Global News Podcast: Trump faces new criminal charges

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

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Hello, I'm Oliver Conway. We're recording this at 13 hours GMT on Friday, the 28th of July.

The former US president Donald Trump faces new charges over his handling of classified documents.

After a coup, the chief of the presidential guard in Niger declares himself to be the country's new

leader. And how did Google's earthquake warning system perform during the disaster in Turkey

earlier this year? Also in this podcast, they don't have any metabolism going on. So they are in a

state which is between life and death. We could call it suspended animation, I guess. We speak to

the man who brought a worm back to life after 46,000 years. Even as he waits to find out if

he'll be indicted over the storming of the US Congress, Donald Trump has been told he is facing

further charges over his handling of secret documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

The former US president is accused of directing his employees to cover up what was going on there,

including destroying security camera footage. Mr Trump says the new charges were a desperate

attempt to continue what he called an illegal witch hunt. So what's going on? New York Times

reporter Glenn Thrush spoke to my colleague, Helena Humphrey. The two new charges against Donald Trump

are an attempt to destroy evidence and attempt to coerce somebody into destroying evidence on

his behalf and take him together. If he were convicted, it would be a maximum of 60 years in

prison. But just as interestingly, one of the other revelations in this document revolves around

this tape that most people have heard of Donald Trump boasting about possessing these intelligence

documents at his club in Bedminster in New Jersey. He's speaking to two people and he's waving around

a document that has to do with US defense strategy against Iran. Well, that document was not included

in the previous indictment. The previous indictment includes 31 instances of classified documents that

he is purported to have improperly kept. The question was why wasn't this most infamous of

the documents included in the original indictment? Well, it is now. So I would say in some a case

which most legal analysts thought a month ago was very strong has just become really exponentially

stronger. We are also waiting for news on the January 6th investigation. And if an indictment

does come out of that, do you foresee the former president still being able to run a presidential

campaign? Oh, absolutely. I mean, he would not only be able to run a presidential campaign,

he will run the presidential campaign on these indictments. His entire campaign is a campaign

to put it bluntly of grievance and vengeance. He has vowed to essentially go after the FBI

and the Justice Department, restructure them, change them from top to bottom, something which he

actually attempted to do when he was president if he's elected. And polls are showing some erosion

in his core support among Republicans. But for the most part, a lot of these accusations tend to

strengthen his hand with his base, not weaken it. New York Times reporter Glenn Thrush.

Two days after soldiers seized power in Niger, the head of the presidential guard has appeared on

TV to declare himself the new leader of the West African state. Dressed in military fatigue,

General Abdurrahman Chiani said the coup was motivated by a desire to preserve what he called

our dear homeland. Niger's President Mohammed Bazoum was detained by the presidential guard

on Wednesday morning. France says the coup is dangerous for the whole Sahel region. But the

boss of the Russian mercenary group Wagner has offered to send his fighters in to assist the

new military rulers. For the latest on Niger, I spoke to our Africa expert Grant Ferret.

This is the first we've heard from the head of the presidential guard since Niger's President

Mohammed Bazoum was detained on Wednesday. It's taken a couple of days for him to appear,

so I think we might surmise that there's been a bit of discussion between various military

factions about exactly who should be in charge. The general now says it's him. General Chiani

complained about poor economic and social governance in Niger. But his main comment referred to

worsening security problems. And he said there hadn't been enough cooperation in the fight against

jihadists, which is engulfing much of the region. There hadn't been enough cooperation with the

military governments in Chad and Burkina Faso. Well, it seems Niger now has a military government

too. And this is one of the reasons that there's been such interest in this takeover. With the

withdrawal of French troops from neighbouring countries, Niger had become increasingly important

in the international effort against the jihadists. Not at all clear where that international effort

would stand now if Niger has indeed become another military government in West Africa.

And is the situation on the streets calm? We heard that protests were banned. And what about

people getting humanitarian assistance? There was some suggestion that that might be disrupted.

Yes, it's not at all clear whether or not the UN is still providing humanitarian assistance.

Overnight, it seemed it had been withdrawn. That hasn't been confirmed. In terms of on the streets

of Nyambi and Niger itself, there were protests yesterday. There were supporters of the coup who

looted the headquarters of the deposed president, and some vehicles were set on fire. Some of those

protesters were waving the flags of Niger, but some of them also very prominent ones were waving

Russian flags. The authorities have now said, the new military authorities, that all public

demonstrations are banned. And they said that acts of vandalism and wickedness won't be tolerated.

You mentioned the Russians briefly a message from Yevgeny Prygoshin about the situation in

Niger. Yes, this is an interesting one. A company affiliated with Wagner has shared an audio message

which appears to be from Mr. Prygoshin. It's unverified, but he described this military takeover

in Niger as a fight against colonizers, and he talks about possibly helping. So,

Yevgeny Prygoshin has not gone away and is important, it seems, in Africa.

Our Africa expert, Grant Ferret. The island's city state of Singapore has executed its first

woman inmate for nearly two decades. Wright's group said it was a grim milestone. Zerajui

Jamani, a Singaporean national, was hanged for trafficking 30 grams of heroin. Our correspondent

in Singapore, Nick Marsh, told me more. She was arrested back in 2016 for the possession

of 30 grams of heroin. That's about two tablespoons full, by the way, so not a huge amount.

And the accusation was that she had it to sell. Now, she maintains that she had it for her own

personal possession. She wasn't going to sell all of it. She'd actually just stocked up a little bit

extra for Ramadan. She was actually a former drug addict. She spent a couple of years in prison

previously, but the court didn't believe her, and they sentenced her to death because the

mandatory sentence in Singapore for drug trafficking is the death penalty, and so she was hanged

this morning. And following the execution, there's been criticism from human rights groups.

Human rights groups have called this a grim milestone, referring to the fact that this is

the first woman to be executed in Singapore for nearly two decades. The last was another Singaporean

woman, a hairdresser back in 2004, also for drug offenses. And rights groups really make

the same argument every time that this is not an effective deterrent against drug trafficking.

This isn't going to stop things like addiction. And really, the main argument that people make

time and time again is that this doesn't go for the kingpins, you know, for the organized crime

element. It just targets the mules, people who are in vulnerable positions, people who, frankly,

you have to say, must be in such a desperate position in order to resort to this kind of thing,

given how strict the rules are here. But if you're talking about the general population,

then it has to be said that the vast majority of people here in Singapore support the death penalty.

I mean, even anecdotally, you speak to people, they say all they have to do is point to the

situation, for example, in Europe or in the United States, the levels of addiction there,

the havoc that has wrought. And they say, well, we don't want this here. And there are low levels

of addiction. There is low levels of drug related crime. So even though there's a lot of clamour

internationally and amongst the very small minority of activists here in Singapore,

things tend to just carry on as normal when something like this happens.

Our Singapore correspondent, Nick Marsh. A BBC investigation has found that Google's

earthquake warning system failed to alert many people in Turkey before the country was hit

by a series of powerful tremors in February. Google's Android earthquake alert is meant to

give users up to a minute's notice before an earthquake hits. However, the BBC spoke to hundreds

of people in three cities in the earthquake zone in Turkey and didn't find anyone who received

a warning. This report was put together by a Middle East correspondent, Anna Foster,

and our North America technology reporter, James Clayton.

It was one of the most deadly earthquakes in modern times. February's quake happened in the middle

of the night. Many people died where they were sleeping in their beds. 50,000 people were killed.

However, there was an earthquake warning system run by Google in Turkey. And the company claims

millions of people got a warning before this earthquake. It works on any Android phone. That's

about 80% of all the phones in Turkey. And this is Google's online explainer on how it works.

Android phones have these tiny accelerometers built into them, which can sense earthquakes.

People will now be able to have their phones become part of this network of many seismometers

looking for earthquakes around the world. We call this the Android earthquake alert system.

When the phone detects an earthquake, it sends a message back to Google servers.

When enough phones do this, Google can pinpoint the epicenter and send out an earthquake warning.

It looks like this, and it says drop cover and hold.

This is Micah Berman, the product manager for the system at Google.

It's pretty loud.

The further you are from the earthquake, the more noticed the system can give you,

up to around a minute. Enough time to try and find a safer location.

So our system did activate for both of the major events in Turkey,

as well as for a number of aftershocks.

But my colleague in Turkey, Anna Foster, says people in the areas hit by the earthquake

say they didn't receive an alert before that first earthquake struck.

I was puzzled by this claim.

Nobody I'd spoken to in Turkey, anywhere in the earthquake zone,

had told me that they received an alert on their Android phone before the first quake.

So we decided to go to three cities that had been impacted,

Adana, Osmaniye and Iskenderan.

And I simply asked people whether they'd received an alert.

Did you get this alert on your phone at the time of the earthquake when you were sleeping?

No. And what about, so it looked like that and it makes a sound?

No. No, no, no, no, no.

We spoke to hundreds of people.

Although we found some evidence that it worked in later tremors,

we didn't find a single person who'd got the alert for the first earthquake.

Funda lost 25 members of her family, including her sister and nephews.

So you didn't receive any alert, nothing on your phone?

I'm certain it didn't come.

No, no message came.

I put our findings to Google.

How sure are you that it, firstly, it did fire?

And secondly, that it actually got to people during the earthquake?

I'm as sure as we can be that the system activated and that we did send alerts.

Have you spoken to anyone who got it?

I have not, no.

Has Google spoken to anyone?

I don't know.

Harold Tobin is a Professor of Earth Sciences and Director of the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network.

These systems are extremely new, right? They're at the cutting edge of what's possible.

I feel that if you are delivering an essential sort of life safety, public safety piece of information,

then you have a responsibility to be transparent about how it works and how well it works.

And yet Google has not published evidence that the system worked, system that could have saved lives.

A report by James Clayton and Anna Foster.

Scientists say they've revived a worm that has lain dormant since Neanderthals and

saber-toothed tigers walked the earth.

The creature has been in the Siberian permafrost for 46,000 years,

as I heard from Philip Schiffer of the University of Cologne.

They were basically just frozen. Think again of like, winter is coming, there's snow, there's ice.

They are living in the soil, 5, 10 centimetres deep and the soil just gets frozen.

And in this case, it just stayed frozen for millennia.

But they don't die, they stay alive.

Yes, this is kind of something which is very tricky to say because they don't have

any metabolism going on. So they are in a state which is between life and death.

So we can't say they're fully alive because they don't crawl around, they don't feed,

they don't reproduce, but obviously they're also not dead because they can come back to life.

So we could call it suspended animation, I guess.

Yeah, and tell us how you did bring them back to life.

Basically, it's just towing the soil. So you couldn't do this today in your garden,

actually, with similar worms. When winter is over, just take some soil indoors and it will

thaw and then whatever is in there will start crawling out again. So it's just gently thawing

the soil.

So just a bit of thawing to bring back to life something that's been in suspended animation

for 46,000 years.

That's correct, yeah. So similar process, these worms, they can also completely desiccate,

lose all water. For example, you find them in dry deserts. That's why I'm here and you're

streaming out back now and it would be the same. You just put the nematodes which are

completely desiccated on a little aga plate, put some water on it and after a while they

start moving because they come back to life and that's the exact same process.

And they haven't aged at all?

No, but that's how do you define age in a worm. So we don't see any signs of aging. They live

their normal lives, but then their normal lives is 20 to 60 days, so you revive them,

they start feeding, make babies and then they die after a few days. So it's hard to say,

like you can't compare to human age or aging in humans.

But these worms that you brought back to life after tens of thousands of years have now

died after a matter of days?

Well, the initial worm died after a matter of days, but because they start to live again

and because this is an asexual organism, so they only have females, they instantly start

laying eggs. From these eggs, you get little worms hatching and then you can establish a

culture and that was initially done by our colleagues and now these cultures are in my

lab in Cologne, so I have, I don't know, 100, 200 generations down the line from the initial

worms. We still have these worms in culture and because they are asexual, they are basically

clones of the original worms, so they are basically genetically similar or the same.

And what does this tell us about how life can survive for immense periods of time,

not only on earth, but presumably across the universe?

Well, it basically means that some organisms are not that much affected by extreme conditions

that might arise. So freezing is an extreme event, same would be drying out and these

nematodes as well as rotifers and tardigrades, they can survive for a very long time when the

environment is not habitable for them, when conditions are too extreme and they can just

sleep and then come back when life becomes good again, when the environment changed to be

being better for them. And have you managed to find any comparable creatures to compare

how they would have changed over all those millennia?

We are actually in the process of doing this. So my team is very much interested in this process

in nematodes from the same group. So this is Panagolimus and we are currently sampling them

and we're sampling them in Sweden, in Germany, but also in the Atacama Desert in Namibia,

here in Australia. And we found close related species and right now in my lab at home people

are comparing the genomes of these species and we will go on doing molecular experiments to see

which changes occurred in the last 46,000 years between these species and also

try to unravel the exact molecular and genetic process of them being able to

stay in suspended animation for such a long time.

What warming seas are doing to coral off the coast of Florida?

And we look at the life and career of Eagle's co-founder, Randy Meisner, who's died age 77.

The Israeli government's move to restrict the power of the courts has exposed deep divisions

in society and even damaged the nation's economy. There have been months of demonstrations and many

army reservists say they will not turn up for duty in protest at the clampdown. Now the head of

the Air Force, Tomah Bar, says the political crisis could embolden Israel's enemies,

as we heard from our Middle East editor, Sebastian Asher.

This was an address to his forces and several censuses have been published online,

essentially a warning again, but also with a sense that Israel can deal with any challenges

that emerge. So he said that it's possible, I mean this is his exact words, possible that at a time

like this Israel's enemies would try to test the frontiers, Israel's cohesion and its alertness,

and then he added that he believed that his forces would remain vigilant and prepared.

And this is after the first bill in this radical overhaul of judiciary was passed back on Monday,

last Monday in the Israeli parliament and that had triggered an intense rise in the protests

in the days leading up to the vote and amongst that were more reservists saying that they didn't

feel they could report for duty if this judicial overhaul becomes law and amongst them,

very importantly, was around a thousand Air Force reservists vital really to Israel's capability

who made that point. And perhaps related to that reports that the Prime Minister Benjamin

Netanyahu has received four letters warning about all this from Israel's military intelligence.

Yes, I mean very much related. I mean these warnings were very much the way as I say that

the reservists have framed their concerns and obviously the fact that reservists are saying

that they won't report for duty has raised big questions about Israel's possible military

preparedness in the future. So this has been fermenting for several weeks now, but as you say,

there is a report in an Israeli newspaper today that at least four letters were sent ahead of

the vote last Monday to the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by senior military intelligence

officers essentially saying that Israel's main antagonists Iran and Hezbollah in particular

see this as a historical opportunity what's going on in Israel at the moment this huge

division within society this sense that people who are absolutely essential to the defense of

Israel may no longer wish to serve with the government in place at the moment and that they

may well try to test that actively. So it adds to this sense in Israel of crisis of the feeling

that what Israel is based on which is very much its ability through people who've served in the

military when they were young continuing to do so voluntarily down the years right into their 40s

that that may begin to fall apart and that would absolutely tear at the fabric of Israeli society.

Our Middle East regional editor Sebastian Asher. Since it began nearly eight weeks ago Ukraine's

counter-offensive has made relatively slow progress and there are suggestions that some allies are

getting restless but over the past couple of days the pace appears to have intensified with

additional forces reportedly committed in the effort to break through Russian lines in the south.

Now Ukrainian troops say they've taken a village called Staromaiosk. Yuri Sak,

advisor to the Ukrainian Defense Minister, told the BBC that each gain was important.

For Ukrainians every meter every village every town is a mile star. We've been saying this from the

early June that our tactics is very simple we will continue to look for vulnerabilities

along the front line in the enemy ranks in that defense lines and we will continue to

exploit these vulnerabilities and as soon as we identify them of course we will move in with

more intensity. I asked James Waterhouse our correspondent in Kiev for his assessment.

If it is indeed the case that Staromaiosk has been liberated then we're talking about an advance of

only a few kilometers. I think this is a level up from Ukraine continuing to probe it seems to be

possibly starting to put some eggs into one of its baskets but I don't think it's

enough to describe it as being significantly different from the typical ebb and flow from

this front line because we have to remind ourselves that Russia made advances of its own

just further north near Kramina so very early days but you can just see from some quarters of the

west while there is frustration in some areas at the pace of progress there's a lot of excitement

elsewhere where they're calling it the start of a meaningful thrust but Kiev has refused to say

whether this is the case. Yeah and just remind us of the the geography of this counter offensive

because this thrust that we're talking about is different from the one around Bakhmut.

It is so Bakhmut is in a direct easterly direction and it's become a place that I think has become

more symbolic than strategic where Russia spent the best part of the year trying to take it and

now Ukraine is trying to flank the Russian forces that now occupy the city but I think in terms of

meaningful military developments you just need to look further south on the corner of this front

line where Ukraine would dearly love to push through and break through in a really significant way

and push all the way through liberating cities like Melitopol before making it to the coast of

the Sierversov why do they want to do that well that would effectively break a huge land corridor

that Russia occupies in half and if it was to do that it could effectively isolate tens of thousands

of troops and it could also make Crimea vulnerable for Russia and if you start to bring Crimea into

meaningful missile range you could possibly start to force some kind of significant compromise from

Vladimir Putin himself however it is hard to overstate just how much needs to happen for Ukraine

to break through in that way

James Whatthouse in Kiev the US Embassy in Haiti has urged American citizens to leave as soon

as possible because of clashes between the police and armed gangs in the capital Port-au-Prince

they said they should find commercial means to depart the Caribbean country is undergoing a

humanitarian and security crisis as it struggles with a political vacuum triggered by the assassination

of President juvenile Moise two years ago Victoria Ornkunda spoke to freelance reporter

Harold Isaac in Haiti and asked first for his reaction to the US announcement

Well honestly it comes as a total surprise and up to now we're still trying to sort out what is the

scope of this requirement of evacuation it seems unclear because there is no

event really in the last few hours or days that would warrant or justify such a measure so it's

such an extraordinary measure in the context but the American Embassy in Haiti saying that

it's because of the kidnappings and the gangs and the violence especially in the capital Port-au-Prince

have they come before and said you know this is something we're looking into I know you said

it's a total surprise well since end of April let's say that the dynamic of kidnappings has shifted

with the emergence of the Waqalei movement which is a vigilantism movement of civilians

taking on gangs however there's been somewhat of an uptick in kidnappings in the last few days

but nothing that sadly we're not accustomed to this vigilante movement that you say is taking

on gangs since April some might want to know where are the authorities where are the police

well the Asian authorities have been requesting foreign military intervention since last October

which has yet to materialize and as such the population itself seems to have grown tired

and took on gangs directly through this civilian movement however the calls for international

interventions remain it's been discussed at various levels but there has yet to be any sort of

realization of such force Harold Isaac in Haiti talking to Victoria O'Connor

the head of the UN said yesterday the planet was entering an era of global boiling with July set

to be the hottest month globally for more than a hundred thousand years all this heat is having

an impact not just on land but also at sea scientists say that seawater off the coast of

florida is potentially the hottest on record that's putting coral reefs near the florida keys at risk

of mass bleaching as we heard from us marine conservationist Sarah Fangman corals are actually

animals not everybody realizes that and they're a little bit like goldilocks they like the temperature

just right and if it gets too hot then they start to suffer and these temperatures that we're seeing

now are beyond their comfort zone and so they start to expel the symbiotic algae that live in

their tissues and that makes them white and we call that bleaching and we are seeing a significant

amount of the corals exhibiting that bleaching and sadly in some cases they aren't surviving now

corals can survive bleaching but if it lasts too long or is too intense then they suffer and die

but it's not just the corals that are being impacted by this we are hearing reports of fish kills

so some of the fish that are larger and can move greater distances they can swim to cooler waters

to find refuge but some of the juvenile fish and invertebrates they can't either because they just

cannot travel that far or they choose not to because they're very vulnerable if they leave

their protected habitats and so we're definitely concerned that we're going to see mortality in

some of those organisms we're hearing also of algal blooms and so there's a pretty significant

number of effects that are already being seen and again it's still early with this

temperature event we're only in july typically we don't see these warmer temperatures until

august or september marine conservationist sarah fangman randy meisner one of the founding members

of the eagles has died age 77 he sang and played bass with the us rock band before quitting 46 years

ago randy urquhart looks back at his life randy meisner was one of the founding members of the

eagles and was crucial to the band's early success his vocals on take it to the limit still sent

down the spine randall herman meisner was born in nebraska in 1946 and started playing guitar when he

was just 10 years old after seeing elvis presley on tv he switched to the bass guitar at the suggestion

of one of his school teachers and never looked back he moved to california with a band called the

soul survivors or the poor as they were renamed which was quite apt considering they had absolutely

no money randy don henley glenn fry and bony ledon formed the eagles in 1971 they signed with

asylum records and released their debut album a year later randy stayed with the eagles until

after their 1976 album hotel california which was a massive hit but constant touring and

arguments between band members took its toll and after a blow-up with glenn fry he left the eagles

and went home to nebraska in 1977 he went on to release solo albums and toured with his band

randy meisner and the silverados throughout the 1980s but efforts to mend fences with members of

the eagles were rebuffed he did however appear at the rock and roll whole of fame induction

ceremony along with all previous members of the band and timothy b schmitt who took over as bass

player in 1977 paid tribute to randy in his acceptance speech those who knew randy meisner

described him as a kind-hearted midwestern guy with a giant heart and a loving soul

randy meisner who's died aged 77 a report by wendy urquhart

and that is all from us for now but before we go here's jackie with details of the latest happy

pod yes in this week's edition bears and coffee growers living in harmony in columbia also how this

is helping the great barrio reef the u.s prisoners turning their lives around through

education and a very busy first day at work for a 19 year old lifeguard in italy all that and more

in the happy pod available from saturday the 29th of july thank you jackie the global news

podcast will be back very soon this edition was produced by harry bligh and mixed by christ

lovelock our editor is karen martin i'm oliver conway till next time goodbye

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