Global News Podcast - Trump blames diversity policies for US air crash

Episode Date: January 31, 2025

President Trump claims that the air collision was caused by diversity policies. Investigators say they will be looking at facts. Also: the singer and actor, and icon of the swinging sixties, Marianne Faithfull has died.

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This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Paul Moss and in the early hours of Friday 31 January these are our main stories. President Trump blames diversity employment policies for the fatal plane crash in Washington. Israel finally releases more Palestinian prisoners after complaining about the chaotic handover earlier of Israeli and Thai hostages. And there are fears of an outbreak of Ebola in Uganda as a nurse dies in a hospital in Kampala. Also in this podcast, why strict rules in schools in Japan are making pupils miserable and... I sit and watch as tears go by

We say goodbye to Marion Faithfull, who's died at the age of 78. What caused a passenger plane and a helicopter to collide in Washington on Wednesday night, killing all 67 people on board? It might seem way too soon to know. The investigation's likely to be long and painstaking. And yet one person is already pretty sure about what was behind it. Donald Trump has been outlining his theories, making sure first to say he'd been shaken by what happened. This was a dark and excruciating night in our nation's capital and in our nation's history

and a tragedy of terrible proportions. As one nation we grieve for every precious soul that has been taken from us so suddenly and we are a country of really we are in mourning. But the US is also a country, Mr Trump said, where mistakes have been made. He claimed his Democrat predecessors, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, had weakened safety measures. And he also blamed the encouragement of people from diverse backgrounds to apply for jobs they shouldn't have. Something he claimed had happened at

America's Federal Aviation Administration. The FAA's website states they include hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability and dwarfism all qualify for the position of a controller of airplanes pouring into our country, pouring into a little spot, a little dot on the map. It wasn't exactly an explicit response, but after the president spoke, the chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board gave a news conference. Jennifer Holmundy emphasized that the accident required a thorough investigation to determine what had happened.

We are all here because this is an all-hands on deck event. And we're here to assure the American people that we are going to leave no stone unturned in this investigation. We are going to conduct a thorough investigation of this entire tragedy, looking at the facts." Well while the investigation may have begun, the clear up is also still very much ongoing. As our correspondent Nomiya Iqbal explained from Reagan Airport where the passenger plane was heading. If it's almost back to business here at the airport, there have been so many planes flying

in the skies, but if you're a passenger on that plane and you look out the window, you will still see the Blackhawk and the airliner half submerged in the icy waters of the river Potomac. The recovery operation is still very much underway behind me. Now, the National Transportation Safety Board has said that it's investigating multiple factors. It's confirmed that they have not recovered the flight data, also known as the black boxes. They plan to issue a preliminary report in around about 30 days, but they have said it will take some time because there's so much

information that they have to verify. And even though President Trump seems to have prejudged the investigation saying what he thinks caused it, the safety board says it's refusing to speculate. Well Sarah Smith is our North America editor. Was Donald Trump speaking off the top of his head when he was talking about diversity policies being behind what happened? He didn't have any evidence for that but what he has done is sign a memo demanding that this be investigated, that all hiring practices at the Federal Aviation Authority over the last four years whilst he's been out of power be investigated and if there is anybody who

has been hired who doesn't meet qualification requirements then they should be sacked and replaced immediately because he says he is convinced that it is these diversity policies that have lowered aviation standards. Now, it is being reported here that staffing levels were not normal in the air traffic control tower last night, that jobs would normally be assigned to two different controllers were being done by just one person who by themselves was having to handle all the planes that were landing and taking off as well as dealing with all the planes that were landing and taking off as well as dealing with all the helicopters that were in that airspace. Now we don't know whether that's routine on occasions, whether that's unusual,

but it's definitely something that the air accident investigators are going to have to be looking into along with every other aspect of this crash. Sarah Smith. Those on board the plane included a number of ice skaters and coaches. They were returning from the US figure skating Championship in Wichita, Kansas, where the Mayor Lily Wu paid tribute. It was truly an honor to have future Olympians and those who are at the highest competition level of figure skating right here in the air capital. We were so excited to have the opportunity to host the national championship and even

yesterday I had folks tell me how wonderful these last few days have been with additional individuals that came into our community, whether to watch or to participate. As well as the skating competition, many of those on board the plane had then attended a training camp. The BBC's Verity Wild follows the sport closely and explains how news of the crash first spread. Figure skating is quite a small community. It's got a very active social media and they were in absolute panic this morning because yesterday there were all these young skaters posting pictures from their camp in Wichita and they made that link very quickly between skaters, Wichita and flights and they've been trying to figure out all day who's been on there.

And it does look like it is those kind of younger skaters perhaps and their coaches and their parents that have been affected. And not just Americans, but also some Russians. Yes, now there are actually quite a lot of Russian former skaters in the States. The US is one of the big countries in figure skating. Its center is US, Canada, Russia, Japan. And actually what happened is quite a lot of Russian skaters, particularly from the sort of late 80s, early 90s, moved to America when they retired to coach or to take part in ice skating tours.

And that's what we think the Russians who are on this plane were doing. Their former skaters, in fact former world champions Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov are the ones we know of who was coaches at a club in Boston. Verity Wild speaking to Mark Lowen. Anyone who's been on a Tokyo tube train at Russia will know what a crush you're in for, but one thing you notice is that unlike in some countries, the children on their way to and from school tend to be rather well behaved, no yelling, throwing chocolate wrappers around or maybe getting into fights.

And that's partly because children in Japan are accustomed to very strict discipline at school. In fact, so much so, there have now been moves to make them just a little less severe. Asia Pacific regional editor Celia Hatton knows all about Japanese school rules and began by giving me some examples. A lot of schools, for example, ban boys in particular from wearing coats over their school uniforms. Girls are allowed to wear coats. But girls have a whole list of things that they have to follow.

Their underwear has to be a certain colour. Their socks have to be a certain colour. Their pencil cases can only be a certain shape. They have to be a box shape. Girls have to wear their hair over their ears. And in many schools, anyone who genetically just kind of has light coloured hair has to dye their hair to make it even more black. Students are often banned from bicycling to school. The lists go on and on and on and that's why many feel that Japanese high schools are quite oppressive places and they're just misery inducing really. Are we talking just about secondary school here or or primary schools are like this as well?

No there's a whole different list of rules for primary school students. I spent quite a lot of time when I was a reporter in Japan looking at primary schools, and they have their own lists of rules. So, for example, students have to help clean their own classrooms in Japan when you're in primary school. But also at lunchtime, primary school students have to eat their lunches in a certain order. So they have to eat everything on their tray that's in box A and then move on to box B and that's been a subject of discussion in itself. Some people think that it encourages eating disorders because students aren't allowed to decide

in what order they're going to eat their lunches. So if these rules are so widespread and in primary and secondary schools, what's prompted the idea that things need to change? There's been an ongoing discussion in Japan, particularly over the last few years, that centers around rising levels of youth depression and correspondingly rising levels of youth suicide. So we've seen actually in the past year, 2024, suicide rates in Japan have actually gone down. But youth suicide is at a record high. Do you think there's going to be resistance to making these rules less severe? Presumably

some Japanese people think it's good that kids are subject to this kind of strong discipline? Japanese society does have a focus on being polite to be considerate of others and to kind of really think about the wider, greater good. And so following the rules is also kind of this idea sort of carried into the workplace. But I think in the past few years in particular, many parents are beginning to question whether the school and teachers and headmasters at schools are actually more important, whether they should have a bigger say in their child's lives than they do. And so there's this kind of push and pull between schools and parents. And I think parents are starting to slowly gain a bit of the upper hand. Celia Hatton.

The singer and actor Marian Faithfull has died, an icon of London's swinging 60s, whose music career lasted more than half a century. She was 78. Faithfull shot to fame as a teenager with a song written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones. But amidst all her success, her career was overshadowed by a battle with drug addiction which lasted until the mid-80s. David Silito looks back at her life. Marian Faithfull. In the 60s she was a star, she had a run of chart hits, she was Mick Jagger's

girlfriend, she was one of the in-crowd. But that golden era didn't last long. Marianne Faithfull described her childhood as like living in a Renoir painting. Her family were bohemian, but school was strict. However, everything changed when the startlingly beautiful 17-year-old met the Rolling Stones and their manager, Andrew Luke Oldham. I went to a party, the Rolling Stones were there, and I was looking very shabby. And they came up and said to the person I was with, and can she sing? And they had a conversation over my head and then they arranged where I was to be and I went there. And you recorded as tears go by. Yes. I sit and watch as tears go by. Thirty years later she talked of how she had secretly hoped that the record would fail.

Because I had a vague idea that if this was a hit, all hell would break loose. This all went on in my summer holidays. So I was just thinking I'd got away with it and I would go back to school and get on with my A-levels. And then in October it took off and that was that. The image of shy, wistful 60s innocents was shattered though when she was caught up in a drugs raid on Keith Richards' home. Deliried and false headlines about her left deep wounds. By the 70s she was a heroin addict but she continued to record and in the mid-80s quit drugs. It is the evening of the day.

You could hear the darkness, the cracks and scars of those years in her music. She had endured more than her share of the era's sexism, but the artist that emerged was, she said, no one's victim. And you could hear it all in this, a re-recording of her most famous song. My... Proud, unapologetic, the voice of Marianne Faithfull. Da da da... Marianne Faithfull, ending that report by David Silotto. Still to come, could a $50 painting found in a garage sale be a Van Gogh worth many millions more?

I started out appropriately, scientifically skeptical and in literally the past month or so I am starting to feel quite confident. What does it take to go racing in the fastest cars in the world? Oscar Piastri. Your head's trying to get rid of one way, your body's trying to go another. Lance Stroll. It's very extreme in the sense of how close you're racing wheel to wheel. We've been given unprecedented access to two of the Middle East, hostages for prisoners, as the Gaza peace agreement requires.

Thursday saw the freeing of eight people seized during the Hamas-led attacks of 7 October 2023. Three Israelis, a soldier and two civilians, and five Thai men. Lucy Williamson sent this report from Tel Aviv. Released from captivity into chaos, two Israeli hostages bundled through the surging crowd. 80-year-old Gadi Moses and 20-year-old Abel Yehud released along with five Thai farm workers in Khan

Yunis today. After 15 months in captivity, their short walk to freedom, brutally public, painfully long. In northern Gaza, a separate ceremony for kidnapped soldier Agam Berger, highly controlled and choreographed, graffiti mocking Israel's military units decorating the stage, the rubble of Jabalia refugee camp, draped in Palestinian flags. Her release was broadcast live on television back in Israel,

watched by her childhood friends, among them Bahen. It felt like something is missing inside of us, of our heart, because she's really, really a good friend of us. She's like one of the group. Each exchange, each reunion, bringing a family together. But also bringing Israel and Hamas closer to negotiations over how to extend this ceasefire deal and the conflicts over Gaza's future that's likely to involve. Lucy Williamson, in return for Hamas releasing that latest group of hostages, Israel has released 110 Palestinian prisoners.

They were given a boisterous welcome when they arrived, after much delay, in the city of Ramallah on the occupied West Bank. Well, our correspondent Wirra Davis is in Ramallah and he watched the homecoming. What we saw today both on the Israeli side and here in occupied Palestinian territories were joyful scenes as families were reunited with their loved ones. At one stage it looked like it might not happen because of Israeli government anger about the way the hostages were handed over in Gaza. They had threatened to delay, even postpone the release of these 110 prisoners, but eventually it did happen here in the early evening and then it was slightly delayed for more, I suppose, acceptable reasons when thousands of people who had come to meet these prisoners flooded the streets of

Ramallah and stopped the buses reaching their destination. But when they did, many of the prisoners, about 60 of them were released into Ramallah, came off and were given a hero's welcome. Among them was one man who'd been arrested more than 20 years ago. He'd never even been able to hug or kiss his youngest daughter because her mother was pregnant with her when he was arrested. And these are the kind of family reunions that made it a very joyous occasion. Less joyous if you are an Israeli looking on might be the sight of somebody like Zachariah Zubaydi,

who was a former commander of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, convicted by Israel for his role in the deaths of many, many Israelis. He was freed today into the custody of his family in Jenin and he was carried aloft by his supporters here in Ramallah. Now this has all happened on the same day that the United Nations Agency, UNRWA, that the ban on them working there has come into force. What difference is that making? To say because I think it's been slightly overshadowed by these releases today

but UNRWA have been saying you you know, for many weeks now ever since this Israeli threat, in fact this new Israeli law had materialised, that it was going to severely affect their ability to offer all of the aid they do to Palestinian refugees, all of the schooling, all of the health facilities they run, not just in Gaza, but also remember in the occupied East Jerusalem. Israel can't really enforce that ban in the occupied Palestinian West Bank because Israel isn't the legal authority here, but in places like East Jerusalem and of course in Gaza where there's a huge humanitarian need, the formal closing of underwater operations will lead I think to a worsening of the humanitarian situation and in places like East Jerusalem,

you know, many of the Palestinian children who go to school or families who go to clinics are going to have to be provided with alternatives, perhaps by the Israeli municipal authorities. We're at Davies. As I said, of the eight hostages released in Gaza today, five were ties. Part of a large community of farm workers who travel from poor regions of Thailand, attracted by the offer of higher salaries. Thailand's prime minister said she was elated by their release. And yet most of the ties who were taken on October 7th have not made it back to Israel alive, as we heard from our Southeast Asia correspondent, Jonathan Head.

There were officially eight people still technically being held, but we already knew that two of them had died in captivity. They're among the 44 Thais who have died either in captivity or in the initial Hamas attacks. So that left six, and I think a lot of people here were hoping that all six would be released But five of them all men who are farm workers who've come from mostly the northeast and north of Thailand That's where most of these guest workers come from to work in Israel It's a long tradition going back many decades with ties to go to Israel and yep They've all been released as far as we can tell they're in reasonable health

We can only imagine the conditions they've been held in. I mean I can remember talking to hostages who were released after only about 50 days and they were pretty traumatised by the experience so we can't even guess what their state of mind is. The big question is still this one remaining man whose wife actually I've been in touch with since the very start of this and we really had hoped that he would be among those released. We don't know what's happened to him. There's no record of his name. Hamas haven't mentioned holding him. He's not recorded as having died. So he is the one last remaining contingent among the Thais who were caught up. And remember the Thais were the largest group of foreign nationals who were caught up in the whole Hamas attack and the hostage crisis after that.

Have you heard from or have you seen any reaction from the families of the five released today? Yes we have. I mean I've been reporting from Bangkok but my Thai colleagues have gone off to talk to someone. They're all quite a long way away. It's absolutely fantastic. I mean there's this sense of relief. You know they don't show emotion very much all along, they're quite stoical, they've been buoyed by their communities, they usually live in quite tight-knit communities in the villages they come from. But, you know, they're not knowing when or whether their sons, husbands,

brothers would come out, has been very, very painful, and you have this absolute gush of relief that's come from, for example, Willett Tyner, he's a 65 year old man and his son Ponsack has been held for all that time and I think my colleagues have spoken to him before, you know, he was beginning to lose hope. Remember Thailand has been running its own diplomatic track to try and get the hostages out. It's not a party to the conflict in the Middle East. And Thailand tries to maintain good relations with everyone, but it actually has quite a good relationship with Iran. So they've been talking directly to the Iranians, to the Qataris, to the Egyptians in the hope that they would be able to get

their own people out. But, you know, they did get 23 out the month following the initial attacks. But there's been no progress, partly because of the devastating Israeli operation and everything's been frozen for this last year while that's gone on. So it's been a very long wait and a very difficult one. But as far as the ties are concerned, apart from this one man who's missing, their saga is now over. Jonathan Head speaking to Mark Lowen. There are some

diseases whose very name is enough to inspire fear and Ebola is surely one of them. A truly horrible infectious medical condition it causes those who catch the virus to suffer fever, nausea and sometimes hemorrhage. Left untreated Ebola can have a mortality rate as high as 80 or 90 percent. So it's no surprise that the announcement of an Ebola death in Uganda has caused considerable alarm. So far one person has died. Our Africa Health correspondent, Dorcas Wangira, told me about the circumstances. The first case is a male nurse, a 32-year-old male nurse who had been ill for five days. He had been to several hospitals in different parts of Uganda before coming to the capital

where he unfortunately died and he had also seen a traditional healer before his death. Well given that the patient had travelled around whilst apparently infectious, what are the health authorities in Uganda now doing? So the health authorities now are trying to assure the people that they are in control, that they're trying to contain the outbreak. So they have come up with several measures, including tracing anyone who came into contact with him.

And they're also making plans for vaccination for those who have been in contact with him, particularly the health care workers, because he went to different health care facilities. Kampala, the capital of Uganda, is a large, very crowded city. Presumably, it's very difficult to find everyone who's been in contact with this man. Yes, it is. You know, you cannot see a disease with your eye, you cannot see a virus with your eye. But as difficult as it may be to trace everyone who may be infected, this first case went to specific healthcare

facilities. So they're able to look at the healthcare workers, family members were in contact with him. But the thing with Ebola and contact tracing is that there are known signs and there are known symptoms. So that besides just knowing who did this person come into contact with, they're also on the lookout for the same symptoms that he had. I know you've managed to speak to some people in Kampala. Is this something people there are worrying about? Are they talking about it? Well, so whenever there is an outbreak, obviously it's always a cause to worry, particularly

because this patient died yesterday. But when you look at the many places he was able to visit, it's not just Kampala, it's different places. So far it's a face of the ministry saying we are in control. It's not a cause for panic or alarm, but it is something to worry about. Kampala is also one of those cities which has very good links to other places in Africa. Presumably there must be worries about it spreading further in the East Africa region and beyond. That's correct. We do say that a disease anywhere is a disease everywhere. Just today in the Africa

Centers for Disease Prevention and Control briefing, the Director General, Dr. Jean Kassea, said that they are also suspecting another outbreak of Ebola in the DRC, where they are suspecting 12 cases. So it's not just about Uganda. Kampala is interconnected with Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, and even South Sudan. And this particular type of Ebola is known as the Sudan Ebola virus, because there are different types of it. So the one thing they always try to find out is where could it have possibly come from

and where else could it spread. Dukeswangira, do you think you might have a Van Gogh painting in your attic? That might sound like a rather daft idea. But in fact every year hundreds of people announce they've come across works of art in their homes which they believe were produced by the famous Dutch post-impressionist. Not surprisingly, it's extremely rare that these claims are taken seriously. But that has just happened. Some experts believe that a painting bought for $50 at a Minnesota garage sale may be a Van Gogh original. Among them is Jennifer Maas, the founder and president of the Scientific Analysis of Fine Art, a company which provides artwork authentication. James Menendez asked her the 64 million dollar question, or perhaps

that should be the 15 million dollar question. Does she think the painting really is by Vincent Van Gogh? Well I have been working on this painting for three years now and in general it is my role to have data and not necessarily have an opinion but after spending 30 years my entire career looking at works of art of course I do have an opinion and I have to say that I started out appropriately, scientifically skeptical and in literally the past month or so I am starting to feel quite positive, quite confident about this work. What happens then?

So you and the other experts put forward what, a dossier of what you think is the evidence and then who decides? Is it the Van Gogh Museum who has the final say? So traditionally in the art market, there'll be one or two art historians that will be the deciders, that every painting has to go before them. And yes, the Van Gogh Museum has played that role, absolutely. And in some sense, their job very appropriately is to always stay know, because they are really protecting his reputation and our understanding

of the history of his work. But they have changed their minds over time. And it's all a matter of the information that we can present the museum with just so we can go beyond connoisseurship, which is absolutely critical. And none of the technology and science that we do is ever going to replace the connoisseurship, but it is also critical in terms of coming up with a positive

attribution. And so the LMI group that I'm working with, they are profoundly data driven. And so the type of materials data that I collect and techniques on the paintings, that's just part of the data that we're collecting on an artwork. If it does turn out to be genuine, how significant would this be? I mean, it's quite a find, isn't it? It absolutely is. And I think what's fascinating about Van Gogh is that he's done approximately 900 paintings, and yet in the public eye, we get to see the same 70 to 100 paintings over and over again. And there's so much more to the artist than that. And so this painting,

while it might look unusual for example compared to Starry Night, it actually fits in perfectly with what he was doing in this particular point in his career, turning back to the earlier palette he used in the Netherlands. The fine art expert Jennifer Maas talking to James Menendez. And that's all from us for now. 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. And you can also find us on x at Global News Pod. This edition was produced by Judy Frankel and mixed by Daffod Evans. The editor is Karen Martin.

I'm Paul Moss. Until next time, goodbye. What does it take to go racing in the fastest cars in the world? Oscar Piastri. Your head's trying to get rid of one way, your body's trying to go another. Lance Stroll. It's very extreme in the sense on how close you're racing wheel to wheel.

We've been given unprecedented access to two of the most famous names in Formula One, McLaren and Aston Martin. I'm Landon Aris. They build a beautiful bit of machinery that I get to then go and have fun in. They open the doors to their factories as the 2024 season reached its peak.

I'm Josh Hartnett. This is F1, Back at Base. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. to then go and have fun in. They opened the doors to their factories as the 2024 season reached its peak. I'm Josh Hartnett. This is F1 Back at Base. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.