Global News Podcast: Breakdown in US Motor City

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

I'm Valerie Sanderson and at 14 hours GMT on Friday the 15th of September these are our main

stories. Workers at three of America's largest car makers have gone on strike. Iran has massively

increased security in the hometown of Massa Amini a year on from her death at the hands of the

morality police. The former head of Spain's Football Federation has appeared in court for a

hearing to decide if he should face trial for alleged sexual assault. Also in this podcast

why did two dams in the eastern Libyan city of Derna fail so catastrophically with flooding

killing at least 11,000 people? We get the assessment of a specialist engineer and the end

of a culinary era. This was open at a time when there was very very little for Indian community

so it's something quite important. To me it's a part of my father that is going forever. It just

breaks you hard. Sadness as a 70 year old London institution prepares to serve up its final curry.

We begin in the United States where one of the largest labour unions has begun strike

action against Detroit's big three automakers, Ford, General Motors and the Chrysler owners

Stellantis. It's the first time they've downed tools all at the same time. The unions want a

40% wage increase over the next four years but car makers have responded with pay offers ranging

from 17 and a half to 20%. There are warnings the strikes by the United Auto Workers or UAW

could have a major effect on the US economy with costs running into billions of dollars.

The union is targeting just three plants to start with but its president has warned many more union

members could walk out. Michelle Flurry joined striking workers in Detroit. UAW President Sean

Fane arriving here at the picket line outside Ford's plant to a rock star's welcome as workers

greeted his car with chants and shouts and honking horns. We've had very constructive

conversations we made counter offers again tonight. It's their fault it's a shame that

they waited to the last week to start meeting with us. From day one we've told these companies

you know we don't expect them to delay and drag things out and that's what they've chose to do.

We didn't want to be here we want a fair agreement we want fair economic and social justice for our

members that's what this is all about and it's a shame they drug it out they waited to the last week

so here we are we got to do what we got to do we're going to be out here until we get our share

of economic justice and it doesn't matter how long it takes that's up to the companies.

Here on the picket line spirits are high for the three car makers it has been a tough period

of negotiation they say in the last few days they had increased their offer and that it was the union

that was unwilling to budge. Whilst the recriminations go on one thing is clear this strike even though

it is limited in nature will have a profound impact on the auto industry who knows where it will end.

So a huge impact on the US auto industry but what about elsewhere here's our business correspondent

Katie Silver. I guess the major global ramifications need to be contextualized in the fact that the

US economy being the world's largest then has an impact on other economies around the world.

So the question is how much is this going to impact the US economy to have those flow-on effects.

There's a few areas in which we might see it impact the US economy first and foremost of course

is the car industry. So of course there has been shortages particularly of parts after the pandemic

we talked a lot about semiconductor chips and that's meant that the car supply generally has

been lower so they're going into this strike with a smaller supply than usual. The initial plans

to target just a number of factories of these companies means that it wouldn't be a complete

standstill. The question really is how it progresses and if things ratchet up over time

the economic impact will of course be greater. So then initial economic impact fairly limited

about $500 million a day that's been estimated by the Anderson Economic Group that overall across

10 days amounts to about 0.02% of the annual output of the American economy but as I say

obviously if this goes on for longer and more plants are targeted then that's going to see a

bigger fallout. Katie Silver with every day that passes the scale of the tragedy in Libya grows

11,000 people are now known to have died but the mayor of Derna parts of which were simply washed

away by the floodwaters says the true figure may be 20,000 and the horror compounded by the fact

that the bodies of many of those have yet to be recovered. Five days on more stories are emerging

of how some people survived. Mariam Aguivi is from Derna. She told us how she and her four

brothers and sisters managed to stay alive. The men of our building our neighbors they were screaming

and yelling. They told us we have to get on the roof because the water started getting higher and

higher. As we were on the roof we were able to see other people on other buildings roofs and they

were waving with their phones and flash-ons and then suddenly the building collapsed. At that moment

we realized that actually we might die. It's so hard to lose everything like in a second or loved

ones losing the place you grew up in trying to figure out a way to accept that all of this just

happened and that it wasn't just a dream. The Zango too about why the authorities in Libya

divided between east and west failed to carry out vital maintenance checks on the dams which

caused the floods. Andrew Hawes is a British geotechnical engineer who's been studying these

specific dams on Google Earth and Claire MacDonald asked him what he learned. It looks as though the

problem started about 15 miles to the south of Derna in the mountains there and that's behind

the first dam the southern dam which is much the larger dam it's situated in a steep valley

surrounded by impermeable rock mountains. Now if there was a extreme rainfall event which

there clearly was on that catchment the catchment is the area on which the rain falls and goes down

to the dam four inches of rain a hundred millimeters of rain could have generated a hundred million

tons of water behind that first dam. Now these dams are not built to store water they are not

built to generate electricity the irony is they are built to attenuate flood flows to allow development

downstream and that's all they were they weren't big structures the southern structure was 25 meters

high 300 meters across well that's pretty big and then the small one at Derna was only 100 meters

across but that dam by Derna had no chance of surviving once the main dam broke and this is

called a cascade failure. It's a hideous irony as you've just pointed out that these dams were built

so building work could go on further down the valley and yet here we have 25 percent of this

city flushed into the sea what would have been the safety features that failed on those dams?

The dams didn't have safety features as far as I can tell they were rock pitch dams which is

basically lumps of rocks cemented together to form an impermeable barrier and give the structure

strength and behind these dams there were very similar structures like giant funnels

and these are the overflows so when the flood waters come down they rise behind the dam and then

slowly overflow into these funnel structures which takes the flood water at a controlled rate so

we're attenuating the flood and that funnel that pipe takes the flood water under the dam and down

into the riverbed where it flows at a more normal rate in other words it's not a torrent now what

would have happened in a catastrophic event potentially made worse by floating debris

because there is only one overflow structure so trees would soon block it but I suspect it was

simply inundated these structures are over 40 years old and one hopes they were designed to some form

of standard but maybe not and so probably the first dam over topped and once it over topped

there would have been no chance of it surviving it's not designed like a spillway a spillway is

to take the water that the normal overflow cannot cope with if you like an emergency overflow

and some dams may have two emergency overflows to take ever-increasing flood waters but there was

nothing like this here just one overflow structure on each dam clearly serious questions being raised

about why the money wasn't forthcoming after colonel Gaddafi was overthrown over 10 years ago now

when they needed repair funds both of these dams given the fact we have to factor in global warming

now do we need to look worldwide at how certain dams have been constructed why they've been

constructed in the way that they have so we do not see a repeat of this utter tragedy people have

been making political points in Libya on this I suspect nothing would have been done these are

small structures for all we know they may have been in perfect repair but they were simply

inundated by an event way greater than they were designed for and in answer to your second question

do we need to look at dams worldwide we are the whole time after every event flood studies are

rewritten and dam spillways are improved to take much larger events and they're always theoretical

events but we had one recently in the UK at Todd Brook and within 12 months the flood studies had

been redesigned and spillways across Europe were being made to have a greater capacity

engineer Andrew Hawes tens of millions of people around the world suffer from Alzheimer's the most

common form of dementia so research that adds to our knowledge of the causes and possible treatment

is always welcome now scientists in Britain and Belgium say they may have discovered the mechanism

by which brain cells die in people suffering from Alzheimer's a health correspondent James Gannagher

has been looking at their findings if you look at brain scans of people you see huge numbers of

brain cells dying inside people with the condition that's why it leads to things like memory loss

however as was described to me last night by one leading scientist one of the fundamental

gaps we have in our knowledge of the disease and we do know a lot is why do those brain cells

actually die what is the process of those brain cells dying and that's what this study is tackling

so by teasing it apart they've identified this process called necropoptosis and that's a form

of cellular suicide it's a natural part of the human body it's how the body balances out the growth

of new cells with purging the ones that no longer needs but what they've teased apart in the study

is showing some of the proteins that we see building up in the brains of Alzheimer's disease

triggering that process in the brain and in some of those experiments they were able to

block that process from happening so even in the circumstances in laboratory experiments

where you'd expect brain cells to die they could keep them alive so we have got some of the first

drugs for treating Alzheimer's disease that actually start to change the course of the disease

and they target the buildup of the abnormal proteins in the brain and kind of like flush

them out and that's how they work and that's how they are slowing the course of the disease

this is looking a little bit further down the line going well actually how is it that

leads to brain cells dying and has opened up this new avenue well now we've identified this process

is it possible that we can kind of get in there and actually do something

to stop those brain cells dying there's a whole load of research before you would actually get

to that point of knowing can you do that would that be a successful therapy but I've spoken to

scientists the words I'm getting back are this is cool this is fascinating this is an important

discovery but it's still a long way off a medicine James Gallagher the former head of

Spain's national football federation Luis Rubiales has been in court for a hearing to decide whether

he should face trial for sexual assault during celebrations after Spain won the women's world

cup last month he was seen grabbing the striker Jenny Hermoso and kissing her on the lips he claims

it was consensual a correspondent guy Hedgeko was at the court in Madrid mr. Rubiales spent about

an hour in the courtroom he didn't speak at all to the press either on his arrival or after leaving

but we have heard some reports of what went on for example Jenny Hermoso's

lawyer has spoken to the press and said that she had reiterated the position of her client which was

that the kiss was not consensual we've also heard the position of mr. Rubiales during the hearing

which was that he had again repeated his line that it was a consensual kiss that he'd done nothing

wrong that he was completely innocent of any wrongdoing and also he apparently denied that

there had been any coercion by him or his team there are also accusations against him of coercion

in that there are claims that he and his team had pressured Jenny Hermoso to go public and play down

the importance of the kiss after it took place and after the whole controversy surrounding it

had started and we also understand that the prosecutor in court as for a restraining order

is that correct yes that is something that the prosecutor has requested a restraining order for

mr. Rubiales to keep him away from Jenny Hermoso by distance of at least 500 meters at all times

and also the other request by the prosecutor was that mr. Rubiales should appear in this court every

two weeks we don't know if the magistrate will accept those requests and implement them we're

waiting for that now but we should hear that news relatively soon Guy Hedgeko in Spain

still to come it's a great pleasure to have this prize for such a fundamental thing in

geology and chemistry as licking rocks this year's winners for the Ig Nobel awards that make people

laugh then think and before we move on here's Andrew Peach with news of this week's happy pod

yes this week the story of moose the dog who saved Sheila and Chris from a fire on their houseboat

they join me from texas to tell the story which they've also set to music if you heard about the

american caver who fell ill thousands of meters below ground in turkey cave rescuers from the whole

world joined forces to work out how to get him out safely i'll talk to the Croatian man who led

the rescue effort and if you're swimming 50 kilometers in the sea how the biggest challenge

comes from the jellyfish i'll talk to John T who took them on a few days ago he's an amputee by the

way those stories and more in the happy pod available to download in this feed every saturday

saturday marks a year since Masa Amini a young woman in iran died in state custody

after she'd been arrested by the country's morality police for allegedly not wearing her veil properly

it sparked an uprising led by women and girls demanding not just an end to the compulsory

dress code but much wider freedoms after several months the regime succeeded in crushing the protests

but not the widespread desire for change to mark the anniversary the bbc has been hearing from

iranian women moigen ilanlu is a filmmaker living in tiran and has been arrested numerous times by

the morality police she says she takes inspiration from african-american civil rights activist rosa

parks who back in 1955 refused to give up her seat on a racially segregated bus in alabama

what has changed after masa's death is men's public opinion of women in the streets in the metro

in bozards men constantly admire women they praise women's courage even at family gatherings

women are worships as symbols of strength which i believe is the most significant fruit of masa's

movement society won't go back to pre-masa times the regime cannot do anything because of the

prevalence of the civil disobedience they pretend that they are in control of the situation

but everything regarding women has gone out of hand universities streets and even governmental

organizations are conquered by women who are going out in public without a mandatory hijab

this is not a simple act of taking off the headscarf but an announcement of women's power

i took my scarf off in front of the university of tehran and posted on my instagram saying

be terrified of us i started the hashtag the city must get used to me then i started walking

without hijab in the tatrish square at the time bbc persian journalists asked if i wanted to do an

interview for the first time i directly criticized the supreme leader mr khamenei when the interview

ended almost 50 of my friends from all around the world called me to see whether i was alive later

on they arrested 180 filmmakers because they did not wear the compulsory hijab they released 179

of them but my sentence was lashes and 10 years imprisonment because i publicly announced mr khamenei

was responsible for the critical situation in iran i went to four prisons i was in solitary

confinement for 40 days because they wanted to interrogate me they kept me among the female

sex workers in one of the worst prisons in iran archac prison there were 30 beds but 170 people

were imprisoned there there were only two toilets and two showers no food or water every morning

my friend and i took the younger girls out to separate fleas from the hair those girls are

my biggest source of inspiration i keep going because i want to be the voice of the women who

do not have a voice moigen elan lou new research into parenting has thrown up a few surprises it

found that parents here in the uk place a low value on teaching children obedience the united

states meanwhile ranks lowest among 24 countries per placing an emphasis on good manners the world

value study looked at data across a number of categories a stephanie prentice report the annual

study found wealthier nations shifting away from traditional values like hard work and obedience

to ones like self-expression and developing nations focusing more on good manners and religious faith

the old saying in the uk that children should be seen and not heard is seemingly a thing of the past

only 12 percent of parents there reported caring about obedience compared to almost 40 percent caring

about imagination and china sweden and south korea joined the uk at the bottom of the rankings

when it came to requiring children to behave themselves the study also looked at generational

differences and found that gen z parents born after 1996 valued obedience significantly less

than the generations before them when it came to hard work is the key priority

poland russia and greece were top with poland reaching 81 percent one of the highest recorded

scores for anything research has also looked at the idea of having children being a social duty

the uk us and sweden ranked lowest in that whereas in the philippines nigeria in indonesia

more than three quarters of respondents logged childbearing as something they owed to society

the study also logged data around whether beating children was acceptable 97 percent

of parents in greece said it wasn't with japan and germany close behind at the other end of the

scale 38 percent of parents in nigeria thought it was justifiable with morocco and brazil joining

them some of the findings showed a somewhat surprising shift in scores year on year the

u.s. ranked lowest for prioritizing good manners only about half of parents 52 percent said they

cared about manners down from 76 percent in 1990 and canada which has a reputation for being polite

saw the same shift with only 54 percent of parents saying they prioritized good manners

compared to 75 percent in the 90s stephanie prentice next a farewell to a london institution

the india club tucked away inside a hotel on the strand next to the river thames it's been

serving up curries dials and biranis since the early 1950s a taste of home for south asian

immigrants in the years after independence but sunday will be its final service it's closing

to make way for a major refurbishment of the hotel james kumris army's been down for his first

and indeed last visit it's a pretty unassuming place i have to say there's a chalkboard that says

india club restaurant bar a couple of gentlemen i've just bumped into who are taking photographs

tell us why this is an iconic place it has served indian curry which we so desperately needed for

all those years well before any other place opened so we've come to pay homage to it before it shuts

this was opened at a time when there was very very little for indian community so it's something

quite important its place in history it has a real place we're heading up the stairs there's a little

sign up here says india club right end to the time warp it's a headline from a magazine and a

faded restaurant lettering you know wander up these steps to the restaurant itself

i'm sitting down here now in this packed room with people crammed in on sofas waiting for tables

with somebody who has a very close personal relationship with this club what do you mind

introducing yourself my name is smitha tharoor my father lived in london from 1949 to 1958

and in 1951 the india league as it was then called which was then firstly created to get

independence but after 1947 was independent wanted to create a home away from home for the indians

in the city so along with christian men and who was the first high comes from india to the united

a few people were gathered together to found what we know is the india club

so where we're sitting now has been around for at least 65 years what does this place mean to you

i heard stories about this mythical place called the india club where dad was telling us about the

things he did he created for example the lovely classical kerala dance form called the autumn

which is a satire which you recite and you perform and he then performed it in front of

christian men and essentially looking at the brits who he loved wasn't about that but gently

laughing at them and talking about the fact for example one line i remember was about the fact

that the brits are a funny lot every time you take something they say thank you thank you thank you

many many many times and every time something goes even marginally wrong they keep saying sorry

that has not changed at all what about this place is it changed to today there is no change

other than the fact that the proper four mica tables rather than peeling four mica tables but

they're still four mica tables i mean this feels like a sort of end of an era almost to me it's a part

of my father that is going forever it just breaks your heart i don't know how to explain it now you

mentioned your father christian menon neyru the former prime minister was involved in the founding

of this wasn't there's a photograph with my dad and the president of india mount batten visited

and there's a photograph of my mom sitting and having a cup of tea with mom batten it's such an

unusual history for those who don't know law mount batten lady mount batten they were in india

at a very pivotal time exactly because they were the last vice roys of india and in 1947 they left

and they were very close friends with neyru so of course neyru would have told them about

the india club and what's going on here there's a lot of history here there's a sense of nostalgia

emotions the stories of india and indians in london smitha thirur daughter of chandan thirur

the founder of the india club which closes its doors for the final time this weekend and finally

from using dead spiders to grip objects to looking into the effect the sex lives of anchovies have

on our oceans researchers investigating some of the quirkiest conundrums in science have been

honored in this year's ignobell awards as rebecca wood reports welcome to the 33rd first annual

ignobell prize ceremony the motto for the ignobells is that first they make you laugh and then they

make you think and many of this year's winners have done just that take for example the winner of

the chemistry and geology award yanzi lasovitz of the university of lester has explained why many

scientists like to lick rocks thank you very much indeed it's a great pleasure to have this prize for

such a fundamental thing in geology and chemistry as licking rocks which geologists do all the time

in the field because something that's not very clear then becomes much clearer when you look at

it with the wet surface perhaps more appetizing than rocks is the ignobell prize for nutrition

won this year by a team at the university of tokyo who created a pair of electrified chopsticks

they looked at how electrical stimulation of the tongue can enhance the saltiness of foods

and if we move our focus on to the other end of the digestive system the prize for public health

was awarded to sungmin park from stanford university for the development of a smart toilet

it uses an anal print sensor to identify the user and then various technologies to monitor human

waste for signs of disease our toilet can't do more than keep us clean they can keep us healthy

so here's my shout out to you let's transform hygiene into healthcare because the ultimate goal

of hygiene is effective healthcare thank you all for this honor and remember don't waste your waste

and while some of these might sound a bit daft when you dig a little deeper you find that much

of the research is actually intended to tackle real world problems and gets published in peer

reviewed scholarly journals the awards organized by the science humor magazine annals of improbable

research were handed out by genuine Nobel laureates and the prize 10 trillion zimbabwean

dollars around 40 us cents rebecca wood and that's it from us for now but there'll be a new edition

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

send us an email the address is global podcast at bbc.co.uk this edition was mixed by pat sissons

and edited by karen martin the producer was nickie varico i'm valerys hamderson until next time bye

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.