Global News Podcast: Cable car rescue underway in Pakistan

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Hello, I'm Oliver Conway. We're recording this at 13 hours GMT on Tuesday the 22nd of August.

The Pakistani military tries to rescue eight people trapped in a broken cable car dangling

above a ravine. 18 suspected migrants have been found dead in Greece after a forest fire near

the Turkish border and Thailand's most controversial politician returns from exile but has he done

a deal with his former enemies to avoid a long jail term. Also in the podcast. Running around to

get replacement toothpaste, toiletries, a lot of stress I didn't particularly want on my first

holiday that I've had in quite a few years. Last year saw a record amount of lost luggage at airports

but could AI offer a solution? Rescuers from the Pakistani army are trying to free six children

and two adults trapped in a cable car in a remote mountainous area of northwest Pakistan.

It's believed the car is suspended by a single rope after a cable snapped. The mission involving

several military helicopters is being hindered by strong winds. This man is on the scene.

This is a very sad incident. Very unfortunate. It happened at seven in the morning when kids were

going to their schools. A string supporting this lift broke. We're trying our best and so far

four helicopters made attempts to rescue. Now a special unit is coming. The local rescue team

are already on standby. We are trying but really don't want to take any chances here.

Well, Harry Bly has been following the story for us and gave me this update just before we recorded

this podcast. Oliver, what we know so far, this is taking place in the Batigram area in the province

of Kaba Pakhtuqa in northern Pakistan. One of the cable cars ropes snapped at seven o'clock in the

morning local time. That's two GMT. It's unknown how or why it snapped. Inside, as you mentioned,

eight people, six of them are school children. This is because more than a hundred school children

get to school in the morning. If they were to take the roads, it would take two hours. This takes

four minutes. Photographs show this cable car hanging by one of its two cables, which means

it's leaning at about a 45 degree angle and one of the doors is seen open. It's worth mentioning.

It's not a totally enclosed cable car. It has semi-open sides. One of our colleagues at BBC

Urdu has said that these are often built by local communities and sometimes are built illegally

because there is no other infrastructure and it's a lot cheaper. Police officer has told the BBC

that this one in particular was made by a local mechanic. Cable cars are very common because

of its very mountainous this region. One of the adults in the cable car has spoken by phone to the

Pakistani news outlet Geo News and he has told Geo News that a 16-year-old with a heart condition

has collapsed in the cable car and was unconscious. Yeah and the footage from the scene quite

incredible. Huge drop beneath that cable car. Tell us more about the rescue operation.

It's very, very risky rescue operation. Military helicopters have reached the location where the

cable car is stuck and they are approaching with caution. There's actually some dramatic footage

circulating online showing a rescuer dangling out of a helicopter attempting to reach the cable

car. Of course the helicopter can't get too close because of the helicopter's rotor blades which

produce very strong winds which could destabilise the lift even more. Now in the last 15 minutes

officials have told the BBC that they are thinking of laying new cables in attempt to

restabilise the car. It's a high pressure situation for all the rescuers. There are

500 at least 500 spectators including the parents of the children who are trapped.

It's also past six o'clock in the evening in that region of Pakistan right now meaning

of course the sun will be going down soon. Harry Bly there. There have been plenty of tragic stories

about wildfires this summer but now 18 suspected migrants are thought to have died in a forest

fire in Greece. Their bodies were found in a wooded area where they're thought to have been

camping out. Temperatures in Greece are expected to approach 40 degrees Celsius today. I heard more

from my Europe regional editor Danny Aberhardt. This particular incident Ollie concerns a group

of bodies found in the northeast of Greece near the Turkish border and the Greek fire service has

said that the bodies of 18 people were found near a fire and that given that there'd be no reports

of disappearances or missing residents from the surrounding area the possibility is that these

people are migrants who have illegally entered Greece. The route across the Evros River from

Turkey is a common route for migrants so it looks like a very serious tragedy that's happened there.

There have been a couple of other people who've died in fires in the area which is around the

port of Alexandrov Poulos and also in another area of central Greece in the last couple of days

but this is clearly the most serious incident to date. Yeah this news only just coming out so

not a lot of details but from what you're saying it sounds like they might have come into Greece

and then perhaps been hiding out or trying to find somewhere to stay and then got caught up in this fire.

Well a lot of migrants who cross the border camp basically in sort of wilder areas or perhaps on

the outskirts of villages or in the forest that whole area there is actually a national park with

very forested area so they're trying to evade the authorities because they fear being kicked out of

Greece if they're found so it's a very difficult situation for migrants there but beyond that

the fear that these fires are spreading rapidly, there's scale force winds in large

areas of Greece, very high temperatures as you mentioned and there are a number of fires that

have broken out simultaneously in different areas so we have this area in the northeast,

other areas in the northern Aegean, parts of central Greece, the Peloponnese is also at

extreme risk of fire and the fire services are so stretched they've reached out to other

European Union countries so we've had water bombing aircraft sent from Cyprus, we've also had

teams of firefighters from Romania and France and I expect that the EU will be sending more help

via its civil protection mechanism. Our Europe regional editor Danny Eberhard.

Even though he's been in self-imposed exile for 15 years,

Taksin Shinawatt has dominated politics in Thailand for two decades, a former policeman,

billionaire businessman and one time owner of Manchester City Football Club,

he served as Thai Prime Minister for five years until he was ousted in a coup backed by the

royalist establishment. Today he has returned to Thailand as part of what appears to be a deal with

his former enemies. Taksin was greeted by hundreds of his famous red shirt supporters as he arrived

at Bangkok Airport. He was then taken to the Supreme Court where he was ordered to serve eight

years in prison on long-standing charges. However, he isn't expected to stay behind bars for long

because just hours after he returned home, his Thai party won a vote to lead a new government.

The new coalition includes not only Mr Taksin's populists but also some of the forces which

helped overthrow both him and later his sister. However, it excludes the reformist Move Forward

party which won the most seats in the May election and which was in effect blocked from taking up

power. So how significant a moment is this for Thailand? Our South East Asia correspondent

Jonathan Head is there. You have to bear in mind how much this figure of Taksin has overshadowed

Thai politics for 20 years. I mean he absolutely dominated Thai politics at the beginning of the

century when his time in government but he's continued to be this enormous influence and really

up until the election this year his parties and they they all forgot dissolved and had to reform

themselves won every single election since 2001. They were unbeatable. Now things are changing

because Move Forward has become so popular because it represents a younger more progressive force

because so many Thais now see the need for more profound changes. A lot of people who supported

Poo Tai shifted over to Move Forward in the last election so in many ways this deal that we see

going down we think is going down it's not final yet we don't know how long Mr Taksin is going

to spend in jail. He clearly thinks he's going to get lean in treatment but the fact that there

is this deal happening with parties who have absolutely demonised Taksin as an enemy of the

royalists of the monarchy of the royalist dissensions in the past tells you that Poo Tai is now you

know seen in a different light. Yeah I mean just take us through what we could expect in the next

few weeks and months from this new Thai government. Well you know they've got a portion ministerial

post there's been a huge amount of horse trading you had 11 parties in there very different complexions

some of them. It's going to be very difficult for people who hoped for change in the election in May

where you know if you included Poo Tai and that reformist coalition that was two-thirds of all

the votes voting for something new. Now Poo Tai has got into bed with its former adversaries

everything's very transactional it's unlikely they'll be able to push forward any of the reform

agendas like keeping the military out of politics changing the constitution

things like that they will now be a very low priority as more conservative parties

fight for projects that helped us help their areas or help them get rich.

It's in some ways a rather dismal end to what had been a very hopeful moment in Thai politics

but I think they will work very hard to get the economy going it's been very very slow moving

for many years now. I think they hope that if they can do that if they can make the economy go

people will forgive the rather shabby way in which this coalition has come together.

And briefly will young people in Thailand accept this?

No I don't think they will the real question is just what they're willing to do about it

we've seen so many protests in the past if Thailand's conflict its evolution has not stopped it's

simply gone into a different chapter in which Mr. Taxen who's been such a big figure and his party

will no longer be so important. Jonathan heard in the Thai capital Bangkok.

Now on to some less dramatic news last year was the worst in a decade for passengers bags going

missing on airline flights our reporter Jennifer Myhans has the details. 26 million pieces of

luggage were lost delayed or damaged in 2022 that's nearly eight bags in every thousand

and that was the highest rate since 2012 when it was 26.3 million and nearly nine pieces were

mishandled per thousand passengers. Things are improving though I asked Theta which handles the

IT systems for most of the world's airlines for its provisional data for the first half of this

year now that came out there were 5.7 million pieces of luggage that were mishandled which is

down from 5.8 million in the first half of 2019 which is our last real comparative time before

the pandemic when passenger numbers are similar so really big numbers last year but seems to be

getting better. Yeah slight improvement but why was last year so bad? Well this was the first

summer that holiday makers returned in their droves after COVID travel restrictions were eased

but lots of airports and airlines that have made cuts during the pandemic struggled to

recruit staff like baggage handlers quickly enough to cope. Theta's report found that the

increase in 2022 was down to increases during transfers from flight to flight and they accounted

for 42% of the baggage mishandling. And of course these are numbers but each bag lost is a real

pain for each passenger. Yes it can be a really distressing thing to happen. I went to meet 27

year old Chloe she was flying from Gatwick to Pisa in Italy for her friend's wedding when

her luggage got lost. I spent the first couple of hours which you would normally think I'll go and

see the sights we're running around shops trying to find pharmacies to get like replacement

toothpaste toiletries a lot of stress I didn't particularly want on kind of my first holiday

that I've had in quite a few years and I was the experience of witnessing my friend get married

with unfortunately I'll never be able to relive because obviously I had to want some lifetime

opportunity. Of course on top of all the stress she's still without her bag that happened on the

1st of August and it's not so easy as you would think to get compensation if it happens to you

you need to report it at the airport and keep a copy of the property irregularity report and then

you can use that to contact the airline in writing but it's worth knowing that most airlines the

maximum they'll pay out is around a thousand dollars because they just don't take liability for

expensive or sentimental items you need to provide receipts as proof of purchase which

often we don't have for everything that we've packed and airlines also judge the value of an

item on its age when it was lost not how much it cost to buy new so it's often better to claim

via your travel insurance now more and more of us are taking our bags in the cabin but

if you put your cases in the hold how can you avoid losing them and then getting them back

if they do go missing yeah there are a few things you can do to reduce the risk of your luggage going

missing so one is to make sure that your name and address are on the inside and outside of your bag

that way if the tracking tag comes off during the flight the airline knows where to send it

it's also a good idea to make your bag stand out so you can add colored straps or stickers

and that's more to stop someone mistakenly picking up your bag at the airport instead of theirs

keep valuables in your hand luggage just for your own peace of mind they'll be with you at all times

some people use a gps tag linked to a smart phone so you can follow your luggage journey

but all airlines have to track your luggage at various points during the journey if your luggage

does go missing there is technology to help get it back to you so some airlines are trialing an

algorithm that works out if you're going to get to a destination but your luggage isn't it will

find out what the next best available flight is and redirect your bag onto that flight without any

human intervention the situation is expected to improve further as 96 percent of airlines are

planning to digitize baggage operations by 2025 our reporter jennifer mayans

and still to come on the global news podcast scotland looks to portugal for inspiration

on how to tackle drug abuse your life it's like a prison you wake up thinking in drugs you lay

down thinking in drugs it's the only source who is thinking in your mind it's drugs drugs drugs

defense officials in ukraine say claims of corruption in its army recruitment service are

shameful and unacceptable but they still need to mobilize men to fight off russia's invaders

president zelensky recently sacked every regional recruitment head after widespread allegations

including both intimidation and taking bribes our ukraine correspondent james waterhouse has this

report probably not what these men were hoping for at this gambling arcade in the key of region

arrayed by draft officers ordering them to sign up at the local military recruitment center a

common site in wartime ukraine but there are big questions over how it's done the system is very

outdated it's like soviet times recruiters using these methods now is unacceptable that's yehor

not his real name he's not happy with the military's methods

military recruitment ads are everywhere on billboards online on tv but the flow of volunteers has

gone down because of russia's invasion ukraine wants to replace the tens of thousands of personnel

killed and injured as well as rest troops have been on the front line for months but the system

is seen as old-fashioned and now corrupted its core more than a hundred criminal cases have been

launched some officials have been arrested for taking bribes to help men avoid the draft there

are exemptions including poor health for being a single parent but martial law means there's no

option of alternative service for those who just don't want to fight alexander thinks he should be

exempt because of being part of the hadekrishna movement but officials weren't exactly impressed

if it is necessary i'm ready to serve i could help as a cook give out humanitarian aid work as a

medical volunteer but i cannot use weapons while some try to appeal they're right not to fight

thousands try to avoid the draft for example with old-fashioned tip-offs so we're driving around

the outskirts of kyiv following the updates on this telegram group with more than a hundred

thousand members and just look at this update it says close to a shopping mall in the posniki

area of the capital and at the bottom it has the number two next to an olive emoji and olives

are the nicknames they use for the drafting officers because of the color of their uniforms

mobilization is why most men under 60 can't leave the country the authorities often post

videos of them trying to flee illegally it's okay to be scared is the military's latest slogan

unveiled by deputy defense minister anamalia corruption in the recruitment centers is unacceptable

and shameful but we should not forget that behind all that outrage which is completely fair

there are two components of our victory weapons and people and the mobilization process is what

provides that this is the sound of resistance training for civilians and they are wearing

body armor with laser attachments on the end of weapons but there is a background hope here

that some of the people here they might volunteer for the armed forces down the line

you realize the ukraine of today is fighting for its tomorrow for its existence 18 months into

russia's full-scale invasion the country is having to balance its need for soldiers with the idea

that the battlefield isn't for everyone our ukraine correspondent james waterhouse a new study

suggests that a 10-minute MRI scan could be a more effective way of screening men for prostate

cancer the scans proved far more accurate at diagnosing the cancer than blood tests which

look for high levels of a protein called psa the bbc's medical editor furgus walsh spoke to rob young

so there were 300 men aged 50 to 75 who were invited to university college hospital big hospital

in central london for this study led by university college london they had a 10-minute MRI scan of

their prostate and they also had the traditional blood test known as the psa blood test and the

brief MRI scan proved much better at diagnosing cancer and especially the aggressive cancers

that need treatment of 25 men whose aggressive cancer was found by MRI more than half of them

had negative psa tests low negative psa tests which would have meant they would have been given

false reassurance that they were cancer-free whereas in fact they had a cancer that needed

urgent treatment right so this is potentially a game changer then in the diagnosis of of prostate

cancer yes i think it is that then the question arises what do you do with that information

because MRI machines are big and expensive so the the plan the hope is that eventually it might

lead to screening programs because MRI is already used in many countries as part of the diagnostic

pathway and when people have a high psa result they then may be sent for an MRI but what the hope

is now that this could actually lead to screening programs like you have in many countries for

breast cancer where women come forward for mammograms but i think that's quite some way off now the psa

test the blood test does have definite value and countries like the us spain and italy which

use the blood tests more frequently than many others have lower mortality rates but the problem is

it overdiagnoses it picks up many cancers that that would never leave the prostate and don't

need treatment and it misses some cancers too and it can lead to over treatment as well does this

then make it more likely that people could be cured of prostate cancer yes in a word yes because

prostate cancer is very treatable and very curable if it's caught early focus wash our

medical editor talking to rob young the number of people who died from drugs in scotland in 2022

fell to the lowest level in five years however scotland still has the worst drug death rate in

europe with narcotics mostly opiates like heroin morphine and methadone claiming about 90 lives

a month scotland has struggled to get on top of the problem for years and the government there

has proposed decriminalizing personal use looking to the example of portugal which did the same

more than 20 years ago james cook has been investigating the portuguese experience and

sent this report from the city of porto portugal has come a long way in a short time half essentially

ago this country was a closed dictatorship nowadays it's an open and vibrant democracy

buzzing with tourists although there is another side it's by no means everywhere but in the

past few days i've seen more drug use on the streets of lisbon and porto than i have in glasgo

or edinburgh for years and yet there are vastly more drug deaths in scotland why

shogolau says one answer might be the legal framework more than 20 years ago he helped to

design portugal's decriminalization policy he's still in charge of it drug use as a massive

phenomenon here in portugal exploded after our democratic revolution in 74 we were facing a

very severe epidemic related to airway mostly to airway and accordingly we proposed the

decriminalization of drug use the aim can be summed up in two words harm reduction i am

no better case i'm psychologist and i work like a technical coordinator of the drug conception

but they can take shower they can do laundry we can be tested for infections disease like like

hepatitis b and c hiv and then they can be linked to to health care service

taking drugs in portugal is not criminal but it's not legal either there is a distinction

habitual users can still be referred for treatment and counseling or find

but they won't go to court let alone prison as we find out on the outskirts of portugal's second

city porto why are you here today i came here because i came to smoke i came to consume cocaine

my real name is lison yell but everybody calls me binagre when i started using drugs i was

14 years old and when i was 18 i started to inject and then i catch the the disease hiv

i have a hiv for 26 years when when you are taking drugs your life it's like a prison you wake up

sinking in drugs you lay down sinking in drugs it's the only sort who is sinking in your mind it's

drugs drugs drugs the police have brought us to a neighborhood called pashtalera here in porto

and we're in the middle of a housing estate it's crisscrossed by little alleyways and small squares

there's a woman just peering behind the shutters that are seeing what's going on and what has happened

here has been transformational because a few months ago the police tell us we simply couldn't

have been here the area had a huge problem with drug trafficking the police moved in cleared the

problem away of course they acknowledge it's moved to other parts of the city and that really

underlines the challenge for the police here in portugal where drug consumption is treated as a

public health issue but drug supply remains in the hands of the criminals my name is rumoreira

i'm the mayor of the city of porto since 2013 when the law changed in 2001 mr morera was running a

nightclub you had suddenly a population of people who would go to the door of the school where it's

not allowed to smoke where it's forbidden to advertise ice cream or sweets but people can

be there and they can be shooting uh drugs and nothing happens so has this policy failed

failure is maybe too strong a word because it would mean going back and i don't think we should

go back to the original plan of prohibition but i think it should be criminalized in some places

sure go loud does not think the policy needs to be changed but he has a word of warning for scotland

decriminalization by itself gives you nothing but all the other responses treatment harm reduction

are much more efficient within a decriminalized environment than before they were before

more than 20 years after portugal decriminalized drug use no one says it's a magic bullet the

problem is complex every country is different but the fact remains far far fewer drug users are

dying here than are dying in scotland james cook in the portuguese city of porto now while we've

been recording this edition of the global news podcast we've had an update on the first story

we covered the eight people trapped in a cable car in pakistan well it's now been confirmed that one

of the six children stuck there has been rescued and you can get live updates on our website bbcnews.com

finally a joke about an unfaithful zookeeper has been named as the funniest one-liner of this year's

edinburgh festival i started dating a zookeeper but it turned out he was a cheetah that gag makes

launa rose treene the first female comedian to win since zoe lions took the very first

fringe joke award back in 2008 the short list of 10 jokes is drawn up by a panel of comedy critics

and the public vote on their favorite three so just for you here are the ones i would have picked

i entered the how not to surrender competition and i won hands down well that was by the defeatist

bennett aron aimos gill had a topical one about economics last year i had a great joke about

inflation but it's hardly worth it now and my own personal favorite from frank lavender how

does celiac germans greet each other gluten tag and that is all from us for now but the global

news podcast will be back very soon if you want to comment on the podcast or anything in it send

an email to globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk you can also contact us on x or twitter as i still call it

at global news pod the producer of this edition was harry bligh it was mixed by mike cambell

our editors caron martin i'm oliver conway until next time goodbye

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.