Global News Podcast: King Charles's state visit postponed after pension protests in France

Hello, this is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service with reports and analysis

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get your BBC podcasts and get ready for season two coming next week. This is the Global News podcast

from the BBC World Service. I'm Valerie Sanderson and at 14 hours GMT on Friday the 24th of March,

these are our main stories. King Charles state visit to France is postponed after violent protests

there over pension reforms. India's opposition leader Rahul Gandhi is expelled from parliament

after his conviction for defamation. How a drawing by a Russian child sparked a police investigation.

Also this podcast. Social media companies know their products are toxic. They designed their

apps to be addictive. As leaders and as parents we have a responsibility to protect our young people.

Utah becomes the first US state to give parents control over their children's social media

and remembering the French pioneer of climate science Claude Laureus who's died.

A planned visit to France by King Charles his first state visit abroad as monarch has been

postponed after weeks of protests against raising the state retirement age took their most violent

turn yet. Those were the sounds from Bordeaux overnight where the town hall was set on fire.

In Paris police fired tear gas at protesters for the first time since the demonstrations began.

More than 450 people were arrested and a similar number of police officers injured in the latest

round of nationwide protests against the decision by President Macron's government

to lift the age when French people can get their state pension from 62 to 64.

Our royal correspondent Charlotte Gallagher told us more about the cancellation of the British

royals tour. It was definitely 11th hour decision Valerie. There's no question that everyone thought

this was going ahead. Some journalists had even travelled to France already to cover this trip.

This will have taken months of planning. Money will have been spent. King Charles and the Queen

Consort were due to be met in Paris with all the pomp and ceremony you'd expect from a state visit.

They were going to ride along the chandelier they were going to have a banquet at Versailles

but how would that have looked firstly the optics of that when you have these protests going on in

the heart of Paris and then also the security implications of having the British monarch

in Paris and in wider France when you've got these protests going on the police

and the security services obviously stretched with that and then having to deal with a royal visit.

So this was decision was made. It was the suggestion of President Macron to cancel this

visit, postpone this visit even and Buckingham Palace have agreed that now isn't the time.

So they will be going ahead at some other point. They are still going to Germany though. So this

was a two-country trip. They were going to France. They were going to Germany. The German element of

the trip is still going ahead but there was just really no question that the French part had to

be cancelled. It just wasn't possible. Charlotte Gallagher. Speaking at a news conference in Brussels

President Macron condemned the violence and said he would not give into it. So just how bad has the

situation in France become? I asked our correspondent, Hugh Scoffield, in Paris. The government is

clearly hoping that the reality will set in and people will come to appreciate that an unhappy

day may be but the law is the law and there's no real way of getting the government to turn back

and at that point they will disgruntedly return to their ordinary lives. The answer on the street

kind of argues against that. Everyone you talk to who's out demonstrating my neighbours here

are all saying this feels like it's one of those moments when the people of France get behind a

cause and don't give up until they get some kind of victory. So right now there's absolutely no

way out of it. It is an impasse. There is going to be another big day on Tuesday. I've no doubt

that the kind of confident mood that the protesters were projecting will continue then. They'll be

out in force and we'll just have to see which gives first. It really is a battle of strength

now between the government, President Macron and this sort of mass of the people. It's one of those

French episodes linked historically to the revolution where the people feel that they've

got right on their side and they want to take down their head of state, their monarch, a peg or two.

Hughes Gofield in Paris. India's congress party has condemned the treatment of its leader Rahul

Gandhi who's been disqualified from parliament after a court sentenced him to two years in prison

for defaming the surname of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Mr Gandhi is out on bail and will appeal.

The case goes back to 2019 when the opposition leader made the comments at an election rally.

Here's congress spokesman Abhishek Manu Singhvi. There are some disturbing aspects of this judgment

which of course shall be subject to challenge, approximately and immediately. Make no mistake

generally. All your attempts to create a chilling effect, a throttling effect, a strangulating effect

on open, fearless speech relating to public interest will not stop either Rahul Gandhi

or the congress party. So where does this leave Rahul Gandhi? Our South Asia editor and Parasan

Itharachan told us more. Mr Rahul Gandhi who belongs to India's most influential political

dynasty. He made a speech in 2019 during an election rally where he was talking about mentioning two

Indian businessmen accused of financial mismanagement. They were on the run and they also had a surname

of Modi. So he was saying how come all the thieves were having the surname of Modi? This is an

indirect reference to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi who he at that time was accusing of corruption.

Then one of the members of the governing Hindu nationalist BJP from Gujarat state,

from where Mr Modi comes from, he filed a case saying that this had insulted the entire community

because Modi's surname refers to a group of people. So he was asking for a court's intervention

and apology from Mr Gandhi and the case went on for four years and Mr Gandhi refused to apologize

and that's why on Thursday the court found him guilty and gave him two years of jail sentence

and he's on bail at the moment. He can appeal against this verdict but this is quite an extraordinary

political development in India. This comes at a time when many of the opposition parties are

accusing the government of throttling free speech. And is that how it's being seen there that the

Prime Minister is sending a warning to his critics? Many opposition leaders have reacted

strongly to even today's development about disqualifying Mr Gandhi from parliament and

Mamatha Banerjee is a very senior opposition leader, Chief Minister of West Bengal state

and she was saying that opposition leader have become the prime target of BJP and today we

have witnessed a new law for our constitutional democracy and quite a strong statements have

come from various political parties. There has been ongoing row between the government and

the opposition parties and with the opposition parties accusing the government of using all

the government's investigative agencies targeting opposition leaders, jailing them on allegations

of corruption and not allowing them to criticize the government's policies in parliament or in

outside. They say the media is being controlled and media is being targeted and their government is

intolerance towards criticism. This has been the accusations by the opposition which the

ruling BJP strongly denies. As the war in Ukraine continues, Russians who protest against

their country's presence there take considerable risks in making their views known. They can lose

their jobs, even their freedom and in one town a Russian man who's being prosecuted for anti-war

posts on social media risks losing his daughter. Pressure on the family began last year after

the girl drew an anti-war picture at school. From the town of Yefremov our Russia editor Steve

Rosenberg reports. In the centre of Yefremov there's a wall covered in pictures of war,

giant photos of masked Russian soldiers and the letter Z symbol of the Russian offensive in

Ukraine. This is the official patriotic picture of the invasion but in this small town another

image of the Ukraine war has emerged. A very different one. In a social media video a school

girl says that police have detained her father. Later Masha Moskalyeva was sent to a children's home.

That was three weeks ago but the story began last year with a picture 12-year-old Masha

had drawn at school of a Ukrainian flag with the words glory to Ukraine and a Russian flag

with the words no to war. Town councillor Olga Podolskaya tells me that last year Masha's father

a single parent had contacted her for advice. He told her that his daughter's school shocked by

the drawing had called the police. The father Alexey was dumbfounded Olga says adding the police

began checking his social media and they told him he was bringing up his daughter in a bad way.

Outside an apartment block a lawyer types in the entrance code. He's visiting Masha's father

who is now under house arrest. Since Masha drew that picture Alexey her dad has been charged twice

with discrediting the Russian army in anti-war social media posts. He could now be sent to prison.

Separated from his daughter he isn't even allowed to speak to her on the phone. His lawyer Vladimir

Belienko says Alexey is distraught over Masha being put in a children's home. The social services

seem obsessed with this family. Vladimir says I think it's purely for political reasons and what

about Masha's school? Does he admit calling the police over a picture? School number nine prides

itself in a patriotic education. He recently invited Russian soldiers who were back from Ukraine

into the classroom. The school director declared we believe in our motherland it never makes

mistakes. Sadly she doesn't believe in speaking to us. The school hasn't responded to a written

request for comment. So we go there. But they won't let us in. We try calling.

Same result. Across town supporters of the Moskaliya family gather in court.

The local juvenile affairs commission is taking legal action to officially restrict Alexey's

parental rights. The commission has not responded to our written request to comment. Suddenly an

activist unfurls a poster. Return Masha to her father it reads. A police officer tells her to

take it down. Alexey isn't here for this preliminary hearing. He hasn't been allowed to leave house

arrest to attend. Even though what is at stake is whether his daughter will be allowed to come home.

Steve Rosenberg. We are no longer willing to let companies harm young people's mental health. The

words of the US state of Utah's governor Spencer Cox as he signed new laws restricting children's

use of social media. People under the age of 18 now need their parents permission before they can

use apps such as Tiktok Facebook and Instagram. Parents will also have full access to their children's

online accounts including private messages. Utah is the first American state to bring in such a

policy. Our reporter Azadeh Mashiri has been looking at what that means. Tiktok has been a big

focus the last few weeks but of course lawmakers and parents have been concerned for years about

the impact social media is having on their children's mental health. Parents have been worried

about the way children view their own bodies after being exposed to social media about whether

they're being exposed to harmful content particularly self-harm content and the big problem is a lot

of parents just simply feel powerless as these apps have become more addictive and that's exactly

the goal that lawmakers have with this legislation. It's to give some control back to parents and

they do that in three specific ways. The first is that children and minors under 18 can no longer

once this bill comes into place next year create accounts on social media apps like Instagram

and Facebook and Snapchat and of course Tiktok they can't create those accounts without permission

from their parents or their legal guardian. They also will have a social media curfew that parents

can adjust but the default is 10 30 p.m. to 6 30 a.m. and the third way and this is the most

controversial part of it is that parents would now have complete access to their children's accounts

their messages their posts their replies and therefore that does raise some privacy concerns.

There will be parents listening to this who are delighted with this think that this is a great idea

however there are plenty of people who would disagree I mean what are the main criticisms

of this and how has this gone down with young people? So I've spoken to several civil liberties

experts and what they've said is that they're very concerned about what this means for First

Amendment rights for free speech because children also have a right to that that it could infringe

upon their privacy and I spoke to one advocate for LGBTQ plus rights and his concern was that a

lot of children from those communities who are vulnerable who perhaps can be in abusive homes

and feel like they don't have anywhere they truly belong social media can actually be a really good

outlet for them but also connect them to people that understand them and this would cut them off

from that. Now I've also spoken to a spokesperson for Metta who owns is the parent company for

Facebook and they say they've been working with lawmakers to try and ensure there are age verification

tools technology to protect children from harmful content and that they do manage to capture a lot

of that content before it's even reported but as far as lawmakers they're concerned that's just not

enough. Azadeh Mashiri still to come. This is my happy place the best place in the world for me

it's like being back in the military having all these military people around you all the banter.

The Iraq war veterans finding comfort through sailing.

Love Genessa is the true crime podcast from the BBC World Service and CBC podcasts

investigating the murky world of online romance camps. She was trying to get me to send her money.

Catch up with the whole series now search for Love Genessa wherever you found this podcast.

You win their hearts you win their wallet. Described as one of the world's most wanted

fugitives Doquan a South Korean cryptocurrency entrepreneur has been arrested in Montenegro

in Europe after being accused of orchestrating a multi-billion dollar fraud that shook global

crypto markets last year. Many investors lost their life savings. South Korea will also seek

his extradition and he faces fresh criminal charges in the United States. Doquan is also a

wanted man in Singapore from where our reporter Nick Marsh told me more. Doquan founded a trading

platform a blockchain platform called Terraform Labs back in 2018 and it's one of the many

many hundreds maybe even thousands of these kinds of platforms that have sprung up in the last few

years. It was based here in Singapore actually and that's why the Singaporean authorities are one

of the many who were after him. The controversy started last year when the platform crashed.

Two of the currencies that it offered one was called Luna one was called TerraUSD.

They pretty much lost all their value so just like that within the space of a week 40 billion

dollars was lost and what Mr. Doquan is accused of doing by prosecutors is misleading investors.

So luring customers into buying a cryptocurrency that you know wasn't pegged to a stable asset like

he claimed. The TerraUSD was supposed to be pegged to the dollar. In the end it ended up being unpegged

and then its value was completely lost and since then he went on the run and now he's

finally been arrested after several months going across the world trying to evade law enforcement.

Well a lot of international law and enforcement wants to speak to him it's not just Montenegro

is it? Yeah that's right the US law enforcement has already hit him with several charges of fraud

the South Koreans have as well Singaporeans here have. He left South Korea last year he

actually came here very briefly and was off again. The last place he was seen before his arrest

today was Serbia so next door to Montenegro. The Montenegro authorities actually found him

looking to get onto a flight to Dubai with a forged fake passport. They managed to cross

reference his fingerprints with the South Korean police agency records made sure it was him and

now it looks like he's going to be extradited to South Korea. We don't know exactly what he's going

to be charged with or when the kind of criminal proceedings begin but we'll have to see what

other law enforcement authorities want to try and do as well it looks like there's going to have to

be some kind of agreement reached between countries and their various authorities too.

Nick Marsh. Israel's Attorney General has accused the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of violating

a conflict of interest deal that's allowed him to take office while still on trial over corruption

charges. Mr Netanyahu who's been visiting the UK is pushing ahead with controversial reforms that

would limit the power of the courts leading to huge almost daily protests across Israel.

Our Middle East analyst Sebastian Usher reports. In a harshly worded letter sent to Mr Netanyahu

this morning the Israeli Attorney General Ghali Bahra of Miara said that the legal situation was

clear and he must refrain from involvement in any initiatives to change the judiciary.

This is the issue that has convulsed the country for three months after another day of mass protest

against a proposal on Thursday and amid rumors of a possible split within his cabinet. Mr Netanyahu

went on television in a bid to reassure Israelis that he was doing everything possible to reach

a solution acceptable to all sides. The Attorney General has now escalated her showdown with the

Prime Minister saying that his statement was illegal. Sebastian Usher. Climate concerns

have become such a big part of our lives that it's difficult to imagine a time when those fears

simply didn't occur to anyone. But 60 years ago a French scientist in Antarctica was sipping a

glass of whiskey when he hit upon an idea that it ended up proving that humans were responsible

for global warming. Claude Laureus who's died at the age of 91 led more than 20 expeditions to

study glaciers and his discoveries fundamentally changed our understanding of the environment.

Daniel Mann looks back at his life. It was his love of adventure which set Claude Laureus on the

path to identifying and predicting an impending catastrophe for the planet. In 1956 just out of

university he joined an expedition to Antarctica. Temperatures there were as low as minus 40 degrees

Celsius. Despite this Laureus and two other people lived there for two years, surviving with limited

supplies and a faulty radio. The more polar expeditions he led to the icy southern continent,

the more he became fascinated with Antarctica's mysteries. In 1965 Laureus had a revelation

by gathering ice samples and dropping them in whiskey. He spoke about it half a century later.

One evening after deep drilling in our caravan we drank a glass of whiskey

in which we'd put ice cubes of old ice. Seeing the bubbles of air sparkling in our glasses

I came to the idea that they were samples of the atmosphere trapped in the ice.

Realising the scientific potential of analysing trapped air he then decided to study ice cores,

samples drilled out of the ice which act as frozen time capsules. By drilling into the ice

Laureus drilled into the past penetrating in his words the ice of the first ice age.

His research showed that while carbon dioxide had varied slightly after the industrial revolution

concentrations of the greenhouse gas had rocketed as temperatures rose.

The French National Centre for Scientific Research said this left no room for doubt

that global warming was due to man-made pollution. From then on he became a campaigner and in 1988

he was the inaugural expert of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The life of Claude Laureus was one of discovery. He once said,

I did not choose science, I chose adventure.

Daniel Mann

Twenty years ago this week the US began its invasion of Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of

soldiers, militants and Iraqi civilians were killed in the ensuing war and thousands more

were scarred physically and mentally by the fighting. Here in Britain a charity has been

helping veterans heal by taking them sailing. Caroline Holly joined them aboard.

I'm now on a sailing loop in Falmouth Bay with several military veterans all of whom have been

profoundly affected by serving in Iraq. It's grey and it's cold but for all of them they say this

is a really important place. My name is Sean Pascoe I'm an A&E nurse by background. I work on

the back of the snooks on a medical team called Merck. Sean was later diagnosed with PTSD. He set

up the charity Turned Starboard to help other struggling veterans after sailing helped him

find a way out of the darkest point of his life. I was no use to anybody and I had some

really awful negative thoughts and I've actually attempted to kind of take my own life but I

certainly thought about it. Sean had seen and experienced too much. Multiple casualties of

significant injuries, absolutely life changing and multiple deaths. Some of the decisions I had

to make that you know were really challenging that actually you know with limited resources

right locations sometimes you had to say no you know that that was really really hard. Certain

incidents now I don't want to say them out loud because they're you know deeply upsetting.

Thousands of veterans have now sailed with Sean's charity and two decades on veterans of Iraq

are still coming to it for help. My name is Janet Riddell I served as a Royal Navy Patti Officer

writer. Weekly we did trips to the international zone to change money on the way back in the Black

Hawk we were taken down by small arms fire, badly damaging my leg. She lost both her leg which had

to be amputated and the job she loved when she had to be medically discharged. I fitted into

Civic Street okay I still have my anger issues I still have my nightmares which I still have today

I still have nightmares today which I struggle with I sleep about three four hours a night

but I just I always see the world as you know what there's always somebody there

that's worse off than yourself. And when you look back now on the Iraq war how do you feel about it?

I don't see the point personally of wars any wars because nobody ever wins a war do they?

Well that's my opinion anyway I don't think anybody ever comes out of it

with anything to be honest with you it's just a lot of pain and suffering.

Jan says being back at sea has made a huge difference to her mental health. The sea is my

happy place the best place in the world for me it's like being back in the military having all

these military people around you all the banter. And it's helping many others to turn their lives

around too. Caroline Hawley reporting and that's it from us for now but there'll be a new edition

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

it send us an email the address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk and you can also find us on twitter

at globalnewspod. This edition was mixed by Rohan Madison the producer was Shantel Hartle

the editor is Karen Martin. I'm Valerie Sanderson until next time bye bye.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.