Global News Podcast: Ukrainians close to a Russian front line are told to leave immediately

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 Andrew Peach and at 13 hours GMT on Thursday the 10th of August, these are our main stories.

Ukraine has told vulnerable people in an area close to Russian front lines to leave immediately

because of an increase in Russian attacks. The leaders of the coup in Niger are announcing

new government as West African countries consider military intervention and an Ecuadorian presidential

candidate is assassinated just two weeks before the polls open. Also in this podcast, I understand

that they won't put him away for life. It's hard for me. Why people in Russia say they're

living in fear as former Wagner troops return home. The Ukrainian authorities have issued a

mandatory evacuation order around the city of Kupyansk and surrounding areas in the Harkiv region

due to what they say is intense Russian shelling. Earlier, a Russian Defense Ministry spokesman

Igor Konoshenkov claimed successes in the region. In the Kupyansk region, assault troops have made

advances along the front line during offensive operations. During the day, counterattacks by

the armed forces of Ukraine were successfully repelled in the Lugansk People's Republic and in

the Harkiv region. Ukraine's military said the situation around Kupyansk was difficult but under

control. Kupyansk was one of several cities and towns in Ukraine recaptured last September.

In recent weeks, Russia has been trying to take the cities and towns again. Our correspondent

Hugo Boshage is just back from Ukraine and tell me more. It's interesting because over the last

few weeks and months we've been talking about the counteroffensive in the east of the country,

in Donetsk, also in the Zaporizhia region of Ukraine, but this is happening in the northeast

of the country, so perhaps far away from those areas where the Ukrainians are trying to make

some gains. This is happening in the Harkiv region and the Ukrainians are saying that this is now

the main direction of the Russian offensive, so they're trying to make some gains there

in the Kupyansk region of Ukraine. Now we're having this announcement of a mandatory evacuation

in 37 settlements in this part of the country. What we're seeing is that we've seen reports

in recent days suggesting the fighting has intensified in this area and I think today

the message from the local authorities making this announcement said that Russia has been

shelling this area for almost every day and they're trying to advance in this direction and I think

what is interesting is that the Deputy Defense Minister in Ukraine earlier this week said that

Russian forces had formed a large group that is now attempting to break through Ukrainian

defences in that part of the country and people talking about tens of thousands of Russian forces

now in that part of the country. Something we're going to hear more about I suspect. Also Ukraine's

navy wants a humanitarian corridor to get its ships out of ports where they've been

trapped for a long time now back into the Black Sea. How will that work? That's a very good question.

So the announcement was made today by the Ukrainian authorities that this humanitarian

corridor is going to be created to let dozens of ships that are now trapped in Ukrainian ports

to sail into the Black Sea. Obviously this is perhaps the way that the Ukrainians have come

up with to let these ships sail into the Black Sea after the collapse of the grain deal. So

we don't know how this is going to work. We haven't had any kind of reaction from Moscow.

Obviously Russia has been saying that any ship could be considered

a military target in that part of the world. What the Ukrainians are saying is that they're

going to put cameras on the ships to show that this is a humanitarian mission with no military

purpose but we don't know how this is going to work. Hugo Beshaga who's just back from Ukraine.

Two weeks after the coup that toppled Niger's President Mohamed Bazoum, the regional grouping

of West African countries, ECOWAS hasn't yet said how it intends to resolve the crisis.

Today ECOWAS leaders are meeting in Nigeria's capital Abuja to talk about whether to seek a

diplomatic solution or take military action. There's also been concern expressed by the US,

France and the UN Secretary-General about the health of the former president who's being held

by the coup leaders. Africa editor Andrew Harding told me more about the divide within ECOWAS.

Sierra Leone, Guinea-Bissau, Burundi, Senegal, key players in an organization, a grouping that had

at some stage been able to intervene militarily in a number of countries but these days it's a

lot more complicated and it's I think far from clear whether their initial threats to use military

force in Niger to restore democracy can be followed through. It couldn't happen without Nigeria's

endorsement and right now Nigeria has problems of its own, priorities of its own and there is

a sense I think a growing sense that people in Nigeria and in other countries want to give

negotiations, diplomacy and economic sanctions a bit more of a chance to work to see if they can

cut some sort of deal with the coup leaders in Niger to edge them towards some sort of promise

of a transition. Certainly no sign thus far two weeks into this coup that the military are going to

stand down. They've even announced a new cabinet today. That's right very much forging ahead if

you like and clearly the timing meant to send that message to these regional leaders meeting across

the border. They've also perhaps been turning up the screws by continuing to keep the president,

you mentioned President Bazoum who's in essentially being held hostage at his presidential compound

in Niyame in Niger's capital and growing reports of concern from the Americans and others about

the conditions in which the president and his family are being kept and concerns too about

the possibility at least in the future at some point that Russia might try to exploit this

period of instability by sending in Wagner mercenaries as they've done with some

success in neighbouring Mali and elsewhere. Our Africa editor Andrew Harding. The Ecuadorian

president Guillermo Lasso has said the country's presidential election will go ahead as planned

this month after a candidate was shot dead at an event in the capital Quito. Fernando Villavisencio

was killed in a burst of gunfire as he was getting into his car. A state of emergency is now in force.

Mr Villavisencio's friend Dr Carlos Figueroa described how he found out about the death.

I was assisting two patients that arrived injured. I thought Fernando made it out,

but when I went to the clinic to help injured patients I entered the emergency room and I saw

Fernando was dead. He didn't have vital signs. Our Latin America editor is Vanessa Bushluter.

Carlos from whom we've just been hearing there described the scene of the murder. He and Fernando

Villavisencio left a campaign event at 6.20 in the afternoon in the capital Quito. This campaign

event in the centre of Quito in the financial district held at a building that had been a school

previously, had run very well. He'd shaken hands with voters and 30 seconds after he left the

building there was a hail of bullets. Fernando Villavisencio received three bullets to the

head and died and nine people were also injured in this horrific attack.

Are we any idea who might be behind this? Yes, a gang calling themselves Los Lobos,

the wolves, has claimed responsibility for this killing. They released a video in which

they wave around their rifles and threaten other politicians. This is a surprising development

because I think most people in Ecuador and including myself had thought that a different

gang called Los Choneros was behind this killing because Los Choneros had threatened Fernando

Villavisencio just last week. They had threatened his life and Fernando Villavisencio had been giving

a security detail but that security detail was not able to save his life when he was attacked

last night. And in terms of the state of emergency what does that mean for the conduct of the election

that obviously is ongoing? There were some voices in Ecuador which questioned whether the election

maybe should be put on hold or delayed but it is going ahead and many are actually quoting Fernando

Villavisencio himself who said just weeks ago when a different politician, a local mayor,

was killed he said that people should not be cowed, that democracy should continue so I think

in his honor the elections will go ahead and of course it is an important exercise in democracy

to hold this presidential election. Our Latin America editor Vanessa Bushluta. In Hawaii the

number of deaths resulting from wildfires on Maui Island has risen to 36. The worst affected area

is the popular resort city of Lahaina which has been almost totally burnt to the ground.

Mason Javi who suffered burns fleeing the fire in Lahaina said the situation there was devastating.

I'm resident of Lahaina for about 18 years and we just have the worst disaster I've ever seen.

All of Lahaina is burnt to crisp and it's like an apocalypse. Over 2000 people have been displaced

to move to special shelters or hotels. Bob Fenton of the Federal Emergency Management Agency

urged people to be cautious. There's still fire going on, life's being saved so please follow your

local officials, listen to their message and make sure you're safe, make sure you have a plan,

make sure that if you have questions you're working with your local officials.

To find out more I spoke to CBS correspondent Jared Hill.

One of the things Andrew that we know here is that because of the conditions on the ground

it had been difficult for officials really to get through a significant portion of the island

of Maui to be able to tell exactly who was unaccounted for because they were sheltering

in a car or a hotel without access to a phone to tell people or if they had in fact died and

while we don't know the circumstances around any of these deaths at this point again it does appear

that as they're able to get more onto the island they're learning more about just the level of

destruction here. What do we know about what's happening in Hawaii now? It's nighttime on the

islands of course and the authorities continue to to do their work in the wake of what's happened.

Yeah so there are kind of two things that are happening here. One there are the efforts to

continue putting out these fires which had been raging really on that island for hours there. So

there's the fire suppression effort but then there is also this certain rescue mission that

is continuing to happen again trying to see where people might be and get folks to safety.

There's also an effort here to make sure that the people who have been able to evacuate the island

of Maui have somewhere to go. There are shelters that have been set up on some of the neighboring

islands. There are also efforts to get people on planes to be able to fly out so that they can

worry as little as possible about people that might be on the island and just try and

focus on getting the fire out and making sure that it's safe for anyone to return at a later date.

And the last thing we need is more communities affecting. What's the weather forecast in terms of

controlling the fire versus the possibility of more fires breaking out or spreading?

Right so the winds have died down significantly from the peak of this. Remember this is all

related largely to a hurricane. They didn't actually touch the island of Maui but the winds

helped to fuel some of these flames. Those winds have died down which have allowed for

the crews there to continue with their fire suppression getting helicopters in the air

to doubt some of these fires with water. That'll continue for as long as it takes.

CBS correspondent Jared Hill. The Wagner group of Russian mercenaries has now ended its deployment

in Ukraine and that means many of the fighters it recruited from prisons including murderers

are now free. But as Arseniy Sokolov reports not everyone is ready to welcome them.

A village hall in southern Russia. A young woman in a crazily potent pink and blue jumpsuit

with waist length brown hair is dancing with a group of excited children.

Organizing parties and games for young people is 19 year old Tatiana Mastico's first job and she

loves it. But hours after one event like this back in April Tatiana was murdered by a gang whose

alleged ringleader should have been safely behind bars serving time for another murder.

But he had been let out years early to fight in Ukraine let out and pardoned.

Thanks to this man Evgeny Prigoshin founder of the mercenary company Wagner

he taught prisons to recruit tens of thousands of convicted murderers rapists and robbers.

They were used to kill Ukrainians in the bloodiest battles of the war

and many of them lost their lives too but those who survived have now left Wagner

and are walking the streets of Russia again and in some cases already committing new crimes.

How could you raise your hand against a child someone who wasn't threatening you in any way

a child who had just started to leave for whom all doors were open.

That's Nadezhda Pleshkova the mother of the children's entertainer Tatiana Mastico. Tatiana's body

and that of her boss Kirill Chupko were found buried in Woodland in the Krasnodar region in

early May. Three suspects have been arrested in connection with the killing one of them

Demyanky Varkyan who denies any wrongdoing had already been serving an 18 year sentence for crimes

including murder but he was released after only six years to fight in Ukraine. Then like other

criminal recruits he was free to go home with a pardon. Let me draw your attention to the word

pardon that's not the same as amnesty. Olga Romanova is the founder of Russia Behind Bus

an organization campaigning for prison reform. A pardon is given to an individual

personally by the president himself and the law says it comes after reconciliation with a victim

and a good report from prison. None of this happens when Wagner criminals are pardoned

but even so they can restart their lives with a clean slate. Indeed they are officially regarded

as heroes at least 20 serious crimes by former Wagner convicts have been reported murders rapes

grievous bodily harm but the real number may be greater because it's now illegal in Russia to

discredit anyone involved in what's officially called the special military operation. That law

could in theory even be used against the police themselves.

Large numbers of mourners attended the funerals of the children's entertainers Kirill Chupko

and Tatyana Mastyko and since then tens of thousands of people in Krasnodar have signed a petition

to demand that the chief suspect Demyan Kivarkyan gets a life sentence if he is convicted of the

modus but Tatyana's mother Nadezhda doesn't think it will have much effect. Of course I understand

who was responsible for my daughter's death and I know he had a previous conviction. I'm not stupid

I understand that they want to put him away for life.

That's hard for me. Sorry. In today's Russia she thinks the victims of so-called heroes can't

expect real justice. Arseni Sokolov reporting. Still to come in this podcast an announcement

for Taylor Swift fans as the US states on her record-breaking tour come to an end.

In the US a man who made violent threats against President Biden has been shot dead by the FBI

in Utah. The shooting happened while agents were attempting to serve him with an arrest warrant

just hours before Mr Biden's planned visit to the state. Our correspondent in Washington is

Nomiya Iqbal. The suspect's name was Craig Robertson. We understand he was 75 years old

and there was a criminal complaint that had already been filed in the district court of Utah

regarding serious concerns about him so one of the charges that he was facing was threats against

President. I've got the criminal complaint in front of me but FBI agents conducted a surveillance of

his home back in March. They wanted to talk to him about his social media posts. He told them

according to the complaint to come back with an arrest warrant which they did. Now when you look at

the criminal complaint and the evidence that they had compiled against him included social media posts

that he'd put up and they're very dark messages. They show violence towards President Biden and

other notable Democrats also glorifying guns. One particular post which worried agents and

that there's been cited in the criminal complaint is when he posted I hear Biden is coming to Utah

cleaning the dust off the M24 sniper rifle welcome buffoon in chief. Now we haven't been given any

details on exactly what led to the shooting although our partner station CBS says law enforcement

sources told them that there was a gunfire of some sort and the FBI told the BBC in a statement

that they're following their policy which is to now refer the case to the agency for a review.

Noméé Apar in Washington. The World Bank has suspended new loans to Uganda in the wake of a

tough new law against same-sex relations. There's already been a negative reaction on the markets

with the Ugandan shilling weakening sharply after the announcement. My colleague Divina Gupta spoke

to Fabrice Odar an advisor with Open for Business a coalition of leading global companies dedicated

to LGBT inclusion formally of the World Bank. He explains how significant this decision is for

Uganda. The budget of the Ugandan government is very reliant on external aid and in fact

the budget of the government is about 13 or 14 billion dollars and you could say that one billion

dollars usually comes from the World Bank but there's another aspect to it which is that the

budget of the Ugandan government is also dependent on borrowing from various sources.

Is this sort of intervention by the World Bank enough for the government in Uganda to

reconsider their decision? On the side of the World Bank the objective is not so much for the

Ugandan government to reconsider the entire homosexuality act. It is to say well look it's

impossible for us to have effective development projects if you intentionally bar an entire

segment of your population from benefiting from development efforts. But in effect then a lot

of questions have been asked especially by listeners as well whether this sort of ends up

being counterproductive and hurting locals in Uganda. That's a very legitimate question right

which is ultimately the poorest in Uganda are the victims of the political manipulation of LGBTQ

plus people by President Musevini but ultimately the World Bank if it wants to respect its policies

cannot lend to Uganda if Uganda refused to acknowledge that there are LGBTQ plus people

that are deserving of development efforts in the country and you know one of the things that I said

today is that the World Bank would have done the same thing if we're talking about other

underrepresented minorities. Like if there was a similar piece of legislation on Dalit people in

India or Batua people in Congo or Roma people in Europe the World Bank would have been in the same

situation in having to say well look we cannot continue to have new lending activities until

you have solved this problem. Fabrice O'Daz. In other LGBT news today Iraqi authorities have

ordered media outlets when referring to the topic to refer to homosexual acts as sexual deviance

and to also avoid using the term gender in broadcasts or publications. A government spokesman

said the order still requires final approval and that a penalty for violating the rule hadn't yet

been set but could include a fine. Dylan Siowan is a journalist in Iraq. Well let's not forget that

this is only a resolution it's not necessarily a law therefore it cannot be like put into the law

imposed on these people however there are very dangerous implications of such resolutions

because the community is already suffering from a lot they are already been persecuted for being

who they are and this will in the long term may cause even more harmful implications because

this will cause what is already a culture a society that does not accept these people

will just cause them to antagonize against the community even more. It's not set yet how the

order is going to be carried out whether there will be I don't know people will be arrested or

they will be fined for this but even if there is a payment or a fine regarding the use of the word

homosexuality or even gender for that matter it's going to be very bad for journalists that are

covering such stories and covering the lives of the LGBT community. Dylan Siowan in Iraq.

Australia's National Science Agency and Boeing have announced plans to develop sustainable

domestic jet fuel. Aircraft will be powered by renewable sources and that could significantly

cut carbon emissions. From Sydney our correspondent Phil Mercer. Researchers say that Australia has

enough agricultural waste animal fats and vegetable oils to make almost five billion

litres of sustainable aviation fuel by 2025. A Boeing 747 Jumbo carries about 240,000 litres of

fuel by changing the molecular structure of waste products using a range of different pressures

and temperatures and sometimes adding hydrogen. Scientists believe they can create a fuel that's

almost identical to its traditional kerosene cousin. Max Temminghoff is from the CSIRO Australia's

National Science Agency. Sustainable aviation fuel or SAF for short is a safe replacement for

fossil-drive conventional jet fuel instead of being produced from crude oil it's generated from

non-fossil raw materials or feedstocks and the beauty of that is that it provides a net reduction

in CO2 emissions when compared to its fossil-derived crude oil. SAF costs up to two to four times as

much as conventional jet fuel. Apart from costs various other challenges must be overcome in

Australia. They include guaranteeing the supply of raw materials and conforming to international

regulations. The International Energy Agency has said that aviation accounts for about two percent

of global CO2 emissions but it's one of the most challenging sectors to decarbonise. The IEA has

also asserted that planned production of sustainable aviation fuels would satisfy just a small fraction

of demand by 2027. Qantas Australia's national carrier wants 10 percent of its fuel to come from

sustainable sources by the end of the decade. Phil Mercer in Sydney it was the final date of

Taylor Swift's record-breaking tour at the Sophie Stadium in Los Angeles fans had an idea something

special might happen some kind of announcement they were right a new album called 1989 Taylor's

Version is on the way in a couple of months in October Iona Hampson is here with more so just

explain to us what the Taylor's version of each album is. Yes a Taylor Swift has been on a personal

mission for the last couple of years to re-release her first six studio albums. The reason for this

is that in 2019 she came in a dispute with her former record label Big Machine Records the founder

and the new owner who wanted to sell all of her six albums that they owned their masters of to a

private equity company it's estimated this was sold for about 300 million dollars Taylor Swift was

not happy about this because they were the masters they could control things like the licensing of

the song so whether it's used in an advert or a film for instance so what she's been doing is

re-releasing these songs which are almost covers of her songs in that sort of technical way they're

stripped back a bit absolutely more acoustic for sure so what what sort of the differences are of

course her sound is a bit more mature her voice is mature but there are like differences in the

production some of the lyrics so there are differences and you find that with Taylor Swift fans

they'd much rather listen to the Taylor Swift versions the Taylor versions of it rather than

the originals. Okay now the announcement on the 9th of August had been expected because

she dropped hints they're all to do with numbers I think the hints aren't they about what date

something's going to happen that kind of thing. Taylor Swift loves to give clues to her fans and

her fans love to try and understand them whether they're in her music videos or on social media

with this social media post that she released today she was talking about how 1989 is one of her

favorite re-records there'll be five new unreleased tracks which she says are some of the best that

she can't even believe they were ever left behind so this will be really exciting for Taylor Swift fans.

And this comes at the end of the the North America section of her eras tour she's broken all kinds

of records and even caused earth tremors in Canada a few days ago. That's correct this is a huge

tour 44 songs that are divided into 10 acts three hours long so it is a marathon to get through

and what's amazing about this is that the eras tour is expected to be the highest grossing tour

of all time which is expected to have one billion dollars in sales this even surpasses Elton John's

record his farewell yellow brick road tour so this just shows how big this achievement is.

Lots of talk about Taylor Swift online today thanks Iona.

And that's all from us for now before we go though clarification of an item we carried

in the last edition of the global news podcast about the death the musician sister Rodriguez

we inadvertently suggested that he was popular in South Africa among young black people

protesting against apartheid however a number of listeners have been in touch to say his

popularity was predominantly among white South Africans and we say thank you to those of you

who pointed that out to us thank you. If you'd like to get in touch about anything in this podcast

and the stories we included drop us an email globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk you'll find us on

twitter at globalnewspot. This edition was mixed by Chris Lovelock the producer was Iona Hampson

the editor is Karen Martin. My name is Andrew Peach thanks for listening and until next time goodbye.

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