Global News Podcast - Ugandan athlete dies after being set on fire by ex-boyfriend

Episode Date: September 5, 2024

Ugandan athlete, Rebecca Cheptegei, dies after being set on fire by ex-boyfriend. Also on this podcast: France names its new prime minister, and the country where the police are on the lookout for men with beards.

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. This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Nick Mars, and 13 Hours GMT on Thursday the 5th of September, these are our main stories. Calls for action on violence against women after a Ugandan Olympic athlete was set on fire and killed, allegedly by her former partner. China promises over 50 billion dollars in loans to African nations. Emmanuel Macron chooses Michel Barnier to be

France's new prime minister. Also in this podcast. Sometimes they took the people and then they bring some barber and then they shave the birds directly on the police station. The country where the police are on the lookout for men with beards. We start in East Africa. She was a good child, very polite. She had no issues at all. I just don't know. That is the simple tribute from the grieving mother of the Ugandan athlete, Rebecca Cheptege. On Sunday, Rebecca had just come home from church where she was living in northwestern Kenya when she was doused in petrol and set on fire, allegedly by a former boyfriend. She suffered burns to more than 70% of her body and today she died. The head of Uganda's Olympic Committee called her killing

a cowardly and senseless act that has led to the loss of a great athlete. Her legacy will continue to endure. Our reporter Celestine Karoni in Nairobi told me more about her and the wider problem of violence against women in Kenya and beyond. Rebecca Cheptage is a Ugandan athlete who lived and trained in Kenya. She trained in Eten, which really is known globally as producing a lot of big-name athletes. The likes of world record holder David Rudisha trained there. She did get attacked on Sunday night, as you've mentioned.

Police say the man was her estranged boyfriend. Police in the area also say that the two had been quarreling over a piece of land, and this was a case that was in front of the authorities and had not been resolved yet. And on Sunday, when she came back home from church with her two children, she was doused with petrol and set on fire, and her alleged attacker also suffered burns. Both of them are taken to hospital in the ICU with serious burns. And this morning, we received the news that Cheptege had passed on. Cheptege did compete for Uganda, not just at this year's Olympics,

but also last year at the World Championships. She is known to be a winner in wild mountain and trail running, where she won gold back in 2022. Extraordinarily talented athlete. Look, there are an awful lot of violence against women in Kenya. And specifically, there's worry about an increasing amount of violence against female athletes there, isn't there? Yes, there is a concern because this case about Cheptege has really struck a chord within Kenyan athletics community because two years ago, two athletes, Agnes Tirop, who is Kenyan, a budding talent, and Damaris Mutua, Kenyan-born Bahraini,

were murdered at the hands of their intimate partners, according to police. Agnes Tirob's husband is currently in court facing a murder charge, while Damaris Mutua's boyfriend is still at large. Police are looking for him. And so there's a lot of concern around violence against athletes. And Athletics Kenya yesterday spoke to the BBC about safeguarding policies that they're introducing and the training they're doing now around athletes and around female athletes specifically on how to be safe, how to ensure safe reporting, especially because we hear that a lot of these athletes

or a lot of women who are suffering gender-based violence do not make reports with the authorities out of fear, out of shame, or lack of trust in the public system. And so there's a lot of training that Athletics Kenya say they're trying to do to raise awareness on this issue. Nationally, there is an issue really around gender-based violence as well, because last year, a report from the Demographic Health Survey showed that 40% of women have suffered a form of violence, whether physical or sexual. So it is a concerning issue in this country, gender-based violence. And a concern too that perhaps some men across Kenya

do not take this as a serious issue. Yes, yes, absolutely. There's that concern as well. Yesterday the Athletics Kenya president, retired General Tuwe, told me that some of the challenges they face is that they hear there's a lot of cultural challenges because of most of these athletes who say,

oh, you know, we've been raised like this. This is, you know, the man takes charge. And a lot of these issues, he said, really also stem from the ownership of property. Most of these women who maybe are competing and their property is not in their names and things like that, yet they are the ones who earn the money. So they've really said there's a lot of cultural education that needs to be done around that. That was Celestine Karony. China's relations with America and much of Europe are at a low ebb over Taiwan, human rights

and economic strains as well. So Beijing is continuing to look south for friends and clients. And the south has come to Beijing this week in the form of 50 African leaders for a summit, the first such face-to-face meeting since the start of the coronavirus pandemic to strengthen ties. And what better way to strengthen them than with the start of the coronavirus pandemic to strengthen ties. And what better way to strengthen them than with the promise of cash? China's President Xi Jinping has pledged over $50 billion in new loans for Africa over the next three years. China-Africa relations are now at their best period in history. Looking to the future, I propose raising China's bilateral relations with all

African countries that have diplomatic ties to the level of strategic relationships. So what does he mean by that? I spoke to our correspondent in Beijing, Laura Bicker. What he's meaning is he wants China to work together with African nations to and cleave themselves away from Western influence. This is about China trying to raise its influence in a continent that is rich in minerals, that is rich in oil. And when the African nations are developing, China wants them to look towards Beijing, not elsewhere, not the United States, not the European Union, and certainly not the likes of the UK. They want African nations to look towards China. Now, China has a very long, deep relationship with African nations. However, in recent years,

the continent has become quite a source of competition. And I think what China's beginning to do, certainly pre-pandemic, was they were building major infrastructure projects. You're looking at roads, railways, ports, right across different nations across Africa. But during the pandemic years, as China's economy begins to falter, those investments also began to falter. And the money tap almost on some of them started to switch off, which meant that many African nations were like, well, hang on a second, can we trust China? This three-day summit, which is being billed in Chinese media as the most important diplomatic event of the year, it is the biggest in quite a long time.

This diplomatic event is aimed at shoring up confidence. And Laura, what stood out for me and probably will have stood out for Western diplomats is when he talked about sending military advisers too. Yeah, and he's pledged about $280 million in aid, in military aid, which he said is going to be split evenly between military and food assistance. But I think that is the largest amount in military aid that China has earmarked for this purpose. So I think many people will see that as Beijing looking at the security of the relationship between Beijing and its partners in Africa looking to make sure that its investments are secure along the continent.

Laura Bicker in Beijing. So how is this being viewed by African leaders? Our correspondent Barbara Plerasha is in Nairobi. China has been a very important source of financing, as Laura was saying. They would want to see that continue. But also there is the issue of the debt that that builds up. Now, China has been a major contributor to Africa's debt binge, not the only one, but it is the top bilateral lender. And it has been reluctant to restructure

those debts in the way that some major creditor nations and the IMF might have done. So debt restructuring will be one. But they will also be looking still to get that kind of investment that they need for those infrastructure projects, railways, roads, bridges, which are particularly important to them, especially as they're trying to organize a continental free trade zone. And if you look at African leaders, and I'm generalizing here, but I think they have a more transactional view of how they relate to allies. And they're able to do that because they are being courted more, given the resources, given the geopolitical competition. So they would see China as a bilateral lender, as a top business partner of choice. But they would also, many of them, not all of them, would speak to the Americans as well to see what they get out of their relationship.

And so you see a number of African leaders, I would say Kenya's president being one of them, who do have relations, good relations with both and do try to make the most of those relations. Barbara Pleidasha in Nairobi there. A vigil has been held in the French city of Calais in tribute to the people who lost their lives as they tried to reach the UK in a small inflatable boat. Six children and a pregnant woman were among 12 who died on Tuesday after their boat sank off the French coast. This latest incident, one of the

deadliest of its kind in months, has raised more questions about the tactics used by people smugglers and the police fighting them. Our correspondent in France, Andrew Harding, attended the vigil in Calais. The mood here is sombre. There is a lot of anger, though, directed towards the French security forces, the militarisation that people fear is taking place along the coastline, but also towards the authorities in Britain. Calls for people to make it easier for migrants to cross safely and legally to the UK. One of those attending this vigil is Danny Patu, who works for a local charity supporting migrants here. All these extra security forces active on our coastline, the buggies and drones

and helicopters, all this is achieving is more death. It is provoking those migrants who want to cross to take greater risks. I'm furious. These people are trapped here. They're not welcome anywhere. It's pitiful. Further down the coast, fishermen are dragging boxes of fresh whelks onto the quayside. A good haul.

But the mood here is subdued too. On Tuesday, Captain Gaetan Baillet and his crew came across the smuggler's boat minutes after it had capsized and they were soon dragging dead bodies from the water. It's sad, he says. It shouldn't have happened. So who is to blame, I ask? Baillet frowns and shrugs. There was nothing left of the boat when we arrived, he continues.

There were obviously far too many people on board. For now, police here in France have finished interviewing survivors, but the investigation, the search for the ringleaders in the smuggling networks continues. And so does this. A municipal bulldozer clearing away another informal migrant camp. Tents and mattresses dumped in a skip. Police on standby in case of trouble. But this particular migrant camp was where the Eritreans who drowned on Tuesday were living.

The timing of its destruction seems unfortunate at best. With the help of a translator listening on a phone line, I speak to a young Eritrean man who tells me he knew some of those who died, but who still hasn't given up on his own dream of reaching the UK. Thank you. What did he say, please? Okay, he said, of course, we feel terrible about this for all of us who are here, because, you know, these people, they're like our brothers. We're all brothers out here. So what next for this decades-long, ever-evolving crisis?

Olivier Barbarin is the mayor of a resort town called Le Portel, where the bodies were brought ashore this week. When the weather is good, you can see the English coast from here. And you can imagine how these migrants don't want to stay in France. Some have travelled across Europe on foot. They just want to get to a country where they are family, where they speak the language, and where they know they can find work easily. Here in France, people still welcome the migrants with compassion and kindness. But if this goes on, I think attitudes will change. My sense is that they're changing already, that people are losing patience with the authorities on both sides of the channel,

sceptical that we are anywhere close to a comprehensive solution to stop the small boats and smuggling gangs and to end the misery that now clings to this coastline like a sea fog. Andrew Harding reporting. It was a highly successful Olympic Games in Paris for Uzbekistan, finishing 13th in the world, its highest ranking since independence back in 1991. But one gold medalist speaking anonymously says

he and the other athletes were forced to get rid of their beards before a video call with the president. And it seems the government is keen to make sure all men take on a clean-shaven look. Emilio Criccio has been speaking to the BBC's Uzbek services, Shodio Saif. Formerly, there's no law which is banning having a bird, but the police, they go around mosques and around the streets and they will catch the people with the birds and they will ask for the politely shave your birds. And if they refuse, they will say that we will, you know, jail you for 15 days. And sometimes they took the people

to the police station and then they bring some barber and then they shave the birds directly on the police station. Well, in many Islamic countries, it's quite common for men to wear beards and Uzbekistan is a majority Muslim country. So it begs the question, why? Why is this happening? You know, there's around 47 million people in Uzbekistan and more than 90% Muslim. So people try to have a beard, but the government is trying to take a balance with Islamism and secular state. So they want to keep more secular.

It's not only the beard issue here. Right now they are, you know, against for the niqabs. A niqab, the long gown that just shows the eyes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, just shows the eyes. So recently they find one lady because she has a medical mask on her face and scarf on her head. Meanwhile, in neighboring Afghanistan, the Taliban government is enforcing quite strict

virtue laws, which reportedly include the mandatory wearing of beards. Is that influencing the enforcement of secularist laws in Uzbekistan? I think, yeah, it's a good point because on the social media, also the people mentioning that and because there is one river which divides both country, the Amu Darya. And they said the other side of the Amu Darya river, people forced to have a birth, but the other side is vice versa. So I think it also plays kind of role because, you know, government is afraid that one day Uzbekistan also become an Islamic country. Still to come on this podcast. This is our land. A land of peace and of plenty.

We look at the Orwellian plans for a library filled with copies of just one book. 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. The French President Emmanuel Macron has named the veteran conservative politician Michel Barnier as Prime Minister two months after France's snap elections ended in political deadlock. He's been asked to form a new government in an attempt to end weeks of failed negotiations between rival parties. Our Paris correspondent Hugh Schofield told me more about the new French PM. Michel Barnier will be well known to people in Britain because he was, of course, the voice of the EU throughout the long Brexit negotiations. That's how he won his reputation there.

But, of course, long before that, he had a past in France and in Europe. He was first a minister back in 1993 under the cohabitation government when Mitterrand was president. And he served under Chirac after that. He was foreign affairs minister for a period in the early 2000s and then went to Europe. And his sort of flag was very much associated with Europe after that, becoming the commissioner and then the negotiator.

And after Brexit happened, he's kind of gone into kind of conference land. He sort of disappeared off the map, just, you know, doing the tour of the world, talking about the great good and good and, you know, important matters and earning lots of money, I've no doubt. And now he's been resuscitated because he's going to fix the bill as someone who could rescue Macron out from the hole that he's dug himself. That's because he is someone who is not going to completely dismantle the legacy of Macron's first years. For example, he's someone on the right who will be in favour of the key thing, in particular, the pension reform.

And he's someone who, on the face of it, is not going to automatically bring a trigger at the rejection of the far right. Now, the point about all this is that the Parliament is completely divided into different blocs, and only a prime minister who can command some support from either the far right or the left is going to survive. And, you know, right now now it looks like, you know, Barnier will have the support of the centre and maybe the tolerance of the far right for a bit. But it is hanging on a thread.

The sword of Damocles hangs over any prime minister and it certainly hangs over his head too. Yeah, it's definitely not going to be supported by the left and the far left. Jean-Luc Mélenchon from the hard left France Unbow Party, part of the biggest alliance, if you like, from the left, the New Popular Front, is saying that we're going to call for street protests. His appointment would be proof that the election has been stolen from the left. But you think possibly he might get the support of the right?

I don't think the support of the hard right, the sort of populist right. But, you know, they're all playing games. Marine Le Pen's party, you know, obviously doesn't like him for all sorts of reasons, not least because he's very European, also because he certainly doesn't want to repeal the pensions reforms, which are, you know, Macron's flagship and which the hard right, the populists, hate. But they don't hate him as viscerally as some other people on the right, and they might keep him in power for a bit by not voting against him, simply to see him twist in agony, maybe, but just to show that they're bosses. So he may stay in power, but suddenly the left

absolutely hates him. And well, he stands for, shall we say, because they say they won the election. It's been stolen from them. And, you know, the establishment, the establishment right is returning one of its own with even worse, the support and connivance of the hard right of the Marine Le Penists. Hugh Schofield. When the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, visits Haiti today, it will not be to congratulate the authorities on a mission accomplished. Haiti has been devastated by gang violence, which has made many parts of the capital no-go areas.

And now the Haitian government has extended a state of emergency to the whole country. It comes after protesters stormed and vandalised a power plant, leaving more than a million people without electricity. Around 400 Kenyan peacekeepers were sent to Haiti back in June, but they've yet to make a big impact on the levels of insecurity. Matthias Pierre is a former Haitian minister. Certainly I was always concerned there would be no great improvement. I think more equipments like armored vehicles and ammunitions had come to the country to support the national police and the 400 Kenyans to fight the gangs. But the lack of strategy is the biggest issue. I don't see any strategy from the Haitian government to put in place the right people in the position to develop a strategy to fight the gangs. I heard more about the new state of emergency from our Latin America and Caribbean editor, Vanessa Bushlutter.

The reason why they've extended the state of emergency from the capital is that in the past, in the past months, the most egregious violence has always been concentrated in the capital. But that has changed. It is now spread to some of the provinces. Arti Bonit, for example, which is to the northwest of the capital, now has seen kidnappings and extortion and attacks on people who are traveling to get food. And so this situation obviously has prompted the measure taken by the prime minister

to extend that state of emergency. But what many locals are saying is that with that extension of the state of emergency, there's no real change on the ground. It's not like more police are then deployed or more resources are sent to the police. And so they're saying those are just words, not really action. And these 400 Kenyan peacekeepers are spread extremely thin, aren't they? Absolutely. And they themselves have been saying that they haven't really gone to the front line as they term it, because they haven't been given the armoured vehicles or the body armour to be able to do so. So the commander of the Kenyan forces has been speaking to media back in Kenya, bemoaning this very fact and also calling for other nations to help strengthen that multinational force.

Which brings us to Antony Blinken's visit today. What can we expect to possibly come out from that? A spokesperson for the State Department has said that Mr. Blinken wants to get an idea on the ground of what is needed. But it sounds like he might also be calling for a more nations to participate in that multinational force. And according to one article in the Miami Herald, he may even be considering changing the status of that multinational force to a UN led force, which would mean that the funding would be guaranteed. Funding is the key problem here. And that's what the Kenyans and the Haitians are both saying. Vanessa Bushlutter.

The European Union, the US and the UK are among nearly 50 countries that have signed the first ever global treaty on artificial intelligence. The likes of Japan, Israel and Canada are also on board with the legally binding agreement, which focuses on protecting human rights and democracy from the latest technology. Zoe Kleinman reports. It's an international agreement on the priorities of AI legislation. And there's lots of different countries involved in this. There are 46 members of the Council of Europe alone. And they've also brought in 11 other countries as well, including quite big territories like the US and Japan. Now, to be honest with you, the actual content of it, if you follow AI regulation conversations quite closely, like I do, isn't really anything that

you haven't heard before. It's designed to protect human rights and democracy from AI risks. It's designed to protect the public from the misuse of AI tools. It names issues like the spread of disinformation and the use of biased data as problems that it wants to safeguard against. And it commits the countries that have signed up to monitor AI developments and products. What's missing from it is any kind of enforcement mechanism. There's no carrot or stick to keep AI companies in line. But that's deliberate because the onus is now going to be on the signatories to come up with their own legislation. And here's the thing. As we know, a lot of them are actually doing that already.

And in the case of the EU, they've done it. We've got the EU AI Act. So while this is symbolic, I don't think you're going to suddenly see what we're really waiting for in this AI regulation journey that we're on, which is, you know, clear rules and clear consequences. That's not going to happen quite yet. Zoe Kleinman. There was a time when the northern sea route was attempted only by the more daring of sailors. It takes ships from the north of Europe through thousands of kilometres of volatile seas between the north coast of Russia and the Arctic, much of it blocked by ice for most of the year, and then down into East Asia. But Russia's president, Putin, wants more cargo ships to use that route, and he's called for foreign investment to make it easier. So what's the thinking behind it? I asked our Europe regional editor, Paul Moss.

Well, two reasons really, Nick. On the one hand, there's more of a need for it, and rather usefully, that needs come at a time when travelling via the northern sea routes become more easy. First time a ship actually went down, it was in 1878. It was captained by a Swedish explorer, but most of the time, as you say, ships can't get through. There's ice in the way, so it's not really a reliable route for cargo. Instead, from Europe to Asia or the other way round,

they go via the southern point of Africa or the Suez Canal, thousands of kilometres longer. So what's changed? Well, the climate has changed. Global warming means that sea ice is melting. The Arctic is retreating. Most people, of course, see climate change as a threat to humanity, but some clearly regard it as representing an opportunity. So for the past few years, there's been more cargo going through. But now not only is there the possibility of using this route, there's also more of a need. Russia has, of course, been sanctioned by most countries in Europe. So Vladimir Putin's looking to increase trade with Asia. Just the right moment to open up this new route.

Another incentive I should mention is that the alternative, the Suez Canal, has started looking rather more risky. We've had Houthi rebels firing rockets at shipping. And you may remember the canal was blocked at one point. So all these reasons means that Russia's keener to make the North Sea route far more viable and far more used. And, Paul, what is Russia doing to encourage the use of the Northern Sea route? He's brought some brand new icebreakers, one of them nuclear-powered, and he's going to construct others so that when there is sea ice, they can ram right through it.

He wants to develop a transport hub around the Russian port of Murmansk, which also involves building railways there. And at the Eastern Economic Forum, he asked foreigners to invest in developing that port. Of course, there's an incentive for countries in Asia to use this route because they too can send their ships the other way, get them to Europe far more quickly. Now, I should say that this economic forum is a chance for Vladimir Putin

to act like the big regional leader, to say Russia's open for business with a strong economy. Not everyone is convinced by this. Russia is putting huge amounts of its resources into invading Ukraine, taking people out of the workforce to send them into battle, often to be killed, of course. So not everyone is convinced that Russia is a place for investors to stick their money. But clearly, Vladimir Putin wants to persuade them the North Sea route is a good place to invest. Paul Moss. Barnhill Cottage lies at the end of

a narrow lane called the Long Road. It's surrounded by moorland on the Scottish Hebridean island of Jura. It's a desolate place and was the perfect setting for George Orwell to write his dystopian masterpiece, 1984. And now there are efforts to establish a very Orwellian type of library there, made up entirely of copies of that one book. Terry Egan reports. This is our land. A land of peace and of plenty. The remote Scottish island of Jura has long been a place of pilgrimage for fans of George Orwell.

It has a population of just over 200, and it's where, towards the end of his life, Orwell wrote his magnificently bleak novel, 1984, about a future under the dictatorship of Big Brother. Earlier this year, to mark the 75th anniversary of 1984 being published, an artist, Hans K. Clausen, collected 1,984 copies of the book together. That library, which is currently touring, is based in Edinburgh. Now, though, Mr Clauson wants to give his mobile library a home in Jura. We took this novel back home to the island where it was written

and now we want to take the library across the UK, possibly even further. It's going to be an interactive library. We want to take it to organisations, to institutions, to places of learning. And then after a year or two of touring, I'd love to take it back and give it its permanent home in Jura and make it a place of destination there. People from all over the world already travel to Jura for the Orwell Connection.

As it stands, though, they currently face a long drive, followed by a difficult walk, sometimes just to stand and look at a house. Mr Clausen wants to change all that, and the project has the backing of people there associated with the Orwell family and the Orwell Foundation, which promotes writers who share the author's values. Jura was Orwell's home towards the end of his life, and it would have influenced the mood of that book. But, spoiler alert, while things don't end well for 1984's

protagonist, Winston Smith, hopefully they will turn out better for the library dedicated to his story. That report was by Terry Egan. And that's all from us for now, but there will be a new edition of the Global News Podcast later on. If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email. The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X at Global News Pod. This edition was mixed by Pat Sissons and the producer was Alfie Habersham. The editor is Karen Martin.

I'm Nick Miles and 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 Podcasts Premium on Apple Podcasts or listen to Amazon Music with a Prime membership.

Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC Podcasts.