--:-- Ankur Desai: This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Ankur Desai.
--:-- Ankur Desai: At 6 Hours GMT on Wednesday, the 12th of November, these are our main stories. Donald Trump sends his most advanced aircraft carrier to the Latin America region, escalating tensions with Venezuela. California Governor Gavin Newsom tells COP30 that President Trump will reduce the US to a footnote on climate policy. And the mayor of Istanbul faces 2,000 years in prison. His party says the charges are politically motivated.
--:-- Ankur Desai: Also in this podcast, China wants young people to spend more money. Some of my friends are unemployed, still living at home and looking for a job. The economy is a bit off right now. I hope it gets better so we can all have a better life.
--:-- Ankur Desai: And we look at the Israeli bill that would impose the death penalty for terrorism.
--:-- Ione Wells: For months, Donald Trump has been massing US Navy ships in the Latin America region near Venezuela, ordering strikes on boats that he says are running drugs to the US. Now one of his most advanced warships has arrived in the region. The aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford. At least 76 people have been killed by the U.S. operations, described by some human rights observers as extrajudicial killings.
--:-- Ione Wells: On Tuesday, Colombian President Gustavo Petro said he was suspending intelligence sharing with the U.S. until the attack stopped, adding that the fight against drugs must be subordinate to the human rights of the Caribbean people.
--:-- Ione Wells: Our South America correspondent, Ione Wells, has been telling me why the arrival of this latest US ship is so significant.
--:-- Ione Wells: It's the world's largest warship and the world's largest aircraft carrier. And it is the newest, most advanced aircraft carrier that the US Navy has. It is essentially kind of like a floating airport. It's a ship which fighter jets can land on and take off from.
--:-- Ione Wells: And I think its arrival in the region is certainly being seen as the latest escalation by the US when it comes to its military build-up in the Caribbean, which many observers believe is not just about targeting alleged drug trafficking vessels, but is also about putting military pressure on Nicolás Maduro, the president of Venezuela.
--:-- Ione Wells: So, Ione, a lot of speculation about Donald Trump trying to force Mr. Maduro out of power. How did the relationship between the two presidents reach this point?
--:-- Ione Wells: Well, there has been a lot of international criticism of Nicolás Maduro over the last couple of years, not just because of the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela that has triggered large amounts of migration to the United States, millions of Venezuelans who have fled Venezuela in recent years, but also because of the fact that the last election in Venezuela last year was widely recognized internationally as neither free nor fair.
--:-- Ione Wells: And that has led to the U.S., for example, not recognizing Nicolás Maduro as the legitimate president of Venezuela. Now, another factor that has played into this is that the U.S. has for some time accused Nicolas Maduro of being the head of a drug trafficking ring in Venezuela.
--:-- Ione Wells: Maduro has repeatedly denied these allegations. And for his part, he has always accused the U.S. of imperialism and of worsening the country's economic crisis through imposing sanctions on Venezuela.
--:-- Ione Wells: So there has been this longstanding tension between the two nations. Now, why many people think that this isn't just about drugs, but also about trying to put military pressure on Nicolás Maduro is that Venezuela itself doesn't produce large amounts of cocaine.
--:-- Ione Wells: That mainly comes from Colombia, Peru, Bolivia. There is some cocaine that is trafficked through Venezuela, but certainly it isn't the biggest drug trafficking route in the region.
--:-- Ione Wells: And that is why many feel like, given the US defines Nicolás Maduro himself as the head of a drug trafficking organisation, this might be part of a wider plan to essentially try to put military pressure on him and his inner circle.
--:-- Magma Gras: Well, Venezuela's southern neighbour Brazil is hosting the COP30 climate talks this week. And the US, one of the world's largest producers of carbon emissions, has not sent a delegation.
--:-- Magma Gras: The White House said in a statement that President Trump would not jeopardize U.S. economic and national security goals to pursue what it called vague climate goals that are killing other countries.
--:-- Magma Gras: But dozens of state and local officials from across the U.S. have traveled to the meetings in Belém to present their own message on climate, including California Governor Gavin Newsom.
--:-- Magma Gras: He's a leading figure in the Democrat Party and a possible presidential candidate for 2028. Our environment correspondent, Magma Gras, is there.
--:-- Magma Gras: To warm applause in a hot and humid pavilion, California's Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom came to the COP to reassure participants that the US was still committed on climate at state level.
--:-- Magma Gras: However, it didn't take him long to renew his war of words with US President Donald Trump, who has described climate change as a con.
--:-- Gavin Newsom: Governor Newsom told supporters at the COP that Mr Trump was a bully and an invasive species who would reduce the U.S. to what he termed a footnote on climate change policy.
--:-- Gavin Newsom: And reacting to newspaper reports that said the president was going to allow drilling for oil in the waters of California, Mr. Newsom said it was never going to happen.
--:-- Gavin Newsom: As it relates to offshore oil drilling, it's overwhelmingly opposed by members of all political parties in the state of California. It's dead on arrival.
--:-- Gavin Newsom: And I also think it remarkable that he didn't promote it in his backyard in Mar-a-Lago. He didn't promote it off the coast of Florida. That says everything.
--:-- Michelle Lujan Grisham: We doing the work We making a difference We going to stay focused We going to do more We going to work to add states and oh by golly looks like we might add Virginia.
--:-- Michelle Lujan Grisham: And we'll stay the course with New Jersey. So that's our commitment. We're here.
--:-- Mohamed Adau: While the American politicians were welcomed, some delegates were a little bit wary, having seen the United States enter and leave various climate agreements over the past two decades.
--:-- Mohamed Adau: Long-time Climate Talks participant Mohamed Adau from Kenya said that while he understood that many people in the U.S. were still committed on climate, the rest of the world wasn't going to sit around and wait for them to come back.
--:-- Mohamed Adau: The rest of us are not going to wait for the U.S. At the end of the day, it requires the rest of the world to get on with the job at hand to tackle climate change.
--:-- Mohamed Adau: Ultimately, this isn't going to just hurt the most vulnerable nations. It's also going to force the US to miss out on the energy of the future.
--:-- Mohamed Adau: And so this is an act of self-supportage, and we can't let one man wreck the planet that we share.
--:-- Orla Guerin: Prosecutors in Turkey have announced 140 new charges against the opposition mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Ememoglu, who is the main rival to the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
--:-- Orla Guerin: Mr Ememoglu, who strongly denies allegations of corruption, has been in jail since March, when his arrest sparked the largest protest in Turkey in over a decade.
--:-- Orla Guerin: His party says the fraud charges are politically motivated. From Istanbul, our senior international correspondent, Orla Guerin, reports.
--:-- Orla Guerin: Istanbul's jailed mayor now faces yet another legal case, and this one is on an epic scale. The indictment runs to 4,000 pages and names 400 suspects.
--:-- Orla Guerin: It alleges that Ekrem İmamolu is the boss of a crime group involved in embezzlement, extortion and money laundering.
--:-- Orla Guerin: Prosecutors have demanded a sentence of more than 2,000 years if the mayor is convicted. They have also asked the courts to close his Republican People's Party, which is Turkey's main political opposition.
--:-- Orla Guerin: Mr Imamoglu has already been accused of everything from espionage to forging his university degree. His party says his only crime is running for the presidency of the country.
--:-- Stephen McDonald: China's once-surging economy is struggling with exports falling, ongoing trade tensions with the US and record high youth unemployment.
--:-- Stephen McDonald: The government is under growing pressure to turn things around. One idea is to encourage younger consumers to increase their spending in order to give the economy a shot in the arm.
--:-- Stephen McDonald: But as China correspondent Stephen McDonald reports from Beijing, rather than buying more, many young people seem to be embracing frugality with great enthusiasm.
--:-- Stephen McDonald: It's lunchtime in Beijing and workers at this shopping and office district just east of the foreign ministry have poured into the street and are in search of some food along Chowainanjin.
--:-- Stephen McDonald: It's an area with lots of small service sector businesses, as well as retail, wholesale clothing and some big chain outlets.
--:-- Stephen McDonald: I'm here to try and get an idea of the attitudes of younger people when it comes to their purchasing patterns in the China of 2025.
--:-- Stephen McDonald: Ask one young woman if it's more important for her to save or spend money at the moment.
--:-- Young Woman: Right now, making money is more important to me. I actually need to expand my income sources and cut my costs.
--:-- Stephen McDonald: She works in insurance and says she's now earning less than she used to.
--:-- Stephen McDonald: I changed jobs and it doesn't pay well. Also, I don't know for how long this new job can sustain me in the future.
--:-- Stephen McDonald: A bad economic environment like this makes people feel down because we are not earning very much.
--:-- Young Man: This woman's comments encapsulate three of the big reasons why the Chinese government is finding it hard to get younger people to consume more.
--:-- Young Man: They're worried about job security. Their wages are stagnant or going down. They don't feel good about their future prospects.
--:-- Young Man: A young man who works in the food and beverage industry says there are low-level jobs available, but that it's hard to find decent work related to your specialty area.
--:-- Young Man: Some of my friends are unemployed, still living at home and looking for a job. They had all kinds of majors at university, from financial services to product sales.
--:-- Young Man: The economy is a bit off right now. I hope it gets better so we can all have a better life.
--:-- Helena Löfgren: The United States has a problem with consumers binge buying on their credit cards using money they don't have. In China, it's the opposite challenge.
--:-- Helena Löfgren: People are already inclined to save rather than spend. And this only increases when there are perceptions of tough times ahead.
--:-- Helena Löfgren: Helena Löfgren has been studying China's consumption patterns for the Swedish Institute of International Affairs and believes this economy is relying too heavily on selling products overseas in a time of geopolitical uncertainty.
--:-- Helena Löfgren: People save more than they consume, and you need the consumption to make up a bigger share of the economy than it's doing today in China.
--:-- Helena Löfgren: So you have a very export-oriented and investment-driven economy. And what we see now is that these parts are too big for the economy to stay healthy.
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--:-- Ankur Desai: President Trump has reiterated his intention to sue the BBC over a documentary about the events leading up to the storming of the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. in 2021, saying he had an obligation to do so.
--:-- Ankur Desai: At the weekend, the BBC's Director General and Head of News resigned after it was revealed that a BBC documentary had edited two parts of a speech by the US president, making it appear that he had explicitly encouraged the January 6th riots.
--:-- Ankur Desai: The BBC chairman Sameer Shah has also apologised. But Mr Trump's lawyers are threatening to launch a $1 billion lawsuit against the corporation unless it makes a full and fair retraction of the documentary by this Friday and appropriately compensates him for the harm caused.
--:-- Ankur Desai: In an interview with Fox News, Mr Trump was asked if he planned to carry out that threat and this was his reply.
--:-- Donald Trump: I guess I have to, you know, why not? Because they defrauded the public and they've admitted it.
--:-- Donald Trump: And they're top echelon. Director General and the CEO. This is within one of our great allies. You know, this is our supposedly a great ally. BBC have the government has a chunk of that one, I guess.
--:-- Donald Trump: But that's a pretty sad event. They actually changed my January 6th speech, which was a beautiful speech, which was a very calming speech.
--:-- Donald Trump: And they made it sound radical. I asked our North America correspondent David Willis what he made of the president's latest interview.
--:-- David Willis: Well, I think it suggests that he believes he has to sue Anka in order to protect his reputation and that he is determined to treat the BBC no differently than the American media, despite the fact that it is a foreign broadcaster.
--:-- David Willis: He says he believes that he has an obligation, in his words, to sue because the Panorama program had butchered, I use his words again there, his speech, leaving the BBC, in his view, guilty of dishonesty.
--:-- David Willis: And in their letter to the BBC on Sunday, Mr Trump's legal team claimed that the Panorama programme had caused the president overwhelming financial and reputational harm and asserted that his client's intention to sue the corporation for no less than a billion dollars was real if he didn't receive a retraction, an apology and compensation by this Friday.
--:-- David Willis: Now, the BBC has said that it will reply to this in due course, but this interview is a further reminder of the fact that the clock is ticking in that regard.
--:-- David Willis: So how possible is it for him to launch a lawsuit against the BBC from the United States?
--:-- David Willis: Well, the letter from Mr. Trump's lawyer made mention of his intention to sue the BBC in Florida, in the courts there.
--:-- David Willis: And because the Panorama programme was broadcast on the 28th of October last year, Mr. Trump and his team have missed the one-year deadline for suing in the British courts.
--:-- David Willis: But in Florida, the statute of limitation is two years, although one key thing that his lawyers would have to prove if the case came to court was that the documentary had been available to watch here in the United States.
--:-- David Willis: And they would also have to show that the president suffered significant financial harm as a result of the Panorama broadcast.
--:-- David Willis: And, of course, in order to get the sort of payout that Mr. Trump's legal team is seeking, they would have to prove that he suffered a billion dollars in losses.
--:-- David Willis: That said, there have been some very large defamation awards here, the highest to date being the $1.4 billion that the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones was ordered to pay to the families of the victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting, which he, Mr. Jones, had claimed was a hoax.
--:-- David Willis: And Mr. Trump, of course, has a reputation for making legal claims for eye-watering amounts of money, including the $10 and $20 billion he sought from CBS News over the editing of an interview with Kamala Harris, only to settle out of court for significantly less.
--:-- David Willis: In that particular case, Anka, CBS, settled with him for $16 million.
--:-- Dr. Amir Fuchs: The Israeli parliament has passed the first reading of a bill that would impose the death penalty on people convicted of terrorism against the state.
--:-- Dr. Amir Fuchs: The national security minister Itamar Ben-Gavir, whose far-right Jewish power party proposed the bill, has said it's aimed at deterring Arab terrorism and that terrorists will be released only to hell.
--:-- Dr. Amir Fuchs: That last remark appears to be a reference to the recent deals with Hamas, which saw Israel release Palestinian prisoners in exchange for hostages.
--:-- Dr. Amir Fuchs: Dr. Amir Fuchs is a lawyer and senior researcher at the Israel Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem think tank.
--:-- Dr. Amir Fuchs: He told my colleague James Kumrasami about the bill.
--:-- Dr. Amir Fuchs: It very vague but at least on the surface this is a discriminatory bill that supposed to catch non terrorists who attacked Jews with terrorist intentions.
--:-- Dr. Amir Fuchs: And what is the intention behind the bill do you think?
--:-- Dr. Amir Fuchs: The intention is, first of all, to start executions in Israel, which we didn't have for more than 60 years.
--:-- Dr. Amir Fuchs: The only time the criminal system sent anyone to death in Israel is Adolf Eichmann in 1962. So Israel has no tradition of executions of terrorists, although we had many terrorists in our history.
--:-- Dr. Amir Fuchs: So the idea here is to start it. And the people who suggest this bill, they know that there's a big majority in the people that support it. So it's also a populist suggestion.
--:-- Dr. Amir Fuchs: And the aim is deterrence, though, isn't it, I guess?
--:-- Dr. Amir Fuchs: Of course, what they say that it will deter the terrorists. But when I read research from the United States, which is the only Western democracy that has the capital punishment for murders, we see that it's very hard to show that there's any deterrence at all for the capital punishment.
--:-- Dr. Amir Fuchs: And of course, at least from my point of view, that when someone is committing a terrorist attack, it's taking such a big chance for his life anyway.
--:-- Dr. Amir Fuchs: So the chances that the capital punishment will be something that deters him are very, very low.
--:-- Dr. Amir Fuchs: And also the position of the officials, of the heads of security services for years in Israel was that it will not deter, and even it would probably be counter-effective with fighting terrorism.
--:-- Dr. Amir Fuchs: It's still got a couple more parliamentary votes before it becomes law.
--:-- Dr. Amir Fuchs: What is your sense of whether it will eventually find its way on the statute books?
--:-- Dr. Amir Fuchs: There is a big chance that it will be ratified because there is a big public support for it.
--:-- Dr. Amir Fuchs: And we even saw in the first reading that most of the opposition were reluctant to come and to vote against, and some of them even voted for.
--:-- Dr. Amir Fuchs: So there is a big chance still there will be deliberations and the legal officers will try to persuade them that this is unconstitutional.
--:-- Dr. Amir Fuchs: And if it will be ratified, it is probable that the Supreme Court will say that it is unconstitutional.
--:-- Dr. Amir Fuchs: It still has a lot of obstacles until we will see someone who is convicted and sentenced to death.
--:-- Leo Enright: You might remember the story of two NASA astronauts who became stranded on the International Space Station after the capsule that was supposed to take them back to Earth experienced a series of technical problems.
--:-- Leo Enright: They came home in March after nine months on the ISS. Now three Chinese astronauts are stuck in space after their craft was hit by debris.
--:-- Leo Enright: They had been due to return to Earth last week after a six-month mission on the Tiangong Space Station.
--:-- Leo Enright: The space journalist Leo Enright told us more about this delay.
--:-- Leo Enright: There's three tachyonauts, as they call them, who are stuck aboard the space station with three other cosmonauts, so many different names for them, who will be living and working on the station as a replacement crew for the next six months or so.
--:-- Leo Enright: The station isn't built for six people, so it's all a bit cramped. But hopefully, they'll be able to return home soon.
--:-- Leo Enright: This is not the first time that this has happened, where a crew have been stuck in orbit because their spacecraft was hit by debris.
--:-- Leo Enright: It happened to the Russians several years ago, and they had to send up a replacement spaceship to bring that crew home.
--:-- Leo Enright: I think, I mean, reading the tea leaves, that on this occasion, Chinese officials are reasonably satisfied they can get the crew back using the vehicle that was damaged.
--:-- Leo Enright: But I'm watching Chinese state television as I'm speaking to you in case they break in to programming with a launch out of Inner Mongolia, because they do have a replacement spaceship in Mongolia standing by ready to launch if needed.
--:-- Kevin Laidlaw: Tuesday was Remembrance Day here in Britain. That's Veterans Day in the US and Armistice Day in France and Belgium.
--:-- Kevin Laidlaw: It's the anniversary of the end of the First World War, a day to look back at the sacrifices of past generations and consider the horrific cost of armed conflict.
--:-- Kevin Laidlaw: For Kevin Laidlaw of Scotland, it's also a day to think about family.
--:-- Kevin Laidlaw: His great-grandfather, Daniel Laidlaw, was a bagpiper in the First World War and won the Victoria Cross for rallying the troops at the Battle of Luce.
--:-- Kevin Laidlaw: He was one of only three pipers to win Britain's highest military honour.
--:-- Kevin Laidlaw: Now Kevin is campaigning to have a statue of him built in his hometown.
--:-- Kevin Laidlaw: He told us about Daniel's act of bravery.
--:-- Kevin Laidlaw: This was on 25th of September 1915 at the Battle of Luz in France.
--:-- Kevin Laidlaw: And it was the first time the British were going to use poison gas. The Germans had actually used it in Ypres in April 1915.
--:-- Kevin Laidlaw: The gas was just released from cylinders, So it was basically relying on the weather, the wind, to carry the gas out over the trenches.
--:-- Kevin Laidlaw: They released the gas about 6.30 in the morning, but it was actually falling into the Allied trenches and gassing our own men.
--:-- Kevin Laidlaw: And of course, nobody wanted to go over the parapet.
--:-- Kevin Laidlaw: So my great-grandfather, Piper Laidlaw, struck up his pipes, played over the parapet.
--:-- Kevin Laidlaw: And it was only when he started to play Blue Bonnets Over the Border, which is the regimental march of the Kingsville Scourge borderers, that the men actually started to follow.
--:-- Kevin Laidlaw: You have to remember, this is playing a musical instrument. That's what he was armed with.
--:-- Kevin Laidlaw: And trench warfare was just horrific. And the Germans would be raking machine gun, you know, inches off the ground.
--:-- Kevin Laidlaw: So to get up in that sort of environment, which must have been hell, to play a musical instrument to rally the men is unthinkable.
--:-- Kevin Laidlaw: I have vivid memories seeing the medals. They were actually displayed in my grandparents' house.
--:-- Kevin Laidlaw: My overall memory was there was this big picture of him at the top of the stairs and I always stopped to look at this funny man with this big handlebar moustache on it.
--:-- Kevin Laidlaw: And now that picture hangs on my wall.
--:-- 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. The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk.
--:-- Ankur Desai: And you can also find us on X at BBC World Service. Use the hashtag Global News Pod.
--:-- Ankur Desai: This edition was produced by Peter Goffin and Stephen Jensen.
--:-- Ankur Desai: And it was mixed by Martin Williams.
--:-- Ankur Desai: And the editor is Karen Martin.
--:-- Ankur Desai: I'm Ankur Desai. Until next time, goodbye.
--:-- Asma Khalid: America is changing. And so is the world. But what's happening in America isn't just a cause of global upheaval. 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. 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.
--:-- Asma Khalid: Thank you.
