Global News Podcast: Biden: US Budget 'for those who hold country together'

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

from across the world. The latest news seven days a week. BBC World Service podcasts are

supported by advertising. This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service.

I'm Alex Ritzen and in the early hours of Friday the 10th of March these are our main stories.

Spending big and taxing big. Joe Biden lays out his stance on America's future finances.

A mass shooting leaves several dead in the German city of Hamburg and more big anti-government

demonstrations in Georgia despite a government climb down. We don't really want to be part of

Russia and Georgia is against it actually. And we hope tomorrow Georgian people will be free from

russian government of our country. Also in this podcast the Ugandan bill that seeks to penalize

LGBTQ people and good news is the UN secures a ship to remove oil from a huge tanker that's been

languishing off the coast of Yemen for years threatening environmental disaster.

President Biden has been laying out his stance on America's budget. It envisages spending big and

to pay for that taxing big but he's well aware that there'll be many opposing his plans indeed

because of republican opposition he knows his proposals are unlikely to get very far.

Here's a little of him on big business. Well I got elected there were roughly don't

hold me the exact number because it varies around 650 billionaires in America. Now there's over a

thousand. Know what the average tax they pay federal tax? Three percent. No billionaire should be paying

a lower tax than somebody working as a school teacher or a firefighter or any of you in this room.

So my plan is to make sure the corporations begin to pay their fair share. Our North America

correspondent Neda Torfik told me more about what Mr. Biden had to say. Well look President

Biden clearly had re-election in mind because he continually went back to this theme of

contrasting his vision which he said was for ordinary Americans to give the working people

a fighting chance to what he called MAGA Republicans who are tied to President Trump.

So we heard there him saying that those who are wealthy corporations have to pay their fair share.

He said Republicans refused to raise taxes on the wealthiest people. He also kind of turned around

their argument that the Democrats just spend too much saying that the Republicans haven't put

forward their own spending plan but what he knows of it shows that while his plan would reduce the

deficit by three trillion over a decade theirs would explode the deficit. And then he went into

just all of the different wide-ranging social programs he wants to expense saying that if they

invest in climate lowering drug prices getting American youth educated and leading the world

in manufacturing and supply chains that that will all generate growth and save money in the long

term. And yet he knows the Republican majority in the House are very unlikely to pass this.

Absolutely and I mean we've heard already from Republicans saying that this is dead on arrival

essentially but this is a wish list for President Biden so it gives a starting point for those

negotiations. What we heard from the Senate majority leader because Democrats do hold the

majority in the Senate Chuck Schumer of New York said that the ball is now in the Speaker of the

House's court that he has to put forward what his spending cuts are and what we saw during the state

of the Union speech when President Biden talked about Republicans threatening to cut entitlement

programs Republicans really got upset with that again he's holding them to how do you make a budget

that doesn't cut these programs. Ned O'Toolefig. Thousands of Georgians demonstrated for a third

day on Thursday despite the government announcing that it was dropping a proposed law which critics

said would stifle opposition. Under the plans non-government groups and media organizations

would have to register as foreign agents if more than 20% of their funding came from abroad. A

majority of parliamentarians from the governing Georgian Dream Party had backed the Prime Minister

Irakli Garebashvili but he was opposed by the President Salome Zorabashvili who said the U-turn

was a victory for democracy. I want to congratulate the whole of society on this first victory of

its kind. I welcome these correct steps taken by the government the fact that they announced the

withdrawal of this draft law. Opposition parties say they will continue to hold demonstrations

until Georgia follows a pro-western course and not a Russian course. Our Russia editor Steve

Rosenberg spent the day in the capital Tbilisi. Well I'm outside the Georgian parliament building

where protesters have gathered again even though two days of mass protests have forced what appears

to be a major concession from the ruling party. Earlier today it agreed to withdraw the controversial

foreign agents bill. Now this draft law had sparked a lot of anger in Georgia where many feared it

would be used as similar laws have been in Russia to silence dissent and to crush civil society as

well as the Georgian flags in the crowd there are lots of Ukrainian flags being waved and also flags

of the European Union because polls show the vast majority of Georgian citizens favor EU membership

and protesters here have been accusing their government of trying to derail Georgia's journey

into Europe and of being pro-Moscow rather than pro-EU. We don't really want to be part of Russia

and everything they're doing the whole Georgia is against it actually and we hope tomorrow Georgian

people will be free from the Russian government of our country. We want more integration in Europe.

In many ways I think what has happened in Georgia this week and what is happening now in Ukraine

are a part of the same picture. Both countries were part of the Soviet Union in Moscow's orbit

and more than 30 years after the fall of the USSR the consequences of that geopolitical earthquake

the disintegration of the Soviet empire are still being felt across the region. We see Russia trying

to reassert power and influence in what it sees as its own backyard and we see people,

societies turning away from Russia seeing their future as part of Europe. Steve Rosenberg police

in the northern German city of Hamburg say several people have been killed in a shooting

incident several others were injured. Hamburg police said a large-scale operation was underway

in the Austerdorf area. Pierre Vickery told me more about what happened. It started at about

9 p.m. local time in a fairly leafy fairly wealthy district of Hamburg caused to the police and to

firefighters that shots had been heard around a Jehovah's Witness hall in the city. We now know

that seven people are dead. We know that at least eight are wounded some seriously. A command center

has been set up by the police heavily armed police a lot of ambulances on the scene doctors emergency

doctors etc all doing their job. We don't know the motive and what we are waiting for is more

information on those who have been responsible. They're saying the person or the people involved

so they don't even know how many shooters they were and at the moment that is pretty much what we

do know as the story develops. And briefly the shooters are still at large. They are certainly

at large people have been told to stay in their homes there is concern of course what might come

next so the the warning to everybody is stay in your homes and to wait for the development.

Pierre Vickery nearly two weeks after dozens of migrants were killed off the south coast of

Italy the right-wing Prime Minister Georgia Maloney has held a cabinet meeting near the site of the

fatal shipwreck. The boat had set off from Turkey carrying Afghans, Iranians, Pakistanis, Syrians

and people from other countries at least 72 people died many of them were children. Critics of Ms Maloney

claimed the rescue may have been delayed something her government denies. She had this to say after

the cabinet meeting. I do not intend and we do not intend to replicate the approach of those who

have let the traffickers of death to act undisturbed over the years. We will do whatever needs to be

done to fight and stop these criminals. Our europe regional editor Danny Aberhart told me the choice

of location for the meeting has reignited feelings. The emotions in the air are very raw there are

still survivors from the shipwreck. There are relatives who have come to collect bodies.

Bodies are still even being washed up. It is not clear how many people were on the boat.

Lots of local people themselves say that they too are in mourning after this tragedy.

Some people were protesting as the cabinet met in this town of Kutro. Now Ms Maloney said it was

the first time a cabinet meeting had been held where a migrant tragedy had taken place and she

said it was symbolic from that level but it was also a concrete signal on how focused her government

is on the issue of migration. So what did they decide? Well the main thing as you heard in that

clip there was the message that people smugglers according to Ms Maloney are the ones to blame

for the deaths. That is her firmest message and she is going to fight the criminal gangs.

So one of the measures she introduced is punishing people traffickers up to 30 years in jail for those

that are responsible for deaths and serious injuries. That is an extra territorial law as

well so they will be able to apply even to crimes that took place outside of Italy's normal

jurisdiction and she also talked about Europe. She said she wants immediate action to help

fight these gangs. There is a lot of arguments in Europe obviously about the migration issue

and she said something else. There is a bit of a carrot. She said that basically

countries of origin that helped Italy with a campaign to inform local people of the risks

of going with people traffickers would receive preferential quotas for legal migrant workers.

So that was what she was dangling countries to help out. Ms Maloney was elected on a platform

of bringing down the numbers of migrants. Can she succeed? That is a good question. I mean

numbers have been going up over the last couple of years. We will have to see basically a lot of

people accuse Ms Maloney of actually being responsible for some of the deaths that she

herself had restrictions, for example, on the activities of charity rescue ships. So

it is a very, very heated issue.

Danny Abrahat. One of the documentaries nominated for an Oscar this weekend is the

Martha Mitchell Effect. It is about the woman married to John Mitchell in the 1970s America's

Attorney General under President Richard Nixon. But Martha Mitchell was anything but a quiet

political spouse. She was independent minded, flamboyant even, and during the Watergate scandal

she was very fond of giving journalists the inside track from the Nixon White House.

Vincent Dowd has been talking to the filmmakers.

Martha Mitchell hit this town like a bombshell.

She is getting to be known as the unguided missile. But I do say what I please.

She was the first to say Nixon should resign.

When in 1969 John Mitchell became US Attorney General, his wife Martha wasn't a public figure

and she seemed a Republican Party loyalist. That all changed after the Watergate scandal

began in Washington in the summer of 72. The Washington Post reported today that the FBI has

established that high Republican officials had ordered a major political campaign of spying

and sabotage against the Democrats. The Democratic National Headquarters was bugged with electronic

surveillance equipment. That was the so-called Watergate affair. The two filmmakers bringing

Martha Mitchell back into the spotlight at the Oscars are Ann Alderguei and Deborah McClutchie.

Ann and I both first heard of Martha on a podcast called Slow Burn in America and had never heard

Martha's story before and thought this is a ripe story to retell in a cinematic way.

It wasn't that the president didn't like women. He didn't like loud women.

He was negligent in being president. The producers mined resources mainly at the

Nixon Library in California to bring together their story of Martha Mitchell's role in exposing

how Richard Nixon and his colleagues organized an illegal campaign to guarantee that in 1972

he was re-elected as president. The larger-than-life Martha Mitchell comes over as a natural performer.

She was a southern belle. She loved the spotlight and the spotlight loved her

and she did like her drink and she had a bit of an outlandish personality at times.

All of a sudden these women start flying out of the White House. I'll tell them all and you know

what they're going to do they'll probably end up killing me. After the break-in at the Democrats

office in the Watergate building one of those under investigation was John Mitchell who later

served 19 months in jail for conspiracy and perjury. In 1972 Martha Mitchell was briefing

journalists in his defense often in late night phone calls. Did she speak out against the president

because she had this high moral compass? But I also think she was trying to protect her husband

from being thrown under the bus. Even today for someone to cross party lines and speak truth to

power that says a lot. But Martha leaking information to undermine the president created

huge pressure for John Mitchell. He couldn't control his wife. You see in a clip John Mitchell says

she's become her unguided missile then later on that became a liability. In August 1974 Richard

Nixon resigned. To leave office before my term is completed is abhorrent to every instinct in my body

but as president I must put the interests of America first. Ann Aldergate says they're telling a

story of what 50 years later might be called gaslighting. The men around Martha Mitchell

ganging up to persuade her that her perception was wrong. We hope that we have changed minds and

opinions of an older generation that perhaps initially dismissed her because the mainstream

media did her as that. I mean essentially this is a case study in gaslighting. Hopefully that's

the takeaway lesson. Ann Aldergate ending that report by Vincent Dowd. Still to come in the

Global News podcast. I am Mae Muller and I am representing the UK in this year's year.

We meet the UK's Eurovision entry. The authorities in Ukraine are working to restore

power to parts of the country after Russia damaged energy infrastructure in a massive

overnight bombardment the heaviest in a month. Ukraine's military says Russia fired nearly

90 missiles and drones. The Russian attacks make normal life impossible and yet seem to do nothing

to advance Russian President Vladimir Putin's attempt to gain more territory. Evan Davis spoke

to the mayor of Kiev Vitaly Klitschko who was heavyweight boxing champion of the world but is

now leader of a city enduring so much. My personal opinion it's not the special operation it's not

the war it's terrorism to send the records to civilians to kill children, women, old people.

Do you still think he thinks he might take Kiev because I know you have thought in the past that

he hadn't given up on the city on the whole country really? Definitely Kiev have symbolic

status is the heart of the country. The Russians want very much occupied Kiev one year ago the

Russians was on the board of our hometown but to be honest we were not prepared for this war

where everybody hopes the war not happens already successfully one year we defend Ukraine and I

doubt the Russians have military resources to come to Kiev and occupy the capital of Ukraine.

Do you worry that this is going to be a never-ending conflict that the West will give arms to Ukraine

to defend and stop Russia advancing but not enough arms for you to get Russia out of Ukraine and so

the war just rumbles on. Everybody hope this year 2023 this war will be stopped actually

everything depend from the man who began this war he's sitting in Kremlin Moscow his idea to

rebuild soviet empire for him much more important than lives of millions of the people as former

fighter I tell you with power and sizes it's not so important much more important than the spirit

and will to win we Ukrainian defend our homes our homeland and that way we win this war.

The way you're speaking Vitaly Klitschko doesn't make me think you would accept talks

or any deal with Russia in which they keep anything. They occupied big part of our homeland

we're ready to to sit in round table and talking about compromise but when the last Russian soldier

left Ukraine right now it's tricky game we don't believe Russians. Vitaly I wonder if I can ask

how much personal difficulty you have faced during this last year of war. I don't care about my

personally I'm responsible for safety of millions of people every day if someone come to me and try

to complain I tell to him please go to military hospitals look in the boys there is no arms no

legs with heavy injuries and please stop to complain you drive hours long in the country

you see a lot of villages and cities empty there's no one building without damages everything

destroyed and behind every windows family homeless somewhere displaced no jobs don't ask what you

country do it for you please tell what you can do it for your country and we do it everything

what we can to bring the peace back to Ukraine. Vitaly Klitschko speaking to Evan Davis a bill

has been tabled in the Ugandan parliament that would criminalize people identifying as LGBTQ

the law would also ban funding or promoting gay and transgender activities same-sex relations

are banned in about 30 African countries Asuman Basel Irwa is the member of parliament who tabled

the bill across the country there is an outcry of homosexual related issues promotion in schools

and and there is a public concern so we cannot just look on as a legislature when there is public

outcry. Frank Mogisha is an LGBTQ activist he says misinformation is circulating. Some members

of parliament have radicalized Ugandans and indoctrinated them that homosexuals are after

your children already we've been seeing people getting violated we've registered so many cases

of violations issues of trauma and mental health is on the increase in the LGBTQ community we've

seen so many cases of arrests blackmail and extortion so this is going to go on the increase

our correspondent in Uganda patients out of hurry has more the proposed law prescribes a 10-year jail

term for anyone who engages in a same-sex relationship or marriage consent will not be a defense gay sex

with a minor could also land someone in prison for 10 years the proposed legislation criminalizes

the funding promotion or support towards any homosexual activities while landlords who rent

premises to sexual minorities also face imprisonment the bill will be scrutinized by a parliamentary

committee before it is tabled before the house again for debate there has been rising anti-gay

sentiment in Uganda neighboring countries in recent weeks activists are concerned that this

could lead to more attacks on anyone suspected to be gay in 2014 the country's constitutional court

nullified the anti-homosexuality act which prescribed life imprisonment for same-sex relations

on the basis that it had been passed by parliament without the required forum legislation that

criminalizes sex between people of the same gender already exists in the country's pinnacle act

patients out of hurry in Uganda israel's president isaac hurtzog has again stepped into the row

ripping apart his country the proposals by prime minister benjamin netanyahu's right-wing government

to overhaul the judiciary in a televised address mr hurtzog called on mr netanyahu to abandon them

in favor of plans that had the broad support of israelis to the leaders of the state to the

coalition and the government at its head i say we are the point of no return it is a moment of to

be or not to be to choose agreement and to achieve a foundational constitutional moment

that will enable us to thrive and grow for years and generations to come or to slide

into constitutional security social and economic abyss earlier there were further protests against

mr netanyahu demonstrators in televives stopped him reaching ben gurion airport by car instead he

took a helicopter so he could board a plane for a trip to italy our correspondent tom bateman reports

well this is the irelon highway it's the main road that runs north south in televives

the protesters they breached the road police have been trying to stop them they came down here

jumped over the fence we followed them over as we were filming they got onto the road and

blocked it now this is exactly what israel's far right police minister it's in our bank of

air so he wouldn't expect he calls these protesters anarchists you can hear them chanting for democracy

now we watched as the mounted police came along the street the protesters dug in dozens of them

were sitting on the road and at that point they pushed them back so what is this all about this

is about the new nationalist israeli government led by benjamin netanyahu pushing through a series of

judicial reforms that would its critics say strip israel supreme court of its independence and would

stack the judiciary in favor of the government it has led to increasing protests over the weeks

the government for its part says that they're just trying to restore the balance between the

executive and the judiciary that that is not abnormal but it's led to increasing tension

and increasing clash here over the future of this country tom bateman the united nation says

that it's been able to secure a tanker that can take and store 1.1 million barrels of oil

from a decaying vessel off the coast of yemen the vessel has been threatening environmental

disaster for years our arab affairs editor sebastian usher reports the u n development

agency says that it's made a major breakthrough in trying to avert the potential catastrophe

posed by the fso suffer which is laying abandoned off the port of hadeda since 2015 for years there

have been warnings that the giant super tanker is a time bomb that could break up at any moment

releasing a vast quantity of oil into the sea efforts to avert disaster have been hampered by

continued fighting in yemen and the huge expense of the solution but those issues appear to have

been resolved with the hoothy rebels who control hadeda allowing salvage work to go ahead and the

u n now signing a contract to secure a tanker to store the oil the work could cost more than 140

million dollars but that's dwarfed by the 20 billion dollar salvage operation that would be needed

if an oil spill were to occur sebastian usher a 25 year old singer from london has been announced

as the uk's entry for this year's eurovision song contest may mula will perform her catchy number i

wrote a song at the competition in liverpool in may our eurovision reporter daniel rosney

heard the winner being revealed on a bbc radio station this morning mystery pop star please reveal

yourself hello i am may mula and i'm representing the uk in this year's may mother's song is about

female empowerment and getting her own back on her next boyfriend she'll perform it in front of

160 million viewers no pressure she'll fly the flag for the uk with this

the 25 year old has previously supported girl band little mix on tour and is hoping to follow

in the successful footsteps of sam roider who came second last year he's given me some little

tips and shared some of his wisdom with me already but he's like very busy because he's you know about

to take over the world and go on tour and stuff but he's just been so supportive already the bbc's

use the same management company as it did in 2022 to find an artist for the song contest

anna neville is from tap management she's such a super ambassador for the uk in this competition

37 songs will compete at may's event in liverpool which is hosting it on behalf of last year's

winners ukraine may's convinced british eurovision fans she's got what it takes i can hear it like

going viral on tiktok you know we've been begging for quality and the last this year and last year

we've we've got it but now the challenge is to convince the rest of europe

may in may daniel rosney with that report and that's almost all from us for now there'll be

a new edition of the global news podcast later but before we go andrew peach has been telling

me what's coming up in the happy pod this weekend imagine if you felt that the rest of the world had

a very different and more negative view of your home country than you do we're going to talk to a

guy who's in pakistan who's been posting absolutely beautiful photographs of the scenery of pakistan

because he wants to change the world's perception of his country he says and i'm going to talk to

one of the people who was cheering at the un in new york earlier in the week where after 20 years

of talks they finally did the deal with the un high seas treaty what does it feel as the person

who's devoted so many years of their life to negotiating to get to the point of euphoric

agreement and then what do you do next and the highlight is we've got a nine-year-old listener

in keto in ecuador who sent us a voice note of why she's already enjoying that collection

of happy news so what we've done is created an extra bonus episode of the global news podcast

it arrives every saturday and it rounds up the week's happy news and i'm really pleased to say

we're getting lots of emails from gmp listeners who are enjoying it yeah you've had some extraordinary

feedback to the first episode haven't we've had some lovely emails from people in france in the

u.s in ecuador listening you know sometimes the world can feel a bit of a depressing place but

there's all sorts of joyous and positive things happening as well and quite a lot of the stories

i think are starting to come from our listeners which is really interesting listeners are emailing

with their feedback sometimes they have suggestions of how we might tweak it a little bit or they say

they like it which is lovely to hear but also people are telling us about things happening in

their part of the world and we've got some some of those coming up in the next few weeks but finding

the stories isn't proving as hard as i thought it might be people warm to the concept of wanting

a little podcast once a week that you can listen to on a run or when you're making a recipe in your

kitchen or and life feels perhaps a little bit more relaxed that might cheer you up

this edition of the global news podcast was mixed by daffod evans and the producer

was emma joseph the editor is caron martin i'm alex ritson until next time goodbye

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Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.