Global News Podcast - Opening ceremony of Olympic Games takes place in Paris

Episode Date: July 27, 2024

In spectacular style, bridges and riverbanks were used as catwalks, stages and grandstands, with performances by Lady Gaga in French and the French-Malian singer, Aya Nakamura. The culmination of the show included Celine Dion standing on an illuminated Eiffel Tower. Also: Bangladesh police detain protest leaders at a hospital, and a Scottish peat bog gets UNESCO world heritage status.

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 Jackie Leonard and in the early hours of Saturday, the 27th of July, these are our main stories.

The Olympic flag has been raised in central Paris during a spectacular rain-soaked opening ceremony for the 2024 Games in the French capital. A flotilla of boats transported the athletes down the River Seine, watched by an audience of hundreds of thousands on the city's quays and bridges. In other news, Mexico is demanding a full report from Washington about the arrest of two notorious drugs lords. Also in this podcast, a vast blanket peat bog achieves UNESCO World Heritage status. The ecosystem supports a huge range of rare plants, insects, birds and animals. We begin in France. The 2024 Olympic Games in the French capital Paris have opened with a stunning display of French culture, architecture and heritage, and the pageantry of the world's top athletes sailing down the River Seine on boats,

a procession lined by fireworks and water jets. In the initial stages, musicians including Lady Gaga and Aya Nakamura performed alongside teams of dancers, high-kicking the can-can or perching perilously on poles. Others danced on the roofs of nearby buildings. Hundreds of thousands of people were on the river's bridges and quays. The ceremony was closed by Celine Dion singing on the Eiffel Tower. These people were on the river's bridges and quays. The ceremony was closed by Celine Dion singing on the Eiffel Tower. These people were in the crowd. It's been my dream to be here since I was a child. I am having so much fun.

There is no way to describe this. I'm really nervous because this is what I've been waiting for all my life. I feel excited. I'm so happy that I can be here in Paris and I can watch the Olympics and how the tourists are coming. Team USA, I love all sports. We're going to a soccer game and a rugby match, but Team USA and I'm really looking forward to LeBron James and Coco walking and carrying the American flag. But not everyone was happy.

The sound system doesn't work, it's poorly orientated and we can't hear anything. The screens are so small it's catastrophic and we can't see the same and we can't watch the monitors. We're in the sand and we can't sit. Plan B? We'll go to a bar instead or go home. Our reporter David Chazanne, who is in Paris, summed up the event. I'm sorry to have to report that it rained on the parade along the Seine and it didn't ruin things, but some VIPs left the stands specially built along the riverbanks a bit earlier than planned to seek shelter. And it probably looked better on television than it felt under the driving rain.

But there was still a carnival atmosphere and some electrifying performances. Lady Gaga sang in French, and I can vouch for her accent. Very impressive. Acrobats danced on the scaffolding at Notre Dame Cathedral, whose reconstruction is now nearly complete after the devastating fire. There was a ballet sequence on a rooftop, another with the Olympic torch spirited away across rooftops by a figure in a Napoleon-era military costume. And there was a memorable image of a metallic horse with a caped rider galloping down river, mounted, of course, on a barge. And

then we saw a real rider on dry land arriving with the Olympic flag for the close of the ceremony. The flag was hoisted while the Olympic anthem rang out. It was nothing if not spectacular. And La Marseillaise, the French national anthem, was sung by a 28-year-old opera singer, Axel Saint-Cyril, from the French Caribbean territory of Guadeloupe, with President Macron and other dignitaries standing to attention. And the Malian-born French R&B star Aya Nakamura performed a Charles Aznavour song in a gold costume with the French Republican Guard marching alongside with their drums. And far-right leaders

had objected to Nakamura's role, saying it would, in their words, humiliate France. But the organizers and the master of ceremonies, the theater director Thomas Joly, were determined to celebrate the diversity of modern France alongside its rich history and cultural heritage. And in another strong symbol, given the Gaza conflict, delegations from both Israel and Palestine took part separately in the waterborne procession along the river. So did it live up to expectations? What's the reaction been like so far in France? Because as you say, it was designed for a TV audience.

So would spectators have really been aware of what was going on in all the different places? How did it work? Well, probably a bit less well than the television audience, estimated, by the way, at one billion across the world. But there were a whole series of giant screens set up. So the bits that they couldn't see, they could watch on those giant screens. So I think they got a pretty good sense of what was going on, particularly seeing all those national delegations going past in the boats.

That was David Chazanne in Paris. Well, of course, a lot of the people who wanted to witness the events in Paris on Friday had their plans scuppered by a coordinated sabotage attack on the French high-speed rail network. A series of arson attacks affected around 800,000 passengers and it's expected to continue over the next few days. The new French Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, has urged people to be vigilant. The investigation has begun. I call on everyone to be cautious. What we know, what we can see, is that this operation was prepared, coordinated, that nerve centres were targeted, which shows a form of knowledge of the network in order to know where to strike.

The French intelligence services are leading the investigation. The security plan in Paris was already intense as the city is facing a series of threats, either against athletes from particular countries or the Olympics as a whole. But the president of the International Olympic Committee, Thomas Bach, says he's confident about security. All the measures are being taken and the French authorities are assisted by 180 other intelligence services around the world. And not only by information, some of them are even deploying their human resources. And so we have good reasons to have full confidence.

Our security correspondent Frank Gardner gave his assessment. I think we can't rule out the possibility of somebody having insider knowledge, somebody who worked for the railways or had worked as a contractor for the railways because they knew exactly what to do to cause maximum disruption but no casualties. So ever since these attacks were first reported in the early hours of the morning overnight, French intelligence would have been working together with the police and the railway company to try and work out who could have done this, who had been seen in the vicinity, were there any fingerprints, is there any forensic evidence that can be gathered from the scene.

Now interestingly some people are pointing out that there is a similarity here to an earlier arson attack that took place in September last year in northern Germany, and that was claimed by a far-left website. Now, that doesn't mean that it was a far-left group this time, but far-left and far-right activists, extremists will be under the microscope, I think, for this one. We shouldn't also forget that back in April, President Macron said he had no doubt whatsoever that leaders in Russia, in Moscow, would be looking to disrupt and damage the Olympic Games. This is in retaliation for France's support of Ukraine as it tries to repel the Russian invasion. And two months ago, coffins were left at the base of the Eiffel Tower,

draped in French flags, saying, French soldiers in Ukraine. They're really working on a bit of a blank sheet with this. But as I say, the fact that it doesn't appear to be terrorism, unless it's some very clever diversionary tactic to try and draw attention away from somewhere else, but nothing is going to change the fact that there is going to be intense security right now in Paris. I think the French authorities are going to be holding their breath

until the whole of these Olympic Games are over. That was Frank Gardner. Well, with the opening ceremony now ended, there is a tight schedule to fit in more than 10,000 athletes competing across 32 Olympic sports. In fact, just to squeeze it all in, some events have already started, including football, rugby sevens, handball and archery. Lee James from BBC Sports World talked us through the action to come.

Lots to look forward to, Jackie. Real sense of anticipation here in Paris for those games, which, as you say, did begin on Wednesday. Rugby sevens is one of those that a number of people here are looking forward to because there's a real hope that France can deliver one of their gold medals. They're targeting. They're already through to the semifinal stages. Antoine Dupont is the face of these Paris Olympics, and he's the megastar from the 15-a-side ranks, the captain of his country, voted World Player of the Year in 2021.

He switched to the Sevens. He missed the Six Nations to focus on a bid for Olympic glory, and he's got the crowd at the Stade de France where the Rugby Sevens is played. Really overwhelmed with how they've been performing. They've got a semi-final to come on Saturday against South Africa, and then all the action begins on the opening day. The first gold medal will be in the shooting,

the mixed-team air rifle event, which is at Chateauroux, which is some two and a half hours away from Paris by train. But the swimming is perhaps, Jackie, the real highlight for Saturday. La Défense Arena is where we're going to see the seven-time Olympic champion Katie Ledecky, who's one gold medal away from becoming the most successful female Olympic swimmer of all time, but a great rivalry with Australia's Ariane Titmuss and Summer McIntosh of Canada in the 400-metre freestyle, one of the really standout events from the first week of the swimming programme.

And tell us about the new event we can look forward to. Yes, we've got one new event this time around and it is the sport of breaking it's emerged from the breakdancing scene the bronx in in new york in the 1970s now a fully fledged sport making its debut here with 16 men and 16 women taking part in the competition it gets underway towards the end though of these olymp. That's the brand new sport. There are some innovations though for some of the sports that we're going to be seeing over these games like kayak cross which is making its debut. It's a form of canoe slalom but with four athletes racing against each other and there's gender parity at these Olympic Games for the first time

in Olympic history. So artistic swimming for men is debuting at these Games and an equal number of male and female competitors across all the medal events at these Games. Lee James in Paris. Now to other news. The president of Mexico, Andres Manuel López Obrador, has called for a complete and transparent investigation into the arrest of two of Mexico's biggest drug traffickers

accused of smuggling huge amounts of heroin, cocaine and fentanyl into the US. Ismael Elmayo Zambada is the co-founder of Mexico's notorious Sinaloa cartel. A lawyer for Mr Zambada said he'd appeared in court where he pleaded not guilty. He was detained on Thursday along with Joaquin Guzman Lopez, the son of another co-founder known as El Chapo, who is himself serving a life sentence in the United States. The U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland welcomed the news. El Mayo and Guzman Lopez join a growing list of Sinaloa cartel leaders and associates who the Justice Department is holding accountable in the United States. Fentanyl is the deadliest drug threat our country

has ever faced. The Justice Department will not rest until every single cartel leader, member and associate responsible for poisoning our communities is held accountable. Daniel Pardo from BBC Mundo has been following this story, and he told us more about President Obrador's reaction. He celebrated the actual fact that Mayo was arrested, but he did give a few nuances on the in the sense that there is some speculation on the fact that he might have been surrendered and the Mexican authorities have not been clarified about this. And that does have implications because of the information that El Mayo might give the U.S. authorities about the

Mexican authorities. Do bear in mind that El Mayo was a leader of the Carte de Sinaora who was in charge of the connections and links and relationships with the authorities, with the police, with the political system. So this is a person who has a lot of information and this is going to have a lot of implications on what was the means, what was the context of his either surrender or his arrest. And now the president wants a report from the US, doesn't he? Yeah, of course. He hasn't had one. He got informed about this, as we did through the media.

He wasn't, you know, informed of the fact that they were a couple of hours before the United States authorities. So yeah, this does have implications. And obviously, this is something that determines the relationship between two countries that have all sorts of things together. And with the elections coming, and he knows that this has an implication for the Democrat Party, in the sense that this is something that they are going to boast about in the campaign. So, yeah, it has a lot of political implications, really. And what do we know about the actual arrests of these two men? So they thought they were going to the south of Mexico, looking to check on these

clandestine landfills. But the person who was in charge of that operation, an associate of El Mago, was talking to the U.S. authorities and took the plane all the way to Texas. And when they got there, they found out that they were being arrested. So a person—and this is very important to note about his profile— this is a guy of 76 years old who was able to dodge the authorities for his whole four decades of drug dealing career. And at the end, he got busted because he was fooled. Daniel Pardo. The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

has met the former President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in Florida. The tone was said to be warmer than when Mr. Netanyahu met Democratic presidential contender Kamala Harris on Thursday, after which she said she couldn't stay silent about the suffering of civilians in Gaza. The Israeli leader didn't give details of that meeting, but said Israel would be dispatching a negotiating team to the Gaza ceasefire talks in Rome next week. This was the first time that Mr. Trump and Mr. Netanyahu have met in nearly four years. When Donald Trump was the U.S. president, the two men had a close relationship, with Mr. Trump acceding to an Israeli request to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Elizabeth Pipko is the spokesperson for the Republican National Committee. Julian Marshall asked her if the two men had resolved some of the differences they had. I guess we could say that. Look, I was told they had a very good meeting, discussed countless

issues. I was told Bibi Netanyahu thanked the former president for his administration's work to build stability in the region and promote peace throughout the Middle East and the world. So I don't know if they've resolved everything, but I'm told that they had a very, very good, productive meeting. So what could Israel expect from a Trump presidency? Honestly, I mean, I'm asked this all the time. And I think it's interesting that people continue to kind of have these questions after the four years that we saw with Donald Trump in office. Donald Trump was very, very committed to the alliance between Israel and the United States. He was very loyal to Israel. You mentioned moving the embassy. He also obviously had the Abraham Accords, ending the Iran nuclear deal, like he said that he would, recognising Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. I think the

Taylor Force Act was incredible as well. There were plenty of things put into place by Donald Trump when it comes to the security and safety of the state of Israel and our alliance with them. So I think people can expect that to continue on the exact same way when he's back in office. But when Mr. Trump was last president, there wasn't a war in Gaza. I mean, that has changed. Has it not the U.S. sort of relationship with Israel? You know, for me, as someone who puts my identity as a Jewish American before anything else, I look to the relationship as something that is incredibly strong.

I think that that might be rocky right now. I think the relationship Israel has with a lot of the world is rocky right now. But I think a war, if anything, should strengthen our relationship with allies like Israel, right? For us, especially knowing that Hamas right now, who's obviously at war with Israel, is also holding our own Americans hostage right now. If anything, that should strengthen our relationship. It should not change the values that we hold dear, that we share with the state of Israel. And I think, if anything, it strengthens everything that Donald Trump tried to put into place back when he was in office and his duty, as he puts it, to continue that relationship. So no, I don't think it changes anything. If anything, the circumstances have only proven how important the relationship between the

two countries actually is. That was Elizabeth Pipko, spokesperson for the Republican National Committee. Still to come... Some of our lexicographers are looking out for new words and they will record them, suggest them, put them forward for inclusion in the dictionary. So do we merit a chef's kiss or do we give you the ick? 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.

Let's go to Bangladesh now. The country has been gripped by deadly violence as what started as peaceful protests against government job quotas escalated into nationwide unrest. More than 4,000 people have been arrested and around 200 have been killed. Now staff at a hospital in Dhaka say three student leaders who were being treated there for their injuries have been taken away by plainclothes policemen. Akbar Hussain of the BBC Bengali service told us more. Three students leaders they were basically leading the student protest and they were admitted in a local hospital in Dhaka. But at around 4 p.m. in the local time, around eight to 10 plainclothes members of the security forces, they went to the hospital and they asked the student leaders to come with them. And when they refused to do so because they were admitting their previous injury,

the security forces, they forced them into a car. Now, we do not know about their whereabouts. I have spoken to some senior police officers in Dhaka, but they say that they didn't arrest anyone from any hospital. I think this is a very strange thing in Bangladesh, because the criminal justice system, it is sort of dysfunctional in the country because when police or plainclothes security forces arrest anyone, usually they do not admit immediately.

According to the law, the person who is arrested, he or she must be produced before the court within 24 hours. But police or security forces, they do not follow that procedure. And yes, just take a step back and remind us what it is that these weeks of protests have been about. So we have never seen such a huge protest in Bangladesh. And these protests initially started very peacefully and their demand was to abolish

the controversial quota system in the country's civil service because there were 55% job reserved for independence fighters' families, women, ethnic minorities and different disadvantaged groups. The quota system is very unpopular in Bangladesh and the protesters, they were saying that Bangladesh is a country of 170 million population, youths are desperately looking for jobs. So this is absolutely unjustified to have huge number of quotas in the civil service. That's why they started protesting on the streets. Akbar Hussain in Bangladesh. Now you might have watched or heard the latest harrowing BBC Africa Eye documentary this week called The Apartheid Killer.

Its subject was a man called Louis Fonscour, thought to be one of South Africa's most prolific ever mass murderers. On Friday, we learned that he himself has died. Our Africa regional editor, Nick Erickson told us more about him. That extraordinary Africa Eye documentary you mentioned came out on Monday. It's well worth a watch or a listen or a read. During the dying years of apartheid, so that's between 1986 and 1989 roughly, Fonscour worked as a private security guard in the city of East London. And during that time, he is believed to have shot and killed at least 39 people, all of them black,

the youngest victim being just 12 years of age. Now, the BBC Africa Eye team travelled to South Africa recently to meet him. They found a man, von Skur, who almost 40 years on actually believed that all his victims were criminals who had been caught red-handed. And he believed that he bore absolutely no guilt or no remorse for their deaths. Under apartheid law, people were able to use lethal force against intruders. And so in most cases, in 32 of the cases, in fact, involving von Skur, his killings were classified by the police as justified homicide, which is essentially what they remain to this day. But he did go to jail. Yes, indeed. He was arrested in 1991. Now, historically, this was just as South Africa was coming out of the horrors of white minority rule

and moving to democracy. And eventually he was convicted. But he was coming out of the horrors of white minority rule and moving to democracy. And eventually he was convicted. But he was only convicted on seven charges of murder, those not considered what I call justified homicides, what I refer to as justified homicides. And he served only 12 years in prison. Now, the Africa Eye documentary I mentioned raised serious concerns and serious questions about these so-called justified shootings. They had long interviews with Fonscour himself, but also with the families of his victims, who've had to wait a very long time for some kind of justice. Nick Erickson. The flow country in the far north of Scotland is one of the world's most outstanding examples of

what's known as a blanket bog, basically waterlogged peat. It covers more than 3,000 square kilometres, that's 1,200 square miles, and now after a 40-year campaign, it's been given the rare award of World Heritage Status. Our climate editor, Justin Rowlatt, has spent most of the week there. A giant Scottish bog may seem an unlikely place to be garlanded with World Heritage status, but the flow country is truly extraordinary. This epic landscape is a seemingly endless expanse of peat bog, edged by dark mountains and dotted with shining pools.

UNESCO, the UN body that makes these awards, declared it an outstanding example of a blanket bog. The ecosystem supports a huge range of rare plants, insects, birds and animals. The carnivorous sundew plants that lure in their insect prey with dots of shimmering sticky mucus are particularly eye-catching. And after four decades of campaigning, it's no surprise those involved with the bid are delighted. Kenna Chisholm is from RSPB Scotland, which manages a large reserve in the flow country. For the peatlands, it recognises the importance

of them in that global scale. I mean, this is the first peatland that has been recognised as a World Heritage Site. So it raises the significance of peatlands on the global scene. In terms of the peatlands of the flow country, obviously, it helps protect those as an amazing place for wildlife. And if you're wondering why the BBC's climate editor has spent this week in the heart of this magnificent bog, it is because it is also an important bulwark against climate change. Peat deposits have been building up at a rate of roughly a millimetre a year here ever since the vast ice sheets that covered most of the UK began to melt away some 10,000 years ago. The peat is as much as 10 metres deep in places

and because the plant material in peat soils hasn't fully rotted away, they are a huge store of carbon. It has been estimated the entire system could contain as much as 400 million tonnes of the stuff, which is reckoned to be twice that contained in all of Britain's woodlands. Another reason why the flow country is a worthy winner of World Heritage status. That was Justin Rowlatt in northern Scotland. The English language is constantly evolving and among the more than 3,000 words and phrases

to have made it into the Cambridge Dictionary this year are chef's kiss, boop and the ick, which dating coach Matthew Hussey explained last month to the BBC. The Ick is the overwhelming feeling of repulsion that you feel when someone does something or said something or has a mannerism or something about them. A moment where you suddenly become incredibly turned off and it feels like there's no return. Okay, so let's take another word, another term, chef's kiss. What does that mean? Julian Marshall heard more from Colin McIntosh, the Cambridge Dictionary's programme

manager. That gesture is so well known and is not new. It's been around as far as I can remember. When you put your fingers to your mouth, you kiss your fingers and open up and a little explosion of, wow, this is perfect. But it's only recently, I think, that it's actually got a name. And I think that is due to things like social media, which show it.

And then people are trying to describe that maybe in a post or text. So trying to put it into writing. One that slightly puzzled me was I-Y-K-Y-K. I mean, I couldn't possibly pronounce that. Can you pronounce it? Well, I suppose it's not really meant to be pronounced because it is from social media posts or text speech. But, you know, it's

like FYI. You would say FYI if you wanted to put it into speech. So I-Y-K-Y-K, or you just say, if you know, you know. So that's sharing knowledge or a private joke that others might not understand. Yes, insider information. Yes, a private joke, exactly. There are more than 3,000 of these new words and phrases. How do you decide what makes it in? Well, we have a reading programme, first of all. So some of our lexicographers are looking out for new words and they will record them, suggest them, put them forward for inclusion in the dictionary,

and we do our research. So we are looking to see how frequently they're being used, how long it's been in use. If we think they're going to stick around, we don't want to add stuff that's too ephemeral. I mean, how do you decide on that, whether or not it is ephemeral, whether it's a popular phrase or word this year and might disappear next year. We're recording really for posterity in a way. We're documenting what people

are saying. So we are not too exclusive. We do like to add the things that people are saying, as long as it's not just, you know, a one-off or a flash in the pan. So we're analysing it. And if we find enough evidence, then they will go into the dictionary. Cambridge Dictionary's programme manager, Colin McIntosh. Now let's return to our main story. In France, the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympic Games has taken place in Paris. And around 16,000 kilometres away in Tahiti, the centre of French Polynesia, the Olympic surfers wait for the wave to come, the wave called Tupou.

Waiting with the surfers for the 10-metre-high barrel wave will be Ben Toir, a photographer who specialises in capturing the moment surfers catch a wave. Johnny Diamond asked him for more on the Olympic surfing event there and also to explain a little about what he does. So my specialty is water photography, so I love to be in the element with my camera in a water housing and I'm swimming. So I just have my camera and a pair of fins and I'm just navigating into these waters finding the right spot to capture the right moment

of the surfer so I'm trying to be in the barrel with the surfer and what is it that makes the perfect photo for you? What combination of water and light and surfer? I think in the end, what really drives me until today to take this photograph is the emotion that is transmitted through these photos. That specific moment of the surfer being one with nature, being in that barrel, in that beautiful environment, the light heating the water. There's something magic about water photography. Is there a sense of balance between the surfer and the curl of the wave all around him or her? Or is it more of a competition between the person and the water that surrounds him or her? I think surfing is all about balance. And I think the pure art of surfing is to be one with the ocean. Turpo is such a perfect wave that once

you're in the spot, you just hold your line and you enjoy the voyage, the barrel. When you are observing the wave, when you are trying to capture it, and when the surfers are trying to ride inside the barrel, is there a sense of jeopardy? Is there a sense of danger with all this crashing water all around you and them? The Hopo is one of the heaviest waves in the world, for sure. And it breaks above very shallow water above the reef. So there's always humility in surfing because you're facing extreme power. You've been doing this a while, but now the Olympics are upon you. Is it a big deal that this global I think, to be able to capture this very specific moment. They're going to make history out there the next few days.

And so we're all hoping for the best conditions. The photographer Ben Toir, waiting for the big wave at the Olympic surfing event in Tahiti, the centre of French Polynesia. And that's it from us for now, but there will be a new edition of the Global News Podcast later. If you would like to comment on this edition or the topics covered in it, do please 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

Nora Houle. The producer was Liam McSheffrey. Our editor is Karen Martin. I'm Jackie Leonard, and 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.