Spain dismisses reports US wants it suspended from Nato

Summary

Global News Podcast — Spain Dismisses Reports US Wants It Suspended from NATO
BBC World Service | Host: Charlotte Gallagher | Air Date: April 24, 2026

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Overview

This episode dives into high-stakes international tensions, including rumors of the US seeking Spain’s suspension from NATO, fallout from America’s war in Iran, implications for NATO unity, shifting positions on the Falkland Islands, and broader regional and technological developments. Powerful accounts also detail the fallout from Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse network in the UK, financial impropriety in US foreign operations, ongoing strife in Lebanon, climate diplomacy, and China’s new AI tool. The episode closes with a discussion of conspiracy theories in modern America and a quirky Australian tourist mishap.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. US Reportedly Considers Suspending Spain from NATO

Segment: 01:29–06:26

• Background: Reuters leaked a Pentagon email suggesting retaliation against Spain, following Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s opposition to the US-led war in Iran and his refusal to allow US military use of Spanish bases.
• Official Dismissals:
  • “We don’t work on the basis of emails. We work with official documents and official positions taken, in this case by the government of the United States.” — Frank Gardner, Security Correspondent (03:08)
  • Spain’s stance: supportive of allies but strictly within international law.
• NATO’s Structure:
  • The founding treaty doesn’t provide for suspending or expelling members.
  • "It would be self-punishing for the United States... It's got the use of two strategically very important bases in Spain." — Frank Gardner (03:49)
• Falkland Islands Angle:
  • The email suggests reviewing US recognition of British sovereignty over the Falklands, drawing a sharp response from the UK; Number 10 says sovereignty is “not up for discussion” and local choice is “paramount.” (05:04)

2. NATO under Strain — The Trump Factor

Segment: 06:15–07:40

• Donald Trump’s pressure campaign led to higher European defense spending but has now “gone too far,” with the US entering a self-described “war of choice.”
• Fallout: “It’s going badly for the US... rightly being blamed for the logjam now in the Strait of Hormuz.” — Frank Gardner (07:09)

3. Jeffrey Epstein’s Network in London

Segment: 08:18–12:35

• Findings:
  • BBC investigation uncovers that Epstein rented at least four flats for alleged victims in upscale London, arranged visas, and funded education.
  • Over 120 flights moving women in/out of the UK identified.
• Police Response:
  • Metropolitan Police did not investigate in 2015, citing jurisdictional constraints. Now, UK police are reevaluating, sharing info with US authorities.
• Justice and Accountability:
  • “No sex trafficking or human trafficking operation is done by one person... There would have been people helping him move women that might know more…” — Chichi Azundu, Investigations Correspondent (10:35)
  • “It’s not just Epstein, who’s now dead, but his associates. But also what about the men that were using these women?... There’s potentially an offense… about paying for sex with somebody subject to coercion and exploitation.” — Harriet Wistrich, Center for Women’s Justice (12:02)

4. US Special Forces Insider Trading Scandal

Segment: 12:35–15:14

• Gannon Ken Van Dyke, a Special Forces operative, allegedly placed $30,000 in bets on whether Venezuela’s leader Maduro would be deposed during a US covert operation—winning $400,000.
• “The thrust of these charges… is that he acted on confidential government information.” — Nick Marsh (13:32)
• Broader context: ongoing investigations into insider trading linked to US foreign military and political actions.

5. Lebanon-Israel Border Tensions

Segment: 15:14–20:05

• Despite an extended ceasefire, Israeli forces order evacuations of southern Lebanese towns; sporadic fire and airstrikes continue.
• Personal Stories:
  • Naya, a Lebanese teenager, was traumatized after filming airstrikes—her mother Gyda describes ongoing stress from drone activity and disrupted childhoods.
  • “Every time they hear [the drone], they know that something bad is going to happen.” — Gyda (16:26)

6. Climate Diplomacy: Countries Accelerating Fossil Fuel Transition

Segment: 24:07–26:51

• Disaffected nations gather in Colombia to plan a pathway away from fossil fuels, frustrated by big-oil opposition at COP30.
• “This is a coalition of the willing… We’re the ones who want to go ahead with this.” — Matt McGrath, Environment Correspondent (24:30)
• Major producers (US, Russia, China, Mideast states) absent, but coalition still represents ~20% of global production.

7. China’s New AI Tool and the Tech Race

Segment: 26:51–30:04

• China launches DeepSeek v4 in collaboration with Huawei, using Chinese chips—a strategic break from US-made hardware.
• “Using the chatbot at basic level for Deepseek is completely free… but it suffers from the same big problem: censorship.” — Will Chalk (28:57)
• Access to sensitive historical queries remains blocked, raising issues of usability beyond China.

8. The Conspiracists: Why MAGA Women Believe

Segment: 30:04–34:46

• Documentary “The Conspiracists” explores the appeal of conspiracy theories among middle-aged American women.
• Rapport built by not discussing politics, but everyday struggles fostered trust.
• “They are really true believers… it’s a way of making sense of the world. It’s a little bit like a lot of sort of faith-based kind of belief systems.” — Liz Smith, filmmaker (32:44)
• Filmmakers use a non-confrontational, observational approach: “They would have shut down on me… Let people tell their stories.” — Liz Smith (33:32)
• Broader message: empathy and re-establishing trust can help bridge social fractures.

9. Quirky Closing: Australian Tourist Toilet Disaster

Segment: 35:12–35:54

• Tourist in Australian outback falls through a “long drop” toilet, enduring three hours stuck in sewage before rescue.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Frank Gardner on Spain & NATO:
  “I put that question to a NATO official… the founding charter does not foresee any suspension or expulsion of another member.” (03:49)
• On the Falklands row:
  “Sovereignty is not up for discussion. What matters is the choice of the residents there, and that is paramount.” — UK Government response (05:04)
• On Trump’s impact:
  “NATO is still struggling to deal with the quixotic nature of the Trump White House.” — Frank Gardner (06:26)
• Chichi Azundu on Epstein:
  “No sex trafficking or human trafficking operation is done by one person. It is effectively a pyramid scheme.” (10:35)
• Gyda on life in Lebanon:
  “The drone comes and goes all the time. The kids, every time they hear it, they start sending me messages from school… Are they going to hit?” (16:26)
• Liz Smith on conspiracy believers:
  “When I started it, I thought, surely they don’t believe all these outlandish ones… And you realize that actually it’s a way of making sense of the world.” (32:44)
• Matt McGrath on climate diplomacy:
  “This is a coalition of the willing. We're the ones who want to go ahead with this.” (24:30)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Timestamp | Segment Description | |-------------|----------------------------------------------------------| | 01:29–06:26 | US-Spain NATO Tensions and Falkland Islands row | | 06:15–07:40 | NATO, the Trump factor, and political divisions | | 08:18–12:35 | Jeffrey Epstein UK abuse network investigation | | 12:35–15:14 | US Special Forces insider trading scandal (Venezuela) | | 15:14–20:05 | Lebanon-Israel ceasefire, families coping with conflict | | 24:07–26:51 | Colombia climate conference, acceleration beyond COP30 | | 26:51–30:04 | China’s DeepSeek AI, global tech rivalry | | 30:04–34:46 | “The Conspiracists” film — why MAGA women believe | | 35:12–35:54 | Australian tourist's outback toilet mishap |

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Tone & Style

The discussion remains deeply analytical and sober when covering political tensions, conflicts, and abuses, but pivots to a reflective, empathetic mode for personal stories and social phenomena. The journalism is rigorous yet accessible, offering global context interspersed with tangible human experiences. Lightness is introduced at the close with a slice of outback absurdity.

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For listeners: This episode succinctly captures the fragility of international alliances, the societal repercussions of abuse and war, and the personal toll of trauma and belief—all against a shifting backdrop of global power plays, both literal and technological.

Transcript

[Charlotte Gallagher]

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[Martha Stewart]

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[BBC News Presenter]

This is the global news podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Charlotte Gallagher and at 1500 hours GMT on Friday 24th April, these are our main stories. There are calls for unity within NATO after reports that the US might be seeking the suspension of Sports Spain because of its opposition to the Iran war, Israel's military has ordered a southern Lebanese town to evacuate despite the ceasefire, and China releases a new advanced AI tool in the global race for online dominance. Also in this podcast, how Jeffrey Epstein kept alleged sex abuse victims in London Flats.

[Liz Smith]

It's not just Epstein, of course, who's now dead, but his associates. But also what about the men that were using these women?

[BBC News Presenter]

America's war in Iran has led to several confrontations between Donald Trump and the leaders of some of Washington's NATO allies. Now the US is reported to be considering options for punishing some of those countries. Reuters news agency says that according to a leaked Pentagon email, these options include pushing for Spain to be suspended from NATO. Its Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, has been a fierce critic of the conflict and has forbidden the US from using military bases in Spain. Mr. Sanchez has been asked about these reports.

[Frank Gardner]

We don't work on the basis of emails.

[BBC News Presenter]

We work with official documents and official

[Charlotte Gallagher]

positions taken, in this case by the

[Frank Gardner]

government of the United States.

[Charlotte Gallagher]

The Spanish government's position is clear, full

[Frank Gardner]

cooperation with our allies, but always within the framework of international law.

[BBC News Presenter]

Another suggestion reportedly in the leaked email would be reviewing recognition of Britain's ownership of the Falkland Islands. NATO says the founding treaty did not provide for suspension of membership or expulsion. My colleague James Menendez asked our security correspondent Frank Gardner whether it was even possible for one NATO member to boot out another.

[Charlotte Gallagher]

Well, I don't think he can. I put that question to a NATO official a couple of hours ago and he responded very quickly saying that in NATO's founding charter it does not foresee any suspension or expulsion of another member. Now, there are things that the US could do short of trying to, you know, I don't think it can expel Spain. And it would also, and I should point this out, it would be self punishing for the United States. It's got the use of two strategically very important bases in Spain, Rota, which is a naval facility. I've been there. And that is incidentally where the US and its allies sanitized all the hideous chemical weapons that were taken from Syria after 2012, 2013. There was a ship that was anchored just off Rotor and did that. So it's got a strategic use. There's also Moron Air Base, but Spain didn't allow the use of either of those in support of this war of choice, as many are calling it, that the US and Israel chose to wage against Iran.

[James Menendez]

What about the threat to the UK over the Falkland Islands? People might have forgotten about them, but of course Britain and Argentina fought a war, didn't they, more than 40 years ago over them. I mean, is that potentially serious?

[Charlotte Gallagher]

The mention of the Falkland Islands is in the context that this Pentagon reportedly leaked email saying that the US is reviewing or might review its position over what it calls Europe's imperial possessions in inverted commas. And that includes the Falklands, which are 8,000 miles, say, what's that, 12,000 kilometers plus from the UK all the way down in the South Atlantic. Argentina claims them as their own. They call them La C? Malvinas. It's long been a bone of contention there. But the US has been largely supportive of the UK given the what used to be called the special relationship between the US and Britain, which is pretty afraid these days. But there was a referendum held a few years ago in the Falklands, asking Falkland Islanders, do you want to belong to Argentina or to Britain? And 99.8% voted to stay part of Britain. So the response from the UK Prime Minister's office this morning from number 10 Downing street is sovereignty is not up for discussion. What matters is the choice of the residents there, and that is paramount. And that hasn't changed as far as we know.

[James Menendez]

What is the big picture here, given this spat and what this leaked email has sort of done to keep that spat going? I mean, is it that NATO just isn't functioning properly at a political level at the moment?

[Charlotte Gallagher]

NATO, I think, is still struggling to deal with the quixotic nature of the Trump White House. I think most members would agree that Donald Trump did NATO a favor in his first term by threatening to pull out if NATO countries didn't raise their defense expenditure. Donald Trump is absolutely right when he says that Europe has been free riding on US Defense expenditure. The US has carried the bulk of, by far of the expense of defending Europe, while European countries have run down their defence budgets and spent the money instead on welfare. And the US has said, well, why should the taxpayer pay this? And of course, that plays very well to Donald Trump's MAGA base.

[Rajini Vaijanathan]

But.

[Charlotte Gallagher]

But he's gone too far in many cases and this is one of them, where he has embarked on a war that has nothing to do with NATO. It's a war of choice. It's going badly for the us not going quite so badly for Israel, which is very happy that it's destroyed much of Iran's leadership and its missiles, but it's going badly for the US because it is rightly being blamed for the logjam now in the Strait of Hormuz, whereby while pretending that they are in complete control of the Strait of Hormuz, Iran has effectively shut it.

[BBC News Presenter]

And we have more from Frank on this story on our YouTube channel. Search for BBC News on YouTube and you'll find the Global News podcast in the podcast section. A BBC investigation has found evidence that women who were allegedly abused by Jeffrey Epstein were housed by him in flats he rented in affluent parts of London after police decided not to investigate him. In 2015, Virginia Giuffre, an American woman who is Epstein's most prominent accuser, told police in London she was brought to the UK as part of an abuse ring. Our investigations correspondent, Chichi Azundu, told me more about what her team has found.

[Chichi Azundu]

Like a lot of journalists around the world, we're combing through the millions of documents in the Epstein files to put it into context. A lot of those documents are just single bits of paper. There's no context, sometimes there's no dates, there's no analysis around it. It's just bits of information. And using our investigative skills, we piece together bits of information regarding Epstein's presence in the uk and he could have been stopped by police Potentially after Virginia giuffre complained in 2015. And what we found was that he had paid the rent for at least four flats in central London. He had also assisted some of the women to gain visa status, sometimes even paid for their education, to learn English, for example, or to learn or go on an art course. We also noted that the number of flights that we thought he had transported women in and out of the UK had increased. We've so far found 120. And we noticed that he was moving women from the UK back and forth via the Eurostar to France. We put all of our findings to London's Metropolitan Police Force. It is the biggest police force in the uk, but it's not the only one that is involved in Epstein's movements in the uk. The Met Police basically, at the time of Virginia Giuffre's complaint in 2015, said that they weren't the right force to investigate her claims and so therefore did not launch a full investigation this time round. We showed them our investigative findings, we showed them the flats, we talked about the Eurostar. They didn't directly comment on any of that, but they have said that they are fully engaged alongside other forces trying to find out more. They're also in contact with authorities in the United States to seek further detail and ensure information sharing. The Metropolitan Police is just one of a number of British police forces that are assessing the information in the Epstein files to try and find out whether they should launch a full investigation into him or any potential co conspirators that may have helped him in the uk.

[BBC News Presenter]

Given that Epstein is dead, what can be done now?

[Chichi Azundu]

So given that Epstein is dead, that is a really valid question. He died in 2019 in prison whilst awaiting sex trafficking charges against minors. One thing during this investigation that we have uncovered or we have had hammered home to us by multiple people and experts, no sex trafficking or human trafficking operation is done by one person. It is effectively a pyramid scheme. This person that wants whatever is being trafficked delegates. There would have been people helping him move women that might know more, they might not have known they were partaking in that, but they might have information that could help. When it came to Epstein, there was suggestion that some of the women were lent out to other men for them to abuse. It's those kind of questions that we're now trying to answer and we're trying to dig into. And now, because of what we found, because of the release of the Epstein files by the Department of Justice, it does ask the question whether that could have been Interrupted after Virginia Giufre made her complaint in 2015 to UK police. Could the women that we now know through their lawyers were part of his abuse victims not have had to go through that?

[BBC News Presenter]

The BBC's findings have prompted calls for further police investigations. Harriet Wistrich is the founder of the center for Women's Justice, a UK advocacy charity, and has been speaking to the BBC.

[Liz Smith]

We need to take lessons from this and look at the ways in which these men can be held to account. And of course, it's not just Epstein, of course, who's now dead, but his associates. But also what about the men that were using these women and, and are getting the benefit, paying for their services, possibly, or exchanging benefits for. For their services? I mean, there's potentially an offense which is very rarely used about paying for sex with somebody subject to coercion and exploitation.

[BBC News Presenter]

A U. S Special Forces soldier involved in the military operation to capture Venezuela's former leader Nicolas Maduro has been after being accused of placing multiple bets on Mr. Maduro being removed from power. Nick Marsh has been following this and told me more.

[Nick Marsh]

He's been identified by the Department of Justice as Gannon Ken Van Dyke, Special Forces soldier who the Department of Justice says was involved in the planning and the execution of the operation to remove Nicolas Maduro. That was through the course of the month of December 2025, up until January 3rd of January when Maduro was removed. The Department of Justice is saying though, that this individual, Gannon Ken Van Dyke, opened an account on polymarket, which is a very, very popular predictions market. You can go on there and it's very simple yes or no kind of questions. You can bet on anything, really, genuinely baseball, the weather, but also things like will Nicolas Maduro be in power by the end of January? So the allegation is that he opened this account in late December and between 27 December and 2 January placed a total of $30,000 worth of bets on some variation of the question of the question, will Nicolas Maduro be in power in Venezuela or will the United States go into Venezuela sort of thing. So then when on the 3rd of January he is removed, he wins over $400,000. And the thrust of these charges, which are all some kind of insider trading variety form of fraud charges, is that he acted on confidential government information.

[BBC News Presenter]

Wow. So a huge amount of money. And this is also part of a wider probe into accusations of insider trading around some of the US Government's activities during Donald Trump's second term.

[Nick Marsh]

Yes, I mean, there have been murmurings and suspicions of insider trading. For quite a long time now, we've seen a lot of spikes in oil trades. For example, just before Donald Trump says something that moves the markets when it comes to the price of oil. With regard to the war in Iran, I've done some reporting on that. It's pretty clear there are real clear and consistent patterns of these trades on the oil futures market. There's also questions about trades on the stock market and there's questions about even people playing on poly market during this Iran war as well. So, look, this is the first arrest in this sort of area. We could see more. But, you know, this isn't just an isolated problem, that's for sure.

[BBC News Presenter]

Now, in our last podcast, we told you about how the current ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon has been extended for another three weeks, but tensions in the region remain very high. The Israeli army is still occupying much of southern Lebanon, necessary, it says, to stop the militant group Hezbollah firing rockets across the border. That's still going on. And there have been more Israeli airstrikes, although at a much lower level. And today, the Israeli military has issued an urgent evacuation warning to the residents of the southern Lebanese town of Deir Amas, saying it wants to carry out operations against alleged Hezbollah militants there. Some families, though, have been able to return to their homes, particularly those living in parts of Beirut. The BBC has been talking to a family whose teenage daughter Naya documented an Israeli attack while making a for social media. The video went viral. James Menendez spoke to Naya's mother, Gyda, and asked her first about the extension of the ceasefire.

[Gyda]

You know, it feels like good and bad news at the same time because we know that hopefully, hopefully nothing will happen in Beirut and Dahya, so we will not be hearing some bombs. But at the same time, I don't know if you can hear the drone over my head. The drone is something that's in the sky and it always comes along. And it's very stressful for all of us and for the kids as well, because when they hear it, they know that something bad is going to happen. That's how we associate it with. And the drone comes and goes all the time. The kids, every time they hear it, they start sending me messages from school. Why is the drone here? What is happening? Are they going to hit, etc. So I'm not sure if you can hear it now.

[James Menendez]

Yes, I can just hear it in the background. A very faint sort of whine overhead.

[Gyda]

Yeah, exactly. That's the drone. So today it started again. So the Drone is not good news for us at all. I don't know what's happening. So at the same time, what's happening in the south, they are still bombing in the south. They are leveling the grounds in the south. And you know, Lebanon is very small. It's just 10,452 square kilometers. So there's no way. You don't know what's happening down south. They keep on bombing. They assassinated a journalist yesterday.

[James Menendez]

We still have Hezbollah and the Israeli military exchanging fire. So, I mean, it's a strange ceasefire, isn't it, when the fighting is still going on, even if it's at a lower level.

[Gyda]

It is. But at the same time, you know, they couldn't. EXCHANGING GUNSHOTS but then again, why the leveling of houses? I mean, our village is Aitaroun and Aitarun is on the borders. They have leveled the whole village. Why the leveling of the village?

[James Menendez]

You have been able, though, to return to your apartment in Beirut. I mean, that's good news, I guess

[Gyda]

it is very good news. But then again, my four year old, when we were coming back, he didn't want to come back and he kept on crying, why should we come back? I don't want to go back. But we kept on saying that this is our home, we have to. School is starting, so thank God, now the kids are in school, which is good for them because it's a bit of normalization for them. They see their friends, they go to school, they do some studying, which is very good.

[James Menendez]

And how is Naya? She, of course, had a very traumatic experience caught on camera that obviously went viral. How's she doing since that experience of that huge wave of Israeli airstrikes?

[Gyda]

Naya is fine, except now every time she hears the drone, she messages me and her dad asking, why is the drone here? Yesterday she was asking if the explosions are going to start again, if the strikes were going to start again. Especially there was a bit of an escalation two days ago between Israel and Hezbollah. So she was asking, does it mean that they're going to start all over again? So we told her, inshallah, no, it will not start all over again. She told me yesterday she couldn't study, she couldn't focus. She had a lot of tests the past week. So we understand that she's going to go through that. I'm trying to calm her as much as possible and assure her that it's okay. All of us are going through this. Even her friends are going through enough time. So it's okay to feel that, and she is free to speak to me or to her therapist or to her friends anytime she wants.

[James Menendez]

Does she find the therapy that she's been having, does she find that useful?

[Gyda]

She is refusing to speak directly with her therapist. So I am the one liaison between the therapist and herself. So I speak with the therapist and I see what to do. And then I try to take tips from her and I deal with Naya because she's trying to play it strong and she's no, there's nothing wrong with me. I'm fine, I'm okay. But I know that she needs some help and I've also spoken to the school about it and they are keeping an eye on her.

[BBC News Presenter]

Gyla Margi speaking to James Menendez from Beirut. Still to come in this podcast, when

[Liz Smith]

I started it, I thought, surely they don't believe all these outlandish ones. And you realize that actually it's a way of making sense of the world.

[BBC News Presenter]

We hear about a film that explores the appeal of conspiracy theories in Maga America.

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[BBC News Presenter]

At the last COP30 climate summit in Brazil, attempts to accelerate a move towards renewable energy were fiercely opposed by countries that produce oil and gas. Now around 60 countries are attending a conference in the Colombian city of Santa Marta. It aims to plan a complete move away from fossil fuels. Our environment correspondent Matt McGrath has been telling me more.

[Matt McGrath]

It is a meeting of countries, I think, who were quite disaffected by the COP process meeting in Brazil last year where a large number of countries there, more than 80, wanted to take more steps away from fossil fuels. It had been agreed in the COP back in 2023, the meeting in Dubai, that countries would transition away from fossil fuels. Countries when they met in Brazil really wanted more information. How are they going to do this? How are they going to make this happen? They didn't get that there was big opposition from a number of countries. The United States wasn't there. And a lot of Middle Eastern countries, oil producers objected. Nothing happened. Now those countries are meeting in Colombia. They're saying, well, this is a coalition of the willing. We're the ones who want to go ahead with this. So we're going to have our meeting and see how we can help and cooperate and drive this agenda faster.

[BBC News Presenter]

What can be agreed though, if some of the big producing countries and also the countries that consume a lot, if they're staying away from this summit?

[Matt McGrath]

That's right. You're not having the United States there. No Russia, no China, no India. None of the Middle Eastern countries are going there. But you do have a big cohort of countries who are kind of in the middle. That's countries like Australia, Turkey, Norway, Brazil, Canada, big fossil fuel producers, all of them. Vietnam, a big coal producer. They account for about 20% of global production. And they're looking at this and saying, look, we're thinking very seriously about this. We want a timetable, we want to get agreement. And more than that, I think they want to give confidence to those other countries, many of them in Africa, who are a bit afraid of coming out and saying we're moving away from fossil fuels. I think they want to show by having this meeting that they have a strong united front and a plan to move away from fossil fuels even in the middle of a war conflict right now, which is putting real pressure on fossil fuel supplies all over the world.

[BBC News Presenter]

A G7 meeting on the environment began in Paris on Thursday. But people might think this is quite strange because climate change has been left off the agenda.

[Matt McGrath]

That's right. I saw that the French college minister, Monique Barbou, was saying that they wanted to have unity more than they wanted to have a discussion about climate change. So they felt that with the United States there, they couldn't have that without having no G7. So they've decided to leave climate change off the agenda, much to the annoyance of many countries, to keep the United States in the tent. So I think it's an interesting example of the, I suppose the Trump effect, if we're seeing this in climate and in ecology generally.

[BBC News Presenter]

Matt McGrath. China has released an AI tool which it says rivals and even outperforms the likes of Chat GPT and Google Gemini. It's the latest in a back and forth race for global dominance. Our reporter Will Chalk told me more.

[Frank Gardner]

Cast your mind back to January 2025. I think a lot of the world was still getting to grips with the AI tools that were coming out of Silicon Valley. You know, you mentioned ChatGPT.

[BBC News Presenter]

I'm still getting to grips.

[Frank Gardner]

Well, to be honest, even more so this, that time last year though, you know, we were working at what they were good at, what their limitations were, and then bang, this Chinese rival called Deep Seat appeared pretty much out of nowhere and within days it was top of Apple's US and UK app stores. And what's its developers claimed they built it for $6 million and that is a drop in the ocean compared to what Silicon Valley was spending on the other tools. That then caused a huge plunge in stock values for AI based companies. And actually Nvidia alone saw $500 billion wiped off its value in a day. That led to Donald Trump saying this.

[Gyda]

The release of Deep Seek AI from

[Charlotte Gallagher]

a Chinese company should be a wake up call for our industries, that we need to be laser focused on competing to win.

[Frank Gardner]

But actually, after all that initial excitement, Deepsea kind of turned out to be a bit of a flash in the pan. International users quite quickly switched off it. A big reason being that, well, several countries actually including Italy and South Korea, banned it on government devices because of its links to the Chinese state. But it didn't go away entirely. And now we have deep seek version 4 that's popped up with his makers once again making big claims about how good it is. Now it's been built, we're told, in conjunction with China tech giant Huawei, so it can run on Chinese chips. And this is significant because earlier versions used American designed chips. So this clearly has some implications in the tech race between the two companies.

[BBC News Presenter]

And you spent the morning playing around with it. What do you think of it?

[Frank Gardner]

Well, actually, weirdly, not very much. And the reason is because this race for dominance is being played out at such a high level. Right. The differences are how quickly it can process 10 books worth of data or an entire code database. So actually in terms of user interface and usability, it's much like any others. There are some big differences. One, unlike its competitors, using the chatbot at basic level for Deepseek, is completely free with no daily caps at all. But it also suffers from the same big problem it had last year and that is censorship. So earlier I asked it what happened in Tiananmen Square and it replied, I'm sorry, I can't answer that question based on the information I have now as to how big a deal this would be for everyday users, not in the tech world, it might be a sacrifice worth making. You know, other AI tools have been accused of bias as well. Maybe not on this scale, but if you're using the tech to make big decisions across an entire company, and that is actually how Deepseek wants people to use this, how it's going to make its money. Having so many limitations may well be a bigger deal.

[BBC News Presenter]

That was Wil Chalk. Finally, when the American academic Noel Cook went to the U.S. capitol on January 6, 2021 to cover the so called Stop the Steal march, she ended up witnessing the Capitol riots. As an ethnographer who studies and describes cultures, one thing that stood out to her was just how many women in their 40s and over were in the crowd. It set her off on a journey of discovery. And the result is a documentary made by Noel Cook. And the British filmmaker Liz Smith called the Conspiracists an attempt by them to understand the rabbit hole some of these women have gone down. One of the women they met was Tammy. Here she is in a clip from the film talking about waiting for the bus to D.C. for January 6th and mentioning McDonald's using human flesh. When I heard about January 6th, I was excited and I saw that there was a bus trip leaving from my around my house.

[Liz Smith]

So I thought, oh, that's awesome.

[BBC News Presenter]

Hopefully I'll get a seat and I

[Gyda]

won't be by myself.

[BBC News Presenter]

I can meet some more people.

[Tammy]

You know, I was always trying to meet people somewhere. I drive to McDonald's and there's no bus there and I'm like, what the heck? So I go.

[BBC News Presenter]

And this is before I knew about McDonald's too.

[Tammy]

I got myself an egg McMuffin.

[Rajini Vaijanathan]

What about McDonald's? They use human meat.

[BBC News Presenter]

They use human meat?

[Liz Smith]

Really?

[Rajini Vaijanathan]

Yes. Yeah, they literally have a club in LA that's called the Cannibal Club that they eat human meat.

[BBC News Presenter]

Of course, McDonald's does not use human flesh in its food. Liz Smith and Noel Cook have been speaking to my colleague Rajini Vaijanathan. Noel began by telling her how she connected with some of the women.

[Rajini Vaijanathan]

We didn't talk about politics, interestingly, we talked about our lives as middle aged women, which happened for about two years without ever having to discuss my political ideology or who I voted for. We didn't talk about Trump. We talked about everyday complications of being mothers and divorced women and what financial precarity looks like after divorce. And so we found common ground there. And I think through those conversations we built trust over time so that I could learn more about their lives and I could see those tipping points, those moments where conspiracies became coping mechanisms for them. And there was ways that these conspiracies operated as a community, Liz.

[Tammy]

I mean, some of the conspiracy theories that were discussed through the course of your film were quite staggering. But I think one of the things that's really important to remember is that these women really believed them. Things like, Princess Diana isn't dead. JFK wasn't shot, it was a clone of him. What really struck me about your film is just how deeply these women believed in it.

[Liz Smith]

I mean, when I started it, I thought, surely they don't believe all these outlandish ones. And what I realized coming away from it, they are really true believers. And you realize that actually it's a way of making sense of the world. And it's a little bit like a lot of sort of faith based kind of belief systems, organized religion as well. In some ways, you know, it's a way of actually holding on to something to give you some structure and understanding of what's happening.

[Tammy]

I do have to ask you both this. I'll start with you, Liz, because from a journalist point of view, I would be challenging perhaps some of these basic lies. I mean, a lot of these theories are simply not true. We know that. But your approach, both of you, was quite subtle. You weren't challenging them. But I guess some people watching might be saying, well, why didn't you go harder on them when they were saying things that were ridiculous?

[Liz Smith]

I, they would have shut down on me, you know, and that's also my documentary style anyway, is very much observational. Let people tell their stories. And I think if you let them do that, you start to better understand the truth of what's there. I think Tammy's really delighted about it because finally, for the first time in her life, she's being seen and she's being heard.

[Rajini Vaijanathan]

You know, women over 50 are typically invisible. There's not a lot of roles for them that put them front and center where their ideas are valued. Many women this age are sandwiched between childcare and starting to care for aging parents. The United States does not have a very robust social safety net. And so there's big chasms for people to fall into.

[Liz Smith]

I think we all need to start seeing each other as human beings again because we've got so fractured and so far apart. And it's true here in the UK as well as in the US and if we can just stop and listen and try and understand why we're going where we're going while we're thinking what we're thinking, we need to get back to truth and a shared reality. But the first but the pathway back to that is to find trust again. So we've got to start talking to each other and understanding each other. So that's my main takeaway.

[BBC News Presenter]

That was Liz Smith and Noel Cook. Finally, a tourist in Australia has had a holiday to remember, or perhaps forget. After an outback toilet that she was using collapsed, she spent three hours waist deep in sewage at the bottom of the pit 90 miles southwest of Alice Springs. Simon Atkinson reports reports from Queensland.

[Nick Marsh]

Far away from plumbing and mains water, long drop toilets are fairly common in Outback Australia. A seat is connected to a deep pit which is used to collect waste. Initial inquiries into the accident suggest the toilet fell into the sewage pit, taking the tourist with it. An eyewitness told local media that the woman's husband drove off to get help, eventually managing to flag down a passing tradesman. He lowered a rope into the hole for the woman to hang onto, then used his car to pull her out. Northern Territory's Health and Safety Agency said it was made aware of what happened and is investigating. The woman wasn't badly hurt but was taken to hospital for a checkup and, we hope, a shower.

[BBC News Presenter]

Oh, that poor woman. That was Simon Atkinson. And that's all from us for now. If you want to get in touch, you can email us@glenn globalpodcastbc.co.uk. you can also find us on XBCWorldService. Use the hashtag globalnewspod. And don't forget our sister podcast, the Global Story. This edition of the Global News podcast was mixed by Xabi Hula Carouche and the producer was Stephen Jensen. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Charlotte Gallagher. Until next time. Goodbye.

[Charlotte Gallagher]

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