Global News Podcast: Hotel Rwanda hero freed

BBC BBC 3/24/23 - Episode Page - 32m - PDF Transcript

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I'm Andrew Peach and in the early hours of Saturday the 25th of March these are our main

stories. Rwanda releases the jailed dissident whose life inspired a Hollywood movie about the

1994 genocide. The UN's grave concern about the summary killings of civilians and prisoners of war

during Russia's war in Ukraine and the US and Canada strike a deal to tackle illegal migration.

Also in this podcast the city killer asteroid is heading our way.

We'll find out more about this giant space rock and how you can see it and...

I am the Jesus Christ of politics.

Various women who have had relationships with Berlusconi in different ways step forward to

tell their story. The stage musical about the former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Poor recessor beginner became known all over the world for his heroism preventing

hundreds of tutsis from being slaughtered in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

He rose to fame after the Hollywood movie Hotel Rwanda in 2004 and two years later was awarded

the highest civilian award of the United States the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

During the Rwandan genocide in 1994 he risked his own life to shelter more than 1,000 fellow

Rwandans targeted for murder. His life reminds us of our moral duty to confront evil in all its forms.

The United States Honours Paul Recessabagina for his spirit and bravery in defending and caring for his fellow man.

Now the government in Kigali has released him from jail. He'd begun serving 25 years on terrorism charges.

Our Africa correspondent Catherine Birahanga who's in Nairobi has been telling me more.

The government in Rwanda has maintained that Paul Recessabagina is not the hero that so many people

watched in the Hotel Rwanda movie where he was portrayed as a hotel manager trying to protect

over a thousand people during the Rwanda genocide. The government says in the last few years he joined

a political party that was allied to a rebel group that carried out attacks in Rwanda. So

even though he had been living in exile he found himself back home in Kigali because he

boarded a flight that ended up back in Rwanda mysteriously. He was put on trial and convicted

over terrorism charges. He has always denied the charges and chose not to take part in the trial

because he said he never expected to get a fair trial. So why the change of heart? Why is he being

released now? I think there are two ways to look at this. On the one hand there has been

international pressure on Rwanda to release him and so we've seen negotiations happening between

the United States where Paul Recessabagina has permanent residency. These talks were

brokered by Qatar which is an ally of both countries but we also have to look at what's

happening in East Africa more broadly. There's a war happening in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The United States, the UN have accused Rwanda of backing a rebel group. Rwanda has always denied

this but nevertheless it's running out of diplomatic allies. A government official in Rwanda said

today this was an opportunity to reset the relationship between Rwanda and the US. So this

gives Rwanda a pause as he tries to rebuild diplomatic alliances. That was Catherine Beara

Hanka with me from Nairobi. The United Nations has spoken of its grave concern about summary

killings of both civilians and prisoners of war during Russia's war in Ukraine. It's also listed

a litany of other abuses in two reports which illustrate what it describes as the horrendous

human cost of the war. Here's Danny Aberhart. These reports expose a dire panorama beyond

the tens of thousands of civilian and military wartime casualties. UN data reveals that some

of the types of crimes it's tracking are being carried out only or in the vast majority of

cases by Russian forces. These include summary executions of civilians, disappearances, forced

deportations and sexual violence including in so-called filtration camps. The UN lists abuses

on the Ukrainian side too. For example, it's documented a higher number of suspected summary

killings of Russian prisoners of war by Ukraine than the other way round. But it stresses it has

not had access to Russian occupied regions, so warns the figures can't be compared directly.

President Biden has confirmed that a new US-Canadian deal has been agreed to curb illegal migration

across the northern border from the United States. The deal will see undocumented asylum

seekers crossing from the US into Canada turn back while Canada will simultaneously expand

the pathway for legal entries. In an address to the Canadian parliament in Ottawa, Mr Biden said

the US and Canada had to address the rising numbers of immigrants coming to North America.

We're also working together to address the record levels of migration and hemisphere,

one of the United's humane policies opposed to cure borders and support people. In the United

States we're expanding legal pathways for migration to seek safety on a humanitarian basis

while discouraging unlawful migration that feeds exploitation and human trafficking.

Speaking alongside President Biden, the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the deal would

close a loophole created in 2004 by an asylum deal known as the Safe Third Country Agreement

that allowed US and Canadian officials to turn away assignment claimants at formal points of entry

but not at unofficial crossings. Keeping people safe also includes keeping asylum seekers safe.

Both of our countries believe in safe, fair and orderly migration, refugee protection,

and border security. We'll now apply the Safe Third Country Agreement to asylum seekers who cross

between official points of entry. After midnight tonight, police and border officers will enforce

the agreement and return irregular border crossers to the closest port of entry with the United States.

Also up for discussion between the two leaders during Mr Biden's trip is Haiti,

a country that's become so lawless that any kind of normal life is impossible,

as gang warfare intensifies. Kidnappings, murders, rapes and sniper attacks have been on the rise

since the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in 2021. The Prime Minister, Ariel Henri,

has called for the deployment of an international force to end the spiralling violence.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volkl Turk, was recently in Haiti and has been telling

Rebecca Kesby why any help can't come soon enough. I was there beginning of February and

unfortunately it's become even worse. Can you imagine since the beginning of the year 627

people killed, 365 people kidnapped and hundreds injured? Just to give you the highlights of it,

but it means for the daily lives of people, it's nightmarish. And those are just the general

extreme violence we're hearing about. It's absolutely awful, isn't it? The rival gangs,

absolutely terrifying for civilians. There's been a lot of sexual violence, I think, as well.

And I think you met some survivors of that. Yes, when I was there, I met a girl who had actually

not just sexual violence, one girl who was shot at and she had still the bullet in her arm.

They couldn't take it out. And then there was a girl who had been raped. So I think the situation

is, you would say, Hobbesian in sort of anarchic and so chaotic because of these gangs that control

60% of the metropolitan area in Port-au-Prince in the capital. But they have also now ventured out

into the center and into the north. So it really starts affecting the whole of the country, which

is very, very dangerous for the people. It seems as if the National Police Force and the security

forces there are completely outgunned by the gangs. Yes, that's right. I mean, you have the gangs,

very modern equipment, despite the fact that the Security Council decided on an arms embargo last

year. Arms are still coming in, ammunition is still coming in. So one of the big asks is,

this arms embargo has to be rigorously enforced. There's not one single arm that is produced in

Haiti itself. So it means that it comes obviously from the outside. And that's one of the things

that have to happen, apart from sanctions against those political and economic elites

that are behind the gangs and support them. So you say a specialized force needs to be deployed,

but given the history in Haiti, particularly when a UN force was deployed there some years ago,

there's going to be local resistance to that. I think it is important that there is clear recognition

of national ownership. The main focus has to be the National Haitian Police, but they absolutely

need support. And they would need the proper equipment. They would need the right type of

capacity, but also not just when it comes to the police, also for the building up of the

judicial system, because the judicial system at the moment is in shambles. And what are your fears

if nothing is done? You will go into the abyss if nothing happens and the world cannot afford it,

Haitians cannot afford it. And let's not forget the fantastic history that this country has.

Haitians were at the forefront of the human rights movement 219 years ago against slavery,

against racism, against discrimination. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights,

Volker Turk. Now let's go back to the main story from our last podcast, the postponement of King

Charles' first state visit to France because of the widespread unrest. It was due to begin on Sunday,

but protests have turned violent, with hundreds of people being arrested. Further rallies against

proposals to increase the retirement age from 62 to 64 are planned for next week. Large piles of

rubbish in several cities as a result of a strike by refuse collectors were set on fire.

From Paris, our correspondent Lucy Williamson.

The violence of yesterday's protests has left its mark on France.

City piles of charred rubbish scar the streets of Paris and Bordeaux.

They leave their mark on the diplomatic landscape too. A visit by King Charles here next week has

been postponed after unions announced another day of national protest on Tuesday.

President Emmanuel Macron said it would lack common sense to host the monarch here that day.

What would have been awful for the British people and for ourselves would have been to try and

carry on as if nothing had happened, with incidents on top of all that. It needs to

be organised when calm has been restored. The idea to reconsider the visit appears to have

originated in Paris, though the Elysees is keen to stress that it was a joint decision.

The centrist opposition senator Nathalie Goulet was asked how she felt about it.

Relief because the situation is just unbearable and it's not the right way to welcome the king

for the first visit in the middle of a mountain of trash, rats and unbearable smell in the streets.

President Macron's pension reform has triggered months of strikes in France,

including by rubbish collectors. But protests have grown and become more violent since Mr

Macron forced the reform into law without parliament's approval and then appeared on

television this week to justify it. Many placards at the protest yesterday depicted him as a king-like

figure from France's past, remote, undemocratic and out of touch with his people. Dining with a

real monarch in the gilded palace at Versailles might not be the way to dampen that mood.

Lucy Williamson in Paris. State visits are not organised on the hoof of course,

months of planning will have gone into it. Sir Peter Westmacott is a former British

ambassador to France and was a deputy private secretary to the then Prince Charles.

Johnny Diamond asked if he could recall a postponement like this at such short notice.

Can't think of any offhand, but I think this was not entirely surprising,

sad though it is. The president's made clear he wants to reinstate this very soon and the king

has made the same statement from Buckingham Palace. I can't think of any, no Johnny,

but I was thinking last night this morning the last possible moment for postponement would be

this morning, so I'm not entirely surprised it's happened. Of course the idea of the king

making his first visit abroad to France was mooted not that long ago, shortly after the succession

when he and the president Macron quite clearly were getting on so well and Buckingham Palace

led him in informally that the king was intending that his first overseas visit should be to France,

that they will be able to put this visit back together without too much trouble I hope before long.

You know the king or you knew him as Prince Charles, Prince of Wales. For him do you think it

will be a, it's a shrug and well next time as he's sort of sanguine about these kinds of things?

I don't know about a shrug, I know that he was very much looking forward to this visit.

You know he has been to France 35 times, officially never mind a whole lot of private visits.

He speaks French, you'll hear him when the time comes, you know making speeches in French,

which I'm sure he'll do beautifully, he's very attached to the country, he'll be saddened

but he'll get on with life of course. There is no choice, the French took the decision

obviously in consultation but it had to be their proposal that they felt it wasn't the moment to

go ahead. Sir Peter Westmacott with Johnny Diamond. Now its name isn't that reassuring, there is no

reason to panic though about the city killer, an asteroid heading our way which isn't going to hit

the earth we're promised. The giant space rock properly named 2023 DZ2 will pass between us and

the moon this weekend. Astronomer Dr Jennifer Millard told me more about the city killer.

Well first of all I do just want to reiterate that we are perfectly safe, although it's got this name

it is absolutely not going to impact us, it's just going to sail between the earth and the moon.

And in terms of what it's made of well we don't really know too much about it and that's part

of this exciting opportunity because it's coming relatively close to earth and means we can study

it and really try and figure out what it's made of because this was only discovered in February

so we haven't had a lot of time to study it yet but it's traveling at 17,000 miles an hour compared

to our planet so yeah really quite quickly. How close will it come to us? It's going to come

just a little over halfway between the distance between the earth and the moon about 100,000

kilometers or so so fairly far away but in terms of asteroids it really is a close pass.

This sort of event is perhaps a once in a decade that we might see something like this sort of

size come so close to our planet. Do you know how they come up with the name the city killer? Is

it designed to be alarming? I think there is a little bit of you know trying to spike interests

in it but I guess the reason that they've gone for city killer is because of the approximate size

of the asteroid so it's somewhere between 50 and 100 meters across and if something about

that size was to impact us then it would cause sort of city-wide devastation so but this one

isn't so we don't have to worry about that. We've got a lot of people listening who are now

having their interest peak to hope. How can we see it this weekend depending on where in the world

we are? Yeah so if your northern hemisphere your best bet is actually tonight just because it's

going to sink very low on the horizon by tomorrow night but tomorrow night is when the closest

approach is around eight o'clock universal time and so if you want to know its exact location

your best bet is to have a stargazing app or maybe have a look online. You'll need a telescope so

at least six to eight inches probably in aperture and you'll see it as not a rock but just a tiny

speck of light that's moving rapidly compared to the background stars so perhaps find a target star

lock onto that target star and wait for it to move past. The astronomer Dr Jennifer Millard.

Now just before we move on can I take a moment to mention the next podcast that will appear in

this feed on Saturday. It's called The Happy Pod. It's our new weekly roundup of the more

uplifting positive news stories. This week the newborn calf that's caused a stir in Australia.

Megan and Barry breed lots of calves when they posted a very simple photo of the happy face that

Happy has on him. The photo went viral and as far as it was quite overwhelming for them.

Also we've got bandages that stop bleeding in seconds and how they're being used

on the front line in Ukraine. An unusual recipe for cheesecake in New York

and why we should all be moving to Finland. Join me for this weekend's Happy Pod,

the next episode in this feed on Saturday.

Still to come in this podcast meet the new Defence Minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

BEMBA was one of the main rebel leaders in the Second Congo War. After that war he became Vice

President then soon afterwards arrested by the International Criminal Court.

European leaders have sought to reassure financial markets after another day of banking turmoil.

Germany's Deutsche Bank led the slide dropping more than 14 percent at one point and ending the

day down more than 8 percent. UK banks like Barclays and HSBC also saw declines. Here's our

business correspondent Theo Leggett. In the banking sector confidence is in short supply

and Deutsche Bank is the latest lender to come under pressure. The collapse of the two US banks

earlier this month was triggered by steep increases in interest rates which eroded the value of key

investments and left them exposed when they needed to raise money to pay depositors.

Their failure put other banks under the spotlight and last weekend the much larger

Credit Suisse had to be rescued by its Swiss rival UBS as depositors rushed to withdraw their money.

Nevertheless central banks in the US and Europe again decided to raise interest rates

in an effort to control inflation. Analysts said investors were worried this could expose

other weaknesses in the banking system. Germany's Chancellor Olaf Scholz insisted

those fears were unjustified. The banking system is stable in Europe and the European Union has

supervisory structures in various areas including the euro area which have enforced strict rules

and it has now proved its worth and enables us all to say that European banking supervision

and the financial system are robust and stable. The fall in Deutsche Bank's share price coincided

with a steep rise in the cost of ensuring the lender's debt suggesting concerns it could fail

to make repayments have risen. Experts insist the company is in a much stronger position than

Credit Suisse. It made a profit of nearly five billion pounds last year and has strong reserves

but with a current of fear running through the entire industry

it's still become a new focus of investor concern. The highest court in Japan has overturned the

sentence on a Vietnamese woman who gave birth to stillborn twins and was then accused of abandoning

their bodies. Lethi Thailand was there on internship scheme and felt under pressure to hide her

pregnancy. I've been hearing more about this story from our Asia Pacific editor Celia Hatton.

This is a woman who came from Vietnam from a very poor background but she got a rare opportunity

to go to Japan on something called the technical internship program and she got into quite a lot

of debt in order to afford the plane ticket but it gave her the opportunity to go and work in Japan

for a few years. She went to go work on a mandarin orange farm providing basically cheap labor. Now

she'd been warned by the Vietnamese people who'd set up the whole trip that she could not get pregnant.

If she got pregnant she would lose her visa. Unfortunately she did get pregnant and she

tried to hide her pregnancy from everyone around her. One night in her dormitory room she ended

up giving birth alone to two baby boys who were stillborn and she wasn't quite sure what to do.

She says she wrapped the baby's bodies in a towel. She wrote a note with the date. She wrote their

names down. She said that she wished that they would rest in peace and then she put the bodies and

the letter into a box and sealed it up with tape she said so that she wanted their bodies to stay

warm. She wasn't quite sure what to do so she went to work the next day. She obviously was very

very unwell because she'd just given birth the night before and so she went to a doctor and

that's when she admitted what had happened and she was promptly arrested.

How widely reported has this been in Japan and what sort of reaction has there been?

It's been very closely watched in Japan because of the shock at what happened next.

She was actually convicted of trying to dispose of a body and for failing to fulfill her obligation

to hold a funeral and she was sentenced to some time in prison that really kicked up a lot of

attention in Japan because there have been a lot of questions about these visa programs

and so people were following her case quite carefully but she appealed the case and that's

really what's unusual. The Supreme Court of Japan overturned her guilty verdict. They declared her

not guilty and that is incredibly rare in Japan. I mean it seems so jarring for the response of

the authorities to the situation you described to have been to punish the woman rather than to

think what help does she need. Exactly and I think that's really why the case has gotten so much

attention and she also was quite tenacious in trying to change the record and that she was

heartbroken that they died and I think that's really what stuck out is this one person who was

fighting this whole system not just the court system but also a visa system.

Our Asia Pacific editor Celia Hatton. The Chadian government has nationalised assets belonging to

a subsidiary of ExxonMobil. It's the latest development in a dispute between the authorities

of the Central African country and the American oil company over the sale of its assets in Chad

to a third party. Let's get more from Mayony Jones. The vast majority of Chad's revenue comes

from exporting oil so when it disagreed with the terms under which Exxon sold its Chadian assets

to Savanna Energy last year it promised to go to court to block the purchase. Now the Chadian

authorities have gone one step further. They've nationalised Exxon's assets, a move which could

potentially spook foreign investors. Savanna Energy has said it will challenge the move legally.

The assets involved include a 40% stake in Chad's DOBA oil project, seven oil fields with a combined

output of 28,000 barrels per day. Last year a group of senior officials including a close ally

of head of state Mohammad Debi were arrested as part of an investigation into the embezzlement

of more than $20 million from the national oil company. For decades the Democratic Republic of

Congo has grappled with armed conflict in the east of the country. Now President Felix Giusecchedi has

appointed a former militia leader Jean-Pierre Bemba as Minister of Defence. Convicted of war crimes,

Mr Bemba was cleared on appeal by the International Criminal Court in 2018. His appointment is part

of a wider reshuffle which comes ahead of the elections later this year. Jason Stearns is director

of the Congo Research Group at New York University and he's been speaking to James Coppnell.

Bemba was one of the main rebel leaders in the Second Congo War that lasted between 1998 and 2003

and then after that war he became vice president in the transitional government. Then was soon

afterwards arrested in a criminal case by the International Criminal Court for crimes that he

had allegedly committed in the Central African Republic. So he has a long storied history as a

rebel leader and as a politician. He still has a large following in the Congo and this now brings

him back to government after many years out. There will be a trade-off presumably in the mind of

President Giusecchedi with the sort of criticism he might receive an appointment because lots of

people in the DRC don't like Jean-Pierre Bemba with presumably the support of those who do.

Well yes and it's not just Jean-Pierre Bemba he has brought into this. This is a pre-election

government. This is a coalition that he's building. In order to build this coalition he has not only

made Jean-Pierre Bemba minister of defense he has made Vital Camero the minister of the economy,

Vital Camero who also just came out of prison in the Congo for having stolen tens of millions of

dollars as Giusecchedi's own chief of staff. Now out again now minister of the economy and in

Boussignamouisi who's minister of regional integration also a former rebel leader also

accused of crimes against humanity. So he has built a coalition I think a relatively motley

coalition of many suspicious characters that is likely going to be good for him for elections

but not so good for actually reforming the country. What does it say about politics in the DRC

that figures with those sorts of reputations are electoral advantages?

I think it's quite sad I think that what the Congo desperately needs is a new generation

of leaders this notion that you have to do dirty deeds to get into politics and that politics is

in fact rotten in itself I think is is a deeply unfortunate thing and Giusecchedi is favored

I think to win the upcoming elections. Jason Stearns with James Cotnell. For nine years

Silvio Berlusconi was prime minister of Italy a master of political populism. A decade ago he

received a prison sentence for fraud though he never went to jail. Last year he became a senator

once more. Now a stage musical in London sets out to explain the appeal the politician has held

for millions of Italian voters. Events are seen mainly through the eyes of the women in Berlusconi's

life. Here's Vincent Doud. It's more than a decade since Silvio Berlusconi now 86 was Italian

prime minister. Some thought him an absurd figure but many Italian voters loved him.

He remains an MEP, a senator and leader of the Forza Italia party.

The Southick Playhouse in London is using a mix of musical styles to investigate his popularity.

The composer is Ricky Simmons. Basically we find Silvio Berlusconi on the day in 2012 where it's

the verdict of his tax fraud trial. The stakes really are so high that he could serve a four-year

prison sentence if found guilty. He's trying to set his legacy straight telling his own story in

case he should go to jail. Berlusconi is famed as the man who introduced the term Bunga Bunga

party to the international lexicon of sleaze. Director James Grieve says the show is interested

in its female characters at least as much as in Berlusconi. Various women who have had

relationships with Berlusconi in different ways step forward to tell their story who have worked

for him as part of his media empire, those who attended his infamous Bunga Bunga parties and

in a sort of conceit of our show is that now is an opportunity for those women whose stories

haven't been heard in the past to step forward and tell their side of the story.

The Veronica Lario was married to Berlusconi for 20 years. She's played by Emma Hatton.

One of my main numbers that I sing is a song called Secrets and Lies which is performed

on the steps outside the courtroom just before Veronica goes in and gives her testimony and it's

her reflection on the journey of her relationship with Silvio and reminiscent on the appeal of him

and how she fell victim to the secrets and lies that he told her. So were the strong female roles

the attraction of the show? 100% because it's so empowering to be in a position where they have

been downtrodden and abused and humiliated by his behaviour, to then be in a position where they all

come together in this sisterhood and they step forward which takes a huge amount of courage

and they speak out about their experiences. Director James Grieve says the show's less

about Berlusconi the man than about who has power in society. We actually think that Silvio

Berlusconi wrote the playbook for many of our contemporary populist strongmen politicians.

Really it's a musical about power, about how power is gained, about how power corrupts, about how

power can be abused and about a brand of political leadership that Berlusconi kind of invented and

you really feel like Trump as a fellow business person, media magnate has really taken some

inspiration from Berlusconi and then you know even somebody like Boris Johnson there are

similarities you know they both talk in binaries things are either good or bad and they've both

understood that a little bit of controversy plays out pretty well with the electorate.

Vincent Dowd reporting.

And that's all from us for now don't forget the happy pod which will be available to download

later if you'd like to comment on this edition of the global news podcast drop us an email the

address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk or on twitter we are at global news pod this edition

was mixed by Sam Dickinson the producer was Emma Joseph the editor is Karen Martin. My name is

Andrew Peach thanks for listening and until next time goodbye the financial times follows the money

to find business stories in unexpected places we found a surprising one in the porn industry

I'm Alex Barker co-host of the FT Pushkin podcast hot money through the series we reveal the real

power behind this secretive global business you can check out our podcasts and read selected

articles for free at ft.com slash insights

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.

Paul Rusesabagina's life inspired a Hollywood film about the 1994 genocide. Also: The UN has expressed grave concern about the summary killings of civilians and prisoners of war during Russia's war in Ukraine, highlighting a litany of other abuses, and The City Killer asteroid that's set to make a close-ish call with earth.