Global News Podcast - Over 100 dead in earthquake in Tibet

Episode Date: January 7, 2025

A big earthquake has killed more than 100 people in Tibet and wrecked the Buddhist holy city of Shigatse. Also: the French far-right leader Jean Marie Le Pen has died, and the weird and wonderful species under threat.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Available now on the documentary from the BBC World Service. In South Korea, it's increasingly dangerous to be a feminist. I'm Jean Mackenzie and I'm exploring why young men are carrying out aggressive online witch hunts to try and get feminists fired from their jobs and how this is silencing women. Listen now by searching for the documentary wherever you get your BBC podcasts. You're listening to the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. Hello, I'm Oliver Conway. We're recording this at 14 Hours GMT

on Tuesday the 7th of January. An earthquake has struck near Mount Everest in the Chinese region of Tibet, killing more than 100 people. The French far-right leader Jean Marie Le Pen has died at the age of 96 and Paris

marks 10 years since the deadly Islamist attack on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. Also in the podcast… We wanted to start the year off with hope and optimism. Every species matters, whether it is a chameleon the size of a paperclip all the way to a whale shark. We hear about new efforts to protect 10 weird and wonderful species. A powerful earthquake in the Chinese region of Tibet has killed at least 106 people as

we record this podcast. The centre of the 7.1 magnitude quake was Shigatse, one of the world's highest regions and traditional seat of the Panchen Lama, the second highest authority in Tibetan Buddhism. The epicentre was about 80 kilometres north of Mount Everest, but tremors were also felt in Nepal and parts of India. Ektev Adhikari leads the National Emergency Operation Centre in Nepal. Immediately after the earthquake we activated our emergency response protocols and coordination was established with the local authorities. But we have the difficulty of the raw terrain, highest Himalayan terrain, including some of the world's highest peaks. And this time is winter season, so the temperature is also freezing.

Since China annexed Tibet in the 1950s, it's kept a tight control on the autonomous region. Our correspondent Laura Bicke is monitoring developments from Beijing. What we have seen are a number of new pictures that come from us from the worst hit areas. We've seen rescuers combing through the rubble, brick by brick, searching for survivors. We've seen a number of injured people who are out on the street, many of them elderly, many of them young people. We've also seen that the army has arrived. Now, they seem to be constructing a number of tents. Just on the back of what you've just heard about the weather,

we are told that the temperature in the region is going to dip down to minus 18 degrees Celsius overnight. So that is a real challenge for rescuers. We've also seen the infrastructure, the roads have been split in half, many of them by the shifting ground. So many of them are impassable. And the Air Force launched this unmanned drone and it's given us footage of the whole region and from there you get an idea of both the region itself which sits at the base of Mount Everest but also the challenges ahead because not only is it remote, these are scattered communities

and their homes really have been shattered by this powerful quake. And how have the authorities been reporting on all this? Obviously they control the media there. Yes, the reason we're reporting from Beijing, I'm the China correspondent, but I cannot visit Tibet without permission and a permit from the government. Therefore it is not easy for me to report on this. I'm totally relying on what we're hearing and seeing from Chinese state media. What they're saying is that the rescue effort has been swift, that 1,500 trained search

and rescue personnel have been sent along with the army, and that President Xi himself has called for an all-out effort to rescue people, minimise casualties and resettle those whose have been damaged. Laura Becker in Beijing. Tingri County in Tibet, near the epicentre of the earthquake, is a popular base for climbers preparing for Everest expeditions. But few attempt the ascent at this time of year, and the sole mountaineer with a permit had already left base camp after failing to reach the summit.

I heard more about the possible impact of the quake on Mount Everest from our global environment correspondent Navin Sinkadka. Given the past history of what's happened in the region, if you remember 2014 avalanche and even the 2015 major earthquake, there was the Rock Falls avalanches on Everest itself and similar story in other parts of the Himalayas. So that's where some people are worried that there might be aftermaths. And also, not to forget, authorities have also warned that there have been aftershocks. Aftershocks means the shaking continues and that might have some impacts on the mountains. And tell us more about the area that's been affected. It's just

north of Nepal, isn't it? Yes, the tectonic story is basically there are two plates, Indian plate and Eurasian plate. Collision, the Indian plate tends to go down below the Eurasian plate and hence the Himalayas are going up. As we know, that's the story. But what happens is the falls, what's been described by the US Geological Survey is a slip of a large fault in the area to the north of this major fault and in the Eurasian Plate. And that's why the impacts will be on the mountains as well. But how much and what will be the aftermaths, that is what we are now looking at.

And just describe the difficulties that will be facing rescuers trying to get into Tingri County where the earthquake was felt the most. Well, you see, the thing is, the good news with Tibet is they have got a solid highway there. So that is a major artery in that authorities can do all this rescue and relief operation comparatively better than what happens in the Nepalese side. But again, the highway reaches only so much, isn't it? The mountains are there and accessing them is quite a challenge. But here's the good news. The Chinese government or the authorities are using drones, so many

drones there now. And that is where they're trying to locate and see how they could help people. That's a bit of a good news. Our global environment correspondent Navin Singh Hadkar. The French far right politician Jean-Marie Le Pen has died at the age of 96. And avowed opponent of immigration, the former paratrooper brought his populist brand of ideology into mainstream French politics. And he made it all the way to the second round of the presidential election in 2002. He ran the Front National for nearly 40 years before handing over to his daughter Marine in 2011.

Hugh Schofield sent this report from Paris. and fighters of freedom in the world. The chance of Le Pen Président at a rally in 2002. This was the high point of his career, when he gave the shock of their lives to France's ruling elites by qualifying for round two of the presidentials. He lost then, of course, heavily to Jacques Chirac. But what he'd done with his one in five of the vote was show that the ideas he represented – populist, nationalist, far-right, racist – whatever the French chose to call them – could no longer be ignored. What followed, the further success of the Front National in recent years

under his daughter Marine, was only the confirmation. By then, though, Jean-Marie Le Pen had become persona non grata even in his own party. He was a figure of the past, respected, to be sure, for keeping the nationalist flame alive all those years, but whose roots in French Algeria, militarism, Catholicism now seemed out of date, and, above all, whose verbal provocations were an embarrassment. Prime among these provocations was a radio interview originally made in 1987, in which Jean-Marie Le Pen said that the gas chambers were a detail of the Second World War.

He never, of course, actually denied the gas chambers, but it was a provocation. He was baiting the establishment, as he so enjoyed doing. And that indeed was Jean-Marie Le Pen's trademark throughout his long life, from his Brittany peasant childhood, heading the Law Students Union, becoming the youngest MP in 1956 under the populist Pierre Pujard, fighting in Indochina and Algeria, and then in 1972 helping set up the party with which he was so long identified. He was an outsider, a man who hated and fought the gallest settlement in France post 1958 and found in that

cause a channel for his considerable ego. A bully certainly, but also charming and humorous and a great speaker. He was the bogey of the establishment, especially of the left, but both sides knew what was going on. They needed a pariah, someone to throw into outer political darkness. He loved being that pariah. Hugh Schofield and Jean-Marie Le Pen, who has died at the age of 96. Staying with France, and exactly 10 years ago,

we were reporting on a major shooting in Paris. An office in Paris under attack by suspected Muslim extremists. When we arrived at the scene, the view was quite disturbing as you imagine. We saw that the number of casualties was very high. Well in the end it turned out that Islamist gunmen had killed 12 people at the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, including several of its best known cartoonists. In the following days the phrase Je suis Charlie echoed around the world as a slogan for

free speech. A decade on the French President Emmanuel Macron has laid a wreath at the scene of the attack. The French national anthem will our correspondent Hugh Schofield, who you heard a moment ago, is in Paris and told us more about the anniversary events. There's been a delegation led by the President and with the former President Francois Hollande, who was of course president at the time of the attack, the Prime Minister, Francois Beirut, the Mayor of Paris, they were there, family members of the dead, they were there outside the offices not far from where I am now to lay the wreath and have a moment of reflection before they moved on to a couple of other

sites related to the attacks. Just down the road there was a place where the Qawashi brothers murdered a Muslim policeman who was on patrol on that day and they shot him dead. And right now the delegation has moved across town of short distance away to the Jewish supermarket, which if you remember in a separate but synchronized attack was the scene of another atrocity where another jihadist gunman, Ambedi Kulibali shot dead four Jewish people who he'd taken hostage

before he was shot dead and indeed at almost exactly the same time, two days later after the original attacks, the Qawashi brothers were also cornered and shot dead and indeed at almost exactly the same time two days later after the original attacks the Kowashi brothers were also cornered and shot dead as well so it's been a solemn moment with this added fact that it's the 10th anniversary now and the time to reflect more perhaps on what happened then and on changes since. Now of course you were on the scene a decade ago how did it feel at the time and how have things changed since then? It felt as horrific as everyone said and it still does in a way, everyone has to pinch oneself. It seemed at the time quite extraordinary that the mere fact of drawing pictures, cartoons

would be enough to provoke this kind of violent reaction that they should die for that. I think what's happened since is that we've kind of got used to it and it doesn't seem quite so, I won't say it's less shocking, but it's certainly an idea we've had to accustom ourselves to. Now the other thing that's happened is I suppose that this spirit of just we shali, the idea that the country would come together and reject all of this and be united by the cause of freedom of speech and the right to offend as long as it's done in a way that is not insightful or to violence. That is an issue which people espouse on one level,

but on another level, of course, it's completely disappeared. The fact is that people are afraid publications will not publish things that they published before. And to that extent, you know, we are not Charlie anymore. Hugh Schofield in Paris. Still to come on the Global News Podcast. Some say goodbye. Another says your mum is a cripple and they're a swear word I'd never heard before. We report on the anti-feminist backlash in South Korea. For just as long as Hollywood has been Tinseltown, there have been suspicions about what lurks

behind the glitz and glamour. Concerns about radical propaganda in the motion pictures. And for a while, those suspicions grew into something much bigger and much darker. Are you a member of the Communist Party? Or have you Are you a member of the Communist Party? Or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party? I'm Una Chaplin, and this is Hollywood Exiles. It's about a battle for the political soul of America, and the battlefield was Hollywood. All episodes of Hollywood Exiles from the BBC World Service and CBC are available now.

Search for Hollywood Exiles wherever you get your podcasts. The UN has accused Israel of attacking a clearly marked aid convoy in Gaza, saying its efforts to save lives in the Palestinian territory are at breaking point. Tom Fletcher, the UN's under secretary for humanitarian affairs, says deliberate attacks from Israeli forces and Palestinian gangs are making an already difficult situation much worse. Yusra Abu Sharak is an aid worker in Gaza. To be honest, the interruption of aid delivery is affecting us as humanitarian workers and as people as well living in these us as humanitarian workers and as people as well living in this catastrophe conditions. It's hard when you just woke up to think of how to secure bread and flour for the family. Everyone here in southern part of Gaza are suffering from food insecurity, same to north

Gaza as well. So we are not able to secure the basic needs of our family. Your kids ask you about like when this war is going to end and this is really, really hard. Our correspondent in Jerusalem, Emi Antnade, told us more about the challenges facing relief workers. We've had the statement from Tom Fletcher, who is the UN's humanitarian chief, identifying those incidents in In the past days, this World Food Program convoy, three vehicles, which they said had all the necessary clearances from the Israeli military and were clearly marked, they said,

came under fire from Israeli troops. They said the incident was a horrifying incident, which left the staff shook. But thankfully, no one was injured in the attack. Another attack on a food distribution point which led to three people being seriously injured in a strike by the Israeli military and also on the weekend we did see a separate incident where the civil defense in Gaza said that a vehicle carrying five Palestinians who were protecting aid deliveries were struck

in what they said was an Israeli attack. The statement by the UN has also noted that Palestinian gangs have been looting aid deliveries into Gaza. This incident where six fuel tankers were hijacked, leaving their aid operations with very little or pushing the ability of the UN to conduct their aid deliveries to breaking point. The Israeli military hasn't yet commented on the UN statement, but it has previously said that it continues to facilitate aid deliveries into Gaza. It's talked about on Sunday. It coordinated 182 aid trucks to get into Gaza, one fuel and one medical truck into northern Gaza.

But it's worth bearing in mind that the pre-war number of trucks that were getting into Gaza was 500 a day. And that's why many, many aid agencies are saying that the amount that's getting in is not enough. It's very insufficient. The UNICEF has said that 96% of women and children in Gaza are unable to meet their basic nutritional needs living on a very restricted diet that's affecting the health of women and children. And it's worth bearing in mind nearly 2 million people in Gaza are displaced.

Hundreds of thousands are living in tents through bitter cold. In this winter period, 70% of buildings there in Gaza are damaged and there is a dire need for more aid to get in. Emmanada in Jerusalem. For some years South Korea has seen a backlash against feminism, largely from young men who blame the movement for societal issues. Women who advocate gender equality are accused of being man-haters. Online young men try to get them fired from their jobs.

And these online attacks have even spilled into real life. It's left women too scared to admit they are feminists, as our sole correspondent Jean McKenzie has been finding out. Can you show me some of the abusive messages that you received? Some say goodbye, another says you must be pretty comfortable with your life because you've sabotaged your job. You're drinking poison and if you keep drinking it you will die. We're calling this woman Doreen. She draws animations for video games and one night after completing a big project for one of Korea's most popular games, Maple Story, she was flooded with these abusive messages.

Others say your mum is a cripple and there are swear words I'd never heard before. I was so shocked. Dareem had become the target of a vicious online witch hunt where young men tried to get feminists fired from their jobs. They often target women who work in the gaming industry, trawling their social media to find any trace of feminism, then pressuring their companies to sack them. And way back on Doreem's timeline, they'd found a supportive post. People started filing complaints to the Maple Story team, this person is a feminist, they said. My company and the CEO, we were all in a panic. There were so many complaints by people wanting me to be fired.

This backlash to feminism has been slowly escalating. Women here suffer from severe discrimination, misogyny and sexual violence. And as feminists have fought to improve women's rights, young men have pushed back. That's so bad. It's the worst I remember. Good God. Can you read me some of the messages? Okay, um, Korean women are spreading poison in the well. It's all just general misogyny. I'm sitting with Min Sun Kim. He's a big online gamer and we're looking through some popular online message boards and they're just full of misogynistic abuse. Min Sun used to belong to these forums but now he calls himself an ardent feminist and

he's working to support women who are being attacked. He even managed to convince Dharem's company not to fire her. Why do these men have such a problem with feminists? By their alternate reality, men are actually being systematically repressed, being systematically discriminated against. Feminists just want to take away men's rights. They're confident now that when you accuse someone of feminism, you can ruin their career. Because these witch hunts do work, there are cases where women have lost their jobs.

And for one woman, the violence spilled offline and into real life. We're calling her Chigoo. He exploded and started banging on the counter with his hand and throwing things at me. He said, hey, you're a feminist, right? You look like a feminist with your short hair. Chigoo was working alone in a convenience store late at night when the man came in and started attacking her. He grabbed my arm and pushed me very hard against the shelves.

Then he pushed me down to the ground and started punching my face and kicking my body so I wouldn't be able to get up. He said, I never hit women. I've never even hit my mum. But feminists need to get beaten. I kept going in and out of consciousness and at some point he picked me up and threw me. I thought I could die. And that report from Soul by Jean McKenzie. You can hear more on assignment wherever you get your BBC podcasts. An English conservation charity, Fauna and Flora, has drawn up a watch list of 10, quote, weird and wonderful species around the world that it's working to save in 2025. They range from a tiny chameleon to the mighty whale shark.

Each is in danger from changes to its habitat. The charity's boss, Christian Tellecke, told Nicky Schiller why they were taking action. These species are a range that don't get enough attention. I think we typically focus on those charismatic animals like I'm sure you've all read about whether lions, tigers and gorillas. And while we work on these species, you recognize that there are many more, they're less familiar to many people. And equally important plants and animals

that require urgent need of conservation attention. And this is about the habitats and ecosystems where these fauna and flora live and the people who rely on them. And what we're saying is really that every species matters. In the case of these species, we've got plans in place to address some of these and many of the threats these animals are facing

and aiming to have a big impact in 2025 and whether it is a chameleon the size of a paperclip all the way to a whale shark. So this list, not extensive of all the ones that need protecting, it's more about inspiring us to try and protect as many of these species as possible. Absolutely.

It's really easy that they get caught up in the doom and gloom of the news cycles at the moment. And really, the not so spectacular ending of 2024, when we saw more setbacks than progress when it comes to nature and climate. And what we wanted to do was we really want to start the year off with hope and optimism. Change the story around nature and climate. And Fondant Flore is an organization.

I mean, we're the world's oldest conservation organization. We've been doing this for 120 years of working, protecting and restoring nature and we want to continue that and inspire others to do so as well. And are you optimistic about the future? Absolutely. Look, we wouldn't be in this business if we weren't optimistic. We are working globally with local communities and partners and governments around the world in over 45 countries to protect and restore these species and habitats. And so it's about taking this off in bite-sized pieces, not trying to dress it all in the hole at once. But if we can inspire others to do the same, then we'll really make great progress in the coming

year. Christian Tellecki of Fauna and Flora. The beginning of January is full of good intentions as people who feel they may have overdone it in December try to get back on track. But one TikTok craze is taking it to the extreme. The 75 hard is a mixture of wellness, dieting and exercise. Lots of exercise. David Lewis has been finding out more. After weeks feasting on mince pies, pigs in blankets and wolfing down more piled high turkey sandwiches than seemed humanly possible. Get ready for the cleanse. And it's mega. The 75 hard is a 75 straight day workout. Yes, 75 days and it's taken TikTok by storm. And fitness fanatics will have to be strict, sticking to a healthy diet throughout. No pigging out on chocolates and fast food.

Some booze to take the edge off? Absolutely not. All alcohol is banned for the duration. And that's the easy bit. On each day of the two and a half month journey, users must do two 45 minute workouts. One indoors, one out. You'll have to drink more than three litres of water a day,

plus your mind gets a workout. You'll have to read ten pages daily of a non-fiction book. Them's the rules. Oh, and as it's a social media craze, keep fitters must take selfies to document their journey and post it up on their socials. It would be rude not to. So why would anyone do it? Well, Divamsha Gunpat did, and she told us why. For my entire life up until I actually took the challenge on, I'd really struggled with self-discipline and self-accountability. I'd always kind of stay consistent for a week or two and then fall off track. So my entire reason for doing it was to try and just do something difficult and prove to myself that I had the capacity to actually do something

quite quote unquote extreme. So just where does the viral craze come from? Well, it was actually invented back in 2019 by author Andy Friisella. He said on his podcast that he'd spent 20 years figuring out how to master mental toughness. It was that knowledge that went into creating the plan. It's worth adding that he is not a qualified personal trainer or a doctor. So that begs the question, what does a medical professional think about the trend? Clinical lecturer and doctor Nikki Kaye has got some opinions of her own.

45 minutes, twice a day, if you're not already doing exercise and active, actually that's quite a big ask and quite difficult from a practical point of view to do. And the nutrition, it could leave people down a track of being very rigid, very restrictive and potentially backfiring. This is why of course crash diets don't work. So it hasn't won over that particular doctor. However, if you're after a challenge but concern the 75 hard might be too hard. Fret not. More relaxed versions have also popped up on social media of late. There's a 75 medium and even a 75 soft. Slightly less hardcore athletes on that will still have to read and exercise but can enjoy the

occasional burger or pizza or even a cheeky glass of wine. Chin chin. David Lewis reporting. Now after this week's severe winter storm in the US and the burger or pizza or even a cheeky glass of wine. Chin chin! it change. So if there's anything you want to know, email us at the usual address globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. And if you can, please put your question in a voice note. And that is all from us for now, but the Global News Podcast will be back very soon. This edition was mixed by Daniela Varela and produced by Tracy Gordon, our editors, Karen Martin, I'm Oliver Conway. Until next time, goodbye. What do Tiger Woods, Mark Zuckerberg and Taylor Swift all have in common? Well, their lives and fortunes are all being discussed on Good, Bad Bad Billionaire, 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.