Global News Podcast - Syrian rebels enter Homs and close in on Damascus

Episode Date: December 7, 2024

Syrian President's grip on power wanes as another strategic city falls to Islamist rebels. Also: Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris is rededicated in front of world leaders and the conman in India who duped families into thinking he was their long lost son.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. If Hitler isn't defeated, it's the end of the free world. Purple Heart Warriors, listen now by searching for dramas 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 Sunday, the 8th of December. Islamist rebels in Syria say they've captured Homs, the third biggest city. Rebels are also closing in on the capital, Damascus. Nearly 14 years after the Arab Spring, is this the end for President Assad? South Korea's opposition fails to impeach the president over his short-lived declaration of martial law, and Notre Dame

Cathedral has reopened more than five years after it was gutted by fire. Also in the podcast, why the killing of a health insurance boss has exposed anger at the US healthcare system and… It was too good to be believed. The story hit the headlines all across India. But now after two weeks, it's turned out to be a hoax. The con man who claimed to be a long lost son. He may have survived nearly 14 years of civil war,

but suddenly the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad is looking very vulnerable. Just over a week after Islamist rebels began their offensive they say they have quote fully liberated Syria's third biggest city Homs. Residents said security personnel were fleeing by motorbike while commanders were reported to have left for the coast by helicopter. Footage from the scene showed people running in the streets against a backdrop of continuous gunfire. Later residents said thousands of people had come out to celebrate the departure of government troops and calling for the end of decades of Assad family rule. Rebels have also been closing in on the

capital Damascus, where protesters defied years of repression and tore down the Syrian flag and portraits of the president. Lina Shaikouni is a Syrian journalist who works for the BBC World Service. She's been speaking to people in the capital. One source tells me that there hadn't been any presence of regular patrols as usual as they're used to in Damascus at night. People around the city are talking more in whispers about the fact that the last days of Assad might be coming soon. Everyone's confused, the situation for people inside is quite murky and then you have a split society between people who are hopeful. They see themselves as having lived under a brutal dictatorship for all these years. There's

another half of the population that is actually very worried about what's going to happen and and is fearful of the future and what the end of the Syrian government or Bashar al-Assad's government might bring to Syria." Lina Shaikouni, Syrian journalist who works for the BBC World Service. I got the latest on events in Syria from our correspondent Hugo Bachega near the Turkey-Syria border. It does seem that the rebels are now advancing and there are reports now that they have moved towards the centre of the city. Again, very difficult to get a clear picture of what's happening but there have been reports that they've captured the prison in Homs, hundreds

of prisoners have been freed and also army convoys have been seen leaving the city. There have been reports of military officers leaving a base in homes in helicopters. So we saw that in the last few days, the regime tried to stop this rebel advance in homes because this is a strategic city. But now it seems that these insurgents are making progress. And it does feel that it is just a matter of time before they announce that they've seized this very important city because this is the city that connects the capital with the rest of the country and if they do manage to capture homes it means that Damascus will be isolated from the rest of the country. They will now presumably move south towards Damascus while other rebels from the south are approaching from that direction. Do we know where President Assad is at the moment?

He hasn't appeared in public or hasn't made any kind of speech since the beginning of this crisis last week. But today was a dramatic day of events, not only because of what's happening in homes, but also because of this astonishing progress from other insurgents from the south, and now they are getting close to Damascus. So it does feel that the president is in a very difficult situation, unable to stop these rebels. And again, the military in some places are unable to stop this offensive, and in some places it seems that they are unwilling to stop the rebels. We've seen reports of defections, we've seen reports of officers abandoning their positions so the president is now in a very difficult situation and again a lot

of people starting to believe that this is the beginning of the end of the Assad regime. Hugo Bachege near the Turkey-Syria border. So just how critical is it for the Syrian president? Keji Madera asked our security correspondent Frank Gardner. President Bashar al-Assad's regime is in the most danger it has ever been since the much maligned Arab Spring first erupted in 2011. And at the time in the summer then when that revolution was gathering pace, a lot of people thought he wouldn't be able to survive to the end of the year. But later on, with help from the Russian Air Force, from troops on the ground from Hezbollah and from Iran, they were able to prop up his regime.

And he had largely won, actually. He had largely defeated the revolution or the uprising. But this time Russia is distracted. Their main effort is in Ukraine. Iran and Hezbollah are weakened by months of tit for tat and fighting with Israel. And he's pretty much on his own. The Syrian army is weak. They can't fight this on their own.

They're demoralized. They are defecting. They're surrendering. They have simply, as you heard there, fallen away in the cities that the rebels have taken in Halab. That's Aleppo up in the north and Hama and Daraa in the south, which was the birthplace of the uprising. So this does now feel like the dying days of this regime. The only ways I think it could be saved for him

is if there was some kind of military intervention by an outside force. I don't think the Syrian army is strong enough to do it on its own, or if some deal was stitched together by foreign ministers, but I think we've got beyond that point. They'd be meeting in Doha, the Qatari capital. So you've got Russia, Iran, Turkey and other foreign ministers all meeting there. They've been trying to hammer out some kind of a political deal, but it's a bit late for that. That was offered to President Bashar's regime and he wouldn't listen. He didn't want to compromise at all and he's probably left it too late now. It would be extraordinary if he is able

to survive this but he survived 2011 so who knows. Is this lightning offensive about toppling Assad or is it about imposing some sort of other agenda? Well it's first of all about toppling his regime. Let's be clear, Bashar al-Assad's regime is a murderous, brutal dictatorship. He has butchered thousands of his own people. He's tortured them. He's gassed them. And he's lied through his teeth to interviewers saying why would I gas my own people? Who would do that? Well, here's a clue. Him. He did it. And the facts and the evidence are right there. They're indisputable. Independent people have gone on the ground, taken the

evidence and it's there. So it's tempting to say whatever replaces him is better. But I'm not sure that that's not necessarily a given because let's have a look at who these people are. HDS, which is the main rebel group, it stands for Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the organisation for the liberation of Syria. They started out being allied to Al-Qaeda, not exactly the most peaceful and inclusive organisation on the planet. They split from Al-Qaeda in 2016, but they are at heart, many of them are jihadists. They believe in holy war, as it were, and imposing their version of Islam. Now, their head, Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani, is a canny guy. He's been giving interviews to people like CNN, and he said, when we win, and we

will win, we will establish a pluralistic, inclusive rule. In other words, minorities have nothing to fear. They do fear it. The Christians and the Alawites. So Bashar al-Assad's regime, they are Alawite Shiites. And the rebels are primarily Sunnis. So there's a lot of fear amongst Christians and this very small number of Jews, Druze and Alawites as to what kind of a rule this is going to be. And I think it's possible we could actually see a period of chaos. Damascus hasn't fallen yet and it could be that the front line stagnates and that the regime is walled in in the capital for some time.

But my gut feeling is that I think it's going to fall. The BBC security correspondent, Frank Gardner, and we'll have more on events in Syria later in the podcast. Some other news now though and the South Korean president, Yoon Seung Yeol, has avoided impeachment over his shock declaration of martial law last week. Most politicians from his party boycotted proceedings despite a vast demonstration outside parliament calling for him to go. Rupert Wingfield Hayes sent this report from the South Korean capital.

After three days without a word, at 10 o'clock this morning, President Yoon Suk-gyo finally appeared on television to address the South Korean nation. The declaration of martial law was born out of desperation, he said. I sincerely apologize to the people who must have been alarmed. I will not avoid legal or political responsibility. And that was it. Less than two minutes. No real explanation and definitely no resignation. By mid-afternoon, huge crowds have begun to gather outside the National Assembly, while inside, legislators prepared to vote on President Yun's impeachment. So I'm now standing in the middle of a huge crowd of opposition supporters who are, I

think the only word I can use is they are besieging the front gates, the main entrance to the National Assembly building. There are literally tens of thousands of people out here this afternoon and there are thousands and thousands more streaming in all the time. The message from the crowd here is simple. President Yun must go. Open up! Open up! Open up! So now you can hear the chant from the crowd is open, open, open. The police are trying to block the crowd from occupying the street in front of the National Assembly and

they're saying open, open, open and they're now surging forward pushing the police line back opening up the road in front of the National Assembly for the protests to take over. I cannot believe this is happening in 21st century but I'm very glad that citizens came out to protest against this ridiculous situation and we will march on until our democracy finally triumphs over this. But as evening turned to night, it became clear the motion for impeachment would not pass. With 195 votes in favour, it had fallen just five votes short of the majority needed. At 9.30, the House Speaker called the session to a close. So the vote is over and out here on the streets. There is obviously huge disappointment that

they failed to win, that they failed to get the impeachment motion through. They're still chanting, President Youn stepped down. The Democratic Party, the opposition party says this fight is not over. President Youn may have survived this first attempt to remove him, but the street protests will continue, they they say until the president resigns or is removed from office. A report from the South Korean capital Seoul by Rupert Wingfield Hayes. Five and a half years after it was gutted by fire a refurbished Notre Dame Cathedral has reopened in Paris. A lavish ceremony was

overseen by the French president Emmanuel Macron with Donald Trump and Vladimir Zelensky among the guests. This report from Andrew Harding. The famous bells ring out once more. Then three knocks at the cathedral door. And Notre Dame is officially reopened. Some would say reborn. Inside no hint of the fire's damage, instead gleaming limestone and a host of VIPs. Prince William is here alone to represent the United Kingdom, greeting Donald Trump,

who seemed close to arm wrestling the French President Emmanuel Macron. Applause inside for the firemen who tackled the blaze and saved much of the building. And a French thank you projected on the outside. President Macron, weakened politically these days, sought to inspire and to unite. We have rediscovered what great nations can accomplish, to achieve the impossible. This cathedral has shown us what a nation is and what the world should be.

It was late on the 15th of April 2019 that Notre Dame caught fire. An inferno spread. A watching world gasping as the famous spire collapsed. But the work of 2,000 craftsmen and women, a flood of donations and a strict deadline have brought France's most beloved building back to life. Before tonight's ceremony, time for a short meeting between Macron Trump and Ukraine's in-battle leader Vladimir Zelensky. It certainly seems like the world is going a little crazy right now and we'll be talking

about that. But the focus was on one building that has weathered centuries of storms and has re-emerged looking and sounding perhaps even better than new. Andrew Harding in Paris. And still to come on the Global News Podcast. The digital medium is going to change our whole attitude about art and it's going to take it more into a democratic, egalitarian world. Celebrating digital art before the internet at a new exhibition in London.

Available now on the documentary from the BBC World Service. I'm Katie Watson in the Cook Islands where we're taking a deep dive into the Pacific. This small island nation has grand ambitions to mine its seabed for metals used in green technology, but a community that's defined by its ocean has found itself at the center of a global debate. Listen now by searching for the documentary wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Well back to our main story now and as Syrian rebels close in on the capital Damascus, foreign ministers from three of the major power brokers in the region, Russia, Iran and Turkey, have been holding emergency talks in Qatar.

Foreign ministers from Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia later joined them and in the past few hours they issued a statement calling for a political solution in Syria. Our chief international correspondent, Lise Doucet, is in Qatar. I've just spoken to the UN special envoy for Syria who was at those talks and there seems to be a consensus that they know that things are moving fast on the ground and potentially out of control but they seem to be agreeing that every effort must be made to prevent the kind of collapse, the precipitous collapse

that could set Syria on a spiral of violence and chaos at a time when at least two different rebel groups are pushing towards Damascus. So they've been underlining the escalating crisis and that the collapse seems almost certain, but they still think there is a chance that they can convince the rebels to hold fire and to try to agree on some kind of an orderly transition. Now, of course, the reality on the ground is such that the rebels now think that this victory is within touching distance. And whether or not they would agree to that is a very, very big question at this hour.

One of the senior officials in that meeting told me, it's over, that Russia and Iran understand there is nothing that they can do now militarily to save their allies that they have done so much to keep in power. The big question at this hour is President Assad going to stay and fight or is he going to flee? There have been offers made to him. He could go to Moscow. He could go to the United Arab Emirates, where his family has already gone.

But tonight, the meetings are still going on. That is the big question this hour. What is President Assad going to do? Is he going to go down fighting or is he going to get out as fast as he can? Lise Doucet in Doha. Forensic tests are being carried out on a backpack found in Central Park in New York which is thought to belong to the gunman who shot dead the boss of a major health insurance firm on Wednesday. Brian Thompson was gunned down in the street as he was preparing to host an investor conference.

The New York Police Commissioner says her officers believe the gunman has now left the city. The motive for the attack is under investigation, but it has provoked a wider debate over the state of health insurance in the US. Jessica Glenza is a senior health reporter at the Guardian US. She told Sean Lay about some of the reaction to the killing. I've received emails that said the senders were happy about the killing of Brian Thompson, which frankly is an abhorrent sentiment. So the reaction has been strong, immediate, frankly disgusting on some level. That being said, as a reporter on the US health system, I spend my entire life working on stories about the ways that these enormous

corporations like United Health Group are denying care for their beneficiaries. They've been criticized for denying care for the elderly and chronically ill. So the ubiquity of bad experiences that people have had with these companies, I think is coming out right now. So Jessica, that gives us a sense of where the anger comes from, notwithstanding that this is an abhorrent crime that was committed on Wednesday. Have you specific examples from your reporting of the sorts of situations that get people so angry about their health care, or rather their lack of health care as they seem to perceive it? A few years ago I did a story on a family that was

besieged by medical bills after their infant son died after multiple surgeries. So this family was already obviously traumatized by the loss of their son, but then was pursued by debt collectors after their insurance did not cover a portion of those medical bills. These are the kinds of experiences that are happening to people across the country and increasingly, especially as insurers use artificial intelligence to deny care in batches. So, you can see what I mean about the Kafka-esque situation that people find themselves in, the ubiquity of this situation, and then their feeling that they have nowhere to turn when it comes to enforcement of laws around how

these insurance companies treat them. Mason- Is healthcare an example of that thing we've heard so much about during the course of an election year, a sense of political disenfranchisement for many Americans that they're told, look, we've given you this great system, isn't it wonderful? It doesn't work for them. And nobody seems that interested in doing anything about it. Absolutely. Because people feel they have nowhere to turn when it comes to correcting these things that have happened to them, particularly as the majority of their representatives both at Congress and at the state level are receiving donations from pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, hospital corporations. They sort of feel beleaguered. And I think

that is a correct estimation of the situation here in the United States. I think it's an enormous burden on Americans. It's something that is seen as a hated and intractable quagmire by many. You've just talked about the kind of disenfranchisement idea. We have a lot of people expressing anger against Big Pharma. We know that the man who's been nominated to be Health and Human Services Secretary in the next Trump administration, Robert F. Kennedy is one of those critics. Is this an area which he is likely to become involved in? I think it's a complicated question because as much as Robert F. Kennedy might like to

do something like that and as much as his crack record as an environmental attorney might suggest that he might be interested in doing something like that, he's going to be a part of the Trump administration, which is fundamentally deregulatory. US health reporter Jessica Glenser. Firefighters in the Dutch city of The Hague say a survivor has been pulled from the rubble of an apartment block after a series of large explosions. At least three people died and three others were injured. It's thought others may be trapped in the wreckage. More details from Anna Hologan. All of the roads around this neighbourhood have been cordoned off. People have been evacuated

from their homes. There is a deep sense of shock within this community but also confusion because police are still trying to establish the cause of the blast. They're asking for witnesses to come forward in relation to a car that was seen speeding away from the scene shortly after the explosion but it's still unclear as to whether or not there is a link. They're also investigating the discovery of a burnt-out car that was found shortly afterwards about 10 metres away from here. Emergency services are working at the scene. They have a crane and a drone in operation picking through the rubble. But the Mayor of The Hague has warned the people

in this community to expect the worst. Anna Honegan reporting from the Netherlands. Police in India say a conman, pretending to be a long-lost son, has been arrested for exploiting a number of families over two decades. Indira Raj Meghawal claimed to have been kidnapped as a child and kept in servitude before a supposed reunion. But his deception has now come to light, as I heard from our South Asia regional editor, Anbarasan Eti Rajan. Two weeks ago, it was too good to be believed, the story itself. Someone comes and then says, you know, I'm your son. I was taken as a captive by a cattle herder,

tied to a chain for nearly 20 years. I was looking after the cattle, I managed to escape, and then he comes and meets his, whom he called, parents. It was a lot of joy. So that news hit the headlines all across India. But now, after two weeks, the story has turned out to be a hoax. And now police say that this man has been doing this for several years. It was not the first attempt.

Then when they started digging up the stories, they found out that he had been with several families in the last 10 years or 20 years. And he found families who were missing a child. Basically, he would walk into a police station and then say he was kidnapped and he was kept in some place or he will come out with a very credible story which the police would believe and he wanted to be reunited with the family. So now the police will go through the records and then say who all have complained about

missing son in the last 20-30 years because in India it's a huge country with 1.4 billion people, thousands of children get lost every year. So when the parents come in to the police stations, he listens to the stories of these people and what police were saying in a way, he was so deceitful, he would listen to the story and pick up from which one was the most, you know, he can relate with them. So then he says, oh that was my father, that was my mother and then he goes with them. So police also say, okay one case solved, you can go with them. But in this case, what happened to Tula Ram, the latest person who took him to his woman, the mother, was very fond because he was seeing a son after so many years

and they missed the only son. And then he said after three days, he was trying to leave. So he got a bit suspicious. Why he was trying to leave. My wife was so much affectionate. And always when you come back after 30 years you would try to be very normal with family but here he was behaving in a suspicious way. So then he called the police and then said you know something is wrong with this guy. Then the police started investigating but then they found out he would go and stay with the family for three months, four months. You'll get good food because you

will be treated like a royal because you have come back after a long time. But then in some places he stole money and jewellery from the houses and he ran away. So this has happened now at least in four different places. The police are trying to find out what else he was doing. So it brings in how easily you can do people and also how people can believe because emotionally they want their kids back. Our South Asia regional editor Anbarasan Eti Rajan. Finally to a new show that's just opened here in London which explores 20th century art's love of technology from early psychedelia to the dawn of the internet.

The exhibition at the Tate Modern Gallery hints at parallels with the growing importance today of artificial intelligence. Vincent Dowoud went along for the experience. Tate Modern is filled mainly with visual art but the show Electric Dreams may appeal equally to anyone fascinated by technology. Brazilian-born artist Eduardo Katz has recycled parts of France's defunct Minitel system to create moving images on old monitors. Until 2012, people used the service to check train times and much else. Everything was on the cutting edge at its time. The Minitel was a network that was introduced by friends in the early

80s, the internet before the internet. I'm looking at one now building up the figure A for instance. But once the A is formed, you see B, C, R, D. We have the word abracadabra written in three dimensions. You can even investigate South Asian electronica of the 60s and 70s, created at India's National Institute of Design. The curator in London is Val Ravalje. This is a historical exhibition about the relationship between art and technology. Between the 1950s and

the very early 1990s we decided to stop before people started actually having the internet in their own houses. An extraordinary 1974 installation by Venezuelan artist Carlos Cruz Diaz fills an entire room. From anent environment is flooded in stripes of different colors and with a moving linear pattern. I think my brain is finding it slightly confusing to be in here. It's meant to be like that, kind of an optical illusion that's created when overlapping patterns generate colors in the eye and in the brain that aren't actually there. Computer art made with old technology may have a charm to it, but what happens now with artificial intelligence promising or threatening so much? Before and now the machines are these alien objects that live with us and talk back to

us and we don't know exactly how we're going to interact with them, are they going to take over? Conversations about computers and robots taking over happening now are weirdly echoing the ones that were happening just after the first wave of computer art. My name is Samia Halabi. I'm a painter. I was born in Jerusalem, Palestine. I am 87.

Based now in America in the 1980s, Samir Halabi began to produce abstract digital works on screen. The first most basic thing I did was probably in 1985 on my sister's Apple II, which had no colour, and I was using a programme made for children called Logo. Why did you do that? Because I'm a painter. The most advanced painting historically

has always been using the technology of its time. So I went looking for a computer. The technology wasn't very advanced. But it was a computer, and it did use zeros and ones. This must be the most Instagrammable art exhibit ever, because almost everything here is suited to going on Instagram. Instagram is what brought us what's happening in Gaza and allowed us to see live what's going on in the world, which is important to mention, you know, and yes, the digital

medium is going to change our whole attitude about art and it's going to take it more into a democratic, egalitarian world where it's free and available for everybody to enjoy. Tamir Hallabi ending that report by Vincent Dout. And that is all from us for now, but the Global News podcast will be back at the same time tomorrow. This edition was mixed by Daniel Fox and produced by Nikki Virico, our editors Karen Martin. I'm Oliver Conway. Until next time, goodbye. Available now on the documentary from the BBC World Service. I'm Katie Watson in the Cook Islands, where we're taking a deep dive into the Pacific.

This small island nation has grand ambitions to mine its seabed for metals used in green technology. But a community that's defined by its ocean has found itself at the centre of a global debate. Listen now by searching for the documentary wherever you get your BBC podcasts.