Global News Podcast - Venezuela's opposition leader addresses protesters

Episode Date: August 18, 2024

Venezuela's opposition leader has urged supporters to continue protesting against President Maduro. Also: the UN nuclear watchdog's safety warning about Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia plant, and why sunlight is good for you.

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 from the BBC World Service. I'm Alex Ritson, and in the early hours of Sunday, the 18th of August, these are our main stories.

The Venezuelan opposition leader, Maria Corina Mach Machado has called on protesters to remain out in force as fresh demonstrations take place against Nicolas Maduro being declared the winner of the recent presidential election. The UN's nuclear watchdog says the safety situation at the Zaparitia nuclear power plant in Russian-occupied Ukraine is deteriorating following a drone strike near its perimeter. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office says Israeli negotiators have expressed cautious optimism about the possibility of reaching a deal with Hamas on Gaza. Also in this podcast... Any woman in India has faced this sort of thing at any level,

be it as small as catcalling to getting sexually assaulted or raped. Non-emergency hospital care in India is halted by a 24-hour strike and processed at the murders of a doctor and a nurse. A recently qualified doctor tells us how vulnerable she and many other women feel. Let's begin in Venezuela. That's the sound of opposition leader Maria Corina Machado atop a campaign truck joining thousands of protesters on the streets of Caracas. She spent most of the last month in hiding, contesting the declared results of July's presidential election. The Electoral Council named Nicola Maduro the winner again, but the opposition says it won and the

United States, the European Union and some countries in the region also reject Mr Maduro's victory claim. Ms Machado told her supporters they were not going to leave the streets. Edmundo Gonzalez, the opposition's candidate, says Mr Maduro cannot ignore the will of Venezuelans. Instead of preparing democratically for a peaceful transition, the regime has decided to persecute, imprison and murder compatriots who've only demanded for the majority will to be respected. It's time for an orderly transition.

I got more from Ana Herrero, an investigative journalist based in Caracas. Those thousands of policemen and military were not deployed in the central areas of Caracas, where thousands met with Maria Corina Machado, but inside and deep inside the working class neighborhoods. Because let's not forget that after the election, these were the neighborhoods that started protesting against the results announced by the electoral council close to Maduro. So yes, thousands were there. People told me in the streets that they were scared, that they understood the risk, but they were still going to do it until Maduro accepted the results. The protests, not just in Caracas, but all over Venezuela.

All over Venezuela and all over the world. In different parts of the world, people started showing up with the tallies, what we call the access in Spanish, the results that the opposition showed. And still in Venezuela here, people were going out to the streets to protest peacefully with these tallies in hand, asking the government to recognize their results. And in other parts outside of Caracas, repression started quickly. We know now of several detentions in different parts, in Maracay, in Zulia, in Amazonas. Different people were arrested and, well, they're part of the thousands that have been arrested so far. The opposition say they will not stop these protests until Maduro releases the detailed results of the election. Could he bow down to that pressure?

Well, that's not going to happen anytime soon. We don't expect that Nicolas Maduro is going to show any results. We're still waiting not only for the tallies. We're waiting for the results state by state. This is the first time that this has happened in Venezuela after presidential elections, after any elections, really. So we don't expect that happening. We do expect, though, that the Supreme Court will show the results that they have. But let's not forget that the Supreme Court, as the results that they have, but let's not forget that the Supreme Court, as well as the Electoral Council,

is extremely close to Nicolás Maduro. So the opposition is warning everyone not to believe what the Supreme Court will say, and we're expecting that any time soon. Journalist Ana Herrero in Caracas. There's mounting concern over the safety of Europe's biggest nuclear plant after what appears to have been a drone strike close to its perimeter. The International Atomic Energy Agency says conditions at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant close to the frontline in Russian occupied eastern Ukraine are deteriorating. I heard more from our correspondent Bethany Bell in Vienna. The IEA's team that's stationed at Zaporizhia say they went to the site of the impact,

which was on a road just outside the plant. They said it was very close to essential water sprinkling ponds and just about 100 metres meters away from the the last high voltage line that supplies power to the plant they said that it seems to have been caused the damage by a drone that was carrying an explosive and it said there were no casualties or impact to the plant's equipment but obviously this is much too close for comfort. How much how bad is the damage? We know there's damage on the road. They didn't go into the detail of the actual damage of the site there.

But of course, if it had hit closer to the plant or in the plant itself, then that would have been a very concerning situation. The head of the agency, Raphael Grossi, has called for maximum restraint from all sides and he said that nuclear power plants are designed to be resilient against technical or human failures, but they're not built to withstand direct military attacks. Drone attacks can be carried out with enormous precision. It is possible this wasn't an accident, isn't it? The IEA isn't commenting on that. They've also not commented on who carried out the strike, but they have warned repeatedly about the dangers facing the plant, given the military activity that is happening.

And we also heard from the IEA today that military activity in the area has been very intense for the last week, including very close to the plant. Its team there says it's heard explosions, it's heard repetitive heavy machine gun and rifle fire, artillery at various distances from the plant. And despite the calls to be careful around the plant, they say there's no sign that the military activity around it is abating. How serious could this be if something did go wrong? Any fighting around a nuclear plant is something which the IEA has repeatedly said is extremely dangerous. And there are, of course, those in Ukraine who will remember

the terrible nuclear accident at Chernobyl. The agency has not suggested that drone attacks could cause the kind of damage that Chernobyl did, but certainly there is enormous concern about military activity close or at a nuclear power plant. This is something that the agency has repeatedly said there has to be maximum restraint, that they're not built to withstand direct military attacks. Bethany Bell. Elsewhere on the battlefield, Kiev's forces

continued their incursion into Russian territory, with Ukraine's army chief saying on Saturday that his troops had advanced as much as four kilometres east over the past 24 hours. General David Petraeus led US forces in Iraq, as well as NATO coalition forces in Afghanistan. He then went on to be director of the CIA. He told Caroline Wyatt what he made of the Ukrainian move and the Russian response. I think they underestimated the amount of combat power that the Ukrainians had and overestimated the ability of their border forces and their National Guard and police to respond to this. The Ukrainians have captured hundreds and hundreds of Russian soldiers, very, very helpful for later prisoner exchanges.

They have interdicted a key rail line. It's very important. The Russians use railroads extensively. This is almost exclusively to move armored forces around and the logistics and so forth. And the key line that connects Moscow with southeastern Ukraine, the forces in southeastern Ukraine, goes through this area and the Ukrainians now control it. This is not unlike when we did the invasion of Iraq and, you know, a great armored brigade did the thunder run through Baghdad and ends up at the airfield. And they said, hey, we're just going to stay here. Let's develop the situation. Let's see what happens from here. How does the enemy respond? And so forth. And I think that's where they are. I'm sure they are concerned about being cut off. And so they've got to work

their flanks very, very assiduously and ensure that the Russians can't seal the border behind them and trap them inside Russia, which would be catastrophic. And so they're assessing the risks. They're trying to determine what the Russians are doing in this, what is still a somewhat disorganized response. And is there, do you think, or was there behind this a sense in Kiev that time was running out, that by next year, allies like the US might be growing tired of this war, wishing it to end as soon as possible, because Donald Trump could, of course, be US president. Germany might well cut its bilateral military aid to Ukraine during its

own election year next year. Yeah, I don't expect that with Germany. The US is somewhat unknown, and the predictability factor there is a little bit difficult. But I think it's, again, a bit of all of the above. They saw an opportunity. This is an enormous psychological blow against Russia and a morale boost for Ukraine, which has literally been on the defensive since the offensive last summer that didn't achieve what we hoped that it would. And again, they're now seeing what else they can do. This could change. We've always talked about needing to change the dynamic so that you could actually

have some kind of meaningful discussions about how to bring about a ceasefire. And I think it's probably that is another factor here. I'll be there in a few weeks in September and I'll tell you what the sense is when I'm there. General David Betrayers. Still to come. Last year in Glasgow, the UV index hit seven for about 10 minutes in the whole year. And yet we are basing our advice on the advice for white Australians. It's ridiculous. Why new research suggests that some public health messages about the risks of sunlight are wrong. 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. On Friday, President Biden said that a ceasefire in Gaza tied to the release of Israeli hostages was closer than ever. 24 hours on, and the office of the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said that his negotiators have expressed cautious optimism about the possibility of a ceasefire. Talks ended in Qatar on Friday and are expected to resume in Cairo next week. As we record this podcast, the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken,

is due in Israel for talks with Mr Netanyahu. It's hoped a ceasefire will stop Iran retaliating against Israel after a Hamas leader was assassinated in Tehran and prevent a war between its ally in Lebanon, Hezbollah and Israel. Our senior international correspondent, Ola Gerin, is in Beirut, and I asked her about the chances of a deal. Well, we're getting a lot of conflicting narratives. We've had the Israeli negotiating team talking about cautious optimism about the possibility of progress, but critically, perhaps, we have Hamas, the militant group in charge in Gaza, pouring cold water on all of that, saying that the Americans are being overly optimistic,

that they are selling illusions, that they are trying to buy time. A Hamas official told the BBC that in fact, during the two days of talks in Doha, no progress was made and that the proposals they had received from the mediators were very disappointing. Now, this could be posturing, or it could be that the two sides remain very far apart. We know they have been given a bridging proposal, what's been described as a bridging proposal, from the US. But at this stage, beyond some positive statements from the US and positive noises from Israel, there is absolutely no

indication that any concrete progress has been made. And I think there is a speculation in some quarters that, you know, the mediators and particularly the US are desperately trying to create the appearance of progress, trying to keep the wheels on this thing. I think also both sides, we have to bear in mind, will be very keen not to get the blame. Neither one will want to be blamed if these talks fail, as many fear they will. Because there's a huge amount at stake, well, for the whole region, really, isn't there? Peace at this time would be very welcome by a lot of people. Well, there's a massive amount at stake, first and foremost in Gaza, where it's a matter of life and death for Palestinian civilians.

But it's also critical for the rest of the region because getting a truce in Gaza is central to trying to de-escalate, not just between Israel and Gaza, but, for example, with Iran. Iran has threatened to hit back hard against Israel for the killing on its soil of the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. Now that retaliation has not come yet. Iran said that getting a ceasefire in Gaza was crucial. It said it didn't want the timing of its retaliation to interfere with that. So, in effect, what we have seen is Tehran holding back. Hezbollah have also been holding back on the retaliation they threatened

following Israel's assassination of one of their senior commanders here in Beirut last month. So the prospect of a deal, the possibility of a deal, has been acting as a break, if you like. Now, if the talks collapse, there is certainly a risk that Tehran and Hezbollah will feel freer to go ahead with that harsh retaliation they have threatened against Israel when they see fit. And of course, if and when that happens, Israel will retaliate and we will be in this very dangerous cycle of escalation which could accelerate towards an all-out regional war

and that's what the mediators are desperately trying to avoid. Orla Geren. Earlier, Hezbollah fired more than 50 rockets into northern Israel after an Israeli strike on a building in the southern Lebanese city of Nabatia. Wira Davis has more on this and the latest from Gaza. In Gaza, an overnight Israeli airstrike reportedly killed 15 people in the central area of the Palestinian territory. Although Israel said it had eliminated a number of armed fighters, several women and children were also reportedly killed.

What happened is that around one o'clock in the morning, three rockets hit directly the house of this man and his family. There were many children and women inside, mainly women, around 20 in total. To the north, deep inside Lebanon, the Israeli Air Force said it had also struck Hezbollah targets, including a weapons storage facility. A report from the scene said at least 10 people were killed, said it had also struck Hezbollah targets, including a weapons storage facility. A report from the scene said at least 10 people were killed, many of them Syrian refugees, including a woman and her two children.

This is an industrial area, a brick factory, slaughterhouse, metal factory, aluminium factory and cow farm. It's an industrial and civilian area. There's an urgency for the next round of talks to succeed, amid fears that the conflicts in Gaza and either side of Israel's northern border could escalate into a much wider regional war. We're at Davis now. What do you want? Justice! What do you want? Justice! What do you want? Justice!

What do you want? Justice! Doctors across India were on strike on Saturday, paralysing all but emergency treatment in both government-run hospitals and private ones. They were protesting at the lack of security for both doctors and nurses. Last month, a nurse was raped and killed as she travelled home from a private hospital in Uttarakhand. Eight days ago, a 31-year-old doctor at a state-run hospital in Kolkata was killed as she took a rest during her shift. Her family believe her bloodied body bore the signs of a gang rape. One protest sign carried during a candlelit vigil overnight

read, hands that heal shouldn't bleed. The Federal Health Ministry has promised to hold an inquiry into hospital security. Dr Nandini Vaghani took part in the demonstrations in Gujarat state, where she works at the government-run hospital in Ahmedabad. She told us why she felt she had to protest. Any woman in India has faced like this sort of things at any level, be it as small as cat calling or eve teasing to getting sexually assaulted or raped on the roads, on the very roads of India. All of this is very, very prevalent. And then for this to happen at your own workplace is very, very shocking as well, because then where else are we safe, right? If not in our homes

and not in our roads, then now not even at our workplace. And if I talk about particularly in my profession, all the females that work with me, be it nurses or any of the staff, and even myself, especially in government settings, what happens is that there is so much lack of infrastructure, there is so much lack of human resource, and even there is very, very less security. So what happens is that we are very much outnumbered by the male patients or by our male colleagues or just any males in general. And there would be instances where, you know, we would get a lot of intoxicated patients, be it drugs or alcohol, and they would be males who are much bigger than us.

And we would still be like, you know, in a dressing room or a stitches room with them taking sutures, and they would be alone with us, or be it even as small as how the male patients look at us. It's not with the eyes of that this person is my doctor, but it's in the eyes of this is a woman, and they would be looking at you in a very different way. So I have myself also felt very uncomfortable. There have been situations where, you know, we as women or nurses or all of us, we have been told this, that, you know, to wear certain kind of clothes in the hospital, to talk in a certain way so that we avoid the wrong attention and to make sure that we are not alone in wards or we're

not alone in corridors. So I just want to be clear about this. Part of the advice you've been given is if there is a problem, you have to deal with it. So you have to dress in a certain way. You mustn't say things that men might find provocative. I mean, some people might call that victim blaming. In other words, putting the responsibility on the potential victim, not on the potential perpetrators, the men. That's exactly what I'm talking about. Be it victim shaming or victim blaming. Both of these things are very prevalent in India. And these have been going on since years, like since childhood.

We as girls are taught not to wear certain kinds of clothes. We as girls are taught to talk in a certain way, not to engage with the opposite sex in like, you know, with the same way we talk with our female colleagues. Because every time that a rape has occurred, or every time some crime against women has occurred, there will be one leader or one some important entity of our country who will say things like what was she wearing? Or even in this case of this rape case, the questions that were raised on this doctor were that, what was she doing in that seminar hall so late in the night? Why was she not in her hostel? Why was she not sleeping at her home?

And such things were raised that, why was she alone there? So this is very prevalent and very common. What about the general wards which you work in, in a state-run hospital? Is there any kind of security? Generally, there would be one security guard who would be sitting outside that ward. But that I found in the previous hospital where I graduated, because it was a much bigger hospital. But now, the current hospital where I work, which is a bit in a rural area, there's just one security guard at the very gate of hospital. Dr Nandini Vaghani talking to Sean Lay. Forensic anthropologists in the US state of Oklahoma have

announced the latest result of the autopsies of remains recovered from the Tulsa Race Massacre, one of the deadliest in US history. 47 bodies have now been exhumed in the attempt to find and identify those murdered and hidden over a century ago. Kat Wiener reports. Investigators said the bodies showed signs of gunshot wounds. One had also been burned. 300 black Americans are estimated to have been killed on the night of 31st May 1921 when a white mob attacked Greenwood,

a prosperous neighbourhood of Tulsa known as the Black Wall Street. Homes, shops, churches and theatres were looted and then torched. By the morning, Greenwood had been razed to the ground. Survivors were rounded up by the National Guard and herded into internment camps. The dead were buried in unmarked graves in Tulsa's Oaklawn Cemetery, where the current excavations are taking place. For decades, the massacre was little discussed, with key documents destroyed. Kat Wiener. For years, public health advice on the effects of sunlight here in the UK and Australia has placed too much emphasis on the risks and not the benefits. That's the view of Richard Weller,

Professor of Dermatology at the University of Edinburgh, who is trying to redress the benefits. That's the view of Richard Weller, Professor of Dermatology at the University of Edinburgh, who is trying to redress the balance. He's published new research which suggests that sunlight cuts the risks of developing some health conditions, such as cancer, and that exposure to sunlight measurably reduces blood pressure. We know in Britain that, on average, people's blood pressure is about 6mmimetres of mercury lower in summer than winter.

You're 23% more likely to drop dead of a heart attack in winter than summer. We need to be thinking about why. And previous research that I've done has shown that sunlight releases this substance called nitric oxide from your skin, where it goes into circulation, dilates arteries and lowers your blood pressure. And high blood pressure is probably the leading cause of premature death and disease in the world today because it leads to heart attacks and strokes. Now, I'm already thinking whether I can persuade my boss as a result of this interview that I should in future, at least while the good weather lasts, have my desk outside rather than in the office.

But if I do do that and if my boss can be persuaded, I will be wearing a hat because I am challenged in terms of the amount of hair on the top of my head. And I worry a lot, actually, as I expect a lot of listeners do, about the risks from sunlight on exposed skin. Can you help us to put some of that into context? Because it's a message we've got loud and clear in recent years. Unfortunately, dermatologists who really dominated the debate about sunlight have only considered the risks. Sunlight, you know, excess UV is a risk for skin cancer. But it turns out that thinking beyond the skin, sunlight has health benefits on other systems, like the cardiovascular system, like preventing cancer. And the problem is we've really viewed sunlight in this rather one-eyed way. Gosh, what are the risks? What are the risks? How big are the risks? Rather than putting it into context and thinking, what is the overall risk-benefit ratio of sunlight?

And certainly our research, and also I might say research from colleagues in Sweden, a very similar high-latitude North European country, has confirmed that there also more sunlight exposure correlates with reduced overall deaths. So I would say don't get burnt, because burning is the big risk factor for melanoma. But also think about your overall health. And I think for that, I think we've got the message wrong so far. Is it partly because we've been influenced by parts of the world where the risk is greater? Yes. Our message on sunlight exposure is copied from that public health advice from Australia. I worked as a junior doctor in Queensland.

The UV index, the burning ability of the sun, in mid-winter was about seven at midday and it rose to, it was about 14 in midsummer. Well, last year in Glasgow, the UV index hit seven for about 10 minutes in the whole year. And yet we are basing our advice on the advice for white Australians. It's ridiculous. Are the Australians rethinking? They are. Very interestingly, about two months ago, the Cancer Council, you know, combination of all their expert bodies got together and looked again at their sunlight advice. And there were two big things they said. The first thing was skin colour. Our advice has been based on what happens

to white North Europeans in a really sunny climate. That is not correct if you've got darker skin colours. And the second thing they talked about was the fact that sunlight has health benefits as well. And if the Australians can do that, we absolutely should here in Britain. Professor Richard Weller talking to Sean Lay. Let's finish with a report about a hat, a very expensive hat. It was worn by the American actor Harrison Ford in the second instalment of the Indiana Jones film franchise and it sold at auction in Los Angeles for more than $600,000. It was made specially for the film Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, which was released in 1984.

It had belonged to the star's stunt double, Dean Ferrandini, who died last year. Tyler Dunn reports. It's arguably one of the most famous pieces of headgear in Hollywood history, the dark brown fedora worn by the adventurer and archaeologist Indiana Jones. Along with his bullwhip, it forms part of the instantly recognisable costume worn by the star of the franchise, Harrison Ford. This version was made by a hatmaker in London and is visible early on in The Temple of Doom

when Dr Jones and his companions jump from a crashing plane in an inflatable raft. You know how to fly, don't you? No, do you? It wasn't the only prop to go under the hammer at the auction. A helmet worn by an Imperial biker scout in the Star Wars movie Return of the Jedi sold for just over $300,000. And a suit worn by Daniel Craig in the James Bond film Skyfall went for more than $30,000. Tyler Dunn. 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 James Piper and the producer was Alison Davis. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Alex Ritson. until next time, goodbye. 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.