Global News Podcast - Venezuelan opposition leader flees to Spain

Episode Date: September 9, 2024

President Nicholas Maduro's rival in the disputed Venezuelan election, Edmundo Gonzalez, has fled to Spain and claimed political asylum. Also: tips for tourists to North Korea, and the actor Kate Winslet on body image.

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. This is the Global News Podcast for the BBC World Service. I'm Alex Ritson and in the early hours of Monday 9th September, these are our main stories.

Nicolas Maduro's rival in the widely disputed presidential election flees to Spain and claims political asylum. More than 700 children are caught up in an alleged rogue surgeon investigation at the world-famous Great Ormond Street Hospital. South Korea's military has removed all online digital photos of its staff to prevent them falling victim to deep fake pornography. Also in this podcast. I would say that it's a very cold place where it's winter and night months up at the year. So if you're going to go bundle up, do not bring any Bibles and be very, very careful. Tips for travellers to North Korea as the secretive dictatorship prepares to open up to tourism. It's been six weeks since the authorities in Venezuela declared Nicolas Maduro the winner of the presidential election

without releasing the detailed results. The opposition cried foul, saying the election was rigged and that their candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez, was the rightful winner. He went into hiding after the election and prosecutors issued a warrant for his arrest. Now, he's been flown to Spain on board a Spanish military plane. Back in Venezuela, the Attorney General, Tarek William Saab, confirmed Mr. Gonzalez's exit from the country had been allowed after careful negotiations. The governments of Spain and Venezuela agreed to grant a safe conduct to the citizen Edmundo González

so that he could leave his national territory and benefit from the asylum granted by Spain. Consequently, the Attorney General's office expresses its absolute respect for the decisions of the Venezuelan government. Antonio Ledesma is another leading Venezuelan opposition politician already in exile in Spain. He's a former mayor of Caracas and is now international coordinator of the political movement still led by Maria Corina Machado, who was barred from running for president and who is in hiding in the Venezuelan capital. Paul Henley asked Mr. Ledesma why he thought Edmundo González had felt compelled to join him in Madrid.

I believe that it is mainly because he felt that his life and his family's were in danger. Edmundo Gonzalez has been suffering lots of harassment in the last few days. Look, it is enough to mention that they issued an arrest warrant for him, but the situation escalated and that is what led him to leave Venezuela, so he could protect not only his life, but also the political project that represents so much for our country. He has the trust of more than 7.3 million Venezuelans who elected him as the president on July 28.

Will it be possible for Mr. González to stay politically active and effective from Spain? I think it's not only possible, but fundamental. Mr. González and María Corina Machado have formed a duo, and now this union is opening up so Edmundo González can move freely as president-elect in other parts of the world, leading the diaspora, and Maria Corina Machado can carry out the work in Venezuela as the visible head of this movement.

Will you work with him? Of course. We are all ready to welcome him to join his agenda. I spoke a lot to Maria Corina Machado today about what we have to do now, and that's pushing so the Spanish parliament can pass a proposition on Tuesday that recognizes Edmundo González as the legitimate president of Venezuela. Maria Corina Machado is a woman with an extraordinary capacity for resilience.

She adapts to the circumstances and turns any adversity into an opportunity. She has been attacked by a regime, not only physically, but also when they disqualified her from being our presidential candidate. And she has been reinventing herself so she can fulfill that historical role, which is to lead the opposition and its fight. She has been reinventing herself so she can fulfil that historical role, which is to lead the opposition and its fight. Why is it so important for her to stay in Venezuela? She has said it.

What is happening in Venezuela is a spiritual struggle and the fuel to keep people's energy on is faith, is hope and the trust that they have in Maria Corina Machado. She is a woman who has been coherent and brave. Tell us about your experience as a politically active to manage the hopes in here. It is a very difficult task because we have Venezuelans spread all over the world. And we are talking about a humanitarian disaster with almost nine million people that has left the country. And here in exile, you have to deal with the nostalgia, the melancholy and the anger that Venezuelan citizens abroad often feel because they have experienced so many letdowns. And that is why Maria Corina Machado has insisted that we should do everything possible so that people do not lose hope and become discouraged. Antonio Ledesma. Great Ormond Street in London is one of the world's leading children's hospitals, treating thousands of sick youngsters from more than 80

countries every year. Opened in 1852, it is rightly proud of its history and excellence. But on Sunday, it said that it was carrying out a review into the cases of more than 700 of its patients because of concerns raised about a former surgeon. Lawyers representing a number of the families said that children were subjected to unnecessary surgery and had come to severe harm. Elizabeth Maria Cowell is one of the lawyers.

What we do know from representing clients who are children is that sometimes the injuries don't manifest until they're much older and families and our clients, the patients, want to know firstly if they have suffered harm or alternatively whether they are likely to suffer injuries in the future on account of treatment they've received and if that is the case they may wish to seek treatment and advice elsewhere. And it's very important for them to know that. So the sooner the trust can conclude that, the better. I heard more from our correspondent Ellie Price.

We know that Yasser Jabbar no longer works for Great Ormond Street. He's not had a licence to practice here in the UK since January, but we understand he is still working at an orthopaedic clinic in Dubai. What we know is that Great Ormond Street is looking into 721 patients, of course all children, it being a children's hospital, who had come into contact with Yasser Jabbar while he worked there as a surgeon. Now so far of the 39 cases that the hospital has reviewed, more than half of those children were found to have been harmed. So 13 of those children were severely harmed. And when you say harmed, what kind of harm have they come to?

Well, we've spoken to lawyers representing some of the families treated by Yasser Jabbar, who say children as young as four months old were subjected to unnecessary surgery and suffered life-changing injuries. In fact, one child had to undergo an amputation that could possibly have been avoided if different treatment had been followed. Now, of course, the world-famous children's hospital, Great Ormond Street, has said it's incredibly sorry for the worry and uncertainty caused and that it has contacted all patients and families affected. Do we know where this goes from here? Well, it's likely

to take 18 months, we're told, to complete this review from the hospital. It's got to go through, as I say, the 721 patients that had any contact with this surgeon, who's obviously not working there still. I think important to note that well over half of those patients that he saw, they'll be reviewed, but they're deemed to have not necessarily had an urgent review, i.e. their cases aren't necessarily likely to be terribly urgent to be looked into. So I think it's important to note that it's not everyone who ever came into contact with him. But certainly this is a review that will go on for 18 months. Now, we have contacted Mr Jaber for comment, but so far we haven't heard anything back. Great Ormond Street Hospital also asked the Royal College of Surgeons to look into the practices surrounding this particular

department and this particular surgeon. That report has been published, but only confidentially, and we're told that it will be made public on Christmas Eve of this year. Ellie Price. A prominent Russian opposition activist has told the BBC she is 100% sure a journalist, Pablo Gonzalez, who was deported to Russia last month as part of a giant prisoner swap with Western countries, is in fact a Russian intelligence agent. In her first interview on the topic, Zana Nemtsova said she wanted to warn others of the danger from Russian spies. Mr Gonzalez, a Spanish citizen born in Moscow as Pavel Ruptsov, was arrested in Poland in 2022. The espionage case against him is classified,

but the BBC has heard detailed testimony of how he infiltrated Russian opposition circles abroad in order to report back on them to his handlers in Russian intelligence. He says he's an innocent man. Our Eastern Europe correspondent Sarah Rainsford reports. In August, Vladimir Putin welcomed home a group of Russian agents and a hitman for his FSB intelligence service. They had just been swapped for a group of Westerners taken prisoner in Russia and several Russian dissidents. Standing before Mr Putin that day was Pavel Rupsov

with a dark beard, a bald head and a secret mission for Russian intelligence. And you had no idea what he was doing, right? To be honest, I got my first suspicions in 2019. And everybody said, no, no, no, this is nonsense, nonsense, nonsense. That's Zhanna Nemtsova, a prominent Russian opposition figure in exile. And she knew the bearded man as Pablo González, a Spanish journalist. Two years ago, he was arrested in Poland and accused of espionage for Russia.

This is Zhanna's first interview about what happened. People regard you as a crazy person. So they can say you are paranoid, you know. But I was right. Absolutely right. Pablo had talked his way into Zhanna's circle back in 2016. She now knows he was informing on their activities from the start, writing character reports to a handler. She was shown Pablo's reports by Polish investigators, but she can't disclose any details.

Like the Polish investigators, but she can't disclose any details. Like the Polish authorities, Zhanna believes those reports were sent to Russian military intelligence, the GRU. These people regard you as their enemies. His words are important to the GRU, and it might have led to very serious consequences, which does not suggest that Pablo will cause some damage, but they have other people who are doing this. So this is why this is very serious. She knows what she's talking about. Her father was Boris Nemtsov, an opposition leader in Russia,

assassinated in 2015 right next to the Kremlin. Can I ask you just completely clearly, you have no doubt that Pablo Gonzalez, Pavel Rubsov, is or was a spy? Yes, I have no doubt. I wanted to warn people that it's not something very far away from us. It's not something that you can read in books or watch in movies. It's very close. People should be very careful. That's it. Zhanna herself left Russia for safety after her dad's murder. In Europe, she didn't used to think much about her security. But the unmasking of Pablo, the Spanish journalist, has changed everything. That report by Sarah Rainsford.

After 11 days of competition involving more than 4,400 athletes from 168 nations and 549 medals up for grabs, the Paris Paralympics has now ended with a spectacular closing ceremony presided over by President Macron and the president of the International Paralympics Committee, Andrew Parsons. China was the overall winner, Great Britain came second, and the hosts France had their most successful games coming eighth. I heard more from our sports reporter Paul Serres. An incredibly fitting and apt end, Alex, to what has been an incredible two

months or so in the French capital. Paris kicked off its racing spikes and slipped on its dancing shoes as DJs mixed the music of French superstars of years gone by, Johnny Allardy and Edith Piaf, with hip-hop beats and

break dancers at a packed Stade de France. There was a brief moment of calm as the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, she handed the Paralympic flag to her LA counterpart Karen Bass with Los Angeles set to host the next Games in four years time. There was a cross to LA with the jazz pianist Matthew Whittaker, the singer Anderson Park reigniting the party before things came back to Paris, the Marlian duo of Amadou and Mariam. And then six French athletes, including Aurélie Aubert, gold medallist in Boccia,

and the three-time gold medallist in Paris cycling, Mathieu Boisredon, extinguished the Paralympic flame, signalling the end of what has been an incredible summer of Olympic and Paralympic Games. So quite a fitting legacy for Paralympic sports, particularly in France. Absolutely, yes. A city more suited now to wheelchair users and others with needs, Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson, a winner of 11 Paralympic gold medals in an incredible career, called it a Paralympic overlay. Organisers have used many established and stunningly beautiful venues

throughout the Games, the Palace at Versailles, the Grand Palais. The Paralympic overlay has made them infinitely more accessible for everyday people. And the city itself has become more accessible. Buses are wheelchair-friendly now. The metro is yet to catch up. Some lanes, road lanes exclusively used for Games traffic, will become legacy routes for use from next year onwards for public transport and for car sharing. So, you know, legacy is the

buzzword since probably since the Barcelona games in 92 and Paris will be blessed with an incredible legacy. Paul Saris. Still to come. Life is too short. Do you know, I don't want to look back and go, why did I worry about that thing? The movie star Kate Winslet on Hollywood's ongoing problem with body image. 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. 17 months of fighting have left so many dead in Sudan that the makeshift graveyards are visible from space. An estimated 150,000 people have been killed, more than 10 million are thought to have fled their homes, and now famine stalks the land with fears that 2.5 million civilians could starve by the end of the year. It's that fear of a famine, worse even than that in Ethiopia back in the 1980s, that has prompted UN experts to call for an international force to protect civilians. The UN Population Fund's regional director,

Laila Baker, spelt out why such a force was needed. 80% of the health facilities in some areas have been damaged, particularly in Khartoum and the western part of the country. The UN operational agencies, the humanitarian agencies like UNFPA, need to have unhindered, unconditional access to those populations. That means bringing in goods, supplies and people to relieve the situation on the ground. And yet no sooner was the call made than it was rejected by the Sudanese government, with the foreign ministry calling the UN mission political and illegal and accusing it of violating its mandate. For more on what lies behind the decision and the risks of global inaction, I spoke to our Africa regional editor Richard Kogoy on the line from Nairobi? Both sides, that's the paramilitaries, RSF and the Sudanese National Army, have been accused of committing what the team of experts described as harrowing human rights violations and international crimes. So they're talking about crimes such as sexual violence, arbitrary arrest,

torture and detention. So the RSF has been accused by the Sudanese National Army of targeting civilians. So they claim that they've been using airstrikes to shell schools, hospitals, communication networks, key water and electricity supplies. Now, because of the fighting that has been going on, delivery of aid has been obstructed. And this has really pulled the vulnerable populations, people displaced from their homes because of the war at a very tricky situation. So we're looking at humanitarian organizations saying that 30% of the population is undernourished because the war has disrupted food production and delivery of aid and essential supplies. And that's why they're saying it's important that there is an intervention through the deployment

of a foreign force that's going to be neutral and also ensure that the situation which at the moment is considered to be very dire. And they declared, the UN team of experts, are farming at one of the camps called Zamzam because 500,000 people, that's half a million people, were at risk of starvation. Given just how horrendous things are, why has the government dismissed this call for an international force to secure the delivery of supplies to starving people? What they're saying is that they want the national process to be prioritised, specifically the Jeddah peace agreement. So they're saying when you deploy an external force, an international foreign force, then that amounts to an external mechanism to sort out what is an internal issue. That's why

they've been very reluctant to take part in other initiatives like the UN-sponsored talks that took place in Geneva recently. Richard, the world up to now hasn't really paid a lot of attention to the war in Sudan, but it is fair to say this really does have consequences for the rest of the world, doesn't it? Absolutely, because a lot of people don't seem to really appreciate what is at stake at the moment. This crisis, if not addressed, it could snowball to not only a regional but a global crisis. So from a humanitarian point of view, they're saying that we're looking at around 6 to 10 million people at risk of dying by 2027 from masturbation. Another thing is, if you look at geographically the positioning of Sudan, because of the long porous border, people would be smuggled, you know, through Libya, across the Mediterranean Sea into Europe,

which has really been dealing with a migration crisis. Richard Kegoy. The Israeli military says three security guards have been killed by gunmen at a border crossing between Jordan and the occupied West Bank. The attacker was shot dead by Israeli forces. Mike Thompson reports from Jerusalem. The attacker, named by the Israeli military as Maha Jazi, is said to have approached the Allenby Bridge crossing from Jordan in a lorry before leaping out and opening fire. He was then shot dead by Israeli security forces. This is the first attack from Jordan on Israeli personnel since the start of the Gaza war. The man's motives are unclear, but Jordan is home to a large number of Palestinian refugees and the country has been deeply critical of Israel's actions in Gaza. Hamas

has called the attacker a brave hero, but Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has described him as a loathsome terrorist inspired by Iran's murderous ideology. Jordan says it has begun a full investigation. The Al-Anfri Bridge crossing, along with Israel's two land crossings with Jordan, will remain closed until further notice. Mike Thompson. The Oscar-winning actress Kate Winslet has joined other Hollywood stars and spoken out against women being made to conform to female body stereotypes on screen. She spoke to the BBC's Laura Koonsberg about her new movie Lee, a biopic on the extraordinary life of the Vogue model Lee Miller, who became a photojournalist during the

Second World War. Lee Miller was a female photographer who found herself becoming a war correspondent during the Second World War. She was an American woman. She was just an extraordinary life force of a woman who threw herself at life, lived it full throttle, even if it meant suffering the consequences and paying an emotional price for bearing witness to the things that she experienced, how she came to be in a conflict zone, documenting the truth behind the atrocities of the Nazi regime

for the female readers of British Vogue. She was just unbelievable. It's not a film about a war, it's about her internal war with herself and the consequences, the personal price that she paid for putting herself through the challenges of documenting exactly what had happened. Tell me about Lee Miller in the bath. So there is an iconic image of Lee Miller in Hitler's bathtub. So on the same day that she was in Dachau concentration camp, she and Davy Sherman drove to Munich, and they headed right to Hitler's apartment, probably bribed their way in. And yeah,

sure, there was a bathroom. There was hot water and a bathtub. But of course, as she got in that bath, I can totally see Lee with her sense of whimsy and just how brazen she was. My God, that was a damn fine scoop. There was no way she wasn't going to get her good friend Davy Sherman of Life magazine to photograph her in that tub. You were asked a while ago about a scene in the film and you said that there was a crew, somebody on set had said, oh, you should sit up. Of course, it created headlines because what you had talked about

was your physical appearance inside a film when you were playing a character. Do you find there's a bit of a trap? Because for many years you've been incredibly honest and candid about how the body police come for women in the public eye. And then if you don't say anything, if you don't call it out well then you tolerate it but if you do say something then that creates a story and headlines all of its own well you know it's interesting how much people do like labels for women and they very much liked them in lee's day and annoyingly they sort of still do you know we have we slap these labels on women that we just don't have for men it's absolutely bizarre to me It was my job to be like Lee. She wasn't lifting weights and doing pilates.

She was eating cheese, bread and drinking wine. So of course her body would be soft. But I think we're so used to perhaps not necessarily seeing that and enjoying it it the instinct weirdly is to see it and criticize it or comment on it in some way and people were saying god how wonderful you know she's saying that she doesn't care about her body i was you know talking about the character is the character that i'm playing but of course i don't care but it was through the conversation about playing lee and i think my point is that as women, you know, we so need to be having that conversation and just celebrating just being a real shape and being soft and maybe having a few extra roles.

Laura, life is too short. Do you know? I don't want to look back and go, why did I worry about that thing? And so guess what? I don't worry anymore. I don't care. I'm just going to live my life.

I'm going to enjoy it. Get on with it. You got one go around, make the most of it. Kate Winslet. South Korea's defence ministry says all photos and videos of soldiers and military officials have been removed from the armed forces internal communications network to prevent the images being turned into deep fakes. More details from our Asia-Pacific editor Celia Hatton. The ministry said 22 female soldiers have already been targeted by individuals who used artificial intelligence to manipulate the soldiers' work IDs and transform the images into fake pornographic material. Now only senior personnel with special access will be allowed to view restricted identification photos. Last week, Seoul launched a preliminary investigation into the encrypted messaging platform Telegram.

On suspicion, it's helping to spread deepfake pornography, mostly targeting women and girls. Investigators said they'll be working with their counterparts in France, who in August arrested the head of Telegram, the Russian entrepreneur Pavel Durov. Celia Hatton. Well, across the border in the north, the secretive totalitarian dictatorship is preparing to welcome tourists towards the end of the year. If you're tempted to go, you will, according to past visitors, probably be shown lots of churches and Buddhist temples. But as former AP Bureau chief on the Korean peninsula,

Jean Lee, told us, you should be very, very wary. North Korea has a socialist constitution that does formally guarantee the right to religious freedom. It is only state-sanctioned institutions where North Koreans are allowed to exercise any show of religion. And yet they want to show to the world that they do have religious institutions. It is part of their history and their culture. So there are several churches. Buddhist temples are certainly on the tour that foreigners are taken on. But when you go to visit these, it's very hard to tell whether these are authentic services and whether people are

actually observing the religion or if they are actors or paid to play a role. Literally actors? As fake as that? I would say that it is their role, the North Koreans were there, to play the role of somebody who is either a Buddhist or a Christian. And it's very hard when you're in North Korea. I spent many years in North Korea. It can often be very perplexing for people who visit to try to identify and decipher what's real and what's not.

We know that these people are hired to play that role, but are there also times when we're not there when you can actively, say, worship? Now, what I would say is that if there are Christians, for example, in North Korea, they would know that any type of worship in private or underground would be extremely dangerous. This goes back to the history, the heritage of American missionaries who did go to Korea when it was one country, and they created a vibrant community in Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea. And I think the first leader of North Korea, Kim Il-sung, his family was Christian in many ways. The Kim family, the ruling family of North Korea, they drew and they do continue to draw on that heritage in the making of the cult of personality

around the Kim family. The first leader, Kim Il-sung of North Korea, did draw on what the Koreans were accustomed to. They were accustomed to Christianity, to a monarchy, because Korea had been ruled for many years by a royal family. What he created was a cult of personality. It is more like a monarchy. But to justify their position, he drew on Christianity. So, so much of that language, he says that they are heaven sent. The most important guidance comes from something called the Ten Principles. And as soon as I saw that, I thought, that is just called the Ten Principles. And as soon as I saw that, I thought, that is just like the Ten Commandments. But every North Korean knows that the most important deity in North Korea is Kim Il-sung.

If I was a tourist tempted by the possibility of going and visiting North Korea, what should I watch out for? They say that they're only going to start opening up in this very far northern part of North Korea called Mount Baekdu. And so the main town in that area is called Samjeon. And I've written about this town calling it the Bethlehem of North Korea, because it is considered to be the birthplace of the second leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-un. Now that is a myth. He was born in Siberia, as far as we know. So I always caution tourists to be very careful when they're in North Korea to recognize that they're being brought on a very specific type of pilgrimage. I would say that it's a very cold place where it's winter nine months out of the year. So if you're going to go bundle up, do not bring any Bibles and be very, very careful.

Jean Lee talking to Edward Sturton. And that's all from us for now, but there'll be a new edition of the Global News Podcast later. If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email. The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X at Global News Pod. This edition was mixed by Caroline Driscoll and the producer was Alison Davis. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Alex Ritson. Until next time, goodbye. Goodbye. The Global Story.