Global News Podcast - Syria's de facto leader says the country is not a threat to its neighbours or the west

Episode Date: December 19, 2024

Syria's new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa told the BBC that Syria is exhausted by war and is not a threat to its neighbours or to the west. Also: listen to the 'earliest known country song' ever recorded.

This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Jackie Leonard and in the early hours of Thursday, the 19th of December, these are our main stories. Syria's new de facto leader has told the BBC that the country is exhausted by war and poses no threat to Western countries or its neighbours. An out of control Indian Navy vessel has collided with a passenger ferry off the coast of Mumbai, killing at least 13 people. And police in Liberia are investigating a fire that has destroyed much of the country's parliament. Also in this podcast, what's believed

to be the earliest recording of a country song. Records of this type, these are unicorns. They're reputed to exist, but they've never been seen. The de facto leader of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharah, says his country is exhausted by war and is not a threat to its neighbours or the West. In an interview with the BBC in Damascus, he called for sanctions on Syria to be lifted. Al-Sharah, who has now discarded his nom de guerre, Abu Mohammed al-Jalani, led the lightning offensive that toppled the Assad regime less than two weeks ago. He is the leader of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, also known as HTS, the

dominant group in the rebel alliance. He said HTS should be delisted as a terrorist organisation. It is designated as one by the UN, the US, EU and UK, among many others. It started as a splinter group of al-Qaeda, from which it broke away in 2016. In the Syrian capital Damascus, our international editor Jeremy Bowen met Ahmed al-Sharah, who was relaxed during the interview and was wearing civilian clothes. This is his report. The de facto leader of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharah, chose to do the interview in the presidential palace built by the Assads. He told me he wasn't surprised that the old regime collapsed so quickly. Syrians, he said, needed to keep calm to tackle all the problems they face.

You've made a lot of promises. You said that you'll respect the mosaic of different sectarian groups here in Syria, minorities as well. Are you going to keep those promises? The Syrian population has lived together for thousands of years. We're going to discuss all of it. We're going to have dialogue and make sure everyone is represented. The old regime always played on sectarian divisions, but we won't. We were

welcomed in all the big cities by all the sects. I think the revolution can contain everybody. So this isn't going to be some kind of a caliphate or you're not going to make Syria into a country like Afghanistan because you know that there are people who say that maybe you want to behave like the Taliban. There are many differences between Syria and the Taliban. The way we govern is different. Afghanistan is a tribal community. Syria is completely different. The people just don't think in the same way.

The Syrian government and the ruling system will be in line with Syria's history and culture. So the culture of Syria includes rights for women, it includes education for women, it includes tolerance for people drinking alcohol. Is that all acceptable to you? When it comes to women's education, of course. We've had universities in Idlib for more than eight years. I think the percentage of women in universities is more than 60 percent.

And alcohol? There are many things I just don't have the right to talk about because they are legal issues. There will be a Syrian committee of legal experts to write a constitution. They will decide. And any ruler or president will have to follow the law. Let's talk about wider issues that you face. First of all, this country is broken. There is massive amount of destruction. The economy is destroyed.

There are huge debts. How do you begin to start dealing with all of that when you are, when the country's under sanctions and when major powers around the world and the United Nations say that you are the leader of a terrorist group? That's a political classification. We haven't committed any crimes that justify calling us a terrorist group.

In the last 14 years, we haven't targeted any civilians or civilian areas or civilian targets. I understand some countries will be worried by that designation, but it's not true. Now, after all that has happened, sanctions must be lifted because they were targeted at the old regime. The victim and the oppressor should not be treated in the same way. Well, after that interview at the Presidential Palace in Damascus, I asked Jeremy about his

thoughts on the interview with the Syrian de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharah, his demeanour, his tone. I'd say he was very relaxed, he's a very calm man, he had a retinue of five or six people, bodyguards and so on, and media people with him. But yeah, he was prepared to talk. He was prepared to answer my questions. He didn't get offended by anything. He didn't get angry at any point.

He came across to me as a highly intelligent and politically sophisticated individual. And like a lot of politicians around the world in the West notably he's also pretty good at not giving a straight answer to a straight question. He was stressing what he felt was the need for sanctions to be lifted. What were the key parts of this interview for you? Well I think it was a couple of things. First of all, his trying to reassure all comers, people in Syria, that you know they're not going to be cracking

down on people who aren't religious Sunni Muslims and I think what was also important about it was the fact he said he called for their designation as a terrorist group to be lifted. He said that Syria needed sanctions to be lifted too. And interestingly too when I said look you know I think people won't believe you necessarily he said he said I'm only really concerned about what Syrians think. I'm not really concerned about what the rest of the world thinks. And when I also spoke to him about the fact that the Israelis are taking territory, they have had a major bombing campaign against the sort of storehouses of what was the Syrian military, he said the country's exhausted. They can't possibly go to war with anybody and can't anyway, don't have the capacity.

So what he's trying to do is reach out in diplomatic ways to other parts of the world and he has been talking to the Americans, he's been talking to the French, he's been talking to the British and he's been talking a lot to the United Nations. That was the BBC's international editor Jeremy Bowen. Well Ahmed Al-Sharah's Islamist group Hayat Turia al-Sham is now trying to lead the formation of a new national administration. HTS had run Idlib almost like a mini statelet with taxes, public services and a military force. But they have also faced protests over what's seen as an authoritarian rule. So can the way they govern Idlib give us clues about how they're planning to lead the rest

of Syria, our Middle East correspondent Hugo Bachega reports. Idlib. This was the rebel stronghold in northwest Syria, run by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrid Al-Sham. HTS is now in power in Syria and trying to take its way of governing to the entire country. This is the CCU, cardiac care unit. Dr. Hamza Al-Murawih moved from Aleppo early in the war and has witnessed all the changes in Idlib since HTS took control in 2017, including this hospital, set up in an old warehouse. When HTS came to us, we see a lot of development in Idlib. We have a lot of things that we didn't have in Assad regime. We have

a college of medicine, we have a college of pharmacy, we have a college of architectures. It's a sunny morning and the city centre is bustling with people. A lot of traffic here around this square and shops are busy. A lot of people here. In Idlib, HTS run the economy like any country. They tax goods, border crossings and trade and run telecommunication and energy companies. The income allows them to provide public services and fund their military operations. We tried to interview a local official but were told all of them had gone to Damascus to help in the

formation of the new government. HTS has its roots in al-Qaeda and is considered a terrorist organization by the UK, the US and the UN. For years they've been trying to convince the world they've changed and that they want to build a Syria for all Syrians. An hour's drive from Idlib in the small Christian village of Kinaia, the church bells rang for the first time in a decade on the 8th of December to celebrate the fall of the Assad regime. People here don't seem concerned that minorities like them could be at risk with Islamists

now in charge. Friar Fadi Azhar says there's no reason for concern. Our friars, they lived under HDS. Before it was very hard, let us say. But for the last two years, things start changing. They gave them more freedom to practice the faith. They called for other Christians who were refugees in Latakia and Aleppo to come back to take their land and to take their homes back.

Do you think they've changed? We hope. We are trust. We trust in God and we trust in the good will of the people. HTS dominance has not been without discontent. Protests like this one in March have been held against the detention of rivals and what some say is an authoritarian rule. Fuad Saeedissa is an activist from Idlib.

To be honest it's some incident, it's not the big thing, not the big scale. I'm talking to a lot of people here and everybody's very positive, everybody's very optimistic and there's almost no criticism of HTS here. No, no. They are now the heroes to be honest. If they act as dictators, the people are ready to say no. From the ruins of a war and a dictatorship a nation is being reborn but what kind of nation will it be? That was Hugo

Bachega. Well following the rapid developments in Syria the BBC World Service has launched a special audio news and information service for people in Syria and surrounding countries. It will be mainly in Arabic but there will also be some English programming. The service is on 24 hours a day on 93.0 FM and on medium wave for 8 hours a day on 720 and 639 kilohertz. Research by the BBC suggests that Palestinian news outlets have found it much more difficult to reach an audience through Facebook during the Israel-Gaza war. A comprehensive analysis of the social media platform's data shows that newsrooms in Gaza and the occupied West Bank suffered a sharp drop in audience engagement after October 2023. The BBC's cyber correspondent Joe Tidy told Tim Franks more about the findings. We know now that these accusations that have been thrown around social media for the last

six months to a year about shadow banning, there may be some truth behind it because of course as you say we looked at the engagement, the metrics that we can count across 20 different news organisations based in Palestine and territories versus 20 in Israeli and 20 in Arabic speaking in the surrounding areas. And we found a big disparity between the engagement that each one got. On the Palestinian pages there was a 77% drop in engagement, so that's likes, comments, shares, reactions after October 7th, compared to 37% increase for Israeli pages and 100% increase for Arabic. And you'll have to explain what shadow banning is. Well it's this idea that you can still post things, you can still say what you want on social media,

but you're not getting the views, you're not getting the clicks on your videos, that kind of thing. And that's been the accusation against Meta for the last year or so, and it looks like this is another data point potentially pointing that way, but Meta has said very strongly that they have not done this deliberately to silence any particular voice. Are there sort of excuses about we're doing all we can to police harmful content, that sort of thing? Exactly that. That's what they've been saying. That we had to bring in what they're calling emergency policy changes to stop a spike in graphic or hateful content. We didn't find

any that was particularly different on those 20 Palestinian organisations compared to others. They also said that it's very difficult for them to balance safety on the platform when you've got Hamas, which is designated as a terrorist organisation by US, UK and their own policies. But again, we didn't find any overt praising of Hamas on those Palestinian pages. Interestingly though, one of the things they did say is that if a page posted most about the war or only about the war, they will be demoted in the algorithms of the platform. Because of course, Facebook doesn't want too much bad news or even news on their platform.

Joe Tidy speaking to Tim Franks. Rescuers in India have been searching for survivors after a crowded ferry capsized following a collision with a Navy speedboat. Video footage shows the smaller vessel circling the ferry before colliding head on. The Navy, Coast Guard and Marine Police have been involved in the search for survivors. Janhavi Moolay from BBC Marathi is following developments from Mumbai.

Janhavi Moolay, BBC Marathi Indian Navy has given information that it was their craft that was undergoing some engine trials and it lost control suddenly and all of a sudden it rammed into this ferry boat that was carrying tourists from Gateway of India which is a very famous monument in Mumbai to Elephanta Island. There were about 100 to 120 people on board. We still don't know the exact number of people. There's no clarity but local reports say that there were over 100 people on board and at the moment 13 have died and 99 were rescued. So what are the authorities doing now?

The search is still on. Some survivors have shared the footage that they filmed while they were being rescued and it shows people were being carried out to another vessel when the boat capsized and all of them looked very scary. We still don't know what exactly happened but more details are still expected in coming hours. And as you say the search is still ongoing. What sort of conditions are the rescuers working in? The incidents has happened in Mumbai harbour which means the seas are quite calm also this is a quiet time of the year so rescuers are not facing much of adversities there but this place is around five nautical miles from the coast, that is around nine kilometers into the sea.

On one side there is Gateway of India and Mumbai's coastline, and on another side there is a very busy port named JNPT Port. The port was actually going to an island in this harbor area, which is a very famous tourist destination. It is often frequented by foreigners who visit

the city so that's why people have raised more concerns about the safety of tourist boats and marine traffic in the area as well. Janhavi Moolay from BBC Marathi. Police in Liberia are investigating the cause of a huge fire that destroyed much of the country's parliament. No one was in the building at the time. The police say four people are being questioned, including the Speaker, Jonathan Fennati-Kofer. He is at the centre of a power struggle. Will Ross reports. For many Liberians, the sight of flames inside the House of Representatives and large clouds of black smoke rising from its roof are evidence of a political feud that's out of control. Governing party politicians have been trying

to remove the speaker, Jonathan Fonati-Kofa, from his post over allegations of corruption which he's denied. On Tuesday his opposition supporters protested on the streets of Monrovia. Liberia's police chief says hours before the fire, another politician, Frank Salfoco, had posted on social media a threat to burn down parliament. Will Ross. Several children have died during a crush at a holiday event in southwestern Nigeria. The crowd of about 5,000 people had gathered for a carnival in Basharoun in Oyo State. Nigeria's national emergency services say they've deployed a team to help

provide assistance to the victims. Chris Owoko reports from Lagos. It was a deadly crush that claimed the lives of an unspecified number of children in Ibadon, South West Nigeria. The incident occurred at a carnival and charity event on Wednesday. The exact number of casualties is still not known as the authorities are yet to give specific details. However, residents in Bashurun area of Ibadan said over 5,000 children were gathered at the venue of the carnival.

As the main organizers arrived to start the event, there were massive movements of the children as they tried to gain vantage position. Now few days before the event, the organizers had made broadcasts on popular radio stations in the city leading to massive turnout of people, mostly children. The organizers had promised free items including scholarships for children. This is the Christmas season so there were expectations of free food items especially with many families facing cost of living crisis and poverty in Nigeria. Yet, the cause of the incident has not been disclosed by the authorities.

The governor of Oyo State, Sheaim Akin, had tweeted on Wednesday afternoon that measures had been put in place to prevent further death at the venue while the primary organizers of the event have been taken into custody for investigation. A statement by the Oyo state government said victims have been taken to different hospitals across Ibadan for treatment. The event was stopped and attendees were escorted out of the venue. Chris Owokor in Nigeria. Still to come?

It's not too cold and it's wintery. Every day of the year you can book the Santa to come to your rooms because we are Santa's home, so why not? Brazil's Congress has been voting on austerity measures proposed by the left-wing government of President Lula de Silva. The voting comes as the local currency continues to lose value against the US dollar. America's regional editor, Leonardo Rocha, reports. President Lula is in a very difficult political situation. He was elected two years ago promising to reduce inequality, reversing,

as he puts, the losses experienced by Brazilian workers during the government of his right-wing predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro. But as there are fears of public spending spiralling out of control, President Lula was forced to propose tough austerity measures, including cuts to education spending and restrictions on future rises to the minimum wage. Leonardo Roscia. It was supposed to be an eight-day mission which has now extended to beyond eight months. Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunny Williams have been stuck on the International Space Station since their spacecraft malfunctioned in June and now they've been told they'll have to wait until at least the end of March before

they can return home. Our science correspondent is Pallabh Ghosh. Butch Wilmore and Sunny Williams blasted off in June on an experimental spacecraft built by Boeing called Starliner. On the way there, there were a few issues with their thrusters, and everyone said it was going to be fine, and NASA just needed to check it out. After those eight days had gone by, they said they still needed to check things out. And then days turned to weeks, weeks turned to a month. And then they said they'd have to wait until February because they couldn't be sure that they could get them back safely. And so much to Boeing's irritation, I suspect, they were told that it would be their archrival SpaceX that would use their space capsule, the Dragon capsule, to bring them back in

their next crew rotation. Alas, SpaceX too has had an issue. It hasn't got its capsule, the Dragon capsule, ready on time. So that's the reason for the delay. It's going to have it ready towards the end of March. And so that's delayed Butch and Sunny's return by a couple more months. So how are they doing physically and mentally? This must be taking quite a toll. One would think so. I'm sure they're a little bit disappointed at missing out on Christmas, but that was always going to happen since September when they were told they were going to be stuck there till February. But these are professional astronauts. For them, being on the International

Space Station is the best thing ever. There are hundreds of astronauts that would love to be in their position. So they, in some ways, were probably quite pleased when their short-duration, eight-day mission was extended. And they've said several times they love working in space, and even Suddy Williams has said that the space stations are a happy place. So I think that they're doing fine, they're doing their jobs and they're doing it at the highest possible level, which is what they have lived to do. So they've still got plenty to occupy them. They're taking part in normal crew activities. There are hundreds of experiments on the International

Space Station, but the biggest experiment of all is finding out the impact that long duration space missions have on people. All the astronauts that go up there have their vitals monitored to see whether humans can stay in space in case we want to have colonies on the Moon or even have long duration missions to Mars or even beyond. Palabgoche. A small record label has reissued what it believes is the oldest recorded country song. The track Thompson's Old Grey Mule dates from 1891 and is sung by Louis Vaznier in New Orleans in the United States. The music was first released on a wax cylinder. Now a specialty label

Archaeophone Records has restored and released the record. The quality of the audio is a bit faint. The voices we will hear are Richard Martin, the founder of the label Archaeophone Records, and the first person we'll hear is John Levin, a wax cylinder collector who discovered it. Records of this type, these are unicorns. They're reputed to exist. All the information indicates they did exist, but they've never been seen. This recording came out of a batch of records that were sold in sort of central Pennsylvania coal country at an auction. Nobody knew what they were, so I sort of went through them. I actually sent it blind to Rich.

He said, I think this is the most important record in your entire collection. Anytime there's a first, a real first, it takes a long time to figure out what you're dealing with. I've got a lot of work to do. I've got some work to make. I've got work to do. I've got some work to make. I've got some work to make.

Vazner was born free, but his father was not. He was a house painter. As he gets into his mid-20s, you start seeing him appear on stage. At some point, he did graduate to the Vaudeville stage. The raw sound is not clearly identifiable. All I could hear was New Orleans, Louisiana. That meant it came from the Louisiana Phonograph Company. This cylinder's design, this is an early recording, likely pre-1895.

His voice and the piano is very faint because it's a very early, almost experimental recording. He's got this mule that he loved and the mule is always getting into trouble. He's kicking and he's eating rocks and the farmer gets kicked in the mouth. There is no such thing as country until like the 1940s. Some of the historians say we can talk about stuff that's sort of proto-country, but they have always managed to pencil out any black contribution. Mimicking the mule, if that's an important part of the canon of country music,

we've got the guy doing it in 91. This is clearly part of the country tradition. Richard Martin, the founder of Archaeophone Records and before him John Levin, a wax cylinder collector and of course Louis Vaznia. And finally we're off to Lapland, the official home of Father Christmas, also known as Santa Claus. The region covers parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. Thousands of tourists visit the region every year, generating significant revenue. Our correspondent Erika Benke put on her warmest winter coat and travelled to Rovaniemi, a town in the very heart of Finland's Christmas industry. Rovaniemi, a town in the very heart of Finland's Christmas industry.

We are in Santa Claus holiday village in Rovaniemi in Finnish Lapland, right on the Arctic Circle. I'm at the gate with Juha Niikkonen, he's one of the managers here, managing the hotel. Would you say that this is one of Finland's top tourism attractions? I would say the most famous internationally. Shall we just walk on a little bit in this nice fresh powdery snow? Yeah, it's the best time of the year. It's not too cold and it's wintery and Christmassy. It really is. There's so many twinkling lights along the pathways. Lots of little log cabins scattered around in the forest.

Every day of the year you can book the Santa to come to your rooms because we are Santa's home, so why not? All these activities, all this fun that people are having here, of course it costs them money, but how much money is it making to you? So with the hotel, with the souvenir shops and the restaurants, all together 21 million in sales. There's a lot of excited children throwing, making snowballs and throwing them at each other and at other visitors. I'm Mihaela, I'm from Romania and these are my children. He's Robert and she's Ines. So you're spending four days here all together?

Yes. Where are you from? From Greece. What brings a young adult couple here without children? To want to experience the snow and the joy of Christmas before Christmas. Because even without children you're more free, let's say, to experience it on your own. Well, one place to spend a little more money is Santa's official post office. If you send a card or a letter from here, the elves will stamp it with Santa's official postmark.

My name is Auli. I'm a senior elf or grandmom elf because I have white hair and I have been working here more than maybe 25 years. And do people spend a lot of money here, or just one postcard? It depends, and of course when the people are on holiday, they spend money differently when they are at home. So it's your job to sort the money? It's one part of my job. He receives about half a million letters every year. After all this excitement about Santa, his letters and his gifts, I couldn't wait to finally meet the man himself. So you get presents from people?

Oh I do, I do Santa's people are so thoughtful and so nice. My absolute favourite thing to get as a present is something that a child has made on their own. I love people and I'm very lucky. The world comes to visit me and I'm very happy that people trust me enough to let me see them a little bit. And we are very happy to have you, to have somebody to trust. Well, Erika Benke with that report and just a reminder for all podcast listeners who are on the Nice List, on December 25th we will be looking back at all the good things that happened this year in the 2024 Happy News review. Something to look forward to if you

deserve it. And that's it from us for now but there will be a new edition of the Global News podcast it. was mixed by Caroline Driscoll. The producer was Liam McSheffrey. Our editor is Karen Martin. I'm Jackie Leonard and until next time, goodbye.