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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.
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Is your organization ready for the AI revolution? Developments in AI are super, super quickly changing. I'm Chip Clonixel, host of Resilient Edge, a business vitality podcast paid and presented by Deloitte and produced by BBC Storyworks Commercial Productions.
Our first episode explores the emergent world of AI-enabled operations, including strategies for a successful adoption from leaders at Deloitte and SAP. Episode one of Resilient Edge is coming soon to all major podcast platforms.
This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Nick Mars, and in the early hours of Friday the 12th of July, these are our main stories. As more prominent Democrats called for Joe Biden not to seek re-election as US President, he made another gaffe at the end of the NATO summit in Washington. And now I want to hand it over to the President of Ukraine, ladies and gentlemen, President Putin. President Putin. Thank you.
He's a big President Putin. He held a live press conference after that, the toughest test of his abilities since last month's presidential debate with Donald Trump. In other news, Israel's defence minister has called for a state inquiry into what led to the Hamas attacks of October 7th last year. The Kenyan president, William Ruto, has sacked almost his entire cabinet after scrapping proposed tax rises that caused nationwide unrest.
Also in this podcast, she was the epitome of horrified in The Shining film. I'm very confused. I just need a chance to think things over. We look at the life and work of the American actor Shelley Duvall, who's died at the age of 75. We begin in Washington.
The US President Joe Biden has held a solo and unscripted news conference at the NATO summit, his first since what was widely seen as a very disappointing debate performance last month against Donald Trump.
This latest media event was considered as a major test of his mental sharpness. Mr Biden's performance at that earlier TV debate sent shotways through his re-election campaign and several high-profile Democrats have since urged him to drop out of the presidential election this year. The 81-year-old US president has vowed to fight on and insists he is the man to beat Mr Trump in the November vote.
Aides to Mr Biden insist the election contest remains close despite the overwhelmingly negative reaction to that earlier TV debate.
But just hours before Mr Biden approached the podium at the NATO summit, several more fellow Democrats in the US Congress urged him to pull out of the presidential race. They include Ed Case and Greg Stanton, who said voters needed to have faith that Mr Biden was fit to serve another four years in office. Other Democrats like Brad Schneider and Hillary Charlton issued statements saying it was time to pass on the torch.
Even big names of Hollywood and donors to his party, including actor George Clooney and Michael Douglas, are publicly calling on him to step down. Then at the closing ceremony of the NATO summit on Thursday evening, President Biden had this to say as he stood on the stage close to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky. I commend all the nations that stepped up when it counted to stand with Ukraine. I've said before, Russia will not prevail in this war.
Ukraine will prevail in this war and will stand with them every single step of the way. That's what the compact says loudly and clearly. And now I want to hand it over to the president of Ukraine, who has as much courage as he has determination. Ladies and gentlemen, President Putin. President Putin is going to beat President Putin. President Zelensky. I'm so focused on beating Putin. We got to worry about it anyway.
Mr. President, you are a hell of a better.
A slip of the tongue, but a serious one nevertheless. I spoke to our Washington correspondent, Jenny Kumar. My colleague who's there at the conference has basically said that there was a large gasp in the media centre when they heard that. So even before, you know, this big news conference, there's been this major gaffe, miscalling President Zelensky, President Putin, the Russian president, and then the President Biden quickly correcting himself. And
All ahead of what must be quite a nerve-wracking event for President Biden. It's been described by one commentator as he's basically on a highway in front of the entire press corps. It's been described as the biggest unscripted test for him since his shaky debate performance two weeks ago. And his team had hoped that the NATO summit was the opportunity to move on from all the questions about his age and suitability.
Instead, what's happened, there's been mounting pressure on the president. And even though there has been in recent days, there was a sense that perhaps things have turned a corner with the influential Congressional Black Caucus and key liberal members of Congress voicing their support. But actually, what we've seen in the last few days is just that pressure continuing to build.
Jenny Kumar. Well, Helena Humphrey asked the US political analyst Mary-Anne Marsh what she thought of Mr Biden's mistake.
Well, I think that's going to get a lot of attention. And that's the situation Joe Biden's in. Whether it's a press conference tonight where expectations are so high, it is impossible to think he will clear them. And even if he does, that will be followed by yet another test another day or two from now, which he has to clear the bar. And that would have to go on for 116 days. So one of two things is going to happen after tonight, after the press conference, after the NATO summit is now finished.
Is there a cascade of members of Congress, senators and others who call on him to step aside? Or can Joe Biden and his team stall in basketball, stall ball, just trying to get through enough days to get by enough deadlines that it would be impossible for anyone else to take action?
his place and get through all the requirements that are necessary. So I think the next four days, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, are four of the most consequential days in American history, American politics, and could determine the fate of this country and its democracy and that of the world.
Well, just to put an argument to you from President Biden and from the Biden campaign, they consistently say, look, President Biden is the person who has tried and tested at beating President Donald Trump, the former president. He's done it before. He is the person who therefore will be able to do it again. Do you support that or do you think that this is a different President Biden to the one that won against Donald Trump?
That's the right argument. And for whatever the debate has made it impossible, his debate performance, impossible for people to get that message. And when you look at the polling and the data, there's a lot of private polling out there.
But if you look at some of the tracking polling, a number of them show that he's in the same place today as he was on the afternoon when I was on your air of the debate. But that doesn't seem to be connecting with people. And I think it's an impossibly tall task at this point. Yes, Joe Biden beat Donald Trump four years ago. Yes, he's been the best president in the last three and a half years, probably in my lifetime.
But none of the logic seems to be getting through. And what is most unfortunate are the people who chose Joe Biden to be the nominee, run for reelection, have little say in this. It's really the delegates that will be at the convention in August who get to cast those votes, not even the members of Congress and U.S. senators. They don't get to vote on the first ballot. They get to vote after that. And that's the problem here. The people who wanted him...
and have put him in the position to be nominated, also saw that debate performance. And for whatever reason, none of the logic is prevailing and only the emotions. And the stakes could not be higher for our country and our democracy. That was Marianne Marsh. Then, a short time later, the US president gave that crucial news conference at the NATO summit. This is an excerpt of that event. Felicia Schwartz, Financial Times.
Thank you, Mr. President. Residency is the most straining job in the world, and it's 24-7. How can you say you'll be up for that next year, in two years, in four years, given the limits you've acknowledged that you have today? The limits I've acknowledged I have? There's been reporting that you've acknowledged that you need to go to bed earlier and your evening around 8. That's not true. Look, what I said was, instead of my every day starting at 7 and going to bed at midnight,
It'd be smarter for me to pace myself a little more. And I said, for example, the eight, seven, six stuff. Instead of starting a fundraiser at nine o'clock, start at eight o'clock. People get to go home by 10 o'clock. That's what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about. And if you look at my schedule since I've since I made that stupid mistake in the campaign, in the debate, I mean, my schedule has been full bore.
I've done, where's Trump been? Riding around in his golf cart, filling out his scorecard before he hits the ball? I mean, look, he's done virtually nothing. And I have, I don't know how many, don't hold me to it, roughly 20 major events. Someone with thousands of people showing up. And so I just think it's better. I always have an inclination, whether I was playing sports or doing politics, to
just to keep going, not stop. I just got to just pace myself a little more, pace myself. And the next debate, I'm not going to be traveling in the 15 time zones a week before. Anyway, that's what it was about. The US President Joe Biden.
Earlier in the day at the NATO summit, President Zelensky called on Western allies to stop putting pressure on Ukraine to avoid hitting targets inside Russia. He told the meeting in Washington that countries shouldn't put restrictions on the use of donated weapons. From the summit, here's our defence correspondent, Jonathan Beale. Appearing at a news conference with the head of NATO, President Zelensky said the alliance had taken important steps at this summit.
providing Ukraine with more air defences, a pledge of another $40 billion in military aid and the promise that the country was on an irreversible path towards membership. But more pressing, he said, was for allies to drop all restrictions on Ukraine's striking military targets inside Russia with Western-supplied weapons. If we want to win, if we want to save the country, he said, we need to lift all limitations.
President Zelensky said he'd already had a positive response from Britain's new prime minister, but he's also been putting pressure on the US, a key source of Ukraine's longer-range weapons. The Kremlin has said that NATO's support for Ukraine is already a threat to Russia's national security and has warned it'll respond with unspecified coordinated measures. Jonathan Beale in Washington.
The last few weeks have seen widespread political and social turmoil in Kenya. Street protests over proposed tax rises turned violent, with Parliament being stormed and dozens of protesters being killed by the security forces across the capital. The president, William Ruto, then bowed to pressure and scrapped the controversial tax plans. And now he's sacked almost his entire cabinet. In a televised address, Mr Ruto said he wanted to streamline his government and make it more efficient.
I will immediately engage in extensive consultations across different sectors with the aim of setting up a broad-based government.
to deal with the burden of debt, to explore raising domestic resources and revenues, eliminating wastage and unnecessary duplication over multiplicity of government agencies, and slaying the dragon of corruption, consequently making the government of Kenya lean, inexpensive, effective, and efficient.
I asked the BBC's deputy Africa editor, Anne Soy, in Nairobi whether President Ruto has done enough to satisfy the predominantly young protesters. They have welcomed that. Basically, the president was echoing the demands that they have been making on the streets and on social media. And so they have welcomed the decision to fire much of his cabinet. He's only left with his deputy, whom he can't fire because it's a constitutional office, and one more senior member of the cabinet.
But they say that it is not enough. They want to see action. They want to see him actually implement what he has promised today. And also the rallying call on the streets has been Ruto must go. They want him to go as well. But that is the subject of debate because there's no electoral commission in place at the moment and therefore the country cannot yet.
go to elections. Do you think he's able to implement all of those things? Because there's a huge root and branch change, isn't it, within government? It is. I mean, I can't remember any other protests in the country being this successful. First, he withdrew the finance bill, which is the legislation that was to introduce tax hike.
That was a win. And then the protests evolved into looking at the wider government and demanding for it to be lean, for the duplication to be eliminated and for the cabinet to be fired. And the president has followed through with those. And he even met with the young people on social media, on X spaces and listened to them and spoke to them.
And he promised that he'll listen more because they accused him of not listening in the past. So he has been trying to meet some of the demands that have been made by the protesters. They say that those are welcome, but they are not enough. They need to see more action. They need to see the economy reinvigorated. They need to see government largesse dealt with and corruption. That was Anne Soy in Kenya.
If you've ever seen the horror film classic The Shining, it is very hard to forget the terrorised, ashen face of the actor Shelley Duval as she watched her on-screen husband's descent into madness. It was a role that defined Miss Duval, who's died at the age of 75. But she also won the coveted Best Actress award at Cannes in her career. Our arts correspondent Lisa Mazimba looks back at her life.
The Texas-born actress was known for playing distinctive and often eccentric characters. She made her screen debut in 1970 in Robert Altman's Brewster McLeod after being spotted by the film's producers at a party.
She went on to play a small part in the director's next film, McCabe and Mrs Miller. And in 1975, she also appeared in his critically acclaimed satire, Nashville. During the 1970s, she worked too with Woody Allen, playing a magazine journalist in the Oscar-winning Annie Hall. The only word for this is transcendent. She only appeared briefly, but...
her seemingly effortless performance helped her to steal every scene she featured in. Sex with you is really a Kafkaesque experience. Thank you. I mean that as a compliment. But it was Stanley Kubrick's horror masterpiece The Shining that brought her stardom, playing Wendy, a terrified mother trapped in a remote hotel with her increasingly unstable husband, played by Jack Nicholson. I'm very confused.
I just needed to...
It was a part that required both fragility and courage. She found the experience rewarding but gruelling, and while Kubrick did sometimes make or perform particular scenes multiple times, the often-repeated claim that the director shot one scene 127 times is disputed by some film historians.
That same year, she reunited with Robert Altman to play Olive Oil, opposite Robin Williams, in a cinema adaptation of Popeye. Over the next 20 years, she appeared in a range of projects, including Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits, Jane Campion's The Portrait of a Lady, and the Steve Martin comedy Roxanne, before taking a hiatus from acting in 2002.
She returned to the big screen more than 20 years later in 2023 for her final role in an independent horror film, The Forest Hills. Liza Omozimba on the life of the US actor Shelley Duvall, who's died at the age of 75.
Still to come... I thought the early bird always got the worm. I thought that was a good thing. So it's nice to hear that actually those of us who function possibly a bit better at night are doing quite well as well. New research shows that so-called night owls consistently perform better in cognitive tests than those who get up early.
Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. With the price of just about everything going up during inflation, we thought we'd bring our prices down. So to help us, we brought in a reverse auctioneer, which is apparently a thing. Mint Mobile Unlimited Premium Wireless. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch.
Is your organization ready for the AI revolution? Developments in AI are super, super quickly changing. I'm Chip Clonixel, host of Resilient Edge, a business vitality podcast paid and presented by Deloitte and produced by BBC Storyworks Commercial Productions.
Our first episode explores the emergent world of AI-enabled operations, including strategies for a successful adoption from leaders at Deloitte and SAP. Episode one of Resilient Edge is coming soon to all major podcast platforms. Israel's defense minister has called for a state inquiry into what led to the Hamas attacks on October the 7th last year.
Yuv Galant said an independent probe was needed to examine the actions of all those in power, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Over the past decade, around 1,200 people were killed in the assaults.
From Jerusalem, Nick Beek reports.
Although in the same Likud party, the two men have been at odds about the running of the war in Gaza. Their actions are currently being examined by the International Criminal Court, where the prosecutor has applied for arrest warrants for both.
Mr Gallant called for the national inquiry after the Israeli army had briefed relatives of the 101 people killed at Kibbutz Berri on October 7. He said all in the military had failed to protect their citizens and must now rebuild trust so that it can continue its mission.
Nick Beek, well, the Israeli military dropped leaflets over Gaza City on Wednesday, telling all residents to evacuate and head towards the centre of the territory. It's the second time people have been told to flee the city since the start of the conflict. The leaflets warned that the city is about to become a dangerous combat zone and give instructions on safe evacuation routes. International pressure on Israel is said to be increasing after dozens of people were killed on Tuesday in Israeli airstrikes.
Women and children were amongst those sheltering in a school east of the city of Khan Yunis. Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry says the airstrike was aimed at a nearby camp for displaced people. Fogel Keen reports on the aftermath of the strike and a warning that some of the details may be distressing for listeners. The women of the house of Abu Abed...
They have lost a brother. Mohamed was 27, trained to teach special needs children and about to be married. He was going out to call his fiancée. Next week the borders will open and he could go see her. He joked, goodbye Gaza, goodbye.
Mohamed was planning to join his future wife in Egypt. Her family escaped there after nine were killed in an earlier airstrike. His sister-in-law, Inas, blinded in one eye then. And Mohamed's fiancée, Khadil. Up to the last minute, I was planning for him to arrive here. We were going to stay for a while. And if things improved, go back to Gaza.
Now, I don't know what to do. The missile was fired around 7.30 in the evening. Youths playing nearby in Al-Adha ran to help and saw children's bodies, parts of bodies. The Israeli military says it was targeting a Hamas member allegedly involved in the October 7th massacres.
In doing so, they killed 29 people. Dozens more were wounded. They've been bombed, displaced, from one fragile refuge to another. And there is what they have seen before.
and what cannot be unremembered. The Israelis say they used precise munitions and are reviewing the circumstances of the airstrike. The teacher, Mohammed Abed, was one of those buried today. My sisters still trapped in this hell, grieving for him and for what their children must endure.
That report was by Fergal Keane. No one, it seems, is building more solar and wind plants than China. In fact, Beijing is constructing twice as many plants as the rest of the world combined. That's according to a US-based think tank, which also highlights the fact that China also remains the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases. I heard more from our environment correspondent, Matt McGrath.
China has really been booming on wind and solar for a number of years. It's one of these things where it's taken off slowly in about 2010, 2011, and over the last decade or so, it's really ramped up to speed. So much so now that two thirds of the plants and solar and wind under construction in the world are in China. It dwarfs everybody else. I mean, incredibly fast.
bigger than everybody else. Just simply is on a scale we've never seen in the world before and the speed at which this is now happening, the amount of announcements they've made that are actually building.
It augurs really well for China's move away from coal and indeed for the world's perspective on emissions over the next couple of years. It augurs well for the move away from coal, but this report also highlights at the moment there is a huge dependence on coal, isn't there? Yeah, this has long been known as well. China obviously burns coal. It's the key element of what it produces. But
Things are changing there too. In May just gone, the month of May just gone, coal provided 54% of the energy in China. 44% came from non-fossils, which is wind, solar, hydropower and many other things. And Matt, remind us about Beijing's greenhouse gas commitments and is it likely to meet them? Yeah, this is a big policy and it's an important policy for the world. They have said that they will peak their emissions before 2030 or around 2030 and reach net zero by around 2060.
At the current rate of expansion, many scientists and observers believe they may already have peaked their emissions. Certainly, they promised that they would get to about 1,200 gigawatts of wind and solar by 2030. They're likely to have done that by now, essentially.
So many people believe that they're essentially in the process or have already peaked their emissions, which would be amazing news for the world. And the scale of this deployment as well would also be a real shot in the arm for global leaders who last year in Dubai promised to treble the amount of renewable energy in the world by 2030. This would move it exponentially.
are very much along the way. Now, I have to say there's a number of provisors here. The provisors are it's easy to build big wind and solar. Connecting it to the grid and getting it used and keeping it working with the batteries that you need and the other elements that you need to keep a grid working is much more difficult. That was Matt McGrath.
Apple has struck a deal with the European Union to settle a long-running dispute over mobile payments. The company was facing a big fine for blocking alternatives to its own tap-and-go technology, Apple Pay, on the iPhone. More from our technology reporter, Chris Vallance. At the moment, the tech...
can only be used by Apple Pay and Apple Wallet. The EU thought that was anti-competitive, and Apple has now agreed to sort of settle this long-running investigation by opening up their tech for rivals, for users in the European economic area. So those rivals will be able to create...
Chris Vallance. Now, do you like getting up early or do you operate better later in the day?
In a new study, researchers from Imperial College London examined sleep data from more than 26,000 people to explore the links between their sleeping patterns and their cognitive abilities. They found that an individual's preference for evening or morning activity strongly correlated with their test scores. In particular, night hours consistently performed better in cognitive tests than early bird's.
I'm a bit of a night owl and Nuala McGovern spoke to her night owl colleague James Kumrasami and began by asking him what time does he like to get up?
As late as possible, I think, Nuala. I thought the early bird always got the worm. I thought that was a good thing. So it's nice to hear that actually those of us who function possibly a bit better at night and enjoy the darker owls, there's something of the night about me, perhaps. Don't know what it is, are doing quite well as well. But no, I enjoy the lateness. I think possibly it dates back to those days at university with those cramming
essays in at the very last minute, the essay crises, somehow that focused the mind. So I think I've kept that on. So yes, the morning, not so much the nighttime. Yes. And I just don't understand when someone says to me, I'm going to have an early night. I don't know what that means. It doesn't compute. This is something I didn't know about you, if I'm completely honest. And I have to say, in those college days, when people were cramming, you know, where you'd find me?
Snoring on the sofa. It was all over. I might get up super early before the exam to try and cram a little bit, but forget about the overnights. And I have done overnights in my career, but it took a lot of physical effort. Well, apparently with this, I mean, they do talk about the world. And I'd be curious for your thoughts on this.
The world really being built into a nine to five schedule. And that might be why this early bird gets the worm, just because the world has been set up for early birds or larks, as they're called, as opposed to those that are working on a later schedule or that come to life after 6pm. I wonder, have you found that?
Yeah, I was always jealous. We've both lived in America, Nuala. People in America, a lot of people I came across, seemed to get up very, very early. They always seemed to be so active, so they got more out of life. And as I realized, perhaps this is just not for me, I thought, you know, I will stick with my comfort zone. I will try and be more productive at night. And it's probably not a coincidence that when you and I are not presenting news, you present a program –
in the morning than I'd present a programme in the evening. So chicken and egg. I don't know how we got to that stage, but it's both of our comfort zones. It's interesting. You've reminded me of two things as you're speaking there. I was in New York with NewsHour not so long ago. And what has become the most coveted
reservation time for a meal is now 6pm and that city has shifted earlier again. You're also reminding me of what people might see on their social media feeds at the 5am club which is basically talking about some of these high-powered people that get up at 5am and get the gym done or their journaling or their meditation or whatever it might be. But I have to say even as an early bird 5am is a little bit too early.
Too early for me, definitely. I'll go the other way. I'll go midnight, 1 a.m.
James Kumarasamy. Let's return to our main story now. Ahead of a crucial news conference at the NATO summit in Washington, Joe Biden has introduced the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as President Putin on stage. The mistake, which drew gasps from the audience, came on the day that several more Democrats in Congress urged Mr Biden to pull out of the US presidential race. Mr Biden then gave that crucial news conference. I think...
How can I say this without sounding too self-serving? I've not had any of my European allies come up to me and say, Joe, don't run. What I hear them say is, you've got to win. You can't let this guy come forward. He'd be a disaster.
And that's all from us for now, but there will be a new edition of the Global News Podcast later on. If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email. The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X at Global News Pod. This edition was mixed by Nick Randall. The producer was Liam McSheffery. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Nick Miles. Until next time, goodbye.
It's a question that keeps business leaders up at night. How do you go from thinking about change to
actually making it happen. How do I start? Where do I start? What is the use case? Where is the value? From the AI revolution. This is the most amazing time ever. And developments in AI are super, super quickly changing. To the urgent need for sustainability and resilience. The physical climate risk predicted in the climate models has arrived. The way we do business is transforming fast. But we're here to help.
I'm Chip Kleinexel, host of Resilient Edge, a new business vitality podcast paid and presented by Deloitte and produced by BBC Storyworks Commercial Productions. It's a guide to implementing and sustaining change at scale. Coming soon everywhere you listen to podcasts. He was known to be a killer, even if you see him in the town, everybody will say he's the killer. This is the story of a man who killed so many people, he lost count. But despite his shocking death toll,
He only served 12 years in jail. It's astounding that anybody could get away with it. And the families of his victims want justice. That justice system ultimately ignored all of those bodies and all of the families. From the BBC World Service, World of Secrets, Season 3, The Apartheid Killer. Search for World of Secrets wherever you get your BBC podcasts.
