Global News Podcast - Republicans win House in major boost for Trump agenda

Episode Date: November 13, 2024

Republicans secure total control of US congress after winning the House of Representatives. Also: climate impact of jet condensation trails and the kidults rediscovering the joy of toys.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. language, music and important artifacts. I'm going to find out how the government's digital nation plan is developing. 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. This edition is published in the early hours of Thursday 14th November. US Republicans retain control of the House of Representatives, giving them both chambers of Congress. But they reject Donald Trump's choice for their leader in the Senate. Experts at the COP UN climate summit have discussed how to reduce the global warming effects of aeroplane contrails and Spain is facing more extreme rainfall two weeks after devastating floods. Also in this podcast a piece of history is auctioned in Geneva.

It's possible that some of these diamonds may have come from the famous diamond necklace that led to the downfall of Mary Antoinette. And taking off the varnish layers and taking off all the overpaint, you will see the naked truth. So you will actually get as close to Rembrandt's paint as you can get into the life of this painting. Art lovers get a chance to see the night watch being restored.

Art lovers get a chance to see the night watch being restored. In contrast to his angry departure from the White House four years ago, Donald Trump has been given a warm welcome on his return. President Joe Biden followed the traditional protocol by inviting his successor to the Oval Office to discuss the transition. The pair sat in armchairs in front of a fire and shook hands. Well Mr. President, elect and former president and Donald, congratulations. And looking forward to having a, like we said, smooth transition. Do everything we can to make sure you're accommodated, what you need.

And we're going to get a chance to talk about some of that today. So, welcome. Welcome, Bob. Thank you very much. And politics is tough, and it's, in many cases, not a very nice world, but it is a nice world today. And I appreciate it very much. And a transition that's so smooth,

it'll be as smooth as it can get. And I very much appreciate that. You're welcome. Thank you all. Donald Trump is moving quickly to pack his administration with ultra-loyalists, announcing Firebrand Congressman Matt Gaetz as Attorney General and the man he once dubbed Little Marco, Senator Rubio, as his Secretary of State. The 78-year-old President-elect hinted he would be open to a third term in office when he spoke to Republican lawmakers earlier. They are now set to control both chambers of

Congress after projections suggested they would win the House of Representatives as well as the Senate. But Mr. Trump did suffer a small setback in the Senate when Republicans there rejected his preferred candidate Rick Scott as their leader. Instead they chose Senator John Thune and he spoke to reporters after the vote. We will make sure that the President and his team have the tools and support that they need to enforce border security laws and to remove the violent criminals who are wreaking havoc in every one of our states. We will work to make America prosperous again

by streamlining the bureaucratic machine and overturning costly Biden-Harris regulations. And we will work to restore American energy dominance. So what are we to make of the President-elect's latest appointments? Tom Bateman is our State Department correspondent. When it comes to Matt Gaetz, I've just been down at Capitol Hill where senators had come out of that vote that you were hearing about that elected their new Senate leader. And

a lot of these names as they are coming out over the days have been celebrated by many Republicans. Matt Gaetz as attorney general is creating something of a shocked surprise reaction, not just among Democrats who oppose him, but among Republicans as well. And that is because he's been a divisive figure in the party. It means that he will probably face an uphill battle for confirmation in the Senate for that role of attorney general. The reason this matters is because Matt Gaetz himself, first of all, had been investigated by the same department that he will now oversee over a now closed and long running sex trafficking investigation where the federal prosecutors decided not to press charges.

But the same allegations have been subject to a House of Representatives ethics committee review, which has been ongoing. So there will be a lot of questions I think over this particular pick, but it comes back to that fundamental point that Donald Trump is showing what is characterizing these picks for the senior members of his cabinet and senior White House positions is loyalty being an absolutely key trait that he's showing that he wants to have in his appointees. And what will Marco Rubio's approach be if he is confirmed as a US Secretary of State? Well Marco Rubio sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. I mean he's long taken a keen interest in foreign affairs. He's a well-known Republican senator. I mean, was once derided by President Trump when they

both ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016. But they have since had a rapprochement of relations. I mean, he was among the few people that Mr. Trump was considering as his pick for his running mate on the ticket. He chose JD Vance in the end, now the vice president's elect. It's an interesting choice. I think some of those in Mr. Trump's movement would have preferred a different candidate, frankly, and they might see this as the more sort of conventional choice. He is somebody that comes from the neo-conservative wing of the party, very hawkish on foreign relations, but has since sort of shifted his views

to align a bit more closely with those of Donald Trump. And I would characterize it as being in now a sort of hawkish isolationist view on foreign affairs to match those of Donald Trump. But the idea here is that Donald Trump has said they need to end foreign wars, but still project sort of overwhelming American military power and prowess to scare off America's

adversaries around the world. But clearly he's going to have his work cut out given that during the campaign Mr. Trump had said that he would bring an end very quickly to the war in Ukraine and to the wars in the Middle East but hasn't said how. Tom Bateman in Washington. Are the white vapor trails left in the sky by jet planes harmless, or do they represent something sinister? Certainly, they generate lots of conspiracy theories. And while these may be false, it turns out

that contrails do actually damage the environment. Researchers have found they can double the amount of global warming caused by carbon emissions from planes. The issue has been discussed at the COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan. Carlos Lopez de la Orsa, from the Transport and Environment Campaign Group in Brussels, worked on the study. He spoke to Owen Bennett-Jones. Contreras are formed because planes don't just emit CO2, they also emit huge amounts of water vapour. And this is similar to what we have in a cold winter morning when we breathe out and our water vapor condenses.

When a plane flies up in the sky and finds a pocket of cold and humid air, the water vapor released by the engine condenses. It's just an artificial cloud that we're creating. The cloud interacts with the radiation from the Earth, especially the heat that's trying to escape to outer space. Now then, having seen a vapour trail, we've all seen them. They're very thin and they go behind a plane. You don't see much of them.

I mean, does that have a big effect? It does. The effect is of a similar magnitude to the warming effect of CO2 emissions from aviation. So even though they might seem like pretty harmless thin lines, they do have a sizeable effect on climate, especially those ones which stay for a long time in the atmosphere and develop into serious clouds, so they become a bit thicker. So what do you think can be done about it? Because apparently there are quite easy fixes for this. Yeah, as I've said, they don't form all the time.

So if we see planes flying in the sky, we don't always see contrasts behind them. But in those specific cold and humid regions, they tend to form more easily. So it would consist of finding those areas and avoiding them in a similar fashion to what we do already today with thunderstorms or with areas of severe turbulence. And that would consist of relatively small deviations going up or down by three, six hundred meters, which is a relatively small climb or descent. This will have very limited impact on flight times or almost no impact and very limited impact as well on fuel consumption. But in that way, we can mitigate significantly the

formation of contrails. I mean, that sounds like another surprising claim that 300 metres could make such a big difference to the air temperature and therefore the capacity to form these trails. Yeah, those areas are very thin. Is this science absolutely established or are there people who challenge you on this? There's a consensus on the fact that these countries are very warming from the climate and their impact is of a similar size to that of CO2. The exact extent is still a subject of scientific research. But one thing that we can tell for sure, and we've looked at it in our analysis,

is that if we tackle those very few flights which are responsible for the most warming controls, we're talking about 3% of flights generating 80% of control warming. That's certainly a no regrets solution for climate, which can be also deployed at a very low cost. We're talking less than the cost of a coffee at the airport per passenger. Right, and it's just a few dollars per head in each flight. Are people taking it seriously? There has been quite a lot of attention from the climate community and also by policymakers

and that is precisely what we want to achieve by talking about it and presenting it at COP because so far it's been a very niche topic in the aviation community but it's really a significant climate issue which has so far flown under the radar but at the same time is one climate issue that has a relatively easy fix, which will have no impact on the aviation industry and on passengers. That's why it's such an attractive solution and we want more and more people to be aware of it. Now you're talking about, they're called CON trails and I think we should just mention,

because lots of people will have seen this online and therefore just be wondering if it's connected, which it isn't, but that there's talk online, a conspiracy theory about chemtrails, which are the same thing, it's a different word for the same thing, and there are all sorts of ideas about what chemtrails are meant to be, which are all basically not based in reality, right? Yeah, so quite often reality is simpler than it seems. So as opposed to having some chemicals being equipped on aircraft and released to spray population, it's much simpler, is what we said before. It's quite simply the water vapour condensing behind place on certain areas of the atmosphere.

So luckily we're not being sprayed. There's a climate issue, but we also have the toolkit to start solving it very soon. issue but we also have the toolkit to start solving it very soon. And the environmental campaign of Carlos Lopez de la Osa. The authorities in the Spanish region of Valencia were strongly criticised for failing to warn residents about the floods last month that killed more than 200 people. More bad weather is hitting southern and eastern Spain and this time people in the southern province of Málaga have had phone alerts while three thousand have been evacuated. But in Valencia itself, two weeks on from the flooding, anger remains as Nick Beek reports.

A message blares out from a military vehicle trundling through the streets. More rain is on the way. This alert in the Valencia region, a stark contrast to the lack of warning two weeks ago when the deadliest floods in generations hit Spain. This morning flood water raced through towns once again including in the south in the Malaga area. This time there were no reported deaths anywhere but many are still reeling from what happened a fortnight ago around Valencia. No place was harder hit than here, Paiporta, home to about 25,000 people. Sixty were killed

in the floods and two weeks on it's still caked with this layer of mud everywhere you look. There were fire engines, emergency services, the Red Cross, legions of volunteers. And also you see a lot of the estimated 100,000 vehicles that were destroyed in these floods. Some of them are perching where the water picked them up and deposited them at these incredible angles. Some vehicles upside down, others have been scooped up and moved and put in these sort of makeshift car parks of wrecked vehicles. It's nothing compared with the human cost. compared with the human cost. It was announced today that the bodies of five-year-old Isan Matias and three-year-old Ruben Matias had been found.

Last week, their neighbors had told us how the two brothers had been swept away by the torrent, ripped from their dad's arms, after a truck had smashed open a wall to their home. It was like a tsunami, says Juanjo, showing us a video of the water racing through his street two weeks ago. It was only thanks to God I survived. He makes the sign of the cross. He and his sister Laudas say they've been abandoned by the authorities since and are furious. This is a shame. We feel abandoned. For four days we didn't see the army coming to help.

We need more troops. We feel locked in here. There are no roads. This is horrible. We lost everything here in this town, everything. Everything which was lower than three meters is lost. The loss has sparked a huge collective effort, while Spain's politicians have been trading in a bitter blame game. The Valencia government is still under fire for sending out an official alert by mobile phone nearly 13 hours after the state weather agency warned of very intense rain. Amid all this, incredible stories are still emerging. There was the man filmed outside the English language school who smashed open the door as the water rises with terrifying

speed seen rescuing four trapped children. We've managed to track down the man who was in that video. He's Dani Burgit-Martinez. He's the joint director of the English school. In the local media here they're saying you're the hero of Pied Porter. What do you make of that? There are a lot of people who did the same thing that night. Many heroes like me, if you want to call us that. I feel good because I feel the love of the people around here. I was the one who was filmed, but there were many, many other heroes."

But an heroic effort will be required to clear all this up, and it will be needed for many more weeks and months to come, to restore Spain's traumatised and shattered communities. That report by Nick Peake. Every year more than two million people see Rembrandt's masterpiece The Night Watch at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Now the huge painting is undergoing its largest ever restoration, but visitors will not miss out. They'll be able to see the picture and the work being done on it inside a specially designed glass box. Tacho Dibbitts is the Rijksmuseum's general director. He spoke to James Kumarasami. The Night Watch is Rembrandt's most ambitious work. It's about four yards in width. It depicts 36 men who were the

men who protected the city of Amsterdam during the war against Spain in the 17th century. It's a painting with which Rembrandt wanted the viewer to feel respect and awe. But the special thing about it is that Rembrandt really revolutionized the way we look at people. He depicts people in a sense, the raw truth. He doesn't depict his sitters more beautiful than they are. He depicts them as they are. And now you are showing viewers the truth, if you like, of how a painting is restored. We're a public institution and we feel that everyone has the right to see what we actually do with the Night Watch.

It was first attacked by somebody with a knife and then it was attacked by somebody who tried to spray acid on it. So now slowly with all the conservation that happened afterwards, taking off the varnish layers and taking off all the overpaint, you will see the naked truth. You will actually get as close to Rembrandt's paint as you can get into the life of this painting. What are you hoping will be restored? What is it that has faded away over the years? What is it that you are hoping will return?

Well, the varnish had yellowed but had also become matte in certain areas. Rembrandt is such a master at creating depth with a light and dark contrast. When it was restored in the 1970s, they did it in less than four months. They had to work very fast, often over-painting original paint by Rembrandt. We will also be able to take that overpaint off and to really be certain that all the original paint of Rembrandt will be visible and that will make the picture far more legible. I think it will be magic to see it again. Tango Dibbets from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Still to come on the Global News podcast.

This group, they're often in their 20s, 30s and older. They're embracing toys, not just for the nostalgia, but also for a means of self-expression and stress relief. The Kidults, rediscovering the joy of toys. Witness the stories that have shaped our world. On the launch pad, in the dawn light, a towering symbol of an ambitious nation. Three, two, one. The whole of India was watching. Told by the people who were there.

I still don't regret that I was part of the Rose Revolution. I was a witness of very exciting days. Witness History from the BBC World Service. Listen wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Iranian activists say a well-known human rights advocate and former journalist has killed himself at a busy junction in Tehran in protest at what he called the dictatorship of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Kianush Sanjari tweeted earlier that he would take his own life if four political prisoners

were not released by seven in the evening. Alex Ritson got more details from Kazran Naji of the BBC Persian service. take his own life if four political prisoners were not released by seven in the evening. Alex Ritson got more details from Kaz Ranaji of the BBC Persian service. Many years ago he was a student activist in Iran, many times jailed and he was forced to flee the country and he left for Europe and then later to the US. At one point, he worked as a journalist with the Persian service of Voice of America. Later, he returned to Iran several years ago, 2016, because he wanted to be with his elderly parents in Iran. But when he returned, he was again politically active.

He got arrested several times. At one point he was jailed for two years. He has been active on social media, very political stuff, comments about various social issues. The way he's gone now is a shock to me and it looks like to many, many people in Iran judging by the reactions that I see. His ultimatum that he would kill himself delivered over X, over Twitter, if four political prisoners weren't released by 7pm. The Iranian authorities were never going to accede to that, were they?

And he must have known they wouldn't. He must have known. And why he decided to go ahead with, I have no idea. And it must have been early hours of Wednesday morning when he posted that message and immediately many people responded saying, don't do it. There were hundreds of messages urging him not to do it and he only gave himself less than 15 hours, 16 hours before he killed himself. And of course, that space of time, even if the authorities wanted to release them, it couldn't have happened.

In Iran, things don't happen that quickly. So he must have been pretty much intent on doing this. And yet what I see is shock everywhere that this has happened and everyone is blaming the Iranian regime and its political oppression in Iran for having forced this man to take his life. Kaz Ranaji of the BBC Persian Service. A Palestinian militant group has released a video of an Israeli hostage held in Gaza since October the 7th last

year. The footage published by Islamic Jihad shows images of Alexander or Sasha Trufanov who was abducted with his girlfriend from a kibbutz near the Gaza Strip. Our correspondent Jonathan Beale in Jerusalem told us more. So we don't know when the video was taken. We assume it is quite recent because he refers to Israel's offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon which began at the start of October. There have been video messages from him released by Islamic Jihad before. Remember that was a group involved with Hamas in those attacks on October the 7th last year which led to the murder of a thousand, more than a thousand Israelis, 250 hostages taken and a hundred still being held and Sasha Truvanov is one of those. Now he says he's 28 in the video, he's just turned 29, he talks about the conditions

he's being held in, difficult with little food, difficult sanitary conditions. He looks a little bit paler, gaunter than he did in the video released six months ago. And he also makes clear that he doesn't want a military operation by Israel to rescue him. And he ends the message saying that he misses his friends, his family, and his freedom, and he urges Israel saying that he misses his friends, his family and his freedom,

and he urges Israel not to forget about us, in other words, the hostages. And there is concern, of course, in Israel. Families of the hostages believe that they want a deal so that the hostages can be released. But while Israel continues those military operations inside Gaza itself, and there's no end in sight of that at the moment despite the US pressure there has been. Israelis are still continuing those military operations, intensifying those in the north, no deal in sight. So I think there's still frustration in the families that they haven't been able to secure the

release of the remaining hostages and there is increasing concern about the conditions they're being held in. Jonathan Beale, and a statement from the hostages mother, Lena Trufanov, said, I am relieved to see my son alive, but very worried to hear what he's saying. I urge that every effort be made to secure his immediate release and that of all the other hostages. They have no time left.

Meanwhile, UN observers have accused Israel of serious violations of the demilitarised buffer zone with Syria. A UN force is deployed there as part of a ceasefire agreed in 1974. It says it's made numerous complaints about Israeli construction work. Israel says it's strengthening defences on its territory. From the occupied Golan Heights, Lucy Williamson has this report. Satellite footage shows new trenches and earthworks appearing along large stretches of the frontier over the past few months. Most of it appears to lie outside the buffer zone.

But the UN says some of the trenches have crossed into the demilitarized area and that Israeli forces have too, describing these as severe violations with the potential to increase tensions. The UN says it has repeatedly protested to the Israeli military. But Israel's army spokesman, Nadav Shoshani,

told the BBC that the trenches were to protect against infiltration by Iran-backed groups in Syria and did not break the ceasefire agreement. I can tell you that Israeli officials have been communicating with the UN, talking about these issues, and I can tell you, IDF is operating on Israeli territory, making sure that a terror invasion is not possible, making sure we are defending our borders. Israeli ground troops are already fighting Iranian allies on two other borders. But more

than a year into this regional conflict, friction is also being felt along its quietest frontier. Our Middle East correspondent Lucy Williamson. A diamond necklace with possible links to the ill-fated Queen of France, Marie Antoinette, has been auctioned in Geneva for more than twice its expected price. After her execution, the jewellery was owned for more than a century by British aristocrats. Image and Folk sent this report from Geneva. It has over 300 carats of diamonds in there. There's a lot of history behind the piece that we don't really know about. A stunning necklace whose 18th century diamonds were cut in the favored style of France's last royal court. Could they once have been part of the infamous necklace Marie Antoinette was, falsely it later turned out,

accused of taking and not paying for? Today no one can be sure but that scandal fueled the French Revolution and Marie Antoinette's eventual beheading. At Sotheby's Jessica Wyndham knew the connection would add to the necklaces value. Jewelry with a noble provenance can generate a huge amount of excitement and we've been privileged in the past to have the pearl that belonged to Mary Antoinette. This was sold with an estimate of one to two million and ended up selling for thirty six million. So we can see that the interest that this can generate can be enormous. Two million four, two million five, three millions, nice round number.

And indeed bidding was brisk. The necklace, in the form of an elegant scarf containing dozens of diamonds, later worn by British nobility at the coronations of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth II, didn't smash records the way Marie Antoinette's pearl pendant did, but even that tenuous link with the doomed French queen pushed its value up. It had a guide price of around $2 million, but it sold in just a few minutes for almost $5 million. The bid is yours and deservedly so. It's amazing.

A report by Imogen Folks. It may be the season ahead of Christmas for buying toys but here in the UK sales are down and the people who are making purchases are not necessarily getting them for children. Toy industry research group CIRCANA says a falling birthrate, the cost of living and fewer big hit film franchises have combined to reduce demand but sales to so-called kid-ults have grown with one in five toys and games now being bought by over 18s for themselves. Why? Roger Herring asked Maddie Mahalik from the toy association. The kid-ult

trend refers to adults who are actively buying toys, games and even collectibles that might traditionally be marketed toward kids. So this group, they're often in their 20s, 30s and older, they're embracing toys not just for the nostalgia, but also for a means of self-expression, a lot to do with stress relief, building their own collections of items that they like, and sometimes even for investment. Do they actually play with them? their own collections of items that they like and sometimes even for investment. Do they actually play with them?

They do and actually a lot of this has to be contributed to Lego. So a lot of these building sets that are coming out now are catered toward these Codult audiences. So they are definitely being played with and we actually have a very interesting stat. So the US Toy Association recently ran a survey with a thousand US parents about toys, play, and their attitude towards shopping this holiday season. And we found that 72% of parents are going to put a toy or game on their own holiday wish list. I think the adults are here to stay. The manufacturers are, you know, in touch with these trends and they are catering lines like, for example, action figures.

There are really high detailed lines catered toward adult consumers, but then adults also want to play with toys that kids are playing with too. So we're talking about games, building sets, puzzles, lines like that. Yeah, you sort of think that of kid-ults, if we call them that, play computer games, video games, it's that. But I know that some play board games, for example, which you kind of think would be for an earlier age group. Absolutely. And there are manufacturers like Hasbro.

They have action figures. They have Star Wars The Black Series, which is for that adult audience. They have Marvel Legends, which are also, you know also those souped up action figures for the adult audience. Mattel launched a platform called Mattel Creations, and that is all limited edition product geared toward adults too. So there are a lot that companies are doing to make sure that this audience is being fed. Do you think there'll be more kid-old toys underneath the Christmas tree this year than children toys? I don't think it's going to get to that extent, but there will be a lot of happy adults this holiday season. Dare I ask you Maddie, will there be any

kid-ult toys under your Christmas tree for you? Oh, you bet. I am a huge fan of the Lego Botanicals collection. I have quite a few myself, so maybe there will be something from Santa for me. US toy expert Maddie Michalik. And that is all from us for now, but the Global News podcast will be back very soon. This edition was mixed by James Piper and produced by Nikki Virico, the editor's Karen Martin. I'm Oliver Conway. Until next time, goodbye. When we left, there was this wonderful feeling.

But it was only the beginning of a nightmare. This is a story that started with a job advert. A yacht owner looking for a crew to sell his recently renovated boat from Brazil to Europe. For me it was going to be a great adventure and an opportunity to gain a lot of experience. But when police raided the vessel and discovered drugs, cocaine hidden under one of the beds. It can't be. A key suspect was miles away.

Everything revolved around him. Who's the boss? A British guy. Fox. Fox. This is World of Secrets from the BBC World Service, season five, Finding Mr. Fox. Search for World of Secrets wherever

you get your BBC podcasts.