Global News Podcast: Biden arrives in Hawaii after deadly wildfires

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I'm Gareth Barlow and in the early hours of Tuesday the 22nd of August these are our main

stories. President Biden arrives at the Hawaiian island of Maui to see the devastation caused by

a recent deadly wildfire. A political row has erupted in Spain over inappropriate celebrations

at the Women's World Cup final and the people of Ecuador have voted to end oil drilling in a

protected area of the Amazon rainforest. Also in this podcast although I'm 61 my heart is not

necessarily 61. It came out with the answer of 63. Hear how artificial intelligence is helping us

to understand how old our hearts really are. Almost two weeks after Hawaii suffered its

worst natural disaster in the state's history, President Biden has arrived there to meet survivors

of the ferocious wildfires that ripped through the town of Lahainam on the island of Maui.

He's been criticised for responding too slowly to the tragedy which has claimed at least 114 lives

and destroyed hundreds of homes. More than a thousand people are still missing. The White House

said that Mr Biden delayed his trip so as not to distract from officials and rescue teams from

their search but a local paper said the president may not be assured of a warm welcome on Maui.

Just before we recorded the podcast I spoke to our North America correspondent Peter Bose.

President Biden will need to answer questions directly about the speed of the federal government's

response perhaps his personal response to this tragedy as well. He was on holiday at the time

but he was widely criticised for going several days without speaking about the tragedy and

despite promising help for everyone who needs it some local people say the federal government's

pledge on this has been inadequate and uncoordinated and he will no doubt be asked about that.

The federal emergency management agency has approved more than $5.6 million in assistance.

That's for 2,000 households on Maui and a one-time payment of $700 per household. That's for clothing,

food, transportation, a sum of money that's been derided by many people are simply not enough.

On that basis we're expecting President Biden to announce a further $3 million in emergency funds

and I'm interested there's often lots of focus Peter in the immediate days and weeks with these

disasters about how much money and support is available from the federal authorities

but do we expect that support to also be ongoing into the months and years to come?

I think it is clearly about money and people will have questions about exactly that but I think

initially it is empathy and an understanding of the situation that people are looking for. A real

practical understanding of the dire crisis that so many people are facing, the survivors,

the loss of their homes, businesses and a real fear that their town, their devastated city of

Lahaina will never be the same again even after it's rebuilt which will be a long time in the

future but there's real concern that its character will change and that developers will move in

and change their way of life forever and I think people are looking for a pledge that there will

be local voices at the table when future big decisions are made. Native Hawaiians I think

want these reassurances that outside corporations for example won't be allowed to come in and in

effect squeeze out their local businesses so it's more about money it's about an understanding

of their predicament. That was Peter Bose. The Spanish women's football team have arrived in

Madrid as world champions following their 1-0 victory over England on Sunday. They've been

parading the trophy through the streets of the capital but now a row has erupted in Spain

about one official that seemed to go too far as the team collected their medals back in Sydney.

The Spanish FA president Luis Rubiales gripped the head of the star striker Jenny Hermoso

and planted a big kiss directly on her lips. He since apologized but many fans say it was

deeply disrespectful as millions watched around the world. With more details here's the football

journalist Semra Hunter from Barcelona. It's been a huge storm and it's really garnered a lot of

speed a lot of pace and a lot of intensity. A lot of backlash has gone his way. I think people

are very embarrassed quite frankly by the behavior of Luis Rubiales who is the president of the

Federation and it really has sparked an outrage I think in general across the board so much so that

politicians have even gotten involved and said we demand that he explains his behavior and we also

demand an apology. There was no consent. She didn't consent to being kissed and it's a boss

kissing an employee and not just that but publicly on the biggest stage so yes there was a huge amount

of pressure for him to actually apologize otherwise there was the thought that he would be pushed

out of the job that he would be forced to stand down which obviously he doesn't want to do. A lot

of people have been asking for him to be sat hence why he twisted his arm in the end and came out

with that my opinion half baked apology. There is something I regret and it was what happened

between me and a player with whom I have a fantastic relationship just like with the others

where I have certainly made a mistake. I have to admit it in that moment of absolute exaltation

without any bad intentions or bad faith well that happened. I think in a very spontaneous way

I repeat without bad faith we didn't understand the controversy because we saw it as something

natural normal and as I said with no bad faith at all. Jenny Hermoso was speaking to one of her

teammates they were live on Instagram and the teammate said to her what was that all about

and she said well I didn't like it but the thing is you can't really gauge her tone if she's kind

of being serious or she's kind of joking about it and then she said well what was I supposed to do

and then a second incident has come out on social media as well where the president came down into

the dressing room standing next to Jenny Hermoso the player in question and he says to the players

we're all going to Ibiza Jenny and I are getting married and it's like what? The reason why he would

say something like that is because sexism is so normalized in Spanish society Matismo is still

very much present and women are still not treated with respect they're not treated with equality

they're not treated with dignity and generalizing here because it really has improved but there's

still a very very long way to go and this is just yet another example of that lack of awareness that

doing insane certain things is absolutely fundamentally not okay. I feel badly for Jenny

Hermoso that if she really wasn't comfortable with it that she doesn't feel as though there

are mechanisms in place by which she can actually speak the truth and say listen actually it wasn't

okay with this she really downplayed the whole thing saying oh it's all good it was just a

gesture between two friends we have a great relationship but it does speak to a much wider

problem in Spanish society around sexism. The voice there of Semera Hunter. When the people of

Ecuador voted in Sunday's presidential election they also had a say over oil drilling in a protected

area of the Amazon and they voted to put an end to it. That decision means that the state-owned

oil company will now have to stop its operations in a block of Yasuni National Park one of the

world's largest biodiversity hotspots. Our South America correspondent is Katie Watson and in the

Ecuadorian capital Quito she told us more. This is a culmination of years of demands for a referendum

on oil exploration it's in an area called Yasuni National Park and it's one of the most

biodiverse places in the world home to several um contacted indigenous populations so this has

been a real fight by climate activists so in in that sense it's an absolute success 59 percent of

people said that they wanted to bring an end to exploring for oil in this area. You may be alluded

to it there who potentially can benefit from this these uncontacted tribes but then also there'll

be a flipside there will surely be an impact to the economy so how does this balance out?

That's right I mean Guillermo Laszlo the current president he his government has estimated it will

be a loss of around 16 billion dollars over the next two decades there are two ways of looking at

yes it's a huge success for the for a climate activist for the Amazon which you know there are

experts saying that this is a there's a concern that it could reach tipping point that there's

too much exploration too much degradation of forest and there's no way back at the same time

Ecuador is a country that you know is struggling economically and you know it's the oil that's

biggest export so by not being able to explore that will have an impact on the coffers here and

that's certainly been you know a concern Ecuadorians are needing better opportunities better health

and education um to try and combat some of the big problems that are going on here in Ecuador.

And Katie the big vote on Sunday's ballot paper was of course the presidential election are there

any results yet from that? Yes so Luisa Gonzalez left us Luisa Gonzalez um she she took the most

votes around 33 percent and she was then followed by Daniel Noboa who's a businessman um and he took

around 24 percent of the votes so they'll be going through to a second round later in October.

Katie Watson there for almost every day last week global indicators recorded Jakarta as the

world's most polluted city the Indonesian capital and the surrounding area form a

megopolis with a population of around 30 million people. Near Jakarta are clusters of factories

and coal-fired power stations and to this heavy traffic which has then made the air quality so

bad that from today thousands of civil servants will work from home for the next two months.

It's a pilot scheme and how much of an effect can it really have? Our reporter Astu Destra

Adjan Rastri is in Jakarta and tell me what it's like to live there. From last month it's beginning

to get really bad so when you step outside you can feel it immediately like when I go to the

office for example I would thought that maybe it's cloudy it's about to rain but it's not it's

actually the pollution that makes the cloud so dark and you know you cannot breathe easily.

This is the start of the trial and it's 25 000 or so civil servants who will be working from home.

To what degree is there hope if any that this might have an impact on air pollution?

Yeah well the government believe that working from home is one of the solution the shortened

solution and even though we cannot see it directly because this is still the first day of the trial

the government seems very optimistic about the solution and it still draws many critics

especially from the environmentalist and also from other Jakartans citizens. So a lot of the

critics say that it will not affect as much as to pollution but it will definitely affect to the

traffic jam that of course Jakarta is known for. And that leads us nicely into the source of the

pollution because climate campaigners say that it's a high number of factories and coal-fired

power stations near Jakarta that are pumping out pollution. The government says like you alluded to

it's the traffic and it's the weather. What is the reality where is all of this air pollution coming

from? Right so the Ministry of Environment and Forestry say that transportation is the main

source of air pollution which is 44% according to their research and then it's followed by

industry about 31% manufacturing 10% housing 14% and commercial 1%. They also blame the pollution

spike because of the dry season and indeed Jakarta hasn't seen rain for almost three months and it

is believed that is why the pollutants are still floating in the air but it's true a lot of the

environmentalists agree that the coal emissions from the power plant is actually the biggest

culprits of this pollution. The government well they don't really dismissed it because President

Joko Widodo in the emergency cabinet meeting also mentioned something about the power plants in

Jakarta and its surrounding but it is included in the long-term plan to deal with the pollution.

That was Astudestra Adjen Rastri speaking to me from Jakarta. The police in London have been

investigating thefts of gold durian gems at the British Museum since the start of the year.

Officers also requested that the case should not be revealed to the public while it carried out its

inquiries. One member of the staff has been sacked some of the stolen items were later found for sale

on ebay meanwhile the story has led to renewed calls in Greece for the return of the Elgin marbles

as our culture editor Katie Razzle reports. Greek TV this weekend dominated by the thefts

from the British Museum. The Greek culture minister told the BBC it raises questions about the safety

and integrity of all the museum's exhibits and she means the path and on sculptures or Elgin marbles

if the museum can't look after other items in the collection suggests the Greeks it reinforces

their country's demand for the return of the classical sculptures to Athens. We still don't

know what's gone missing from the museum's storeroom how many items are involved or what's been sold

online but I understand the police were contacted in January by the museum and have since been

investigating the disappearances which date back over several years. The museum has dismissed a member

of staff he's been named as Dr Peter Higgs a senior curator in charge of Greek collections

the BBC haven't been able to speak to him his son has denied his father's done anything wrong and says

it isn't fair. The items are believed to include jewelry acquired in the early 19th century amongst

this collection from Charles Townley a buyer of antiquities one expert in recovering stolen items

says speed is essential. It is so important to have everything documented at this early stage

because we know things are being sold on eBay we know things have already been sold on eBay

how do we get those objects back this we just can't wait for a police investigation to be

completed. I understand Scotland Yard has asked the museum not to disclose further details of

what's missing at this point however in the coming days or weeks the BBC expects the museum

will report the losses to Interpol then it's likely we will know what treasures are gone.

That report by Katie Razzle still to come in the podcast we don't have enough money to afford to

go home every day we can't afford the transport cost we want a government that knows how to treat

its people properly we hear from the people in Zimbabwe as they head to the polls

last year between July and October at least 70 children younger than five died in the Gambia

in West Africa of acute kidney injuries after consuming cough syrups made in India. In October

the World Health Organization linked the deaths to the syrups saying it found unacceptable levels

of toxins in the medicines. A year later some of the parents in the Gambia are suing local health

officials and the pharmaceutical company over alleged negligence. Vinit Kare from BBC Hindi

explained to Laquessa Barak what had happened after the children's deaths. Initially there was a

confusion as to what is really killing the children but then you had lab tests and reports came out

and India made cough syrups allegedly contaminated with ethylene glycol and diethylene glycol

were blamed. You also had the World Health Organization saying that India made cough syrups

could be potentially linked to the deaths and the Indian company in the centre of it all denied

the Indian government said that they had tested the samples here in India nothing came out of it

but it's been one year since the start of the deaths the beginning of the deaths in the Gambia

and the families there are demanding justice they have approached the high court in the Gambia

and sued the Indian company and the local authorities and I went there they said that they

would not hesitate to approach the Indian courts and the international court so they are looking

for justice they're demanding justice they're blaming of course the frail internal health system

within the Gambia but they're also demanding justice from the Indian government and they want

the culprits to be punished so that these deaths these cases are never repeated. Just going back

to these exact toxins so I mean it's important that we stress that last year the WHO did say

and they linked the deaths to the syrups they said that they had found unacceptable levels of

toxins in the medicines you described two of those just explain to the toxicity you there is a story

or you've spoken to one african family I know we have the story on the website what exactly does

it do to the body why are they toxic so these are toxins when they're ingested they damage

the kidneys and could lead to multi-organ failure so especially if the victim or if the if it's a

child who is consuming these toxins it could really be fatal and as you mentioned I spoke to

families there and one of the families the father's name was Abrima Sanya and his three-year-old

child lamin in September last year he fell ill he had fever the family took him to a doctor the

doctor prescribed medication which included this stuff syrup and the child wasn't some for some

reason wasn't keen on consuming the syrup but Abrima told me that he forced a lamin his three

year old son to consume the syrup and this is a moment he will never forget how it all happened

and he said that he regretted forcing lamin to consume the syrup and within seven days of consuming

that that toxin lamin died so initially his food intake reduced his urine output reduced

and the doctors when when lamin was taken to a doctor the doctor told him the family that he

had kidney issues and as I said the child died within seven days and this is the same story

that you'd hear from other families as well to see your child die in front of your eyes you can

imagine the pain these families suffered and these are all children who could not even express to

their parents to their relatives to anyone around them as to what they were experiencing inside

their bodies young from from two months old to five-year-old children and the way they died the

way they suffered it was it was harrowing for these families and that is why this they are

demanding justice from the Indian government and from the Gambian government as well well for

their part both maid and pharmaceuticals and the Indian government have denied that the deaths were

the result of the children ingesting the syrups the health minister of the gambia did not respond to

the bbc's request for an interview symbabians will go to the polls on tuesday but there are growing

allegations of repression which is casting doubt on the credibility of the presidential election

the vote pits the incumbent and zhanu pf party leader emerson emin gagua against the opposition

leader in the form of nelson-chimisa emin gagua won a disputed election back in 2018 but has

struggled to tame the country's economic problems including over 100 inflation our correspondent

in zimbabwe shinganyoka has been looking at the issues affecting voters it's the crack of dawn

in hopi south of harare and one family is heading out to under the streets nyarai chi jongwei and her

young sons are searching for discarded rubbish to sell we started collecting plastic bottles last

year when my husband lost his job we're looking for something to do to make a living to survive

it is not paying that much i've tried to find my new work so that i can work for my children

her oldest son 14 year old tenashe jumps into the rubbish skip he's tired and frustrated

it hurts because my friends are going to school and i am not

they're precarious existence reflects zimbabwe's decades old economic problems including company

closures hawkers now fill the streets selling anything they can only one in four zimbabweans

has formal regulated work but even some of those with full-time jobs are struggling

in a city park i met a security guard who works for a large firm he earns 50 us dollars a month

and sleeps here between his night shifts he didn't want to be identified we don't have enough money

to afford to go home every day we can't afford the transport cost we want a government that knows

how to treat its people properly people are suffering the high cost of living and the lack of

opportunities top the lists of concerns as millions of zimbabweans go to the polls

and their skepticism about what these elections will do for the country

nothing changes nothing changes past elections haven't changed anything i do not have interest in them

leaders must fulfill their promises so that things can happen

nelson chamisa leads the opposition party the citizens coalition for change enthusiastic

supporters believe he will restore jobs and the rule of law but the ghost of past elections

lingers mass arrests violence and intimidation banned rallies and allegations of vote manipulation

chamisa fears voters could be disenfranchised president manangawa is seeking a second term

in office he rejects the accusations of vote manipulation no one should come and tell us

our elections the free fair and transparent nonsense it is us who want free fair and transparent

elections for ourselves not for anybody else he says he's brought infrastructural development

new roads energy projects and a mining and agricultural boom but many say the benefits

are yet to be felt on the ground back and hopefully nyurai has sold her plastic bottles

and she's holding wads of 100 local dollar notes worth about 50 cents enough to buy vegetables

for the day she says but at last her children can eat she refused to talk about the elections

and the impact of zimbabwe's politics and their lives as her family prepares to turn in for the

night nyurai is unsure what the new day will bring and whether she'll be able to put food on the table

that was shingai nyoka in harare after weeks of speculation the british football team

majesty united have agreed with one of its most promising players mason greenwood that he will

leave the premier league club following its investigation into his personal life last year

the 21 year old who was also played for england was accused of attempted rape and assault but

the charges were later dropped as soon as the allegations surfaced online mason greenwood

was suspended from playing or training with manu the club has concluded that he didn't commit any

defences with which he was charged and he denies any wrongdoing natalie burrell who is from an

independent manu supporters group welcomed the decision what should have happened from the start

but i'm glad it's happened now i feel like they're listening to the voices of women listening to the

voices not just of manches united women the fans the players but listening to the voices of all women

across the world with more details here's our sports correspondent ollie foster they're under a

lot of pressure manchester united to come to a decision they'd hoped to achieve that before

the start of the season just go back to last week in the opening round of fixtures there were protests

at old trafford because there was every indication that manchester united were going to reintegrate

mason greenwood into their squad but various female fans groups were were strongly opposed to that

and protested so there was no announcement last week now we've had this lengthy statement of which

manchester united have talked about how they've gone about this fact-finding mission for the last

seven months since the crown prosecution service dropped all charges of attempted rape coercive

and controlling behavior and also assault against mason greenwood they've said that they've had to

keep a lot of it confidential to protect the continuing anonymity of the alleged victim relating

to those charges one female fans group has come out on social media the female fans against

mason greenwood's return they called themselves mufc leadership have finally done the right thing

they say for the wrong reasons to save their own necks to avoid the pr disaster not out of care for

any of us they have lied backtracked and ignored us until they feared for their own reputation

certainly there will be relief among those fans groups that a decision has been made but the

process has dragged on for an awful long time especially when they feared that mason greenwood

would be reintegrated into the squad but now we have this mutual agreement between all parties

that he will continue his football career elsewhere he still has two years left on his contract it only

expires in 2025 so the option will be for manchester united to loan mason greenwood out

or to sell him we've still got another week or so left in the transfer window so that's the time

frame that we are dealing with that was ollie foster a new artificial intelligence tool can reveal

how much your heart may have prematurely aged because of a lack of exercise poor diet drinking

or smoking it's hoped its development will help find ways to reduce the risks of many age related

conditions such as strokes our science correspondent palab gosh had his heart assessed by the new tool

i asked him how it went it was an mri scan something that lots of people go through in this case it was

looking at my beating heart and the blood vessels around it so that's a perfectly normal thing to

do the imaginative thing that's happened is that the doctors have used artificial intelligence to

compare my heart with the hearts of 5000 completely healthy individuals of varying ages and the ai

system can see things that even the most expert cardiologists can't so it can match the closest

heart to my heart from a healthy person although i'm 61 my heart is not necessarily 61 because it

depends on the lifestyle i've led if i'd led a virtuous life it would have been younger but sadly

i haven't so it was a little bit older it came out with the answer of 63 i'm thinking that if you go

to the gym picking up on that virtuous lifestyle there are many machines that purport to give you

many of the stats about your body and some of them might say your heart health so if we've been

tinkering with these kind of predictions in the past what is ai adding to this what is it

doing that we've not been able to do before well it's doing what we've done before more accurately

if you google howard is my heart you can be sent to lots of websites where you put in your risk

factors so your blood pressure if you know it whether you smoke and how much you smoke the

amount of exercise you do but that's no substitute for actually having a look inside your own heart

and comparing it with other people and this research takes it a stage further what the

researchers did was looked at the people who had prematurely aged hearts and found out about their

genes and their activities and for those who had hearts that were younger than they should be

we know that exercise is good for you we know that certain medication is good for you and diets are

good for you but it's about teasing out the precise mechanisms that enable some people to lead quite

unhealthy lifestyles but nothing seems to show and vice versa so by understanding the genetic

mechanisms you can maybe develop medications and other interventions that might have a big

difference for those who through no fault of their own have premature aging maybe because of their

genes i'm a south asian my origins are south asian so i'm more prone to diabetes high blood pressure

cardiac diseases so i start off at a disadvantage so i was actually relieved that my heart age was

only two years older than my actual age it could have been so much worse so this technology very

much has the capacity the potential to reach everybody it does quite often these big breakthroughs

are so expensive and so far away that you will not hear of it for a long long time even though

i undertook an MRI scan which is expensive it's quite possible to do the same with much cheaper

ECGs that monitor the electrical activity which aren't necessarily that cheap but much cheaper

than MRIs so it is something that isn't miles away and it's something that doesn't cost a million

dollars the BBC's palab gosh and that's all from us for now but there will be a new edition of the

global news podcast later if you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it do

send us an email the address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk you can also find us on x of course

for me known as twitter at global news pod this edition was mixed by caroline driscoll the producer

the editor as always caro martin i'm gareth barlow until next time goodbye

i could feel stigma all around me nearly died three four times i had this secret

this is lives less ordinary a podcast dedicated to remarkable personal stories i started having

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Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.