Global News Podcast - Rescue efforts after Tibet floods reach ‘critical phase'

Episode Date: August 28, 2026

Two days after massive floods and landslides in the Himalayas, authorities in Tibet have resumed search and rescue operations, despite the ongoing threat that a debris-filled lake could collapse. The Chinese government has offered to send aid to Nepal to help survivors of the disaster. Also: King Haakon VIII has acceded to the throne in Norway after the death of his father, Harald V, at the age of 89. A group of more than 80 actors are calling on the British government to give every person in the UK a legal right to own their voice in response to the rise in the use of AI "voice cloning". And Apple prepares to shake up the tech industry with its first foldable iPhone expected to be unveiled next month. 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] Photo: Firefighters conduct search and rescue operations after a mudslide in Gyirong county in Tibet. Credit: Reuters

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You can also enjoy a range of our podcasts ad-free with an Amazon music subscription. This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. Hi, I'm Ankara Desai and at 14 hours GMT on Friday the 28th of August, these are our main stories. The Chinese President Xi Jinping has chaired an emergency meeting to coordinate rescue efforts following the deadly floods in Nepal and Tibet. Norway mourns as King Harold V dies at the age of 89. And we analyse the situation in the Middle East, six months since the start of the conflict between Iran and the United States.

Also, in this podcast, a new study reveals that our brains apply a special tag to events as they happen to help us prioritize our memories. Every day, our centre is sort of bombarded by so much information that our brain needs a way to figure out what is actually important that we're seeing and we're hearing that needs to be committed into a long-term memory. And we are both male British voices for sure. However, I am not David Attenborough for anyone out there who might be confused. More than 80 actors are calling on the British government to give every person a legal right to own their voice because of famous voices cloned by AI. We start with the devastating landslides and floods in Nepal and Tibet. Two days after the initial disaster, we've been hearing about a lake which was threatening to burst its banks,

risking further devastation. Well, according to officials on the ground, that has now happened. But one, Nepali officials say water levels are rising as a result. The fear deluge has not as yet occurred. Nearly 500 people are now known to have died in the disaster. Hundreds are still missing, and relief agencies are struggling to help survivors. Dr. Nitti Shrester is an anesthetist who has traveled to the district hospital in Rasa to treat the injured. Many people have lost their loved ones.

People they were trying to rescue but had to leave behind. People have run away from their homes just to save themselves without even their phone. With no slippers, most of them are covered in mud because it was like a mud flight. People have told me that they had to leave their illolatives behind because they couldn't carry them or maybe they couldn't walk like elderly people. Well, relief operations on the Tibetan side had been suspended over the threat of renewed flooding but have now resumed. My China correspondent, Stephen MacDonald, told me more.

Yeah, on the Tibetan side of the border, the situation is stabilized somewhat. The rescue and recovery effort has started again, and that's because fears of this second round of flash flooding have subsided somewhat. People are not so concerned, and I tell you why. It's because there was this artificial lake, if I could describe it, as that created, when mud and debris, rocks, etc., poured into a mountain valley, and this then filled up with water, a huge volume of water,

creating what they call a barrier lake. And the concern was that this would burst, leading to another huge gushing amount of water pouring down that valley. But government officials are saying that the water level has subsided quite a bit in that lake. and because they've dropped, they've decided to resume the very difficult effort to try to find people who might still be alive, trapped underneath, I don't know, the remains of buildings or something like that, after that huge wall of water and mud came crashing down a couple of days ago. Stephen, Chinese president has made an offer of help to Nepal.

Is there much cross-border cooperation on this one? Yeah, he said that China. these teams can be available. I mean, a lot of other countries have also offered to help Nepal, but at the moment, the Nepalese government seems to be saying they don't need any help in terms of the immediate rescue. They've got their own military doing this. What the government in Nepal has said is they might need help with is the recovery

later on, so some sort of financial support to assist those areas that have been devastated by this terrible incident. And maybe China will be there to help with that. but China does have a lot of resources, especially when you compare the country to Nepal. However, at the moment, at least, we haven't seen any Chinese teams operating on the other side of the border. And Stephen, what do we make of the coverage of this story so far

based on what the Chinese state media is saying and then what a lot of people in China are seeing on social media? Well, certain things have happened here. For example, the really shocking footage of the, original, just gargantuan amount of water pouring down, smashing settlements, engulfing multi-story buildings and people trying to outrun this, hasn't been shown on television here, only stills. Now, in one way, people might say that that's the government censoring this type of stuff, but there is an extent to which it could be quite disturbing for people who live in Tibet.

I mean, imagine you've got friends and relatives, you're essentially watching them die. And so you can also understand why there might have been a decision not to run that footage. It is highly controlled there, though. It's the most controlled part of China. I think it would be fair to say that. Foreign reporters, we can't go into the Tibetan Autonomous Region ever without permission from the government. And so that's why we're covering it from here. So it is also very hard to verify what's really going on.

I heard more about the situation in Nepal from Sanjaya Dhakal of the BBC's Nepali service who is in Kathmandu. Most of the areas dry in very remote part and in a high mountain area. So access is very difficult. And we have seen videos of security personnel rescuing people from totally muddy places. And it looks like a very complicated operation. Access by road is very limited. The largest stretch of highways have been washed away by the flood. And therefore most of the job has to be done either through aerial route.

and access to the people in the most difficult region is very difficult. In terms of the risk of further flooding, are there any warnings which are coming out about this? There were lots of warning from the Chinese side also. And today, this afternoon, Nepal,'s disaster response authority also issued an alert, asking people to remain on a high alert because the water level was slightly rising in the river area where the flood had occurred. But then there were also then reports that the bridge that occurred today has stopped. Such kind of reports came from China, sign-inside.

And so for the time being rescue and assaults and rescue is ongoing. But there is a big worry that there could be another flooding, the bridge of that lake. So there's that big worry. The government's response, has this been adequate? Were there measures in place which could have maybe alleviate what had happened? earlier? Well, search and rescue operation is a very difficult and complicated process. Of course, it is not adequate because people are still waiting to hear about their loved ones.

Many are missing. Over 900 people are missing. So, you know, it's inadequate. But the terrain and the area is also quite difficult. Sanjay Dakhl in Kathmandu. King Huikon, the 8th, has ascended to the throne in Norway after the death of his father. father, Harold V. Harold died earlier on Friday morning at the age of 89.

Large crowds gathered to watch the new monarch's arrival at the Royal Palace in Oslo, where he's been meeting government ministers. We really love our king, and I thought he was really a king of the people. So I think it's really important that people come here to show how grateful we are for his heart. It was really a good-hearted man. King Harald has been such a good king. And I think most Norwegians really feel that they know him very well. He's been very active as a king.

He's been participating in so many different situations for so many years. And he was a great guy. The king's final months, though, were overshadowed by turmoil in the royal family. His daughter-in-law crowned princess Metamaret underwent a lung transplant. Her son, Marius Borghoyby, was jailed for four years after being convicted of two rapes. Metamarratt also apologised for her past friendship with Geoffrey Epstein. A global affairs reporter Mimbi Swaby told me more about his life and reign.

King Harold V took throne in 1991 and oversaw so many changes worldwide, let alone in his country, Norway. But he was seen despite having no political power, or form of political power, as very much a symbol and a status of comfort and stability for many Norwegian. He would often go to disasters, address victims of attacks and really was seen as a king of the people. And that is something I've heard from mourners across yesterday when people started preparing for this event, going to the palace and also laying down flowers, lighting candles, holding vigil for him,

until this morning again when we heard the news from the Royal Court confirming that King Harold had passed away peacefully, they said, at Oslo University Hospital after suffering with, a blood infection which he was being treated for there. But he was very much seen as a modest king. He was a unifying, symbol unifying figure. And that is something that many people have been saying that they will remember him as his grandfather figure for the country and was hugely loved, despite all these scandals that the wider royal family have been played with in recent years. I mean, we do know what happens next. So when the successor will be sworn in, for example. King Hawkin is now the new king. It is automatic when,

The previous monarch passes away. The next in line, his son, automatically assumes that title. So he's now officially the new king. He hasn't been sworn in yet. He will take an oath at a later time. But at the moment, we're seeing mourners pay their respects. There are extraordinary council of state happening right now. And that is basically a meeting of a full cabinet meeting of Norway's parliament.

With the new monarch, they're signing of condolences. We can then expect an in-person kind of appearance. in the palace square by ministers as well as the new king, and then a sequence of eulogies then going on to officially being sworn in. And this is a sequence of events, a timetable, which is full of tradition and ceremony. But it is important to say it is also in keeping with the nation's more low-key royal family than their approach to reigning over Norway.

This will be nothing to rival the pageantry and the... the ceremony that we saw in the likes of the British succession as well as other monarchies. So it will be a humble affair. And these are words I've been using all morning, humble, modest, low-key. And that is something that we can expect to see in these sequence of events today. Norway is in a morning period. We don't know how long that period will be, but it'll be until the funeral. That date has yet to be announced.

And the flag is flying at half-mast over the palace in Oslo. But yeah, there is a sequence of events which has already started and will last for. the coming hours, but also days before that funeral is held. Mimi Swayby. Now, do you remember that car license plate you saw the other day? The one with the combination of letters and numbers that made you think? No. Well, there's a reason you don't.

New research has found that your brain applies a kind of tag to your daily experiences. And then, overnight, uses those tags to work out whether or not to remember those moments or to let them slip away. The study was led by Dan Dennis from York University's debartement of psychology here in the UK. He spoke to Johnny Diamond. Every day, our centre is sort of bombarded by so much incoming information that really our brain needs a way to figure out what is actually important that we're seeing and we're hearing that needs to be committed into a long-term memory. And we think that these tags that sit alongside these memory traces are what essentially guides the brain into making that decision. It's important to understand that our memories are not just a static snapshot of exactly how we experience it.

They get transformed and they evolve over time. So when we first experience something, the brain will tag it, give it a level of priority. And that priority might be based on things like the emotion that's being felt or the personal relevance that you feel towards that particular experience. And then to ensure that it remains a stable memory into the long term, it then needs to be reprocessed again during sleep, where that memory trace gets replayed in the brain multiple times, and that's the process by which the new experience that we form during the day enters our long-term memory so that we can recall it in the future. Different people remember different things, don't they?

I mean, this is a very sort of personal and individual moment. It's not something that you're saying applies in a uniform way. You're just explaining how these things are remembered. Is that right? Yeah, exactly. There are some things that are probably. going to be well remembered by almost anyone, and they tend to be emotionally charged, often quite negative events, tend to have almost universal saliency. But there are lots of other things,

like you said, that are going to vary person to person. And that's what this tagging is doing. It's deciding or indicating relevancy. And it might be drawing on our own past experiences and our own previous memories in deciding in the moment what is relevant to you as an individual. And how important is the nature of the sleep that you get to the filing process? if I can call it that? The sleep itself is very, very important. We think that the filing process, as you said, or the replaying of the new experiences tends to happen when we're in a stage of sleep called slow-wave sleep,

and that's the deepest stage of sleep that we get, you know, when we're most detached from the world. So anything that can disrupt that deep sleep might interfere with these ongoing memory processing, which is going to be, in the end, detrimental to memory. How does it mesh with the idea that you can improve your memory, that you can train yourself to remember more and different things? Yeah, I think that's a really interesting question and something we want to explore a bit more in the future is how different kinds of learning strategies

influence this process of selectivity in what we end up remembering in the long term. One thing, for example, is if you're trying to remember a new association, like maybe an association between a new name and a face, if you can form a visualization in your mind that links those two things together very strongly, that's going to improve your ability to recall that person's name when you see them in the future. And interestingly, the brain mechanisms that are involved in that binding process,

that linking of different things together, appears to be the same kinds of brain mechanisms that are involved in the tagging that we're seeing in our research. Psychology Professor Dan Dennis. Next, have you heard of voice cloning? This is where artificial intelligence creates a digital replica of a person's voice based on an audio sample of them speaking. Sir David Attenborough said he was profoundly disturbed when he discovered two years ago that he was being widely mimicked online using AI technology. One of the websites that had been creating copycat clips of the British naturalist responded to the controversy by posting this audio.

Let's set the record straight. Unless Mr Attenborough has been moonlighting for us in secret and under an assumed name with work authorization in the United States, he is not on our payroll. I am not David Attenborough. We are both male British voices for sure. However, I am not David Attenborough for anyone out there who might be confused. It sounds a lot like him, but just to be clear, that's an unauthorised AI version of David Attenborough

and not the real thing. Now, a group of more than 80 actors, including Hugh Bonneville, are calling on the government to give every person in the UK a legal right to own their voice. They're concerned performers like voice over artists could lose their livelihoods to digital knockoffs. They also point to the growing number of scams involving voice cloning. Peter Corfield is founder of the Save Our Voices Now campaign.

When I started digging deeper into the clauses of these online companies, it seemed that we don't have any rights when it comes to our voice ownership. So from an artist's point of view, that was quite scary because it's sort of like, well, we're putting our voice out there all the time, whether it's on social media or whether it's audition tapes. And it's just like, actually, what happens to that data and what happens to your voice after you've sent it off into the ether? At this point in time, we don't really have any rights or laws to protect our voice.

You think that you would own your voice because you were born with it. But actually, there is no law that really protects us from anyone with the right kind of AI software from copying your voice in three seconds and then using it as their own, which is quite terrifying. The actor Peter Corfield, who's part of a new campaign calling for a crackdown on AI voice cloning. Still to come in this podcast. Samsung's eight generations into this product already. They've obviously gone through a lot of growing pains. It does look like Apple's coming in later.

We find out why Apple are about to enter the foldable phone market. This is... Your sales order says one thing. Your inventory says another. Your spreadsheet. Pete says, good luck. Odu brings your business together on a single platform, from sales and accounting to inventory and marketing.

Visit Odu.com to book a demo. It's O'DO.com. Get more with BBC Podcasts, wherever you listen. Be the first to listen to your favorite shows, like Evil Genius, Good, Bad Billionaire, and You're Dead to Me, with a subscription to BBC Podcasts Premium on Apple Podcasts. You can also enjoy a range of our podcasts ad-free with an Amazon music subscription.

This is the Global News podcast. Today marks exactly six months since the start of the conflict between Iran and the United States. Professor Paul Moorcraft has spent decades analyzing and reporting from the world's war zones. Joel Mitchell asked him if we could still be sitting here in three months' time in the same situation as now. You know, it's very easy to be depressing about this war, especially as some argue we're in the foothills. of the Third War War. I don't think so. We've had six months since the war on Iran started, and last week the 60 days of the ceasefire ran out. So the first phase is over,

the heavy kinetic fighting Israel and American Iran. Now, Washington says we're in the big economic war. That's the second phase. I think there could be a third phase. It depends what happens to the American elections, to the Israeli elections, and so on. But I think there's likely to be a managed kind of on-off war until next year, and that's going to be bad news for the world economies. Yes, and you mentioned the economic phase. This talk of Economic D-Day was being talked about, and as we began the week, we were expecting those sanctions.

We got them by the middle of the week, but not all the major international players, in particular China, going along with the United States on that one. and it's worth a reminder, the global economy, oil production, massively affected by Iran's closure, control over the Strait of Hormuz. Well, of course, and it could get worse. If it moves into a third phase, then the hooties under Tehran's orders will start blocking the Red Sea, having a go at the Suez Canal and the Egyptian ports. There's lots of things the Iranians could do. they've done extremely well in this war.

They've showed great resilience, great spirit, and therefore much harder than people expected. But neither side, neither the Americans or the Iranians, Israelis may be different, want a major war because of the economic effects. Unlike the First World War or the Second World War or NATO versus the Warsaw Pact, there are cross-cutting allegiances. China's economy is very important.

into America. Also, the Russians and the Israelis still are quite close in some respects. So this isn't a complete, and that's a war. It's not going to turn into the Third World War. But nobody wants the streets of almost to remain closed, except perhaps the Iranians. In this sense, they have won this war. They're much stronger than before the war started six months ago. So the Americans got to do an awful lot of things. They've got to persuade the... Iranians to do a deal, a proper deal. They've got to open the strait of homeowner's without charging money. And there's lots of things that the Iranians want, whether the Americans can give it. And on top of that, the Iranians government is much more hard-line than it was.

Officially, it was a theocratic government. But now the military or the Revolutionary Guard Corps has basically running the show as well as the economy. There's many hardliners within the Guard Corps who do not want to do any deals. So there are splits within the Iranian government, whether a third phase of further bombing will make them change their mind. I don't know. But I think the Chinese getting involved and also the Russians, perhaps, because Trump likes to talk, feel he can talk to President Putin. I think there's not going to be an absolute Kennedy war. Besides, there are lots of problems with the American military, whether it's Patriot missiles or whether it's endurance on the carriers and so on.

I think despite all problems, Trump and elements, some compromising elements of the Guard Corps, will do a deal, I hope. Analyst Paul Moorcroft. Violence by Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank is set to reach record levels this year, as human rights groups warned that they are increasingly spreading into new areas of the territory. attacks on Palestinians have risen under Israel's current government alongside a rapid increase in Israeli settlements. A Middle East correspondent Lucy Williamson

has been looking at reports of settler violence across the West Bank in the course of one week. A teenager shot dead, beatings, arson attacks, a donkey tortured. You might have seen the worst attacks by Jewish settlers here in the occupied West Bank, but behind those lies a much wider campaign of violence against Palestinians. We've counted more than 60 incidents here just in the past week, including daily incursions and intimidations that never make the news,

some of which aren't even reported by the victims at all. On Saturday, amputee's Syed Elamor was beaten by a settler with an iron bar as he stooped to pick up one of his crutches. A shocking video recording the assault clearly shows his attacker who's now under arrest. Saeed, who lost his leg last year after being shot near his house by a settler security guard, says settlers are constantly harassing the family. They want me to leave this place. It's not only me who's targeted.

It's everyone. If I leave, they'll go after my neighbor down the road. Then the next one. than the one after that, until they remove everyone from these areas and replace them with Zionists. On Friday, a large group of Jewish settlers, some of them armed, walked through the Palestinian village of Saeir near Hebron, past the house of 17-year-old Kareem Shaldeh.

His father, Sanad, told us Kareem was killed while filming the settlers. The second bullet struck my son. I ran to him before he fell and held him in my arms. I would rather die myself a thousand times than see it happen to my child. Israel's army said it had received reports of Palestinians throwing stones. Jewish settlements here, illegal under international law, are expanding. And settler attacks are rising as well. The Israeli human rights organization, Yashdi.

says more than 90% of police investigations into settler violence end without indictment. There is a problem of violence in the West Bank. Doran Spielman, a spokesman for the Israeli Prime Minister's office, spoke to the BBC late last month. There are Jews who are a very small number of Jews. They are human beings. They have names. They are just called settlers. Who have, in fact, been prosecuted by the police. The largest estimate would be maybe 300 or 400 youth.

that are involved in this out of a population of 750,000. This week, Zvi Sukkot, a settler lawmaker in Israel's governing coalition, filmed himself destroying a village memorial in the West Bank because, he said, it honoured terrorists. It triggered a rebuke from Israel's foreign minister and from the office of the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Jewish settlers were also filmed torturing a donkey, tying it to their vehicle and dragging it along until it was dead,

a sadistic act of aggression that shocked Israelis more than it shocked Palestinians. Lucy Williamson reporting from the West Bank. US media is reporting that the Trump administration is in talks with Venezuela's interim government about Washington taking an ownership stake in its huge oil resources. We heard more from our business reporter, Ejoma and Doquay. Based on these reports, the US is in talks with Venezuela about taking quite a significantly large stake in its oil fields. According to these reports, the details are still being ironed out.

The discussions are said to involve more than a dozen productive oil fields, which have about 90 billion barrels of proven reserves. And if you bear in mind that Venezuela has 300 billion barrels of proven reserves, that's nearly a third of that. Now, some of these oil fields that are being discussed, they used to be controlled by former Venezuelan insiders, people with close ties to the Venezuelan government, including some who've now been indicted. And we know that some of them were also controlled by China. And from what we understand at this stage, in return for a US ownership stake, private companies, including American firms, would take over the development of these oil fields and return more oil revenues. to Venezuela. There are some small oil traders who are very excited about this deal, but generally, if you look at some of the oil majors who have traditionally operated in Venezuela, they're quite nervous about investing huge sums of money into the country, especially during a time of political

turmoil, because they've invested money before and not got their returns back. When the Maduro regime was in operation, a lot of them weren't able to take full advantage. of what they'd put into those reserves. Ejoma Endoque reporting. Apple is planning to shake up the tech industry again as it prepares to enter the foldable smartphone market with its first foldable iPhone expected to be unveiled next month.

Huawei and Samsung currently dominate the market, accounting for 36% and 34% of global foldable shipments respectively last year. Apple's entry could significantly reshape the market. The launch will also be. mark the first major product unveiling under new CEO, John Turnus. So why has Apple waited so long to enter the foldable market? Brian Ma is a technology industry analyst with IDC. It's not entirely out of character for Apple to kind of sit it out for a while, let the technology mature a bit before they get into it. But on paper, Samsung's eight generations into this product already. They've

obviously gone through a lot of growing pains, learning how to get the hinge to work, the waterproofing the work, all that kind of stuff. So it does look like Apple's coming in, However, I think they wanted to make sure the experience was going to be good for a consumer. The opening and closing, whether there's much of a crease in the fold area, whether the hinge works out well. One of the challenges is that in order to get it so thin, they had to step back on a few things that they normally put into iPhones like Face ID, like a Zoom lens. So the rumors are, at least, that Apple had to give up on some of those in order to make this work. So this first generation of product may be a bit of a compromise for folks, but eventually, the hope is that as Apple comes out with future generations of the product,

let's hope they do build in that zoom lens and that sort of thing. And so eventually we may get there. Think of this in the spirit of what Apple did with Apple Watch Ultra, right? Really going beyond even just the high-end Apple Watch present the Ultra, even what they did with the iPhones going to Pro Max. So this is going to be a very premium product. We think this is going to be well over $2,000. So clearly, that's not quite a mainstream product yet.

It will be the early adopters. but it is something where you anecdotally hear people who, let's say they see someone carrying a Samsung Galaxy full, and they're like, when is Apple going to have one of those? So I think there's folks that are looking at it and assuming that Apple really delivers on a decent experience, this is something that is going to be in good demand. But again, that price point means that it will prohibit that

from becoming a mainstream thing for at least the time being. Tech industry analyst Brian Maher. And that's all for us, now, if you want to get in touch, you can email us at Global Podcast at BBC.com. You can also now watch our episodes in full. Just search for the Global News Podcast on YouTube. This edition was mixed by Tom Bartlett and the producer was Nikki Verico. The editor is Karen Martin and I'm Ankara to sign. Until next time, goodbye. Get more with BBC podcasts, wherever you listen. Be the first to listen to your favourite shows

like Evil Genius, Good, Bad Billionaire and You're Dead to Me, with a subscription to BBC Podcasts Premium on Apple Podcasts. You can also enjoy a range of our podcasts ad-free with an Amazon music subscription.