--:-- Ankur Desai: This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Ankur Desai, and at 5 o'clock GMT on Wednesday, the 24th of September, these are our main stories.
--:-- Ukraine's President Zelensky says there has been a big shift in Donald Trump's position on the war with Russia after the US president described Russia as a paper tiger and said Ukraine could take back all the territory it has lost.
--:-- China evacuates hundreds of thousands as super typhoon Ragusa approaches its southern coast.
--:-- And also in this podcast, we celebrate the life of actress Claudia Cardinale, who's died aged 87.
--:-- Ankur Desai: They asked me to sign the contract, but I always refused. I want to be dependent and free. I don't want to sell my body and I want to be judged on the acting.
--:-- Ankur Desai: It's no secret President Trump is no fan of the United Nations. And on Tuesday, he told the General Assembly that all he had from the UN was, quote, a bad escalator and a bad teleprompter.
--:-- Peter Goffin: In a remarkable speech lasting nearly an hour, Mr Trump lashed out at more than the UN. Europe, Russia and immigration were all in his crosshairs.
--:-- Peter Goffin: After his speech, he met the Ukrainian president and said Ukraine could retake all of its territory from Russia. More on that in just a moment. But first, I don't mind making this speech without a teleprompter because the teleprompter is not working.
--:-- Peter Goffin: Standing before the General Assembly, President Donald Trump launched a blistering denunciation of the UN, condemning the institution from the ground up.
--:-- Donald Trump: All I got from the United Nations was an escalator that on the way up stopped right in the middle. If the first lady wasn't in great shape, she would have fallen.
--:-- Peter Goffin: The UN later said an escalator safety mechanism was triggered, possibly by the Trump's own cameraman riding ahead of them.
--:-- Donald Trump: Meanwhile, President Trump aired old grievances.
--:-- Donald Trump: I bid on the renovation and rebuilding of this very United Nations complex. But they decided to go in another direction, which was much more expensive at the time, which actually produced a far inferior product.
--:-- Donald Trump: And brought one of his core domestic issues, what he calls the crisis of illegal immigration, to the world stage.
--:-- Donald Trump: Your countries are being ruined. The United Nations is funding an assault on Western countries and their borders.
--:-- Peter Goffin: Mr Trump painted an image of the UN as a toothless, outdated body.
--:-- Donald Trump: What is the purpose of the United Nations? The UN has such tremendous potential, but it's not even coming close to living up to that potential.
--:-- Donald Trump: For the most part, at least for now, all they seem to do is write a really strongly worded letter and then never follow that letter up. It's empty words, and empty words don't solve war.
--:-- Peter Goffin: He pitched, as an alternative, a new world order centered around his United States.
--:-- Donald Trump: I've come here today to offer the hand of American leadership and friendship to any nation in this assembly that is willing to join us in forging a safer, more prosperous world.
--:-- Donald Trump: And his own self-proclaimed prowess as a global broker of peace.
--:-- Donald Trump: I ended seven wars, dealt with the leaders of each and every one of these countries, and never even received a phone call from the United Nations offering to help in finalizing the deal.
--:-- Peter Goffin: Mr Trump said he was working relentlessly to stop the killing in Ukraine.
--:-- Donald Trump: I thought that would be, of the seven wars that I stopped, I thought that would be the easiest because of my relationship with President Putin, which had always been a good one.
--:-- Peter Goffin: And he had harsh words for some of the leaders sitting before him.
--:-- Donald Trump: China and India are the primary funders of the ongoing war by continuing to purchase Russian oil.
--:-- Donald Trump: But inexcusably, even NATO countries have not cut off much Russian energy and Russian energy products.
--:-- Peter Goffin: Not even America's closest allies were spared a dressing down.
--:-- Donald Trump: They can't be doing what they're doing. They're buying oil and gas from Russia while they're fighting Russia. It's embarrassing to them.
--:-- Peter Goffin: And it was very embarrassing to them when I found out about it, I can tell you that.
--:-- Ankur Desai: Well, Donald Trump met Vladimir Zelensky on the sidelines of the UN summit.
--:-- Peter Goffin: The Ukrainian president later welcomed what he called a big shift in Mr Trump's comments about the war.
--:-- Tom Bateman: Much of it came actually after his speech in terms of Russia and Ukraine, when he posts on his social media site saying that Ukraine was now in a position to fight back and win all of the territory that Russia had occupied and more.
--:-- Tom Bateman: So that is a very significant shift in position.
--:-- Tom Bateman: But I have to say that the point remains about this. I mean, he said that the way this would be done was through time and patience and NATO countries helping and supporting and funding Ukraine.
--:-- Tom Bateman: But, of course, what is happening from the U.S. is that the weapons supply that was appropriated by Congress under the Biden administration is going to start to run dry into next year.
--:-- Tom Bateman: There has been no new appropriations from a Republican Congress under President Trump.
--:-- Tom Bateman: That is not going to happen.
--:-- Tom Bateman: And the administration has made very clear that they think it's the job of NATO to buy weapons from the Americans and for the Ukrainians to use those.
--:-- Tom Bateman: So once again, I think we have seen Mr Trump wax and wane on his sympathies to either side in the war over the last nine months.
--:-- Tom Bateman: And this feels like another one of those.
--:-- Ankur Desai: Mr Trump then seemed to question the United Nations very existence.
--:-- Tom Bateman: And I guess the question is, what is Donald Trump's aim in antagonising the UN like this, especially doing it in front of them in their lounge effectively?
--:-- Tom Bateman: Well, you know, I mean, the administration has been really clear in terms of its own ideological agenda.
--:-- Tom Bateman: It has already said it seeks to transpose that onto the institutions of multilateralism, which it doesn't like.
--:-- Tom Bateman: You know, that is not the Trump administration worldview.
--:-- Tom Bateman: It sees a world of competing national powers in which each country looks after its own interests.
--:-- Tom Bateman: And you have at the top of the pile the Americans with an America first agenda using all the tools of power they have to enrich and improve the security and quality of life of Americans.
--:-- Tom Bateman: And they say that they expect other countries in the world to do the same for their citizens.
--:-- Janet Jalil: There's growing alarm across Europe about Russia's actions.
--:-- Mark Rutte: NATO has warned Moscow against what it says are an increasing number of airspace violations.
--:-- Mark Rutte: In recent weeks, Russia has been accused of sending fighter jets into Estonian airspace and drones over Poland and Romania.
--:-- Mark Rutte: There's also been disruption to flights, again because of drones at Copenhagen airports.
--:-- Janet Jalil: NATO's Secretary General Mark Rutte had this warning for Moscow.
--:-- Mark Rutte: The decisions on whether to engage in shooting aircraft such as firing upon them are of course taken in real time, are always based on available intelligence regarding the threat posed by the aircraft, including questions we have to answer like intent and potential risk to allied forces, civilians or infrastructure.
--:-- Janet Jalil: Mikey Kaye from the BBC News's security brief programme, who was himself a helicopter pilot in the British Air Force, told me more about what a country can do if its airspace is violated.
--:-- Mikey Kaye: If you've got an unidentified aircraft coming into your airspace, then they have historically, not many, but 9-11 is a good example.
--:-- Mikey Kaye: The threat has to be taken such that it could be a 9-11 scenario.
--:-- Mikey Kaye: Or if you look at, you know, certain geopolitical situations at the moment where you've got Russian aggression on Ukraine, drones going into Poland, Romania, tensions are heightened.
--:-- Mikey Kaye: And so this is going to grab the attention very, very quickly of a territorial country.
--:-- Mikey Kaye: Now, what do they have as capability that can counter that?
--:-- Mikey Kaye: The main thing is what's called quick reaction alert.
--:-- Mikey Kaye: Military fast jets stationed on the ground at certain bases in certain countries that are on 24-7 standby.
--:-- Mikey Kaye: So they are literally in their flying suits, they've got their helmets by them, the jets are prepped, and they can get an alarm to go and intercept an unidentified threat that will get them off the ground in less than five minutes.
--:-- Janet Jalil: So what happens when these jets are scrambled?
--:-- Mikey Kaye: Let's say they're alongside the plane.
--:-- Mikey Kaye: You want to get that aircraft out of territorial airspace as quick as you can because you don't know what it's doing there.
--:-- Mikey Kaye: So the next thing they have to do is they have to get close enough to try and figure out what is the aircraft and what is the aircraft carrying more importantly now at the same time they'll be talking to that unidentified threat and start giving them directions to leave territorial airspace as soon as possible.
--:-- Mikey Kaye: And they'll be quite forceful with that because in some occasions, or a lot of occasions, if there were to be an escalation, a rapid escalation, you would need a very high authority of approval in order to engage another aircraft.
--:-- Mikey Kaye: And we're talking sometimes up to and including cabinet approval and maybe even the prime minister. Or the president.
--:-- Janet Jalil: So what would happen if the decision was taken at that high level to shoot down the plane?
--:-- Mikey Kaye: The decision at the very, very high level would be based on what are the consequences of that.
--:-- Mikey Kaye: It has happened in Turkey, for example, a Turkish jet shot down a Russian jet, and that had the potential to create a lot of collateral in terms of diplomacy and diplomatic consequences.
--:-- Janet Jalil: Days after a flurry of Western nations announced they would officially recognise a Palestinian state, the future of Gaza has continued to be a big talking point at the UN General Assembly.
--:-- Janet Jalil: The Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto told delegates his country was prepared to send at least 20,000 troops to the territory as peacekeepers to safeguard any future peace deal.
--:-- Janet Jalil: And there was a passionate speech by the Turkish President Erdogan, who demanded an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
--:-- Janet Jalil: On one side, there is a regular army with the most modern, most lethal weapons.
--:-- Janet Jalil: And on the other hand, there are innocent civilians, innocent children.
--:-- Janet Jalil: This is not fight against terrorism. This is an occupation, deportation, exile, genocide and mass destruction policy carried out by invoking the events of October 7th.
--:-- Janet Jalil: Meanwhile, doctors at Gaza's biggest hospitals say they are overwhelmed with casualties, having to carry out surgeries in filthy conditions with few or no anesthetics.
--:-- Janet Jalil: Israeli tanks are now just 500 metres from Al-Shifa Hospital in the centre of Gaza City as the operation against Hamas continues.
--:-- John Donison: Gaza City's last barely functioning hospital is in ruins.
--:-- John Donison: Pockmarked by craters with burnt out wards and bullet holes, Al-Shifa is beyond full stretch.
--:-- John Donison: Inside many of the beds don't even have mattresses.
--:-- John Donison: Medicines are in short supply and the casualties are endless.
--:-- John Donison: It's just a you know a mass murder a killing we spoke to Dr Nada Abu Aroub an emergency specialist from Australia volunteering at the hospital.
--:-- Dr Nada Abu Aroub: We did operations with hardly to minimal to hardly no anesthesia so the patients are in agony yes of course yes.
--:-- Dr Nada Abu Aroub: With their limb hanging with a piece of skin and the tendon, brain matter out, abdomen organs are out. It's horrific.
--:-- John Donison: Last week, the team say they had to conduct a cesarean on a nine-month pregnant woman who had had her head blown off.
--:-- John Donison: They managed to save the baby.
--:-- John Donison: Tensions are really high.
--:-- John Donison: Dr Sia Aziz, an Australian anaesthetist, said every day is a mass casualty event.
--:-- John Donison: Every couple of hours there's multiple amputation cases where massive resuscitation is life or limb, literally.
--:-- John Donison: And you go in and you're trying to anaesthetise them.
--:-- John Donison: They're swatting flies in the theatre.
--:-- John Donison: And outside, Israel's tanks are advancing.
--:-- John Donison: They're now just 500 metres from the hospital as the ground offensive against Hamas continues.
--:-- Laura Bicker: Coming up for the last two years, Al-Shabaab has attempted me five times.
--:-- Laura Bicker: In an interview with the BBC, the president of Somalia says he has survived several assassination attempts.
--:-- Laura Bicker: In the previous podcast, we reported on the super typhoon that was headed towards southern China.
--:-- Laura Bicker: Already the effects of Ragusa have left at least 17 people dead in the Philippines and Taiwan.
--:-- Laura Bicker: With wind gusts of 200 kilometers per hour and torrential rain.
--:-- Laura Bicker: Ragusa has been called the worst storm of the year and it's now approaching our correspondent Laura Bicker who's in Zhuhai on the Chinese coast.
--:-- Laura Bicker: There have been mass evacuations.
--:-- Laura Bicker: Around 400,000 people have been evacuated right across this densely populated province.
--:-- Laura Bicker: This is a province where most of the things that are made in China come from huge factories and in Shenzhen that's a major technology hub.
--:-- Laura Bicker: So that's one of the other concerns.
--:-- Laura Bicker: The rainfall is another concern.
--:-- Laura Bicker: We expecting here around a month worth of rain in just a few days and it falling in already saturated ground after previous storms in the last month.
--:-- Laura Bicker: Red alerts have been issued in mountain regions for landslips and people are being urged to stay inside if possible.
--:-- Laura Bicker: We're seeing a lot of people heeding that advice.
--:-- Laura Bicker: For those who are not, I'm watching right now the police patrolling the streets with their sirens and megaphones telling people to stay inside.
--:-- Laura Bicker: We are actually just in the lobby of a hotel, so we're not really outside.
--:-- Laura Bicker: We're just in the lobby of the hotel, but still you can feel those gusts of wind and see the huge swathes of rain that are battering this coastline.
--:-- Laura Bicker: Absolutely.
--:-- Laura Bicker: It sounds like you're really in the thick of it, despite being indoors, as you say.
--:-- Laura Bicker: Now, the region is used to storms, but does it feel like they're getting worse?
--:-- Laura Bicker: I think that's one of the concerns of China's weather experts.
--:-- Laura Bicker: They're monitoring all of this carefully, and they have said in recent years that the taipins are increasing in intensity.
--:-- Laura Bicker: This one they're describing as the king of storms.
--:-- Laura Bicker: I think what's also really evident since I've been here in the last two days is China's preparedness for these kind of events.
--:-- Laura Bicker: They really take it very seriously.
--:-- Laura Bicker: Local neighbourhood watches go around telling restaurants to close for the day, making sure that families have somewhere to go.
--:-- Laura Bicker: Every building that's above 10 floors, everyone's evacuated.
--:-- Laura Bicker: Low-lying areas are evacuated.
--:-- Laura Bicker: It's all very smooth, very organized.
--:-- Laura Bicker: So they are very used to this.
--:-- Laura Bicker: And perhaps now that certainly when you hear climate warnings from China's meteorological administration, this is something that they may have to get used to more of in the future.
--:-- Ola Guerin: Later on Wednesday in New York, Syria's interim president Ahmed al-Shara will address the United Nations General Assembly.
--:-- Ola Guerin: He'll be the first Syrian leader to do so since 1967, a milestone for him and for his battle-scarred country.
--:-- Ola Guerin: It's the latest unlikely chapter in the journey of a man who fought US troops in Iraq, set up an al-Qaeda offshoot in Syria and led a lightning rebel advance which toppled Bashar al-Assad last December.
--:-- Ola Guerin: Our senior international correspondent, Ola Guerin, reports now from Damascus on how Syrians feel about their new leader.
--:-- Ola Guerin: I'm in the old city of Damascus, just under a Roman arch, and I'm surrounded by tourists and visitors and street sellers, plenty of people selling the Syrian flag.
--:-- Ola Guerin: And just in front of me are the towering walls of the Umayyad mosque, which dates from the 8th century.
--:-- Ola Guerin: There are huge ornate doors with believers and tourists going in and out.
--:-- Ola Guerin: This is a place where you get a strong sense of Syria's past.
--:-- Ola Guerin: It's also a place to speak to people about the future and about Syria's new leader, Ahmed al-Shirah, who is now very much on the world stage in New York.
--:-- Ola Guerin: Welcome, hello, thank you.
--:-- Ola Guerin: We're from BBC Radio.
--:-- Salaam: Oh, really?
--:-- Salaam: You've got to be kidding?
--:-- Ola Guerin: Yes, Syria.
--:-- Salaam: Could we speak to you?
--:-- Ola Guerin: Yes, sure.
--:-- Ola Guerin: I've just met a young woman here in the old city. Could I ask you your name?
--:-- Salaam: My name is Salaam, and I'm 25 years old.
--:-- Ola Guerin: What are your feelings about the new interim leader here, Madal Shara? How do you feel he's doing?
--:-- Salaam: I guess he's trying. You know, like the country is not at its best now, it's it's a mess.
--:-- Ola Guerin: So it's not easy for him, I guess.
--:-- Salaam: It's a matter of time. It's a matter of time to see like exactly what he's doing and what he's actually up to.
--:-- Ola Guerin: How do you feel about the future here now?
--:-- Salaam: As you say, it's early days, but how do you feel about the future?
--:-- Salaam: We are trying to be optimistic because like we've been through hell, people, so like each little thing we we are trying to catch hope, you know.
--:-- Ola Guerin: But you're also trying to be realistic, I guess.
--:-- Salaam: Like it's not going to be heaven, it's not going to be paradise here in Syria.
--:-- Ola Guerin: But like you're trying to be optimistic as much as possible.
--:-- Ola Guerin: I've just met Naya. She's recently graduated from fashion design.
--:-- Naya: I'm 25 years old.
--:-- Ola Guerin: How do you assess the new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa? How do you think he's doing in the job?
--:-- Naya: I mean, better than the last one. That's what I'm going to say.
--:-- Ola Guerin: We used to feel so like we were held in a chokehold. We were like, you can't do anything. You have to be careful about everything.
--:-- Ola Guerin: You can't even talk normally. You have to be careful of every single word.
--:-- Naya: But now you can technically do whatever you want, which is what I've seen.
--:-- Ola Guerin: Ahmed Al-Jaraz is in New York at the moment. He's very much in the headlines.
--:-- Naya: He's all over the TV.
--:-- Ola Guerin: Did you ever think you'd see a Syrian leader?
--:-- Naya: No. We're like, oh my God, we're going to be represented somehow.
--:-- Ola Guerin: It's been so long.
--:-- Naya: My dad doesn't even remember when the last time something like that happened.
--:-- Ola Guerin: I've never, never in my life lived a year in my life where we were represented like that, you know, or like we were like acknowledged, you know.
--:-- Ola Guerin: So it's a happy moment, yeah.
--:-- Ola Guerin: Will you watch him when he speaks at the General Assembly at the UN?
--:-- Naya: Of course I will. I think everyone will.
--:-- Ola Guerin: I've just been speaking with a young woman. She's 30 years old. Her name is Kinaz.
--:-- Kinaz: I have confidence in him as a person, in his character and language, and when I look at him, I feel comfortable.
--:-- Kinaz: I really think he has a desire to bring Syria and the Syrians to safety because he's experienced poverty and displacement, just like the Syrians, and he wasn't born with a silver spoon in his mouth.
--:-- Kinaz: But I don't trust the people around him.
--:-- Kinaz: The factions that aren't under his control.
--:-- Kinaz: Whenever something happens, they blame it on individuals.
--:-- Kinaz: And I don't trust the countries around us.
--:-- Kinaz: May God help him.
--:-- Kinaz: I don't think he'll be in power long.
--:-- Ola Guerin: Somalia's President Hassan Sheikh Mohammed has revealed that he's now a target of Al-Shabaab, an Islamist group affiliated to al-Qaeda.
--:-- Ola Guerin: In an interview with the BBC, he said he had survived several assassination attempts by the group.
--:-- Ola Guerin: Somalia faces security threats from both al-Shabaab and ISIS, and despite military interventions by African Union and US forces, the security situation remains dire.
--:-- Hassan Sheikh Mohammed: Somalia has a very serious challenge of security because fighting both Al-Shabaab and ISIS in two different areas and Al-Shabaab and ISIS are the most notorious terrorists in the world today.
--:-- Hassan Sheikh Mohammed: Our challenge now is building an army and at the same time fighting on the other hand.
--:-- Hassan Sheikh Mohammed: So in the last three years we have achieved significant success and progress.
--:-- Hassan Sheikh Mohammed: Most of the towns and cities have been liberated from Al-Shabaab but they still operate in the rural area.
--:-- Hassan Sheikh Mohammed: Al-Shabaab is weak compared to their past, but still they are a very serious challenge to the security of the country.
--:-- Paul Njieh: Well, you have lost territory to Al-Shabaab in recent months and your critics say that your government does not have a clear strategy to defeat them.
--:-- Hassan Sheikh Mohammed: Traditionally, Al-Shabaab was fought with military only.
--:-- Hassan Sheikh Mohammed: When we came to the office, we have operated many other frontiers, ideological war against Al-Shabaab.
--:-- Hassan Sheikh Mohammed: The major scholars of Somalia told the people that what al-Shabaab is doing is un-Islamic.
--:-- Hassan Sheikh Mohammed: Besides the military and the ideological, the Third Front was fighting, financing al-Terror.
--:-- Hassan Sheikh Mohammed: We have closed so many accounts in the banks, in the mobile money.
--:-- Paul Njieh: But the reality still remains that al-Shabaab continues to gain territory while your strategies are in place.
--:-- Hassan Sheikh Mohammed: In a war, you lose battlefields, you gain battlefields.
--:-- Hassan Sheikh Mohammed: Compared to the 80 locations that has been taken back from al-Shabaab in two years time, there is no indication that al-Shabaab is stronger than it was two years ago.
--:-- Paul Njieh: Well, you say that al-Shabaab is no longer strong, but you were a victim of an assassination attempt and you survived that attempt in March.
--:-- Hassan Sheikh Mohammed: I wanted to tell you for the last two years, al-Shabaab has attempted me five times.
--:-- Hassan Sheikh Mohammed: Because they believe the switch that they can off the war against them is assassinating the president.
--:-- Paul Njieh: How was that for you?
--:-- Hassan Sheikh Mohammed: I completely disagree.
--:-- Hassan Sheikh Mohammed: A safe haven of a terrorist is where the terrorist is not challenging.
--:-- Paul Njieh: Did you express your disapproval to President Trump?
--:-- Hassan Sheikh Mohammed: I disapprove the term that Somalia is a terrorist safe haven.
--:-- Hassan Sheikh Mohammed: I disagree and I disapprove that.
--:-- Hassan Sheikh Mohammed: Somalia is now a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council.
--:-- Hassan Sheikh Mohammed: It's the first time since 1972.
--:-- Hassan Sheikh Mohammed: What does that mean for you and how are you leveraging on this?
--:-- Hassan Sheikh Mohammed: That's a proof that Somalia is progressing.
--:-- Hassan Sheikh Mohammed: We have lifted the arms embargo on Somalia after 32 years.
--:-- Hassan Sheikh Mohammed: We have been given the debt relief of almost $5 billion.
--:-- Hassan Sheikh Mohammed: We have accepted in many organisations, the East African community, like the United Nations Security Council.
--:-- Hassan Sheikh Mohammed: That itself is a proof that Somalia is defeating Al-Shabaab.
--:-- Mark Duff: Along with spaghetti, you're Italy's greatest invention.
--:-- Mark Duff: The actress Claudia Cardinale said this was the best compliment she ever received.
--:-- Mark Duff: It was said by the actor David Niven during the filming of the movie The Pink Panther.
--:-- Mark Duff: The Tunisian-born star of Italian cinema has died at the age of 87 near Paris.
--:-- Mark Duff: By the time film lovers caught sight of Claudia Cardinale emerging into the bleak desert landscape of Once Upon a Time in the West, there was no doubting her star quality.
--:-- Mark Duff: Her character, Jill McBain, a strong single woman, undaunted by the tough predatory men who surround her, went some way towards challenging Hollywood's brutal sexual stereotypes.
--:-- Mark Duff: For all that, though, she was undeniably beautiful, Italy's answer to her French friend, Brigitte Bardot.
--:-- Mark Duff: And early on it was her beauty which got top billing.
--:-- Mark Duff: Occasionally a role and a picture are so impressive that we behind the camera want to shout about it from the rooftops.
--:-- Mark Duff: Burt Lancaster announcing his latest film in 1963.
--:-- Mark Duff: The film is the letter. The beautiful Claudia Cardinale and Alan Delon are also starred under the masterful direction of Locchino Visconti.
--:-- Mark Duff: When the big studios came calling, she dealt with them on her own terms, as she explained in a BBC interview.
--:-- Claudia Cardinale: They asked me to sign the contract, but I always refused. I want to be dependent and free.
--:-- Claudia Cardinale: I did lots of movies, but I want to live in Europe.
--:-- Mark Duff: I just wonder whether you felt there was a danger, you know, being a beautiful woman actor, of being typecast, pigeonholed, packaged for your sexuality and nothing else.
--:-- Claudia Cardinale: Yeah, I always refuse to do scenes naked. Always.
--:-- Claudia Cardinale: They ask me, many, many.
--:-- Claudia Cardinale: I said, no, I don't want to sell my body and I want to be judged on the acting.
--:-- Mark Duff: Instead of Hollywood, she chose and was chosen to work with some of the giants of European cinema.
--:-- Mark Duff: The German, Werner Herzog, and two of the greatest of all Italian directors, Visconti, and his stylistic opposite, Federico Fellini.
--:-- Mark Duff: Oh, it was fantastic, Federico.
--:-- Mark Duff: And the funny thing is, with Visconti, it was impossible to speak and to smile. Nothing. Silence.
--:-- Mark Duff: With Federico, everybody had a telephone and speaking and laughing, because if it was silent, he couldn't create.
--:-- Mark Duff: That was Federico. He was a magician.
--:-- Mark Duff: It could all have been so different.
--:-- Mark Duff: She was born to Sicilian immigrants in Tunis, was talent spotted at a beauty contest she'd won without even entering, and shrugged off the early attention of filmmakers.
--:-- Mark Duff: When they asked me to do cinema, I refused for a long, long time.
--:-- Mark Duff: And the more I said no, the more they insist.
--:-- Mark Duff: It's like when a boy, you know, it's coming. And you say yes immediately, it goes away.
--:-- Mark Duff: Behind the throaty chuckle there was sadness too.
--:-- Mark Duff: She was raped young, kept the baby but was encouraged to keep his birth secret for years by pretending he was her young brother.
--:-- Mark Duff: All this for fear it would damage her fledgling career.
--:-- Mark Duff: Perhaps that experience lay behind her work in later life on women's rights for the UN.
--:-- Mark Duff: She empathised too with the suffering of migrants making the dangerous voyage across the Mediterranean from her place of birth in search of a better life.
--:-- Mark Duff: And her work rate, her energy was phenomenal.
--:-- Mark Duff: As she put it herself, if you give up, it's the end. You have to fight all the time.
--:-- Ankur Desai: And that's all from us for now, but there will be a new edition of the Global News Podcast later.
--:-- Ankur Desai: If you want to comment on this episode or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email.
--:-- Ankur Desai: The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk.
--:-- Ankur Desai: You can also find us on X at BBC World Service and you can use the hashtag Global News Pod.
--:-- Ankur Desai: The edition was mixed by Caroline Driscoll and the producer was Ed Horton.
--:-- Ankur Desai: The editor is Karen Martin and I'm Ankur Desai.
--:-- Ankur Desai: Until next time, goodbye.
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--:-- Travel Nevada: Plan your trip at TravelNevada.com.
--:-- Cindy Crawford: Hi, I'm Cindy Crawford, and I'm the founder of Meaningful Beauty.
--:-- Cindy Crawford: When Dr. Sabah and I decided to do a skincare line together, he said to me, we are going to give women meaningful beauty.
--:-- Cindy Crawford: And I said, that's exactly right. We want to give women meaningful beauty, which means each and every product is meaningful.
--:-- Cindy Crawford: It has a reason to exist. It's efficacious. You're going to get results.
--:-- Cindy Crawford: And then you just go out and live your life.
--:-- Cindy Crawford: Meaningful Beauty. Confidence is beautiful.
--:-- Cindy Crawford: Learn more at MeaningfulBeauty.com.
--:-- Asma Khalid: America is changing. And so is the world.
--:-- Asma Khalid: But what's happening in America isn't just a cause of global upheaval.
--:-- Asma Khalid: It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.
--:-- Asma Khalid: I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C.
--:-- Asma Khalid: I'm Tristan Redman in London.
--:-- Asma Khalid: And this is The Global Story.
--:-- Asma Khalid: Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from this intersection, where the world and America meet.
--:-- Asma Khalid: Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
