Global News Podcast: Nagorno-Karabakh: anti-government protests are held in Armenia after defeat

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Advantage. Business is human. This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Nick

Mars and at 14 hours GMT on Friday the 22nd of September. These are our main stories. Anti-government

protests are held in the Armenian capital over Azerbaijan's defeat of ethnic Armenian separatists

in Nagorno-Karabakh. A military judge at Guantanamo Bay has ruled that a Yemeni man charged over the

9-11 attacks is mentally unfit to stand trial. The Indian Parliament passes a bill that will

reserve a third of seats in parliament and state assemblies for women. Also in this podcast,

a stash of the opioid fentanyl is found in the New York nursery where a toddler has died of a

suspected drug overdose. And seven years after blasting off, a rocket prepares to deliver what

scientists hope will be the secrets of how life began on earth. We're addressing profiled questions

that at some point in our lives, everybody asks ourselves, where did we come from? And more

importantly, are we alone in the universe? Many of the world's most entrenched conflicts come down

to issues of identity and self-determination. The crisis in the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh

is one such conflict. It lies within Azerbaijan, but for decades ethnic Armenians who live there

have been trying to create their own independent state. It's led to countless acts of violence

in which thousands have died. There's been more fighting this week with Azerbaijan forces pushing

back separatist militants. Speaking at the United Nations Security Council, the Armenian Foreign

Minister Ararat Merzoyan accused Azerbaijan of unlawful actions. Well, each of us comes here

to contribute to peace in our region in South Caucasus on 19th of September. Azerbaijan unleashed

yet another large-scale offensive against the people of Nagorno-Karabakh in blatant violation

of the international law. The Armenian Foreign Minister accused his neighbour of wanting to

finalise the ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh's Armenian population. Meanwhile, in the Azerbaijani

capital Baku, Hikmet Hajiyev, foreign policy adviser to the president said Azerbaijan wanted to

reintegrate the region peacefully. There will be difficulties and there could be certain challenges

as well. Nobody denies that. An important thing is that we have a political will to go forward

with the integration. And while talking about the integration, we are talking about a peaceful

reintegration model of Karabakh Armenians, who is in a political, economic, social,

spectrum of Azerbaijan. Siranoush Sargsyan is an ethnic Armenian in Stepanakhet,

the de facto capital of Nagorno-Karabakh. She says no one believes the talks at the UN or

elsewhere will work. Here, it doesn't matter if you are in one of the villages or in Stepanakhet,

there is no safety and these negotiations, talks, nobody actually believes it, nobody

believes like somehow it is possible without international guarantees like we can stay here.

So, and if there is not provided, most of people, yes, they want to leave.

Our caucuses correspondent, Rehenta Mitri, tell me more about the situation there.

Reports from Stepanakhet is that there are thousands of displaced people. These are the

people who had to leave their homes from the villages that are close to the front line.

A lot of people spent the night in schools or in churches, in kind of temporary places. And I

guess the biggest question for them is they don't really know what's coming next. And as we just

heard from Siranoush, this journalist in Stepanakhet, a lot of people would want to leave Nagorno-Karabakh,

but no such option has been given to them just yet. You also quoted the Armenian Foreign Minister

at the UN Security Council and he accused Azerbaijan of wanting to carry out an ethnic cleansing

and said that there were facts of mass crimes. And he said that the images from Nagorno-Karabakh

are really, really shocking. There are homeless women, children and mothers, a lot of people

who are searching for their children. And they all think that's, you know, because every single

family in Nagorno-Karabakh would have a family member who fought in many wars with Azerbaijan

and they're worried that they would be arrested. But this morning we heard from Azerbaijani

presidential special advisor, Hikmat Haji, who said that Azerbaijan is envisaging an

amnesty for Karabakh Armenian fighters, for those who give up their arms. Although Azerbaijan says

there are some individual groups and officers who have refused to lay down their arms so far

and they don't want to accept Azerbaijan in terms of conditions. So there's a risk of insurgency.

So briefly, Rehan, this has all come about because the Armenians within Nagorno-Karabakh are on that

back foot militarily. Meanwhile, in the Armenian capital, a lot of protesters out on the streets

protesting about what's going on, probably putting pressure on the Armenian authorities to do something

about it. There were big protests on Tuesday and Wednesday when Azerbaijan began what it describes

as its anti-terror operation, much less so yesterday. But of course there is pressure on the Armenian

prime minister to resign over the handling of the situation. Since 2002, almost 800 people have been

detained at one time or another at the American base at Guantanamo Bay on the island of Cuba.

Of those, 11 have been charged with war crimes in the military commission system.

10 are awaiting trial and one has been convicted. Now a Yemeni man accused of involvement with the

September 11th attacks in New York City 22 years ago has been ruled unfit to stand trial.

I've had up more details from our security correspondent, Gordon Carrera.

Well, this is Ramsay Bin Al-Shab, who is one of the better known suspects held at Guantanamo Bay,

linked directly to the September 11th, 2001 attacks. He was accused, or is accused of,

being an organiser of the Hamburg cell, which was one of the place where one of the groups of

hijackers came from, which carried out the attack in the United States and having wanted to actually

be part of the attack himself, and a link back to Al Qaeda, which organised the attacks out of

Afghanistan. So he was considered a significant player, that's the allegation, in those attacks.

And this was going to be one of the most high profile of these military commissions

that have been due to take place at Guantanamo. He was going to stand trial along with Khalid

Sheikh Mohammed, who's often considered the kind of mastermind of those attacks. But his lawyers

had been arguing that he was mentally unfit to stand trial for the death penalty specifically,

which is what he was at risk of being given as a sentence. Now, the argument was specifically that

it was he was mentally unfit because he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder

and delusion because of the way he'd been treated in custody specifically,

after he'd been arrested, he spent time in what were called black sites,

which were secret places where the CIA carried out torture on suspects. And he was one of those,

held in those, before being transferred to Guantanamo Bay openly. So the accusation was that

that has left him mentally unfit. And that's always been one of the challenges for these

military commissions is that those defending the suspects have been saying that evidence was tated,

or in this case, someone was made mentally unfit by what had happened to them in custody. And in

this case, yesterday, the judge at Guantanamo agreed with those defense lawyers. And Gordon,

briefly, do we know what the status of the other 10 people awaiting trial is, whether or not they

will argue similar things? Well, I think we're expecting this. They are not quite arguing the

same thing in terms of being mentally unfit. But the legal battles have been going on for so long

over these military commissions. The that there's been delay after delay. And it is really unclear

how long this process will really take. Gordon Carrera. After six attempts, a bill has been

passed in India, which is set to reserve a third of the seats in the lower house of parliament,

and in state assemblies for women. The bill was first introduced almost three decades ago.

It often failed because of strong disapproval from the country's overwhelmingly male lawmakers.

Our South Asia correspondent, Samira Hussein, told us more about it.

If you look at the way women have played a very significant role in politics, they've had female

prime ministers. Currently, there's a female president of India. And if you look at the way

polls have worked, there's as much trust in female politicians as there are in male politicians.

But if you look at the representation within parliament, you're seeing that representation

has only come up since in the 80s. From 9%, it's gone up to about 15%. So what this bill is aiming

to do is to try and get more political participation from women by reserving 33% of all seats for

women. Now, once it's implemented, it's going to last for about 15 years, and then it can be

reinstated. Women represent a massive voting bloc in this country. And if you don't have enough

women representing in parliament, then do you really have an effective government that really

reflects the population? So they're really trying to encourage more women representation.

I think what's interesting is the political aspect to this is that it's actually not going to

be implemented until about 2029. So the opposition party is quite critical of the fact that the

ruling government has said, okay, let's enact this bill and let's push it through after 30 years.

And they're saying that, look, this is really an election ploy. Since there's going to be

elections next year in India, this allows the ruling BJP party to say, look at what we're doing,

we're trying to get more women into parliament. But because it's not going to go into effect until

2029, it doesn't really benefit any other political parties. What the Indian government

is really trying to signal is that there should be more participation by women,

that women should be more encouraged to come and join and represent in politics.

Samira Hussein. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has arrived in Canada. He was

met on the runway in Ottawa by the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. It comes a day after

his meeting with Joe Biden at the White House as he seeks to rally support for his troops,

ongoing offensive against Russia. Speaking in Washington, Mr Zelensky said Ukraine was looking

for more funding and insisted the war was vitally important for the West.

If we fall, half of Europe would again be in danger of being in Moscow's sphere of influence.

But American investment in Ukrainian security and global protection of freedom

is working 100 percent every cent.

Well, I asked the BBC's James Waterhouse in Kiev what's in store for Mr Zelensky from the Canadians.

You'll expect a continuation of this warm reception. Canada is another loyal ally of Ukraine.

It is a military supporter. There is a sizable Ukrainian community in Canada who are provided with

state support. But I think the real prize of this diplomatic journey of President Zelensky is behind

him in the U.S. with which spearheads the Western allies effort in supporting Ukraine.

I think what we're seeing from President Zelensky this time around, yes, we are seeing some pomp and

ceremony. We are seeing some warm ham shakes and embraces, not least with Joe Biden yesterday

in the Oval Office. But I think there is now hard negotiations to be done for President Zelensky,

because we are starting to see a direct correlation between the pace and scale

of Ukraine's counteroffensive and the increased skepticism, shall we say, in political circles.

There have been discrete meetings with some Republican politicians yesterday where there are

some hard-aligned views that questioning why Ukraine should continue to be presented within

their words blank checks and they're questioning what a Ukrainian victory could look like. And

when Kiev has always said that we will not be rushed in our military efforts, where they lost

a lot of men in equipment early on in their counteroffensive, this will be a real test of that.

And this is why we are seeing President Zelensky continue to try and reach those who are starting

to become increasingly skeptical. And James, over the last couple of days, we've seen mixed reports

coming out of Poland as to whether or not they're going to carry on sending military aid to Ukraine.

How much concern is there in Kiev right now?

I think on the issue of Poland, I think if we look at the language being used,

concerns have been eased slightly. The Polish are saying the words have taken out of slightly

misinterpreted. They're not currently producing weapons for Ukraine, but there were dangling

some question marks over future supplies, all in our argument over Ukrainian grain, which has

flooded Polish markets and subsequent bans have been brought in. It's turned very messy,

but I think what it is translating to is a very difficult diplomatic period for President Zelensky,

who will be desperate to turn this into something more tangible.

James Waterhouse. Metal mining has always been blamed for polluting the world's rivers and flood

plains, and new research has revealed just how much contamination it causes. The global study by

British scientists estimates that tens of millions of people have been affected by potentially

dangerous concentrations of toxic waste. Our science and climate correspondent,

Victoria Gill, has been taking a closer look at their findings.

Waste metals from mines can be bound up in sediment that gets washed down river channels and

spread across flood plains. These research has mapped the location and type of every active

and abandoned metal mine in the world, and studied how the waste moved and accumulated

in the environment. This allowed them to estimate the total area of the earth that's polluted

by mine waste. Combining that with population data revealed that 23 million people around the

world live on land that's officially contaminated, with levels above an internationally recognised

safe threshold. Whether those people are affected by that pollution is impossible to say from this

study, but crops grown or livestock grazed on contaminated land can absorb that pollution.

And as the demand surges for many metals like copper and lithium used in electrification

and battery technology, the researchers say that future mining needs to be planned carefully

to avoid adding to this toxic legacy.

Victoria Gill. Still to come on the Global News Podcast.

Brazil's Supreme Court debates whether to decriminalise abortion up to 12 weeks.

I think I speak to everyone when I say that it was a nightmare, she says.

We aren't the owners of our bodies, are we? It was something that could have been so simple,

but they kept prolonging the suffering.

The attacker had very good knowledge of banking systems.

$2.1 billion in stolen funds. Money laundering operations.

A cybercriminal group. These are smart guys.

Seasons one and two of the Lazarus Heist from the BBC World Service are available in full right now.

Following the twists and turns in the incredible story of the Lazarus Group Hackers.

The Lazarus Heist from the BBC World Service. Catch up with the whole series now,

wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

Welcome back to the Global News Podcast.

A huge supply of the synthetic drug fentanyl has been found in a children's day care centre in

New York after the death of a child. Our North America correspondent,

Sean Dilly, has this report. Police in New York say they found over a dozen bags containing brown

and white powder and it was secreted under a trap door in a nap room or sleeping room

where young children were sleeping. The owner and the tenant have been charged with narcotics and

obstruction charges, but they have essentially said that they believe as a result of running a

drug operation from essentially what is a nursery, they're responsible for poisoning

four babies and killing one of them. The legitimate use for fentanyl is for cancer patients and for

those recovering from surgery. It's incredibly potent. People will be familiar with morphine.

It's a synthetic opioid, but unlike morphine, the same quantities are between 50 and 100 times

more potent. Politicians from each side of the political divide say that it's reached pandemic

levels and I'll give you a little bit of an idea of scale on that one. Back in around 2010,

around 10% of drugs deaths in the United States were as a result of overdosing on fentanyl.

That's raised to around two thirds today, possibly because it is so much cheaper than other drugs

and cheaper than heroin, for instance, and it would have a similar effect to those who use it.

Originally, fentanyl comes from China in its raw form. It then makes its way across into Mexico and

this is why it becomes such a politically hot topic because Mexico is where this raw material is

processed and becomes the fentanyl that's distributed across the United States and the

product that's killing so many Americans. Sean Dilly, Brazil's Supreme Court has started voting

on whether to decriminalize abortion. However, the session was quickly postponed after a minister

called for the vote to take place in person instead of via video and no new date has yet been set.

Currently, abortion is only allowed in three cases, that of rape, risked to the woman's life,

and when the fetus has an undeveloped brain. If the Supreme Court votes in favor, abortion would

be decriminalized up to 12 weeks gestation. Our South America correspondent Katie Watson reports from

Sao Paulo. Yes, we could, Mexican women chanted, echoing President Obama's favorite phrase.

This was the moment the country's Supreme Court decriminalized abortion earlier this month. Dressed

in green t-shirts, waving green bandanas, the decision is the latest milestone for the green

wave movement, regional activists that have worked tirelessly to liberalize strict abortion laws

across Latin America. In this week, attention's turned to Brazil. Supreme Court Judge Rosa

Weber is about to retire, but before she does, she decided to add a vote on decriminalizing abortion

in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. For Paloma, the vote couldn't come soon enough. Three weeks ago,

she had an abortion. The baby she was expecting had a rare condition that meant it wouldn't survive

birth and could have risked her life too. Therein began a painful process. To access a right, she

thought would be a given. I asked the doctor if my baby would survive, she tells me. He told me

I had to wait for it to be born. The nurse who was with him said the baby's heart was beating,

that I'd regret the decision in the future. Through tears, Paloma told him the choice was hers.

Only it wasn't. There were only three cases in which abortion is allowed in Brazil, rape,

when the woman's life is at risk, or in the case of Anencephaly, when the fetus' brain is undeveloped.

Paloma's case wasn't one of those. She was told, though, that with two supporting doctors,

a judge could likely grant a termination. Her doctor refused, and it took six weeks to be

granted one, jumping through hurdles all the while. I think I speak for everyone when I say

that it was a nightmare, she says. We aren't the owners of our bodies, are we? It was something

that could have been so simple, but they kept prolonging the suffering. For Natalia, though,

there's never an excuse to end a pregnancy. At 21, she nearly had an abortion until her

religious mother convinced her otherwise. Ten years on, now she actively campaigns against

liberalising abortion laws. She says that a decision by the Supreme Court would be purely

political. We all know that President Lula has a leftist agenda, an abortionist agenda.

Feminists defend freedom to abort, which comes from their sexual liberation.

The issues of abortion and feminism work together, and they're linked to the left.

But across Brazil and the region, these voices of conservatism

are being drowned out by doctors' calls to treat this as a public health issue.

It's estimated that by the time a woman is 40, one in seven Brazilians have had at least one

abortion. Their argument is that women will seek abortions regardless, and they need to be kept safe.

Dr. Roberta Cronenberger Santos works in the women's hospital in Santo André,

near São Paulo. She's had cases of desperate women who've tried to carry out abortions at home

by the time they come into hospital. They're bleeding and have infections.

We have to understand that it's not a political decision. It's about choices,

and we all have a right to choose. The more we talk about it, the more people we will understand.

We have never talked so much about women's right as we are now, talking about the disprejudice.

All those discussions have come together. Brazilians are watching the Supreme Court carefully

after discussing the issue for decades. On both sides, few can believe this vote is actually happening.

Katie Watson In our earlier podcast, we brought you news that the Australian media mogul

Rupert Murdoch is stepping down from the helm of his businesses after many decades.

His eldest son, Lachlan, is taking over as chairman of both his newspaper and TV empires,

Newscore and Fox. Twelve years ago in Britain, Rupert Murdoch was forced to close down his

newspaper The News of the World after its journalists were found to have hacked the phones of countless

celebrities and the voicemail of a murdered schoolgirl. His papers have also been accused of

distorting the news to ensure his political allies won elections. So, how will the editorial

direction of the media empire change under Lachlan Murdoch? A question my colleague Celia

Hatton put to Stephen Mayne, who is a former journalist at the Murdoch tabloids in Australia,

and who now describes himself as a shareholder activist.

Stephen Mayne Well, I think Lachlan is a bit of a chip off the old block, certainly

in terms of the politics. So, you won't see any change in terms of

a maga, republicanism, Fox News, climate denialism, those sorts of things. So, Rupert

wants to hand over to someone like him. Lachlan is the only adult child standing, if you like,

who is prepared to continue on what Rupert has done. But there's only one Rupert Murdoch. So,

really, at one level, it's quite unfair to think that one of his kids can sit there and become the

chairman of two enormous global media empires, and run up from Sydney, where he's moved back to

a couple of years ago. So, I think it's a bit of a poison chalice for Lachlan, but he wants to be

able to prove that he can make decisions and run the companies without his father sitting there. So,

I think he's going to have a chance to see who he goes with that. They're sitting next to him in the corner.

Celia Hatton Do you think though, if Rupert Murdoch really is in good health, as he claims,

and the company claims, do you think he's going to be able to really disentangle himself from

this empire he's been involved with for most of his life? When his father died in 1952, he became

the chief executive of a public company. And for 70 years, he's either been the chief executive or

also the chair. Now, in November, he is going to resign from the board of both companies. So,

he's not just going to be a non-executive director or the non-executive chairman. He is

resigning from the board entirely. So, this is a massive change. And I think it'll be challenging

for Rupert to actually do that. And I think the reason he's probably done this is one, to give Lachlan

a chance to show how he can go. But two, at 92, he's struggling to perform those public-facing

roles. I mean, he didn't want to get cross-examined in court over the Dominion matter. And they gave

1.2 billion to settle that, almost as if to stop this old man having to stand up and

give evidence for hours and hours on this embarrassing Fox News stolen election narrative.

So, he would have had to front these two AGMs in November. These are public AGMs. I've spent

three or four hours over 15 meetings asking him questions at AGMs. He doesn't like it.

That was Stephen Mayne. Next, to a discovery that adds to the possibility of life existing

beyond planet Earth. Astronomers using data from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope

have identified carbon dioxide on the icy surface of Jupiter's moon Europa.

The lead researcher, Samantha Trumbo, who's a planetary scientist at Cornell University in the

U.S., told Wendy Urquhart more about what her team had found. Specifically, what we found was

carbon dioxide concentrated in regions of young disrupted geology, particularly a region called

Tara Regio, which was previously found from the Hubble Space Telescope to contain salty material

that likely came up from Europa's internal liquid water ocean. So, the fact that the CO2 is in this

same region that tells us that the CO2 and the carbon it contains probably also originated in

that ocean below. And what does that tell us about life on Europa? Well, it doesn't tell us

anything directly, but it is an important step towards understanding whether Europa's ocean

might be habitable. Having CO2 in Europa's ocean gives us another data point on what that ocean

chemistry might be. Understanding that chemistry is crucial to understanding Europa's potential

habitability. And of course, having CO2 in the ocean means that there's carbon in the ocean,

and carbon is a biologically essential element. How much of a help was the James Webb Telescope

in these findings? This would not have been possible without the James Webb Space Telescope.

We can't actually study carbon dioxide on Europa from any ground-based observatories

because of the CO2 in Earth's atmosphere. So, we really do have to go to space. JWST

opened up the possibility for doing this research, and it provided enough spatial resolution to allow

us to actually map this across Europa's surface and get a geography for the carbon dioxide.

So, what's next? Are more missions planned? Absolutely. There's a lot to look forward to.

First of all, we will have additional observations of Europa's surface with JWST. Later this year,

maybe the beginning of next year, following on from that, we will have NASA's Europa Clipper

Mission, which is launching in the fall of next year, going to explore Europa up close. And then

there's the juice mission from the European Space Agency, which is going to the Jupiter system as

well. We seem to be hearing a lot more about life on other planets, but what is the difference

between life on Europa and life on other planets? What's particularly exciting about the possibility

of life on Europa is that it's so close to home. We're pretty sure that it has liquid water beneath

its surface, more liquid water than all of Earth's oceans combined. And so, if we could

understand whether that environment might support life, then we have somewhere in our own solar system

where we might be able to answer, I think, one of humanity's biggest questions.

Samantha Trumbo. Staying with space and a NASA mission is due to land in the Utah desert this

weekend with samples from an asteroid which scientists have warned could one day hit Earth.

Osiris Rex gathered rocks and dust from the Bennu asteroid surface in 2020.

Researchers hope the material can provide vital clues to explain the origins of our solar system.

Our science correspondent, Jonathan Amos, is waiting with the NASA team.

The Osiris Rex capsule will come screaming into Earth's atmosphere on Sunday at more than 15 times

the speed of a rifle bullet. It'll make a fireball in the sky as it does so, but a heat

shield and parachutes should slow the descent and bring it into a gentle touchdown on Department

of Defense land. The capsule carries a precious cargo, 250 grams of rocky debris grabbed from

asteroid Bennu, a mountain-sized space rock that's thought to retain the chemistry that existed

when the planets formed four and a half billion years ago. Scientists will handle the sample

in sterile conditions because it might also contain the type of carbon molecules that help

seed life. The theory is these could have been delivered to the early Earth by asteroids crashing

onto its surface. Dante Loretta is the Osiris Rex mission's lead scientist.

We're addressing profound questions that at some point in our lives everybody asks ourselves.

Where did we come from? And more importantly, are we alone in the universe? By understanding

how the origin of life occurred, we're taking our genealogy all the way back to the original

organism that we're all related to. It will take a couple of weeks to open the capsule under clean

conditions with scientists delivering a first take on what's inside in mid-October. Jonathan Amos

and that's all from us for now but before we go is Jackie with news of the next edition of The

Happy Bod. Yes in this edition the extraordinary growth of women's football in Saudi Arabia,

an enormous undertaking to re-wild 2,000 white southern rhino in Africa. Remember that American

caver who had to be rescued from deep underground in Turkey after a medical emergency? Well he's out

of hospital now and we've been talking to him. We'll hear from the creative hotspot for Asian

art that is Berlin and the fierce yet oddly relaxed competition to be crowned Montenegro's

laziest citizen. All in the Happy Pod available from Saturday the 23rd of September.

And we'll be back with a new edition of the Global News Podcast later on. If you want to comment

on this podcast or the topics covered in it you can send us an email. The address is Global Podcast

at bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X formerly known as Twitter at Global News Pod.

This edition was produced by Alice Adderley and was mixed by Ricardo McCarthy. The editor is

Karen Martin. I'm Nick Miles and until next time goodbye.

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