Global News Podcast - Venezuela opposition leader emerges in public despite arrest threat

Episode Date: August 4, 2024

Maria Corina Machado appeared at a protest rally in Caracas, defying threats of arrest from President Maduro. She urged her supporters to continue protesting against fraud in last week's presidential election. Also: beach attack in Somali capital kills dozens, and the US rock band Aerosmith retires from touring due to singer Steven Tyler's vocal cord damage.

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. 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 Thank you. Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC Podcasts. Welcome to the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Chris Barrow and in the early hours of Sunday the 4th of August, these are our main stories. Venezuela's opposition leader Maria Karina Machado has come out of hiding and attended a mass rally

in Caracas. There's been international condemnation of an al-Shabaab Islamist militant attack in Somalia's capital Mogadishu, which killed at least 37 people. Several Western nations, including the United States, have urged their citizens to leave Lebanon amid rising tension in the Middle East. Also in the podcast, a remarkable story from Romania. The bear population is increasing daily, so if we don't do something, we will have tens of thousands of bears in Romania.

After a hiker was killed by a bear, a new law has passed allowing 500 of the animals to be killed over the next year and a half. We begin in Venezuela. That's the sound of demonstrators taking to the streets of Caracas, rallying against the government. President Nicolas Maduro says he won last week's presidential election, but the opposition leader, Maria Karina Machado, came out of days of hiding to accuse him of rigging the result. Making a surprise appearance

on a truck, she held a banner reading Venezuela has won. Ms Machado says there's evidence that the opposition candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez, won the poll. This protester spoke to the BBC. There was a lot of fear to come today. There has been a lot of violent repression in the last few days. So it is wonderful that so many people have come out. We are living in a dictatorship that is trying to destroy Venezuela. We won an election fair and square on Sunday. We have all the votes we could have. That has been said by as many electoral observers. We know what happened. It is massive. So we need to take to the streets to manifest this.

We need the government to let go of power. The sovereignty of Venezuela resides in its people, says the constitution. This is the people speaking. There is nothing more powerful than doing this. Italy, France and other European Union nations have called on Venezuela to publish the voting records from last weekend's poll. Our America's regional editor Leonardo Rocha told me more about the demonstration. It was quite a big rally, thousands and thousands of people in Caracas, in the same location where the opposition held the final rally before the elections last Sunday. And it was peaceful. I mean, Maria Corina Machado stressed the importance of avoiding provocation, not engaging in violence. She said

we need to protest peacefully because she says we have the facts in our hands, we have evidence that they defrauded the election. And was she taking quite a big risk by appearing? I thought so. She'd been in hiding for several days since President Maduro said that she belonged in jail along with a presidential candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez. And it wasn't certain that she was going to appear. We have to say that this was a movement organized for several countries. I mean, there were protests across Venezuela, in Miami, in Europe, also in Colombia, where there are many Venezuelan migrants. So they made this statement to say, look, we're not going to give up. We won the election, but the government is saying they won. And what she said is that the opposition is stronger than ever.

The Maduro regime, she said, has lost all credibility with electoral fraud. And we have to continue fighting, but avoiding provocation from the government, avoiding engaging in violence. Is that true, though, her saying that the opposition is stronger than ever? Because a week later now, yes, there are protests, but it doesn't seem like there's actually much technically that they can do to push through any kind of decision on this. Well, I expected once the election happened

and the opposition produced what they said was evidence of the fraud, they have registered, they have the official registered from polling stations across Venezuela. I thought there will be a stronger movement in favor of the opposition. I think they must be worried. They must be fearing a repeat of what happened before with Juan Guaido when he was declared president by the United States and nothing really ever happened. I mean, now the difference is the opposition and independent observers say they have evidence that they won the election, but they need support either from the United States, from other countries, or internal, from the army. They need change in Venezuela.

I find it a bit weak that they go to the streets, they protest, they say we have won the election, but President Maduro only yesterday was saying all the evidence is fake, they're going to stay in power. He has another six years in office. He's been in power for 11 years. I can't see it changing now unless there's an agreement being done in the background. It's crucial here what Brazil, Colombia and Mexico will do

because so far they issued a statement calling for transparency but they haven't openly criticised the Maduro government. Leonardo Rocha. There's been international condemnation of an al-Shabaab Islamist militant attack in Somalia which has killed at least 37 people and injured more than 200 in the capital. It started on Friday evening with a suicide bomber detonating a device on a busy beach in Mogadishu before gunmen stormed the area. The police said the gunmen were killed inside a hotel. Al-Shabaab controls large parts of southern and central

Somalia. The group is affiliated to al-Qaeda and has waged a brutal insurgency for nearly 20 years against the UN-backed government in Somalia. This witness described what he saw on the beach. I couldn't tell, but I saw many people falling on the beach. As soon as the unexpected explosion occurred, followed by gunfire, some people fainted, others were in shock, some died and others were injured. It was difficult to distinguish between the living and the dead due to the continuous heavy gunfire. Those who were able to flee had already moved away. I survived and tried to help others.

My colleague Krupa Pardi spoke to the BBC's Dorcas Wangira, who's been monitoring events from Nairobi, and she began by explaining how the attack started. One suicide bomber detonated his jacket and then minutes after, five other attackers began to shoot indiscriminately at the people who were in the beach, many of them young people, people who had just come to enjoy themselves. And security forces did respond. They managed to kill all the attackers.

One escaped on a vehicle with more explosives. But we also understand that one soldier died and one was left critically injured. There are a number of unverified videos being shared online of the immediate aftermath of the attack. What do they show? So most of them show a lot of people lying on the ground, many bleeding. You can see shoes scattered and some are reported to be dead. But you could see a lot of people also to be horrified and shocked and not knowing how to respond. We've listened also to some witnesses speak and say how they saw the shooter shoot discriminately and how people were trying to run to safety. And in the event,

many were left dead. What has been the reaction so far inside the country? Inside the country, there's a lot of horror, utter shock at this. I understand that this is an area which is supposed to be well protected. There are some analysts who are saying that this was a massive security failure. We've seen the prime minister call this a barbarous atrocity. The President looking visibly angry when he called for a meeting earlier. But then you've also seen reactions coming in from IGAD, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development here in the Greater Horn of Africa, and the United Nations condemning the attack. But it's the people who have lost their loved ones who are now

left with such difficult tragedy to bear with. And those questions around security and a potential lapse of security that you mentioned are interesting in light of the fact that this Lido area has been the target of previous attacks, including a six-hour al-Shabaab siege back in 2023. Yes, it has. But this year has also been a bit relatively calm from what we understand. And also now having this attack now on a weekend. And also some analysts are suggesting that the government has previously said that it is winning the war against al-Shabaab. So al-Shabaab in its own response carrying out an attack like this

is their signal that they're still here. Dorcas Wangira. The US embassy in Beirut has urged its citizens to leave Lebanon on any available ticket amid rising tensions in the Middle East. Iran and its regional allies promised retaliation after the assassination of the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and Israel's killing of a Hezbollah commander in Beirut. An announcer on Iranian state television said on Friday the world would witness extraordinary scenes. The UK government has also called for British nationals

in Lebanon to leave, warning the situation could deteriorate rapidly. Sweden said it was shutting down its embassy in Beirut amid fears of a full-blown regional conflict. Israel's on high alert and a number of international airlines have cancelled flights to the country. The BBC's Jenny Hill is in Tel Aviv. The US has said that it will be sending an extra squadron of fighter jets to the region as well as warships stating that America's commitments to Israel's defence is quote iron clad. Now it's not the first time we've seen such a scenario. Perhaps you'll remember that in April, Iran fired more than 300 drones and missiles at Israel. Israel was able to intercept them, shoot them down with the help of the US and other allies. Nevertheless, it is a reminder

of just how dangerous and significant this moment is. I'm here in Tel Aviv on the beachfront where it all looks and feels very relaxed, people getting on with their daily lives, but people here are uneasy. We know that Iran has vowed, along with its proxies, revenge for two assassinations, that of the Hamas political leader and a senior Hezbollah commander. Everyone knows something is likely to happen, but it's not clear what that retaliation will be, what kind of scale we'll see, or indeed when it might happen.

So this is a country on high alert. A number of international airlines have suspended flights to and from Israel, and ministers in the Israeli cabinet were sent home this weekend with satellite phones for use in the event of an attack which throws out any kind of communications network. As you know, there's urgent diplomacy going on right now to try to stop Israel's war on Gaza, which began following the October 7th attacks,

from exploding into a region-wide conflict. And that's why the US's intervention now is not only about providing help to Israel militarily, but also focusing on ongoing efforts to try to diffuse the tension. The Pentagon spokeswoman said that they still think escalation is not an inevitability, and America urging all parties in this to look at potential for a ceasefire. Jenny Hill. An intense and bloody civil war has been raging in Myanmar since a coup in 2021 that saw the toppling of Aung San Suu Kyi's democratically elected government.

It left thousands dead and displaced millions. But now, after a month of fighting between insurgents and junta troops in the key town of Lascio, the rebels say they've gained the upper hand. The news comes as the son of the deposed leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, says there are growing concerns about her health as she continues to remain isolated from the outside world. My colleague Julian Warwicka spoke to Kim Aris and began by asking about his mother's imprisonment. I know that she still has ongoing health issues and dental issues and that she won't be receiving the treatment that she needs in prison and the conditions are terrible. I believe the temperature in Napier Door was 50 degrees Celsius

and she's in an unconditioned concrete cell with rats and vermin. And contact between you and her, or indeed anyone outside and her, how is that? So far, I have received one letter from her since before the coup, basically, and that was in response to when I sent a care package last year, which was the first care package I'd been allowed to send. Because I know our colleagues on the BBC Burmese service were reporting that a senior member of the Hunter met her twice in July, went into the prison to meet her twice in July. Presumably you don't know anything specific about that. No, not at all.

If it happened, what does that say to you about their attitude to her? Well, they clearly still think that she is the deposed de facto leader and that her voice is the loudest in Burma still, even though she's not allowed to speak. And when it comes to talking with other countries like China and India, they still want to know what she has to say. Let me talk a little bit about the outside pressure. There is some, isn't there? Yes, and even China are starting to have doubts

about the leadership in Burma at the moment, which hopefully will result in things changing. The country's in a worse state than it has been in my lifetime now. And if there is a change of heart by China, how significant might that be? That's extremely significant. China has always supported the military, but now that they're having their doubts, I can hope that things may change. And also the Thais have changed their attitude recently as well,

and the Japanese are starting to also. What's prompting that change, do you think? I think because it's so clear that the military has no control over the situation and that despite the resistance forces having next to no support from the outside world, they're still winning this fight. In the past, when certainly many people will recall the long period, the many years that your mother spent under house arrest. There was a huge international move to try and get her out and of course eventually she did. There isn't the same level of that now, is there?

I think that's largely to do with what happened during the Rohingya situation and the fact that the international media seemed to paint my mother as somehow colluding with the military in what was being done to the Rohingya, whereas that wasn't the case at all. Because on that, and I'm choosing my adjective very carefully here, she was seen, wasn't she, as being at best indifferent to the plight of the Rohingya at the time, but you're saying that wasn't a fair portrayal of what she was really saying? Not at all. She was actually trying to do everything she could within her limited powers as part of a parallel government to resolve the situation in a peaceful way.

The situation was far more complex than people realised, and it wasn't just a case of Buddhists against Muslims. There were Muslims killing Muslims as well at that time. And if she had spoken out more, what would you say the consequences for her would have been at the time? I think the country would have probably dissolved into civil war sooner than it did if she had spoken out using the language that people were wishing her to use. And one day you still hope, believe she'll be free?

I do, yes. If she were, what do you then imagine? I hope she'll be able to take a step back from leading the country, but that she'll be able to continue to give advice, to continue to have some influence. Kim Aris, the son of the deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi, talking to Julian Warwicker. The organisers of student protests across Bangladesh have called for the Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, to resign.

The protesters are demanding the end of job quotas in the civil service. Elsa Orkney reports. Nahid Islam, one of the leaders of Students Against Discrimination, which started the protests, told a huge rally in the capital Dhaka that Sheikh Hasina and her cabinet should resign. He also demanded she should face trial after more than 200 people were killed in demonstrations last month, many of them shot by police. Earlier, Sheikh Hasina offered unconditional dialogue with the student leaders, saying she wanted the violence to end, but her gesture seems to be too little too late. Student leaders rejected her offer.

They're calling for a nationwide civil disobedience campaign, starting from Sunday. Still to come... Often the first sign of the voice being damaged is a husky quality to the voice. For singers, that can sometimes also involve a change in different parts of the vocal range. The US rock band Aerosmith have retired from touring after more than 50 years after the group said their singer Stephen Tyler's voice

couldn't recover from damaged vocal cords. I'm going to bed. 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. Next to the UK, the British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said there's no excuse for violence that's been taking place during far-right protests, triggered by the killing of three young girls in a mass stabbing. He said his government supported the police to take all necessary action to keep the streets safe. Bricks and bottles have been thrown at police

as rallies turned violent in England and Northern Ireland on Saturday. There were clashes in cities including Leeds, Manchester, Belfast and Nottingham. There have been numerous arrests and several police officers have been injured. Our correspondent Dan Johnson sent this report from Liverpool in Northern England. Across many towns and cities the police have been stretched fighting running battles. There have been injuries, but mostly to police officers. They struggled to maintain order in Liverpool, where two counter-demonstrations clashed near the waterfront. Anti-fascist protesters confronted around 1,000 from the far right,

chanting anti-immigrant slogans. The police are now forcing back the anti-fascist demonstrators that are trying to create a bit of space between the two sides. Merseyside police describe this as serious disorder and the Home Secretary is promising action nationwide. We will give the police all the backing that they need in the actions that they are taking in response to this criminal disorder and thuggery

because it has no place on Britain's streets. That's why we're ensuring that there are additional prosecutors in place this weekend, that the courts stand ready. There are people in custody and another far-right demonstration in Manchester led to further arrests. Northern Ireland's been affected too. There were street protests in Belfast. Dan Johnson. Donald Trump says he'd be willing to debate Kamala Harris on the conservative US network Fox News. That proposal has been dismissed by the US Vice President's campaign

team. They've accused Mr Trump of running scared to Fox News after he refused to agree to allow Kamala Harris to replace Joe Biden in a debate that had already been scheduled on ABC News on September the 10th. Ms Harris has already clinched the Democratic nomination. The next question is who will be her running mate? Nomia Iqbal looks at the runners and riders. Mr President, have you spoken to Vice President Harris about her running mate. Nomia Iqbal looks at the runners and riders. Mr President, have you spoken to Vice President Harris about her running mate? Welcome to the Veep Stakes. As the selection process is informally called, it usually takes months, but with less than 100 days until the election, time is of the essence for Kamala Harris to decide. First up...

And together, we're going to help Kamala Harris beat Donald Trump this November. Andy Beshear governs the deeply red state of Kentucky. The 46-year-old's popularity really took off when he dealt with two disasters in recent years. Floods on the eastern side of Kentucky and tornadoes on the western side. He's also backed abortion rights, a centrepiece of Harris' campaign, running hard-hitting ads in a state where the procedure is banned. But during the midterms, most people in Kentucky rejected a measure that would deny abortion protection, proving it's a strength for Democrats and a weakness for Republicans.

Next, we have Pennsylvania's Governor, Josh Shapiro. Thank you all. God bless you. Let us get to work. The 51-year-old is seen as the bookie's favourite, with his high approval rating. Incredibly important in a swing state like Pennsylvania, which Harris needs to win. It's the father revolution! However, his very pro-Israel stance and criticism of student protesters may put some voters off. It is past time for the university to act, to address this, to disband the encampment and to restore order and

safety on campus. But a Harris and Shapiro ticket would be historic, a black South Asian woman and a Jewish man. As Americans, we endeavor to build a better life than the generation before and we endeavor to be a united nation. The next contender has literally been out of the world. Arizona Senator Mark Kelly is a former astronaut. Zero and liftoff. The six-year-old has been tested by space, combat and personal tragedy when his wife, a former lawmaker, Gabby Giffords, was almost killed in a shooting. The former Navy captain, Mr Kelly, is a border state senator and can therefore reassure voters on the big issue of immigration. He's also the big fan favourite, but many view him as an outsider at this point, Pete Buttigieg. The 42-year-old transport secretary is constantly going viral thanks

to his polite Midwest-style takedown of Donald Trump. He kept his promise to destroy the right to choose in this country, and he kept his promise on tax cuts for the rich. And if you want to know what a second Trump term would be like, I would start by looking at those rare promises that he actually managed to keep. And with his folksy demeanour, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz could be a good choice. The six-year-old is seen as a real connector with the working class and rural voters, someone who could take on Donald Trump's VP pick, J.D. Vance. That report from Nomya Iqbal. A plea deal reached with the man accused of plotting the 9-11 attacks

in the United States, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, has been revoked by the Pentagon. Earlier this week, it emerged that under the arrangement, the alleged architect of the attacks and two of his accomplices would plead guilty to all charges against them on the understanding that they would avoid the death penalty. But the US Defence Secretary, Lloyd Austin, has now stepped in to overturn the decision. My colleague Simon Jack spoke to Terry Strada, whose husband Tom died in the World Trade Centre's North Tower during the attack. She's national chair of the group 9-11 Families United. So what's her reaction to the plea deal being revoked? I am completely shocked by hearing this news, but I'm also pleased with it.

I think it is the right thing to do. So I'm happy to see the plea deal revoked and the death penalty back on the table. Is that the ultimate aim that you would like to see? You'd like to see this progress to court, have your day in court and have the perpetrators as you see it put to death? Yes, I would like to see them face the punishment and it happens to be the death penalty for a military tribunal. I think it does fit the crime. Nearly 3,000 people were murdered on American soil that day and the death penalty is the punishment for that crime. It's been a very long process. They've been in Guantanamo Bay since 2003, so 20 years.

Are you not worried that the problems with some of the evidence and the way it was extracted, some of the extreme interrogation techniques, might mean this could rumble on for years yet, and the case may not be made. It may collapse. Well, I hope that's not the case. I mean, I hope that there's enough evidence, with or without that particular parts of the evidence, that we can still proceed with a trial and we can still hold them accountable in a courtroom. With this new Secretary of Defence involved, you know, maybe we'll see things move a little quicker. It's my hope that we will see this resolved.

Yeah. Do you give the Biden administration some credit for doing this? And did you think they bowed to pressure both from you and from political pressure from the Republicans? I do think that the pressure from the families and the American public and, you know, possibly internationally, people could have been complaining about this. You know, the UK lost the second largest amount of people were killed that day. So to hear our voices and the media, you know, amplified our voices and they heard us. So I'm pleased with that. And we'll just now have to wait and see what happens. How has it been living with this situation ongoing for 20 years?

What has that meant to you? It's terrible to live with, you know, unresolved murder case, you know, part of your life. Because these are chapters that aren't closed. You know, we have open wounds from having this terrible attack happen to our country. And we'd like to close some of these chapters. Terry Strada. Last month in Romania, a young woman was killed by a bear while hiking in the Carpathian Mountains. As a result, Parliament passed an emergency law paving the way for up to 500 bears to be shot over the next 18 months. The European Commission and numerous wildlife groups

have protested against the new legislation. Our correspondent Nick Thorpe reports. I'm standing beside a stream in the forest at the foot of the Buccegi Mountains in the southern Carpathians. Just above me on the footpath leading up through a steep gorge, a 19-year-old Romanian woman was walking with her boyfriend in early July where they encountered a bear. The woman tried to run away.

Sergiu Prusinoiu of the Romanian mountain rescue organisation Salva Mont arrived on the scene with his team to try to help her. As they approached, they seen the bear and the bear was consuming the body of the victim. The bear was actually eating the victim? Yeah, when they tried to get closer to the victim, the bear began attacking them. They used bear spray, they were screaming very loud, they were throwing rocks. A forester arrived and shot the bear.

But why was the bear coming down the narrow path towards the town? I didn't have to go far to find the answer. There are three big municipal waste bins here, and what remains of a sort of cage structure that was supposed to protect one of them. But that bin has been tipped over, and there's food waste everywhere. Bear sightings and alarms are almost everyday occurrences in this town. This one happened the evening I was there. In this residential street, I witnessed a confrontation between locals and the police,

who complained the police should do more to protect them from bears. Barna Tansos, a former environment minister, has campaigned for years for a return to hunting. The bear population is increasing daily, so if we don't do something, we will have tens of thousands of bears in Romania. Cristi Remus Pop, head of the large carnivore program at WWF Romania, says the new law misses the point and may just make matters worse. We should aim the root causes of the conflicts, starting with feeding of the bears, which is happening massively close to the settlements. Another thing is that waste management is not properly dealt with in many communities. This is again attracting bears. It's mostly female and young bears that raid bins in towns and villages. But the hunters will go after the large male bears

high in the mountains, the trophy bears, which do no harm. But in one town in Romania, they think they're close to a solution. The small town of Bailetusnad is famous for its bears. In the last two years, it's installed 14 new stainless steel bear-proof bins. Zsolt Budka is the mayor. In 2023, we had 220 calls to the emergency number. There was a chaos of bears on the street. That's down to just three calls this year, thanks to the bins, cutting down fruit trees, installing electric fences and a public awareness campaign. Scholt Budka there, ending that report by Nick Thorpe in Romania.

Well, now for some music. The sounds of Aerosmith live from Florida in April 2004. But the US rock band have announced their immediate retirement from touring due to their singer, 76-year-old Steven Tyler, suffering a vocal injury. They've now cancelled all remaining dates of their Peace Out Farewell tour. In a statement addressed to fans on Instagram, the band said, it was 1970 when a spark of inspiration became Aerosmith. Thanks to you, our blue army, that spark caught flame and has been burning for over five decades.

Some of you have been with us since the beginning, and all of you are the reason we made rock and roll history. So what are the first signs that show that a voice is damaged? My colleague Krupa Padi asked Dr Declan Costello, known as a voice doctor or laryngologist, who's a singer himself. Often the first sign of the voice being damaged is husky quality to the voice. For singers, that can sometimes also involve a change in different parts of the vocal range. Sometimes the upper registers, the highest notes, stop working quite so well. In the case of Stephen Tyler, what do you think damaged his larynx permanently? Well, it seems that he had a vocal cord haemorrhage in which a blood vessel on the

surface of the vocal cord burst and caused a bruise into the vocal cord. And I think that happened several months ago. And that can be quite a difficult vocal injury to recover from because as the bruise then heals, you hope that the vocal cord doesn't become scarred. I'm not sure exactly how things have progressed in his case, but it may be that he's developed scar on the vocal cord that's just made it impossible for him to carry on. So does that scar then create a scar tissue that almost causes a blockage? It does create scar tissue. I mean, the vocal cords are two tiny little bits of tissue that sit in the middle of the neck and they need to be very supple and pliable to vibrate thousands

of times an hour to produce clear sound. And if there is a scar, then they lose their pliability, they lose their suppleness. And that can mean that the voice changes. Undoing scar from a surgical point of view, trying to reverse scar is really very, very difficult. I wonder, does age play a factor? Stephen Tyler is an impressive 76 and still on stage. I think it's fair to say that with advancing years, our healing capacity always diminishes. That may very well be a factor with him as well. And of course, it's not just about the vocal cords and their ability to produce sound as you get older. Respiratory capacity decreases and your general muscle strength and tone decreases as well. So in any other circumstances, it's very

common for the voice to change over the advancing years. Ordinarily, what kind of treatment would you offer for cases like this? Well, in a vocal cord haemorrhage, if there's been a bleed into the vocal cord, then usually what we would say is to completely rest the voice for a period of a couple of weeks and just let the vocal cord haemorrhage, the blood resolve and see how things go. Sometimes then if there's a prominent blood vessel that has obviously ruptured, you can use a laser to get rid of that. There are lots of other different potential causes of vocal cord problems and pathology, but in a bleed, then you really want a laser to get rid of that. There are lots of other different potential causes of vocal cord problems and pathology, but in a bleed, then you really want to get to the source, the blood vessel that has popped and caused that haemorrhage.

I understand you're a high tenor. How do you look after your voice on a day-to-day basis? Well, I warm up before I sing. I drink plenty of water. I try and avoid vocal overexertions and that sort of thing. And certainly in the days before performing, I'll be particularly careful. Things like hydration, as I say, are extremely important, avoiding caffeine and clearly avoiding obviously abusive things like smoking and those sorts of things. Some good tips for the singers out there listening. I do need to ask you just before I let you go, are you an Aerosmith fan? Do you know, I would love to say that I am.

I'm a fan of all sorts of music. I don't know Aerosmith's music particularly well, but I do know a few of their tracks. And honestly, at the peak of his power, Stephen Tyler really did have an extraordinary voice. So I'm very envious of his vocal acrobatics. Well, I am an Aerosmith fan, and I highly recommend that you listen to some of their back catalogue.

That was the laryngologist, Dr Declan Costello. That's all from us for now. There'll be a new edition of the Global News Podcast later on. If you'd like to comment on the podcast or the topics we're covering, do send us an email. Our address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X at Global News Pod. This edition was mixed by Annie Smith. The producer was Liam McSheffery. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Chris Barrow. And until next time, goodbye. To be continued... 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.