Global News Podcast: Ukrainian ex-POWs allege torture at Russian prison

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

from across the world. The latest news seven days a week. BBC World Service podcasts are

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I'm Valerie Sanderson and at $1,300 GMT on the 16th of August, these are our main stories.

A BBC investigation has been told by Ukrainian prisoners of war about their ill treatment

while they were held in Russia. The Vietnamese electric car startup company Vinfast is now

worth almost twice as much as Ford or General Motors after making its US stock market debut.

And at the Women's World Cup in Australia, these are very, very, very happy fans seeing

England make history to the finals as they can face Spain.

Up to 10,000 Ukrainian soldiers are believed to be in Russian captivity. Now some who've been

released in prisoner exchanges have told the BBC that they were subjected to torture,

including frequent beatings and electric shocks. A dozen former prisoners of war describe a pattern

of extreme violence at the pre-trial detention facility number two in Taganrog in southwestern

Russia. Such ill treatment would be a clear violation of international humanitarian law.

The UN says Russia has not allowed its human rights monitors to visit the places where Ukrainian

captives are being held. Our correspondent, Hugo Boshega, tracked down some of those who were

held in Taganrog to hear their stories. Artem was a sniper with the eyes of regiment in Marjupo.

Last year, in May, the city was under a Russian siege. He wanted to keep on fighting,

but Ukraine ordered its troops in the eyes of Stalstil works to surrender.

When I heard about captivity for the first time,

I had the worst images in my head about what could happen.

Artem was eventually taken to a detention center in the Russian city of Taganrog,

a two-hour drive from Marjupo. He was held there for seven months. He says he was frequently beaten

and given electric shocks. He often witnessed other captives suffering too.

After the beatings one day, I was brought to a room. I saw a young man holding his hands up.

His fingers were bleeding.

Did they insert needles under your fingernails? I asked. He said yes.

I spent weeks tracking down Ukrainians who had been taken to Taganrog and returned.

People like Irina, who is now a conscript officer in the military.

She was a combat medic when she surrendered.

She says not even the women were spared the brutality of the guards.

This scariest part was when they called you up for interrogation.

They dragged us by our hair. They beat us in the kidneys,

in the ribs, with hammers and battens.

How do you describe Taganrog?

Only devils live and work there.

In western Ukraine, I tracked down Dennis, a military surgeon, who's just finished a night shift

at a public hospital. He tells me captives were beaten as soon as they arrived in the prison,

in rooms, hallways and even in the shower. He was left with three broken ribs and could barely breathe.

They threw me on the floor, ordered me to not lift my head up.

And gave me electric shocks until they discharged the entire taser battery on me.

You're convulsing if you lift your head off the floor, they start beating you.

And the circle never ends.

Ukraine says nine in every ten prisoners who've been returned allege they were tortured.

Dmitry Lubinets is the Ukrainian ombudsman for human rights.

This is the biggest challenge for me now, how to protect our people on the Russian side.

And I don't know how, and nobody knows how we can do it.

The Russian Defense Ministry hasn't replied to our requests for comment.

But prisoner swaps like this one give hope to families still waiting to see their loved ones again.

Back with Artem, we watch a video of his release.

How do you recover from all of this?

I'm currently undergoing treatment and my priority is to take care of my health,

so I can put on my uniform, pick up my weapons and defend my country.

This investigation is supported by testimony from a dozen former detainees of the facility in Taganrog.

All of them describe widespread physical and psychological torture.

It wasn't something that was being done by some guards.

They say it was routine.

One former captive even told me a cellmate had died as a result of the violence.

For those who are back in Ukraine, there's a long journey towards recovery.

But those who are still in captivity may be suffering similar abuse without knowing when,

or if, they'll finally be freed.

Hugo Pacheco.

A merchant ship has left the Ukrainian port of Odessa after being trapped there since

Russia's full-scale invasion.

Kyiv is an Einstein humanitarian corridor in the Black Sea after Russia pulled out of a deal last

month which had allowed Ukraine to export grain.

But Moscow has given no assurances it will allow safe passage.

James Waterhouse has more.

There are causes of the insurance and shipping industries which are concerned about how safe

this proposed route is.

Even Kyiv, its architect, has acknowledged the risks posed by both sea mines and the

Russian Navy itself.

Nevertheless, the Hong Kong-flagged Joseph Shultz container ship made her way out this

morning with more than 30,000 tons of cargo on board.

Given how, just three days ago, a Russian warship fired warning shots at a vessel before

boarding it for an inspection, there are little to no guarantees the Joseph Shultz will make

it through the Black Sea without incident.

Moscow is also continuing to hit Ukrainian ports with drone strikes.

James Waterhouse.

The Vietnamese electrical car company VINFAST has made a spectacular debut on its first day

of trading and is now valued higher than Ford and General Motors.

That makes the founder of VINFAST, already the wealthiest man in Vietnam, the fifth

richest in Asia.

Are corresponded in Singapore, Kiti Silver, Timor Moore.

It's had such an amazing debut on the New York Stock Exchange, but for many people

haven't heard of it before.

So it's called VINFAST, it's headquartered in Vietnam, and it has been one of the electric

vehicle makers in the Southeast Asian country that people have been watching.

It's owned by the biggest conglomerate in Vietnam, so it therefore has sort of deep investment

pockets behind it.

And in fact, its founder and chairman made about $39 billion yesterday, given this listing

and how well it did in its listing.

So it's listed by what's known as a special purpose acquisition company or a SPAC,

and many people have been very bullish about what Vietnam's electric vehicle industry

could bring because it's a low cost, it has advanced manufacturing.

And it doesn't have those geopolitical risks that you see with something like China, which

has been providing a great deal of competition to the United States.

And so people have been very bullish about what Vietnam might do in this space.

It is extraordinary though, isn't it, because VINFAST is now valued far higher than Ford

and GM Motors after just its first day of trading.

Why is that?

That's right.

And to give your listeners an idea of the figures, the way it did, it went up 255% huge

debut.

And in fact, now it's valued at $85 billion, that's its stock market valuation.

That's much higher than Ford, which is about $48 billion, and General Motors is about $46

billion.

In part, there was very slim trade, so there's only about $185 million worth of trading.

And in part, that is because its chairman and founder, according to regulatory findings,

owned about 99% of the shares at the start of the day.

And so because there are that slim sort of trading that I mentioned, we can see these

big swings and this very volatile market reaction.

And yet this firm has never made a profit.

That's right.

And so to give you an idea, in the first six months of this year, it actually made a loss

of almost half, more than, in fact, half a billion dollars.

And revenue, in fact, slipped.

But this is because, as I say, getting into the electric vehicle making space is very

expensive.

As you can imagine, it costs a lot to develop one of these cars.

And so it does require deep pockets in order to be able to fund it and to see it through to fruition.

Katie Silver.

Protesters in Pakistan have set fire to a church and attacked the homes of Christians

in Punjab province.

Police said a few thousand angry demonstrators had taken to the streets in Jairanwala district.

Umar Draz Nangiana from the Urdu service in Pakistan told me more.

What we know so far is that police responded to calls of violent protests in the city called

Jairanwala, which is located in the Punjab province of Pakistan.

And they said that the protesters, they were attacking the church buildings in a neighborhood,

which is housed by the minority Christian community.

And when the police launched the initial probe, they came to know that there were certain

posts on the social media circulating in the area, after which certain people from the local

mosques, they made announcements asking the majority community people to come out on streets

and protest against what they called was the alleged desecration of pages of Quran.

It was done by two men from the minority Christian community, according to these people.

So the police tried to calm down the situation initially, the local superintendent of the

police tried to talk to the protesters and asked them to, you know, not resort to this

violent activities, but it was very difficult for the police to control the mob, which was

very charged at that point in time. And then when the time passed by, we got the news that,

you know, a charged mob was attacking church buildings in multiple locations.

So far, the local residents are saying that in that particular community, at least three

church buildings have been watched by the mob. And the police are still trying to, you know,

control the situation. And many people from that particular area have said to

actuated for fears of spillover of violence in that particular area.

And what are the authorities doing? Are they just leaving it to local police?

Yes. For now, the local police are trying to control the situation. And at the moment,

what they're trying to do is to, you know, control the violence so that it does not spill over

to other neighborhoods in that particular city, in that particular town. And what they've done is

they've lodged a formal complaint against the two men who were accused of desecrating the pages of

Quran. They've still not been arrested. But the police are saying they're trying to assure the

majority community people there that, you know, these two men will be arrested and will be tried

in the court. And so far, what police are trying to do is, you know, calm down the situation

and to protect the installations of the minority Christian community in that neighborhood.

Umar Drozdenangiana from the BBC's Urdu Service.

The battle for the place in the final against Spain in the Women's Football World Cup has been won

by England's Lionesses, who beat Australia's Matilda's by three goals to one. The match was

packed with drama and played in front of a home crowd that filled stadium Australia and Sydney,

from where Shyma Khalil joined us just after the final whistle.

Look, I think it's hard break for the hosts. There's been so much buildup in this country.

And I'm sure obviously in the UK as well, so many people watching this, millions and millions

of Australians were hoping that the Matilda's would go into the finals. But I am standing with two

England fans with big smiles. Can you tell us your names? My name's Tara. Hi. Killian. How do

you guys feel? Fantastic. Delighted. Delighted. You were totally outnumbered here, weren't you?

A hundred percent. I'm excited. Totally, totally outnumbered. There was literally,

I can't believe how few England fans were here to be honest. I couldn't spot you. I was trying to

spot England fans and I could not spot you the whole game and then they win and you guys spring

up. We made ourselves hurt. Let's put it that way. I'm excited. Come on, England. You told me

before we came on air that you predicted this. What are your predictions for Spain now? 3-0

England. 3-0 England? I think that's brave. I'm not going to say, I'm going to say 1-0 England.

There you go. So these are the predictions. I'm telling you, I was worried that I wouldn't find

any England fans in the fan zone today because it was just a sea of green and gold. But I can see

now red and red and white. I can see the England flag. I can see England beanies and scarves.

It's not going to be as big of a party as it would have been if Australia had won. But these are

very, very, very happy fans seeing England make history to the finals as they face Spain.

Well, I suspect, Shyma, people will be scouring the booking for airlines and there might be many

more people flying over to Australia hoping to get there for Sunday. But do you think that

actually football is the winner in all this because of the legacy this World Cup will leave in Australia?

100%. I think you've nailed it because I was speaking to former Matildas and I was speaking

to former players who say, look, this has become much more than just the teams. I think the sternament

has become the catalyst and the testament to how far the women's game has come, to how far

it can go. I was speaking to some former players who say, look, we're going to have meetings about

investment, about sponsorship, about what we can do to build this from the grassroots here in

Australia. And I can tell you safely that football, or soccer as they call it here, has been added to

the list of sports that Australian fans will follow quite religiously. I could not believe my

eyes when they stopped the rugby the other day when Australia was playing France to watch that

penalty shootout. Something has shifted in the women's game and it has done so with the momentum

of this women's World Cup. Shyma Khalil in Sydney. Still to come here on the Global News podcast.

The US band The Killers apologise after inviting a Russian on stage during a show in Georgia.

Wow, what an experience to be a part of the Tokyo Olympics. It's so edged in my memory.

It's just one of the pinnacles of my athletic career. On the podium is the podcast where

Olympic and Paralympic athletes share their remarkable stories from the struggles.

Lots of sacrifices, lots of hard work, tears, a lot of things that the outside world doesn't know.

To the victories. In the lot, I could do anything that anybody else could do.

On the podium from the BBC World Service, find it wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

Welcome back. North Korea says the American soldier who crossed into the country from

South Korea last month had wanted to seek refuge. In Pyongyang's first comments on

Travis King, state media said he'd harboured ill feeling towards the US Army. From Seoul,

in South Korea, Jean McKenzie, Tomy Moore. So this is the first time that the North Koreans

have publicly acknowledged that they have Travis King in their custody since he disappeared

nearly a month ago now. Now they say in this statement today that they have spoken to the

soldier and that he has told them that he was being inhumanely treated in the US Army and that he

was being racially discriminated against and that also he had become generally more disillusioned

with inequality in America. And it was these reasons that led him to run into North Korea

that day last month and that he wanted to seek asylum either there or in a third country.

Now of course this is just what the North Koreans are telling us that Travis King has said. We don't

have any way to verify it. We haven't seen from the soldier. We haven't heard directly from him

since he disappeared. Washington today have said that they can't verify these alleged comments

and that they're still trying to work hard to negotiate his safe release. But it is worth,

I think, noting the background to this peculiar case, which is that Travis King had been in

trouble with the authorities here in Seoul where he was serving on a U.S. tour of duty

and he was due to be flown home where he was going to be disciplined by the military perhaps

even discharged and it was this we think that led him to make that decision to run into North Korea.

Do we know where he is now or how he is?

So the statement didn't give any of those details. I think the details that we all want

to know where is Travis King? Is he safe? What condition is he in? We still don't know.

And crucially it didn't also give us any information about how the North Koreans

are going to treat this soldier going forward. Now they did say that Travis King had admitted

that he'd illegally crossed into the country. So essentially he's admitted to the North Koreans.

He's broken the law. Now what that might mean is they might choose now to treat him as a criminal.

He might be prosecuted but they also might decide to treat him as a victim of U.S. mistreatment,

ill treatment and treat him as an asylum seeker. And could he perhaps be exchanged for someone else?

It's very possible that the North Koreans will use Travis King as a bargaining chip in

bigger negotiations. One option is that they will use him further down the line when negotiating

with the United States when it comes to their nuclear weapons program. Negotiations that have

been stalled for many, many years now. But as it currently stands North Korea hasn't shown much

willing or wanting to talk to the United States. Gene McKenzie. Now to a story that's grabbed people's

attention in the last couple of days and brought the term conservatorship back into the news headlines.

The retired American football star Michael Oher, whose rags to riches tale was adapted into an

Oscar-winning Hollywood film The Blind Side, is suing the family who had him placed under a

guardianship order from the age of 18. Mr Oher, an African American who's now 37 years old,

claims in his court filing that he was never adopted as he'd believed by the white family who

he lived with and was instead tricked into a conservatorship. The legal definition and

function of a conservatorship was highlighted by the case of the U.S. pop star Britney Spears

who legally asked to be released from one granted to her father. The BBC's Victoria Uwankunda has

been speaking to Lisa McCarley, a probate and conservatorship lawyer in California who was

prominent during Britney Spears' legal battle. There are many different ways it can be that a

doctor makes a referral. We use a doctor referral to establish a conservatorship for a very a person

suffering from mental illness, but in Britney's case they used a probate conservatorship. Her

parents, her father in particular, would have to petition the court and a judge is supposed to review

evidence of inability to take care of oneself or inability to resist fraud or undue influence.

So it can be a doctor in some circumstances that makes a referral or most of the time it's a family

member. And in Michael's case the Tui family apparently petitioned to be his conservator.

And usually under these circumstances you appoint as you said a family member or a parent or a

legal guardian and sometimes most of the time they're to oversee personal and financial or

financial affairs. Can these guardian ships really strip an individual in the case of Britney

Spears or Michael Orr and so many other Americans who are under these conservatorships of their

agency and decision-making rights? Yes, so basically that is one of the main reasons why

conservatorship should only be established as a last resort when you're not able to use any other

method and in Britney's case the reason they were able to get a conservatorship is because

the court itself did not follow protocol. In Michael Orr's case I actually went to the Tennessee

file and what was interesting is that he appeared not only to attend the hearing but the judge

made a finding that Michael consented to the conservatorship and that his biological parents

were also notified and consented to the conservatorship. And so what does that then mean for Michael Orr

if he attended the hearing and he was in court when a judge did sign over his conservatorship to

the Tui's? Right, well the Lester Tui's took further action. The conservatorship appears to have

been as I said largely abandoned. Had they pursued it of course they would have had the right to

control his contracts, how much money he made in his pocket, how much money he was paid, they would

have had all of those rights but even within the four corners of the petition or the lawsuit that he

files he acknowledges that he may have gone on to sign the contracts himself with the developers

of the movie The Blind Side as well as his NFL contracts. In practical terms it appears to me

that it really did not have any impact on his agency or ability to negotiate. There may be other

disappointing aspects of the case in the sense that he may have really thought this made him a

member of the family and it didn't but whether or not the Tui's ever exerted any power over him or

signed any contracts on his behalf I don't think they would have been legally able to do that.

Lisa Macaulay lawyer and legal expert speaking from California to Victoria Abunkunda.

A form of gene therapy that's already been trialled in patients with Parkinson's disease

might provide a potential one-off treatment for severe alcohol addiction. The possible impact

on alcoholism is being tested on monkeys. Researchers found that implanting a modified

virus in the brains of the animals reduced any strong desire to consume regular amounts of alcohol.

The study opens up possibilities for future use of the technique in humans with extreme alcohol

dependency. James Coppinal has been speaking to Professor Kathleen Grant of the Health and

Science University in the U.S. who co-led the research. We based this study on a large background

of research that had implicated low dopaminergic tone in that's levels in motivational areas in

the brain that are related to excessive drinking. So small amounts of drinking will increase dopamine

in these motivational areas but chronic long-term drinking actually decreases and may

very long-term decrease this receptor system called dopamine which is sometimes called a reward

system. So we targeted to that system to increase dopamine hoping we would reverse

this chronic heavy drinking. And so far the early results are promising?

Yes it was a very very strong outcome in this study. These monkeys were you know introduced to

alcohol. In particular we've been studying this model for a while so we know if we start

late adolescent young adult male monkeys, rhesus monkeys, they'll drink pretty heavily on average

about eight to ten drinks a day. So what we wanted to do was see if we took alcohol away from them

would they go back to drinking and and we know that they do. So we divided the group into two

and one group got this gene therapy and the other group remained without the gene enhancement and

yeah we saw that it would block the relapse drinking. It was effective, it became more

effective over time and it was over a one-year study. So what's going on in the brain then

of these monkeys? What we did was we put down surgically put this gene into a deep brain area

so it's it's invasive. There's a surgery involved brain surgery. We lower a needle down

and we put the gene into the sprain area and then it becomes active. It gets taken up by the cell

incorporated into the genome and starts producing gDNF. That's the gene product. It's a growth factor

and it enhances dopamine release up in these motivational areas. So what we're trying to do

is counteract the chronic low dopamine related to the desire to drink and people who are addicted

to alcohol. So we're trying to counter that by increasing the dopamine in this motivational

area. Presumably the idea is that at some point this could be useful for humans. How many steps

away are we from that being a realistic possibility? It's in the realm of being a realistic possibility

because there's studies going on with this same gene being delivered to humans that are suffering

from Parkinson's and Parkinson's is another disorder related to low dopamine but more in the

motor areas of the brain than the motivational areas and so because this surgery has been approved

and putting this gene down into human brain is in clinical trial right now it's possible this could

be translated into a therapy for the most extreme alcoholics those that have not

responded to conventional therapy. Professor Kathleen Grant at the National

Private Research Center at Oregon speaking to James Coppinal. Scientists in California have

managed to reconstruct the Pink Floyd song Another Brick in the War by analyzing the brain waves

of patients who were listening to it. The experiment could eventually help people with

neurological conditions which impair their speech to communicate more naturally. Joanne Wood has been

listening to the results. This is what the patients who all underwent surgery for epilepsy

a decade ago heard as they were operated on. A series of electrodes recorded their brain waves

and now the results have been analyzed by powerful AI algorithms and this is what was detected.

It is muffled but you can just about make out the lyrics. The research was carried out by scientists

at the University of California Berkeley who hoped their work could eventually help restore the

natural lyrical pattern of speech to be blue pad strokes or have neurodegenerative conditions.

The team said that with more sense of electrodes the results should improve

and could be incorporated into implants. Asked why they chose the Pink Floyd classic

the scientists said it was just a song that they liked.

Joanne Wood. The US rock band The Killers have apologized after the lead singer Brandon Flowers

told fans in Georgia the former Soviet state that a Russian man he invited on stage was their

brother. Georgia is still partly occupied by Russia after it invaded in 2008 and there's

been a surge of anti-Russian sentiment in the country following President Putin's decision

to invade Ukraine. Stephanie Prentice reports. Brandon Flowers the lead singer of The Killers was

left looking around at the packed arena in Georgia as fans began booing and leaving their seats.

The gig at the Black Sea arena down the coast from a region occupied by Russian forces had been

going well but towards the end the band decided to bring a Russian drummer on stage to join them

for their 2006 song for reasons unknown telling fans that the man was their brother.

Georgia gained independence from Soviet rule in 1991 and in 2008 Russia invaded.

It currently holds 20 percent of the land there and since the war in Ukraine started many Russians

have fled across the border increasing tensions. In a statement the band said they hadn't intended

to offend anyone saying it's a tradition of theirs to invite people on stage to play the drums

and adding that their words about all fans being brothers and sisters could have been misconstrued.

Fans outside seemed to disagree on the clarity of the message gathering on the steps and booing

at the stadium. With others responding to the statement online saying the apology should have

included mention of Russian war crimes and support of Georgia and Ukraine's territorial integrity.

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. You can also find us on Twitter at Global News Pod.

This edition was mixed by Javid Ghilani. The producer was Lipika Pelham.

The editor is ever is Karen Martin. I'm Valerie Sanderson until next time. Bye bye.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.