Global News Podcast - Spain battles deadliest flood disaster in decades

Episode Date: October 31, 2024

Spain is enduring its worst flooding disaster in decades, with scores of people dead and dozens more missing. Also: remembering the iconic boxing fight between Ali and Foreman.

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Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC podcasts. This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Rachel Wright and in the early hours of Thursday 31st October these are our main stories. Spain has declared three days of mourning after at least 95 people died in flash floods in the East and South. Kamala Harris has vowed to serve all Americans as she seeks to contain the fallout after President Biden appeared to refer

to Donald Trump supporters as garbage. The first budget by a Labour Party government in the United Kingdom for 14 years is aiming to raise almost $50 billion through additional taxation. Also in this podcast... He's won the title back, Ali, his heavyweight champion of the world at 32, in the eighth round by a knockout.

Believe it or not, it's 50 years since the boxer Mohammed Ali beat George Foreman in what became known as the Rumble in the Jungle. We begin in Spain. At least 95 people have died in the deadliest flooding to hit Spain for three decades after torrential rain battered the eastern region of Valencia. Buildings and bridges were swept away and cars were left piled up on roads as a churning tide of brown water swept through towns and villages. Acres of farmland were submerged. Consela Tarathon is the mayor of Orno de Alcedo, a town very close to the centre of Valencia. On Tuesday night it

experienced some of the worst effects of the flash floods. By 8 p.m. in the night water started coming in great amounts and the town was flooded in minutes. The currents were so quick and we called the emergency services who started rescuing some people who had water up their necks but we've had a very terrible night. Things are calmer now. The area is still flooded and the truth is that we are having a total catastrophe. Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has declared three days of mourning.

Our correspondent in Spain, Guy Hedgeco, gave us this update on Wednesday evening on the rescue operation. Rescue services are trying to help people get back to their homes. There are many people who are still stranded, for example, on the roofs of buildings, either on their own homes or of other buildings. Other people have been stranded in cars as well, waiting for floodwaters to subside. They're also still looking for survivors searching through the debris, in some cases with the help of sniffer dogs and the military are helping with that to try and find survivors and failing that try and find the bodies of more victims because there are still a lot of people who remain missing, who haven't been accounted for and it does

therefore look as if the death toll is likely to carry on increasing over the next few hours. How have the authorities responded? Were they prepared at a local level for this tragedy? There has been a sort of buzz throughout the day as a debate about this issue which has sort of intensified throughout the day. Some people have said that the local government of Valencia didn't give enough warning, nor did the National Meteorological Agency, that they did issue warnings about the weather, but that they didn't come early enough. Now, the president of the Valencia region, Carlos Mathón, has defended his own administration

and the role of the authorities in all of this, saying that this was such an extraordinary situation that even the scientists were rather wrong-footed by the intensity of the flash floods. So he said no one could have predicted that. What has the Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez been saying about helping the victims? He issued a message earlier in the day to say that he would use whatever resources were available to ensure that the people who were affected received help. But as we've seen throughout the day, it's almost as if things have got worse and worse,

certainly in terms of the death toll, people who are missing. So the amount of resources that will be needed, first of all, to find people, all the missing people, and then to reconstruct those areas or to repair the damage in those areas, particularly in Valencia, where the damage has been particularly bad. That's obviously going to have a huge cost. But the government seems to have said that it's going to foot the bill and it will make every effort to cover it. But Mr Sanchez did also warn that although the weather event had essentially ended, he said that still the challenges remained, that people in those areas should not let down their guard, as he put it, because there were still enormous challenges to come.

Guy Hedgeco in Madrid. With less than a week to go before the US presidential election, both candidates are continuing their campaigns on tours of battleground states. The Democratic candidate, Kamala Harris, has been trying to distance herself from her boss, President Biden's remarks seeming to describe Donald Trump supporters as garbage. Giving a speech to a rally in North Carolina, she said she would serve all Americans if elected president. Donald Trump meanwhile has been addressing supporters in Green Bay, Wisconsin. I

spoke to the BBC's Rowan Bridge who's in Washington and first asked him to remind us what President Biden said and what he claimed he meant. This was on a call with a group called Voto Latino which is a non-profit aimed at turning out the Latino vote which may be crucial in certain states in this election. And he's doing a Zoom call and he's kind of speaking off the cuff and he appears to call Trump supporters garbage which is a sort of reference back to a comment made by the comedian Tony Hinchcliffe at a rally in Madison Square Gardens in New York, where he talked about Puerto Rico being

a floating island of garbage. The White House have released a transcript of the comments, and what he says is, the only garbage I see floating out there is Trump's supporters. His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable and it's un-American. Now the question has come down to basically an apostrophe because though it sounds like he's talking about Trump supporters being garbage, Joe Biden basically says that was a clear reference to Tony Hinchcliffe being garbage. But he's clearly aware that this has caused issues because after that call, Joe Biden put out a tweet clarifying exactly

what he means because they are aware that that is potentially damaging at this late stage in the campaign. And of course it references back to Hillary Clinton. Obviously the Trump campaign is using this to attack Kamala Harris. Has she managed to distance herself from the remarks? It's always a difficult dance when you're the vice president and running for the top job. You know, you are part of the administration and you can't be seen to sort of criticize your boss openly, but at the same time, you want to kind of put some clear blue water between yourself and your predecessor to kind of stake out your own territory.

So I think she's been trying to sort of thread that needle, really. So she was asked about it, not surprisingly, and said that Joe Biden had clarified his comments without sort of directly criticising him and said she strongly disagreed with any criticism of people based on who they voted for. So she's tried to sort of distance herself a bit without being openly critical of effectively her boss. Donald Trump, what's he up to today? Yeah, I mean, both candidates have been out in the swing states. There are effectively seven states in the United States which are likely to decide the outcome of this election because most states are firmly in the

Trump or Harris camps. So Donald Trump, he's been campaigning in two states, North Carolina and then Wisconsin, where he's campaigning with Brett Favre, who's a former American football player. And that is a deliberate part of the Trump strategy because they are targeting lower propensity voters, male, non-college educated, the sorts of people they think Brent Favre is going to appeal to. Rowan Bridge in Washington. As we record this podcast Lebanon's Prime Minister Najib Mikati has said he's cautiously optimistic that a ceasefire with Israel may be possible

within the coming hours or days. Earlier, the Israeli military launched airstrikes on Hezbollah targets in the eastern city of Baalbek, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Mark Lowen spoke to the BBC's Beirut correspondent Kareem Torbay, who's just visited Baalbek, and asked her what she saw. We saw lots of people, tens of thousands of people had to flee their houses, especially in the Bekaa and the surrounding areas after receiving evacuation orders from the Israelis. And soon afterwards the Israelis started bombing the city and there have been intense airstrikes on the city.

These people are at the moment trying to find a huge place to stay. This new wave of displacement comes on the backdrop of other waves of displacement from the south of the country, from the southern suburb of Beirut as well, and at the moment, you know, a very large proportion of the population in Lebanon is internally displaced. Yeah, it's thought that a million or more than a million people have been displaced since Israel began its ground offensive at the start of this month. Karine, another development today, the new designated head of Hezbollah, Naeem Qassem, has spoken. We don't know where he is.

Speculation that he's in Iran. What did he have to say? Well, yes, as you said, this is the first speech for Naeem Qassem as the new secretary general of Hezbollah. He came across just to say that he is continuing on the path of his predecessor, Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed by the Israelis like a month ago and he basically said that Hezbollah will not beg for a ceasefire. Hezbollah is ready to discuss conditions for a ceasefire but conditions that Hezbollah is

fine to be fair and acceptable but it's not going to bank for a ceasefire. And he said that the party is prepared and ready for a long fight. Kareen Torbay. The Israeli military has given an explanation for its deadly attack on a five-storey residential building in northern Gaza on Tuesday. Hamas health officials say 90 people sheltering there were killed or remain missing. Washington called the strike horrifying and demanded an explanation from Israel. Our Middle East

regional editor Sebastian Usher is in Jerusalem. The US has said that it hasn't received the answers that it wants from Israel over the strike that hit a five-story building in Beit Lahir in northern Gaza. Hamas officials say that at least 90 people were killed or missing. Now the IDF has spoken to the BBC and several other media outlets to give some kind of explanation of what happened, saying that troops spotted a man with binoculars on the roof of the building, what they called a spotter, and they made a decision on the spur of a moment to take that individual out. They say that they did not intend for the building to collapse, but the building was not the target. This is perhaps a sign of how the Israeli army operates

in Gaza and certainly something that the U.S. is expressing more and more concern about. This is the Biden administration. The U.S. State Department spokesman described the incident as horrifying. The U.S. has given Israel a 30-day deadline to improve not just the way that its battle is being fought in northern Gaza against Hamas, but also the die humanitarian situation there within a 30-day

deadline and the US has said that if things don't improve during that time it may have an effect on the way that the US supplies weapons to Israel. Sebastian Ascher. The Hindu festival of Diwali is being celebrated at this time by millions of people around the world. In India, buying gold for weddings, a major festival such as Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, is considered auspicious.

Demand normally soars around now in the country that is the world's second biggest buyer of gold. But this year prices have hit a record high. Despite that, Sachin Jain from the World Gold Council says the demand has increased. January to September 2024, the consumption of the demand in India has been 537 tonnes. And this we compared to last year in the same period was about 494 tons. So we've been about 9% up from last year to this. The main changes have been financial markets

and the returns of gold from a prospective investment. This year, the performance of gold has been amongst the best in the any asset class. And that certainly is a big trigger. And we've just come out of one of the best monsoon seasons that we've seen and that clearly will reflect on the money in the hands of the rural economy and the people and that will have a good upsurge on the gold consumption. Roger Herring spoke to the BBC's Devina Gupta who's in Delhi and asked her about the importance gold

plays in Diwali celebrations. It's considered as an auspicious metal, Roger. So all the families here, most of the Hindu families, they buy some of the other form of gold. It could be either a gold coin or jewellery. We worship as Hindu families to the goddess of wealth. And it is believed that if you buy gold during this time, your wealth will increase and there'll be good fortune for your family. But your wealth will decrease because the price is so high.

I mean, that's the problem, isn't it? Well, it seems to be a temporary decrease because the gold is also seen as an investment by families and it's like the fear of missing out even though the prices are soaring but people try and invest whatever money they have saved up through the year on this gold so that they can later on after a few years can see that appreciation of this wealth. In fact I've been speaking to some of the customers about this and I went to a jewelry shop in central Delhi to ask

them if this time round because gold prices have hit a record high if it's putting them off spending and this is what they told me. To be honest if someone wants to buy they will buy, price is not a matter. The collection, the designs they have pretty unique in the city and it just resembles with the authenticity and our tradition. Well clearly some of those people who told me that they're buying gold they were spending quite a bit and someone who was really happy was a shop owner of that place. That's Mr. Om Prakash, who owns Panalal Om Prakash Jewellers. And he told me how he was seeing consumer behavior this time round. There is one phenomena. The phenomena is the prices are ever rising. And this very year, I may say 15%, 16% increase, increment.

That is the one reason why the people want to buy gold and they prefer it because this is anytime cash. Om Prakash there. So Devina, I mean we talk about gold, I mean do people go in and say well I'll have a nice bar of gold or is it a piece of jewelry? I mean how do people get it? Well you can simply go and to any retail shop and buy jewelry or a gold coin. A gold coin could be anywhere between five grams to 10 grams, and the value is decided about what's the rate of gold during that time. But the other way that many people are now investing, especially youngsters, is an exchange traded fund, or it's a stock of gold. So it's not a physical gold, but you can buy these funds and keep it with you

for years to come. And as they say, the attraction stays. Davina Gupta in India. Still to come, European women's football receives a major financial boost. The feeling is that this one billion dollars is really needed, especially to level out the playing field across the continent. 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. Here in the UK, it was a big day on Wednesday for the new government. The first Labour budget for 14 years was delivered for the first time ever by a female finance minister or chancellor. There were huge cheers from her party in the lower house of parliament as she announced major rises in business taxes, spending and borrowing. It's the most significant moment in British politics since Labour won the general election

in July. The Chancellor, Rachel Reeve, said she wanted people to feel the change. More pounds in people's pockets, an NHS that is there when you need it, an economy that is growing, creating wealth and opportunity for all, because that is the only way to improve living standards. And the only way to drive economic growth is to invest, invest, invest. I asked our political correspondent, Rob Watson, whether Labour was breaking the mould of other European countries in a similar position and rejecting austerity. I think that sums it up pretty nicely, Rachel. It is a dramatic moment and one that will

be watched around the world by developed nations because that's exactly what is happening where other large European countries have decided to deal with mounting debts and deficits and low growth by cutting spending. Britain is doing the absolute opposite. This is a really, really, truly significant increase in taxation, spending and borrowing. And what about the reaction from business, especially small businesses, who will be the hardest hit? Pretty negative really, because by and large most of the increase in tax is coming from

businesses, small, medium and large, mainly medium and large ones, and they just basically make the case that, well, hang on, if Labour said that what it really, really wanted to do was to promote growth, why on earth would you be increasing the tax burdens on businesses and giving workers more rights? And it wasn't exactly something that we had associated with the Labour government before this budget. It was a bit of a surprise? I suppose it was a bit of a surprise. I mean, we knew it was going to be dramatic, but I think we didn't quite know the sort of the size of the tax rises and of the spending

and borrowing. So to that extent, yes, it really stands out. And of course, during the election campaign, Labour had said that the only way to really grow the economy was not through sort of tax and spending but was through sort of innovation and investment. But I mean in the end an awful lot of this new spending on public services which I'm sure lots of voters will really like if it makes their schools and hospitals better it is coming from borrowing and taxation rather than growth. And you say that but how much will this have an actual impact on people's day to day lives? The forecasts are that in terms of disposable income it wouldn't really have a massive effect

despite what the Chancellor we heard her say just then. But what Labour is hoping for is that if you pour a lot of money into schools, transportation, hospitals, health, you know people will see that and there has been this feeling in Britain that somehow nothing in the country works properly anymore. So that's the hope. Next to Georgia and the pro-western president has refused a summons by the prosecutor's office asking her to explain her allegations of fraud in Saturday's parliamentary election. Salome Zurabashvili said there was abundant evidence of electoral fraud

and prosecutors should investigate rather than engage in political score settling. The election authorities say the Georgian Dream Party, which is accused of increasingly authoritarian pro-Russian rule, won a fourth term in power. Earlier, the Prime Minister, Irakli Kolbakidze, challenged the president to provide her evidence. Zorabishvili, who may wholeheartedly see herself as an NGO activist, remains a state official by her position with different responsibilities.

She does not have the right to make verbal claims. If she has any facts, she must present them to the prosecutor's office or the relevant constitutional body. However, I'm certain that since she has no facts, she won't dare to go to the prosecutor's office or provide them with any information regarding the accusations she is making. For more on the response from the Georgian president, I heard more from our Europe editor, Warren Ball. President Zerav Bishvili has said the summons is politically motivated. She said it's not the president's place to provide proof, but the prosecutor should be doing their job of

investigating. She said vote-reading has taken place in what she called a Russian special operation led by the Kremlin. She said a carousel of voting had been taking place when one person can vote 10, 15, even 17 times with the same ID. She's called for a full review of the poll and said that partial reviews would not be enough. So she's saying that there was irregularities. Do you know what evidence she and the party have that this was the case? Well, there's a Georgian monitoring group called My Vote, and it's compiled a list of the types of violations that its 1500 observers documented on Saturday in the election and in the run up to the vote before that. One of them is that they said ahead of the election, state teachers, cleaners and bus drivers were either asked to send in their IDs or had them

confiscated. It said that families of vulnerable people were offered financial help in return for their vote. And then on the day of the election, My Vote says that there were several different schemes being used. One of them was vote buying and ballot stuffing while the observers were prevented from doing their job. They said that there were election officials who didn't respond to allegations of criminal offences. They said the system of inking voters' fingers wasn't done properly, so voters could vote again elsewhere. And they said that voters were able to use other people's ID numbers to cast their ballots with the complicity of the election officials.

So why doesn't the President just go to the prosecutor and present all this evidence? Well, she thinks that it wouldn't be accepted, it wouldn't be believed. The prosecutor is linked to the Georgian Dream Party. They are obviously opposed to her and she thinks that it would give the whole process credibility, which is something that she doesn't want to do. Warren Ball. Women's football has seen remarkable growth in recent years. Last year's World Cup in Australia and New Zealand generated over half a billion dollars of investment in the next six years. But where's all that investment going? A question for the BBC's Ella Bicknell.

It's going to the professional side of the game but also the grassroots level and let's start there. UEFA says football needs to be the most popular sport for women and girls in every European country by 2030. So that means 50,000 grassroots clubs in total. That's what they want and better talent programs so they can spot future stars in the making. They want more professional players. They want to up that number by 2,000 and they also want more competitions. Currently there are four leagues, one in England, one in

France, one in Spain and one in Germany. They want six in the next five years and also a second European wide competition. So a second tier to the Champions League in France, one in Spain and one in Germany. They want six in the next five years and also a second European wide competition. So a second tier to the Champions League that we already have. Interest in the women's game has exploded in recent years. Is this a response to that, do you think? Yeah, it's really been meteoric. Like attendance at UEFA matches has actually doubled in the last four years and the Women's World Cup, as said in Australia and New Zealand that was record-breaking when it came to TV figures and attendance. But there are issues. One third of professional clubs are not financially independent and European investment and European salaries do not compare to the US women's

game. So the feeling is that this one billion dollars is really needed, especially to level out the playing field across the continent. That was expressed by Ballon d'Or winner Aitana Bonmati. She said that the Spanish league has not really changed even though Spain won the World Cup last year. And all of that's been reflected by the UEFA Managing Director of Women's Football, Nadine Kesler. She says the sport has never been a better place, but this funding has to be tailor-made for countries who need that special support. Ella Bicknell.

Now for this great sporting moment. Oh, he's got him with the right hand. He's got him. Oh my God, he's won the title back. Ali is heavyweight champion of the world at 32 in the eighth round by a knockout. It's 50 years since the boxer Mohammed Ali beat George Foreman in what became known as the Rumble in the Jungle. The fight took place on 30 October 1974 in Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo. Muhammad Ali biographer Thomas Hauser said it helped build the boxer's legacy. He said on numerous occasions to me that he was at his best as a fighter when he was young, that the fight that was the best for fans

was the Thrilla and Manila, but the fight that meant the most to him was regaining the heavyweight championship of the world against George Foreman and Zaire. We're not talking about the rumble in the jungle now because it was just a fistfight. It was Muhammad Ali. And this was one of the important cornerstones of his legend. Well, Muhammad Ali has of course since died, but Andrew Peach spoke to the man in the other corner of the boxing ring at the time, George Foreman, who was the favourite to beat Ali in the fight. But how did he feel going into it?

I had walked through the contendership and I'd beaten the best one in boxing, Joe Frazier. Then I backtracked and beat all the guys who had beaten Muhammad Ali. So all the reporters and the experts said, oh, he's not going to last one round with George Foreman. But of course, other things came to play like that fast right hand from Muhammad Ali. Did you go into it utterly confident, as all the journalists and fans were, that he had no chance against you? I had always been real nervous butterflies before boxing matches. But for the first time in my boxing career I was in Africa didn't

have any butterflies was not afraid and it was probably the most comfortable I felt before a boxing match that night. So when you heard Muhammad Ali talking the talk and saying he was gonna beat you you thought he's got no chance? He didn't say a word to me his, his talk was to the media that went across the world. So a lot of things went on and I never heard him boast at all until seconds before the boxing match when we came to the center to be introduced by the referee. And did you have any exchange of words at that point? Yes, he looked at me and looked like he was trying to psych me out because I stared at him with a fierceness.

He said, George, you don't have been in here with me. You were in high school when I won the championship of the world. And I almost burst out laughing because I never saw a day in high school in my life. Somebody told him wrong. Once you're in the ring with him, did it feel like it started well from your point of view? Did it feel like it was going the way you expected? Yeah, one punch led to another punch. I never had to defend myself in the ring. And what was he saying to you during the fight? Because those of us who've seen it can see that he's talking to you. What was he saying, if you remember?

I remember one frightening moment, could have been about the sixth or seventh round. I hit him so hard. He said, that all you got, George? I remember that. And how did you feel at that moment? you got George I remember that. And how did you feel at that moment? I wanted to tell him yep that's all I got and of course I kept hitting him but I had run out of gas. Tell me about the Roper Dope thing because no one had done that before. Could you work out what this strategy was that he was basically making up during the match? Well my thing was to corner a guy, cut the ring off and then battery him up. And a couple of times he tried to move and it wasn't there for him. I cornered him and just

started hammering him. And it must have been about the third, last or third round, I wailed on him and the bell rang and he looked at me and looked, is it to say, I made it, I made it. And I looked at him and said, he made it, he made it. That was a surprise and turned him point in that fight. I don't know how he made it. Tell me about the end of the fight. Well, swiftly I kept following him around, trying to knock him out. He slipped and when I missed him, he slipped and hit me with a one-two. The most fast right hand I'd ever not seen,

if you know what I mean. He hit me in that right hand, wasn't powerful. It wasn't anything but so fast and there I was tumbling down like a tree and waiting for the rough to count and I jumped up the fight was over. The man was fast and I heard about his speed and I kind of laughed about that but he threw that right hand lightning fast. It's 50 years ago, George. How do you think about it now, reflecting on that moment, probably the greatest moment in Muhammad Ali's career? How does it feel to you to be retelling the

story to me now? You know, I'm glad because I was there that people can talk with me about it. 50 years later, not here a third hand report, and I'm still alive to talk about it. It turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me. I became an evangelist preaching on the street corners and nobody knew me. I cut my hair, had overalls on, and people wouldn't stop. And then one day I said, yes, this is George Foreman. I fought Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, and people started to stop.

The boxer, George Foreman. And that's all from us for now, but there will 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 globalpodcasts.bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X at Global News Pod. This edition was mixed by Caroline Driscoll. The producer was Liam McShephy. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Rachel Wright.

Until next time, goodbye. 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 Did you know that you can listen to them without ads?