Global News Podcast: US House Speaker ousted in historic vote

You're listening to the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service.

Hello, I'm Oliver Conway. This edition is published in the early hours of Wednesday the

4th of October. America's most senior Republican, Kevin McCarthy, becomes the first house speaker

to be voted out of office after losing support of hardliners in his own party. A bus plunges off

a bridge near Venice, killing at least 21 people. And NATO warns that western countries are running

out of ammunition to supply Ukraine. The bottom of the barrel is now visible and we need the industry

to ramp up production. Also in the podcast, Pakistan says all illegal migrants, including 1.7

million Afghans, must leave by the end of the month or face deportation. And the electrons are much

more like waves, like water waves, than particles. How work with extremely brief pulses of light led

to the Nobel Prize for physics. The most senior Republican in the United States, House of Representative

Speaker Kevin McCarthy, has been kicked out of office after eight members of his own party

turned against him. The hardliners were angry that he'd agreed a deal with the Democrats at the

weekend to avert a government shutdown. The Republicans only have a narrow majority in the

House. It took 15 rounds of voting to elect Mr. McCarthy in the first place back in January.

Now he's become the first house speaker ever to be voted out of office.

The yeas are 216. The nays are 210. The resolution is adopted. The Office of Speaker of the House

of the United States House of Representatives is hereby declared vacant.

After the vote, Trump loyalist Matt Gates, who led the Republican rebels,

said Mr. McCarthy had been holding back the party. The conservative agenda was being paralyzed by

Speaker McCarthy. We hadn't even sent a subpoena to Hunter Biden. Our oversight was lackluster.

Our spending priorities were misaligned. The top line budget was going to lead to more inflation,

more debt, more challenges. So the best way to advance the conservative agenda

is to move forward with a new speaker. I heard more from our correspondent in Washington,

Sean Dilly. This was a little bit of a surprise even to seasoned watchers who felt

fairly convinced that Democratic politicians would probably grit their teeth and support McCarthy on

the basis that he was the one who said that he would deliver a separate funding deal for Ukraine.

That is thrown into massive doubt now because McCarthy, although he could stand again,

in effect, he's gone. Yeah, what happens now? Well, Patrick McHenry,

another member, is stepping in essentially acting as Speaker. There are conversations

happening as we're talking right now on both parties as to who would be acceptable to the

mainstream of the Republican Party, who would be acceptable to the hardliners, Matt Gates among

them. He's one of at least nine who've been the thorn in Kevin McCarthy's side since he was elected

in fact, even before he was elected. But who would be acceptable to Democrats as well? Because

the central issue is limbering up to be how much money should go to Ukraine, if any, because many

of those hardliners just don't think there should be any more money and certainly not very much more

money. And as far as the Democrats are concerned, well, they've been promised that if they kept the

government open, that's what would be delivered. This, though, what you're seeing in Capitol Hill

now is what happens when different parties rule different bits of government and they really

don't much like each other. And who are the possible candidates who can hold the narrow

Republican majority together? There's nobody who jumps out. I'll tell you who it won't be,

though. It won't be Matt Gates. It won't be Marjorie Taylor Greene. It won't be any of the

usual suspects who have forced the shutdown talks in the first place to need to be averted,

because look, a deal was struck between Joe Biden and the White House and Kevin McCarthy and Republicans

all the way back in May. They wanted between them to avoid the usual drama that you get here in

Capitol Hill where you face these 11th hour deals. But at the moment, there literally is no obvious

candidate as being acceptable to Democrats and Republicans. Everybody's reasonably surprised

that they're even having to ask this question, because some Democrats didn't even know whether

they would be supporting McCarthy or not. Not until Hakeem Jeffries, the leader of the Democrats in

the House of Representatives, gave them their marching orders. And what does this mean for

funding for Ukraine? No business can get done until a new speaker is installed. That funding is

choked off at a time when President Zelensky says they urgently need help. Sean Dilly in Washington

and the White House says President Biden hopes the House of Representatives will quickly elect a

speaker because of the urgent challenges facing the nation. On Monday, EU foreign ministers met in

Kiev to reaffirm their backing for Ukraine after doubts emerged over that continued U.S. funding,

as well as political support in parts of Europe. 24 hours later, NATO has been warning that

Western countries are running out of ammunition to give the Ukrainians in their fight against the

Russian occupiers. Our diplomatic correspondent James Landau reports from Poland. Every day,

Ukraine fires thousands of rounds of artillery shells in defense of its territory. Most of them

come from stockpiles belonging to NATO members. The Western Allies, it appears, are struggling to

replenish their stocks. Admiral Rob Bauer, NATO's most senior military official, told the Warsaw

Security Forum there simply hadn't been enough investment. The bottom of the barrel is now visible

and we need the industry to ramp up production in a much higher tempo and we need large volumes.

Sweden's Defence Minister, Paul Johnson, said Europe was digging pretty deep into its stocks.

Britain's Armed Forces Minister, James Heapy, said ammunition supplies were

looking a bit thin and urged NATO Allies to spend 2% of their national wealth on defense

as they've committed to do. Western powers have in recent months agreed plans to boost

arms production by sharing expertise and agreeing joint contracts. But progress, it seems, is slow

and this could have a real impact on the bloody battlefields of southern Ukraine.

James Landau in Warsaw. Italy was hit by tragedy on Tuesday night after 21 people died when a

coach crashed off a motorway bridge on the outskirts of Venice. Another 40 people were injured in the

incident. Tom Kington, Italy correspondent for The Times newspaper, told me the latest.

It seems that the bus was traveling back from Venice to a campsite on the mainland across the

bridge that crosses the lagoon from Venice. Early reports suggest that they may have been tourists,

perhaps some Ukrainians and Germans. The bus, careered off the flyover, dropped around 50

meters to the ground. Some reports say it hit power lines. Others say that the flames that

engulfed the bus were provoked by the fact that it was a methane-powered bus. A lot of uncertainty

right now. What seems to be sure is, so far, 21 victims, numerous injured and amongst those victims,

two children. Looking at the pictures from the scene, the bus, after having driven off that

flyover and then crashing down, it's amazing that anyone survived.

Actually, I've seen this happen before. There was a similar crash near Naples a few years ago,

which I covered when a bus dropped from a great height. And miraculously, some people survived.

And do we have any idea what led the bus to go off course and hit the railing?

None whatsoever. Could have been a driver error, perhaps a mechanical fault in the bus. But I

guess details will emerge slowly in days to come. And should it be the case that those kind of railings

support any vehicle and stop them going through it? You would imagine that that's their purpose,

that's what they're meant to do. Going back to the accident near Naples a few years ago,

it turned out that the barrier just wasn't strong enough when taking a direct hit from

a bus traveling fast. Now, this happened quite late at night. But I imagine that part of Italy,

in fact, the whole country must be in shock. Absolutely, yes. As the Mayor of Venice said,

it was an apocalyptic scene. I have no words. Likewise, immediate message from Prime Minister

Georgia Maloney expressing her condolences as the whole nation tunes in to find out what happened.

Tom Kington, Rome correspondent of The Times newspaper.

Following years of war in their homeland, more than four million Afghans currently live in

neighboring Pakistan, with hundreds of thousands arriving since the Taliban regained power in

Kabul. The Pakistani Interior Minister says 1.7 million Afghans are in Pakistan illegally,

and they've now been given a deadline of November 1st to leave voluntarily or face being deported.

Government sources told the state-run news agency they eventually wanted all Afghans to leave.

The announcement follows an upsurge in militant attacks along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan.

I heard more about those tensions from our South Asia regional editor, Anbar San Atirajan.

There has been a number of bomb attacks in Pakistan in the last 10 months or so,

especially after the Pakistani Taliban militant group called off a ceasefire with Pakistani

security forces late last year. That led to an upsurge in violence, particularly targeting

Pakistani security forces, and a number of civilians have also been killed in various bomb

blasts, the latest being a suicide attack in Balochistan province that killed more than 50 people.

Now, the Pakistani government is under pressure to take action, and according to the Pakistani

Interior Minister Safras Bhukti, what they say is they have traced nearly 14 out of these 24 attacks

to Afghan nationals. That is what led to this extraordinary announcement of planning to send

all the illegal immigrants, most of them Afghan refugees, back to their country, and that is

going to increase tensions between the countries. Yeah, I mean, is this policy even feasible to carry

out? If you talk to any Pakistani analyst, they would say that as and when Pakistan comes under

pressure, they would announce this policy of expelling illegal immigrants, particularly referring

to Afghan nationals. They had announced it in the past, but they found it very difficult to

identify people and then deport them. Basically, many of these Afghan nationals who migrated to

Pakistan, they had obtained Pakistani citizenship, so it is difficult to identify who is Afghan and

who is Pakistan. And people have been living in communities, for example, in Karachi or in

Balochistan province or in the tribal districts of northwestern part of Pakistan. So it is difficult

for the government to carry out this particular raid. So it is going to be a major issue for

Pakistan itself and how feasible it is. Many people would think that it is a diversionary tactic

by the Pakistan government because they are struggling to control the number of violent

incidents and Pakistan also accuses Afghanistan of providing sanctuary to these Pakistani Taliban

militants. They are claimed denied by Kabul. South Asia regional editor and Barasan Etirajan.

How much do the past actions of Britain and France still shape events in the Middle East today?

That's a question being explored in a new BBC series, The Mandates, charting the course of

British and French colonial rule after the end of the First World War, when they were given powers

to govern by the League of Nations. One historian said the events of that time were so influential

they effectively amounted to a history of the present. The series is presented by Tom Bateman.

We're in the middle of a roundabout and it's a statue gleaming in the sunshine. It depicts very

dramatically loss and resistance. There's a bereaved woman cradling her dying husband or son.

I chose to keep my principles, my words. I was punished. I was summoned for interrogation

many, many times. This is Naila Al-Atrash, a well-known Syrian actor and theatre director.

She fled her country after 2011 for speaking out against the regime. And commemorated on the

roundabout is her grandfather, Sultan Al-Atrash, who a century earlier fought the French in Syria.

An inspiration to her generation, says Naila. I grew up listening to the heroic stories of

great Syrian revolution, how those young men stood in the face of the French mandate of Syria.

Naila is one of the descendants of many who lived during that period,

who have revealed the impact of an earlier generational struggle and how the impact of

what took place then still reverberates. As once again the irresistible force of Zionism

meets the immovable object of Arab nationalism. Palestine was to undergo a series of convulsions

which hit a turning point midway through the British mandate there. In the First World War,

Britain had promised a Jewish home. By the 1930s, it was trying to contain an Arab uprising.

Its response to the Arab revolt was brutal. If British soldiers came under attack,

its forces carried out collective punishment against entire villages.

I've come to the very northern edge, what is now northern Israel, right on the border with Lebanon.

And this was the site of one of those attacks by the British. It was a reprisal by British soldiers

after four had been killed in a roadside bombing by Arab rebels. The local commander had said

the nearest village, regardless of any evidence of who was to blame, would be punished.

And that's exactly what they did here in what was the Palestinian village of Al-Bassa.

Among the people that lived here and remembered that event in great detail

were the parents of Eid Haddad. They saw the troops coming in and they attacked people.

And my father told me one of the men was hit on his head with mudaka. It's something that looks

like a wooden hammer, which we used to miss the meat with. So he died. A man and his son were

hanging tobacco leaves to dry them. They were just shot in the back and they died.

The UK government has never acknowledged the British atrocity in the village of Al-Bassa.

For decades after the mandates, the Middle East was plunged into wars and sectarian upheaval.

Its causes are complex, but the changes left by the European powers across different parts

of this region were foundational, a legacy that still resonates today.

A Middle East correspondent, Tom Bateman.

Still to come on the Global News podcast, why Kenya is leading the newly approved multinational

force for Haiti. African feasts of hunger, drought, flooding and nations in Europe, in Asia,

in the Americas have always come to our help. So it is also time for us to help other people.

Back now to the US and a tale of two court cases. We'll have the latest from Donald

Trump's battle to hold onto his businesses in New York in a moment. But first to Delaware,

where Hunter Biden, son of President Biden, pleaded not guilty to lying about his drug use

while buying a handgun. He was charged last month with three counts related to lying on

a federal form in 2018 after a plea deal fell apart. Our correspondent, Gary O'Donoghue, has the

latest from Delaware. Hunter Biden spent about an hour in total insides and as we expected,

he pleaded not guilty to these three firearms charges. There are going to be some motions

brought in this case. For example, his defence are going to bring a motion to dismiss on the basis

that there was a plea agreement in place at least until July and they believe that is still valid.

And they also believe that the charges are unconstitutional given the nature of some

recent Supreme Court judgments on gun ownership. They have until the beginning of November to

do that. We don't have a trial date. Of course, the trial date will depend on the outcome

of those motions, but he seemed pretty relaxed in court talking to his lawyers,

wearing a dark suit and giving a little wave to journalists as he left.

Gary O'Donoghue in Delaware. A couple of hundred kilometres north in Manhattan,

Donald Trump's civil fraud case was into its second day. New York prosecutors claim the former

president deceived banks, insurers and others by overvaluing his assets. Mr. Trump isn't required

to attend in person, but did so for the second day and once again lashed out at New York Attorney

General Leticia James. Our North America correspondent, Neda Taufik, was out in the court.

Really is now down to business, so it is the first witness,

same one who began yesterday, Donald Bender, who's an accountant with Mazars, who basically

compiled the financial statements for the Trump Organization for several years. And we are now

just hearing where he is going through the fact that it was the Trump Organization that was responsible

for the different accounting principles used in the records, the disclosures in the report.

He was asked numerous times now if he knew the information provided was false, if he would

have prepared the reports and he has said no. There was some speculation over whether Mr.

Trump would testify in person, but he has said he will take the stand. That's right. I was actually

in court and during one of the breaks when Mr. Trump was walking back into the courtroom, I

shouted a question asking if he will testify. He says that he will be testifying when he is called

to the stand. He still has time to change his mind and legal experts that I've spoken to have said

that that would be a risky strategy for him. And any false statement could lead to perjury

charges. He knows what is at stake in this case. It is the future of his real estate empire. And so

him appearing here in court, I think it does show just how much he is taking this seriously.

Netta Taufiq in New York. Returning now to a story we brought you on the podcast this time

yesterday, the UN Security Council decision to approve a multinational force to Haiti to tackle

gang violence there that's brought the Caribbean nation to its knees. After pleading for help for

at least a year, the Haitian Prime Minister welcomed the UN announcement saying the bell

of liberation has sounded. The new mission is being led by Kenya. Its foreign minister,

Alfred Matua, told James Menendez why they decided to take on the role.

It's one, the people of Haiti deserve better and we know what they have gone through over the years

with the earthquake, with the hurricanes, with the assassination of the president,

the breakdown of political systems. Number two, Africans have faced hunger,

drought, flooding and nations in Europe, in Asia, in the Americas have always come to our help.

And so it is also time for us to help other people, especially the ones that are in need.

Number three is because we have a very good history of working on peacekeeping missions

and some of these enforcement missions in Namibia, East Timor. We just felt compelled

to do something about our brothers and sisters because the world could not just sit and just

watch as Haitians were just being finished. But what sort of police officers will go to

Haiti and what will they be doing? Basically, enforce law and order, period. They need to open

access ways that have been blocked by the gangs, disarm the gangs, protect establishments such as

the port, the airport and others, allow free movement of people and goods. They need to

be in a place so that hospitals can reopen, schools can reopen and assemblance of life

can be established. But we are not just going there to fight the gangs. We are looking at serious

engagement also in terms of encouraging a political solution. We are doing it so that

Haitians can also rebuild their own country. And this also includes training. Training is very

important because we can't stay there forever. In previous missions to Haiti, the numbers were

much larger. In the first case, more than 20,000. Brazil sent about 13,000. So I just wonder whether

a thousand is going to be enough. That is just the initial installment in terms of what Kenya is

offering. This is not just a Kenyan mission. Kenya is just leading the team. And we hope

that this is the last time there'll be an operation to Haiti. The people of Haiti are tired. They have

had born the brand of it and want to do it properly, effectively and fast and be able to live them

with a stable government, live them with a stable country. People are tired of gangs. We're going

into an environment where people are hungry for change and people are waiting for us to go and

back them up in their struggle against the lawlessness that is in the country and empower

brothers and sisters of the Caribbean who are part of the African Union, the Aspera, and then

leave them as they continue. Kenya's foreign minister, Alfred Matua, talking to James Menendez.

The Nobel Prize for Physics has been awarded to three scientists for their research into

generating extremely short pulses of light. It is hoped the work by Pierre Agostini,

Verench Crouch, and Anne Luillier will help advance medical diagnostics and electronics.

And Luillier is only the fifth woman to have won the prize. Here's our science correspondent Palab

Gauche. Electrons move incredibly fast. They can change position in billions of a billionth of a

second. For decades these tiny speedsters have been hard to pin down, under even the very best

microscopes. But between them these three scientists have created instruments that have in effect

ultra-high shutter speeds. Just as a sports photographer can capture an image of a football

hurtling into a net, the researchers have developed what's called atto-second physics

to bring the behaviour of electrons into sharper focus. But even then they don't exist at a fixed

point, according to Professor Anne Luillier, who's one of the winners. The electrons are much more

like water waves than particles. And what we try to measure is the position of the crest of the

waves. And what we try to get information on is what is the time it takes for electrons to move,

for example, to go away. Professor Luillier explained that she initially ignored the call

from the Nobel Committee to inform her of her award because she was teaching students. She

relented on the third or fourth attempt and after a brief conversation she continued with her lecture,

though she admitted to being a little distracted during the remainder of her talk.

Professor Luillier's work, along with her fellow winners, is likely to lead to even more

accurate electron microscopes, much faster electronics and new tests that are able to

diagnose diseases at a much earlier stage. The James Webb telescope appears to be the gift

that keeps on giving. The latest discovery from its vantage point orbiting the sun

are Jupiter-sized planets floating in space, unconnected to any star. Professor Richard Ellis

from University College London was part of the committee that proposed the James Webb telescope

in the mid-1990s. He told Michelle Hussain more about the new finding.

Well, they are planets probably. It's been known for quite a while that there are what we call

free-floating planets in stellar nurseries where stars are very close to each other.

One planet can be perturbed by the adjacent star and occasionally these planets, which are normally

found orbiting stars, get shot out of that particular solar system. What's puzzling about

the recent discovery is they seem to be shot out in pairs. This is a new twist to the story.

If you think about shooting two things out at once, you'd imagine as they go further away

from where they started, they would diverge, but for some reason they keep together in pairs.

So there must be some sort of viscous drag or something that's kicking them together.

Are they within our solar system? No, these are around stars and regions where stars are forming.

So it's a very dense star cluster where baby stars are being born and these planets are found in

between the stars. So it wouldn't form there normally. They must have formed in a particular

solar system and then been shot out by the perturbation of nearby stars. It's just one

example every week of what this amazing telescope is throwing up. It's just fantastic.

Does it exceed your expectations and hopes when you're involved in the first phase of developing

it? Well, I think our committee, which was primarily a US committee, was quite visionary,

if I could say so. We formulated a plan for an infrared telescope, a telescope that's

rather different from Hubble Space Telescope, which people are probably familiar with,

which is an optical telescope. And we thought there would be two science pillars that would

make the case for this telescope. One is to look back in time far enough to see the moment when

the universe was first bathed in starlight, which is the work that I do. Euphemistically,

we call it cosmic dawn. And the other would be to examine the planets around other stars,

particularly their atmospheres, to see if they contain evidence of conditions that are conducive

to life. So what two bigger questions? The birth of starlight, which is where we come from and

looking for evidence of life elsewhere in the universe. Professor Richard Ellis talking to

Michelle Hussain. More than 12,000 athletes are taking part in the Asian Games in China,

but one event, the women's 100 meters hurdles, has fallen foul of Chinese Communist Party sensors

because of an unintended reference to the Chananmen Square Massacre during an embrace by two Chinese

sprinters, as I heard from our China media analyst, Kerry Allen. One of them was wearing it at number

six, and the other was wearing a number four. And the way they were hugging, you could see

these numbers next to each other. Now, any mention of six and four next to each other in China,

generally, it is censored because six and four represents in some Chinese circles the Fourth

of June, which is the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989. So it's been a huge

target of China's online sensors. And how does the censorship work? Well, generally, it involves

manual sensors. So we're talking thousands of people who are literally just watching day in,

day out for sensitive content and manually removing stuff. And also, when it comes to Tiananmen,

there is especially heavy censorship on the anniversary to the extent where even little

emojis representing an anniversary like a cake represents a birthday. These are removed from

social media platforms. And on the Fourth of June every year, I see any mention of 64 being removed

from social media. Is there any way of getting around that process? Yes, absolutely. I've seen

people who've been putting this picture on a platform called Weibo, which is China's equivalent

of a social media platform like Facebook. And what they've been doing is recognizing that if

people are replicating this sensitive image, what they're doing is they're slightly photoshopping

the image, making it harder for it to be automatically removed. Or they're sharing images

that are blurry. They're trying to mention online posts that don't directly mention the athletes,

because they're conscious that there will be people who are literally sitting down looking for

Lin Yue and Wu Yan Yi. It's a very dedicated effort every year for people in China to try and get

the message about Tiananmen out, because China has actively denied that the Tiananmen protests ever

happened. But even big celebrities like Taylor Swift have fallen foul of the census.

They have, yes, because when Taylor Swift released her 1989 album, 1989 being the year that the Tiananmen

Square protest happened, also her initials, T&S, were on the album covers and merchandise as well.

So in the past, content like that has been removed from Chinese social media platforms.

Our China media analyst, Kerry Allen. Nigeria is a wash with musical talent, but one singer who's

really managed to break through in the last couple of years is Benson. He's had a string of hits with

Afrobeat stars, including Wizkid and Burnaboy, as well as British artists Dave and Stefflon Don.

He's even made it onto former President Barack Obama's annual playlist. On Thursday,

Benson is releasing his debut album, Sincerely Benson. He spoke to DJ Edu,

presenter of the BBC's music program, This Is Africa.

It sounds like a letter. There's more reason why I'm calling it Sincerely Benson. It sounds like an

envelope of emotions that I'm ready to just give out.

The title struck me because you actually spelt Benson properly this time.

I want to be able to spell it out or see it for what the name is really.

And what was the reason for that? Because obviously I knew you were Buju before

and then you switched it. My real name is actually Daniel Benson and Buju is native Jamaican for

Breadfruit. It's like a nickname given to like chubby kids. I personalised it into something that

meant more to me than just Breadfruit. But then along the line, I wanted more authenticity. I

wanted things that were more original to me, especially knowing there's Buju Benson and there's

100 other Buju's in Jamaica. That's because they're chubby. So that was the more reason why

the name changed. And I needed to make it prominent in the album because I had a conversation with

Berna at the period where I just changed the name. And he was asking me like, yo,

do you remember that time we were talking about changing your name before and we didn't agree?

The next project that you're doing, I need you to make emphasis on that name.

And has the new name stuck? How are people taking that on?

Yeah, man. I mean, people call me Benson. People call me Buju. People call me Buju Benson.

I can't blame people for tweaking it the way they love it or how they find it best to pronounce it.

Trust me, we already know who you're talking about.

And you spoke about Berna there. How was it you working with him? How was the whole synergy?

Super amazing. I signed to Berna for like a year. We were working on a whole lot of other stuff.

He's an amazing person and I love him on a mentorship level. Still more work is going to come

but I can't be spilling all that out. Come on, give us the exclusive man. Come on, bro.

And obviously, we've known you for adding that sweet voice to a lot of collaborations.

Is that what we're expecting on the album as well or do we get to experience more of Buju?

Yeah, there are a couple of collaborations on the album. I wanted them to be really specific and

precise to what the message I was trying to pass across really.

You know, like now I have Heady One on the project. That is Heady One's best verse

internationally. When it drops, you can take it to the bank. They'll give you 100k.

I'm not playing you. If I was a betting man.

Everybody that's on this project came in with their A-game, not even their A-game, their A-star game.

I'm super excited about it.

And that is all from us for now, but there'll be a new edition of the Global News podcast very soon.

This one was mixed by Martin Baker and produced by Emma Joseph, our editors,

Karen Martin. I'm Oliver Conway. Until next time, goodbye.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.