Global News Podcast - The rebels turned rulers providing law and order in Syria

Episode Date: December 16, 2024

Syria's new rulers pledge to protect minority Alawite community in Latakia after recent attacks. Also: Germany’s chancellor loses vote of confidence, and hundreds of new species are found in Mekong in south east Asia.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Are we not fighting for us? Just for the people back home? Purple Heart Warriors. Listen now by searching for dramas wherever you get your BBC podcasts. This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Alex Ritzen and in the early hours of Tuesday the 17th of December these are our main stories. We report from the Syrian port city of Latakia where the rebels, who are

now the de facto rulers, are providing law and order. Germany's embattled Chancellor Olaf Scholz loses a vote of confidence in parliament, triggering the early elections he wants. France's President Macron will fly to Mayotte to oversee the relief operation after Cyclone Cheadle. Also in this podcast, the businessman and close confidant of Prince Andrew, who's accused of spying for China, has been named. And hundreds of new species have been discovered in the Mekong region in South East Asia. Every time we look, every time we take the time and patience to peer under a rock, look

behind a tree and so on, we find new things. And to me that's part of the excitement, that's part of the joy of living on this planet. We start in Syria where just nine days since the fall of President Bashar al-Assad the people continue to celebrate their new found freedom. There were celebrations also in the port city of Latakia. But Bashar al-Assad and most of his military and intelligence staff were Alawites. And following recent attacks, some members of Latakia's minority Alawite community say they're now too scared to leave their homes. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, Syria's new de facto rulers, have pledged to protect everyone. Its fighters are patrolling Latakia's streets to try to curb any violence. From there, our Middle East correspondent Quentin Somerville sent this report.

It's hard really to do justice to the sense of bewilderment that's being felt about how quickly the Assad regime has fallen and the rebels have taken over this country. And that bewilderment is felt most sharply here in the Alawite heartland, the former Assad stronghold of Latakia. I'm walking right now past the statue of Hafez al-Assad. It's just his boots remaining. The rest was pulled down by protesters. Where it stands now, there is the new Syrian flag with the green banner and the three stars rather than two. It's a transformation. I'm walking along here among the crowd with his two sons. Is Mazem, hello. Hello, nice to meet you. We feel freedom after years of terror, no democracy. All peoples

of Syria dream to reach this day. And what do you think about the Assad family? Could you delete this question? When I turned my microphone off, Mazem had more to say. The Assads were terrible people, he said, but he pointed to his two sons. He said, you don't understand the terror we were under here. I couldn't even tell my sons the truth for fear that they would make a mistake and would be revealed for criticising them.

It's worth remembering the Assads ruled by fear, even over their own supporters. They said there would be massacres here in Latakia if they ever lost power. Well, instead, around me there are celebrations, a big crowd gathering just as prayers end in celebration of this astonishing victory. This was a regime that was so venal, so corrupt, that even its supporters suffered. The Alawites, too, are some of the poorest people in Syria. So there's a real sense of joy here today,

but there's also an undercurrent of fear. Some haven't even left their homes since the regime change because they worry that there will be a reckoning and that they will have to pay a heavy price for the support of the old regime. This is Latakia's military intelligence branch, perhaps the most feared place in the city. It's in a bit of a state now. The portraits of Bashar al-Assad have been torn down. There's one on the floor that even removed the eyes. Locals would avoid passing the gates of here.

It was so feared. Now in this courtyard are young men. They're HTS fighters. They're now the law here. A woman's made a complaint to the police. She says that her apartment has been stolen from her. We've just arrived at this pretty upscale neighborhood. It's an Alawite neighborhood.

The woman who made the complaint is now back inside. Her apartment was requisitioned by one of the Sunni rebel groups, not HTS, a commander. He's now been told to give it back, but that gives you a sense really of the sectarian tensions which are simmering here in Latakia. Noor, the owner, tells me that while one nightmare has ended in Syria, for Alawites, another has just begun. Do Alawites feel safe in Latakia? Before, we knew who to be scared of certain people.

Now, we don't even know who we should be scared of. We knew who to avoid or speak about. Even with HTS intervening to return my apartment, it's impossible for me to live here again. I do have hope, but not in the near future. I don't dare." Noor, an Alawite in Matakia, ending that report by Quentin Somerville. Syria's central bank has reportedly retained nearly 26 tonnes of gold worth more than $2 billion. The Reuters news agency quoted officials as saying the vaults had been left unscathed by looters

after the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad. With details, here's Lipa Kapelem. Before the Syrian civil war began in 2011, the country's central bank held 25.8 tons of gold and 14 billion dollars in foreign currency. While the amount of gold remains almost the same, the cash reserves have all but gone. Just 200 million dollars are left. Syrian officials said the Assad regime, which had been under international sanctions, increasingly used the cash to fund food, fuel and fighting. It's also been reported that Bashar al-Assad had airlifted into Moscow a quarter of a billion dollars in banknotes.

Lepika Pelham Germany wasn't scheduled to have its next general election until September 2025, but it's been called early, next February, after the Chancellor Olaf Scholz lost a parliamentary confidence vote. His defeat was expected when his governing coalition collapsed last month after a row over spending in a deepening economic crisis. Opinion polls suggest gains for the opposition conservatives in those February elections. Jürgen Hart is an MP from the conservative Christian Democrats. The Chancellor missed the majority in the Deutsche Bundestag and in Germany the political system is

that a Chancellor always need a majority in the Deutsche Bundestag otherwise he is a lame duck. He cannot take decisions, he cannot bring through a law and therefore especially the budget for 25 which is a crucial point now. Olaf Scholz had made it clear he wanted to lose the confidence vote, as I heard from our Berlin correspondent, Damian McGuinness. It is a bit counterintuitive, but essentially it's the only way, according to the German constitution, to spark early elections. It's a rule set up after the Second World War, when the modern German constitution was written in order to prevent the sort of instability we saw during the Weimar Republic before the Second World War when the modern German constitution was written in order to prevent the sort of instability we saw during the Weimar Republic before the Second World

War. So what we've seen so far really, since the governing coalition collapsed in November, Chancellor Schultz has led a minority government. And what that means in practice is that he can't pass any laws without the support of the opposition Conservatives. So the only way out of that for him is to have early elections which will now take place ordinarily on February 23rd. But is Chancellor Shultz not reading the opinion polls? Well that is a big question. I mean he appears to believe that he can win a second term as Chancellor but as you say Alex, his poll ratings are absolutely terrible. His government was unpopular, his personal ratings are absolutely terrible. His government was unpopular,

his personal ratings are really poor, but he does have a few slight chances. One of them is a lot of things can happen over the next month or two. A lot of voters say they don't know who to vote for and a lot of voters are very undecided. Also, the loyalty to particular parties is very weak at the moment. There's a lot of dissatisfaction with politics. There's various upstart parties. The far-right AFD is doing pretty well. And there's a new upstart left-wing populist party, an anti-migrant nativist party, quite a radical party.

But that's also creating a bit of uncertainty. So you've got more parties than ever. You've got more radical debate than ever. You've got more radical debate than ever. You've got more voters who are uncertain than ever about who they're going to choose. And the other saving grace that Olaf Scholz potentially has is that his main rival, the conservative leader Friedrich Merz, is also frankly pretty unpopular with voters. So I think Olaf Scholz is probably hoping that Friedrich Merz would say something objectionable, which would put off undecided voters.

And as you indicated, it could go very differently, couldn't it, because the far-right AFD, Alternative for Deutschland, are polling pretty well. It has to be said with the AFD, they're not going to get into government. No one is going to work with them because they're seen as so toxic and some parts of the party have been deemed by courts as undemocratic, even anti-democratic. That annoys some parts of the electorate though, doesn't it? Obviously for AFD voters, yes, they would say, well, it's just the system working against us. But if the AFD do really well, it's going to make it even more difficult to form a stable coalition because you either need more partners who are more likely to disagree with each other or you're

going to have very unusual coalitions where people are going to find it hard to agree and the difficulty is Germany has to make some difficult decisions which are going to be unpopular with people and to do that you need quite an assertive united government to push through some quite radical measures. Damian McGuinness. Hundreds of adoring fans gathered at Chennai Airport in India to welcome home their teenage chess sensation who last week was crowned world champion. In doing so, the 18-year-old grandmaster Gukesh Domaraju became the youngest person ever to hold the title.

From Delhi, our South Asia correspondent, Samira Hussain reports. Screaming fans mob Chennai International Airport to welcome home Gokesh Damaraju. At just 18 years old, he has smashed the record for the youngest world chess champion, set in 1985 by a 22-year- old Garry Kasparov. On Thursday Gokesh beat the defending champion, China's Ding Liren in Singapore. The match was tied with just a game remaining before Ding made a blunder which shocked the chess world. With the title came almost £2 million in prize money.

Certainly a career high, but the new champion has his sights set on greatness. Although this is a big achievement, I know it comes at a very young age. I think that there's still a very, very long way to go. And my goal is to keep enjoying chess and to have a very long career and hopefully one day to become the best player in the world. Gukesh became a Grandmaster at 12 years old. His parents, both doctors, put their careers on hold to support their son. India is home to 85 Grandmasters, many of whom are not yet old enough to drive. Sabira Hussain. Still to come, the island in the Venice lagoon reborn by the city's new flood defenses.

The barrier is helping nature to build up. So how can you say that it is bad? The 442nd Infantry Battalion, the most decorated unit in US military history for its size and length of service. We gotta make every bullet count. No surrender. Brave men who fought the Germans in the fields of France and Italy during the Second World War. But we're not fighting for us?

Just for the people back home. Purple Heart Warriors, an original drama series from the BBC World Service, tells their story. Germans surrounding all sides. Listen now by searching for dramas wherever you get your BBC podcasts. podcasts. President Emmanuel Macron has said he'll travel to the devastated French Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte in the coming days after it was hit by winds of over 220 kilometres an hour at the weekend. People living in Mayotte say the French Indian Ocean territory is unrecognisable following cyclone Ceedo.

Rachel Wright compiled this report. A woman with an orange scarf tied around her hair shouts across a car park at a man surrounded by French police. He is Bruno Retailleau and he's the French Interior Minister because, despite being nearly 8,000 kilometres away, these islands are actually part of France. He had just arrived on the island with two other French ministers and hundreds of French troops. The woman says a lot of people here are dying and she expects more from people in authority.

The minister replies that's why he is here to help. Despite the woman being upset, she politely thanks the minister as he turns to meet local police, security and emergency teams. The sights that await him are apocalyptic. Saturday's cyclone saw winds of more than 220 kilometres per hour, the worst storm here in 90 years. This man, John Ballos, who lives in the capital, Mammadzou, said he was surprised he wasn't among the dead. It was the wind, the wind blowing, and I was panicked. I screamed, we need help, we need help. I was screaming because I could see the end coming for me.

It hit us here, straight in the face, and to be honest, it was a complete disaster. Lots of houses and even towns are wiped out, especially the slums, because for the houses made of bricks it's just the roofs that went." Around 84% of the people on these islands live below the poverty line. Many of them are migrants who have come from the west coast of Africa, hoping to get to Europe. The islands are densely populated and a third of people live in shanty towns, which the winds ripped through, destroying

buildings and cutting off water, communication and electricity. The island's prefect said it was possible that thousands of people had died, but that it would take days before they knew how many. These survivors were queuing up to buy food and water. We've come to get something to eat for the kids, for us adults, for everybody. We've got nothing left. The wind's taken it all away. We had stocked up, but the wind took it all away. We've had no water for three days now, so it's starting to be a lot. We're trying to get the bare minimum to live on because we don't know when the water will come back on. Earlier today, Eric Samvar, the deputy head of the Red Cross in another French island

in the Indian Ocean, Réunion, told the BBC how difficult it was to bring in help. Only military aircraft can land in Mayotte for now. I believe yesterday three small flights have been able to take some medical teams and civil protection teams from La Reunion to Mayotte and there is a bigger aircraft that will go today and we hope that the capacity will increase in the coming days. But the French authorities say they're stepping up the search for survivors and mobilising support and resources to the island. Rachel Wright.

and mobilising support and resources to the island. Rachel Wright. Julian Marshall spoke to Salama Ramia herself a native of Mayotte who represents the territory in the French Senate in Paris. Since today we don't have no water, no electricity and even no connection. No one in Mayotte can reach anyone else. The phone is not working. Mine is working because I have one from France. So what's happened to all those people who were living in those small houses with corrugated

iron roofs? What's happened to them? Yeah. The search just began today. France has sent the plan study coming, so the flight with the help, with medicine, with everything. So the searches are just coming today, but we think that there will be many people. We told people before the cyclone that if they were not safe in their house house they could come to those houses

but most of them didn't come and so as we don't see them today we supposing that most of them unfortunately thing happened to them. Have you any idea at all how many people have been killed. Today the one officially is 11 people but the problem is that we are a Muslim island so and in the religion people must be buried as fast as possible but we supposing that like you said the government is supposing more than 1,000 but those are suppositional. We're waiting. Will Barron So what is the most pressing need for people in Mayotte at the moment? Dr. Mbappé The urgency for me today is water and food.

And then, of course, is electricity because we are in the dark. We don't have any water, water to drink first, but also water for the houses, for everything. So people came from France, so they're helping to open the road. Security, we have the army who all started arrive. So those two things are okay. Salama Ramia. The identity has been revealed of a Chinese businessman at the centre of spying allegations in the UK who had links to King Charles' brother, Prince Andrew. Yang Tung Bao had previously been known only as H6 because of an anonymity order. On Monday, he gave up his challenge to the lifting of that order, allowing himself to be named. He was banned

from the UK last year by a national security court. Mr Yang has denied breaking the law and said the claim that he was a spy was entirely untrue. The row hasn't just embarrassed a royal but raised questions once again about Chinese state activity in Britain. In parliament, the Interior Minister, Dan Jarvis gave this statement about Mr Yang. The Special Immigration Appeals Commission concluded that there was a basis for the conclusion that H6 had been in a position to generate relationships with prominent UK figures which could be leveraged for political interference purposes by the Chinese Communist Party, including

the United Front Work Department and the Chinese Communist Party including the United Front Work Department and the Chinese state. The headlines are especially damaging for the royal family. They always like to appear together on Christmas Day when they go to church at their Sandringham estate. But after Mr Yang's name was revealed, royal sources said that Prince Andrew wouldn't spend Christmas with the King as is customary. Catherine Cracknell heard more about Mr Yang from our political correspondent Rob Watson. Well, you know that he's 50 years old. He first came to the UK in 2002 to study English. He then got permanent leave to remain in the UK. In other words, he was living here and

what he says he was doing was promoting business contacts between the UK and between China. But what he was accused of by Britain's intelligence agencies, and this was upheld by a court, that he was in fact part of a broader Chinese espionage effort intended at, if you like, influencing the view of China here in the UK. But he has now come out, as it were, in order to say that's absolute nonsense. You know, he is a legitimate business and he's just sort of fallen foul of a change in political climate between the UK and China since 2013. So what do you think the implication is for Sino-British relations? Well on the face of it, Catherine, the implication is that it should complicate

efforts by the still new-ish Labour government here to improve relations between London and Beijing. But Sakir Starmer, the Prime Minister, seems to be sticking to the idea of a policy reset and has said, yep, while he's concerned about China, he still believes it's perfectly possible to engage with China and cooperate on economics and issues such as climate change, while at the same time challenging it on security and human rights. Because the opposition Conservative Party have accused the government of sort of cozying up to the Chinese government.

Yes, so what the Conservatives are saying is that it's just not realistic to say that you can somehow have your cake and eat it with China, that you can have good economic relationship while being the subject of what nobody is disputing on either side is a pretty intensive espionage effort by China. And there's an impact on Prince Andrew as well. So what does it mean for him? Well, his reputation, to put it mildly, Catherine, is already pretty much rock bottom, both within the royal family and beyond. but it sinks a little further as a result

of this and I think that explains why we're hearing from palace sources that he's going to be making himself pretty scarce at Christmas and not appearing in those sort of royal family public appearances. I guess there's some suggestions that perhaps King Charles should have been a bit more ruthless in how he dealt with his younger brother Prince Andrew, and I guess it also to some extent raises questions about, you know, just how do you mix royalty with diplomacy and trade promotion without occasionally getting yourself tied in some pretty horrible knots. Rob Watson. A lot has been said in recent years about the plight of the celebrated Italian city of Venice gradually sinking under water. But it seems Venice's flood barriers installed

four years ago to protect against storm surges are also helping to preserve the lowest-lying island in the lagoon. Bacchan, a sandbank previously only above the waterline in the summer, has sprouted vegetation and now exists year round. It's a favourite spot for locals. Giovanni Cicconi, an engineer who worked on Venice's storm surge barriers, is also a fan. Bacchana is very wide because it is two kilometres by one and the Demenice over the last century started to go there because it's a very close beach, is a nice place to go out of the crowd with the family, do the picnic.

So it's kind of a central park. And why is Bacchan now existent all year round? Why has it changed? Because of the vegetation. The vegetation has produced an accretion of the shores that now is above the maximum water level and their business is to make the soil stable and they are pretty well in doing that. And of course who made this job is the barrier, the storm surge barrier, because the storm surge barrier contributed in channeling the flow, making it higher. The increased velocity is able to transport more sand. It makes the difference, a huge difference.

Do scientists think this is a good thing or a bad one? For sure it is a nice thing because it increases the biodiversity. If you have an intertidal submerged vegetation with hill grass and then you have a beach and then you have a shore that ends up with an island, we call it island because it's above the maximum water level. Now it's much better because this will also improve the trapping capacity of the system. Now we have to speak about the value of the barrier that in a way has tilted the dice in order to make the accretion more likely to occur. But isn't that a problem that it's not a natural change, it's one partly caused by this man-made barrier? The barrier is not using directly the island, it's helping nature to build up.

Nature is a natural engineer. Life needs soil. Soil with a certain property of humidity, nutrients, sun. And in order to get that proper combination, nature is spreading around the plant in this case, but also the clumps, lot of seeds, thousands, in order to succeed in surviving. So how can you say it is bad? Giovanni Cicconi speaking to Paul Henley. A rock-dwelling dragon adivipa with eyelash-style scales are among 234 new species of plants and animals discovered by scientists in the Greater Mekong region of South East Asia, according to the Worldwide Fund for Nature. Matthew Amarola-Waller heard more from Mark Wright, Special Advisor on Conservation Science at WWF UK.

Every couple of years we put out a report similar to this. In fact, a week ago we put out another report that showed over 700 new species in the Congo. So for me this is like Christmas has come early. It's a thousand new species, a thousand new ways that animals choose to live on this planet. And what I think it tells us is that despite the fact that we think we know this planet inside out, it simply isn't true. Every time we look, every time we take the time and patience to appear under

a rock, look behind a tree and so on, we find new things. And to me that's part of the excitement, that's part of the joy of living on this planet. Tell me more about some of the things you found, the bat, the viper for example. So the viper is called an eyelash viper and it's because they have an extra set of scales above their eye. We think that kind of helps break up their outline when they're moving amongst all the foliage and so on. Yeah, they're venomous, they're poisonous to people and it lives in Thailand and Malaysia. The bats, it's a tiny bat, it's the size of a safety pin and we know nothing about it, we don't know where it roosts. It lives in some of these cast

environments, these limestone environments, we think it lives in caves but we really know very very little about it. And then of course the lizard, that's on this fantastic, the dragon named lizard, it was found by someone like an adventure tour guide on a zip wire because these things have never been found on the ground. They're found on these steep limestone rugged cliffs but with fantastic camouflage. I mean I take my hat off to him because even on the photographs it's really hard to make it out. Some of these new species I'm told are already under threat, is that right? Well I think that's right because what we see in the Mekong is no different to what

we're seeing everywhere else on the planet. I mean, we are really putting nature under the kosh. And that's for a number of reasons. We're changing the habitat for things like deforestation, for food, or so on. Or in the case of the lizard, it's in these limestone habitats. And that limestone is being mined because it's a staple constituent of cement. So as we encroach more and more on these areas, as we take more and more of these resources, so these things are put under stress. Mark Wright. And that's all from us for now, but there'll 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 globalpodcast.bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X at Global News Pod. This edition was produced by Judy Frankel and mixed by Caroline Driscoll. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Alex Ritz and until next time, goodbye. and length of service. We gotta make every bullet count. No surrender! Brave men who fought the Germans in the fields of France and Italy during the Second World War. Are we not fighting for us? Just for the people back home. Purple Heart Warriors, an original drama series from the BBC World Service,

tells their story. Germans surrounding all sides. Listen now by searching for dramas wherever you get your BBC podcasts.