Global News Podcast: India makes historic Moon landing

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You're listening to the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service.

Hello, I'm Oliver Conway. We are recording this at 13 hours GMT on Wednesday the 23rd of August.

India becomes the first country to land a spacecraft on the South Pole of the moon. Zimbabweans vote in

a presidential election after a campaign marred by clampdown on the opposition. And Republican US

presidential candidates prepare for their first debate, but without Donald Trump. Also on the

podcast. Once you thermally decompose the materials, all the smell and everything goes away. So it's

same material like sand. It doesn't emit any sort of smell. Could recycled coffee grounds help produce

stronger building materials? In space terms, its budget was relatively small at just 75 million

dollars. But India's successful mission to the moon is likely to have a big impact. Currently,

only two engines are now being fired. And we are nearly at zero velocity, vertical and horizontal.

We are we were hovering and now we are approaching the moon's surface.

So after its six week journey from Earth, the Chandrion 3 became the first craft to touch down

at the Lunar South Pole, making India only the fourth nation to achieve a soft landing on the moon

after the USSR, America and China. The achievement is even more impressive given the high failure

rate in recent missions, including Russia's Lunar 25, which crashed on Sunday. India's Prime Minister

Narendra Modi addressed mission control via video link from a summit in South Africa.

Our moon mission is also based on the same human centric approach. Therefore, this success

belongs to all of humanity. Over the next 14 days, the mission is due to search for frozen water,

which could help support a future base on the moon, as well as deeper space missions. Our

correspondent in India, Archana Shukla, gave us this update. Well, it was pin drop silence,

seconds before Vikram Lander touched on the South Pole surface on the moon. But just as it did,

this planetarium here, full of people waiting for that moment burst out, clapping, hugging each other,

distributing sweets and also chanting patriotic slogans because India created history and it was

a proud moment here for Indians who were watching this historic moment. I have some of the astronomy

enthusiasts here who were watching that moment. Yesh, what did you feel when Vikram Lander touched

on the moon? First of all, I would like to congratulate ISRO scientists and engineers and all Indians

that Chandran 3 have achieved this mark. And yes, I'm really feeling happy that Chandran 3 have

softly landed in the South Pole of moon. Actually, this mission is a complex mission

that to land on South Pole of moon. But we have did it, so I'm really feeling happy.

Right. And Mr. Sanjay, you were also here clapping actively and I saw you having sweets a lot and

distributing it. Proud moment as an Indian now? Exactly, proud moment and the legacy,

near output of scientific attitude that has given us this opportunity to celebrate and ISRO

like institutions are creating history and for India it is great and for particularly for youth.

Now they will be going for science, background, education. Brilliant and this is the feeling

across the country, one of pride, one of happiness for the achievement that India has made and

created history to be the first country to land on the South Pole of the moon. Our correspondent

in India, Archana Shukla. Hopes of a brighter future for Zimbabwe after the overthrow of

Robert Magarby in 2017 have long since faded with sky-high inflation, 65% unemployment and

currency shortages. The man who took over, Emerson Manangagwa, has a fearsome reputation,

known as the crocodile he was the security minister at the time of the Matabeli land

massacres in the 1980s. And going into today's election he has followed the Magarby playbook

in clamping down on the opposition, throwing people into jail, criminalising dissent and

blocking some foreign media organisations from entering Zimbabwe. And as he cast his ballot,

President Manangagwa said he was confident of victory.

If I think I'm not going to take it, then I'll be foolish.

Everyone who contests, if you're going to rest, you're going to rest to win,

and precisely so that I'm doing it.

The opposition leader Nelson Chimisa is hoping to end 43 years of Zhanu PF rule,

but he fears a repeat of the vote rigging that he says cost him victory in the 2018 poll.

With the economy in the doldrums, these voters in the capital, Harari,

are just hoping for a better future.

I'm expecting that after I vote, my councillor is going to give me a good job,

and my president is going to give us good governance.

I came as early as four in the morning to vote for our old man, President Manangagwa.

After we vote, we're expecting a good leader who's going to lead peacefully.

So, how is voting going? I spoke to our correspondent in Harari, Shingay Nyoka.

It depends where you are. Earlier on, we were in Barre, which is just outside the city centre,

and there was a high turnout of people, even though the polling stations opened slightly later,

an hour later than the official time, so they opened at 8am.

But we've moved to another location, another township to the west of the capital,

in Kwanzana, where people have been waiting, some as early as six o'clock, to cast their vote,

and they've been told that the ballot papers aren't ready yet.

So, the people that I spoke to said that hundreds of people have already left,

because they were frustrated, and they didn't know why there's such a delay with these ballot

papers. But some are saying that they will stay until they arrive, because they want to cast their

vote. Now, Nelson Chameza, the opposition leader, says he was robbed at the last election in 2018.

What are the chances of the opposition ending Zanu Pief rule here?

It's incredibly difficult. Nelson Chameza is 45 years of age.

Emerson Manangagwa, who he's competing against, has been in politics longer than he's been alive,

and Zanu Pief has a reputation for winning by any means necessary.

Even though President Emerson Manangagwa has said that this vote will be fair, it'll be credible,

it'll be transparent, already there were concerns in the run-up to the polls,

in respect of the number of opposition rallies that were banned.

We were told over a hundred, and also the number of opposition activists that were arrested.

Sometimes when they were conducting rallies that had been approved by the police, and so

there's already concern about whether these elections will be fair as far as the opposition

is concerned, and the fact that so many of their supporters in an urban area like Harare, which is

known as their stronghold, that these supporters haven't been able to vote, will likely confirm

to them that this vote is definitely not free and fair. Now, whoever wins, Zimbabwe's in a pretty

dire state at the moment. What will be the most immediate issues to address?

It's the issue that has plagued Zimbabwe for decades now, which is the economy. The inflation

rate has dropped slightly over the last two months or so. It was at 176% in June and has

dropped to 77%, but I think a lot of people are not expecting it to stay that way.

But the opposition has said that they will want to bring in new investment.

They have a plan that they say to restore Zimbabwe in the family of nations. Emerson

Menangagwa has said that his works speak for themselves. He's already embarked on

infrastructural development, including dams, drilling boreholes, so people in the rural

areas can have access to clean water, and mining is also on the up. And he's saying that he will

just continue those works. But I think a lot of Zimbabweans are saying that despite everything

that he's done, the impact of this economic development hasn't really trickled down to

ordinary people, and they're looking for a revolution which they believe the opposition can bring.

Jengai Nyokha in Harare, the Zimbabwean capital.

When it comes to producing elite runners, few countries are as successful as Kenya.

The East African nation is expected to pick up more medals at the World Athletics Championships

in Hungary, currently underway. But its reputation has been tarnished in recent years by a steady

stream of doping violations. To avoid a total ban, the authorities in Kenya have been given one last

chance. Our correspondent Alex Kapstig in Budapest has been hearing how money and manpower are being

used to tackle the problem. It's been going on for years. Big crowds in the home street, cheering

Jemima Sumgong of Kenya. Here comes Kiprop, and Kiprop is going to make it to the gold medal.

Arms along, Daniel Wanjiru will win the 2017. Just a few of the many high-profile Kenyan runners

banned for doping violations, and the numbers keep on rising. The Wild West is an apt description.

Quite frankly, Kenya was facing a potential ban from all of international athletics.

Brett Clothier heads up the Athletics Integrity Unit, known as the AIU. He's responsible for

weeding out the cheats, with Kenya a big priority. We shouldn't be fooled that this is all just

unsophisticated stuff. There are people there who are conspiring with one another to commit an

organised crime, basically. I'm using drugs to win races and get the money shared amongst a group

of conspirators. But this isn't a centralised system like we had in Russia. It's far from it.

It's market-driven, so it makes it particularly challenging to deal with. I'm David Rodisha,

800 metres world record holder, two times Olympic champion and two times world champion.

David Rodisha, a national hero, is here in Budapest, supporting Kenyan athletes at the

World Championships. He's devastated by the country's record on doping. This doping issue is a cloud

that has been surrounding athletics in Kenya for a long time. There are so many athletes in Kenya,

hundreds and hundreds, and by the time this person might be entered into a doping list

to be tested, you'll find some of them have already doped. You're saying it's not a systematic

doping programme. It's happening on an individual basis. Yeah, absolutely. Once somebody does

something like that, you have no respect for your colleagues, you have no respect for others,

and you don't respect their hard work. The use of performance-enhancing drugs was a topic at

the World Athletics Congress, which took place on the eve of these championships. All the National

Federation bosses were there, including the president of Kenyan athletics, General Jackson Tue.

Part of the challenge in Kenya was their refusal to accept the situation, but that seems to have

changed. First of all, we acknowledge that problem is there, and we are not slipping on the job.

I'm very confident that in the near future we'll be out of that. Is the problem deliberate

cheating or is it lack of education? Well, I think it's that the athletes maybe are not training

enough, some of them, but I think this problem also starts at a very low age, even before they get

to us. It's something that is wide and is not only in athletics. The resources to fight the dopers

and those helping them include a 25 million dollar war chest to ensure testing is both widespread

and done properly. But it's a long-term project. The positive tests aren't going to suddenly nose

dive. In fact, as the AIU's Brett Clothier explains, the action they're taking should initially have

the opposite effect. The extra money in anti-doping in Kenya will create a very deep domestic

testing pool. The numbers still going up, but when will that start to reverse, do you think?

What I think we'll see is more doping cases, but less doping.

Faith Kipyagon, she is the best in the world. She takes her third world championship.

But amidst all the gloom here at the world championships, Kenya is making positive headlines.

Faith Kipyagon, who started her career running barefoot, is celebrating an unprecedented third

1500 meters world title. And it's people like her that Kenya wants young athletes to look up to.

Alex Kappstick at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest.

Now to the latest developments in ways of recycling food and other waste. It comes from

Australia and involves using coffee grounds to make stronger concrete, as Iona Hampson reports.

After water, coffee is the most popular drink worldwide, with over 400 billion cups consumed

each year. Its popularity results in a huge amount of waste, with 10 billion kilograms of

used coffee grounds generated annually around the world, most of which goes to landfill.

Now researchers in Australia have developed a technique to make concrete 30 percent stronger

by turning waste coffee grounds into biochar, a lightweight residue similar to charcoal,

which can then be used to replace a portion of the sand required to make concrete.

Lead author Dr. Rajiv Ruchand from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology

explained why it is so important to give use coffee grounds a new shot at life.

The waste which is ending up in landfills producing greenhouse gases due to bacterial activity,

that is stopped and you are converting that into a source. The money that you spend in

disposing of, you can make money out of that. 50 billion tons of natural sand is used in

construction projects globally each year. It's a finite natural resource and is usually taken

from riverbeds and banks which has a big impact on the environment. Along with reducing the extraction

of sand, Dr. Ruchand said the process has even more benefits. This remaining bioproducts can be

further refined to produce many high value products like hydrogen, graphene and all sort of other

other materials. Many of us enjoy the aroma of our morning coffee. So do you wake up to the smell

of coffee in a building made of coffee? The answer is sadly not. You won't get the similar

coffee smell because it destroys once you thermally decompose the material. So all the

smell and everything goes away. So it's same material like sand. It doesn't emit any sort of smell.

Dr. Rajiv Ruchand ending that report by Iona Hampson.

And still to come on the Global News podcast. There's very few articles. We've tried to research

and so far we've pulled up nothing. The spotless giraffe that's puzzling zookeepers in Tennessee.

From their battles on the world stage. I gave everything for that race and I was able to come

away with something that like I've dreamed about since I was a kid. To their battles behind closed

doors. I had to reach some terrible bottoms in my addiction and suffer some really terrible consequences

and suffer a lot of loss due to my drinking to get to where I am today.

On the podium is the podcast where Olympians and Paralympians share their stories. On the

podium from the BBC World Service. Find it wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

The Republican race for the US presidential election kicks off in earnest later today with

the first TV debate hosted by Fox News. But Donald Trump the runaway favorite to become

the party's candidate in 2024 will not be there. So the focus turns instead to the rest of the field

currently led by Florida governor Ron DeSantis as well as more wildcard choices like entrepreneur

Vivek Ramaswamy. I take a lot of inspiration from Nelson Mandela. Nelson Mandela was a guy who brought

together a nation who was far more divided than ours is today. The FBI is a failed institution.

Chop it off. Shut down the FBI. So move them to the US Marshals the financial crimes enforcement

network at the US Treasury to the Secret Service which handles some financial crime as well and

then to the DEA. My basic view in this campaign is we can handle the truth. COVID-19 what was the

origin. What did we know about the vaccines before we mandated them. What did we know about

Hunter Biden's dealings before we systematically suppressed that story. What do we know about

the truth of what happened on January 6th. What I think we need to do is end the Ukraine war on

peaceful terms that yes do make some major concessions to Russia including freezing the

current lines of control. I've said that I would pardon Donald Trump. If I'm elected president I

want to win this election by convincing the voters of this country that I'm best positioned to take

the America First agenda forward not by having the federal administrative state eliminate my

competition. Vivek Ramaswamy. So will Republican voters still be engaged in this TV debate despite

Mr Trump's absence. Our North America correspondent Neda Taufik is in Milwaukee in the state of

Wisconsin where the event is being staged. They are expecting millions to be watching this first

debate and quite frankly it will be the largest audience most of this party's presidential field

has ever had and will have in these months leading up to the first caucus in Iowa in January and then

the other primaries that follow. So this could be a crucial moment for all of the other than Trump

candidates here. Nevertheless as you mentioned a lot of the oxygen is already being sucked out of

the room because of the fact that not only is Donald Trump going to voluntarily surrender

expectedly in Georgia tomorrow for you know charges that he tried to subvert the election results

he's also planning to do his own interview with the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

So what you're having right now is a lot of pundits debating if this is a good or bad thing for the

candidates in the sense that without Trump there in the room they'll have a bit more time to speak

about the policies and issues they want to talk about without having to compete for time with him

but also others saying because he is the frontrunner and not there it really robs them of kind of

those viral moments where they're taking on the frontrunner and it makes a bit harder for them to

try to stand out. Yeah I mean who should we look out for? Well I think what we're going to see is

a lot of the candidates gunning for the Florida Governor Ron DeSantis while Donald Trump right

now is still well ahead in national and state polls above all his others I mean he's consistently

been over 50% in national polling averages since the beginning of this year and Ron DeSantis has

seen his star kind of fall so I think we'll see a lot of people competing to try to knock him from

that throne. Vivek Ramaswamy as you mentioned there he is a political novice he is a biotech

entrepreneur who really speaks very fondly of Donald Trump in many ways and has gone after

the woke agenda this kind of cultural war that we're seeing here in the United States. It'll be

interesting to see if he shines above the field but it's interesting you know we have a former

vice president you know in Mike Pence, a former governors, current governors, a former UN ambassador

Nikki Haley, a current senator Tim Scott it is a wide field so this is the moment where one of

them could really stand out. Netta Taufik in Milwaukee. In the 18 months since Russia launched

its full-scale invasion of Ukraine as many as 120,000 Russian soldiers have been killed

according to a recent estimate from US officials. The Kremlin has been replenishing its forces with

convicts released from Russia's notoriously brutal prisons but many have now returned home after

completing their tours of duty and gone on to commit terrible crimes. From Moscow Will Vernon

has this report. A recruitment video for the Russian military urging ordinary men to sign up

and join your own people. The Kremlin needs more men for its war but thousands of Russians fighting

in Ukraine are convicts recruited from prisons. Some serve just a few months before going back

to Russia as free men. In recent months a number of horrific crimes have been reported in Russia

linked to the ex-prisoners. We've come to St Petersburg, Russia's second city and it's a

glorious summer's day here but the story we've come to hear is dark and disturbing. We've come

here to meet a lady called Anna and she's going to tell us about her grandmother who was brutally

murdered in March this year. It's actually pretty incredible that Anna has agreed to meet us at all.

It is very difficult to find anyone willing to tell us their story openly anymore. People are

afraid to speak out because they fear reprisals from the authorities or from radicals from the

Wagner group. She was 85 years old and she lived in a wooden house. Anna's grandmother Julia was

at home in her village when a local man came knocking at the door. She knew him, he let him

enter her house and he killed her with a knife at her own home. I don't know why. Julia's killer

was a convicted murderer who had fought with the Wagner group in Ukraine. He's now in custody.

It's obvious that if they were in a prison they may have problems with the self-control.

The Wagner group is dangerous. It's really dangerous for us. Wagner is no longer fighting

on the front line in Ukraine after the mutiny earlier this year but the Russian military

is still recruiting from prisons. First of all the number of criminal cases will increase

Yuri Baravsky is head of the organization Russia Behind Bars. These men are traumatized at least

twice. They're traumatized because of the Russian prison and they are traumatized because of the

war in Ukraine and when they go back they are not able to return to normal life. They don't

know what normal life is and the only way for them is to commit a new crime.

This is an exhibition dedicated to what they're calling the heroes of the special military

operation and there are letters Z and V's, the symbols of Russia's war in Ukraine. What's interesting

is that a lot of the Russian soldiers portrayed here are being compared directly

to Soviet soldiers who fought in the Second World War. The Kremlin says all those fighting in Ukraine

are heroes. A new law has been passed here and it's now illegal to insult or discredit

anyone fighting for Russia in Ukraine including prisoners. Some are now worried it will be harder

to stop dangerous convicts returning to Russia and committing more crime. And more criminals

are coming back bringing terror to local communities. Vladimir is the uncle of Vera

Pechtileva who was murdered three years ago in the city of Kemerova in Siberia. Vera's ex-boyfriend

was given 17 years in prison for her killing but he too was released to fight in Ukraine.

Vera's mother is afraid that he'll come back. He killed her daughter with extreme brutality.

I have no words. We are the victims and we thought justice would prevail but there is no justice.

Back in St. Petersburg I ask Anna whether she feels safe living in Russia.

No one feels safe. You feel just powerless. That's why I speak because it's a tragedy for our

family but it could be a lesson. Maybe it could help. That report from Moscow by Will Vernon.

South Korea has held its first nationwide air raid drill in six years to try to improve

the nation's response to any attack by North Korea. But many people in the south decided

not to follow the instructions to seek shelter. Jean McKenzie in the South Korean capital Seoul

has the details. As the air raid siren sounded police jumped into the street to stop traffic

while public officials tried to usher people down into nearby subway stations to wait for 20

minutes. At the station we visited only a dozen people gathered to seek shelter. This happening is

necessary to us because we are nervous of North Korea so general citizens can remind this. You

think this is a good reminder for what you should do. But many others continued with their journeys

as usual. Why did you not go and find a shelter when you heard the air raid siren. I don't know

where the shelter is so I didn't go. I don't think the war is going to be happening really so I don't

think it's really important. This drill used to be held annually but have been paused for six years.

This was a chance to remind people what to do in the unlikely event of a North Korean attack.

As the North builds up its arsenal of nuclear weapons it poses an ever greater risk to the South

but people here who have lived with the threat for decades are increasingly immune to the danger.

Our South Korean correspondent Jean McKenzie. A zoo in Tennessee is gaining a lot of interest

thanks to its youngest resident a baby giraffe born with no distinct spots just an all brown coat.

Experts say this is incredibly rare and they are somewhat in the dark about the reason for the

different coloring. The giraffe was born at Bright's Zoo at the end of July but keepers

have only just released pictures because they want the public's help to name her. The zoo's

director David Martin has been talking to Tim Franks. A lot of zoo professionals around the

country were aware day one we started making phone calls right away and just to find out who's seen

this and you know nobody has seen it before. Yeah I mean it is it's incredibly rare isn't it.

Am I right in saying that the last time a giraffe like this just one solid color was was born at

a zoo it was about 50 years ago. Yeah 1972 Tokyo Japan. And what do we know about that giraffe I

mean is there is there has science been done on how this process happens how this this happy accident

occurs. No there's very few articles you know we've tried to research we've actually reached out to

some bets in that area to see if there's any studies and so far we've pulled up nothing.

You're I mean is your best guess that I mean she you're saying she's very healthy at the moment

that there there should not be any ill effects from just being a single color. Oh no no no and

like I said we we do the same thing with all draft babies here at the zoo 24 hours we draw blood

sent into our vets we do the same thing at 48 hours and we have a record of every baby born

here with our blood work showed and her blood work is identical to theirs so you know we knew

we knew right away things were good. And I mean she must stand out in the enclosure I just

wonder if you've got a sense of how she has been accepted by the by the other giraffes.

They accepted her undoubtedly immediately as soon as she came outside the very first time

you know all of our drafts liked to meet the new babies and when a new baby comes out every

single draft here is going to come up lick on that baby smell it and they were no different with her

I mean it was immediate as soon as she stepped outside. I know that you've you've got a little

competition to choose a name for the for the giraffe can you remind us of what the what the

choices are for the public. So the first name is Camille and then we have Finiali, Shakiri and Jamila.

Zookeeper David Martin and that is all from us for now but the Global News podcast will be back

very soon. This edition was mixed by Vladimir Mazechka and produced by Chantal Hartle our

editors Karen Martin. I'm Oliver Conway until next time goodbye.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.