Global News Podcast: International condemnation of Gabon coup

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

I'm Andrew Peach and in the early hours of Thursday, the 31st of August, these are our main

stories. The international community condemns the latest African coup this time in Gabon,

but there's elation on the streets of the capital, hurricane devastation in the US state of Florida.

Doors tossed off hinges, a microwave, a flat screen TV, they've just been blown out of these

houses as these hurricane winds came in and made landfall in the early hours of this morning.

And how Netflix wants to be a big beast in gaming.

Also in this podcast, Swiss bank accounts plan to become more transparent and one of Asia's

richest men reveals his succession plans. The African Union, the United Nations and France

have joined the widespread international condemnation of Wednesday's coup in Gabon.

The United States says it's closely watching the situation and it's deeply concerning.

Army officers have dissolved official institutions and closed the country's borders,

saying the head of the presidential guard, General Brisa Liga Guema, will now be the head of state.

Our Africa regional editor, Will Ross, looks back on a day of dramatic events in Gabon.

On state TV, a group of military officers announced that they're now in charge of oil-rich Gabon.

They said for the sake of peace, they were putting an end to what they called the regime

and cancelled the result of last weekend's election, which unsurprisingly was won by the

incumbent President Ali Bongo. On the streets of the capital, Libreville, crowds of people waving

green, yellow and blue national flags cheered the military men who just seized power. Now under

arrest in his presidential palace, Ali Bongo appealed for help. I'm to send a message to all

the friends that we have all over the world to tell them to make noise, to make noise.

In the short video clip, the deposed president urged people across the world to raise awareness

of his plight. Make noise, he pleaded. Ali Bongo took over as president when his father died in

2009. Omar Bongo had himself been in charge since 1967. Perhaps it's not surprising that people in

Gabon are celebrating what looks like the end of a hugely corrupt dynasty. But with eight coups

in Western Central Africa since 2020, many people on the continent are wondering where is next.

That was Will Ross in Nairobi. Now my colleague Julia Marshall has been talking to Laurie Sember

who works for a local media company in Gabon and lives in the capital Libreville.

Since the coup this morning, people have been very happy in the streets of Libreville.

People have welcomed the news and it's not surprising at all really.

No one approved the old system. In fact, people are rejecting the old system and they do so in

the election by rejecting the ruling party. Everyone took to the streets to cheer the soldiers

in their honor. I was in the streets myself and I could see that people were very happy.

So you personally are feeling happy that Ali Bongo has been ousted in a military coup?

I would say I have mixed feelings because on the one hand I didn't vote for him.

So I'm glad he's no longer here. On the other hand, I don't know how the junta intends to govern

this country. If they're going to put power in the hands of a man who's been elected or if they're

going to ensure a transition similar to what we've seen in Bikini Faso and Niger nowadays.

So what has life been like for the people of Gabon over more than half a century of rule by the

Bongo family? So I would say that it's as if we're divided into castes. There's one cast that's

very rich and getting richer and there's another cast that's poor and getting poorer

and that's life under the reign of the bongos. In other words, there are people who are ill-treated,

who have absolutely nothing and then there are people who are very well off because they were

born benefiting from the system. I think it's a bit like that in all countries, maybe not with such

inequality. Now among those watching events in Gabon and the wider region is François Allande,

who was France's socialist president from 2012 to 2017. He's been talking to James Koumrasami.

It's different from Niger in the sense that the Bondo family, which had governed Gabon for more

than 50 years, had certainly caused its aspiration amongst the population. But it's the same process

as the one we've been experiencing for three years now, which happened first in Mali, then in

Burkina Faso, then in Guinea, then in Chad, in Niger and now in Dabon. In other words,

the military is seizing power and overthrowing, democratically elected and therefore fully

legitimate presidents, although some are no doubt more questionable. But it is this process of

militarization of power in Africa that we must react to today. Given then in Gabon, you say that the

population had perhaps got tired of having one family ruling them for more than 50 years.

Is France in any way responsible for propping up the Bongo family?

There was a period several decades ago when French presidents or governments

accommodated the Bondo family, and there were interests, certainly economic interests,

that justified this relationship. But for about 15 years, or at least since my presidency,

I have never had any dealings with the Bondo family beyond the traditional relations,

official relations. Gabon was one of the countries where there had been, not without difficulty,

an electoral process that had been made official. So was it because this process was not respected

that the coup d'etat took place? It's possible, that's one theory. Or was it because the same

family had been in power for too long? That too, certainly. And in the countries which have had

these coup d'etats, they have not been reversed. Is there a way of reversing these coup d'etats?

It's difficult to imagine overthrowing a military regime without military means.

But it's not up to France to carry out this type of operation. No, it's up to the Africans

themselves to know what they accept or what they don't accept. And so I think that the military

solution is not the right one. If it's coming from France or Western countries, it can only be

if the Africans themselves decide they want it. I think that Russia and China have a vested interest

in seeing that the West, France in particular, is driven out of countries where until now they

have been trusted in respectful relations. The reactions of Russia and China suggest that they

are also questioning their situation, because they have interests at stake. So I don't think Russia

and China are necessarily as influential everywhere as they might imagine. But it's true that there

is a form of neocolonialism coming from Russia and China, from Russia through military means,

and from China through economic and financial means. The former French President François

Alon with James Cuma's army. Hurricane Idalia has crossed Florida, leaving devastation in its wake.

It's weakened after making landfall in the Big Ben region, but high winds, heavy rain and dangerous

flooding are causing significant material damage. Two people are known to have been killed in car

crashes related to the storm. The site where it made landfall is sparsely populated, but the effects

of the hurricane have been felt over a much wider area, where most of coastal Tampa Bay now flooded.

The mayor of the inland city of Tallahassee is Johnny Daly. I cannot stress enough the impact

of this storm, the largest storm in history, I do believe to hit the Big Ben region, definitely to

hit the city of Tallahassee. So we're taking it extremely serious. We're feeling it here in

Tallahassee and it is going to impact us and we're going to have damage. The state governor is

Ron DeSantis. There have been 262,000 counts that had lost power have been restored and there are

more than 250,000 accounts that are currently out of power and in need of restoration. Tampa

airport is going to reopen for incoming flights at 4 p.m. By 3 a.m. tomorrow will be fully reopened.

Gainesville airport will reopen tonight and Tallahassee airport will reopen first thing in

the morning. One of the worst hit areas is Cedar Key, a city of the northwest coast of Florida.

A correspondent Helen Humphrey is there. It is utterly devastating remnants of people's lives,

doors tossed off hinges, a microwave, a flat screen TV. They've just been blown out of these

houses as these hurricane winds came in and made landfall in the early hours of this morning.

We have heard that everybody in this community is thankfully accounted for but now authorities

have got to come in and survey the scale of the damage and we also understand that in this area

there was a bed and breakfast, a hotel, half of it was just washed into the gulf and this is the

issue here as well because it wasn't just those winds. It is that storm surge which was coming in

off the gulf there and at times it was coming in at seven feet and then essentially what it's

done is it's washed all of this water in, all that sand, that mud, that sea water and as a result

no power here, no sewage system here right now, no clean water. Helen Humphrey in Cedar Key in Florida.

The Armenians call it the road of life. The Larchin Corridor has been the only road connecting

120,000 ethnic Armenians living in the Azerbaijani enclave in Nagorno-Karabakh with the Republic

of Armenia. The road has been blocked by the Azerbaijani authorities for nearly nine months

though resulting in severe shortages of food and medication. Armenia says there is a humanitarian

crisis, a claim denied by Azerbaijan which says it's just restored its territorial integrity.

Rehend Dmitri sent this report from the border area.

Haik has been stuck in Goris for months, unable to reach his family on the other side of the Larchin

Corridor. It's a vital road connecting Karabakh Armenians with the Republic of Armenia.

But now there is an Azerbaijani military checkpoint. Haik prefers for safety reasons

not to give his real name. Any information we give can be used against us. The current situation

is catastrophic. They want to force people to accept Azerbaijani citizenship to change the

supply road so that we're dependent on Azerbaijan. It will be awful. Up to 90% of all supplies to

Karabakh used to originate from Armenia. Now 400 tons of humanitarian aid from the Armenian government

is stuck at the entrance to the Larchin Corridor, unable to cross the Azerbaijani line of control.

The humanitarian crisis is the main organized, the main planned. Edmund Marokyan is the

representative of the Armenian government. We have now this humanitarian crisis which is a tool

on the hands of Azerbaijan to starve people and to push them out from their homeland.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have been fighting for control of Nagorno-Karabakh and the

surrounding territories for decades. It has been a contentious area due to historical,

ethnic and religious factors. In 2020, Azerbaijan launched a major military offensive.

In just six weeks, its forces retook control of all territories surrounding the enclave,

which had been held by Armenia since 1994.

After Russia brokered a ceasefire agreement, Russian peacekeepers were sent to ensure the

safety of ethnic Armenians and allow access via the Larchin Corridor to the Republic of Armenia.

But since December 2022, Azerbaijan has blocked the road, first with government-backed protesters,

then in April it set up a military checkpoint. This is how Azerbaijan's President Ilham

Aliyev justified the decision. The construction of the border crossing means the complete

restoration of our territorial integrity. The Red Cross is the only humanitarian organization

with access to Nagorno-Karabakh. But the ICRC has not been able to guarantee safe passage through

the Azerbaijani checkpoint, as the Khachatrian family found out on July the 29th. Vera's father,

68-year-old Vagiv Khachatrian, was arrested at the Azeri checkpoint, accused of war crimes

committed in the 1990s. He was diagnosed with heart conditions. In Karabakh,

we approached the Red Cross to help organize his evacuation. At the checkpoint, they said they needed

10 minutes to question him. Then, they took him in an unknown direction. Now, every second,

we are thinking what will happen to him. If his heart stops, our lives will stop too.

Rehendymetri reporting. A new scientific study concludes that high levels of radioactivity in

Boers in southern Germany are caused not only by the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident,

but also by atomic bombs detonated during the Cold War much earlier. The meat of these wild pigs

from the Bavarian forests is already banned as unsafe, but this research suggests the

surrounding soil pollution will endure for generations. More from Charles Haveland.

The lasting radioactivity of Bavarian Boers has been mainly blamed on the Chernobyl disaster,

but many wondered why the bristly tusked animals remained contaminated

after poison levels in other creatures gradually dropped. Testing meat from 48 Boers,

these scientists found that their radioactivity is abundantly caused by older Cold War nuclear

bomb blasts, up to 99% in some samples. As the Boers dig for truffle mushrooms, their favoured

food, the problem is worsened, as radioactive cesium steadily seeps down through the soil.

The poisoning of the Boers threatens the Bavarian forests themselves,

as they're not shot for their meat, their populations are growing unsustainably.

Now, if you're one of millions of people hooked on the TV drama Succession,

the show about a super-rich family loosely based on Rupert Murdoch,

you're in for a treat, though perhaps without the same level as drama and intrigue.

One of Asia's richest men, Mukesh Ambani, head of the Ambani family,

has announced a succession plan for the control of India's most valuable conglomerate.

Sushmarama Chandran, a journalist and commentator with the Tribune newspaper in Delhi,

has been telling Victoria, one hundred more. It's slightly different from succession,

because this rhyme around, there's no jockeying for power, at least not apparently. Mukesh Ambani,

as you rightly said, he's, I think, the second richest man in the country,

but owns the largest and most valuable company, has three children. They're in the late 20s,

they have been allocated one major chunk of the company. Isha has been given the retail sector,

Akash has been given communications, which is very valuable, and the youngest Anand has been given

the new energy sector, that is green energy. So that's been a very carefully laid out plan,

I think, of Mukesh. And I think one of the reasons is because there was a succession-like drama

in his own life. When his father, Dheerubhai, passed away, he didn't have this kind of a

succession plan. And there was a tremendous fight between the two brothers, Mukesh and his

younger brother Anand. And this finally had to go to the mother. The mother sat down and did

arbitration between the two brothers, and divided the kingdom as it were.

So tell us about the daughter. Is that changing the role of women in Indian business society?

Well, in Indian business, you've had a lot of daughters coming up. In fact, quite surprisingly,

people have been quite happy to give their daughters control. You have one of the largest

IT companies that is HCL, has Shiv Nader, the chairman's daughter. Roshni Nader has taken over.

The Godrej family has given a big chunk of control to their children. The Birla's have also

handed control to their children. But there have been problems. For instance, in one Southern family,

there was a legal problem. The daughter filed a case against her brothers because they refused to

give her a share. Sushma Ramachandran with Victorian Iwanhunder. Still to come in the

Global News podcast? Plans in India to stop monkeys bothering world leaders at the G20 summit.

Each week, we take a news story you've probably heard of and use the science surrounding it as a

springboard to dive into other stories that may not be on your radar. We're here in my B-Lab.

In front of a box of beans. There were no bad side effects at all.

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

Swiss banks hold a huge amount of the world's offshore wealth. For years, the financial sector

has faced international calls to be a bit more transparent about whose money it is.

Now the government has drafted new rules to tighten money laundering regulations.

James Wickham is the editor of the BBC's World Business Report.

Let me give you a number, Andrew, which is 2.4 trillion US dollars. That's the number of foreign

assets held by banks in Switzerland. It's had that reputation as a haven for people to go and to

avoid taxes. It's a place for them to squirrel their money away to avoid fiscal authorities

wherever they are in the world. But Switzerland has been trying to change that image for a long

time. But it has faced quite a lot of international pressure over the last few months to shed a bit

more light on this shadowy world of corporate ownership. And what's basically happening is that

many companies, many entities like trusts are kind of cloaking the identity of the real beneficiaries

of this money. Essentially, they're saying this is the name above the door, but that's not the

person who's really getting the money. The person who's getting the money is the person behind the

person with the name on the door. So these new regulations make it all more transparent? If you

like, the lack of transparency is what's made it such an appealing banking destination until now?

Yeah, absolutely. So these proposals are going to see legal loopholes close. There's going to be a

register to require the ultimate beneficial owners of these trusts and companies to be declared. Now

Switzerland is the only European country at the moment that doesn't have one of these registers.

It's also got to make it easier to monitor how lawyers for rich clients operate as well. The

finance minister says the reputation is good, but there are gaps to fill and anyone who sets up trusts

or holding companies, they're going to be subject to these new rules. There's a long way until this

definitely gets sorted. Under Switzerland's political system, there's a whole period of

consultation with political parties now. You've got civil groups, they all need to have a chat.

It'll be until at least next year before any of this kind of comes in. And there's a lot of people

saying these final measures might be significantly watered down as well. But Andrew, I think the

point to make here is Switzerland over the last few months has had quite a few major scandals

in and around its banking sector. The Swiss want to get rid of the idea that it's a place that you

can go and just leave your money with no questions asked. James Wickham, reporting. The US Secretary

of Commerce says business patience is running thin with China. On a trip to Shanghai, Gina Raimondo

cited the challenges faced by US credit card companies Visa and Mastercard in China compared

with Alipay's expansion in the US. She said she hoped things would change. Meanwhile in Beijing,

Britain's foreign minister James Cleverley says he's raised human rights concerns with the government,

but suggested that Britain needed a pragmatic relationship with China

to tackle issues like climate change. He's the first senior British politician to go to China

in more than five years. Our correspondent there, Stephen MacDonald, has been talking to him.

From the opening meeting at the Great Hall of the People, the foreign secretary's

Chinese hosts were publicly very upbeat about the importance of this trip. Vice President Han

Zhang was the first to sit across the table from James Cleverley. He told the foreign secretary

his visit would help promote stable relations between China and the UK, as well as improve

economic ties. Mr Cleverley has been criticised at home for coming, but he said without such face-to-face

interaction, there was a greater chance of misinterpretations, mistrust and errors.

Ahead of his meeting with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi, he promised to raise the issue of

human rights abuses against ethnic Uighurs in Xinjiang and the erosion of freedoms in Hong Kong.

He also told the BBC he'd urged Beijing to use its influence with Russia to stop the

invasion of Ukraine, despite the support offered by China to the Kremlin.

I don't think it's in China's interest in any way there to be a perception that they are

actively or even passively supporting Putin's brutal actions, and I've made that point.

But does Beijing care about that? I mean, look, they...

Well, I do think, in the conversations I've had, I think Beijing do care about what the world thinks

Mr Cleverley said that China was at the forefront of green energy technology,

but he hoped it would be much more courageous in a move away from polluting industries.

And he said Beijing needed to build trust when it came to cooperation,

if it wanted to trade successfully during a very tough economic climate.

Netflix says its attempt to succeed in the video gaming industry is a natural extension

of its subscription platform. The streaming service has offered games on mobile versions

of its app for two years, now though it wants to become a front runner in the gaming market,

despite seeing other big entertainment companies try and fail at the same challenge.

Here's our gaming correspondent, Stefan Powell.

But now development studios like Ripstone in Liverpool are making games for the streaming

service. They're playable on mobile phones and tablets only for now. Here, it's a chess simulator

based on the Netflix drama The Queen's Gambit. The idea is clear, to stay relevant Netflix

once a legitimate stake in an industry that hundreds of millions of people around the globe

access every day. Lian Lum is from the company.

Games is a really huge part of entertainment and so it really is a natural progression for us to

start thinking about how to offer games to our members.

But Netflix isn't the first mainstream entertainment or technology company to have this idea.

What is Eternum?

Amazon and Google are just two others that have tried. Earlier this year,

Google's Stadia service was shut down and Amazon Games has laid off workers.

Making the transition is difficult according to the games journalist Shay Thompson.

They fundamentally misunderstood what it is about games that people love in the first place.

They had big budgets behind them but ultimately lacked creativity and uniqueness.

By focusing on games for mobile devices though, Netflix is trying something different.

They're cheaper and quicker to make than their console or PC counterparts,

so easier to grow a portfolio. But there is a risk this lack of scale and ambition

could see them fail to grab players' attention in such a crowded marketplace.

The 80th Venice Film Festival opened on Wednesday but many stars are missing

because of the historic strike in Hollywood. They're concerned about the impact of subscriptions

and streaming on the repeat payments that most depend on as well as the growth of AI technology.

There are two unions involved. Duncan Crabtree Island is the chief negotiator for one of them,

the Screen Actors Guild, which has 160,000 members around the world.

Michelle Hussain asked him how negotiations were going.

We've been on strike since July 14. Our last day of bargaining with the companies represented by

the AMPTP, which is the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. We have not had any

further communication with them. We've said every day that we're ready, willing and able to continue

bargaining, but they have not been willing to do that. They have however re-engaged recently with

the Writers Guild and they're in a pattern of discussions with them right now.

That is the alliance that negotiates on behalf of companies like Netflix,

Disney, Warner Brothers, Discovery. Do they recognize that there's been a big change to

livelihoods, that you had the old days where programs would be syndicated across ad-supported

networks and that your members' incomes have changed since streaming took hold?

I mean, they must recognize that it's undeniable, but they don't seem to recognize it in terms of

being willing to make any changes to the contracts. That's one of the reasons why

our president, Fran Drescher, and I have said these companies have unilaterally changed the

entire business model of the industry, of the entertainment industry, but they want to hold

the contracts of performers and writers and other creative talent frozen in amber like

we're back in the 90s, even though the whole business has changed. So they really have to

rethink that or there's no way to move forward without them being willing to recognize the change

that's happened. It is a high stakes move, isn't it? Because the strike is also affecting the

incomes of your members and others as it goes on with not only current production halted,

but it's affecting what people are pitching, what they're writing, the whole pipeline of the industry.

That's true, and this was not a decision that was taken lately, but I think it's really important

to recognize that we bargained with the studios and streamers for 35 days. We extended our contract

by an additional 12 days in order to allow for more bargaining time. And in the end,

the companies refused to do even basic things like agree to have an increase in minimum compensation

to keep up with inflation or agree to limit the use of artificial intelligence so that people have

a right to have informed consent over the use of their image and the creation of a digital replica

or even share any kind of revenue from the revenue that the streaming companies are making

off of these new platforms that have been created. I mean, these are very basic proposals,

all of which the companies refused to make a deal. So the responsibility for these strikes,

rests squarely on the shoulders of the ANPTP companies, the studios and the streamers.

And I think everyone realizes that. That's why we have such widespread support from the public

and from the rest of the industry.

Duncan Crabtree Island with Michelle Hussain. Finally, to Delhi, where monkeys are often

spotted roaming around government sites in the Indian capital, much to the irritation of the

local authorities. As it prepares to host the G20 Summit of World Leaders in September,

the city is reverting to a tried and tested method to stop these macaques, bothering people.

The plan, though, is quite noisy, as Chantal Hartle explains.

This is the sound of a langa monkey, a large blackface, long-tailed primate known for its

unusual barking call. For decades, trained handlers would take langas into public spaces

to scare away Delhi's smaller monkeys to make sure that major events ran smoothly.

That practice ended due to animal welfare laws. So, New Delhi's municipal council has gone for

the next best thing, hiring around 30 men tasked with mimicking the sounds of the langa monkey.

A council official said one man would be deployed at each hotel where G20 delegates are staying,

as well as other popular monkey spots. So, how realistic will it be?

Here's one impersonator who was employed previously to stop monkeys bothering bureaucrats around the

Indian parliament. This is to scare the monkey away. The monkey thinks a langa is around the

corner, and this one, and then this one. That's to scare them away. We mix all three sounds so

the monkeys think that a man has come with a langa. The authorities are also putting up

cardboard cutouts of the macaques' more menacing relatives in parts of the city.

But some are skeptical about how effective this will be. The animals have a reputation for being

quick to spot these tricks. Previously, a fake plastic model of a langa monkey with its distinct

loud noise lasted only three days before macaques tore it to pieces. Shut her heart all reporting.

And that's all from us for now. There will be a new edition of Global News to download later.

If you'd like to comment on this podcast and the stories we included, drop us an email. The

address is globalpodcastatbbc.co.uk. Or you'll find us on X, formerly known as Twitter,

where we are at Global News Pod. This edition was mixed by Chesney Forks Porter. The producer was

Emma Joseph. The editor is Karen Martin. My name is Andrew Peach. Thank you for listening.

Until next time, goodbye.

Ever wondered what the world's wealthiest people did to get so ridiculously rich?

Our podcast, Good Bad Billionaire, takes one billionaire at a time and explains exactly

how they made their money. And then we decide if they are actually good, bad, or just plain wealthy.

So if you want to know if Rihanna is as much of a bad gal as she claims,

or what Jeff Bezos really did to become the first person in history to pocket a hundred billion

dollars, listen to Good Bad Billionaire with me, Simon Jack, and me, Zing Zing,

available now wherever you get your podcasts.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.