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Global News Podcast
Peace talks continue two years after October 7th attacks
00:30:22
A minute's silence is observed across Israel to remember the Hamas attack in 2023
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This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the uk.
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This is the story of the One. As a maintenance supervisor at a manufacturing.
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Facility, he knows keeping the line up and running is a top priority.
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That's why he chooses Grainger, because when a drive belt gets damaged, Grainger makes.
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America is changing and so is the world.
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But what's happening in America isn't just a cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.
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I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, dc.
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I'm Tristan Redman in London and this is the Global Story.
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Every weekday we'll bring you a story from this intersection where the world and America meet.
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Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Alex Ritson and at 17 hours GMT on Tuesday the 7th of October, these are our main stories. Israel is marking the second anniversary of the Hamas attack that started the war in Gaza as mediators are reported to have reached an understanding with Hamas and Israel on an agenda for indirect negotiations. Angry Gen Z takes to the streets of Morocco for the 11th day in a row. British police say they've dismantled a huge international smuggling operation in stolen mobile phones. Also in this podcast, a night off from economic woes for Argentina's President Milei as he headlines a rock concert and alive and whale the remarkable comeback of humpbacks off Australia's east coast as Israel marks the second anniversary of the Hamas attack that sparked the war in Gaza. Mediators are reported to be moving forward with President Trump's plan for peace in the territory. Talks are taking place in Egypt and as we record, there appears to be the beginnings of an understanding between the Palestinians and Israelis. A senior Palestinian source familiar with the Sharm el Sheikh negotiations has told the BBC that the discussions will follow a five point framework, starting with ending the war and the exchange of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners. Earlier, a minute silence was observed in Israel and sirens and car horns sounded at the site of the Nova festival, where more than 340 mostly young people were killed in in the Hamas rampage. Members of their families and other Israelis traveled to the site to pay their respects. Memorial events have also been held at other sites where the attacks resulted in Hundreds more dead and kidnapped. 251 people were taken hostage on that day, 20 of whom are believed to still be alive and hidden in Gaza. Our Middle east correspondent Yoland Nell has been at Raim, the site of the Nova festival and sent the this report.
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We had sirens going off and car horns being sounded to mark this two year anniversary. We just had a one minute of silence and a large crowd has now gathered behind me for this commemorative event. It's really being led by the families of the bereaved and survivors of those attacks. On the 7th of October 2023, what happened here? Huge numbers of young people had gathered for a dance festival. It was the end of the Jewish holidays and that's when Hamas launched its attacks. It began with sirens going off warning of incoming missiles and as people ran into their shelters nearby. Then you started to have these heavily armed gunmen making their way across the border. And there are pictures now of the more than 340 young people, most of them who were killed here that day with their stories and members of their families have been coming looking at those portraits. Some very tearful moments here. It was also a natural place for many Israelis to come because it was the single site where the biggest number of people were killed on 7th October 2023. And many people just want to remember that and to pay their respects to the dead.
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Yoland Nell Gadi Moses was one of those taken hostage on October 7th and taken to Gaza. He was released from captivity 481 days. At 81, he's the oldest Israeli hostage to return alive. He's trying to lead revival efforts at his ravaged kibbutz. BBC Arabic's Michael Chaval visited his community to hear his story.
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Nothing in life prepares you for such a situation. I did not see anyone for 481 days. I did not speak a word in Hebrew. I was completely alone. Gadi Moses is the oldest surviving hostage released from Gaza. The toughest moments are the yearning for the children and grandchildren all the time. When you're in captivity, you're in stress. Why is he hugging the rifle? Why is he charging the bullets? What is he going to do? In such an atmosphere, you cannot say, my wife is dead. I'm sad now. Through this gate, the terrorists abducted me. Turned right on the road through the boulevard and from there west to the Gaza. Over a quarter of kibbutz near Oz's residents were killed or kidnapped. This vineyard, three of its founders were murdered. Moses is the only one left alive. On very hot days we sat here, sipped wine and felt the joy. The release of the hostages must come first because they don't have time. I'm angry, I'm sad. I can't think of anything else. I told the Prime Minister, save us. Cut the bureaucracy and give an order to release the money. Our homes were destroyed, our community was destroyed. People who lived here peacefully and quietly. The Prime Minister is not interested in us who lived here. The Shalev family. They murdered the father David and the son Tal. It is hard now. It is sad. You can easily sink into depression, but not in my book. I am very sorry. In my toolbox, depression does not exist. The cornerstone marks the beginning of the rebuilding and construction of Kibbutz near Oz. From grief, destruction and the events of 7 October 2023, from a failure within a failure, we take the first step towards revival within revival. Our hope is that the members of the community, wherever they are young and old, will join the optimistic forces and rebuild the paradise called near Ulster. A person has to be a sick optimist in order to make wine here, sit down to drink in front of the Palestinian village, watch the spot you were abducted from and believe things will be good, but the future will be good.
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Michael Chival from BBC Arabic hearing the story of Gadi Moses, who was the oldest hostage to return from Gaza alive. As commemorations to mark the second anniversary of the Hamas attack were taking place, Israeli airstrikes on Gaza continued. What is it like for people living there? A question for our Gaza correspondent, Rushdie Abu Alouf, who's covering the war from Istanbul because Israel won't allow international correspondence into the territory.
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It's grief and anger in Gaza with like thousands of Palestinians posting on social media, their before and after images and videos of their houses and villages and towns. It has been devastated by two years of war. No one in Gaza I think ever expected, including me, that the war would last for two years. It was just a quiet Saturday morning where most mothers are preparing school bags and lunchboxes for their kids because Saturday is a normal working day in Gaza and suddenly everything change once and forever. And since then, you know, thousands of people killed, most of the population, entire population displaced in other places. Two thirds of Gaza Strip is under active Israeli control and military operation. 12 people were killed just overnight in Gaza. While Israel continue to bomb different areas in Gaza, focusing in Gaza City where tanks are close to the city center, advancing more into the center of Gaza City. The biggest city, one house, a million people, half of the population they used to live in Gaza City. Many people posted the picture of their loved ones they lost in the war. Others were posting before and after images and videos of their life that they miss, you know, all of them. They said, we missed our life. One person told me this morning that he lost his old, older version of himself and now he's became displaced for the seventh time. He lost member of his family and he's struggling to find food and clean water for his kids.
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There is finally hope for an end to this war soon. What is the latest on those talks?
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The Egyptian mediators, the Qataris, are involving heavily in trying to remove the obstacles and get both the Israeli and Hamas get closer to the, to the point where a ceasefire could be reached. A lot of hope, but a lot of, you know, spectacle and challenges ahead.
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Rushdie Abo aloof in Istanbul. To other news now. And British police say they've dismantled an international gang suspected of smuggling up to 40,000 stolen mobile phones from the UK to China in the last year. Eighteen suspects have been arrested and more than 2,000 stolen devices have been discovered. Police believe the gang could be responsible responsible for exporting up to half of all phones stolen in London. BBC News was given access to the investigation. Seema Katecha reports.
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It started with a stolen phone in a box in a warehouse near Heathrow. With it were more than 800 phones. Police intercepted more shipments and forensic tests led to the identification of two men, both Afghan nationals, arrested on suspicion of running an international smuggling gang. Trading phones in the back of their car, iPhones, some wrapped in tin foil to avoid detection. They've since been charged with conspiring to receive stolen goods. 80,000 phones were stolen in the capital last year. Most are thought to be shipped to China, where they can fetch up to £4,000 each because they can bypass censorship, unlike those sold there. As part of the same investigation, police raided multiple properties targeting those suspected of being further down the chain.
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What happened?
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I don't understand.
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My baby scared, Please.
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Moments later, the arrest of a Bulgarian national.
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We've identified and arrested an individual linked to mobile phone offences, namely targeting pickpockets that are operating currently within central part of London.
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So what we're doing this morning is.
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Try and disrupt these networks and bring.
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These perpetrators to justice. So we've just had an update from officers inside the property and they say that during their search, they've already found dozens of electronic devices, including tablets and phones. And they've laid out many of those devices on that bed just over there. And that's only so far. They anticipate finding even more throughout the day. One More place downstairs as the light creeps in. Another arrest. In total, 15 were made across 28 properties.
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Sit down.
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For many of us, this is how the nightmare begins. One minute it's in your hand, the next it's gone. They were dressed as a delivery rider, gloves on. They had a balaclava on as well as a mask. And it also happened to Natalie. She says a significant rise in phone theft shows the police need to boost their efforts. I think Metropolitan Police should be doing a lot more, possibly setting up some more CCTV surveillance or seeing if there's any way that they've got some undercover police officers in London. A mobile is taken every eight minutes. With the explosion in phone theft and more than a thousand fewer police officers since last year, the question is, can they keep pace with the gangs?
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Seema Katecha reporting. Still to come on the podcast, with no end in sight to the US Federal government shutdown, what impact is it having on emergency workers?
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I have to show up to do my job whether I get paid or not. I'm a mandatory responder, so we're showing up with a promissory note of being paid. I have three children. I'm a single father. I have to work two jobs.
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America is changing and so is the world.
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But what's happening in America isn't just the cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.
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I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. i'm.
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Tristan Redman in London and this is the global story.
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Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from this intersection where the world and America meet.
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Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Protests are continuing in Morocco for an 11th consecutive day as members of Gen Z. Children born either side of the turn of the century are demanding more jobs and better education and healthcare. The country will be co hosting the World cup in 2030, but many think it's an unnecessary extravagance. Richard Hamilton is a former BBC correspondent in Morocco. I began by asking him if the protests were gathering momentum.
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Yes, I was in Tangier in the north of Morocco the weekend before last. And on the first night there were about 1,000 people walking down the streets, but they were brandishing Palestinian flags, so I assumed it was a pro Palestinian demonstration. Then the next night there were slightly less people, but still several hundred without the Palestinian flags chanting in ARABIC and it wasn't really clear what they were protesting about. But then I realized that this was happening throughout Morocco in all the provinces. And it spread like wildfire. Three people have been shot dead, more than 400 people arrested, about 20 police vehicles being set on fire. So the protests have been met with a fairly brutal response. As you say, it's a Gen Z movement. There are no specific leaders, but one of those who's a voice amongst the protesters is the Moroccan rapper Huda Abouz, who's also known as Katek.
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It's a call for action, it's a call for change. And I think it was such a.
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Needed initiative for the moment.
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And seeing younger generation joining the protest was really heartwarming.
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I've been raising my voice.
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I've always been politically engaged. I come from a family where my dad is a political figure who has.
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Been fighting for justice since the 70s.
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So for me it's a very natural reaction and it's a citizen responsibility.
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But Richard, this anger over the World cup being staged in Morocco, don't they see the World cup as something to celebrate?
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Yes, they do. And it's a great, it's the world's greatest showcase, the greatest stage on earth for Morocco to show itself as a modern country that welcomes everyone. And the protesters say they actually in their placards they say we have the stadiums but where are the hospitals? So they're pointing to this disparity. It's estimated $5 billion is being spent on the World cup including what will be the biggest stadium in the world, near Casablanca. But at the same time there's very few doctors, there's very few hospitals and the average wage is very, very low. So there's this huge gap between rich and poor.
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And Richard, Morocco has a long history of protests.
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They do. You can even go back to the 1980s when there were the so called bread riots about the price of food. Then of course there was the Arab Spring. It was known as the February 20th movement after 20th February 2011. Then in 2016 there was this movement in the north of Morocco called the Hirak when a fish seller was crushed to death and people rose up. And now we've got what's happening today. And this is called the Gen Z212 movement and that number comes from the.
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Country code of Morocco, Richard Hamilton. Efforts are underway in France to find a way out of the political crisis caused by the resignation of the third Prime Minister within a year. President Macron has asked the outgoing premier Sebastien Lecagneu to hold talks with political part and has given him until Wednesday to find a parliamentary majority. The far left and far right have rejected his overtures and are calling for new elections. But some centre left and centre right leaders haven't ruled out the possibility of a new coalition. Our Paris correspondent Hugh Scofield spoke to Lucy Hocking about the chances of a deal.
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Slim but not non existent, I would say. I mean, the question that everyone is asking is why 48 hours should Sebastian Lecorn be able to do what he had three and a half weeks to do before that is to find some kind of arrangement with the party. So maybe when they're right up against a deadline, there'll be some give somewhere. But frankly, I don't think any of us can really see where that's going to come. The, the arithmetic, the logic is still very difficult. You've, you've got Le Corne himself representing the kind of pro Macron middle ground, and then you've got the blocks on the left and the right. Ideally, he'd like to get some of the conservative Republicans, that's the sort of centre right, if you like, in as well as some socialist, that is the centre left ideally. But you know, that's just on paper. In reality, neither of those camps can stand the other. Each represents ideas that the other is very much opposed to. So it's very hard to see, given the numbers, how he can forge some kind of arrangement or non aggression pact or whatever, which would allow a government to function and above all bring forward a budget, which is of course where all the differences would be crystallized, because in the budget would come the decisions about how to raise and spend money, which are basically what divide people. There are also of course, calls for President Macron to resign. And another voice added there today was a very important one, Edouard Philippe, his former Prime Minister, someone to whom he was very close for many years. In the first term, what he's suggesting is not an immediate resignation, but a kind of an arranged organized resignation by President Macron for sometime next year, so that the country can prepare for that he would agree to step down early, shall we say, in the middle of next year. It's an idea, but there's no sign of others following him. But you know, all this is possible and the only person who can decide any of it is President Macron. He's the one who will decide on a new Prime Minister. He was the one who'll decide on a dissolution of Parliament. He's the one who'll decide if he stays on or resigns. It's all very much up to him, but he's the one, the only one. In all this brouhaha and noise, he's the one staying silent.
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And all of this chaos, frankly, Hugh, and uncertainty as well. When France is the eurozone's second biggest.
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Economy, the figures are all bad and not catastrophic. But I mean, clearly none of this is helping. Business confidence is down, consumer confidence is down, the cost of borrowing is going up. Key point, when everyone knows that the country's debt is such an important part of its future, how to deal with that debt. And of course, when France starts floundering, which people fear it will, then that has a knock on effect in the eurozone, on the strength of the euro, on the confidence of its partners and so on. So obviously this is all being looked on with great consternation by the whole of the European Union.
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Hugh Schofield, the US Government shutdown is approaching its second week with no end in sight to the political deadlock. The failure to pass a new budget means that pay has been suspended for roughly 2 million federal workers. Some 750,000 have had their jobs temporarily suspended. But many who work in essential services, including firefighters, still have to turn up to their jobs even though they're getting no wages. Ed Butler reports on how this is affecting workers and the wider US economy.
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My name is William. I am 38 years old and I am a federal firefighter for the United States Department of Defense.
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William didn't want me to publish his surname for fear of reprisal from his.
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Employers in Washington State.
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I'm proud to be a firefighter and I'm proud to serve. But it's hard because we are so vastly undercompensated for what we actually do. It's bad. And then just to throw in a government shutdown on top of that. How can you make us feel worse?
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Because after months of deadlock, the US.
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Congress has failed to agree a new budget.
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The government's day to day activities are now being starved of cash. The some services have continued, but in many cases workers who provide services are.
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Being suspended, at least for now. Doreen Greenwald is president for the National Treasury Employees Union.
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The processing of tax returns will stop.
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Refunds will stop. You know, inspectors who inspect food may be not able to do that.
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A shutdown hurts everyone.
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Every one of these federal employees want to go to work, but they're prohibited from doing that because Congress hasn't done their jobs.
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I have to show up to do my job whether I get paid or not. I'm a mandatory responder. So we're showing up with a promissory note of being paid. I have three children. I'm a single father I have to work two jobs normally to just afford rent and food in this state and now one of those incomes is taken away.
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What is the mood like at work?
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Anger, disgust. I'm stressed out, I'm doing too much just to get by.
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Then you're in debt?
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Yeah, I don't know anyone who's not in some way. I mean, some people have taken out the loans on their retirement to get by. Some people have taken credit cards and maxed them out just to keep eating. You know, it's insane.
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Congressional leaders sound like they're settling in for a long political fight. So what are the wider signals from the US economy? There have been some rather mixed ones of late. We've had some less than brilliant job numbers for instance, and surveys suggest low consumer confidence. On the other hand, though, the most recent GDP figures showed a very healthy sounding 3.8% economic growth. So what's really going on?
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Certain industries are doing okay and obviously at the top of the list is artificial intelligence. AI is kind of driving the economic train both in terms of all the capital spending that's going on, all the data centers, that kind of stuff. But then you got manufacturing, it's in recession, you've got agriculture, that's in recession, you've got mining, that's in recession. So you net it all up and it shows you an economy that's not going anywhere.
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Quickly, the words of Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody analytics, ending that report by Ed Butler. Argentina's radical right wing president Javier Milei is no stranger to showmanship. In his election rallies in 2023, his trademark action was to wield a chainsaw. Fast forward two years, he's headlining a rock concert in the capital Buenos. Clad in black leather, the 54 year old President waved the national flag in front of supporters. Our global affairs reporter Mimi Swaby has been watching the performance. I asked her what is he trying to achieve?
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He's lost public support in recent months. So to try and revive these political fortunes ahead of midterm elections later this month, also to promote his book. But above all he's put on this not just political rally but show to try and breathe some new life into his electoral campaign which has really been decimated in or by a series of setbacks. In recent weeks he did a lot worse than expected in Buenos Aires provincial elections. Congress has overturned his veto on public spending increases. He had to ask the US for help when it comes to financial and security for the economy. And a member of his party has had to resign due to this really public drug scandal, which has captivated the nation. So he offered a show for people to try and win back their support. There were two versions of himself that he presented on stage. The first one was rock star Millay, clad in leather, like you said, really running around the stage, bringing a lot of energy to his performance, singing some hits by local artists. And the second was President Millay when he sat down with the government spokesperson, promoted his book. And I kind of jabbed at the opposition, saying that we're on the way to reducing inflation. We are halfway through on the bright path and the opposition have nothing on us.
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Great leather jacket. What did you make of his singing?
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Argentinian rock is a huge genre and I'm a fan. I'm a big fan of the many kind of national anthems that have come out of it. I'm not sure I would be listening to his covers in my free time. But you cannot fault his energy and his enthusiasm. He really was running around the stage. He brought a lot of energy and passion to his performance. He's not shy of the limelight, as we all know, and the fans. His crowd, which was a big crowd, seemed to be lapping it up. They were loving it. They were bouncing along with him. So I might not listen in my free time, but many Argentinians might be swayed by it.
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Mimi Swaby with that report. Now, if you happen to be on a boat off the eastern coast of Australia, this is a sound you might be hearing more frequently these days. That is a humpback whale. They were once almost hunted to extinction, but now they're making a comeback. A preliminary report by marine scientists estimates that the population has reached more than 50,000 off Australia's eastern coast, a figure that's even higher than before commercial whaling began. Wally Franklin helped found the Maritime Research Organisation Oceania project and co authored the report. How have humpback whales made this comeback?
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Well, they've probably taken advantage of the fact that all the other great species of whales that were hit very heavily during that last period of whaling In Antarctica, from 1900 to 1976, all of those populations, like the humpbacks, were hit very heavily, but they haven't recovered as well. And one of our first suggestions is that that's meant that there's been food there for our humpbacks just to continue to grow for the time being, because.
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Whales are still in conflict with humans and the relationship with fishing fleets is still not completely easy.
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That's true. Australians have embraced the eastern Australian humpback population. The data set that we're Using has been contributed to, not only by formal researchers and research organisations, but by nearly 700 individual citizen scientists, while either out on whale boats or from the shore, have been taking photographs of humpbacks and loading them onto an AI algorithm platform called Happywow. And this has meant that we've been able to assemble a quite extraordinary data set. The data set now runs from 1984 to 2024.
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So is this trend going to continue?
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We're hoping they will go on growing for a little longer. But what's important is that we're setting up a very sound, robust scientific method now of being able to estimate the abundance from the southern waters of the Great Barrier Reef lagoon, which is the overwintering and mating and breeding area of our eastern Australian humpbacks. And when the young whales are brought out of that area, they have a long coastline which they amble along while the mothers feed them. And very likely that has contributed to the reproductive success of this group. The last formal abundance estimate of this group of whales was back in 2015, and they reported the population was 25,000. Now, our estimate has a very similar result, but for us, the growth has continued at a steady rate of 10% right up to the present. It's an amazing conservation story and it's also an amazing story of the involvement and engagement of the Australian people.
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Conservationist Wally Franklin. And that's all 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, you can send us an email. The address is globalpodcastbc.co.uk. you can also find us on X@BBC World Service. Use the hashtag globalnewspod. This edition was mixed by Joe McCartney and the producer was Alice Adderley. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Alex Ritson. Until next time. Goodbye.
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America is changing and so is the world.
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But what's happening in America isn't just a cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.
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I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, dc.
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I'm Tristan Redman in London, and this is the Global Story.
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Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from this intersection where the world and America meet.
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Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.