Global News Podcast - President Biden meets UK prime minister but no decision on Ukraine missiles

Episode Date: September 14, 2024

After the meeting, the British Prime Minister Keir Starmer gave no indication if the UK and US would allow Ukraine to use long-range weapons inside Russia. Also: stranded Nasa astronauts say being left behind was hard.

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 Andrew Peach and in the early hours of Saturday the 14th of September, these are our main stories.

President Biden has met with Britain's Prime Minister to discuss whether to let Ukraine fire Western long-range weapons at Russia. A military court in the Democratic Republic of Congo has sentenced 37 people to death for taking part in an alleged coup attempt. The footballer Cristiano Ronaldo is thought to be the first person ever to reach more than a billion followers across all of his social media accounts. Also in this podcast, I just want everybody to know how much we appreciate the concern for us specifically. Every time I talk to someone that, hey, that we're praying for you, there's prayers coming up for me and Sonny, both street signs, people we don't even know across the nation. Butch Wilmore, one of two NASA astronauts stranded at the International Space Station by technical problems with their Boeing spacecraft.

They say they don't feel let down. President Biden and the British Prime Minister have met at the White House with an appeal by Ukraine to be allowed to fire Western-supplied long-range weapons at targets in Russia on the agenda. President Zelensky has said if Mr Biden and Mr Stalin would give the go-ahead, Russia's missile launchers in the main logistics routes could be destroyed within months. As they sat down in the White House before the media were instructed to leave, the US president addressed the British Prime Minister.

I want to thank you for the UK's leadership. The States, is standing with you, help Ukraine as it defends against Russia's onslaught of aggression, and make it clear that Putin will not prevail in this war. After the meeting finished, Keir Starmer had this to say to journalists outside the White House. We've had a long and productive discussion on a number of fronts, including Ukraine, as you'd expect, the Middle East, the Indo-Pacific, talking strategically about tactical decisions. This isn't about a particular decision that we'll obviously pick up again in Unger in just a few days' time with a wider group

of individuals. But this was a really important invitation from the president to have this level of discussion about those critical issues. But with President Putin threatening war with NATO, aren't you creating the impression that he's intimidating you? Well, there's only one reason we're having these discussions, and that is because Putin has illegally invaded Ukraine. And the quickest way to resolve this, obviously, lies through, you know, what Putin actually does, because it's for him to end this. But we are having the discussion. We've stood with Ukraine. Ukraine has a right to self-defence.

And we've stood united, not just with our allies here in the US, but across with our NATO allies. That's very, very important to us. Now, before those comments by Keir Starmer, Sean Lay spoke to the BBC's political editor, Chris Mason, who's travelling with the Prime Minister, and on the White House meeting, the issue of Western long-range weapons, he had this to say.

This question around missiles and Ukraine is being addressed, is being talked about. I've just come from the blue room of the White House, Sean, where we were briefly invited in for what's known as the spray, where reporters pile into a corner of the room. We hear some broad-based words from the principals, as they're known, the Prime Minister and the President. We then shout a wall of noise of questions,

most of which are ignored, and then we're kicked out. And then they start their talks proper. The canvas is wider than just missiles, and the canvas is wider than just Ukraine. They will talk about the Middle East, they will talk about China and AI and trade. But yes, the question around missile deployment is there and there is a subtlety of difference between two of Kiev's closest allies. There is a scepticism in the White House, particularly around the deployment of US missiles by Ukraine into Russia. The UK has been making an argument about the deployment of Storm Shadow, these Anglo-French missiles,

and it would appear in the diplomacy that there is an attempt to get to a place where Ukraine's allies can line up behind a position where perhaps some of these missiles are granted authorisation for deployment, probably the Anglo-French ones, but perhaps not the American ones, but with all sides amongst the allies maintaining a common public position. Welcome to the complex world of international diplomacy. Some would call it a compromise, others would call it a fudge, but it's probably the reality of a major alliance like NATO. No announcement then expected imminently on this, but do you think it is getting close?

I think we are getting ever closer to it, yes. I don't think... There won't be any announcements tonight. It is possible, Sean, that there never will be an announcement, because today has proven something that is obvious, but nonetheless, when you see it, it is there, Sean, that there never will be an announcement, because today has proven something that is obvious, but nonetheless, when you see it, it is there to observe, which is that words matter too. We've seen Moscow picking today to make that announcement about the expulsion of British diplomats.

That is no coincidence. It happened several weeks ago. So an announcement itself would be perceived as provocative. I think as and when a decision is taken, the first we're likely to know about it is when one of these weapons is deployed in Russia. Chris Mason at the White House in Washington. President Putin has said NATO would be directly involving itself in the war by allowing Ukraine to use those long-range missiles inside Russia

because they'd need to use the alliance's satellites to find the targets. At the UN Security Council, Russia's ambassador, Vasylina Benzia, echoed that statement and reminded members that Russia is a nuclear power. More from our security correspondent, Gordon Carrera. Storm shadow missiles would be launched from Ukrainian fighter jets with the trigger pulled by Ukrainians. So why does Vladimir Putin claim their use would mean NATO was directly involved in the war? Part of the answer may come from the way the missiles are targeted. They rely on being

programmed with data about the terrain they fly over, and the US tends to be the main provider of the kind of satellite and imagery data required. But the truth is that the provision of Western intelligence for Ukraine's operations has long been known to Moscow, even if it's little spoken of by Western governments. And Storm Shadow itself has already been used in Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014 and considers its own territory. Western spies say President Putin uses sabre-rattling to sow division and doubt

in his adversaries, but believe he has no interest in an all-out war with NATO. So the notion that the use of storm shadow crosses a red line, significantly different from those that he has drawn in the past, and which NATO has already crossed, has been met with scepticism. Next to the Democratic Republic of Congo, where 37 people have been sentenced to death by a military court. They were all accused by the authorities of taking part in an attempted coup. 14 people were acquitted. Our Africa regional editor, Will Ross, told me more about what the group were supposed to have done.

We believe that 37 people were all arrested, the authorities said, in or very near the president's office. And it was this office back in May that was taken over briefly by this group of armed men in what the authorities are saying was a coup attempt. They were armed. And in fact, the whole event at one point was live streamed on social media by the supposed ringleader Christian Malanga. He was actually killed by security forces, but then went to this trial, which is in a military prison on the outskirts of the capital Kinshasa under a tent. And there were scenes of jubilation, people very excited when they were acquitted and set free, 14 of them.

And the 37, we understand, have five days to appeal against these death sentences. Some of the defendants said they were forced into taking part by Christian Malanga, the leader of this coup who's no longer with us. You're right. The son of Christian Malanga, who's called Marcel, who's, I think, 21 years of age. During the trial, he told about being the president of a new Zaire. And there are also other nationals, including a British passport holder, Yusuf Ezangi. And the court said that he had tried to recruit some of the others who took part in the coup attempt. Will Roth reporting. The NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sonny Williams left for the International Space Station in Boeing's Starliner spacecraft on the 5th of June.

They were supposed to be there for eight days, but after technical problems, their spacecraft returned to Earth without them. They're now expecting to come home in February. On Friday, they spoke for the first time from the ISS in an Earth-to-Space call, answering questions from journalists. I just want everybody to know how much we appreciate the concern for us specifically. Every time I talk to someone, hey, we're praying for you. There's prayers coming up for me and Sonny both.

Street signs, people we don't even know across the nation. Sonny and Butch, we're praying for you. Come on back. All those things. And I can tell you, it really goes a long way. You asked what we miss, right? Of course, you know, the things that we always miss, our families. I miss my two dogs. I miss my friends. But you know what? Everybody understands and everybody's cheering for us to get back with Crew 9.

90% of our training is preparing for the unexpected. And sometimes the actual unexpected goes beyond what you even think that could happen. And that's just the way it goes sometimes because we are pushing the edges of the envelope in everything that we do. And it is not easy. This is the first time that we've had humans in space in Starliner and we did find stuff and, you know, we made the right decisions and we're here and that's how it goes in the business. The things that I can't control, I'm not going to fret over it. There's no benefit to it at all. So we march forward, carry out the plan of the day. My husband has said that.

My mom has said it before, too. This is my happy place. I love being up here in space. It's just fun. Every day you do something that's work, quote unquote, you can do it upside down, you can do it sideways. So it adds a little different perspective. You know, we're living in a remote area, but we're doing world class science as well as, you know, living with other people, you know, for the betterment of so much. And, you know, being able to have a perspective out the window as well as a perspective upside down or sideways is something that I hope we can pass on to the rest of humanity. NASA astronauts Sonny Williams and Butch Wilmore.

Still to come in this podcast... I have been on Bumble, I've been on Luxy, I've been on what's called, there's this other app, Coupede. I am single. I've been on Luxy, I've been on what's called, there's this other app, Coupede. I am single. I've been on dates, but nothing. Are people disillusioned with online dating apps? 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. One of Mexico's most wanted drugs lords has appeared in court in the US. Ismael Mayo Zambada pleaded not guilty to a raft of charges at the court in Brooklyn, including murder and conspiracy to manufacture and distribute cocaine and fentanyl. Will Grant has more. After the US Department of Justice successfully petitioned to have his trial moved to New York,

Ismael El Mayo Zambada, one of the most notorious drug lords in Latin American history, appeared in court in Brooklyn to plead not guilty to the drug trafficking charges against him. In total, there were 17 charges, from drug smuggling to money laundering and weapons charges. He will face a mandatory life sentence if convicted. Now in his 70s, it was thought that Zambada might successfully evade capture in Mexico, as he was renowned for being more careful than his cartel co-founder Joaquin El Chapo Guzman. Financial police in Italy said they'd broken up a gang that trafficked fake vintage video game consoles made in China. Nine Italians have been arrested. The counterfeit

devices contain popular games from the 1980s and 90s, including Street Fighter and Star Wars. There is a current trend for what's been called retro gaming, with vintage games soaring in popularity. Julian Marshall spoke to Jay MacDonald, founder of the website Retro Game Start. I grew up on the classic consoles starting in the 70s. And then it was in 2018, I started getting interested again and wanted to share the experience with my daughter, who's a teenager. And what I found was she genuinely enjoyed them, having no nostalgia for them, but just having fun. But the technology is a little primitive,

isn't it, compared to modern video game consoles? Absolutely. Yeah, it is is and that limitation is a plus because it forced game makers to be more creative in certain ways and also the advancement of technology is kind of a poor yardstick for measuring the successful design of a game whether it's actually enjoyable or not whether it's engaging and serves a good purpose we've kind of been lulled into this idea that everything needs to advance, become faster, more high resolution, and that benefits certain types of gameplay. But there are other things that it just doesn't really do much for. These retro games, they're cheaper, I would imagine, than the modern ones? Typically, yes.

Prices all over the board. There are a lot of people who've gotten in because of speculation and collecting, and so certain prices have gone up. But if you're just going to go out and buy a used vintage cartridge somewhere, yes, definitely. I mean, you're surprised that there appears to be this vast market for the fake vintage video game consoles? Well, I'm not surprised in that retro gaming has become a real trend. What I am surprised about is why aren't the copyright holders meeting this market need? As someone who makes a living in the creative space, I believe in copyright law, and I think that IP law should be respected, And I'm not an advocate for piracy. But I do understand that there are people who want access to things. And the companies that

are the actual holders of all these properties don't seem to be giving people what they're looking for. A little bit here, a little bit there. But it would be nice if they would just recognize that there's this market and be more robust about how they engage with it so you think games companies should make more of these games available and that would put an end to the fake market well you're always going to have a price game the multi-cart that's uh hundreds of games or it is, that's always going to price undercut something that a legitimate company will sell. But I think it would reduce that level of interest because it's a better experience if you can get a real console, a real cartridge that is legitimately

produced and high quality. Retro game enthusiast Jay McDonald. The Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo has become the first person on earth to have a total of a billion followers on social media. This number is calculated by combining his total number of followers on sites including Instagram and Facebook. Here's Andrew Ocheng. When Cristiano Ronaldo joined YouTube last month, his channel rocketed to 50 million subscribers within a week. That's believed to have boosted his online presence. The total number of his followers across social media has been calculated by combining the totals from six platforms, including the Chinese sites Weibo and Kuaishou. This huge popularity online is mostly due to his achievements on the football field. Ronaldo is the top scorer in UEFA Champions League history,

and last week he became the first footballer to score 900 top-level career goals. According to Forbes magazine, he is also the highest-paid athlete this year, making around $260 million. Taking impressive photographs of animals in the wild requires skill, patience and timing. Doing it underwater makes it all the harder. The Ocean Photographer of the Year competition captures the wonders of the deep sea with more than 15,000 photos submitted and the top prize captured a Brutus whale off the coast of northwest Mexico

with its mouth wide open. Brutus whales are named after the Norwegian who built the first whaling stations in South Africa in the early 20th century. Anita McVeigh spoke to the winning photographer, Rafael Fernandez Cabrillo. That area, during the last part of the year, during that season, it has a huge migration of sardines. So basically what we are trying to get there are the predators around the bait balls, around the balls of sardines, eating and predating

from that. And the biggest you can find, it's a huge whale. It's so difficult, but luckily we got it, so a rain came through. There are not so many. It's not easy to see. And to see it eating from that, it's an even more complicated situation. So I think it's once in a lifetime, and we were lucky to see it even several times this year. But it was something that I might not even see in my life. So very lucky. So how long did you spend around this particular time in the waters off the Pacific coast trying to get these fantastic images? So from the sunrise till the end of the day every day for the the season that might be around

two months and I have been doing this for a few years so as I say it was something that I was hearing that some people was getting but I was not expecting to get it and you need to be out there and spend a lot of time and effort to to get that moment and be ready also to to photograph it. So two months out of each year for several years that's really interesting just to get that moment and be ready also to photograph it. So two months out of each year for several years. That's really interesting just to get that kind of detail and get an idea of the kind of work that goes into getting an image like this. So when you looked at this shot afterwards, did you think to yourself, this is a really special shot?

For sure, we knew that the moment was super special because everything was perfect. The bowl of sardines was not in the shallow water, was four or five metres deep, the light was great. So when we got back to land, I checked the pictures and my friends told me that the picture was really powerful. I was with some photographers and we might say that, yeah, yeah, we kind of knew it. Now, recently on the Global News Podcast,

we reported on an unusual way of dating by going to the supermarket. This Spanish craze has been encouraging single people to seek partners in the food shops by using a fruit-based code in their trolleys. If you're available put an upside down pineapple in with your groceries. This new venture has been brought about by disillusionment with online dating apps. Luke Jones has been talking to Malia, a Canadian in Bali, Mark, an Irish guy in the Netherlands, and Faith, a Nigerian woman in the UK. So how single are they? I am very much single. My single is super single. My life is screaming single. So I have been on Bumble. I've been on Inge. I've been on Luxie.

I've been on, what's it called? There's this other app, Coupede. Yes, I've been on those apps in the last one year. I am single. I've been on dates, but nothing. Message received, Mark. Yeah, okay, God. I don't know.

Am I that single? I guess i am uh yeah i guess i'm more or less the same i was in a relationship with somebody that i met on a dating app actually last year up until march of this year uh and then yeah i've been on bumble hinge tinder and there's another one called field i tried that for a while than broadly for anyone who's never heard of any of these things, I mean, generally, what are they? They're all a lot of nonsense, if I'm honest.

No, but practically speaking, you're sort of flicking through pictures of people and saying, oh, I like the look of them or I don't like the look of them. Yeah, they're more or less the same. Everybody has a little profile and it's just normally six pictures of yourself that you think you look good in and a few interests and you try and write a bio and you just, it's very you have to just swipe left or right the worst thing about this dating

app you need to pay for a subscription for you to see people that swipe to you oh my god yeah that's true Malia what about you so I recently just got out of a relationship which is met organically but prior to it took a while because I refuse to go on dating apps. But what I find funny is that it's a lot like the pot calling the kettle black. I feel like everyone that is involved with dating apps likes to write them off. But I do agree with Faith. It used to be a lot better. I've had really good experiences where people have literally moved across the world um that i've you know met through dating apps but yes recently i feel like it's just a way for people to get quick validation they get out of a relationship and it's like okay let me just fill the void really quickly

and um it's really hard to sift through that nonsense i'm not saying that everyone is like that you know we've all been on dating apps so surely you know there's people on there looking for something authentic but majority it's it's yeah that's what you're facing i just i just feel like the guys on dating app right now they are not looking for someone to date they feel like okay when they go on the app they could swipe 10 ladies they could ask 10 ladies out on dates they could tell them i want you to come over to my place so they don't have to go through the organic way to asking you out getting to know you they're just very straight up this is what i want in a woman i have met a guy on a dating app that he did not tell me we were talking for like a week and this guy literally was supposed to meet up for a date and on the day of the date he told me that um he wants to come

pick me up i was like don't worry because i of the date, he told me that he wants to come pick me up. I was like, don't worry, because I don't like giving strangers my address. I would come to the location. Then it started raining. And then this guy said, should I come over to yours? I was like, no. And I could hear a girl's voice in the background. And I said, sorry, who is that? He said, oh, my girlfriend.

She stays with me. And this is not made up. This is not made up. And you are are on a dating it's got a dating app and i was like the audacity oh my god i don't have anything like that no thankfully not actually yeah i didn't have anything that extreme well what's your worst being though mark there was one like at the start of the summer, I met somebody, went on a date together, was very nice, really hit it off.

They invited me back to theirs and were like, I don't want to sleep with you, but add a nice time if you want to stay over. I said, sure. The next week we had arranged another date and then they randomly texted me. I was finishing work and they texted me at like 11 at night and said, hey, what if I,

they lived in a different city, what if I got the train to visit you now and stayed over? And I was like, yeah, sure, fine, let's do it. They came to my house at like 12.30 at night. They stayed for like 36 hours and then they ghosted me for a weekend and then said they don't want to see me again. Well, they actually said that. I do not want to see you again. Yeah, I think we should just leave it there.

And I said, okay, well, all the signs were kind of pointing the opposite direction. May I ask why? And she said, yeah, I just, you know, wasn't feeling it. I'm thinking you stayed for like from Thursday night to Saturday morning.

What? What is it when you're not feeling it? That was Mark, Malihah and Faith with Luke Jones on online dating. And that's all from us for now. There'll be a new edition of Global News to download later. If you'd like to comment on this edition, drop us an email, globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk or on X you'll find us as at global news pod. This edition was mixed by Tom Bartlett,

the producer was Liam McSheffery, the editor is Karen Martin. I'm Andrew Peach, and until next time, goodbye. 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.