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Global News Podcast
Japan's prime minister wins landslide election victory
00:27:41
World leaders have congratulated Sanae Takaichi on securing a decisive election victory
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This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Paul Moss and at 04:30 GMT on February 9th, these are our main stories. Japan's prime minister has won a decisive parliamentary majority, increasing the chance she'll now change the country's constitution. The pro democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai has been sentenced to 20 years in prison and the Seattle Seahawks win the US Super Bowl. But Donald Trump has called Bad Bunny's halftime performance an affront to the nation. Also in this podcast, Brendan Harrison Tarrant, you are separately in charges of one to 15 of the Crown charge list. Charged that on the 15th day of March 2019 at Christchurch, you did murder? Yes, guilty. New Zealand's mass killer pleaded guilty, but now he wants to retract his guilty plea. When Senai Takechi called a snap election in Japan, the move was widely described as a gamble. After all, she was already the country's prime minister. She was just hoping to increase her party's showing in the country's parliament. And if that didn't work out, Mr. Ms. Takechi had said she would resign as leader of the Liberal Democrat Party. Well, if it was a gamble, then it looks like the prime minister has pretty much hit the jackpot, certainly as much as politicians ever do. Results so far suggest she's won her party a majority, giving cautious optimism to her many supporters. I think Sanae Takechi is very different from other politicians. I have high hopes. That's why I voted for her. With President Trump back in office, there are many challenges. National defense is one. But if we spend money on that, how does it help with people's livelihoods. Our reporter Will Leonardo has been following the election campaign from Tokyo and says the result there has been considered astounding. It's the Liberal Democratic Party's best showing since the Second World War. And remember, they've governed more or less non stop since then. It's won 316 seats. That's 2/3 majority on its own. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, she's currently in a coalition with a populist party centered on Osaka called the Japan Innovation Party. They won another 36. She says that tie up will remain as it remains valuable to her in the upper house. The recently cobbled together centrist opposition coalition lost more than 2/3 of seats. And consider this. Japan operates a hybrid voting system. It's got constituencies and proportional lists. Candidates are often put up for both. Now, the LDP won so many seats in the constituency races that in several parts of Japan, it simply ran out of candidates in the proportional list and their votes were split among other parties. Japanese media reporting that it could have won 14 more seats. Word on turnout. Gigi, which is a reputable news agency here, estimates it to be around 55%. That's slightly higher than last time in 2024, which was held in much better weather conditions. Now, that size of that majority means that Ms. Takaichi can now do what she said and change the country's constit. What's that actually going to mean in practice? Yeah, so 2/3 is a magic number to begin the process. Although she needs 2/3 in both houses. Ms. Takaichi, just like her mentor, the late former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, wants to tweak Japan's pacifist constitution, which was drafted by the US after the war. At the moment, it doesn't explicitly recognize the Self Defense Forces. So this could allow Japan to take a more active military role in Asia. And remember, she's upping defense spending already. It's a big part of her promise to the country during selection to defend it, defend borders more. But this is likely to anger China even more than she already has in a dispute over Taiwan. And of course, it's probably going to cause alarm in other Asian nations as well, not least South Korea, that she's kind of become quite close with. You know, the concerns over a Japanese return to militarism. Ironically, the US which drafted the constitution might be quite pleased. You know, the Trump administration wants Japan to take a more active defense role. But as I said, this still needs 2/3 majority in the upper house too, which she doesn't have at the moment and also needs to pass a referendum. But the momentum has definitely been swinging in the direction of changing the constitution. We are Leonardo In Tokyo, Sanae Takechi's victory was widely predicted, but another election in Asia this weekend has produced a more surprising result. Voters in Thailand were expected to show strong support for the relatively radical People's Party, who'd promised to make the country more democratic, to make the army more accountable and to shake up big business with a breakup of large monopolies. But it looks like they've fallen well short of the votes they'd hoped for and that instead there'll be a clear victory for the more conservative Thai Pride Party that's led by Thailand's incumbent Prime Minister, Anatin Chavirakun. Our people have given us more than what we expected this morning. We owe our voters a fortune and we will only repay them by working at our utmost to bring all the good things to them and to our country. Promising your voters good things is partly original. So why did the people of Thailand stick with their current government? Bangkok correspondent Jonathan Head has this assessment. Thai elections are nearly always unpredictable, and so this one has proved to be as well. These supporters of the reformist People's Party are having a disappointing evening. The polls have predicted that that party, the young, idealistic candidates campaigning on this platform of sweeping change would be well ahead of any other party, that they might get maybe 200 out of the 500 seats in parliament and be in pole position to demand to be part of a government. That is not the way the count is looking at the moment. Early indications show that Anatin Chan Wirrick and the incumbent prime minister and his Bumjai Party are well ahead, performing much, much better than the polls predicted. A lot of that is down to Mr. Anitin's strength. At constituency level, 80% of the seats under the Thai electoral system are first past the post seats, local constituency seats, and an old party like boom Jay Tai, Mr. Anitan's party and some of the other conservative parties have great strength there. They have old style politicians with a lot of sway who have allied themselves with these conservatives. That may well turn out to have been the real factor that has delivered this strong result for the conservatives and a very disappointing result for the reformers. It is almost inevitable now that Thailand will have a conservative coalition government and a continuation of Mr. Anitin Chanwarikun as the prime minister. Jonathan Head in Bangkok for many in Hong Kong, Jimmy Lai has been regarded as a hero for criticizing the Chinese authority's human rights Record now, the media tycoon has been sentenced to 20 years in prison after being found guilty of foreign collusion. He's the most prominent person in Hong Kong to be charged under the National Security Law, which was introduced by China in 2020. Our correspondent in Hong Kong, Danny Vincent, told me more. Jimmy Lai has been considered the number one target of the National Security Law. As soon as it was introduced, many observers started to question if this law had indeed been manufactured to actually target people like Jimmy Lai. The authorities say that Jimmy Lai is guilty of colluding with foreigners. He organized many trips to America and spoke with many American officials. That's the first charge. The second charge is sedition. Now I'm outside court here and I've been speaking to people and getting the reaction. Many people are surprised. They expected a severe sentencing, but 20 years has been a surprise. What condition is? Mr. L mean? I mean, he's a 78 year old man and we know he's already been held in custody for some time. I've been following this story for five years since when he was originally arrested and released on bail. I've been speaking to his family. I've seen letters and drawings from Jimmy Lai in prison. His family say that his mind is strong. He's still very strong. He's a very religious man. He's got a lot of faith. But they say that his body is breaking down now. There's a number of health concerns that his family have raised. Of course, the authorities say that Jimmy Lai has adequate care in prison, but his family and his supporters worry that essentially a 20 year sentence is effectively a life sentence for Jimmy. Where does this leave the pro democracy movement in Hong Kong? I mean, many of their leaders have been locked up, others have fled. Does it still exist? I suppose is what I'm asking. The majority of Hong Kong's political opposition have either fled or they've been detained. Actually, events like this court proceedings is one of the events where pro democracy supporters come and gather. Of course, there's no protest in Hong Kong today. There's very little mass assembly. There's very little people speaking out and criticizing the authorities. The people that I've spoken to on the ground here, they feel very surprised that Jimmy Lai has been sentenced to 20 years. One person said to me that Jimmy Lai essentially tried to explain to Western countries what the Communist Party is actually like. Another supporter told me that it's a big surprise. No one would have imagined that somebody publishing a newspaper would end up in prison. Danny Vincent in Hong Kong, when Brenton Tarrant murdered 51 people at a mosque in New Zealand back in 2019. He didn't exactly try to hide what he was doing, but instead live streamed it on the Internet. A white supremacist. Tarrant had posted a manifesto online. So there was no great surprise at his plea when he appeared in court. Brendan Harrison Tarrant, you are separately in charges of 1 to 15 of the Crown charge list, charged that on the 15th day of March 2019 at Christchurch, you did murder. Yes, guilty. Tarrant was given a life sentence with no possibility of parole. But all these years later, he's now decided he wants to change his plea and he's going to court to ask permission to do so. I asked our correspondent Katie Watson, why he was retracting his guilty plea when he'd already admitted to carrying out the murders. Well, he did admit to carrying out the murders, but that was in 2020 and the attack actually happened a whole year before that. Now, his argument is that he was incapable of making rational decisions because of his torturous and inhumane conditions in prison. And he's told the court that he didn't have the mental health required to be making informed decisions at the time. He was making choices. They were not choices made voluntarily. They were not choices made rationally due to the conditions. Now what he wants to do is withdraw the guilty plea. If the court says that that is not possible, there'll be a further hearing later in the year to consider an appeal. If the court does allow him to withdraw the guilty plea, then the case will be sent back for him to stand trial. But the hearing is scheduled to carry on for the rest of the week. But can I get it straight, do we know if he's going to actually claim that he didn't carry out these killings, which, given the circumstances in which they took place, the live streaming, etcetera, Would certainly be stretching credibility. Should I? Well, he's basically saying that because of the conditions in prison and he was unable to make these decisions. So, yes, he wants to withdraw that guilty plea. So that would mean that then there would be a trial. The attack happened March 2019. It took a year for him to plead guilty and he was sentenced in August of 2020. So retracting that guilty plea would mean then he would be standing trial. And that's one of the big concerns that certainly with the family and relatives of the victims, many of whom are watching this hearing in Christchurch, he's attending court via video link and the family are watching this with an hour's delay. There's a lot of concern that this is a way of him trying to kind of win back some limelight. I spoke to a victim's sister just a few days ago and this concern that it's kind of digging over this trauma and revealing this trauma again that's been so difficult, obviously for the family and for the victims and for New Zealand as a whole. Because Jacinda Arden, when was sentenced, the prime minister at the time said that this life sentence without parole would mean that effectively New Zealand would hear nothing of this man ever again. And of course, that is no longer the case with him in court this week. And that's, I think, very difficult for the nation, but of course for the victims and families. Katie Watson the Seattle Seahawks have won the super bowl, the biggest prize in American football. They convincingly beat the New England Patriots by 29 points to 13 in California. But the pre show entertainment was provided by the punk band Green Day, whose singer once compared Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler. And the Grammy Award winner Bad Bunny headlined the halftime show with a colorful celebration of Hispanic culture. He's been an outspoken critic of the Trump administration's immigration crackdown. President Trump described the Spanish language performance as terrible, disgusting and an affront to America. However, our North America correspondent Peter Bowes said that Bad Bunny seemed to go down well with the his performance was, I've got to say, overwhelmingly positive. It was mostly in Spanish, at one point saying in Spanish that he was there at Super Bowl 60 because I never, ever stopped believing in myself. There was lots of very high energy, lots of color, lots of screaming from the crowd. I did hear him say in English, God bless America, and went on to list countries from all over Latin America. It is the first time in the history of the super bowl that the entertainment has been done largely in Spanish. There were a couple of surprises guests Lady Gaga and Ricky Martin. The crowd went particularly wild. For Lady Gaga, that really was a surprise. She performed Die With a Smile, one of her ballads from a couple of years ago. Bad Bunny at one point handed what looked like a replica of his Grammy Award to a young child and said always believe in yourself. The final song that he performed was dtmf, the title track of his album from last year. This is a very nostalgic emotional ballad, a love letter to Puerto Rico. So I think all things concept considered, this was Bad Bunny not repeating his more controversial Ice out comment that he made at the Grammys. It was much more celebratory, a huge party, as he himself had predicted. And yet I gather Donald Trump has already criticized the halftime performances. Yes. Posting on Truth Social, his social media platform, he says in part, the super bowl halftime show is absolutely terrible, one of the worst ever in capitals. It makes no sense, he writes, is an affront to the greatness of America and doesn't represent our standards of success, creativity or excellence. He goes on, nobody understands a word this guy is saying. And the dancing, the words of Donald Trump here is disgusting, especially for young children that are watching from throughout the usa. Peter Bowes in Los Angeles still to come in this podcast, it's about a tradition and my father and his father before him used to do kites. Return to the skies of Lahore for Pakistan's much missed Besant Festival. If you're an H Vac technician and a call comes in, Grainger knows that you need a partner that helps you find the right product fast and hassle free. And you know that when the first problem of the day is a clanking blower motor, there's no need to break a sweat. With Grainger's easy to use website and product details, you're confident you'll soon have everything humming right along. Call 1-800-GRAINGER clickgrainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done. Does your dessert game need a makeover? Scoop it or swirl it. That's the sound of an ice cream shop on your countertop. The Ninja Creami helps you turn almost anything into ice cream, from sweet and indulgent to protein packed and low cal. No skimping on flavor. Reward yourself, Hit your macros, do dessert your way. No sacrifice, no stress, just flawless ice cream. However you love it, treat, repeat. Pretty sweet. Get your Ninja Creami today. A fresh financial you is closer than you think. With MyFico, you can get the right score for your credit goal, including your FICO scores used for mortgages, auto loans and credit cards. MyFICO provides your FICO score straight from the people that created it, and you can compare your FICO scores and credit reports from all three bureaus, Experian, TransUnion and Equifax, side by side. Understanding your credit has never been easier. So use MyFico to get a clearer picture of your credit in 2026. Visit MyFico.com or download the MyFico app to get started today. If you're an H Vac technician and a call comes in, Grainger knows that you need a partner that helps you find the right product fast and hassle free. And you know that when the first problem of the day is a clanking blower motor. There's no need to break a sweat. With Grainger's easy to use website and product details, you're confident you'll soon have everything humming right along. Call 1-800-GRAINGER clickgrainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done. Here in the uk, the Prime Minister's position seems increasingly perilous. Keir Starmer is under fire for admitting that he appointed the last British Ambassador to the us, despite knowing about his continued friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. Peter Mandelson was sacked from the job. And allies of the Prime Minister have tried to suggest that the appointment wasn't really Sir Keir's fault, but rather the responsibility of those who advised him. And it was presumably with that in mind that on Sunday, the Prime Minister's most senior adviser, Morgan McSweeney, resigned. As our UK politics correspondent Rob Watson explained, he's resigned in order to try and get his boss out of a very tight spot indeed, Sikhir Starmer, because essentially he's hoping that by saying, look, I was the one who persuaded the Prime Minister to appoint Peter Mandelson, that that will somehow take the heat off of the Prime Minister. It was a decision that the two of them took together, but absolutely it's Morgan McSweeney ultimately laying down his political life, as it were, for his boss, which does raise the question, will it work? Will people accept that it was his responsibility and he's the fall guy, or will Keir Starmer still face blame? It may work a bit, Paul, in the short term, but here is the fundamental problem that, fairly or unfairly, many Labour Party activists, of course, including their MPs, have already decided that Sir Keir Starmer is a poor leader of the Labour Party and a poor Prime Minister. And I don't really think that there's much that's going to change that. Whether he offers up Morgan McSweeney, important as Morgan McSweeney is central as he is to the Prime Minister's operation, whether that's really going to help in the longer term. So there is this sense at Westminster that, yes, this is a dramatic moment that secure Starmer is hoping that it really is going to change the political weather. But there is the sense that the Prime Minister is a man living on borrowed time as far as his own party is concerned. Morgan McSweeney was sometimes described as this sort of Svengali figure who kept things going at Downing Street. His absence, presumably, is also just going to be a problem for Keir Starmer. Keeping that show on the road, very much so. And, you know, Morgan McSweeney is one of these people. You describe him as the most important guy that you've never heard of. That happens a lot in politics. I mean, people wouldn't know he was in Britain or around the world. But he's been absolutely central to Sakir Starmer's political operation for over six years now. He masterminded Secure winning the Labour leadership in 2020. He was the mastermind behind Secure Starmer and Labour's extraordinary landslide election victory just in 2024. So he's behind everything he advises on policy, personnel, government communication, direction. So, you know, while on the one hand Sikir Starmer is hoping that sacrificing Morgan McSweeney will somehow change the political weather, it's going to come at a huge cost. I mean, even if that were to work, who's going to run policy? Who's going to be the one helping him to decide in what direction the government should go? So it's a tricky one for Sakir Starmer either way. Rob Watson. Nages Mohamedi had only been out of prison for a few weeks. Released temporarily for medical treatment, the Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner was always expected to continue serving a 13 year sentence for propaganda activity against the state. However, it seems she's now been handed a new sentence by a court which found her guilty this time of collusion to commit crimes. The Iranian journalist Omid Mamarian explained how this came about. Nagis on December 12 attended the funeral of a lawyer in the northern city of Mashhad who died in his office very suspiciously. And so many civil society activists, lawyers and his colleagues, friends were suspicious about his death. Nagis had a very fiery speech at the funeral. Subsequently she was arrested and she has been in prison since. That speech received a lot of attention on social media in which she basically very harshly criticized the Islamic Republic Iran. And the government has brought her seven more years in prison. The government has accused her in participating in an illegal gathering and spreading propaganda against the regime. There has been several arrests in the past 24 hours. It seems that the Iranian government has started a severe crackdown among those political figures who are known. There are rumors circulating on social media among activists that people were getting ready to announce a silent protest at the 40th day of the killings in Iran. And that has made the government very agitated. If that's true, it explains why the government wants to prevent people coming back to the streets. And even it's a silent protest for the Iranian government. It's just very tricky after what happened on the streets on January 8 and January 9. The government has been accusing the enemy or the west or the agents of Mossad and others basically to justify the violence they have committed. They want to keep their base intact. But, you know, when people start coming to the streets again for grievances that make sense to everybody, including many people in their base, we will see signs of crack. You can use aggression for some time for some people, but you cannot use aggression at all times for everyone in Iran. But, you know, we know that people would come back to the streets. And every time it becomes harder for their government to justify the violence for its loyalist space, the Revolutionary Guards, they also, they have the same grievances. Omid Mamarian While Iran has once again locked up a critic of the government, Venezuela has released one. Juan Pablo Guanipa had been detained since May last year, and he's just the latest to be let out of jail since President Nicolas Maduro was captured by US forces and replaced with his vice president. However, Mr. Guanipo's son Ramon insists this does not mean an end to the country holding political prisoners. I want to tell President Trump that he must not be fooled. They said they are going to release prisoners and they didn't. And the releasing of 20 says nothing. I mean, it means nothing. We need everyone being released. The imprisonment of government critics does remain a key issue for those demanding reform in Venezuela, as our global affairs correspondent Ambarasan Ethirachan explains. Hundreds of Venezuelan families continue to anxiously await an unknown number of releases promised by the interim government. Many of them were put in jail for opposing the autocratic rule of Nicolas Maduro, who is now in a prison in New York on drug trafficking charges. Juan Pablo Guanipa, a former vice president of the national assembly, went into hiding after being accused of terrorism and treason for challenging the result of the 2024 presidential election. He was tracked down Venezuelan security forces, and detained in May 2025. In a social media post, his son Ramon Gwanipa said his whole family would soon be able to embrace each other again. He called on the Venezuelan government to immediately release hundreds of people unjustly imprisoned. Families of those in jail say the releases have progressed slowly. The rights group Foro Penal says it has verified more than 380 releases of political prisoners since the 8th of Ambarjan. Flying a kite in Pakistan can land you in jail. It's considered dangerous because people sometimes put broken glass on the strings to attack other people's kites in competitions. Also, religious conservatives consider Kite flying immoral because it distracts people from focusing on Islam. But despite these concerns, the city of Lahore has once again been allowed to hold its annual kite festival Besant. And our correspondent Caroline Davies is there. Up, up, up. Sorry, sorry. Turns out flying a kite isn't that easy. At least I'm not the only one learning. It's been nearly two decades since Bessant was last allowed in Lahore. At the time Abu Bakr Ahmed was only six years old. Yeah, it's very difficult. Our old nations here are very, very excited about it and as you can see that our elders are flying kites and they know how to fly the kite here and we Gen Z's don't know how to fly kites. Across Lahore the skies are filled with the flicker of multi coloured kites, the wafts of barbecue, the sound of drums. Everyone is searching for a good roof, ideally with some good music. It's not all about the kite flying even for lifelong Lahores like Kanwal Amin. It's gathering, it's love, it's all the relatives. We come together, meet and have lots of fun. While flying kite is, it's okay, flying kite is a thing but the main thing is bounding. We get bounding here but I just watch and see and enjoy it and eat good food. Kashif Siddiqui shows me pictures of his last besant. Then his son was three. Now he's here with his own children. This is our besant 25 years back and this runs in our blood. It's not about kite and thread, it's about tradition. And my father and his father before him used to do. The festival is centuries old, much loved. But the risks that come with the kites are real. Kite flying is more kite fighting. The aim to try to cut your opponent's string before they cut yours. Entertaining the crowd. It's led to sharper stronger strings, some coated in powdered glass, others made of metal or chemicals. This is the chemical string. This is the chemical string. It stretches, it does not break easily. Faisal Kamran is Deputy Inspector General of Lahore Police. So why is that a danger? Because if, if it comes across, it comes in contact with human skin, it will not break away at high speed. If a motorcyclist is moving on the road, it does not break, it will cut his throat. Those threads are now banned and motorcyclists have been given metal rods sticking up between their handlebars to stop any from becoming tangled around their necks. Police say they've increased surveillance to stop aerial firing and keep the city safe, with only three days permitted to celebrate. It's a late night, so it's just gone midnight. Not that you would know that from walking through the walled city in the hall. So packed and crowded and you can see on pretty much every single rooftop there are people still out flying kites and enjoying the sand. No one seems ready to go home. Many have spent nearly two decades waiting for a night just like this. Caroline Davies in Lahore and that's all from us for now. If you want to get in touch, you can email us@globalpodcastbc.co.uk you can also find us on XBCWorldService. Use the hashtag globalnewspod. And don't forget our sister podcast, the Global Story, which goes in depth and beyond the headlines on one big story. Available wherever you get your podcasts. This edition of the Global News Podcast was mixed by Sholota Hadroy Tajimska and produced by Wendy Urquhart and Arian Kochi. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Paul Moss. Until next time. Goodbye. If you're the purchasing manager at a manufacturing plant, you know having a trusted partner makes all the difference. That's why hands down, you count on Grainger for auto reordering. With on time restocks, your team will have the cut resistant gloves they need at the start of their shift and you can end your day knowing they've got safety well in hand. Call 1-800-GRAINGER click granger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.