Shownotes Transcript
You're listening to the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. Hello, I'm Oliver Conway. This edition is published in the early hours of Friday, the 2nd of May. President Trump replaces his National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz. Ukraine hails the minerals deal with the US as a truly equal partnership. And we look ahead to the Australian election this weekend.
Also in the podcast, a world first for Alzheimer's research. We sprint into a taxi, into our lab and try and really get it from brain into the incubator in less than two hours. We hear from a scientist using live brain tissue in the hunt for a cure for dementia. In the week he marked 100 days of his second presidency, Donald Trump has carried out his first cabinet level sacking. He's been in the public eye for a long time.
The US president confirmed he was replacing Mike Waltz as national security advisor. In theory, Mr Waltz is being moved to the post of UN ambassador, but he'll need to be confirmed by the US Senate. And that may prove tricky, given Mr Waltz's key role in Signalgate, when he mistakenly added a journalist to a White House group chat about an attack on the Houthis in Yemen.
The US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, will now double up as National Security Advisor on an interim basis. News which surprised State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce as she heard about it during a briefing. So that is the miracle of modern technology and the social media. So that is...
An exciting moment here. I think that, as I know, Secretary Rubio, this is a man who, as I think you all know, has worn several hats in managing the nature of what's happened here at the State Department, at USAID. He's someone who is well known by the President. The departure of Mr. Waltz could increase the pressure on US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, who shared secret information on the group chat and another personal one. Richard Blumenthal is a Democratic senator.
The question is whether the right person's being held accountable. I think there has to be accountability for the mistakes and the errors that have been made, but I think the Secretary of Defense ought to bear that responsibility. The Secretary of Defense should be fired and should have been fired before Mr. Walz.
Our North America correspondent Anthony Zerka gave us his thoughts on the day's events. It is significant in that it's the first big senior leadership shake-up in the second Trump term, something that we saw all the time in the first Trump presidential term. After all, Michael Flynn, Donald Trump's first national security advisor, only lasted a matter of weeks before he was replaced. So by that comparison, Walt's actually hung around for a while, 100 days plus. But it's interesting to see him moved
to a UN ambassador because that is a job that is going to require Senate confirmation. So it gives Donald Trump's political opponents, the Democrats in the Senate, a chance to rehash all of the controversies around Signalgate, all of the questions about Donald Trump's foreign policy in his first hundred days and in this second term under oath and under the cameras and spotlight. So it's a soft landing for Waltz. I think it's also an indication that Donald Trump, while
he is acknowledging that that national security advisor is not going to work out for waltz that he doesn't feel betrayed by him he doesn't feel like he is he is someone who needs to be punished necessarily has just moved moved farther away from washington it's not a promotion certainly but it is at least not an embarrassing dismissal like some of the
Some of the fireweeds we saw in that first Trump presidential term. Do you think he'll get through that nomination process? Because if he doesn't, it's quite a lot of political flack they'll take for nothing.
It is. It is a risk. And that's why it was somewhat surprising that that was the landing spot that they chose for him. And obviously, there have been Donald Trump nominees who have been more controversial than Mike Waltz. Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense nominee, barely made it through a confirmation process that was incredibly acrimonious. And so I don't think Waltz comes in with that kind of baggage. And he is a former member of Congress, which
should get him a little bit of consideration. What you have to do when you look at confirmation fights in this Senate is look and see if there are any Republicans who are going to turn on him. And it would take three Republicans, actually four Republicans, to turn on him in order to sink his nomination. And while you could think of maybe there could be a couples
who might be wavering, it's hard to envision that many Republicans bailing on a Donald Trump pick, even though it could end up being embarrassing during these confirmation hearings for Trump and for Waltz. And what does his departure as national security advisor mean for the balance in terms of foreign policy expertise in the Trump administration?
I think that's interesting because the Signalgate controversy was not the only knock on Mike Waltz within the Trump administration. He had enemies and critics within the senior leadership team of Donald Trump's White House even before that embarrassing episode unfolded. And the reason is he was viewed as more of a hardliner, more of a hawk.
When he was in Congress and even when he was in the White House, then a lot of the people around Donald Trump who are less interested in an internationalist engaging foreign policy, people like Vice President J.D. Vance, who was more interested in ending the Ukraine war quickly, whereas Waltz was more of an anti-Russia approach.
So there were people out to get him, people who were not thrilled that he was in that spot. And his removal suggests that those people, the people who have a more domestically focused agenda, perhaps, that they are gaining the upper hand in this White House. On North America, correspondent Anthony Zerker. The Ukraine minerals and fossil fuels deal being discussed at the time of the Oval Office bust up was seen by some as weighted heavily in favour of the US.
But the updated agreement signed in Washington on Wednesday has been hailed as, quote, truly equal by President Zelensky. He said it was the result of his meeting with President Trump on the sidelines of the Pope's funeral. The US has also welcomed the deal, but Russia has so far kept silent. More from our diplomatic correspondent, James Landau. At the heart of this deal is a simple idea. What has Ukraine got that America wants? And can Ukraine use that to bind America close?
Those were the questions President Zelensky posed last year in his so-called peace plan, and now, finally, we have some answers.
A joint reconstruction fund with Ukraine and the United States as equal partners. Massive investment in the extraction of Ukraine's critical minerals, oil and gas, and the infrastructure needed to do that. Yes, the US will ultimately get half the revenue, but the deal reaffirms the country's commitment to Ukraine's future. And in the small print, a big concession.
Past American military aid worth billions of dollars will not count on the balance sheet as the White House wanted. Instead, Ukraine will compensate the US only for future military support. Little wonder Yuri Sack, an advisor to the Minister of Strategic Industries, sounded so optimistic. It constitutes a part of the wider negotiating framework, which we hope will lead to establishment of a lasting, enduring and just peace agreement
It took longer than everybody expected to sign this deal because both teams, the Ukrainian team as well as the US team, they both worked very hard to ensure that it's a deal about partnership. This is a long-term deal. It may take many years to find, mine and process Ukraine's resources, let alone make any profits.
But Andy Hunder, who is president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine, said there was profit to be had. It's risky to invest in Ukraine, but it's more risky not to invest in Ukraine. And there is a premium, a premium for bravery. So those companies that do come in first, they will reap the rewards and they will get the premium of being first on the ground during this biggest recovery ever.
This deal is not just about economics. Ukraine's allies hope it may now be harder for the US to pull out of peace talks, as it has threatened to do if there's no progress. And after weeks of stop-start negotiations, Donald Trump finally has something he can claim as a win. But an economic deal is not a peace deal.
And that still looks some distance off. James Landau. And as we record this podcast, the US Vice President J.D. Vance has told Fox News the war in Ukraine is not going to end any time soon. He said it's going to be up to the Russians and Ukrainians now that each side knows what the other terms for peace are. It's going to be up to them to come to an agreement and stop this brutal, brutal conflict.
The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said that the supreme goal of the war in Gaza is victory over Hamas rather than the return of the hostages. The main group representing the hostage families has reacted angrily. Meanwhile, the UN humanitarian chief has called on the Israeli government to lift what he called its brutal blockade on Gaza. Sebastian Usher reports from Jerusalem.
Critics of Mr Netanyahu in Israel have time and again accused the Prime Minister of prioritising the continuation of the war in Gaza over the fate of the remaining hostages there. Speaking at an event in Jerusalem to mark Israel's Independence Day, Mr Netanyahu made clear that this was indeed his aim. This war has a supreme objective, and that supreme objective is victory over our enemies.
and we will achieve it. The Hostages and Missing Families Forum in Israel immediately issued a statement expressing its alarm, insisting that returning the hostages must be the supreme goal that should guide the Israeli government.
Israel is a country divided by the resumption of the war in Gaza, but there appears to be a majority who believe that freeing the hostages should be the priority. They take to the streets week after week to make their feelings known. In Gaza, Israel's blockade of aid supplies has now lasted for two months amid increasingly urgent warnings of the consequences from aid agencies.
The UN humanitarian chief, Tom Fletcher, has issued a statement saying that Israel has been blatantly honest about its aim to put pressure on Hamas, but he says that international law is unequivocal in requiring Israel as the occupying power to allow humanitarian support in.
Alzheimer's, the most common form of dementia, affects millions of people around the world. But scientists here in Britain have made a breakthrough in efforts to find a cure. Doing research on live human brain tissue for the first time, they were able to observe how a protein linked to Alzheimer's destroys the connections or synapses between healthy brain cells. It's hoped the technique will make it easier to test new drugs. Dr Claire Durrant from the UK Dementia Research Institute told me how they did it.
So, when we say we work with living human brain, you and I are not going to be too happy about handing over a piece of our brain. So, where do we get it from? And the sad reality is there are a lot of individuals who have brain tumors who have to have surgery to remove those tumors.
And what the surgeons often have to do in order to access that tumour safely is to take a little flap of normal brain out and that would normally go in the bin. However, with the permission of the patient, instead of it going into the bin, it comes into my lab where we can do some amazing science. And you had to basically race to get it to your lab so you could use it. Absolutely.
Absolutely. So a member of my team or myself, we're scrubbed in into the surgery. We're there with a bottle of liquid to catch the piece of brain and we sprint into a taxi into our lab and try and really get it from brain into the incubator in less than two hours from start to finish. And once you've got it, how do you use it in terms of studying Alzheimer's?
So we have very, very thin slices of the brain tissue in a dish. And what we do is we take brains from people who have died with Alzheimer's disease, who've donated them for research. We extract the toxic proteins that accumulate in that brain, so amyloid beta, and we apply it to the healthy living brain in a dish. And that means we can study how that toxic protein might kill the connections between nerve cells called synapses, which we know is really important for dementia.
So in effect, you actually infect the fragments of brain cell. And what did you see once you'd done that?
So really excitingly, we saw that the A-beta binds to and kills synapses in a dish, which is the first time it's been shown for sure in living human brain. So we're really excited by that because being able to kill synapses sounds like a bad thing. But from a scientist's point of view, it's a great thing because it means we can test things that might stop that from happening in real disease. Yeah. Have you managed to start doing that or is that something that will come in the months and years ahead?
It's hopefully something that will come in the months and years ahead. We have lots of ideas we want to follow up. One thing is we want to try and harness the brain's natural repair system. So interestingly, when we artificially make the brain produce its own normal abeta, so a non-toxic form of this protein, we see that that also damages synapses.
But at the same time, we see these repair processes kicking in. So the brain knows how to respond to abeta in a way to repair it, but just seems to fail to do so in response to toxic abeta. So if we can work out why it's failing to do so, that's the target we're going to be heading for. So is this the first time that anyone's actually witnessed Alzheimer's operating in real time?
I think certainly in a live human brain, in this case, yes. So we've seen it in sort of mouse models and we've seen it in cells. But in terms of actually watching what real Alzheimer's disease, a beta extracted from real people who've died of the disease in living brain tissue, this is a world first. And so what's your overall feeling having achieved this milestone?
I think us, along with other scientists, we're really entering a new age of dementia research. We're creating better research tools like we are in my lab. We're finding out new information and we're driving towards what we hope will be treatments for people living with this awful disease in the future. Dr Claire Durant of the University of Edinburgh.
Still to come on the Global News Podcast... A sequestered group, a locked room, you have to come up with a solution, you have to elect one of your number. It's an absolute natural for drama. It almost obeys all the classical rules of a drama. Why choosing the next pope makes for great literature and cinema.
Australia's election campaign was expected to be defined by the cost of living. But events elsewhere, Ukraine, the Middle East and Donald Trump's tariffs, have forced candidates to address international issues as well. So how will that play out in the vote? Katie Watson has this report. Hey Blacktown, are you ready?
Let's make some noise! You could be mistaken for thinking we're in America's Midwest here, watching a rodeo with an audience who've donned their cowboy boots, their cowboy hats. They're all focusing right now on riders being thrown off bulls in the dirt arena in front of us. But...
We are in Western Sydney and Australians are sat in their fold-up camping chairs and swinging a beer. It feels very Australian. Ladies and gentlemen, when that shoot gate cracks, let's make some noise for all the boys! Politics has, of late, felt like a wild ride. Every day, Australia's leading candidates trying to control their message on the campaign trail. Not always successfully.
One thing's clear, though. With Donald Trump threatening trade wars, criticising President Zelensky over Ukraine and the division from the war in the Middle East, shifting global politics has thrown their campaign somewhat off course. I think the terrorist protections are great for America. We should have had terrorist protections many years ago. It looks bad now because they're used to a system where you sell off assets overseas. Try
Trump's the best thing ever, America. It's going nuts. Yeah, it's... I don't know. I'm just sitting back and watching. It's a bit like a show. I'm just watching. It's quite interesting to watch. I mean, it's entertaining. It probably affects me more than I realise, but I just choose to ignore it. Yes.
It's the halfway mark of the election campaign and tonight... Politicians, though, can't ignore it. This past month, Labour Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who wants a second term, and his rival Peter Dutton of the Liberal National Coalition have faced each other in a series of debates.
and Donald Trump has consistently featured. What is that, Mr Albanese, and what exactly are you offering Donald Trump? Well, we'll engage diplomatically, not through a TV interview, but we have put forward a proposition to the United States...
The trouble is that Anthony didn't think that Donald Trump was going to be elected and put nothing into the relationship. And unfortunately... Not everyone, though, satisfied with the answers. Which is why independent candidates and smaller parties are expected to do well out of voters fed up with traditional politics.
Kate Cheney is an independent candidate in Western Australia, hoping to retain her seat. Since Trump has come in, we've seen a huge shift in the global geopolitical order. And Australia's in this position where the US is a close ally and has been for 80 years, but China is our major trading partner. So we have to balance these interests very carefully.
Here in Australia, early voting has been underway for nearly two weeks now and there's a long list of things people want to see improvements on. It's like overall economy and also defence. Energy policy and cost of living. I care a lot about climate change and also queer rights. A lot of the world is turning very conservative, I guess. That's very scary to me.
Back at the rodeo, cheerleaders are keeping the audience motivated ahead of some barrel racing. Australians pride themselves on mateship, staying on side with friends matters. Voters here will be keen to see how their next leader will ride out this unpredictability. Katie Watson reporting from Australia.
Kneecap are no strangers to controversy. The Irish-language rappers are famed for their righteous performances and provocative lyrics, attracting big crowds at music festivals and winning a BAFTA award. But they faced criticism after speaking out about the war in Gaza and over a video in which they appear to say, ''Kill your local Member of Parliament.''
They're now being investigated by British counter-terrorism police, as I heard from our culture reporter, Charlotte Gallagher. Well, this has kind of been rumbling on for the last few days, Ollie, and videos had been passed to police in the UK of two incidents, alleged incidents at kneecap concerts. So the first one involves police
one of the band members allegedly saying the only good Tory is a dead Tory. Now, a Tory is a Conservative MP. And then one of them apparently said, kill your local MP.
The second video relates to another band member allegedly saying up Hamas, up Hezbollah, which are band groups in the UK. So it's an offence to express support for them. Now, these videos were passed to them. And then today, the Metropolitan Police have said they are investigating these for possible offences that may have been committed. Then what does the band say about that? Well, the band issued a statement when the
The families of two murdered MPs came forward and said they were really upset by what had been said. And they said, we never intended to cause you hurt, addressing the families, and that they reject any suggestion they would seek to incite violence against any MP or individual. So they were the statements they gave out. And they also said they didn't support Hamas or Hezbollah. And they are very vocal as well about Gaza and the Israeli military. They believe the Israeli military is carrying out war crimes in Gaza. They've been very vocal about that.
That has been criticised by people like Sharon Osbourne. And some people have actually called for them to have their US visas cancelled. They've got a sellout US tour coming up. And some people are saying that shouldn't be allowed. They accuse them of being anti-Semitic. NECAP say, we're not anti-Semitic. We are criticising Israeli government policy, not Jewish people. There's also pressure on them from politicians here saying,
but they've also had support from other artists. Yes, I mean, firstly, there is a lot of pressure from some politicians, particularly surrounding the Glastonbury Festival, which is the huge music festival that we have here in the summer. Some people have called for them to be removed from the line-up. But as you said, they've had support
Support from other well-known musicians, so Massive Attack, Pulp, Paul Weller, who they've played a gig with before. They've said that they are essentially being subjected to a campaign of intimidation. And they say the past week has seen a clear, concerted attempt to censor and ultimately deplatform the band Kneecap.
But currently where we stand is that they are being investigated by police and we just don't know what's going to happen to their gigs. Some have been cancelled already. So some in Germany have been cancelled. They were due to play the Eden Project in Cornwall in Britain. That's been cancelled as well. So the next few days we may see more of that. Charlotte Gallagher.
Now, is it ethical to create a digital version of a famous dead person? The debate has resurfaced after an online tutoring course was launched providing writing tips from an AI version of Agatha Christie.
You must think of your stories as a puzzle or a game. It is not merely a case of who is the least likely culprit, but how you get there. One also needs to make sure that one is playing fair with clues and plots. That is where it is important to observe the rules of the game.
I am Agatha Christie and this is my BBC maestro course on writing. Well, the so-called queen of crime is played by an actress whose face and voice have been altered to create a likeness based on images, audio and some video recordings of the author.
The storytelling advice is drawn from her letters, interviews and notebooks. Some say the digital deep fake is unnecessary and even creepy, but it has the approval of Agatha Christie's great-grandson, James Pritchard, who manages her literary and media rights. So what would she make of it?
I have a policy of never really trying to second-guess my great-grandmother for two reasons, really, one of which is I believe that way madness lies and secondly, she was way more intelligent than I am. We as a family try and do as well as we can in her name and I hope people will see the respect and love we have put into this and take it in that spirit. An awful lot of authors are very worried about the role of AI today.
Does this actually encourage what is a sort of dangerous advance for a lot of people? I mean, the important thing, I think, from our point of view about this is that
The work done in the background, the writing of the script, the research was all done by people. One of the issues, obviously, with AI is that people are using material that they have not taken permission for. We believe we have permission for everything we use. So I hope that we are using AI to enhance the ability to share stories, share lessons, and therefore it's to the greater good. Agatha Christie's great-grandson, James Pritchard, talking to Sarah Montague.
The Sistine Chapel in Vatican City is the second most visited museum in the world, but it's now closed to the public as it's transformed into the place where the new Pope will be elected. The papal conclave begins next Wednesday and the cardinals will remain cut off from the outside world until they elect a successor to Pope Francis.
Since his death, there's been a surge in downloads of the award-winning film Conclave. It's based on the book of the same name by best-selling British author Robert Harris. My colleague Julian Marshall asked him what inspired him to write it.
When the conclave of Pope Francis took place, I was watching it on television and I thought, this looks fascinating actually. When the faces of the cardinal electors appeared at the windows before the new pope came out to address the crowd.
crafty, benign, cunning, indifferent. There must have been some politics going on behind the scenes. Can I find out what it is? Because it had every ingredient for a perfect story, a kind of sequestered group, a locked room, you have to come up with a solution, you have to elect one of your number and a limited electorate.
It's an absolute natural for drama. It almost evades all the classical rules of a drama. And when researching the book, and you do all the research yourself, how difficult was it to uncover the secrecy that surrounds the conclave? I mean, the Vatican puts up a lot online, quite frankly. All the procedures very strictly laid down, hour by hour. So that gave me the kind of narrative drive of the book.
There have been leaks from what is supposed to be a very secret operation. There was in particular a diary supposedly kept by a cardinal during the conclave that elected Cardinal Ratzinger to become Pope Benedict. And that described how Benedict was ahead in the first ballot, the great liberal hope ran a poor second or third election,
And it was necessary for the liberals to try and get behind a third candidate, and they chose the man who eventually became Pope Francis. He lost that election partly because he gave it up. But it gave me three characters immediately. The disappointed man who'd always expected he would get it, the conservative, the liberal outsider,
It was a gift. So, I mean, I had that very quickly. I read everything I could about past conclaves, and I did actually talk to Colonel Cormac Murphy O'Connor. I don't think he'd mind now if I disclosed he helped me. How much access were you given by the Vatican, particularly access to...
the physical locations? Well, that was all that I asked for. I knew that they were never going to splurge a load of secrets, but I did think they might show me just the physical locations. And they did agree very kindly. And so I went to the Casa Santa Marta, which is the hostel which was built by Jean-Paul II for all the cardinals to come, you know, before they used to sleep on the floor, but he built a special place for them to stay.
Pope Francis never moved out of it after he was elected. It was part of his whole humble persona to stay there. So I saw that, I saw his room, I saw the Sistine Chapel and the Pauline Chapel, where there are prayers, which is the Pope's private chapel. I saw the Vatican Gardens, which were important to me, and I just generally wandered around, got the feel of the place, and they were very, very helpful.
Conclave's are often reduced by commentators to struggle between conservatives or traditionalists and progressive wings of the church. But as is shown in your book and indeed the film, it's not as predictable as that. No, it's not at all predictable. It's...
It's an explosion, really, of a psychological drama. It takes place in one of the most beautiful jewels of the Renaissance, the Sistine Chapel, which was built for the purpose. Michelangelo's frescoes and the ceiling were designed to help concentrate their minds. And once the doors close and the balloting begins, anything can happen. I mean, to begin with,
A lot of cardinals, quite frankly, secretly vote for themselves. So they all get one vote and then it really starts. And what we would call in secular politics momentum, perhaps the most important ingredient in an election, takes hold. They call it the movement of the Holy Spirit. And it's just when really people are looking around and they think, oh, that's the man.
And that can be very unexpected and it doesn't really follow party lines particularly, although there are factions. I mean, there is a pattern, isn't there? There are always factions representing different wings of the church. Yes. The only thing you can say for sure is that by and large the favourite never wins. The saying is you go in a pope, you come out a cardinal because...
It's really a system designed to produce a consensus and quite often the frontrunner is clawed down by people who just don't want that. But of course there are progressives. The late Pope represented the progressive forces just as his predecessor represented the conservative forces. The author Robert Harris. And we're planning a special Q&A edition of the podcast ahead of the papal conclave, answering your questions about how the new Pope is chosen.
We'll look at the process, timetable, the likely candidates and what it could all mean for the Catholic Church. So send us your questions in a voicemail or email to globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. And that is all from us for now, but the Global News Podcast will be back very soon. This edition was mixed by Nick Randall and produced by Richard Hamilton. Our editors, Karen Martin. I'm Oliver Conway. Until next time, goodbye.