Global News Podcast - Trump administration to freeze over $2 billion for Harvard

Episode Date: April 15, 2025

Harvard professor labels White House actions "groundless" and "vengeful." Also: At least 6 prisons in France are attacked overnight.

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 Tuesday 15 April. The Trump administration says it's freezing more than $2 billion of funding for Harvard. At least six prisons in France have been attacked overnight, with one hit by gunfire. And after two years of civil war in Sudan, we report from one of the worst hit cities. Also in this podcast, China accuses three US national security agents of cyber attacks and we can't continue our education. I studied English privately for three years, but poverty forced me to stop when every door closed, I came here. Carpet weaving

was all that was left. The girls in Afghanistan forced to take up carpet weaving. Along with immigrants, law firms and trading partners. US universities have been caught up in President Trump's efforts to radically reshape the world. Some of America's most prestigious seats of learning have been accused of left-wing bias and not doing enough to stop anti-Semitism. Some, such as Colombia, have caved into the administration.

But Harvard is standing firm, rejecting demands to audit the views of its students and shut down diversity programs. No government, regardless of which party is in power, should dictate what private universities can teach, the Harvard president said in a statement. Now the US government has hit back, freezing $2.2 billion in grants. David Armitage, professor of history at Harvard, spoke to my colleague Rob Young. It's a not unexpected act of entirely groundless and vengeful activity by the Trump administration, which wants nothing more than to silence freedom of speech, in particular academic freedom

and is making Harvard University, like some other prominent universities, a whipping boy in that campaign. The Trump administration say they have various problems with what is happening at Harvard. They say that the viewpoints which are being expressed in the university are not anywhere near diverse enough, the suggestion being it's too liberal that there are barely any conservatives there. Well they have made no effort whatsoever to judge that by any kind of formal inquiry or process.

They're working with highly biased images derived from social media, not from any rigorous examination of the activities of the university. And we value freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of research and freedom of learning enormously highly here. One thing the Trump administration had demanded Harvard do on Friday was report to the federal authorities, any students who break various rules on campus. Why would that have been something that the university couldn't or didn't want to do? We have our own disciplinary procedures and I think our administration, walking a very fine line in the last year or so, did a particularly good job of allowing freedom of expression

for all political viewpoints on campus, while also bringing where necessary sanctions upon students who had violated university rules but we managed to avoid the kind of chaos, for instance, that we saw on some campuses in the United States. It was simply because we were engaging in our own self-governance, which is the prerogative of a private institution like Harvard. Your initial concern was about antisemitism on campuses. Has Harvard made real efforts to clamp down on that? It has indeed, yes. Yes, that's been very clear indeed,

and that's been a very consistent line in all of the statements and actions of our administration. It's something that the university has taken extremely seriously, and I think there has been definite and measurable progress on those fronts. Harvard is a private university therefore it does not have a right to taxpayer funding does it? What is your sense of what the withdrawal of more than two billion dollars of federal funding could have on Harvard? We're trying to see more details of this. I think we're braced for

the impact. The university has been managing this in advance, but no price is too high to pay for freedom. I think that's the very general sense around the university at the moment that we have the resources, we have the standing to fight this off on behalf of our own students and other members of our community, but also on behalf of higher education more generally in the United States. If Harvard, the richest university in the country, can't do this, nobody can. And I think we're now in a very strong position of leadership on this vital issue. David Armitage, professor at Harvard, talking to Rob Young. The authorities in France are investigating a series of coordinated overnight attacks on prisons. The justice minister, Gerard

Damanhur, said cars had been set alight while a jail in Toulon had been targeted with automatic gunfire. Hugh Schofield in Paris told us the details. There are about six or seven penitentiary establishments, so prisons but also training building for prison officers, which have been targeted in the night, mostly in ways that are kind of symbolic, you know, tagging, graffiti, the burning of cars outside the front door of these establishments, and in this case in Toulon, the serious where they say that Kalashnikov bullets were fired at the outside of the building. So nothing that was ever going to, you know,

cause any serious damage or certainly not intended to lead to any escape or anything like that. But a clear signal, certainly that's what the government thinks from from organized crime. Yeah, and why might organized crime want to do this at this point? Because there is in the government a team now that is the Justice Minister Damanhur you mentioned there and the Interior Minister Bruna Retayo who are in the eyes of the drugs gangs hardline right wing determined to crack down on them. One of the measures they're instituting is a new special prison for the hundred top drug dealers which is going to be kind of top security prison with all sorts of extra measures to stop them communicating with the outside world, which is what the police and the government thinks is what's happening, is that when they catch these big drug dealers, they actually

are able to run their operations from inside prison. And then there's another law that's actually was voted through parliament just, or it had its first stage voted through parliament a week or so ago, which is probably why the timing is now, which creates a new prosecutor's office, for example, to crack down on drugs crime with new procedures, more powers for police and so on. I have to say it's about the nth such law that's been passed, but there does seem to be determination on the part of the government to hit hard now, and this I think is the gangs hitting back and saying, sorry mate,

we're out here and you can't intimidate us. And briefly, how are the authorities responding today? Well, Diamond House came down to Toulon to see it. Retailleur, the Interior Minister, has been tweeting saying that, you know, everything must be done to protect staff. And the staff unions, of course, have been very vocal in the last few hours, decrying this and saying that the government must give a very strong response. Hugh Schofield in Paris. The BBC has been told that Hamas has rejected the latest Israeli proposal for a temporary ceasefire in Gaza and Palestinian officials said Israel had offered a six-week

truce in return for the release of half the Israeli hostages and the disarmament of Hamas. But the group which carried out the 7thament of Hamas. But the group, which carried out the 7th October massacre, turned it down because there was no Israeli commitment to end the war or withdraw from Gaza. I got more details from our correspondent in Jerusalem, Yolanda Nell. YOLANDA NELL, JOURNALIST, JOURNALIST, JOURNALIST, JOURNALIST, JOURNALIST, JOURNALIST, JOURNALIST, JOURNALIST, JOURNALIST, JOURNALIST, JOURNALIST, JOURNALIST, JOURNALIST, JOURNALIST, JOURNALIST, JOURNALIST, JOURNALIST, JOURNALIST, JOURNALIST, JOURNALIST, JOURNALIST, JOURNALIST, JOURNALIST,

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part of this deal. It's believed that there are 24 living hostages still in Gaza. So you're talking about a dozen people. We were also told by him that, you know, this was Israel adding Hamas disarmament as a condition really for advancing a ceasefire. It seems to be the first time that that has happened and that is really a red line for the group. So the Palestinian official accused Israel of stalling for time, seeking only really to retrieve its hostages while prolonging the war, he said. Now we know that Israel has intensified its attacks in Gaza recently. What is the latest?

We're hearing that another hospital has been hit. So yes, basically this morning Israeli warplanes struck by the gate of the Kuwaiti field hospital which is in Al-Muassi. This is the crowded, sprawling, tented area for displaced people which is on the coast near Chernunis in southern Gaza. We spoke to the hospital spokesman there who said that there was a security guard who was killed and that there were nine people injured. These were both hospital staff and patients. Three ambulances

and some tents that were being used as a reception area were damaged, we were told, and there is graphic footage released by the field hospital which show a man covered in blood being rushed away with attempts to resuscitate him. We've contacted the Israeli military for a comment on that and they have not yet got back to us. But this attack comes after the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said he was deeply alarmed at Sunday's strike on Al-Akhli Arab Hospital in Gaza City. According to his spokesman, Israel said it targeted a building at that site, saying that Hamas was using it as a command and control center, which is something it denies. That hospital had been the best functioning in northern Gaza

that's now completely out of service. It can't admit new patients. You're now in Jerusalem. Since Sudan's civil war began two years ago today, tens of thousands of people have been killed and millions forced from their homes, caught up in the bitter power struggle between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF. Today, the British government is hosting a conference together with the African Union and European Union to try to find a, quote, pathway for peace. One of those attending is the Kenyan Foreign Minister, Musalia Mudavadi. First of all, it's important to appreciate that the scale of the humanitarian crisis

is unprecedented. I think the first target of this conference in London is to see how countries and partners can harness and scale up, upscale the humanitarian efforts in Sudan. This is a very critical aspect of it because the level of suffering is serious and the world has not been giving it sufficient attention. The second point that I would like to point out is that clearly a military solution will not work. Sudan has become basically a remote playground for different competing interests in Sudan, which is unfortunate because the people continue to suffer. So it is absolutely essential that there's an understanding that can also get the various interests that may

be in one way or the other perpetuating the crisis in Sudan to reflect on what they're doing so that this can be curtailed. So I believe these are some very critical areas that need to be talked to. Kenyan Foreign Minister Musaia Moudavadi. Well in Sudan itself there is little optimism in the face of reports of rape and ethnic cleansing. The country is largely divided, with the RSF in control of the western region of Darfur. The besieged city of El Fasha is the army's last major stronghold there. No journalists have been able to get in, but people have shared exclusive footage with the BBC, capturing their daily

battle to survive. Heba Bittar has this report and a warning some listeners may find it distressing. This woman sings at a women's supporter group at a camp in Adritshad, home to more than 250,000 refugees from Sudan, where a civil war has wreaked havoc since 2023. The army and the RSF, a paramilitary group formerly part of the armed forces, are fighting for control. As many as 150,000 people are believed to have died. The UN has warned of a genocide.

Sousan is at the event. She comes from Al-Jana'ina, the capital of West Darfur, where she says the RSF targeted her tribe. Sousan was hiding when three fighters burst into her house. She recognized one of them. He wanted to kill me so I couldn't expose them. The others said, don't kill her, let's rape her. I told them, you have to kill me before raping me. After the beating I got that day, I couldn't move for 12 days. I was powerless.

That's the RSF bombardment of Al-Fasher, the last major city resisting the paramilitaries. It's 400 kilometers east of Sousan's hometown in Darfur. Journalists can't enter, but we managed to get a camera to a woman called Manahel. Like Sousan was, she's afraid for her life. She agreed to document her experience for us. Here, she's cooking for those in need, whilst al-Fasher is being shelled. We're working while there are gunshots and drones flying over.

All the families are now on the same level. There is no rich and poor. As darkness falls, Manahel hurries home from donating food she made. After sunset, we can hear the sound of RSF drones in the distance. And the army is returning fire, as you can hear. We are scared that the rapid support forces will enter and take control of Al-Fashir. Back at the refugee camp in Chad, Sousan has just learned that her house in Al-Juneina has been taken over by a member of the RSF and his family. These people have no right to be in my house.

They're not even close neighbors. They're from an Arab tribe, and we are from an African tribe. Manahel has made the same difficult choice Sawsan did in Al-Jana'ina. The Kurdish war forced us out of our favorite place, Al-Fasher. It's indescribable. It's very sad. Like Manahel and Sawsan, millions of others from Darfur face the same uncertain future. Yet, this is a people the world seems to have forgotten.

Heba Bittar reporting. The BBC sent the allegations made in her report to the RSF, but they didn't respond. And still to come on the Global News podcast, what the Elizabethans can teach us about cheese. One of the main things is about when you eat cheese. And actually, it's really similar to some of the ideas that we have today.

So it's thought to be good to eat it at the end of a meal because it can close off the stomach. Against the backdrop of the on-again off-again US tariffs, South Korea has announced it will invest an extra $5 billion in its semiconductor industry. The BBC's Maura Fogarty is following this for us from Singapore. I asked her if South Korea was right to be worried about the looming threat of 25% tariffs being imposed by its long-term ally. Well, I would be if a large portion of my exports were chips, memory chips in particular.

That's what South Korea specializes in. And my biggest customer is the United States, which is about to slap all these tariffs on me. So I just want to mention that the 5 billion that you've just talked about, when you put that in total with what the government has already announced previously, that brings the entire support package that the government is giving the chip sector to $23 billion. That just shows you how important the chip sector is to South Korea's economy. They're doing it through helping to pick up the cost of some infrastructure building in South Korea, also providing low interest loans as well to the South Korean chip makers who are already in trouble, I should mention, before all these

tariffs started talking about being in place. And does South Korea have other concerns about the US tariffs beyond semiconductors? Well, cars is the other one, right? And South Korean automakers already are facing tariffs that were imposed by President Trump that came into force a couple weeks ago. Again, another big export component of the economy, very dependent upon selling cars to the United States and the rest of the world. And so there has been support measures put in place for the cars as well. We did see that the South Korean government is putting very much in place some money to help these automakers, but also they're saying that they're going to try and delay any further

reciprocal tariffs for as long as they can. The BBC's Maura Fogarty. China has accused the US National Security Agency of carrying out cyber attacks on its critical infrastructure during February's Asian Winter Games. Chinese police have placed three named alleged US agents on a wanted list, claiming they tried to steal athletes' personal data. Lin Jian is a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry. China has expressed its concerns to the US in various ways regarding its cyber attacks on China's critical infrastructure. We urge the US to take a responsible attitude on cyber security issues, stop launching cyber attacks on China and stop its unwarranted smears

and attacks on China. China will continue to take all necessary measures to protect its own cyber security. Our correspondent in Beijing, Stephen MacDonald, told me more. Well, the strange thing is the specificity of who they're saying has done it. According to the Chinese side, the University of California and Virginia Tech have both been involved in these attacks. But not only that, specific NSA agents have been identified. Catherine Wilson, Robert Snelling and Steven Johnson.

And they've sort of had these pictures put up without photos, just kind of silhouettes, a sort of wanted poster type things on the state media here saying that they've done it. They're supposedly guilty of doing, is intentionally sabotaging China's critical information infrastructure with the intent of causing social disorder and stealing important information.

Apparently this involves energy, transportation, water, conservancy, communications this involves energy, transportation, water, conservancy, communications and national defence, as well as attacks on Huawei, and on top of all this supposedly trying to get the personal data of athletes who are participating in these Asian Winter Games. I'm not quite sure what the advantage of that is to tell the truth, that hasn't been explained, but nevertheless that's what they're said to have done. And I guess at some point we'll hear from the US government responding to this, denying it or whatever.

Did China provide any evidence for this or indeed say why the US National Security Agency might have been targeting the Asian Winter Games? No, other than just that they were trying to cause social disorder and steal important information, but no reason why at this time or why attack those specific Winter Games. I mean, what they did say by way of evidence though is said that apparently the way this was able to be achieved was that these NSA operators used sort of pre-installed back doors in Microsoft Windows operating systems on specific devices in Heilongjiang province. So it sounds like I say very specific in terms of what they're saying.

They're also saying that the system in China faced 270,167 cyber attacks from February 7th to the 13th. Like I say we have these allegations all the time flying back and forth from Washington and Beijing but never normally this specific and I wonder if it's playing into the sort of to and fro between the two governments following Donald Trump's tariff attacks on China it's quite possible. Stephen McDonnell in Beijing. Meanwhile, on the second day of his visits to Vietnam, the Chinese President Xi Jinping has laid a wreath at the mausoleum of the late Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh in the capital Hanoi. Against the backdrop of the US tariffs, Mr Xi said that

China and Vietnam should oppose unilateral bullying. More details from our South East Asia correspondent Jonathan Head. In the current chaos following the Trump tariffs, some of the highest of which were imposed on Southeast Asian economies which are very dependent on exports, it's obviously a perfect time for Xi Jinping to say to the Southeast Asian countries, look you can depend on us and yes we agree with you more trade is better. That's a very different message than is coming out of Washington. But the reality behind the showing off of all these deals they're signing is that all these Southeast Asian countries are still trying to open negotiating channels with Washington because they need the export markets of the US. They're much more export

dependent than China is and they don't really have a substitute. In a way, China, Vietnam, where Xi Jinping has just left, and Malaysia, where he's going, they're all competing for that they make manufactured products that go to the United States, so they have to get some kind of deal with the US. Nobody knows when that's going to happen or how it's going to happen. When you hear President Trump talking about putting tariffs on semiconductors, these are very complex products that are manufactured in multiple countries Malaysia where Xi Jinping is going now the Malaysian manufacturers send chips back to China and then they come back to Malaysia again then they're exported to the US.

Jonathan Head there. In Afghanistan the doors to education and employment remain shut for most women and girls. Carpet weaving is one of the few trades that the Taliban authorities allow women to work in, meaning many have no choice but to spend long hours making carpets for low wages. Majuba Nauruzy visited Kabul and spoke to some of the young women working in the industry there. An Afghan carpet may look like a work of art, with its vibrant colours, intricate patterns and delicate hand-woven details. But beneath every thread lies a deeper story of lost childhoods, shattered dreams and extraordinary

resilience. Since the Taliban came to power in 2021, girls over the age of 12 have been banned from getting an education and most women from work. Money has been pushed into long, laborious days of carpet weaving just to survive.

On a cold winter day in Kabul, I arrive at a modest house. Inside, one small room has been transformed into a carpet making workshop. Three sisters work side by side, tying silk and wool into thousands of knots. I always wished I could go to university and finish my studies, but unfortunately we have to weave carpets instead. My two sisters can't study either. They weave carpets alongside me.

Shaquilo, aged 22, once dreamed of becoming a lawyer. Her younger sister, Samira, a journalist. Maryam, just 13, never even got the chance to imagine a future in school. Before the Taliban government's return, they were students at Saidul Shadr girls' school until a devastating attack changed everything. I kept going until seventh grade. Then a suicide bombing hit our school. After that, my father pulled us out. Now that the my father pulled us out. Now that the Taliban have came to power, schools are closed.

We cannot study, and that's why we work from home. The three sisters created a masterpiece that was showcased at an exhibition in Kazakhstan just a few months ago. It was sold for 18,000 US dollars. But the sisters, like so many others, still earn the minimum wage of under a dollar a day. Seeing potential in this overlooked workforce, corporate trader Nisar Ahmad Hosseini seized the opportunity. He started hiring young women and girls who were forced out

of school, weaving from home. In just a few months, he opened three carpet factories. Now, business is booming. Fortunately, carpet export and production has risen significantly over the past three years. It's increased by 60 to 70 percent because the workforce has grown. It's mostly made up of young women facing unemployment. I met 19-year-old Saleha in one of his factories. Denied the chance to go to university, she now spends long hours weaving in a crowded, airless room.

Schools and universities are closed. We can't continue our education. I studied English privately for three years, but poverty forced me to stop. When every door closed, I came here. Carpet weaving was all that was left. My dream is to build the base hospital in Afghanistan. I want to become the top physician in the world. In a country where opportunity has been stripped away, these girls are weaving more than carpets. They are weaving fragments of futures stitched together with hope, strength and silent defiance. Majuba Nawruzi reporting from Afghanistan.

Finally, something a little different. The earliest known book on cheese, a 112 page manuscript thought to date from the 1580s has been transcribed and put online. The Elizabethan English may take some getting used to, but it contains the invaluable insight that a surfeit of cheese doth bring pain. It was bought by the University of Leeds in the UK. Alex Bamji, Associate Professor of Early Modern History there, told us more about the book. It only came to the library's attention about two years ago when it came up at an auction and the University of Leeds has got a really outstanding cookery collection

with books and manuscripts dating back hundreds of years so we were really keen to get our hands on this one. And was it difficult to transcribe because of the way it was written because perhaps of the ageing? Yes well in fact it's an incredibly well preserved text and it's really neat. The transcription isn't easy because if you're not familiar with the hand it's written in, it's quite hard to read which is why it's really nice that it has now been transcribed and so that anyone can find out what's in it really easily. Well let's talk about what is it. Those insights don't have too much cheese it causes you pain. What else do we learn from it? So there's lots of stuff about how to make cheese, you know, what's the best milk to be making it from? Is it cow or is it sheep milk? And there's lots of insights from the

ancient writers that the authors kind of brought together. And then there's a lot of information about how best to eat cheese, which is probably the stuff that I find most interesting. Oh, go on, tell us more then. Well, one of the main things is about when you eat cheese, which is probably the stuff that I find most interesting. Oh, go on, tell us more then. Well, one of the main things is about when you eat cheese, and actually it's really similar to some of the ideas that we have today. So it's thought to be good to eat it at the end of a meal because it can close off the stomach. Right, but it also has a tip I suspect you have not tried, a cure for gout. What does it suggest?

It's got quite a few tips like that, yes. Just tell us what the cure for gout is. So the one for gout, it's about basically mixing up rancid cheese with some other things and then putting it on your knee and then, you know, it'll all sort of dry up unpleasantly and then it'll sort out the gout. But actually, this is probably a story that the author put in just to make everyone go, oh, that's disgusting rather than something actually people were doing 400 years ago. Alex Bamji talking to Nick Robinson.

And that is all from us for now. But the Global News podcast will be back very soon. This edition was mixed by Sid Dundon and produced by Richard Hamilton, our editors, Karen Martin. I'm Oliver Conway. Until next time, goodbye.