Global News Podcast - US Democrats celebrate Mamdani victory

Episode Date: November 5, 2025

Zohran Mamdani is promising change and a template to defeat Donald Trump after winning the vote to become the New York City mayor. Also: the United Nations calls for more action to halt atrocities in Sudan; Chinese fast-fashion brand Shein launches its first store in Paris; and Monopoly is 90 - we look at the history of the popular board game.The Global News Podcast brings you the breaking news you need to hear, as it happens. Listen for the latest headlines and current affairs from around the world. Politics, economics, climate, business, technology, health – we cover it all with expert analysis and insight. Get the news that matters, delivered twice a day on weekdays and daily at weekends, plus special bonus episodes reacting to urgent breaking stories. Follow or subscribe now and never miss a moment. Get in touch: [e-mail]

This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Pete Ross at 1600 hours on Wednesday the 5th of November. These are our main stories. Sauran Mamdani, who's just been elected mayor of New York City, says his victory should act as a template for how the Democrats can beat Donald Trump. The UN's human rights chief says the world needs to take action to stop atrocities in Sudan, and the authorities in Bangladesh have offered cash rewards to anyone handing in weapons looted in last year's antique government uprising.

Also in this podcast, we celebrate the pioneers of artificial intelligence. Together we completed the trio of modern AI, which is big data, neural network algorithm, as well as modern computing chips like TPUs. New Yorkers have elected the left-wing Democrats, Oran Mamdani, as the city's next mayor, in what's being seen as a rebuke to President Trump. During the campaign, the president, who has returned to the White House a year ago today, branded Mr. Mamdani a communist and threatened to withdraw federal money. In his victory speech, New York's new mayor said his win was a mandate for change.

It was one of several good results for Democrats in state and state. local elections. Netatofik was watching the results in New York. A decisive win and a new progressive star. Zahran Mamdani has made history as the first Muslim and South Asian mayor-elect of New York City. I can see the dawn of a better day for humanity. The 34-year-old Democratic Socialist promised a new era of leadership, one that would seek to unite rather than divide and that would put working-class people first. believe in standing up for those we love, whether you are an immigrant, a member of the trans

community, one of the many black women that Donald Trump has fired from a federal job, a single mom still waiting for the cost of groceries to go down, or anyone else with their back against the wall, your struggle is ours too. And he had this message for President Donald Trump, who has called him a communist and threatened to pull federal funds from the city if he was elected. This is not only how we stop Trump, it's how we stop the next one. So Donald Trump, since I know you're watching, I have four words for you. Turn the volume up! Governor Mandani has gone from a long-shot candidate

to a national figure in a matter of months. He's run a masterful campaign, one that has excited young and disaffected voters desperate for new energy to combat President Trump. Amazing. Hopefully a new generation of politics right here. We're feeling incredible. This is the most united.

The left has been across New York in years. It's a chance for the laborer. movement to really reclaim this as a labor city. I am a native New Yorker. I'm a Muslim that lived here through 9-11, through the Islamophobia that we faced after it. I have not felt this much hope in a decade. Zahranamdani's stunning rise has forced Democrats into a necessary debate about the future of the party ahead of next year's midterm elections. His campaign exposed generational and ideological divides within the base. Congratulations to Zoran Mondami.

His opponent, the former governor, Andrew Cuomo, hadn't lived in the city since the 90s and was seen as an out-of-touch establishment figure. But even as Mr. Cuomo conceded, he said he was proud of his campaign. This campaign was to contest the philosophies that are shaping the Democratic Party. the future of this city and the future of this country. The New York race wasn't the only one seen as a key test of voters' moods. In neighboring New Jersey, Democrat Mikey Sherrill won the governor's race over the Trump-endorsed Republican. And I am incredibly honored to be your next governor.

And in Virginia's governor race, Democrat Abigail Spanberger became the first female to lead the state. We chose our commonwealth over chaos. Like Mamdani, both women focused on affordability, but unlike him, they were moderate establishment Democrats. President Trump blamed the bad night on the fact that he wasn't on the ballot. Zahran Mamdani will soon begin building his transition team as he prepares to lead America's biggest city and the world's financial capital. He will face intense scruly. from Democrats and intense opposition from Republicans. But he insists he will deliver.

Neda Tofick there. So what's been the reaction to his victory? First, the Democrats. Lucy Hawking spoke to Zainab Mohammed, a Minnesota state senator, who became the first black woman elected to the Minnesota State Senate and is also the youngest woman ever elected to serve in that legislator. Zohran's win last night is an extraordinary moment for not just New Yorkers, but I think people across the country. He's giving people hope and something to dream for.

And he's also giving people a reason to want to continue to organize. And he's also giving something to the Democratic Party, which is an extraordinary win, but also a reason for them to continue to organize or work hard. He has made his platform clear. Affordability was top of that. and I think people in America are eager to have candidates who are going to run on that issue. Zanab, is it a particularly significant, emotional, meaningful moment for young Muslims in America? Absolutely. Had you told me 10 years ago that in 2025, we will be electing not only a young person, but the first Muslim person in New York City post 9-11, I would say that can't be true.

And so I think Muslims globally, this is a big deal. It's an opportunity. For Muslims in America, it's an opportunity for them to know that this is their country. They are not just immigrants, but their bags are unpacked and they are here to stay for the foreseeable future. And what would you say to the many analysts today, Zedna, that are saying Mamdani's version of the Democrats only actually works in New York. It doesn't work in other states. The Democratic Party is a big tent. And what a big tent means, first and foremost, Democrats are for working people. And we have to get back to our message and what we really care about, which is making sure that people who are working in this country are thriving.

And I think that's something we stepped away from in recent years. And Zohran is a very good example of why we need to get back to that. People want elected officials who are going to work for them. We know that the Republicans oppose that and oppose affordability. Donald Trump ran on that and is doing the absolute opposite of what he ran on. And I think right now, Democrats have an opportunity to look at what happened in New York City, to look at how Zohran ran his campaign and to say we have to get back to our roots and our roots are working people. Barry DiNardio is part of the Republican Party in Maryland and a Trump supporter.

So how concerned is he about made-elect Mamdani? Yeah, he's a concern for the Republican Party. He's young. He's articulate. He's energetic. I'm a Trump supporter and I'm able to recognize that Mandami has started a new movement in the Democrat Party. And as far as I'm concerned, my perception is he is leading the Democrat Party. Not anyone else, not Chuck Schumer. It is him. And if he were able to run for president, we would have a problem.

He might give a run to J.D. Vance for Mr. Rubio on the next election, but he cannot. No, because he was born in Uganda. I mean, Mr. Trump has described him as a 100% communist lunatic, but he has just won a convincing victory. What can we see from this? Mr. Trump, for example, said he was on the side of ordinary Americans. He said he was a champion for the working class. But we've been told recently that that ballroom is his priority now. And he's always surrounded by tech bro billionaires. Has he lost his touch with the common people?

No, I don't think so. I mean, since he got in office, the truth is the price of gas has been down. It's going down yet again. That matters to American citizens. there is a lower price for food. I wish it would go down, just like anyone else would wish. He's going to have to focus on doing that to compete with the new Democrat Party. I agree. And our losses, the Republican losses in Virginia as well as New Jersey is a symptom of a problem. So the Republican Party and the Trump administration is going to have to readjust its thought process, its strategy, and start working.

Like you're saying, you know, there is a lot of billionaires there at the top, and I agree with you there. He's going to have to really relief some of the burden and the stress off of the working class, just like you mentioned. I think it's going to take time for it all to catch up. It's not an instantaneous thing. The United States has been economically problemed for a while. It's not going to cure in literally nine months. It's going to take time to catch up. We are getting money in from the tariffs.

It's changing. Things are for the better. Barry Denardio is speaking to Rebecca Kesbby. In Sudan, the army has been fighting the paramilitary rapid support forces since April 2023. On Tuesday, the Sudanese defence minister pledged to continue that battle, despite the loss of the key city of Elfashir in North Darfur. The United Nations is also warning about worsening insecurity in the neighbouring region of Kordofan. This woman managed to escape, but after the RSF stormed the town of Barra.

Her words are read by someone outside Sudan. My house was stormed. They fired an RBG to break open the doors. And once they entered, the lotting began. They kept asking, where is the gold? Where is the money? Anyone who had no money or gold on them was executed immediately. According to the UN, only 71,000 people of an estimated quarter of a million people

have been able to leave El Fasher since Saturday, amid reports of mass killings, rapes and loot. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk told the BBC the world has been too slow to react. I just looked at our own statements that we made in the course of this year. It's over 30 statements. We have warned about what would happen in Al-Fasher. And to be honest, I did not think that there was enough of a response by the international community to prevent the worse from happening.

So yes, it is very unfortunate to say, and it's horrible to say it about a country like Sudan, but I do believe that the international community has forgotten about it. Indeed, the world watched as the rapid support forces built a wall around El Fasha over months. What could have and should have been done to prevent the kind of deaths and destruction that we're hearing of from El Fashire? And I absolutely agree with you. What we have seen over the last 18 months, 500 days, was a horrible, medieval type of blockade, a siege where we had reports that people had to eat animal feed, peanut shells, that children died because of malnutrition. I mean, it's apocalypse now type situation. and then RSF takes over massive atrocities,

killings, extraditional killings, disappearances, gang rapes of women and girls. And while people are trying to flee from this horrific situation, they are persecuted, some of them are not able to flee, and they are attacked again. So that cruelty is something that we must, absolutely make sure that the international community stands up against and holds people not only to account, but also stops the transfer of arms, make sure that there are no business

interests involved, and gets humanitarian access in. And that will require massive pressure on RSF, on the militias that are supporting them, to stop this absolute horrible situation. Some have used the word genocide to describe what is happening in Elfasha, how would you characterize what has been happening there? I mean, it's clear the situation of a siege, the massive killings of civilians, the starvation, the famine, the gang rapes, the enforced disappearances, these are atrocity crimes. And I don't think we should fall into the trap of designating a genocide or not genocide

because this is always what courts will eventually decide. But what is already happening now is so horrific, these are crimes of atrocity, these are war crimes, these are crimes against humanity, that they need to trigger a reaction by the international community. In fact, the international community should have reacted much earlier on in an effective way to stop this from happening. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk speaking to my colleague Anne Soye. Today, King Charles is awarding the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering to seven pioneers of artificial intelligence. Among the 2025 prize winners is NVIDIA's CEO Jensen Huang and three scientists who've become known as the so-called godfathers of AI,

together with one woman, Professor Faye-Fei Lee, who I guess might be its godmother. She's been talking to our technology editor, Zoe Kleinman. I was very honoured and also honored to be able to share this with the other laureates who together we completed the three, the trio ingredients or elements of, or forces, whatever you call it, of modern AI, which is big data, neural network algorithm, as well as modern computing chips like GPUs. You are the only woman among the laureates. It's very noticeable. Do you feel that?

As a scientist, that's not how I go about my scientific work, but among the lawyers, I am proud to be different. You're sometimes referred to as a godmother. Do you like that phrase? Natural instinct of mine, I would not call myself godmother of anything. But when people started calling me that, I don't remember, a couple of years ago, three years ago, I had to pause. I also recognize if I rejected this, it would miss an opportunity for women, scientists and technologists to be recognized this way because men are pretty easily called godfathers or founding fathers. There's a lot of concern and debate about copyright at the moment. Do you think that that has to shift in order for the tech to advance?

I think AI as alien technology, especially powerful technology, is always a double-edged sword. And debates about copyrights and all this is part of the course of the development of this technology and of how we're learning to use it in a responsible way. What do you think is the next milestone for AI? Well, for me, the next frontier of AI is spatial intelligence. If you look at how animals evolved and how humans developed, the ability to see, to understand the visual world, to navigate, to interact with it,

and also to create similar worlds, is innately important and native to animals and humans. And if we can use AI to unlock this capability, it can superpower a human in many ways, including creativity, robotic learning, design and architecture, I think spatial intelligence is going to play a huge role or central role in bringing the next breakthroughs here. Professor Fifi Lee speaking to Zoe Klayman.

Still to come in this podcast. It's this sort of survival technique, just to keep a handle on what's going on in my life and try to make sense of it as it rolls along. hear from the Australian author Helen Garner, whose collection of diaries has won a prestigious literary prize. Paris is often considered to be the world's fashion capital. There's something of a row going on in the French city at the prestigious department store

Bayash Vey there, and that's because the Chinese company, Sheen, known for mass-producing affordable fashion sold online, has opened its first in-store outlet. at Bayashvay. But apart from environmentalists warning against so-called fast fashion, Sheen also has a reputation of not having the best workers' rights in China. Now, local retailers in Paris say their stock will be undercut by this cheap Chinese clothing giant. Our Paris correspondent, Hugh Schofield, is at the store and gave this update to Rebecca Kesbby. It's a big day here for Sheen because it's its first ever bricks and mortar permanent store. vast majority of its sales are done online, and you have millions, if not billions of parcels arriving

in Europe every year from China carrying clothes which are arriving, and much of the anger of Xi' competitors here in France, and much of the anger of the French government as well, which wants to control this and does not like at all the idea of the French way of doing things being undercut and undone, really, by this ultra-modern new way of marketing. So it's a big deal. There's a lot of people out here in front of the, of the BHV store, which is a historic store here in the centre of Paris. Protesters on one side and have to say rather more shoppers who've turned out en masse.

And there's a line of, I don't know, 100, 200 people in front of the shop now. Anyway, we've been out sampling views. I just came to see because I'm not a big fan. I purchased from scene one, two times, and you washed it, then it's over. I'm a fan, actually. I think it's quite cool. I mean, it is the city of fashion, but I think it's such a cool thing for people my age who are struggling in this economy to buy clothes like Ralph Lauren or whatever. It's very expensive for us. So I think she is such a good. When I heard that they were going to open the shop today, I was mainly ashamed to see that the first physical shop in the world would be in Paris. I think it's sad. Of course, we know that it's bad for the environment, bad for social worker conditions. But what's the worst for me is how we're going full on, being irresponsible.

The view from some shoppers and protesters there, Hugh. Just before we came on air, there was another story on Shien coming from France, saying that the government plans to suspend the website. Can you explain what's going on there? Yeah, separately, but maybe connected in a sort of. broad sense is this other story which is running about child, childlike sex dolls. Now, you've got to remember that Sheehan, like other online retailers, has its own stuff, but also has a marketplace where other retailers, other sellers come to sell their goods,

and they give a cut to Sheen. And one of these other sellers has used their marketplace to market these sex dolls, which are quite clearly designed to appeal to paedophiles. It's caused a huge row here, which is sort of leapfrogging or sort of piggybacking on the broader row about Sheehan and its general business model. Some would say that this is typical because it's part of the deregulated utopia in which Sheehan thrives. In any case, it's angered people obviously here. Sheen is saying it will do everything to cooperate. It regrets this.

It's obviously highly embarrassing. But the government is saying that it's going to look into suspending the. website, but I think only temporarily, until it's convinced that she and is indeed removing this kind of material from its marketplace. Bangladesh has announced cash rewards for people surrendering thousands of firearms looted during an anti-government uprising last year. Officials say machine guns, rifles and pistols were stolen from police armories during last August's deadly unrest that toppled the then Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Our global affairs reporter, Ambara San Etiraja, has more details. Police in Bangladesh are still struggling to retrieve the weapons stolen during last year's anti-government protests. More than 1,300 firearms are still missing. The rewards range from $4,000 for a machine gun to $800 for an assault rifle. Police have promised complete confidentiality urging people to hand the guns in. Bangladesh has been in turmoil since the former Prime Minister Sheikh Asina fled into exile last year and political parties are jostling for power ahead of a poll expected to be held in February next year. Security forces are keen to get the arms back ahead of the planned vote.

They are concerned that many of the stolen weapons may have been sold to criminals and are now being used in illegal activities. Now, do you keep a diary? Many of us might keep one at some point in our lives, but eventually no longer find time for it, often as we grow older, and our lives get busier. The Australian writer Helen Garner, whose 82, has kept a diary for nearly all her life. And she's just won a prestigious award, partly because of it.

She's perhaps best known for her novels like Monkey Grip and the Spare Room. But her latest work, How to End a Story, which is a collection of her diary entries, has been awarded the Bailey Gifford Prize, which rewards excellent in non-fiction writing. She spoke with my colleague Rebecca Kesby, who asked her why keeping a doubt, has been so important to her.

Sometimes I think it's the only thing holding me together. It's a sort of survival technique just to keep a handle on what's going on in my life and try to make sense of it as it rolls along. I mean, I like pushing a pen

across a piece of paper and to use my daily experience as more material. Has it helped in your novel writing? Oh, yeah, I think so. It's like a daily practice, really. And I don't just drop things down. It's not a notebook.

I write as coherently as I can. It's how I taught myself to be a writer. Diaries like this, though, are normally published posthumously after a writer has gone. You've decided to go for it. Why did you make that decision? Well, it was suggested to me by my publisher about my bigger idea.

And I thought, oh my God, what a terrible idea. But then when I went back and looked at some of the diaries, I thought, there's some good stuff. in here. It's well written and there's some stories and there's lots of different people and lots of incidents and physical objects and there's lots of music and children. And I thought, well, I can probably do something with this. And of course I must say that the idea of a diary being published after I die is a complete nightmare because it would be out of my control. But these diaries really do expose a lot of your life in quite intimate detail and

your feelings about people in your life as well. Was that a consideration when it came to publish in the diaries? Oh, I don't care about that. I love to read other people's self-exposing writing. I find it deeply interesting and moving. I don't have an urge to sort of veil myself when I'm writing. Do you worry that there's too much of other people in there as well? No, I don't.

I thought carefully about it. And the last section of this book of diaries is a study of the collapse of a marriage. So that necessarily, deeply involves two people. This concerned me greatly whether it was ethically all right to do. But the conclusion I've come to about that ethical question is that the marriage that I describe in there is an archetypal one. I mean, it's not as if it's the only bad marriage in the world. that's really quite typical or characteristic of an unhappy marriage.

And I feel that it's worth examining and talking about and trying to analyse. When you look back at your life, which is so sort of clearly in these diaries, do you look at it from a different perspective now from, you know, the time that you were writing these diaries? What does time do to your memory of events? When you read over a diary, this book covers about 20 years, I think. It's really quite shocking to see how stupid you were, more foolish things you did and all the ideas you had that were going to turn out

to be completely ludicrous and leading only to unhappiness. But there's nothing more terrible in reading really about the beginnings of a love affair. There's so much irony and sadness. And you can see quite clearly the potential failure point. in a relationship from very early on. And that's what I found when I read the diaries over that I was thinking, my God, why didn't I leave then? Why were we together after that happened?

And it is very sobering to see yourself in retrospect. Australian author Helen Garner there. Now, tonight, if you have clear skies, whatever you are, you may notice that the moon looks slightly bigger and brighter than usual. You'll be looking at a super moon, the second of three this year and the largest. You may also hear it called a beaver moon, which is a nickname given to moons in November.

Professor Catherine Hyman's is the Astronomer Royal for Scotland. The moon goes around the earth once every 27 and a bit days. We always have the same side of the moon facing the earth, and the different phases that we see across the month just depends on which bit of the moon's being illuminated, and a full moon is when the side that's facing the earth is fully illuminated. Now, if the moon, as it was going around the Earth, made a perfect circle, the full moon would be the same every from month to month. But actually, the moon

takes an elliptical orbit around the Earth, which means sometimes it's closer than others. Typically, the moon is about a quarter of a million miles away, which if you put 30 planet Earths in a row, that's that sort of distance. But right now, the moon's at its closest point to us, only 28 earths away from us, or if you want the number, 222,000 miles away and well worth going out and looking at those gorgeous craters on our closest neighbour in the universe. Professor Catherine Hyman's. And finally, it was a simple board game that became an international phenomenon, prompting any number of family disputes along the way. Monopoly is celebrating its 90th birthday since it launched. The newsrooms David Lewis has more.

Do not pass go, pick up a chance card, go straight to jail. Timeless instructions from the makers of Monopoly as the board game celebrates the Big 9-0 and how it's changed over the decade. The contest which pits players against each other to see who can build the largest, most valuable property portfolio all the while avoiding foreclosure and winning the occasional beauty contest. All good bourgeois fun, but it was actually invented as a statement against capitalism.

The game's little-known inventor, Elizabeth Magee, travelled across the US with her father, an anti-monopolistic politician in the 1870s. She saw for herself the persistent poverty and widening inequality as the states grew to superpower stature. Her ideas and ideals projected into the game. In 1904, she patented what she called the landlords game, as now streets and landmarks were for sale, but there were key differences. There were two sets of rules. Under the prosperity version, each player gained when one competitor acquired a new property via taxes and everyone won the game when the player who'd started with the least money doubled it. But under the alternative monopolist rules, players got ahead by building up their equity folder

than collecting rent from all those who landed there with the roll of a dice and in turn set the stage for family arguments and living room tensions for decades to come. The game soon became a hit in America with leftist types, college students and Quaker communities. Her patent was bought and in the 1930s the game was relaunched as monopoly. Today the game has played in 114 countries and has been translated into dozens of languages. And the number of players across the globe? More than a billion. Graham Scott, owner of the board game shop, loaded dice in Barry and Wales, says the game has kept true to its roots.

Largely the core rules and the chance cards and things like that have stayed relatively the same even since Elizabeth McGee invented the game. You can see from her kind of like original drawings, the foundations of what we still have today. But some people do take it to extremes. One man in the UK, Neil Scallon, owns the world's largest monopoly collection, 4,379 versions at last count. People think it's mad. My girlfriend, especially, he told the Guardian newspaper. The dream is to hit 4,500, maybe even 5,000, he said.

David Lewis reporting. And that's all from us for now, but there will 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 Global Podcast at BBC.co.com. UK. can also find us on X at BBC World Service. Use the hashtag, hashtag Global NewsPod. This edition was mixed by Abby Wiltshire and the producer was Stephen Jensen and David Lewis. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Pete Ross. Until next time, goodbye.