Global News Podcast: At least 40 migrants feared dead after boat sinks near Italy

Hello, this is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service with reports and analysis

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This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service.

I'm Andrew Peach at 13 GMT on Wednesday, the 9th of August. These are our main stories.

Eyewitnesses say more than 40 migrants have been killed in a shipwreck off the coast of Italy.

Nine bodies are found in a burned out holiday home for adults with learning disabilities

in eastern France. Poland increases troop numbers on its border with Belarus as it says

more migrants are trying to cross. Also in this podcast. Because of the three years of the pandemic,

our incomes are not as stable. We don't have customers like we did before. People are buying less.

Consumer prices fall in China, tipping the world's second largest economy into deflation.

First eyewitnesses say 41 migrants have drowned off the southern Italian island of

Lampedusa after their boat capsized. Survivors say the vessel had set off from Tunisia.

Our correspondent in Rome, Sophia Battizzi reports. We do know that 41 migrants died

and they were killed in a shipwreck off the coast of Italy's island of Lampedusa,

which is in the south of the country in Sicily. Now this is all being reported by Italian media

and by the news agency ANSA and they have spoken to four of the only four people who

survived the shipwreck. Three men and one woman from the Ivory Coast and from Guinea. So what they

said is that they were on a boat that had set off from Tunisia on Thursday. They were trying to reach

Italy. They described it as a very small metal boat about seven meters long.

They said that 45 people were on board and that includes three children. Now they said that only

they were at sea for about six hours, which is not very long. They were sailing in the Sicilian

channel and that's when the boat capsized and sank. Apparently the boat capsized because of a very big

wave that threw everybody who was on board into the water. Now the survivors said that out of the

45 people who were on that boat only 15 of them were wearing life vests. They were left in the

water at sea for several hours before they were rescued by a cargo ship and brought to the island

of Lampedusa today. Sophia Battizzi in Rome. Nine people are known to have died following a fire at

a holiday home, hosting people with learning disabilities in eastern France. The authorities

say two people are still missing but are also presumed to have died. This from our Europe

regional editor Paul Moss. This was in the town of Vincentheim, which as you said is in eastern

France, very close to the border with Germany. What we know is that a fire began there at about

6.30 when predictably most of the people and maybe all of the people there were asleep. It began on

the ground floor. We understand people there were evacuated, 17 of them although one needed

very serious hospital treatment, but the people were trapped on the first floor and it seems that

the bodies of nine have already been found two still missing. We understand that 10 of the people

who appear to have died were people who as you suggested had learning difficulties. They were

there on a holiday and one of them missing was a supervisor who looked after them. The

interior minister of France, Gerard Damana, has paid tribute to the rapid and courageous intervention

by firefighters but it seems that wasn't enough. And do the authorities have any understanding

yet as to why this fire was so devastating and seem to spread through the building so rapidly?

I think it's clear when you look at pictures from the scene. This was a building, a holiday home made

in the traditional Alsace region style, which means they're very pretty but they're made of wood

and when you look at it you can see this charred timbers and this gutted roof, exactly the sort

of place where a fire would spread very quickly. We've had word from Philippe Aouillier who's the

commander in charge of the operation. He said they're having trouble still searching the building for

those two bodies because there's a huge amount of rubble and as he said many collapsed sections,

so I think it may be a while before anything could be established for sure about what happened

and before those two remaining bodies are found. Paul Moss reporting, having been reinstated as an

MP after a two-year sentence for defamation was suspended, the Indian opposition leader Rahul

Gandhi has gone on the offensive. He's accusing the Prime Minister Narendra Modi of murdering

Mother India through how he's responded to armed clashes in Manipur. It's a little of the reaction

there, chance in the parliament of Modi-Modi to what Mr. Gandhi had to say. A correspondent in

Delhi, Raivendra Rao, is following the story. It was a no-holds-bought attack from Rahul Gandhi

on Prime Minister Narendra Modi as he took part in this debate on the no-confidence motion which

the opposition parties have brought against Mr. Modi's government. Now Manipur is one issue on

which the opposition parties, they have been criticizing Prime Minister Modi for having

maintained a complete silence but for the occasion when he spoke briefly after a video went viral

showing atrocities against a couple of women. Now as he took sentences today in the parliament,

Rahul Gandhi accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of murdering Mother India in the violent state

of Manipur. He said pointing towards the BJP legislators, he said that they killed India in

Manipur, their politics killed India in Manipur and he basically doubled down on that saying that

Prime Minister Modi did not go to Manipur because for him Manipur is not a part of India. So all of

these statements which Rahul Gandhi gave, they drew sharp responses from the treasury benches.

There was a lot of uproar in the house. People from the treasury benches were trying to

rebut and contradict what Mr. Gandhi was saying. So a lot of acrimony in the house

till the time Mr. Gandhi was speaking then. Lots of sound and fury but in the end, does the Prime

Minister Narendra Modi have control, have authority in the house? He still does. Well,

absolutely because BJP, remember, has a very commanding majority in the house in a legislature

of 545 members. The halfway mark is 272 and the BJP on its own has more than 300 legislators there

and if you add their allies to them, the number goes up to around 330. So the fate of this no

confidence motion is already a foregone conclusion. The BJP is going to sail through this rather

smoothly but for the opposition parties, this no confidence motion is very, very significant

and important because through this no confidence vote, they think that they will finally be

able to force Mr. Modi to talk about Manipur, something which he has, you know, shied from doing so far.

Ravendra Rao with me from Delhi. The end of the three-year COVID crisis in China was expected

to see its huge economy bouncing back strongly as restrictions were lifted on people's movements

and on business activity. The response from Asia's economic giant that has been sluggish at best

figures today show consumer prices fell by 0.3% in July compared with the previous year,

the first deflation since early 2021 and there are fears that poor consumer and business confidence

could send China into a long period of falling prices and stagnant growth. This from Stephen

McDonnell in Beijing. The next station is for now. The bustling scene on Beijing's vast underground

train network is exactly what you'd expect for a modern city of more than 20 million people.

At times during the COVID crisis, it was strangely quiet though with many working from home or

choosing to stay indoors, but these days it's as if COVID never happened. At face value,

this would seem to show an economy rebounding strongly. Well, analysts are telling us that's

not actually the case. The crowded walkways leading from stations to shopping centres

belie the fact that consumer spending, especially on big ticket items, has been quite weak here.

People are nervous about job security or about the value of their homes, so they're saving more.

Because of the three years of the pandemic, most people don't have as much money to spare to even

buy certain foods, drinks and clothes. They're just more cautious than before. Our incomes are not

as stable. A woman running a shop selling pretty cheap pastries says she too is feeling the pressure.

We don't have customers like we did before. People are buying less. We all know what the

economy is like now. Everyone is spending money on what's important.

Less spending and less confidence is pushing down prices on many products. In one way,

that may sound good, but there are fears the country could be heading into a period of deflation

with stalled business investment. Harry Murphy Cruz is an economist at Moody's Analytics,

specialising in China. If you're a household, you're thinking you're buying a couch, well,

if you think prices are going to keep falling, then you've got no incentive to buy it this

month but rather hold off to next month. But because you've held off, that's pinching retailers,

they start to cut their prices already and you're sort of entrench this cycle that's incredibly

difficult to break. On the outskirts of every major Chinese city, there are forests of tower

blocks with flats that nobody wants. Real estate oversupply has driven down the value of family

homes, hitting the biggest investment of ordinary people. The government doesn't want to make the

situation worse, so it's been loathed to pump more money into propping up developers, but it needs

a solution. Again, Harry Murphy Cruz. There's certainly more stimulus that's going to be needed

to actually kickstart the economy and realistically one of the key challenges for Chinese households

is that property sector. So while that's still struggling, household spending is going to really

crawl. Home renovation support, tourism stimulus and means to encourage more electric car sales

are all on the table. Ultimately though, it might just be a matter of waiting. If the global economy

picks up next year, this will drive international demand for the stuff China makes. A shot in the

arm for production here would then feed back into global growth. So maybe China's policymakers

will just try to ride out the next six months in the hope of better times ahead.

Steve McDonald in Beijing. The latest in a series of typhoons that have been battering parts of Asia

is slowly edging past Japan. The storm has winds of up to 144 kilometres an hour and is expected

to bring record rainfall, mudslides and floods to Japan and then South Korea, which is expected to

hit on Thursday. Asia Pacific regional editor is Jason Lee. It's killed at least two people last week

in the southern Okinawa Islands in the Pacific Ocean. Right now, thousands of homes are reported

to be without power as heavy rain pounded the southern Kyushu Island. Because of the storm's

relatively slow pace, rain clouds have lingered, resulting in these substantial downpours.

Hundreds of flights have also been cancelled and Japan's Shinkansen bullet trains, which are famous

for their fast speed, have been halted in the southern areas. Now, the storm comes as the city

of Nagasaki, which is located near the storm's path, marks the 78th anniversary of the atomic

bombing of the city, which has now been scaled down and moved inside. The Japanese prime minister,

Fumio Kishida, also cancelled his attendance at the event because of this storm.

Let's talk about South Korea. There have been all sorts of extreme weather events there. There's

been extreme heat and this typhoon is expected to do quite a lot of damage when it arrives in

South Korea. Yes, so it's expected to make landfall in South Korea on Thursday morning local time,

but rains and winds are already growing in southern areas as the storm draws closer to the Korean

Peninsula. Authorities have issued highest alert and flights have been grounded on the southern

Kyushu Island and ships at the country's two biggest ports in Busan and Incheon are being

evacuated. Now, it's worth mentioning that South Korea experiences typhoons regularly during

its summer season. Last month, at least 47 people died due to torrential rains and floods,

and out of those 47, we know that 14 of them died when an underpass was flooded in the city of

Cheongju. An inquiry lunch after the incident found officials had ignored multiple flood warnings,

so in order to prevent such tragic incident from occurring again, officials are putting extra focus

ahead of this typhoon, only expecting vulnerable facilities such as drainage facilities and

underground tunnels. Jason Lee reporting. Now to Texas and a story that's getting a lot of

traffic online today. It's about a woman called Peggy who is just doing some gardening when she

was attacked by a hawk and a snake at the same time. Here's Terry Egan. It could be a story

out of the Bible or an Aesop's fable perhaps. Peggy Jones was happily mowing her lawn in a

town in Texas near the Louisiana border when something fell out of the sky. A snake, no less.

As if that weren't bad enough, a hawk that was circling overhead clearly regarded that snake

as its prey and wanted it back. Out of the sky, out of the clear blue, a snake fell onto my arm,

and he wrapped around my arm and just held on tighter. He kept striking in my face. He was striking

my glasses. Just started praying out, Jesus help me, please, Jesus help me. Eventually though,

the hawk succeeded in dislodging the snake from Peggy's arm and her startled husband drove her

to hospital. Peggy regards herself as lucky to have survived. There were puncture wounds, cuts,

abrasions, scratches and severe bruising, she said, describing the attack as traumatic and adding

that she thought she was going to die. And just in case you think this is a rare flu occurrence,

Peggy went on to say that living in rural Texas and having already survived a venomous snakebite,

she's no stranger to wildlife encounters, but not usually quite like this one.

Terry Egan reporting. Still to come in this podcast, the Russian authorities introduce a new

school textbook, which includes justifications for the war in Ukraine. And

the image on God saved the queen by the sex pistols with the queen's eyes and mouth,

hidden by the cut out words of the song's title is probably the defining image of punk in the 70s.

The man who designed that has died.

Do you ever feel a bit overwhelmed when you check the news on your phone first thing in the morning?

I'm Hannah. I'm the presenter of a new podcast called What in the World? from the BBC World

Service. We're going to be here trying to help you make sense of the world around you so you

can feel a little bit better about what's happening in the world. You can find What in the World

wherever you get your BBC podcasts. The US state of Ohio has rejected a Republican motion to make

it harder to change the state's constitution, a move seen as a defeat for anti-abortion groups.

Since the US Supreme Court overturned federal abortion protections with Roe v Wade last year,

states have raced to either protect or restrict abortion. Ohio will vote on abortion in November.

Had this referendum passed, it would have made it harder for abortion rights to be protected.

The Democratic Mayor of Columbus Andrew Ginther gave his reaction.

People came out and sent a very strong message to an extremist supermajority in the legislature

that they believe in fairness, they believe in freedom, and they believe in the power

to hold them accountable. CBS correspondent Jared Hill told me more about the vote.

This on-the-bout itself was purely about the threshold to change the state's constitution,

going from instead of 50% plus one vote to 60% vote. And we saw here, as you mentioned,

that that got struck down, keeping with that 50% plus one. Now, while the abortion issue was not

on the ballot, we do know that Republican lawmakers who supported this change linked

these two together as they were advocating and pushing for the adjustment there. So

this definitely was, in the end, by and large about the issue of abortion, at least largely

within the state. There were some people who that were speaking a bit more broadly about wanting to

maintain the ability to vote the way that they have been voting for decades here. But really,

this was about abortion. President Biden is pleased he's hailing this as a victory for

those who want to protect abortion rights. What will the Republican

legislator do in response to this, though? Yeah, so President Biden is really attaching himself

to this one because, again, you do have this 2024 vote coming up for presidency and some

recent CBS News polling has shown that Democrats, by and large, are more motivated to go to the polls

around the issue of abortion than our Republicans. Now, when it comes to state Republicans in Ohio

and what they do next, they're essentially accepting, right, that this is now the law of

the land, that this is the vote. They potentially could bring this up again, maybe not as early as

next year. But at this point, they're saying that their focus really is going to be on trying to

defeat the ballot initiative in November that would enshrine the right, the protections to

abortion in the state constitution. So essentially, at this point, they've moved on from this.

They'll take note of any shortcomings there might have been and really focus on making

sure that abortion is not a part of the state constitution in Ohio in that November vote.

And are we going to see processes like this playing out in other states?

Possibly. So we have seen some attempts to get measures like this up for a vote in some other

states, though, so far have failed. But we do, again, know that ever since the Supreme Court

overturned the federal right to an abortion, said there was not a federal right to an abortion

in the constitution. This has really been something that has popped up in a lot of states.

And we've seen a lot of states where this has come up since then, rejecting this notion that

there should be a ban on abortion, at least when this is given up to the people and not

just left up to lawmakers in those states. So again, this is an interesting test as we're

continuing to see around how Americans on an individual level, once they go into the voting

booth, are weighing the right to an abortion or, in some cases, the right to privacy, as many of

them might see it. CBS correspondent Jared Hill. From Ohio to California, and a judge in Los

Angeles has given a 10-year prison sentence to Tory Lanes, the man convicted of shooting the

Grammy-winning rapper Megan Thee Stallion in the foot during an argument in 2020. It's a case with

serious celebrity interest. Lanes is a hip-hop artist. They both made music addressing the issues.

The shooting took place after the pair left a party at the home of reality star Kylie Jenner.

The district attorney, George Gascon, said it also highlights the trauma experienced by survivors

like Megan Thee Stallion, whose real name is Megan Pete. The fact that Ms. Pete is a successful

entertainer has brought spotlight on the important issue of violence against women.

There are many people in our community that endure acts of violence every day from people

close to them and feel reluctant to come forward when this happens. I hope that Ms. Pete's bravery

gets hope to those that feel helpless. A correspondent in Los Angeles, Peter Bose, told me more about

the case. Tory Lanes was found guilty in December of last year on three counts after the shooting of

Megan Thee Stallion. This followed a pool party at Kylie Jenner's home in the Hollywood Hills in

2020. The two of them had apparently had an argument. This is Tory Lanes and Megan about his

musical ability. She claims that he then told her to dance and that's when she ended up being shot

in the foot. Now he maintained his innocence throughout. His lawyer said there'd been a botched

investigation but what we've just had, unusually long two-day sentencing hearing, long because

many people came forward, many letters were sent to the judge. Character witnesses speaking up for

Tory Lanes in terms of his plea not to be sent to prison for this crime. He also spoke. He said

of Megan. He said she is someone I still care for dearly to this day regardless of what she may

think of him. He said that he was the victim's friend and he talked about bonding with her

over the loss of their mothers. We didn't hear directly from Megan in that she wasn't in the

courtroom. She said she struggled with whether to appear in person but didn't for the sake of her

mental well-being but in her statement she said since the shooting she hadn't experienced a single

day of peace and that he had shown no remorse. Peter Bowes in Los Angeles. Now can you remember

the history you learned at school? School textbooks can be crucial to shaping a whole generation's

perception of historical events. In Russia authorities have unveiled a new school textbook

including justifications for the war in Ukraine and accusing the West of trying to break Russia.

BBC monitoring's Russia editor is Vitaly Shevchenko. The book presents Russia's history

as a centuries old struggle between Russia and aggressive West and essentially it's an example

of how history is being weaponized in Russia because past events real or imaginary are being

used to justify the current government's policies such as the war on Ukraine. To give you one quote

that I think kind of encapsulates the thrust of what the textbook says about Russia's most recent

history it argues that if President Putin had not started his so-called special military operation

against Ukraine this would have possibly been the end of civilization on planet earth and this

textbook is full of very obvious manipulations and well untruths. To give you an example it says that

until 2014 when Russia first attacked Ukraine 80% of residents of Ukraine said the Russian language

was their mother tongue that's untrue numerous opinion polls surveys and a census in 2001

said that about a third of residents of Ukraine say that Russian is their mother tongue.

Isn't uncommon for history to be told sort of through the prism through the lens of the

nation where children are learning it sounds like this goes further than that though.

It does this is how I was taught history as well back in the Soviet Union but this textbook

it feels kind of more relevant and more necessary for the government right now which is keen to use

this textbook to justify its war in Ukraine this is the first such textbook to mention this war.

Poland is increasing troop numbers on its border with Belarus as it says it's seeing an increase

in migrants trying to cross in recent days. The Polish government has accused Belarus of

facilitating the passage of the migrants from Warsaw our Eastern Europe correspondent Sarah

Rainsford has more. Poland has been talking about securing its Eastern border a lot in

recent weeks first increasing the number of border guards and now sending an additional

2000 soldiers in support that's as well as the giant metal fence that already separates Poland

from Belarus and is covered with cameras and motion detectors. It appeared after 2021 when tens of

thousands of migrants were encouraged to Belarus and then helped across the EU's Eastern border

creating a political and humanitarian crisis here. The Polish government faces re-election

in a couple of months and it's been talking tough on both migration and security it also says it's

worried that Russian mercenaries from the Wagner group now in Belarus might somehow start to help

the migrants to cross that seems unlikely they weren't needed two years ago but both Poland

and Lithuania are keeping a close and wary eye on Wagner's movements across the border.

Now taking health advice can be a struggle there is good news today from two new reports

one says something as simple as eating nuts can reduce depression in adults the other says we

don't need to walk quite as far as we used to think necessary to improve our physical health

here's Wendy Erkut. For years thousands of us have been pounding the pavements trying to reach

that magic goal of 10 000 steps a day to stay fit and healthy but new research has found that

walking just half of that could also save lives researchers followed 227 000 people for seven years

to complete their study what they found was that walking at least 2300 steps a day was really good

for the heart and blood vessels and the more people walked the more they reduced the risk of dying

from cardiovascular disease and every 1000 steps above the 4000 steps mark brings down the risk of

dying early by 15 percent. Now the man who crafted the image which came to define punk music the artist

Jamie Reid has died at the age of 76 let's look back at his life with our arts correspondent David

Silatow. The image on God saved the queen by the sex pistols with the queen's eyes and mouth hidden

by the cutout words of the song's title is probably the defining image of punk in the 70s.

Jamie Reid had met the band's manager Malcolm McLaren at art school in Croydon.

His lettering and the style of a cut and paste ransom demand was key to the pistol's look but

this was just a small part of his life and work. Deeply political Jamie Reid created banners, flyers

and posters for dozens of protests over the years taking on the poll tax, English heritage

and the Gulf War with a lipstick wearing John Wayne. A radical to the end whose most notorious royal

image is now hanging in the national portrait garden. Our arts correspondent David Silatow

and that's all from us for now there will be a new edition of global news later if you want

to comment on this podcast and the stories we included drop us an email the address is global

podcast at bbc.co.uk on twitter we are at global news pod this edition was mixed by

Chesney Forks Porter the producer was Stephanie Tillitson the editor is Karen Martin

my name is Andrew Peach thank you for listening till next time goodbye

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.