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--:-- Host: The election has come and gone. Now we're in a new era. It can be easy to get discouraged, frustrated, but you can't afford not to pay attention. You need trustworthy, independent journalism to cut through the noise and hold power to account. I'm Mary Harris, host of What Next from Slate.com. We are a daily news podcast with a kind of transparent, smart, Yet tongue-in-cheek analysis, you can only find at Slate. Follow and listen to What Next wherever you get your podcasts.
--:-- Host: This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Nick Miles and at 5 Hours GMT on Friday the 3rd of October, these are our main stories.
--:-- Nick Miles: Police in the English city of Manchester arrest three people in connection with deadly attacks on a synagogue.
--:-- Nick Miles: The Trump administration says the US is in an armed conflict with drug cartels.
--:-- Nick Miles: Colombian police arrest a senior member of the notorious Tren de Aragua criminal organisation.
--:-- Nick Miles: Also in this podcast. They tied us with ropes in our legs and hands. I was fainted from time to time from the pain, starvation. That was the worst thing. We hear the testimony of a former Israeli hostage and get the latest from the ground in Gaza.
--:-- Nick Miles: And is Formula One racing getting too hot to handle?
--:-- Nick Miles: The day we hoped we would never see, but which deep down we knew would come as a result of an unrelenting wave of Jew hatred. The words of the UK's chief rabbi, Ephraim Mervis, after an attack at a synagogue in which two Jewish men were killed in the northern English city of Manchester.
--:-- Nick Miles: Their attacker had rammed a car into worshippers before he got out of the vehicle armed with a knife. He was stopped from getting inside the synagogue by volunteer security staff.
--:-- Nick Miles: Soon after the attack in Manchester, police were sent to synagogues and other Jewish sites across the UK.
--:-- Nick Miles: The British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, has been trying to give the community reassurance.
--:-- Nick Miles: To every Jewish person in this country, I also want to say this. I know how much fear you will be holding inside of you. I really do. And so I promise you that I will do everything in my power to guarantee you the security that you deserve, starting with a more visible police presence protecting your community.
--:-- Nick Miles: Well, the attacker who was shot dead by the police has been named as Jihad al-Shami. He was 35 and a British man of Syrian descent.
--:-- Nick Miles: Investigators are trying to work out more about him, as Danny Savage, who's been reporting from the scene in Manchester, explains.
--:-- Danny Savage: He came here as a child, was given citizenship as a minor back in 2006, the BBC understands.
--:-- Danny Savage: Police say records do not show any previous referrals relating to him through the government's anti-terrorism prevent scheme.
--:-- Danny Savage: That's all they're saying about any history which they may or may not know about him at this point.
--:-- Nick Miles: Three people have been arrested in connection with the attack on suspicion of commission, preparation and instigation of acts of terrorism.
--:-- Nick Miles: They say there are two men in their 30s and a woman in her 60s.
--:-- Nick Miles: Now, we know I think two of those arrests were made in the local area around here.
--:-- Nick Miles: One of the other arrests was made at a home in Presswich, not too far from here in Manchester.
--:-- Nick Miles: So police, you know, frantically working, I suspect, behind the scenes to work out who this man's other connections were and if there is any further risk going forward from anyone.
--:-- Nick Miles: There have been a record number of anti-Semitic incidents in Britain ever since the October 7th attacks two years ago.
--:-- Nick Miles: Israel has accused the British government of failing to do enough to stop them.
--:-- Nick Miles: Golders Green in London is a well-known Jewish community and my colleague Sean Lay headed there on Yom Kippur.
--:-- Sean Lay: It's about four o'clock in the afternoon I'm at the bottom of the Finchley Road in North London at the heart of what is the largest Jewish community in the whole of Europe.
--:-- Sean Lay: It's centered around an area just a little bit away from here Golders Green which has according to the last census 49.9 percent of residents being Jewish.
--:-- Sean Lay: And therefore on a day like today even the buses are because people are either at home or they're going to and from the synagogue.
--:-- Sean Lay: My wife and I with my toddler were walking home from our synagogue our shul and someone came back and said to us that something had happened in Manchester.
--:-- Sean Lay: We're very scared and my wife told me straight away to put my baseball cap on when we went back to shul after we heard the news.
--:-- Sean Lay: Rather than wearing my kippah when I go to work when my wife tells me make sure you wear a baseball cap on the underground.
--:-- Sean Lay: You never know what's going to happen and she's probably right.
--:-- Sean Lay: I question what the security presence was of the police but there's no visible presence.
--:-- Sean Lay: It feels like 1930s Germany.
--:-- Sean Lay: The fact that I have to ask him to put on a baseball cap is the sort of stuff that I learnt about doing History GCSE.
--:-- Sean Lay: And what I'm concerned about is that the debate is however you feel about the issue of what's going on in Israel and people are entitled to whatever their views are.
--:-- Sean Lay: There doesn't seem to be a distinction between what is going on in Israel and British Jews.
--:-- Sean Lay: And so as a British Jew when you then start hearing about these things that are happening you shouldn't have to feel so intimidated and scared of going on the street and looking over your shoulder.
--:-- Sean Lay: We should be able to have a free and open debate about what's going on without those fears.
--:-- Sean Lay: Do you feel you're censoring yourself a bit at the moment?
--:-- Sean Lay: I wouldn't even say it's censoring. I don't even enter into a conversation about it.
--:-- Sean Lay: Slowly and indirectly people have started to find out what has happened hundreds of miles away in Manchester.
--:-- Sean Lay: I think this is the reality of Jewish lives today.
--:-- Sean Lay: Jewish people in the UK aren't safe.
--:-- Sean Lay: What is happening not just in the UK but across the globe of Jewish people being killed being burnt being rammed on the day of atonement the holiest day of the year it's absolutely dreadful.
--:-- Sean Lay: I'm ashamed to be British.
--:-- Sean Lay: Do you feel less safe now?
--:-- Sean Lay: I felt less safe for a long time what's happened doesn't surprise me.
--:-- Sean Lay: Yeah we're not safe but we're not safe around the world.
--:-- Sean Lay: I took you through with Jude and my husband got shouted at being a murderer just for walking along the road whilst Jude was interviewing you.
--:-- Sean Lay: I'm standing that way to watch out anyone else is coming and I could quickly then turn around to say duck or hide or just get down on the ground.
--:-- Sean Lay: Does it feel different now?
--:-- Sean Lay: Definitely.
--:-- Sean Lay: I'm very proud to live in this country I wasn born in this country I proud of what I achieved and what I been given and life given me.
--:-- Sean Lay: And I been very grateful and thankful for that.
--:-- Sean Lay: But I wouldn't want to live here now.
--:-- Sean Lay: Haven't wanted to live here for years.
--:-- Nick Miles: That report from Sean Lay.
--:-- Nick Miles: Despite his claims to be stopping conflicts around the world Donald Trump has declared that the US is now effectively in one.
--:-- Nick Miles: The president sent a memo to Congress saying the actions of drug smugglers in the Caribbean Sea mean they should be classed as a non-state armed group.
--:-- Nick Miles: And this justifies the U.S. in attacking them.
--:-- Nick Miles: Venezuela's president Nicolas Maduro has accused Mr. Trump of using drug gangs as an excuse to push for regime change.
--:-- Nick Miles: Here's our South America correspondent Ione Wells.
--:-- Ione Wells: Well this leaked memo which has been obtained by the New York Times and the Associated Press was sent to Congress.
--:-- Ione Wells: And essentially it suggests that the U.S. is now defining itself the U.S. administration is defining itself as being in a non-international armed conflict with drug traffickers.
--:-- Ione Wells: Now this is significant because the administration has a legal duty to inform Congress when it plans to use the armed forces.
--:-- Ione Wells: So this is a suggestion that there could well be more military action on the way.
--:-- Ione Wells: This comes after there have been three strikes so far on different vessels in the Caribbean Sea which the U.S. has claimed were drug traffickers.
--:-- Ione Wells: They've claimed that this was an act of self-defense although there has been widespread condemnation of these strikes especially in the region from Colombia from Venezuela.
--:-- Ione Wells: 17 people were killed in those strikes.
--:-- Ione Wells: And many international lawyers have questioned the legality of the use of that force in international waters.
--:-- Ione Wells: Now what is significant is if the U.S. defines drug traffickers as being an armed group that they're in conflict with it could potentially mean that they are granting themselves more wartime powers essentially to crack down on drug traffickers.
--:-- Ione Wells: For example potentially granting themselves the power to kill combatants even if they weren't posing an immediate violent threat of any kind.
--:-- Ione Wells: And also the use of things like indefinite detention.
--:-- Ione Wells: These were some of the sort of special wartime powers that the U.S. applied to al-Qaeda for example after 9-11 took place.
--:-- Ione Wells: Now it's not clear from the reports of this linked memo exactly which drug traffickers might be targeted or might be perceived as being in an armed conflict with the U.S.
--:-- Ione Wells: It's also not clear why the U.S. is defining drug traffickers as being part of an armed conflict an active sort of war so to speak.
--:-- Ione Wells: This is though the latest escalation of rhetoric and designations that we've seen from the U.S. after it has already designated some drug trafficking cartels in the region as terrorist organisations which had already enabled the U.S. to use further force against those groups than it had previously been able to.
--:-- Nick Miles: Well if American tensions with Venezuela are heightening one Latin American country that will be hoping they've in some way appeased Donald Trump will be Colombia.
--:-- Nick Miles: That's where the alleged leader of the armed wing of the crime group Tren de Aragua José Antonio Marquez Morales has been arrested.
--:-- Nick Miles: Luis Fajardo our Latin America analyst in Miami told us more.
--:-- Luis Fajardo: Colombian authorities have said that they arrested a Venezuelan national C. Marquez alias Caracas.
--:-- Luis Fajardo: They arrested him in the city of Valle del Par which is fairly near to the Colombian border with Venezuela.
--:-- Luis Fajardo: They say he's an important member of the Tren de Aragua.
--:-- Luis Fajardo: This criminal organization originally from Venezuela that has moved into many other countries in Latin America.
--:-- Luis Fajardo: It has become a substantial transnational criminal organization involved in things like drug dealing weapons trafficking.
--:-- Luis Fajardo: And of course it is being mentioned by the Trump administration as a serious threat to the U.S. as well as part of the U.S. crackdown on drug trafficking.
--:-- Luis Fajardo: The particular case of alias Caracas he seems to be a substantial member of this organization.
--:-- Luis Fajardo: Colombian authorities say that the operation that arrested him took place with the cooperation of the U.S. and the U.K.
--:-- Luis Fajardo: So the fact that several countries were involved in this seemed to suggest that he was a relevant figure.
--:-- Luis Fajardo: And the arrest of this man known by the alias of Caracas how significant is the arrest of this individual when others can perhaps just take his place?
--:-- Luis Fajardo: That is the argument that is made often to the general anti-drug policy and that it has been in many cases unable to prevent these organizations from rapidly replacing people.
--:-- Luis Fajardo: I don't think anyone is expecting the Tren de Aragua to face a complete collapse of activities.
--:-- Luis Fajardo: But of course the Colombian government will present this as an important event and as a demonstration that they continue to fight these criminal organizations and also that they continue to cooperate with Western governments like the U.S. like the U.K.
--:-- Luis Fajardo: Despite the fact that the U.S. is saying that they do not cooperate adequately.
--:-- Nick Miles: The last few weeks have seen a series of security incidents across Europe linked to Russia's war in Ukraine.
--:-- Nick Miles: Russian drones and jets have been reported in NATO airspace amid heightened fears of hybrid warfare although the Kremlin denies involvement.
--:-- Nick Miles: And now it appears space is the next target.
--:-- Nick Miles: The head of the U.K. Space Command says Russia has been deliberately targeting British military satellites to try to gather intelligence.
--:-- Nick Miles: He's been speaking to our defence correspondent Jonathan Beale.
--:-- Jonathan Beale: Britain has half a dozen military satellites providing secure communications and surveillance.
--:-- Jonathan Beale: And the head of the U.K.'s Space Command says Russia's been stalking them.
--:-- Jonathan Beale: General Paul Tedman says Russian satellites have been flying relatively close with equipment on board to see the U.K. satellites and try to collect information.
--:-- Jonathan Beale: They're out there and they're patrolling and they're interested in what we're doing.
--:-- Jonathan Beale: And flying close to satellites relatively close yeah.
--:-- Jonathan Beale: I mean they've got payloads on board that can see our satellites and can collect information off of them.
--:-- Jonathan Beale: Are they jamming our satellites?
--:-- Jonathan Beale: Yeah we're seeing our satellites be jammed by the Russians on a reasonably persistent basis.
--:-- Jonathan Beale: How often?
--:-- Jonathan Beale: Weekly.
--:-- Jonathan Beale: Germany's Defence Minister too recently accused Russia of shadowing its military satellites.
--:-- Jonathan Beale: The government says it's boosting the defence of its space-based assets.
--:-- Jonathan Beale: This week it's announced it's developing sensors to identify lasers that could be used to dazzle or disrupt the U.K. satellite communications.
--:-- Nick Miles: Staying in space astronomers have discovered what's known as a rogue planet gobbling up gas and dust at an unprecedented rate of 6 billion tonnes a second.
--:-- Nick Miles: They say it blurs the line between planets and stars as Anna Aslan reports.
--:-- Anna Aslan: Unlike Earth and other planets in our solar system which orbit the Sun rogue planets float freely through the universe not tethered to a star.
--:-- Anna Aslan: There could be billions of them but they're hard to spot as they exist in almost perpetual darkness.
--:-- Anna Aslan: But using two of the most powerful telescopes on the ground and in space scientists in Italy have spent years monitoring this rogue planet 620 light-years away in the Chameleon constellation.
--:-- Anna Aslan: It's 5 to 10 times bigger than Jupiter but only one or two million years old a baby in astronomical terms.
--:-- Anna Aslan: And they found it's going through a record-breaking growth spurt fed by a surrounding disk of gas and dust.
--:-- Anna Aslan: Victor Almendro Sabad led the study.
--:-- Anna Aslan: We were trying to study how fast is the rate of material getting into the object.
--:-- Anna Aslan: And what we suddenly found is that there was a very strong growth of material that was impacting the central object.
--:-- Anna Aslan: And when we saw this it's when we realized that it was a very special phenomenon.
--:-- Anna Aslan: This is the first time that this kind of phenomenon has been observed in such a low mass object.
--:-- Anna Aslan: The research team found that during the process the chemistry of the disk around the rogue planet changed and magnetic activity and water vapor were detected.
--:-- Anna Aslan: This has previously only been observed in stars.
--:-- Anna Aslan: Experts say the unprecedented rate of growth could shed light on how these mysterious objects form and evolve.
--:-- Nick Miles: Still to come it's the most powerful imagination engine ever built.
--:-- Nick Miles: The app that looks like TikTok but everything's AI generated.
--:-- Nick Miles: Sora made by OpenAI has taken the App Store by storm.
--:-- Nick Miles: But for many it's deepened concerns about copyright and deep fakes.
--:-- Nick Miles: Will Chalk reports.
--:-- Will Chalk: It's the most powerful imagination engine ever built.
--:-- Will Chalk: Polo players except they're riding unicorns.
--:-- Will Chalk: A New Orleans-style jazz band but there's an elephant and a peacock walking through the room.
--:-- Will Chalk: And the big feature OpenAI thinks sets its new video generation app apart you or your friends can appear in the videos.
--:-- Will Chalk: And we're introducing Cameo giving you the power to step into any world or scene and letting your friends cast you in theirs.
--:-- Will Chalk: He was riding on a dragon when he said that by the way.
--:-- Will Chalk: These are the examples OpenAI is using to show off its Sora 2 technology.
--:-- Will Chalk: And its TikTok-style app launched in the U.S. and Canada this week is designed to encourage people to use this tech as a social network to have a laugh with their mates.
--:-- Will Chalk: So how's it gone down?
--:-- Will Chalk: I think the general reaction has been that it's cool what you can do with it but a lot of what produces what we call nowadays AI slop that it's not that original or exciting.
--:-- Will Chalk: That's Dr. Gary Marcus from New York University whose book Taming Silicon Valley explored how AI can be used to take advantage of consumers.
--:-- Will Chalk: And despite his lukewarm assessment of Sora right now he thinks we're on the cusp of short generative videos being indistinguishable from reality.
--:-- Will Chalk: It leaves us in a society that's going to have trust issues because I think people are going to learn that you can't really trust video anymore but we don't really have a replacement.
--:-- Will Chalk: We don't have a source of ground truth that people share.
--:-- Will Chalk: And I think that's going to be disruptive for society.
--:-- Will Chalk: When it comes to deepfakes OpenAI insists it has built-in technology to make sure users are in control of where their likeness is used.
--:-- Will Chalk: It says you'll constantly have access to all videos you feature in even if they've been made by someone else and you can delete them at any time.
--:-- Will Chalk: But policing this is likely to be a mammoth task.
--:-- Will Chalk: And that's not the only mammoth task OpenAI has got to contend with.
--:-- Will Chalk: Private Pikachu stay low Pika Pika.
--:-- Will Chalk: People are already using the app to put Pikachu in the movie Saving Private Ryan or Mario and Luigi in Star Wars.
--:-- Will Chalk: Mamma mia that's no moon.
--:-- Will Chalk: It's a battle station big enough to swallow us whole.
--:-- Will Chalk: Then let's make sure it doesn't.
--:-- Will Chalk: Everyone ready?
--:-- Will Chalk: And these videos mashing up various bits of intellectual property are a copyright nightmare.
--:-- Will Chalk: Exactly what data Sora 2 is trained on and exactly which companies have said their data can be used isn't clear.
--:-- Will Chalk: But given OpenAI is already itself facing several copyright lawsuits and given that similar companies in China are being sued by the likes of Disney and Warner Brothers it seems unlikely this app is going to make some already incredibly murky waters any clearer.
--:-- Nick Miles: And that's all from us for now but there will be a new edition of the Global News Podcast later on.
--:-- Nick Miles: 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.
--:-- Nick Miles: You can also find us on X at bbc world service use the hashtag global news pod.
--:-- Nick Miles: This edition was mixed by Chris Lovelock.
--:-- Nick Miles: The editor is Karen Martin.
--:-- Nick Miles: I'm Nick Miles and until next time goodbye.
