Global News Podcast: Biden tells Zelensky US will pay for air defence upgrades in Ukraine

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 Robin Brandt and in the early hours of Friday the 22nd of September these are our main stories.

After talks with President Biden at the White House, President Zelensky has said the U.S.

has agreed extra help to strengthen Ukraine's air defences against further Russian attacks.

The media tycoon Rupert Murdoch is giving his son Latlan control of his businesses

and Brazil's Supreme Court has ruled in favour of restoring territory to an indigenous group.

Also in this podcast, how is this for the King's English?

More details on that to come.

We begin though in Washington DC. The U.S. will give more help to Ukraine in the coming winter

to help boost its air defences against Russian attacks. It's part of a package of measures

announced after talks between the U.S. President Joe Biden and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymy

Zelensky at the White House. During a tour of Washington, Mr Zelensky also visited the U.S.

Congress and met leaders at the Pentagon. It's all part of his continued diplomatic effort to

maintain American support for the war against Russia. At the end of the White House talks,

President Biden said the U.S. remained committed to ensuring Ukraine's long-term security

and deterring future threats against sovereignty and freedom.

That's what this is all about, the future, the future of freedom. America will never walk away

from that. That's why 575 days later we stand with Ukraine and will continue to stand with you,

Mr President. Well, I spoke to our North America correspondent Sean Dilley and asked him if Mr

Zelensky has got what he wants. At the moment, not set in stone, Robin, of course, because the $24

billion that Joe Biden has been floating is by no means secure. He now needs to secure lawmakers

on Capitol Hill that this is an investment they should make on top of just over $110 billion

already over the past year and a half. What about the relationship between Zelensky and Biden,

but perhaps more importantly, those meetings on Capitol Hill, those political leaders there

and at the Pentagon? How's that side of the relationship with the U.S. going?

It's pretty awkward, Robin. There's no other way of putting it. Political support

is waning. Republicans in particular argue that there is no U.S. national security interest in

continuing to support Ukraine's defenses. Joe Biden has been pursuing a policy in office of

strengthening European leaders. He's a big supporter of NATO, for instance, the body that

Donald Trump had discussed withdrawing from the membership thereof. At the moment, Joe Biden does

know that the $24 billion in additional aid that he would like to get through ultimately when all is

said and done is likely to get through, but Republicans are not going to want to do that

without some major spending cuts in other areas. The prospect of a domestic government shutdown

in a renewed row over U.S. domestic budget, how's that going to influence the push from Zelensky

for more funding from the U.S.? Is that going to make the environment even more challenging?

It won't impact in any way President Zelensky asking for more funding. We heard him inside the

Oval Office just up the road from where I'm speaking to you from now, Robin, saying that,

particularly in the area of air defenses, it desperately needs that support. It's rather

challenging for Joe Biden. He's now, through his colleagues in Congress, speaking to lawmakers

on all sides of the House, saying that it's very much in the U.S. national interest and it's the

right thing to do. Not every Republican agrees with him.

years developing his own brand of right-wing populist content. It gave him significant political

influence, particularly in the U.S. and Britain. On Thursday, the 92-year-old announced in a letter

to staff that he had decided to transition from being chairman of Fox and Newscore.

His words of part of the letter are voiced by a BBC producer.

For my entire professional life, I've been engaged daily with news and ideas,

and that will not change. The time is right for me to take on different roles, knowing that we

have truly talented teams and a passionate, principled leader in Loughlin who will become

sole chairman of both companies. Rupert Murdoch was frequently accused of misusing the power that

his news outlets gave him. Speaking to the BBC back in the 1960s, he described the feeling of power

he got from being a newspaper owner. The British journalist

and broadcaster Piers Morgan was in charge of the news of the world here in the UK.

That's one of Rupert Murdoch's most influential newspapers before it was shut down over a phone

hacking scandal back in 2011. To me, Rupert Murdoch is the greatest media figure of my lifetime,

possibly ever, in terms of his boldness, his vision, in terms of his reach around the world.

And for me personally, the opportunity he gave me when he made me editor of his

biggest selling newspaper in the world, age 28, was an unbelievable opportunity.

Brian Stelter from the US magazine Vanity Fair has written extensively about Rupert Murdoch's

controversial Fox News. In some ways, this was inevitable. And yes, Rupert Murdoch always said

he would never retire. His son Loughlin always said his dad would never retire. But his companies

have been shrinking over the years and struggling against the media headwinds

that all media companies are facing, for example, streaming and the struggles of newspapers.

So Rupert Murdoch is not the swashbuckling, feared and reviled media mogul that he once was,

that he was for decades. Well, that's the thoughts of Brian Stelter and before him Piers Morgan.

I spoke to our business correspondent, Erin Delmore, who's in New York City,

and they asked her how the Murdoch news there has been received.

Whether or not you love him, there's been no denying over here that Rupert Murdoch is a

defining influence on the US media landscape and in fact has done more than many individuals to shape

public opinion, especially on the right, the network where his news network Fox has found a

political home. You know, there's been a lot of different talk today about what this means for

the company and what's ahead. But in this moment, a lot of people are looking back on Murdoch's

legacy and the way that he has shaped the way that news operates in the United States. Certainly,

it's not so much a wild change for Fox itself with Lachlan having had his hands on the wheel

for a bit of time now, but it's just a moment to reflect on Murdoch's legacy as a whole.

Is he going to go quietly as part of this transition or do you expect to hear from Rupert

Murdoch in the weeks, months and years ahead? No, he made it known in the statement that he would be

continuing to speak up, made a point to say that he's always taken a role in daily editorial,

the news happenings of the day, and that seems to be almost in his DNA at this point. It's hard

to say how far this is a step back or a step out or what kind of influence he'll still exert,

but he has been out and about and he's been reassuring folks that he's still going to be

a visible presence here. Now, we said at the beginning that along the way to

constructing this huge empire, he's demanded the ears of presidents and prime ministers.

Has there been any reaction from President Trump or others, other senior politicians on the news?

We're looking to see now and part of what strikes me about the moment and the timing here is that

we're about to get into a brand new political cycle here in the United States. And so certainly,

yes, we can talk about the way that Rupert Murdoch's news organizations have amplified and

elevated former President Trump's standing within the Republican Party, again, someone who had been

previously untested in politics, tested in the business world, but new to government and governance

and how much Fox News' coverage of him and endorsement and embrace of his policies and

his message really fueled his base in 2016 and also in 2020. And the network has found itself

embroiled in litigation, even paying out a $787 million settlement over its amplifications

of the false claims made by President Trump about the 2020 election.

Erin Delmore reporting. Sudan's de facto leader, General Abda Fattah al-Buran,

has told the United Nations General Assembly that war in his country could spill over into

neighboring African nations. He urged the international community to designate his opponents,

the rapid support forces, as a terrorist group. From New York, our diplomatic correspondent

James Landell reports. Thousands of Sudanese civilians have died in the fighting between

the rapid support force rebels and the Sudanese armed forces. Its leader, General al-Buran,

is on a diplomatic tour seeking international support. He warned the UN the conflict was now

a threat to regional peace and stability. He also accused the RSF of war crimes,

and he claimed he was willing to engage in peace talks. In a rare video appearance,

the RSF leader, Mohamed Handan Dagelo, also known as Hometi, said he too was prepared for a ceasefire.

Similar statements by both sides have previously not led to any reduction in the fighting.

James Landell, let's go to Brazil now.

That was the reaction on Thursday to a ruling from Brazil's Supreme Court about restoring land

to an indigenous group in the country. The decision in favor of the shock-laying people

will set a precedent for hundreds of land claims. It's likely to define the future of land rights

in South America's largest country. Katie Watson in Sao Paulo told me more.

Well, this is a long-standing case for the indigenous people of the shock-laying. So they

are about 2,300 people who live in Santa Catarina, which is in the state of southern Brazil. Their

troubles have been going on since the 19th and 20th centuries. They were victims of a really

brutal land clearance. Many German settlers who came in and drove them off their land. So back

in 1996, they were granted the rights to some land, but they argued that actually they would do

much more because they actually had much more ancestral lands before they were driven from them,

they were taken from them by force. Then it goes on to 2009, when they were evicted from an area

that formed a nature reserve. They appealed this decision. And then in 2013, the authorities used

this argument that's called the Marco Temporal, which means timeframe in Portuguese. And effectively,

the argument was that if the indigenous people wanted to lay claim to any land,

they would have had to prove that they live on that land when the Brazilian Constitution was

signed in 1988. But they argued that completely ignored the fact that they had been forcibly

removed to make way for the settlers. So that's why they took their appeal all the way to the

Supreme Court. Am I right that in terms of this particular case, it pitted this indigenous group

against the industrial farming complex? Is that right? I mean, it's the story of Brazil and its

land. Yes. So there are a lot of indigenous groups on land that is very, you know, seen as very valuable

that we hear about deforestation in the Amazon all the time. That's exactly the same issue.

The powerful farming lobbies in Brazil were pitted against the indigenous communities,

which is something that you often see. And there are a huge amount of court cases and

conflicts over land rights. And that's what's so interesting about this case is because of the

fact that now this so-called time frame, Marco Temparal, has been swept away, it now could open

up so many more cases. So this is seen and this is regarded as a defining moment, is it, in terms of

it setting a precedent going forward? Absolutely. I mean, it's seen as a boost to indigenous rights.

Of course, now the president is Lula da Silva. He made very clear in his campaign and he's made

clear in his previous time as president that the rights of indigenous people, the rights of, you

know, land rights are something that he feels very important. You compare that with far right

leader, Jair Bolsonaro, who talked about the fact that indigenous rights have gone too far. He

said he wouldn't give an inch more to indigenous communities who already had enough land. So it's

a very different political, you know, landscape in Brazil. And of course, this is a huge, you know,

win for indigenous communities who are often seen as lacking the ability really to be able to fight

their corner when you've got powerful farming lobbies arguing that they shouldn't be evicted

from the land that they've worked for decades either. Katie Watson in Sao Paulo. A BBC investigation

has revealed that the social media app Tiktok is driving online friends that encourage anti-social

behavior in the real world. Ex-employees of Tiktok say the issue is not being tackled for fear of

slowing the growth of the business. These friends is where Tiktok drives disproportionate engagement

in some topics are evidenced by interviews with former staffers, app users and BBC analysis of

wider social media data. They've led to disruption and disorder in everyday life. The BBC's Mariana

Spring has more. Like everybody else on Tiktok, I'm obsessed all with this Idaho murder tape.

What connects false accusations of murder in the US? We're four students. We're brutally stabbed to

death. Amateur sleuths turning up in a British town and anti-social behavior and vandalism

in UK schools. The answer is they are all examples of Tiktok frenzies identified by the BBC. When you

post a video on Tiktok it can be pushed to users everywhere on the full you page at a speed and

scale that doesn't seem possible on other social media platforms, creating a frenzy of posts.

Former employees and creators have told me how this design means people are seeing videos they

normally would not see and being incentivized to behave in a harmful way to produce more popular

content. The search for mum of two Nicola Bully continues eight days after she went missing.

Nicola Bully's disappearance earlier this year shocked the UK. An inquest ruled the 45-year-old

died by accidental drowning, but conspiracy theories exploded on Tiktok with police saying

it interfered with the investigation. I travelled to Swansea to meet Heather. She ran one account

racking up millions of views posting about the case, having never shared content like this on

Tiktok before. In one video she falsely suggested footage of Nicola leaving the house on the morning

of her disappearance was really her friend Emma. It received 3.6 million views.

Whenever you post something and it gains traction Tiktok will send you little emails of encouragement

telling you that you've received this many views you're a hit. If you post something and you receive

a lot of positivity from it I think that can definitely change your behavior whereas before

you might not have had that level of empowerment or entitlement and all of us said and you feel

that you've got this authority to keep posting. Heather regretted getting caught up in the frenzy

and without Tiktok she doesn't think she would have got involved in this way. Lucas not his real

name is one of several Tiktok ex-employees I spoke to for answers about these frenzies. He's voiced

by an actor. They grew so fast that they couldn't possibly keep up with or predicted every single

where the app was going to go and in general they don't want to. They don't want to stand in a way

of entertainment growing quickly on their platform. It's about money. The more users they have on

the platform spending more time watching videos they can sell more ads, sell them for a higher price.

It's probably the most addictive platform that we've encountered yet and I think that's a real

danger especially because of how young the audience is and how impressionable they are.

Tiktok told the BBC our platform reflects conversations happening up and down the

country and in the media. Our recommendation system is designed to prioritise safety,

suggesting a range of content, proactively interrupting repetitive patterns and reducing

the reach of videos containing unverified information. Speaking to ex-employees and users

it seems that these frenzies are difficult to keep up with and it's hard to know when and where the

next one will happen. That report from the BBC's disinformation and social media correspondent

Marianna Spring. Still to come. There's nothing like 100% pure Florida quality orange juice with

the vitamins, minerals and taste that make you feel so good. But why has the cost of orange juice in

many parts of the world been increasing? I had just come out of one of my bare knuckle boxy matches.

I don't know why but the first thing that came to my brain was what if I do a drag show.

Remarkable personal stories told by the people that lived them.

I could easily have pulled that trigger but that was not my brief. I was not an assassin,

I was not told to do that. I was not told to murder him.

Lives less ordinary from the BBC World Service. Find it wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

Welcome back to the Global News Podcast. Now the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has urged

India to cooperate with an investigation into the murder of a Canadian Sikh activist.

His claim earlier this week that the Indian government may have been involved in the killing

on Canadian soil has triggered a furious diplomatic row between the two countries.

On Thursday Mr Trudeau insisted that he wasn't seeking to provoke Delhi. India though has halted

visa services in Canada and called for a reduction in Canadian diplomatic staff based in India.

Mr Trudeau said the killing in June of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil

was of the utmost seriousness. We call upon the government of India to take seriously this matter

and to work with us to shed full transparency and ensure accountability and justice in this

matter. We are a country of the rule of law. We are going to continue to do the work necessary

to keep Canadians safe and to uphold our values and the international rules based order.

I heard more from our correspondent in Delhi, Zubair Ahmed.

The relations between two democracies and two friends were tense earlier but now it seems like

it's turning out into a full blown diplomatic crisis. In the afternoon here the Indian government

said that it wanted Canada to downsize its diplomatic core in India citing alleged

interference by Canadian diplomats in what they said India's internal affairs. It also said that

the Canadian diplomats in India were much larger in number. What they want is parity in numbers

and also in ranks and that's why we will see in the next couple of days lots of Canadian diplomats

leaving India. Are there signs in the media coverage there over the past few days that

India regards this as something very very serious or what's the kind of talk bin where you are

about these accusations? Well India is feeling quite upset and even angry. Many Indians especially

the former diplomats who are coming on Indian channels and Indian newspapers they are all

very upset that the Canadian Prime Minister will go public with his accusation that India was behind

the killing of a Sikh Canadian citizen in the month of June this year. The feeling here is that

India is not going to back down. I just spoke to a governing BJP ruling party member and he said that

the instructions are that you know we have to be very strong and we have to give Canada back in

its own coins. You referred to some former diplomats you say they're upset. Are they upset because

they don't believe the accusation made by Justin Trudeau or are they upset because he's chosen to

make it public? It's both. Many of the ruling party ex-diplomats who have joined the party now

they say that the accusations are untrue but there are some who believe that it was right for Mr Trudeau

when he came to attend the G20 summit in Delhi to confide in Mr Modi and I'd complain to him

in private which he did and he should not have gone public with his accusations.

Zubair Ahmed speaking to me from Delhi. The BBC is facing fresh allegations about the conduct of

the British comedian and actor Russell Brand. A woman has come forward to accuse him of exposing

himself to her and then joking about it on his BBC radio show. Russell Brand has denied recent

accusations of rape and sexual assault from four women between 2006 and 2013. He has yet

though to respond to these new claims. The BBC has said it's very sorry to hear of the allegations

and we'll look into them. From Los Angeles here's our North America correspondent Nomir Iqbal

and a warning her report contains some graphic details. The woman who has made the complaint

had never come forward before but was prompted to speak out when the allegations about Russell

Brand emerged at the weekend. She says the incident happened when the comedian and broadcaster was in

the BBC's office in Los Angeles to record his Radio 2 show in 2008. She was working for another

company which shared the office space and had opened the front door to him and his team after

the doorbell kept ringing unanswered. Sometime later she was in a communal bathroom when she says

Russell Brand entered the room and exposed himself to her. We've asked an actor to speak her words.

And then he said well I'm going to f**k you. And I went what? And he goes I'm going to f**k you.

And I said no you're not. He was wearing black heroin pants which are pants that have an

elasticized waist and he pulled out his penis on his hand and pretty much served it to me

and he would be you know as you would be serving someone some food. The woman said his team then

banged on the door and he went out to record his show. She said she was left feeling ashamed but

didn't make a formal complaint despite many people knowing what had happened. However in recent days

she heard the broadcast for the first time when Russell Brand and his co-host Matt Morgan

had gone on to laugh about the incident moments after she says it happened.

I won't be able to drag her off into a cubicle and show him her cubicles.

That would never do. How long ago did you do that last? Been a long while Matt since old

Russell Brand. Wait two five minutes since he showed his willy to a lady.

Very easy to judge. Very easy to judge. You're a receptionist. Look. Receive this.

How am I supposed to ring that little bell with my finger? Have you ever even seen that before?

He got told off for ringing a bell minutes later he was showing his willy.

The woman who was not in fact a receptionist but did work in the shared office

says she stunned this exchange was broadcast.

What made the BBC think that was appropriate to go out like that?

I just don't understand why they didn't investigate this much sooner given the raunchy

outrageous bits that I have heard and I suspect of his radio show and I suspect there's far worse

in all those episodes that I can't even stomach to listen to them.

She said nobody from BBC News Management approached her directly and no formal action was taken

even after a BBC staff member had disclosed the incident to senior executives in 2019.

Nomir Iqbal in Los Angeles and we've since had a statement from Russell Brand's former

co-presenter Matt Morgan who you heard in that clip from a radio show. In the statement he said

I stopped working with Russell Brand several years ago. During the time I worked with him I was

never aware of any allegations of serious sexual misconduct against him. I am regretful to learn

that a show I was part of made colleagues uncomfortable at times and you can see more

of that statement and this story at BBC News Online. You're listening to the Global News Podcast.

Now let's go to France and the visit of a very famous Englishman and his address to the French

parliament.

That was, you've guessed it, King Charles on the second day of his state visit in which he said

and I'm translating here for you, quite simply the United Kingdom will always be one of France's

closest allies and best friends. Well the King and his wife Queen Camilla have also viewed

reconstruction work at Notre Dame Cathedral. Hugh Scofield sent this report from Paris.

Before even he'd begun speaking the King was honoured with applause from the parliamentarians

gathered in your Nate's Senate chamber inside the 17th century Palais de Luxembourg. It was the

first time in history that a British monarch had given a speech in either of the chambers of the

French parliament. Combining sections in French with sections in English the King spoke of his

devotion to France inherited from his mother and pledged to use his reign to work to reinforce

what he called our indispensable relationship. On Ukraine and the environment it was vital,

he said, that France and the UK worked hand in hand. These horrifying events have once

more demonstrated the fragility of so much that we hold dear. Just as we stand together against

military aggression so must we strive together to protect the world from our most existential

challenge of all. That of global warming, climate change and the catastrophic destruction of nature.

There was another standing ovation at the end. Later the King and Queen met sportspeople in

the suburb of Sandinita. And at Notre Dame they met firefighters who were at the blaze

at Ravage the Cathedral four years ago and craftsmen and women who were helping in the reconstruction.

The King and Queen fly to Bordeaux in the southwest for the last leg of their state visit.

Hugh Scofield in Paris. Now let's end on a glass of orange juice. It's a staple of every breakfast

table but recently the cost of a glass has gone up because crop sizes have gone down.

Both Brazil the world's largest orange supplier and the US state of Florida which

accounts for more than 90% of the country's supply have been dealing with extreme weather events.

There was hurricane Ian at the end of last summer then there was cold weather over the winter which

has made it more difficult to grow the fruit. It's sent so-called futures prices for orange juice

to record highs as Alex Bell has been finding out. There's nothing like 100 pure Florida quality

orange juice with the vitamins minerals and taste that make you feel so good. A television

advertisement from the 1990s promoting the feel-good factor that comes from Florida's

most famous fruit. Oranges are so beloved here that they're even featured on car license plates

but 30 years since that commercial ed and growers aren't feeling so good about what lies ahead.

Florida has a lot of weather conditions that we have to combat not only hurricanes but also

freezes droughts excessive rain. Kyle Story's family has been farming citrus fruits for generations

across hectares of land spread right across Florida. In 2022 their farms were hit by devastating

hurricanes and now there's another growing threat to contend with a nasty bacterial disease known

as greening. We see citrus greening across all growing areas in Florida. It's a disease that affects

each and every tree unlike any other disease we've ever witnessed certainly in my lifetime.

It infects any type of variety whether that be oranges or grapefruit, limes, lemons and in the

last two to three years it has taken its toll not only have our inputs our costs gone up over

double and in some cases triple our production has gone down and quite frankly after the

hurricanes of 2022 we saw our production hit historical lows. But away from the farmlands

a financial phenomenon has been engulfing the orange juice industry and it all sounds a little

familiar. We are commodities brokers William commodities are agricultural products. In the

1983 film Trading Places Eddie Murphy finds himself swept up in the world of futures trading

making big books short selling frozen orange juice concentrate orange juice itself portrayed in the

film as an American symbol of wealth and opportunity and it's a story ringing true today

because the problems facing farmers like Kyle have sent orange juice futures to an all-time high

over summer. I spoke to Matt Joyner CEO of Florida Citrus Mutual a trade association which works

with citrus farmers. The futures market is a pricing mechanism that's forward-looking on

what we think the value of FCOJ or frozen concentrate orange juice will be in the future

and they're used to hedge pricing on your crops and of course by traders just for general trading.

And so why are futures a hot topic right now? The reason there's so much discussion around the

futures market right now is because the future price or the projected price of orange juice

is going up and we're seeing that because we're seeing a decrease in the production of oranges

over the past 18 years from about 250 million boxes of oranges down to roughly 16 million boxes

this past season and so when you're seeing that kind of a decrease in volume obviously the price

of that commodity is going to go up. So is this as is often the case a chance for savvy market

traders to cash in on a difficult time for thousands of farmers? Well not exactly. Many

are banking on the humble orange to make a comeback including Farmer Kyle. As a farmer I have to be a

natural optimist. As a business person I have to be realistic. We no doubt have unprecedented

challenges facing us today but what we see with new therapies that are being deployed

over the last eight to ten months the citrus trees are recovering at a rate that is very encouraging

very promising for us to continue to responsibly invest in the future. Is every citrus grower

or every citrus grove going to make it? No but we feel confident in the future of the continuing

economic impact that we have in our state and in our country. That report from Alex Bell.

Well 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 you can of course

send us an email the address is globalpodcast.bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X formerly known as

Twitter at Global News Pod. This edition was mixed by Chris Oblakwad the producer was Liam

McChefrey the editor is Karen Martin. I'm Robin Brandt until next time thanks for listening.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.