Global News Podcast - President Trump orders deployment of US troops in Portland

Episode Date: September 28, 2025

Extending his controversial use of the military in Democrat-led major US cities, Donald Trump says he's authorised soldiers who will be deployed to Portland to use "full force" if needed. He described the city in Oregon as "war-ravaged". Also: nearly 40 people are killed in a crush at a political campaign event in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, the people of Moldova vote in a parliamentary election that will help determine if the country moves closer to the EU or Russia, and scientists say the tiny particles that help form stars and planets are much spongier than previously thought. The Global News Podcast brings you the breaking news you need to hear, as it happens. Listen for the latest headlines and current affairs from around the world. Politics, economics, climate, business, technology, health – we cover it all with expert analysis and insight. Get the news that matters, delivered twice a day on weekdays and daily at weekends, plus special bonus episodes reacting to urgent breaking stories. Follow or subscribe now and never miss a moment. Get in touch: [e-mail]

This is the global news podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Alex Ritson, and at 0500 GMT on Sunday the 28th of September, these are our main stories. President Trump deploys troops to yet another Democrat-led city, this time Portland in Oregon. 39 people are killed in a crush at a political rally in India, and thousands take to the streets in Argentina to protest against the live-streamed torture and murder of three young women. Also in this podcast. I don't think anyone in Europe has experienced anything like this interference.

Russia will try absolutely all methods to achieve what it wants. Moldovans go to the polls in pivotal elections which could decide whether it turns towards the EU or Russia. First it was Los Angeles, then Washington, D.C. then Memphis, and now President Trump has ordered U.S. troops to be deployed to the city of Portland in Oregon, this time to suppress protests targeting immigration detention centers. Posting on social media, Mr. Trump said the soldiers were needed to deal with the left-wing Antifa movement, which was this week designated as a domestic terrorist organization.

The governor of Oregon, Tina Kotech, said she told Mr. Trump that was not the case. In my conversations directly with President Trump and Secretary Nome, I have been abundantly clear with them that Portland and the state of Oregon believe in the rule of law and we can manage our own local public safety needs. There is no insurrection. There is no threat to national security and there is no need for military troops in our major city. The announcement marks a further expansion of what. Mr. Trump is portraying as a crackdown on violent crime in Democrat-led American cities. In the case of Portland, Mr. Trump said that he'd authorised the use of full force without explaining what that meant. I've been speaking to Will Grant in Washington, D.C.

He has said that he is given the directive to the Department of Defense, or the Department of War, as he now calls it, to provide all necessary troops to protect what he called war-ravaged Portland. The basic point that he made in his social media post was that facilities of ICE, the immigration authority in the United States, were, as he put it, under siege from attack by Antifa and other domestic terrorists. That is his claim that essentially there is a concerted effort by the radical left in the United States to attack facilities of the immigration authorities. It comes, of course, in the wake of a shooting at an ice facility in Dallas, Texas. but of course that's not in Oregon. And he has said that he is also authorising the use of full force if necessary.

But there was no expansion on that or explanation of those words by the White House as to what full force would entail. How have the mayor and other federal leaders reacted? Well, the mayor, Keith Wilson, is one of those mayors that's lined up against this. He doesn't believe that there is any need for the deployment of the National Guard or troops to his city. to do the work of law enforcement. He pointed out that Mr. Trump has said he would send as many troops as necessary,

and he retorted, well, the exact number of troops we need in Portland is precisely zero, and added, and in all American cities. The governor of Oregon, Tina Kotech, has also said that there is no national security threat in Portland. And as you can imagine, the wider context of senators and so on, Congress people from Oregon on the left, certainly lined up, on the Democratic side, lined up against this idea. Senator Jeff Merkley said that it was essentially provocation, urged people not to, as he put it, take the bait from Donald Trump. Why do these people, the mayor and others, think that

Mr Trump is doing this? Well, I think they believe that it is an essentially sort of form of provocation that these are inherently Democrat towns and cities in red states in parts of the country that don't vote for Donald Trump, that have protested his tactics, that have protested what they see as the overreach by the ICE authorities. And I think that they believe that this is essentially political, that it has very little to do with law enforcement at all. I mean, we should put that up against the Republican governor of Tennessee, Bill Lee, who wants to see troops in Memphis and see them as part of a sort of surge of resources

to fight crime in the city. Of course, Mr. Trump isn't going to see eye to eye with the governor of Oregon. or the mayor of Portland. But it stands to be seen whether or not people take to the street and protest against this or if they remain calm and the whole thing passes off calmly. Briefly, Will, he's done this in a number of cities. He's promised to do it in many more. Is he going to? Is he got the resources to? It's hard to know how far this could go. You're right. He's done it in Los Angeles, here in Washington, D.C., of course, and now we've mentioned both Portland and Memphis in Tennessee.

So it is part of a wider policy, one which he thinks, I believe, shows him to to be tough on crime, is attractive to his supporters, shows that he's prepared to go to great lengths over the issue, but it does put him in conflict with those mayors and governors who are lined up against it. Will Grant in Washington. A crush of people at a political campaign rally in Tamil Nadu, India, has left at least 39 people dead and more than 50 injured. The event in which the actor and aspiring politician Vijay was speaking

attracted thousands of people who surrounded his vehicle as he spoke. Our global affairs reporter, Anne Barrasanne Etirajan, spoke to Samantha Simmons about what happened. The relatives of those still missing or those who were injured or died in these unfortunate event. They have been searching various hospitals in the town of Karur in the western part of Tamil Nadu State in southern India. Now, as you said, thousands of people had gathered for this political rally by Vijay, a very well-known, very popular film star turned a politician to listen to his speech. He has been holding these rallies across the state for the past few months ahead of the state elections and is rising as a political force in the southern Indian state.

And we don't know exactly how this crash happened, how the surge happened, but television pictures were showing how hundreds of fans They were breaking through this barricades set up by police to have a glimpse of this actor. He's very popular among the youth and also among women. No one expected this type of crowd. He has been attracting huge crowds in these meetings. And the people were fainting as he was speaking and he was even, you know, asking people to leave way for ambulances. And the police were trying to control the situation.

And then this crash happened and it was very tragic. The Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, has issued. their condolence message, like many other political leaders. But once again, it has also shown how crowd control is still a massive subject. People need to learn on these things, authorities, as well as political parties. But in the meantime, when the people are still looking for the relatives, dozens have been injured, and the casualty figure is likely to go up. And Barrasanne, can you tell us a bit more about Vijay and his career as an actor and as a politician?

Vijay. He's very popular among the youth. He's acted in more than 70 films in the southern Tamil film industry. And he was someone who's always fighting for justice, this angry young man image, and then taking on the authorities. When he launched his political party last year, TVK, Tamraha Vettrikarham, the fact that he was drawing huge crowd shows that he's forced to reckon with for other political parties. In fact, some of the major political parties were trying to have an alliance with him,

but he was very clear that he wanted to go alone. So he wanted to make a mark. Then this unfortunate incident has happened. He has described this as a very tragic event, indescribable pain. He was sorrowed by this. Now, at the moment, the priority is for taking all those injured people to various hospitals, and the government there has rushed

dozens of doctors to this town of Karur so that they can be treated. And Barasan, Etirajan, a triple homicide that's thought to have been streamed on social media has shocked people in Argentina and around the world after three women were lured to a house tortured and killed. Thousands of protesters are on the streets of Buenos Aires on Saturday marching on Congress to demand justice with the victims' families carrying banners and photographs of them. Other protests against femicide took place around the country. Stephanie Prentice told me.

The details being reported in domestic press in Argentina are too graphic to discuss, but suggest these three young women, one of them was actually only 15, were subjected to different types of torture at a house in Buenos Aires by a gang of people. And it's those sort of details that are really fueling the shock, anger and outrage across Argentina. So far, police have arrested 12 people. It seems that under questioning, one of them revealed the killings were streamed into a live Instagram group that could have been watched by around 45 members of this private account. Now, the women's bodies were found buried in a garden. It was five days after they were missing and they were seen on CCTV getting into a white van. That van was found

burnt out near that property. An early investigation suggests they'd been invited to a party that was actually a trap by a drug dealing gang. The Buenos Aires security minister has said in video footage of the torture. A gang leader can be heard and he's saying this is what happens to people who steal drugs from me. And the governor of Buenos Aires has posted on X saying drug trafficking knows no borders or jurisdictions and it employs all forms of sexist violence. As you mentioned Stephanie, we saw a large-scale protest in the capital. It was peaceful, but the strength of sentiment was very clear. People were crying. People were holding banners and photographs. They were, Alex. The sentiment was certainly clear. A relative of one of the victims,

that was Lara Gutierrez. Her aunt was at the march, and we can listen to her. She's saying, please, as a country, join us. It's a rallying cry. She's saying, what happened is terrible, and it happened to all of us, not just our family. It happened to us as a society, as mothers, daughters and sisters. And a lot of the banners we saw, they related to feminists. rates in Argentina, members of the Niunamenos feminist movement were there. It's been pushing for more public awareness of femicide, stronger protections for women, pushing for things like increasing funding for women's shelters, and actually criticising proposals to remove the classification of femicide in Argentina. The other piece of this is the crime's alleged drug links. So

overall, Argentina has less drug-related violence than many of its neighbouring countries. So the brutality and the visibility of this crime, it's really notable there. On the ground, some activists in some of Buenos Aires more disadvantaged neighbourhoods have been warning of crime gangs expanding. We know a religious leader from Sanhusta, where one of the victims lived, he released a statement in response to these killings. He said large areas have been left at the mercy of small and large-scale drug mafias. So overall, this crime has shone alight into ongoing social issues.

It's led to more calls for reform. as well as those calls for justice for the victims, Brenda Del Castillo, Morena Verdi, and Lara Gutierrez. Stephanie Prentice. Ever since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, a range of sanctions have been imposed on Russia and its close ally Belarus, including in the sporting arena.

Now, the International Paralympic Committee, the IPC, has voted not to maintain the partial suspensions of the two countries. The decision could be. paved the way for Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete under their own flags at next year's Winter Paralympic Games. Ukraine has accused the committee of betraying the spirit of the competition. The BBC's Danny Aberhard has been telling James Kumasami about today's decision and the background to it. So this was a vote held at the General Assembly, so the member nations of the IPC in Seoul and South Korea. And it changed the vote.

in the last General Assembly in 2023 in Bahrain. So what happened in the arc of the war, shall we say, is that after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the IPC banned all paraathletes from Russia and Belarus from the Beijing Winter Paralympics. Later at the General Assembly in 2023, it changed that. The member states said it was a partial suspension.

So athletes from Russia and Belarus could participate but only as neutrals. Now the decision has been made to restore full rights to both of those countries and it means that they can compete under the national flag and with, for example, the national anthems of those two nations. So quite a victory for the Russians and the Belarusians as well and a defeat. You have to say for the Ukrainians, what's the reaction to this being? So Russia understandably has hailed that decision. They've called it fair. That was the verdict of the Russian Paralympic Committee. They said that the rights of athletes must be protected without discrimination on the basis of nationality and political affiliation. The Ukrainians obviously are totally appalled by this. So there's been accusations from the sports minister that this is a betrayal of consciences and of Olympic values.

The head of Ukraine's National Paralympic Committee, Valeri Sushkiewicz, has told me the prospect of his athletes being at medal ceremonies next to Russian military paraathletes appalled him. I can't imagine that my sportsmen during the Paralympic Games are standing on podium and look before him or maybe near him. Military athletes from Russia. These military athletes maybe kill his daughter, his wife, and kill children's, and it is criminal, criminal killer. But today, he is Athletic of Paralympic National Team of Russia. What do you think? What my sportsman will be feeling in this situation? It is terrible.

Sushkiewicz has also heavily criticized the Paralympic committee itself. He said that basically this decision discredits the entire movement. And he has put the shift in votes from 2023 to now, down to a concerted Russian diplomatic offensive. So he said that has changed countries' voting patterns, particularly in Asia and Africa. Mr. Sushkiewicz also criticized the Paralympic decision. He said it actually is a complete abrogation of everything that the movement stands for in terms of human rights. And so he has come up with some very hard-hitting comments on that as well. It's worth underlining here that it's not absolutely certain that Russian and Belarusian athletes will be at the Milan Cortina Games in March next year. The reason for this is that

International Sporting Federations that govern the sports that happen at the Winter Olympics have their own bans in place on Russian and Belarusian athletes. So it complicates the situation quite a lot. Danny Aberhardt. The people of Moldova are voting in a parliamentary election on Sunday that could have a major impact on the government's quest to join the European Union. Russia has invested heavily in restoring its influence as a popular pro-Russian group seeks to steer the small nation away from closer ties with Europe.

In the run-up to the election, our correspondent Sarah Rainsford met voters and some key players in the Moldovan capital, Kishinau, to find out what's at stake. In central Kishinau, with its street musicians and its pretty parks, I still hear a lot of Russian spoken, as well as Romanian. There's the Pushkin Street, and Yvgen Jopjiann Jägen is playing at the opera here. The cultural ties with Russia linger, more than 30 years after the Soviet collapse. But ever since Russia's all-out war on Ukraine, Moldova's government has taken a sharp political pivot away from Moscow.

And in this election campaign, Russia is pushing back. We met the chief of police, Virel Chernaut Seno. And he told me his investigations suggests Russia has spent upwards of $300 million here, buying votes and spreading disinformation. Then this week, police and prosecutors announced that dozens of men had been detained, accused of training in Serbia to stir trouble here at home. The most serious thing is the preparation for destabilization and disorder. Groups were trained abroad on how to break police lines and in violent protests.

I don't think anyone in Europe has experienced anything like this interference. We understand very well that Russia will try absolutely all methods to achieve what it wants. Just standing at the end of the main street and a little crowd starting to gather here. They're supporters of Pass, the governing party, and they're coming to march down the central street here on the last day of political campaigning ahead of the election. People are being handed EU flags to wave,

and lots of people have wrapped themselves in the, red, yellow and blue national flag of Moldova. So the front row here holding the yellow banner are all candidates in these elections and behind them marching the Prime Minister too. This is something because I've been hearing some very scary messaging talking about this as the final battle for Moldova.

That's pretty strong language. Is that really how serious you think this is? This is exactly the risks right now here in Moldova because Russia wants to use Moldova in its geopolitical attack. Is that what people care about? Or do they care about the economy and about their living standards more? It's true that in Moldova we have people that expect more from the government. But the biggest threat right now is the Russian threat to overtake the power

since the Russian attack in Ukraine, that is a constant. pressure from Russia to try to influence the revolt. There's a little old lady here in a flowery apron and a headscarf selling purple flowers. She looks a bit bemused. You'll go also once in Cusina? You've already decided for whom? Yeah, yeah. So Alexandra's saying that she hopes whoever wins this election,

it means that her family. will come back to Moldova, that the conditions here will be better. She said, all of her sons, all of her children, have left the country, like many, many Moldovans, to work overseas, and she just wants them all to come home. For many people, it's poverty and living standards that will be at the top of their minds when they go to vote. Probably more than a threat from Russia or the danger to democracy.

Who are you here? Don sees no threat at all. He is the main opposition contender in this ballot and a former president himself. In his office, guess whose photos are on the wall? There are Western leaders too, but definitely more Putin. Thadon says he supports Moldova joining the EU, but he also wants to go back to good relations and to trade with Russia, not sanctions. He doesn't believe Russia's interfering in the election, and he insists instead that it's being rigged for the governing party, pass. Unlike the police, though, he has no evidence. If pass, say they've won a majority on Sunday, it will be a fix. They can only get a majority

by falsification. People will come out onto the streets and protests. We're just passing the main government building. here. There's a huge EU flag draped down the front of the building. There's been a lot of talking Moldova for many, many years about pivotal elections, decisive moments, but this one does feel different because of the scale of the attempts by Russia to interfere with the vote here. And also because of the context, the fact that, of course, right on Moldova's border, the war in Ukraine is still raging. It shows what the real threat from Moscow actually is. Sarah Rainsford

Still to come in this podcast I flew near the water to escape the clouds and rain but found that the fog lay close to the surface and I had to rise above it What really happened to the legendary aviator Amelia Earhart Donald Trump has ordered the release of secret government records

that may offer some answers. In China, a record-breaking bridge has just opened to the public with the highest bridge deck, the parts-cars drive-on, in the world. The Huayang Grand Canyon Bridge is in a mountainous region in the south of the country, and it's estimated that it will cut travel time across the canyon from two hours to around two minutes. Our China correspondent Laura Bicker reports. Chinese state media drones circled the turquoise-painted pillars of the new bridge

as it officially opened to traffic. The motorway rises a mass of 625 metres above a deep gorge, which makes it almost twice as tall as the shard in London. The People's Daily, a mouthpiece for the car, Communist Party has touted it as a China miracle and yet another monumental achievement for the country's army of engineers. The mountainous southern province of Guizhou is one of China's poorest, and the party has been keen to invest heavily to try to change its fortunes. It's already home to almost half of the world's 100 tallest bridges. Officials hope the project will also bring in

tourists and engineers have built a 210-meter glass elevator to whisk visitors to an observation deck. All of this has come at a cost of more than $280 million to a local government that is already heavily in debt. Laura Bicker. Prince Harry has suggested that people are trying to sabotage his reconciliation with King Charles, describing media reports about their recent meeting as categorically false. The Duke met his father at Clarence House in London earlier this month. It was their first face-to-face meeting since February last year. Our correspondent Guy Lambert has more.

The Duke of Sussex's spokesperson is referring specifically to a report in the Sun that suggested through sources that the reunion between father and son that took place on the 10th of September during Prince Ari's four-day visit to the UK had been more formal than expected. And the Duke was reportedly left feeling like he was being treated as an official visitor rather than family. This was the King and Duke's first face-to-face meeting in almost two years. The meeting was also seen to be the first step in improving relations between them both after a deep family rift over the years. And Prince Harry has recently voiced

that he would love to reconcile with his family, particularly since the King's cancer diagnosis last year. But what is suggested here by him is that people are trying to sabotage his reconciliation with his father, calling these media reports about their recent meeting categorically false. In a statement, his spokesperson said that these claims were pure invention, fed by sources intent on sabotaging any reconciliation between father and son. And he also corrected part of the son's report about a framed photograph that was exchanged. It was reported to feature both the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, but it didn't.

The Sun newspaper said Prince Harry had confirmed aspects of its reporting, and it said the Duke's office was given full right of report. in advance of publication and opted not to give a response to the Sun's sourced account of the meeting. Guy Lambert. Scientists say space dust, the tiny particles that help to form stars and planets, is spongier than previously thought. Olivia Noon explains. The team studied different observations and space missions to uncover clues about dust porosity. Researchers concluded that the tiny grains are far from resembling miniature rock. and are more like fluffy little sponges riddled with tiny voids.

A European Space Agency mission to a Jupiter family comet found the fluffy particles were extremely fragile, with porosities exceeding 99%. The review's lead author said it could mean the grains have a far greater surface area than previously fought, which could change the understanding of how molecules form and evolve in space. Olivia Noon The Sound of an American Pioneer.

I flew sometimes high and sometimes low. I flew near the water to escape the clouds and rain, but found that the fog lay close to the surface, and I had to rise above it. That was Amelia Earhart, the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, talking to the BBC about her achievement in 1933, a year after she completed her journey. Four years later, she disappeared while. trying to circumnavigate the globe and was never found. That spawned numerous theories from a simple crash to more elaborate claims of espionage or capture by a foreign power.

Now, President Trump has ordered the declassification and release of secret government records about a story which, he said, had captivated millions. Laurie Gwen Shapiro is the author of a newly released book about Amelia Earhart called The Aviator and the Showman. What does she make of the president's announcement? Well, I don't think we're going to find out anything new, but I think anyone that's involved with Amelia Earhart as an industry is very excited. And that includes you, does it? Well, I've certainly been getting a lot of calls and doing a bunch of interviews, but I think that even the people that are connected to the tourism for Amelia Earhart,

they're all happy today. It's certainly not going to change the story. One of the reasons that Amelia Earhart died is because she wasn't, particularly prepared for this last final flight, where many of her friends who were very seasoned pilots were warning her that this is a very dangerous stretch that goes from Ley, New Guinea, over the Pacific Ocean, and she was making a pit stop at Howland Island,

which is basically the size I'm going to use a New York reference, like Central Park, and it's very difficult to see. So there's no chance that other alternative theories could get more credence from the release of these records? I mean, specifically, this theory, and there's a Republican member of Congress who's written to President Trump urging him to release these records

because of, quote, credible first-hand accounts that the aviator was spotted on the Pacific Island of Saipan. No, no, I mean, really, if you're really deep into the Amelia Earhart world, and especially at a very credible level, say, like the directors of the Smithsonian

or even the family members, nobody in the family believes anything than she ran out of gas. Well, of course, I mean, the reason, I mean, one of the reasons why this is all still out here swirling around is because we haven't, no one's found the body. Is there any hope? I mean, I don't know whether this makes it anything, anything more likely to, the body could be found? Yeah, I mean, I think there's credible search organizations and there are those that put

out things to fundraise their expeditions. But you have people thinking that they have a hunch, that they had a sign from above, that they're the ones to find Amelia Earhart. You really have to be very careful. Those of us that are in the Amelia Earhart business, so to speak, are quite happy because suddenly, like, she's again on the front page news. And Amelia Earhart has always been very useful for people that need to draw attention to, for whatever reason, to something that is very exciting. She's a fascinating woman, full stop. She was a brave woman, but she also was not, again, at her ability. She had left a lot of equipment behind.

She did not learn Morse code. So there's a combination of her being this fascinating great woman. And really, this is a tragedy foretold. It's not what the story that is not conspiracy-laden, but at the same time, any kind of attention to it is welcomed by people in the Amelia Earhart industry. Laurie Gwen Shapiro, biographer of Amelia Earhart, was speaking to James Kumasami. And that's all from us for now, but there'll be a new edition of the Global News podcast later. If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email.

The address is global podcast at BBC.co.uk. You can also find us on X at BBC World Service. Use the hashtag Global NewsPod. This edition was mixed by Rose Enwin Dorrell and the editor is Karen Martin. I'm Alex Ritson. Until next time, goodbye.