work here. Now, this is the question. I don't know how the distribution of 5,000 people will be or what the business structures will be, but a system will be formed here with the integration of people coming from China and engineers or workers in Manisa. Aslı Aydın Taşbaş is a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, and she says the European Union is unlikely to take action against Turkey for encouraging BYD to open a manufacturing facility in Manisa, thus avoid paying import tariffs. I think it would be too escalatory for Europe to reduce its exposure to Turkey. It's a huge

market for Europe, but also a huge manufacturing base for some European companies. So I think there would be a pause when it comes to penalizing Turkey. Back in Manisa, Yasin and Ferdi, the friends we met at the local tea house, say regardless of what motivated BYD to bring the investment to their city,

the benefits for their community will be huge, maybe even enough to tempt them to leave their own factory jobs down the road. Victoria Craig reporting. Now, it's been described as Benefa. I've been married four times now. I used to be terrified to be alone. I didn't know what else to do by myself.

I have decided to tell my story and I've never shared with anybody in the world. Action. The trailer for The Greatest Love Story Never Told, Jennifer Lopez's documentary about her life, her marriage to Ben Affleck and the making of her album This Is Me Now. But now, after a relationship that spanned two decades, involved a big split because of intrusive media attention, two engagements, two weddings and too many headlines to count, Bennifer is about to end. US media say Jennifer Lopez, or J-Lo as she's known to her many fans,

filed the divorce papers personally in Los Angeles. Jeannie Wolfe is an entertainment journalist in Hollywood. It's not a surprise. I mean, Ben has already bought a $20 million home and he's living there separately from her. And when he didn't come to the Met Ball, the big New York fashion ball, you know, that kind of started the talk. And then a couple of weeks later, Ben was seen with what the tabloids are calling a do-over or a future change in life haircut, kind of a partly Mohawk is, you know, hair shaved on the sides and him riding a motorcycle. And that certainly created enough conversation. I think what caused the end of the relationship is something he talked

about in the loving documentary she made about falling in love with him. And that is, he said, I don't want a life on social media. And what he really meant is he wanted a quieter, let's say more normal life where everything they did wasn't in public. And he got serious about it. And for Jennifer, it's just part of her nature. You know, it's part of being a pop star. It's part of being a singing star. And, you know, that she wanted everything grand and splashy and in public. And he certainly went along with it for a while. That seems to be the reason. And he was pretty frank about that. And I think they both will be when things calm down, because there's a tremendous attraction there, but they just couldn't figure out a way to live together. She is very romantic, and yet

her romance, he felt that she wouldn't be private about it. In the documentary, he talks about sending her a book that he made with the love letters and the emails they sent back and forth, and she shared that with the people she made the documentary with. And he said that really troubled him because he felt that certain things are just too private to share. And she felt she was so excited about their relationship that she wanted to share it with the world. Entertainment journalist Jeannie Wolfe. And that's all from us for now, but there will be a new edition of the Global News Podcast later. If you want to comment on this podcast, you can send us an email. The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X at Global News Pod. This edition was mixed

by Sydney Dundon. The producer was Tracy Gordon. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Janette Jalil. Until next time, goodbye. 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 Global News, AmeriCast and The Global Story, plus other great BBC podcasts from history to comedy to true crime, all ad-free.

Simply subscribe to BBC Podcast Premium on Apple Podcasts or listen to Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC Podcasts.