Global News Podcast - Top US and UK diplomats make joint visit to Kyiv

Episode Date: September 11, 2024

Kyiv is putting more pressure on allies to end limits on using long-range western missiles inside Russia. Also: Reaction to the US presidential election debate, and Brazil's former president is awarded $2000 in damages

Hello, this is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service, with reports and analysis from across the world. The latest news seven days a week. BBC World Service podcasts are supported by advertising. Life and death were two very realistic co-existing possibilities in my life. I didn't even think I'd make it to like my 16th birthday, to be honest. I grew up being scared of who I was. Any one of us at any time can be affected by mental health and addictions. Just taking that first step makes a big difference.

It's the hardest step. But CAMH was there from the beginning. Everyone deserves better mental health care. To hear more stories of recovery, visit camh.ca. 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. You're listening to the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. Hello, I'm Oliver Conway. We're recording this at 13 hours GMT on Wednesday the 11th of September. The top diplomats from the US and Britain make a joint visit to Ukraine, but will they approve the use of long-range missiles inside Russia? Tens of thousands of people flee their homes in the Vietnamese capital as the Red River

bursts its banks. And doctors in Congo tell the BBC they are struggling to contain the outbreak of MPOCs. Also in the podcast, a snap poll suggests Kamala Harris won Tuesday's presidential debate against Donald Trump. But will it change anyone's views? Kamala Harris held her own. I thought she did a really good job. He'd still be able to lead a country, and he's a strong leader. Everybody says what they want to say. I think there was a lot of lies last night. And Brazil's former president Jair Bolsonaro is awarded more than $2,000

in damages after a dispute about furniture. The foreign ministers of the US and Britain have arrived in Kiev in a joint show of support for Ukraine. Antony Blinken and David Lammy will discuss Ukrainian demands to relax restrictions on the use of long-range weapons against targets inside Russia. The US is considering ending its ban after accusing Iran of a dramatic escalation by providing Russia with short-range ballistic missiles. The Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned that Russia would retaliate to any change in policy. The response will be appropriate. It will be appropriate. You know, there's no need to wait for any responses everywhere. Special military operation is the answer to all these activities.

Well, on his arrival in Ukraine, the British Foreign Secretary announced that the UK had sanctioned 10 ships of Russia's Shadow Fleet, which Britain says is used to avoid Western sanctions. I heard more about the visit to Kiev from our correspondent there, Nick Beek. It represents the first joint trip overseas by a British foreign secretary and their American counterpart in more than a decade. The fact that they've got the train together from Poland, taking the long journey to the capital Kiev, where I'm talking to you from now. They say this is emblematic of the ongoing support for Ukraine. But I think for President Zelensky, he wants to see and hear about a change in American and British policy, specifically on

the issue of long-range missiles. Because so far, even though the Ukrainians have been supplied with British and American long-range missiles, they haven't been given the permission to use them. President Zelensky says they're absolutely necessary to strike further into Russia so that they can take out Russian airfields and specifically the bombers, the planes that take off and then cause havoc over the skies of Ukraine. What is the prospect of a change in policy? It could well be on the way and I think this is largely down to what President Biden has said in the past 24 hours saying that his administration was working that out now when asked whether he'd be prepared to change his policy. So it may well be that if there is a change, both the Americans and the British announce this together, which, of course, would be really pleasing to President Zelensky after months and months of saying this was absolutely necessary.

And it appears to be linked to this intelligence about Iran supplying Russia with new missiles. What more is known about that? The argument for not giving permission until now has been that there may be an escalation. People mindful that President Putin has said that those countries giving permission to the Ukrainians to use long-range missiles that would hit deep into Russia, the responsibility would lie with the Americans and the British. What seems to have changed is this announcement by Antony Blinken on Tuesday that he says intelligence shows that the Iranians are now supplying short-range missiles to Russia. He says these will be used on the battlefield and basically they will allow the Russians to keep their own longer-range missiles to hit places further into Ukraine itself. So it could well be that

this development has basically crystallized this change in policy if it comes from the Americans, but certainly that other European countries, the UK, Germany and France have described that the prospect or as the Americans say, the hard intelligence they have that these missiles are being sent to Russia as something which is posing an increased threat to security in the whole of Europe. Nick Beek in the Ukrainian capital Kiev. The previous US election debate in June didn't go well for the Democrats, with Joe Biden forced to quit as the presidential nominee. So how did his successor do when she debated Donald Trump on Tuesday night? According to a snap opinion poll, Kamala Harris came out on top, putting the Republican former president on the defensive.

So much so that he even made a surprise appearance in the spin room afterwards to try to regain the initiative. Our correspondent Gary O'Donoghue watched the debate unfold in Philadelphia. Good evening, I'm David Muir, and thank you for joining us for tonight's ABC News presidential debate. Not just the first debate for these two as presidential candidates, but the first time these two have ever met as they came to debate in Philadelphia,

the so-called city of brotherly love. Not so much. She's a Marxist. Everybody knows she's a Marxist. People start leaving his rallies early, out of exhaustion and boredom. But soon they got onto issues such as immigration, a key concern for voters and one that could be a strength for the former president, though he chose to focus on unsubstantiated claims about migrants eating people's pets. In Springfield, they're eating the dogs, the people that came in, they're eating the cats, they're eating... The vice

president could scarcely contain herself....of the people that live there. Moderators attempted to fact-check the former president on several occasions during the debate, not least when he had this to say on the contentious issue of abortion. Will she allow abortion in the eighth month, ninth month, seventh month? OK, would you do that? There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it's born. The economy was always going to be a hugely important issue. It's what most Americans really care about. She is Biden. You know, she's trying to get away from Biden. I don't know. Donald Trump attempted to tie Kamala Harris to her boss. Inflation we've ever had. The vice president talked about her economic

plans, but not perhaps as much as her supporters would have liked on international affairs, though she was scathing. World leaders are laughing at Donald Trump. I have talked with military leaders, some of whom worked with you, and they say you're a disgrace. Donald Trump hit back by attacking the chaotic withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan and again claimed the Ukraine war wouldn't have happened under him. We're playing with World War III and we have a president that we don't even know if he's... Where is our president?

Donald Trump ending that report from Gary O'Donoghue. Well, the polarised nature of American politics means even families there are divided. Derek Singano from Michigan, for example, is a Trump voter. His sister Tammy is a Democrat. Their brother David is an independent. But like millions of Americans, they were all glued to the Harris-Trump debate. So what did they make of it? The BBC's Sarah Montague has been speaking to them. First, Tammy.

I felt that Kamala Harris held her own. I thought she did a really good job, especially not engaging with Donald Trump too much as far as arguing and stuff like that. Well, I've got to go to Derek on this. There were a lot of questions for people ahead of this debate wanting to know more about her because she's the unknown, relatively unknown candidate. What did you think of her as a Trump supporter? Well, I think Tammy and I must have been watching a different debate last night because she did go after Trump several different times. She didn't really pinpoint anything or say anything she was really going to do. All I remember her really saying is, let's forget the last four years and move on. But in a way, you two aren't the surprising one. David,

you have often been on the fence in the past. What did you see in terms of how, whether it will influence your vote come November? I feel that the very first question that they asked the VP was, are we better off four years ago? And she could not answer that. So right there, you know, no accomplishments. I mean, the media made her. Nobody knew her. And all of a sudden now, it's just so biased when it comes to

that. There's so much hatred still in the U.S. between the right and the left. And does that make you want to vote for Donald Trump? We're in an incredible, unique situation where we have, we've seen both of the candidates in office. And for me, life was better under Trump. Which suggests you will be voting for Trump. You know what? I'm still. Honestly, you know, I'm independent. You know, you know, it's not like I don't like him. I like him better than what I see what's been happening in the last three and a half years.

It's amazing that David and Lindsay had all these fact checks right away for Trump and they didn't fact check her at all. The moderator. It's yeah, the moderator. It's just crazy. I mean, how do you respond to that? They didn't need to fact check her because she was telling the truth. She was much more positive. And Donald Trump was saying things that were very, very negative and pretty off the cuff as far as, you know, she answered the abortion. She answered the question regarding January 6th. He had no answer. He wouldn't, he sat there and did not say he would change a thing that happened on that day. And that's just amazing to me.

Derek, can I ask you about some of the things that Donald Trump says, whether it's about immigrants eating dogs and cats and family pets or about January the 6th or indeed abortion. What do you, are there moments where you think, oh, I'm not sure I believe him on that. But I mean, you know, we're hearing about the fact checking, but does it worry you? No, I still be able to lead a country. You need a strong leader, you know, and you have these third world countries

that they do not speak with women, even if they're in a leadership position. It's just the way the world is. Am I right in understanding that's what you're saying, that you think the U.S. would be weaker if it had a female president? Not anything against them, but that's the way the world is. Tammy? I don't agree that our nation would be weaker with a female president, especially this female president. She seems to have a lot of leadership skills and she's very, very smart. So I can't imagine our country being weaker because of that. I can imagine our country being weaker with someone in office like Donald Trump who other countries don't take seriously.

David, has your relationships within the family been affected at all? No, I mean, you did say David, so I want my siblings just to be quiet for a minute. Can I have a little talk with Sarah, just me and Sarah? No, I mean, we're still close. I mean, we get together as much as we can. And we typically, I mean, I don't think we talk politics as much as we used to, because there's really nothing. I try to avoid it. The Singano family from Michigan. And for more on last night's debate, check out The Global Story wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Well, the election itself is now

fast approaching. And ahead of polling day, we'll be doing a special podcast in collaboration with our friends at BBC AmeriCast. So if you have any questions you want answered by our team in the US, please send them in. You can email globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk or tweet us at globalnewspod. And if possible, please record your question in a voice note. Thank you. Officials in northern Vietnam say almost 180 people have now died after a super typhoon hit at the weekend. Yagi, the country's most powerful storm in 30 years, continues to bring heavy rainfall, landslides and flooding. Vietnam's weather bureau chief said today the Red River in Hanoi had hit its highest level in 20 years. I got the latest from our correspondent in the region, Rupert Wingfield-Hayes. It's continuing to get worse, despite the fact the Typhoon Yagi actually passed over Vietnam two days ago

and has broken up in the mountains over Laos. The amount of rainfall that has dropped over northern Vietnam means that flood levels along the Red River Valley are continuing to rise. In fact, in Hanoi, in the capital, we've heard that they've evacuated around 16,000 residents from low-lying areas of the city close to the river, and that flooding in those areas is now at about a metre, and the Red River level is continuing to rise. So it's a very serious situation. People there are saying they haven't seen floods like this for 20 or even 30 years. And there is a dam upstream in the Red River Valley that is above danger levels and is continuing to rise. So they're

going to have to release more water from that dam, which is going to exacerbate the flooding further downstream. So it's still a very critical situation for much of northern Vietnam. Yeah, people desperate for help, even putting out pleas on social media. That's right. I mean, what's going on down in Haiphong and Hanoi in the big cities, but there's also what's going on, a completely different story, up in the mountainous areas of northern Vietnam, further inland. And there, villages have been hit by landslides, people are cut off, the roads are gone, the electricity is gone,

and so there's a completely different rescue operation going on there. Yesterday there was a large landslide that buried a whole village, killing 16 people in one village. And rescue teams are really just struggling to get in and get people out. And this is the third super typhoon to hit the region in a pretty short time. Is there more bad weather on the way? Well, the typhoon season is far from over. The typhoon season now in Southeast Asia goes well into November, even into December. We've had Typhoon Gemi in July, which hit Taiwan, which

was a super typhoon, biggest in a long time to hit Taiwan. Then there was Typhoon Shanshan, which was also a huge system that went over the whole of Japan at the end of last month, and now Typhoon Yagi smashing into both southern China and then into Vietnam. So these typhoons, it's not that typhoons are getting more numerous in the Western Pacific, but their size is growing, and so we're seeing more of these super typhoons coming out of the Western Pacific, and they're very, very difficult to deal with, not just because of the winds, but just the enormous amount of precipitation that they carry with them. Rupert Wingfield-Hayes.

Over the past few days, survivors of a bus crash in Australia last summer have given emotional testimony in court. Ten people died while travelling back from a wedding in the Hunter Valley wine region in New South Wales. Some survivors have life-changing injuries. Many of them were in court to watch the moment the driver, Brett Button, was sentenced to 32 years in prison. The judge said that in his 50-year career, he'd never seen a case which had caused such extraordinary devastation

to so many individuals and families. Our Sydney correspondent, Katie Watson, has the details. It was an event that shocked Australia, a country that has a very safe safety record when it comes to driving. What we heard was Brett Button was driving 35 wedding guests back home after an event in Hunter Valley and Hunter Valley is a few hours away from here in Sydney. It's a very popular place for weddings. It's where there are a lot of vineyards. And he was a driver who was dependent on opioids.

He had taken tramadol, which can lead to fogginess. And he had also been accused of driving dangerously. Some passengers had said they were concerned about the speed he was driving and he lost control at a roundabout and the bus turned over and slid along a guard rail. Now, all 35 passengers on the coach were, there were 10 who died and 25 injured. Everybody was affected apart from the driver himself. And the last few days, we've heard testimony from those survivors who talked about the grief and the pain that they're going through. It's been a very emotional few days in court ahead of the sentencing that we've just heard.

Katie Watson. And still to come on the Global News podcast. The potential of it is huge. You know, it's also running across all the American networks right now, even though we just had the debate. So her timing is, as always, impeccable. Could Taylor Swift's endorsement of Kamala Harris influence young female swing voters? Life and death were two very realistic coexisting possibilities in my life. I didn't even think I'd make it to like my 16th birthday, to be honest.

I grew up being scared of who I was. Any one of us at any time can be affected by mental health and addictions. Just taking that first step makes a big difference. It's the hardest step. But CAMH was there from the beginning. Everyone deserves better mental health care. To hear more stories of recovery, visit CAMH.ca. 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.

Healthcare workers in the Democratic Republic of Congo have told the BBC they are struggling to cope with the Mpox outbreak in the east of the country. Medical staff in South Kivu, the worst affected region in the world, say they are running out of supplies and have no information about when they'll get vaccines. The BBC's Simi Jolaosho has been given rare access to an MPOCs treatment centre in South Kivu where infections are rising. The cries of babies are resounding here. As the number of infections rise, the age of the patients gets younger.

Murhula Balumi is the youngest MPOCs case at Luiro's community hospital, at only four weeks old. It's an agonizing ordeal for first-time mom, 18-year-old Faraja Rukara. It's sad to see my firstborn suffering from this strange disease. I have a lot of pain in my heart. It's a very bad and dangerous disease. Mpox has caused many to lose their appetite. They have become malnourished.

Yvette Kabuya was relieved after her 10-month-old daughter, Amanipa, recovered from the disease, only to get ill herself. As babies pass on mpox to their parents, there's fear of a new wave of infections. This is the first time many here have encountered mpox. Beuchi's Kachira rushed her three-year-old granddaughter here in a panic. I just saw the child get sick. I didn't even know the name of the disease. We can't sit and wait for the children and even adults to die. Bring on the vaccines. Just over three weeks ago, this hospital was used to treat all sorts of diseases and conditions. They used to get around 80 patients a month.

But the outbreak got so bad here, they had to convert it into an MPOCs-only treatment centre. Now they've had nearly 200 patients in three weeks. Healthcare workers here say if the government doesn't step in quickly, things will only get worse. Remaining motivated is difficult for nurses like Emmanuel Fakiri, who's worked here for four years. Every day, he fears catching and passing mpox on to his own children, who are only seven, five and one year old. We've learned from social media that the vaccine is already available.

You saw how I touched the patients because that's my job as a nurse. So we are asking the government to help us by first giving us the vaccines. It's a sentiment shared by his colleague, Dr Pacific Karanzo, who's had to observe his patients' share beds. You will see that the patients are sleeping on the floor. As far as other challenges are concerned, there's still no staff motivation. Personal protective equipment isn't enough of it. We try to do what we can to look after the sick and not to put ourselves at risk either.

We're not spared from the disease. This region of the DR Congo has experienced a battle of control over its mineral-rich land for nearly 30 years. While South Kivu's governor, Jean-Jacques Perussi-Sidiki, says the government is doing its best to get medics what they need, he told us the conflict was proving costly and making things harder. We are facing many challenges. We don't have roads. I mean, the war is going on. We are accommodating thousands of IDPs.

The country is losing a lot of money in trying to address this war. The medicine will come in less than two weeks. I am going to Lwiro myself. I will definitely deliver what is available in terms of urgent assistance. I am confident that we will succeed. That certainty is not yet mirrored by staff at this MPOC's treatment centre, whose dedication ensured there have been no deaths here. Yet, they promised to keep showing up despite the bleakness of what lies ahead. Simei Jonohosho reporting from South Kivu in eastern Congo.

When President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva moved into Brazil's presidential palace last February, he accused his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, of stripping the place of hundreds of pieces of furniture. A court has just awarded Mr Bolsonaro and his wife more than $2,500 in damages over those claims. It's a rare legal and personal victory for the far-right former leader, who has faced countless allegations of wrongdoing since leaving office. As Leandro Prezaires from BBC Brazil explains, he was accused of taking a whole host of goods. In total, the federal government stated that 261 items had gone missing during the transition from Bolsonaro to Lula's administration. The issue is that in March of this year, it came out the information that the federal government

had found all of these items as they were located in different parts of the presidential palace. Originally, Bolsonaro sued Lula personally, in person, but a federal court dismissed the case, saying that it was the federal government that should be sued and not Lula as an individual. So Bolsonaro filed another lawsuit against the federal government. In this case, Bolsonaro claimed that Lula's words had misled the public opinion with false information about him. Bolsonaro lawyers also requested a US$3,000 reparation and asked for a public statement to be posted by the presidency. But what happened was that the judge imposed a $2,600 U.S. fine and denied the

request for this public statement. In terms of the money, it's not really a big win. But when it comes to the narrative, it's important to remember that Brazil remains a very polarised country. So for the narrative of someone who has been persecuted, which is what he's been claiming since he left office, it makes a lot of sense. Leandro Brzezerec of BBC Brazil. Much of modern life is spent online, with billions of us on Facebook, YouTube and other social media sites. But what happens to your digital accounts and online assets when you die? New research from the British consumer group Witch suggests that most people don't have a plan for digital death. It's urging people to work out in advance what to do with their digital assets. The group's technology expert, Andrew Loughlin, spoke to the BBC.

Nobody really wants to talk about death, but it is important to think about these things, isn't it? But I think what's important is when we think about our will, we often think about physical things, like I'm going to give this picture to someone or this chest of drawers. And you also might think about, obviously, money you've got in bank accounts and who's going to get an inheritance and so on and so forth.

But actually, nowadays, an awful lot of our most valuable and pressured sort of possessions, quote-unquote, is held digitally. I mean, like an example of that is, say, you and your partner have got loads of photos of the kids when they were young, but they're all in a digital locker, say, an online cloud storage solution. If you don't think about how that person's going to access those photos they could be in theory lost forever you know so it's important to think people think about these things really it can be quite tricky you can designate someone

as a legacy contact which gives you some access rights to your facebook account but if not and this is the case in a lot of these situations you are kind of having to prove that you deserve to have access rights to that data and the reason why is because you don't actually have any you know inherent right to that person's information your data rights cease when you you pass away so it's not like they are then passed on to your next of kin directly rather that person then has to prove that they have the rights. In some cases, this can mean birth certificates, death certificates. In some cases, actually, such as with Microsoft,

it can actually mean getting a court order. Andrew Loughlin. Returning now to the US presidential debate, and shortly after Donald Trump and Kamala Harris made their closing statements, one of the world's biggest pop stars, Taylor Swift, announced her support for Ms Harris in an online post to her more than 280 million followers.

Analysts say that young women, who comprise much of her loyal group of fans, are likely to be a key demographic in the election. California's Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, said the Trump campaign shouldn't underestimate Swift's support. Some advice to Donald Trump, don't disparage that endorsement at your own peril. She is a cultural icon. Something big has happened in the world in terms of the energy and vibrancy she's associated with, the optimism she's associated with. That was a big deal. But the Republican Matt Gaetz was more dismissive.

I love when liberals make our art and our music and conservatives make our law and our policy. Our reporter David Lewis considers the pop star's endorsement. As American viewers digested the two presidential candidates knocking lumps out of each other in Philadelphia, pop star Taylor Swift waded in with what could be the most important endorsement of this election. I'm voting for at Kamala Harris because she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them, she wrote on social media. She went on to call Miss Harris a steady-handed gifted leader and also praised her running mate Tim Waltz for his support of LGBT issues and reproductive rights.

And what the singer-songwriter says matters. With an Instagram following of 283 million, many, many decimal points larger than mine, she has more subscribers than there are eligible voters in the United States. Shannon Felton-Spence, who's a political strategist, went on to explain the possible implications of Swift's comments. Her endorsement in the past has had an impact. And so, yes, the potential of it is huge. You know, it's also running across all the American networks right now, even though we just had the debate. So her timing is, as always, impeccable. She's a marketing genius. But I will say the other thing about Taylor Swift,

what's interesting about this endorsement is she doesn't really like to get into the political fray as much. She has done in the past, but she's really, really choosy with it. The reality is this endorsement shouldn't come as the greatest political shock of this feisty campaign. Swift publicly backed the Biden-Harris ticket in 2020, and her fan base tend to be skewed towards young women who are already likely to be voting Democrat. But the enormity of her stardom and following matter. In her post, she urged first-time voters to register and announced she'd post a link with more voting information on her page.

Swift then signed the post as a childless cat lady, a reference to comments made by Trump's running mate J.D. Vance about women who don't have children. David Lewis. And since that endorsement, Donald Trump claimed that Taylor Swift would, quote, pay a price with fans for backing Kamala Harris. He told Fox News, I was not a Taylor Swift fan. She's a very liberal person. And for balance, we should say that former wrestler Hulk Hogan, TV star Amber Rose and billionaire Elon Musk have all endorsed Donald Trump. And that is all from us for now. But the Global News Podcast will be back very soon. This edition was mixed by Masood Ibrahim Khayel and produced by Chantal Hartle. Our editors, Karen Martin,

I'm Oliver Conway. Until next time, goodbye. Life and death were two very realistic coexisting possibilities in my life. I didn't even think I'd make it to like my 16th birthday, to be honest. I grew up being scared of who I was. Any one of us at any time can be affected by mental health and addictions. Just taking that first step makes a big difference. It's the hardest step. But CAMH was there from the beginning. Everyone deserves better mental health care. To hear more stories of recovery, visit CAMh.ca. 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.