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Sudan suffers deadly cholera outbreak
00:28:21
An outbreak of cholera has spread in Sudan, killing hundreds in the war-torn country
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- [00:00]
Valerie Sanderson
This is the global news podcast from the BBC World Service. A cholera outbreak in Sudan. More than 2,000 people are reported to have died. Last minute diplomatic talks between President Zelensky and the British Prime Minister here in London, a day ahead of Donald Trump's meeting with Vladimir Putin. How to curb plastic pollution. Also in this podcast, we've made songs.
- [00:26]
Holly Gibbs
That I'm so proud of. I mean, it felt like catching lightning in a bottle.
- [00:30]
Valerie Sanderson
It's good news for the Swift singer. Songwriter Taylor Swift has a new album coming out. Sudan has been gripped by conflict for more than two years as the Sudanese army and the rival Rapid Support forces vie for control of the country. It's been devastated by the fighting and subsequent mass displacement and famine. Tens of thousands of people have died. Now the medical charity MSF says the country is experiencing the worst cholera outbreak for many years. Fatalities have already reached to more than 2,400. The epicenter of the disease is the town of Toowilo in North Darfur, home to huge numbers of refugees. I got more details from our correspondent Barbara Platasher, who's in Nairobi.
- [01:17]
Barbara Platasher
There was this sudden influx of hundreds of thousands of people into Tooilo because of the fighting in the nearby city of Al Fashr in recent months. So you can imagine the struggle to provide clean water and hygiene, enough latrines for all those people, which is in already desperate circumstances. So the M NSF estimates that people in the camps in Tooele have less than half the water that meets the WHO emergency threshold. Plus, it's the rainy season, so the flooding from the rain amplifies the contamination of water and it's spreading well beyond the camps. MSF says it's surfacing in other parts of Darfur and also across the border in Chad in the refugee camps there.
- [01:57]
Valerie Sanderson
Any sign of vital aid, including medicine, getting there?
- [02:01]
Barbara Platasher
Well, not into Al Fashr itself, where the Rapid Support forces have held the city under siege for more than a year. Despite the calls for the RSF to ease the blockade. With aid trucks ready to go, they have not indicated that they will, at least not at this point. In terms of the cholera in Tawila in particular, yes, there is some aid coming through, although it is a difficult journey for aid workers to Toula because of security and bad roads. For example, the MSF says it has set up 500 latrines in the so far it's working with the Sudan Health Ministry on vaccinations and other things, not only in Tooweela, but in some other parts of Darfur in central and southern Darfur where the cholera has surfaced. But, you know, supplies are very limited, partly because of the access problems I mentioned, but also partly because of funding. Last week the World Health Organization said it had received less than a third of the money for which it had appealed.
- [02:55]
Valerie Sanderson
And Barbara, what's the latest on the ground regarding the fighting in Sudan? We understand that Sudan's army chief is reported to have met the US Senior adviser for Africa in Switzerland. What do you think is going on?
- [03:07]
Barbara Platasher
First of all, neither the Sudanese army nor the US has confirmed that meeting took place. That came through media reports which said that they did have a secret meeting in Switzerland between the head of the army, Abdel Fattel Obarhan and also Donald Trump's Africa adviser, Massad Boulas. So according to the different media reports, some said this was to discuss a U.S. peace plan, others said to discuss this more narrow agenda of humanitarian access in a ceasefire. We don't know where that's going. Under the Biden administration, the US Was involved with Saudi Arabia and numerous attempts to try to get ceasefires which never happened. What we could say if this did indeed happen, it would be the highest level contact that the Sudanese military backed government has had with the Trump administration so far.
- [03:53]
Valerie Sanderson
Barbara Pletascher, last minute diplomatic talks have been taking place between Ukraine and Britain with the summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin just a day away. After meeting the British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in London, President Zelenskyy posted online that they'd had a detailed discussion about possible security guarantees for Ukraine. The European Commission has welcomed President Trump's assurance that the US Would participate in giving security guarantees to Kyiv. Our diplomatic correspondent Paul Adams gave him the latest on the face to face chat here in London.
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Paul Adams
The European idea is to make sure that when Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump sit down in Alaska, the European and Ukrainian perspective, the red lines that they are ringing in Donald Trump's ears. And that's why we have seen meeting after meeting, statement after statement. And a lot of symbolism too. I mean, just look at Downing street this morning, Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime minister going out and meeting President Zelenskyy in person. The sunflowers that were in the vase as the two men sat in the garden at Downing street having their conversation. And then Sikhir Starmer walking Volodymyr Zelenskyy back to his car afterwards, all about showing that Europe has Ukraine's back and that this is the message that is being sent primarily, I suppose, to Donald Trump.
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Valerie Sanderson
There are new lines, aren't they? Coming from the Kremlin about what we can expect at this summit in Alaska taking place on Friday.
- [05:20]
Paul Adams
Yes, a little bit more detail. There will be obviously the one on one meeting between the two leaders that will then be followed, the Russians say, by talks involving Russian and American delegations. We don't know exactly who will be in those delegations, but this is not going to be, it seems, just simply a one on one meeting without anyone taking notes. Something that of course would have caused great anxiety among Ukraine's European allies. There is also talk of a joint press conference afterwards. That is a tantalizing prospect. I think the world will be waiting to see what the message is after that meeting. And the Russians are also talking about the potential for trade and economic cooperation between Russia and the United States. I think this is one of the carrots that the Russians are dangling in front of Donald Trump, hoping that his transactional, business orientated mind might be interested in such language. But I think what the Europeans obviously are hoping for is a conversation that focuses on a ceasefire and as we keep hearing, viable security guarantees for Ukraine.
- [06:29]
Valerie Sanderson
Paul Adams Despite Israel's pledge to allow more supplies into Gaza, more than 100 aid groups say Israel's restrictions are turning into a complete ban, with tons of life saving supplies going to waste. Israel blames Hamas for exploiting the aid, despite an internal U.S. government report finding no evidence of this. The Secretary General of msf, Chris Lockyer, explains the difficulties his organization is facing.
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Paul Adams
It's been a battle to even get the most basic of supplies in. We're still struggling to get anything which is remotely strategic from a medical point of view in I mean, we're still having to reduce the medical protocols around changing dressings. So that's a huge infection risk as well as dealing with the initial causes of the huge amounts of violence which are still happening in Gaza today.
- [07:18]
Valerie Sanderson
Meanwhile, there's an emerging debate over the lack of reporting in Israel about the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza. With the exception of some websites and the daily newspaper Haaretz, Israeli media is not reporting on the desperate plight of Gaza's 2 million residents. Many Israelis don't believe that people are starving in the Strip. Our international editor Jeremy Bowen has been speaking to people in Israel and the occupied west bank to gauge public opinion there.
- [07:47]
Jeremy Bowen
The car bumped down a dark and twisting road to Eshkodesh, a small Jewish settlement deep in the West Bank. And then lights, music and wine, a bar selling pizzas, soldiers from the settlements decompressing after a tour in Gaza. It's a slice of the American West. A saloon in the land that customers believe was given to the Jews by God. Most of the customers are armed. The bar feels relaxed and happy. And everyone here will tell you that Israel feels has nothing to apologize for in Gaza, the West bank, or Jerusalem. Aaron, who calls himself Ay, is a father of seven, an academic turned winemaker who is still an IDF reserve officer who's fought in Gaza.
- [08:35]
Holly Gibbs
Come down to a tunnel in Gaza, see what it means to not have oxygen and try to fight terrorists that are hiding behind women and children and try that for a couple days and see what happens. It's not easy. It's very easy to sit in an air conditioning room and judge people who do that. Where it's hard, people die and it's terrible.
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Jeremy Bowen
Wash it in now.
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Holly Gibbs
It kind of reminds me of my kids, you know, they're in the car and they're like, I want to get there now. Sometimes. You can always get there now. Sometimes things take time.
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Jeremy Bowen
Like Ay. Most Israelis agree they had no choice but to fight against Hamas. But that is where the agreement ends. It's a sultry Saturday night in Tel Aviv, and outside the National Theatre, crowds here have gathered for their regular protest against Benjamin Netanyahu, demanding an end to the war and the return of the hostages. It feels like a different country to the settlers. Wine bar up in the hills.
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Dalia Shandon
We wish to replace Netanyahu's government, bring back all hostages at a deal and ending Netanyahu's war in Gaza. We have a great army which can protect the border, which can stay outside of Gaza Strip and just protect the border.
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Jeremy Bowen
On the edge of the rally, there's a big silent demonstration with hundreds and hundreds of Israelis holding up pictures of Palestinian children killed by their country's armed forces. The protesters realize that they're a minority of a minority, but they say their demonstrations are getting bigger.
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Dalia Shandon
I refuse to stay silent while it's happening. A genocide and starvation of people deliberately.
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Jeremy Bowen
Do you think there are Israelis who might consider you traitors doing something like this?
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Dalia Shandon
They do, a lot of them. They say that we should just go to Gaza. This is what they say, Just go to live in Gaza.
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Jeremy Bowen
Israel was divided before the war. The war has made Israel more divided. And this side of Israel represented at this demo are people who do want to end it. But there are many others, supporters of Netanyahu, supporters of the extreme right, who have very different views to those of these people here. I'm in Tel Aviv, in the place that's become known as Hostage Square, where families and supporters of the Israeli hostages inside Gaza have been gathering and demonstrating and protesting. And I'm with Dalia Shandon, who is columnist upholster, and she follows Israeli opinion about the war very closely.
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Holly Gibbs
We have data showing that the majority of Israeli Jews, close to 80%, openly say that they are not concerned with Palestinian civilian suffering. They simply either are sort of suppressing.
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Valerie Sanderson
It because they just can't handle the.
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Holly Gibbs
Sense that Israel might be doing something wrong. But I think for the most part they also believe that Palestinians are extremely convincing to the rest of the world, as if there's no direct evidence of these things, as if it's all Hamas with some well oiled campaign machine.
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Jeremy Bowen
The war has left Israel unhappy and divided and I get the feeling that most of the political energy is coming from the religious nationalist right. Benjamin Netanyahu is the longest serving and most divisive leader Israel has ever had. He might find a way to win another term, but Israelis and the Palestinians and the rest of us will be feeling the consequences of the Gaza war whenever it ends for many years.
- [11:52]
Valerie Sanderson
Jamie Bowen reporting from Israel. There had been hopes that multinational talks in Geneva this week might result in an agreement to help curb global plastic pollution. But as we record this podcast, hopes of a treaty have hit a wall. Countries including the uk, Colombia and EU nations rejected a draft treaty text as unacceptable and unambitious. Almost 100 countries have called for tougher measures to limit plastic production and for tighter controls on the toxic chemicals used in the process. But a group of oil producing states, including Saudi Arabia and Russ, want lighter touch regulations. New proposals drafted by the chair overnight are expected to be put to delegates in Geneva in an attempt to rescue the talks. Health experts warn that plastics are causing disease and death from infancy to old age, costing the world more than a trillion dollars every single year. Richard Thompson is a professor of marine biology at the University of Plymouth in Southern England and a coordinator with the Scientists Coalition for an Effective Plastics Treaty. He spoke to James Copnell.
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Richard Thompson
Plastic pollution has escalated considerably, you know, from 5 million tons of plastic produced in the 1950s to over 450 million tons today. The majority of that is single use items. Substantial quantities now contaminate our planet, literally from the poles to the equator, from our highest mountains to our deepest oceans.
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Holly Gibbs
So it seems to be then two sides to this, as it were. We've got people like the European Union, Panama, Chile, Mexico, Colombia. They want their concern about a lack of a legally binding measure for the limit of plastic pollution. Is that right? I mean, is that something that could.
- [13:31]
Richard Thompson
Be achieved Potentially, I mean, that's just one of the contentious issues. You know, it's a question of, I mean the things that I would like to see in the treaty is, yes, measures to reduce total plastic production. It's clear that we're producing more than we can handle by any measure in waste management. We need regulations on the chemicals that are used in plastics. We need to develop criteria to make sure that the plastic products we use are essential, essential to society because of the immense external costs that I outlined. And you could think of many examples of non essential, the microbeads in cosmetics that are now banned. But I hear of nobody complaining they can't wash themselves with millions of bits of plastic, for example. And then for those plastic products that bring essential use, we need to make sure they're safer and far more sustainable. So that's, that's what we're aspiring towards. There needs to be financed to support it, to make sure there's a just transition and prior informed consent from, you know, indigenous peoples and fence line communities who have been particularly badly affected over time. So there's a lot to the treaty. It's not just about a cap. I think the evidence is before the member states. You know, they've heard the evidence. What we need now is them to act on it. And the frustrating thing for me is, you know, the United nations was brought together to facilitate cooperation between nations. What I fear I'm seeing is more it's facilitating competition between nations. Even though they've got the best science before them, they, they sort of, some are using it as a means of positioning themselves for competitive advantage. And that, that seems frustrating. It's not very many and I suppose my plea would be for the majority which are seeking a high ambition here to have courage and to stick by their guns. You know, there have been threats from some bigger nations, thinly veiled, but letters sent, you know, that night imply that tariffs could be imposed if countries, smaller countries don't maybe toe the line. So I think it's, it's really important that we have strength and unity here and we act for the solutions that are needed for the, for the planet and for, for human health as well.
- [15:44]
Valerie Sanderson
Professor Richard Thompson. Still to come on this podcast, this.
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Holly Gibbs
Someone has stinky feet, we will call them out and saying, hey, you're not allowed. If you do that, like better wash your feet and come.
- [15:58]
Valerie Sanderson
Is it ever appropriate to take your shoes off in the office? Scorching temperatures combined with strong winds have been fueling wildfires across large swathes of southern Europe. In Spain, Three people have died this week. Earlier, the Spanish government asked the EU for urgent help, requesting two water bombing planes. In Greece, firefighters have made progress tackling a fire threatening the city of Patras in the west of the country. Here in the uk, scientists have warned that urban areas are becoming the most vulnerable to wildfires. Researchers at Imperial College London say the risk is being accelerated by global warming. Here's our climate editor, Justin rolatt.
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Justin Rolatt
It's Monday the 14th of July, and a huge wildfire has broken out on parkland on the outskirts of London. At its peak, the fire covered an area the size of more than 12 football fields. It took 125 firefighters to battle the flames. There have been three more wildfires in the capital and this week alone, part of a pattern of increasing numbers of urban wildfires in the uk. At a lab in Imperial College London, Guillermo Raine, professor of fire science, is exploring the impact of rising temperatures on wildfire risk. Because the longer, hotter and more frequent heat waves climate change is bringing are changing how urban wildfires behave.
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Holly Gibbs
Let me show you.
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Justin Rolatt
He arranges straw on fireproof plates. One sample contains a tiny bit of moisture, the other is bone dry. He uses a blowtorch to set them alight.
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Holly Gibbs
Well, clearly the drier fuel is spraying the fire faster, but it's not that a little bit drier is a little bit faster, it's that a little bit drier is much faster. So it's not linear, it's not linear, it's exponential.
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Justin Rolatt
So the hotter the weather, fires get, significantly more intense, the little bit drier.
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Holly Gibbs
Is the fires get way worse.
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Justin Rolatt
Professor Rain has also developed a computer tool to help predict when conditions are ripe for what he is calling a firewave.
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Holly Gibbs
This plot of data is showing how dry the atmosphere is. Anything above the red line is very dry and very concerning for wildfires. And 10 consecutive days would mean a possible fire wave and that might happen by Saturday or Sunday.
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Justin Rolatt
The scorching heat of 2022 showed what's at stake. There were more than 350 separate incidents with homes destroyed during what was the London Fire Brigade's busiest day since World War II.
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Holly Gibbs
The idea is that this vehicle doesn't leave the job when there's a wildfire happen.
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Justin Rolatt
The Fire Service heard the alarm and has been investing in Kit. It's training officers to use new all terrain vehicles which rapidly dales flames across a long fire front.
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Holly Gibbs
Wildfires present such a risk to us because we have a lot of open spaces in London.
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Justin Rolatt
Blake Betts is a borough commander with the London Fire brigade.
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Holly Gibbs
And in London, those open spaces very often border on residential properties and the potential for those fires to spread towards those residential properties is real. We know that extreme weather events are becoming more common and that means that we've taken a much more proactive approach.
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Justin Rolatt
Two large mowers are cutting back vegetation in East London. The aim is to try and minimize the fire risk. Cutting fire breaks to help slow, hopefully stop fires before they reach buildings. As heat waves get more frequent, more long lasting and hotter, the potential for a firewave, a whole series of fires igniting simultaneously is increasing. And that could potentially overwhelm the emergency services and threaten homes, infrastructure and lives.
- [20:14]
Valerie Sanderson
Justin Rolatt the Pacific nation of the Marshall Islands is about to make sporting history as it plays its first international football match. The remote island chain, which is home to to about 40,000 people, had previously been the self proclaimed last country on earth without a football team. But a few years ago, the English coach Lloyd Owers was drafted in to change all that.
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Lloyd Owers
It was as simple as we needed. Balls, bibs, cones, goals, and collectively we had a good strategy, good plan of what we wanted to do. January 23rd we put that into action and unbelievably it just really boomed with worldwide media from the first moment. And yeah, it just continued to grow and we've built good connections. We've, we've managed to get equipment on Ireland, we've got partners on Ireland in terms of coaches and I remember standing in a field in Aduro in July 23rd thinking like if no one's going to turn up. Unfortunately they did because two years on, from that point we're playing our first games for us, we desperately want to be in part of a confederation. You know, that's the next step for us. We, I think we've exceeded all expectations, including our own, in terms of how quickly we've got to the stage, we've got to, we've done it with really little financial backing. You know, we were solely reliant on owners and sponsors and we could have taken the easy options with these games to play regional nations and we'd have done really, really well. But we want to be confederation members, we want to be FIFA members at some point.
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Valerie Sanderson
The team will take on the US Virgin Islands at the Outrigger Challenge cup in Arkansas on Thursday in their first ever competitive game. Lucas Shriver is one of their players.
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Holly Gibbs
I'm pitching myself at night, you know, it's, it's really an incredible feeling and I think the coaching staff have done a great job just bringing together many people on the team from just diverse backgrounds, like people from the mainland of the Marshall Islands and in the U.S. hawaii. So yeah, it's been really incredible to be a part of history. And yeah, we're going to go out and try to make, try to make the Marshalles proud.
- [22:13]
Valerie Sanderson
Lucas Shriver the singer songwriter Taylor Swift has made her first podcast appearance where she revealed the details of her upcoming album, the Life of a Showgirl, which will be released in October. The music star opened up about her 12th record on a podcast hosted by her boyfriend. Fans, predictably, have reacted with absolute delight to news of her latest opus.
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Holly Gibbs
I was on live on TikTok and we're all crying in the chat and I'm like tearing up because like she is so genuine in everything that she does. I am fully on the bandwagon that I believe that Taylor Swift will go down in history and be studied in the same way that Shakespeare is today. Last year we found out how miserable she was in 2023. Now this year we're going to find out how happy she was with Travis last year.
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Valerie Sanderson
And now the newsroom's reporter and resident Swiftie Holly Gibbs, told me more.
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Dalia Shandon
In this podcast, which was a two hour sit down with her boyfriend Travis Kelce and his brother Jason, we learned the detail of her 12th studio album, the Life of a Showgirl. More than a million fans flooded to the YouTube stream of new Heights to hear these details. What's got fans the most excited is seeing who has produced this album with her, Max Martin and Shellback, who worked with Taylor Swift on previous albums such as Red, 1989 and Reputation. So this gives us a big hint of what we're going to hear. It's going to be pop heavy and it's going to have tracks on it that might sound similar to the upbeat tunes of Shake It Off. Blank Space. Here is Taylor Swift talking on the New Heights podcast.
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Holly Gibbs
We've made songs that I'm so proud of and so basically we've never actually made an album before where they're. Where it's just the three of us. There's no other collaborators. It's just the three of us making a focused album where, I mean, it felt like. It felt like catching lightning in a bottle, honestly. Yeah.
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Dalia Shandon
And Taylor Swift actually said that her goal for this album was to have melodies that were so infectious that you're almost angry at it. Bangers, essentially, is what she said.
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Valerie Sanderson
She's a busy lady, isn't she?
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Dalia Shandon
She is. So this album was actually recorded during the Eras tour, which Wrapped up in December last year and as we know, was the largest grossing tour of all time. 10.1 million tickets were sold for 149 shows across the world. Fans have been wondering what Taylor Swift would do next, and Taylor Swift has said that this album will explain what was going on behind the scenes and it was actually worked on while she was performing on tour in Europe. She said on the podcast New Heights that she was flying back and forth to Sweden. Work on it. There was large speculation after her tour that her next release might be a re record of one of her old albums. But a few months ago, as we know, she announced that she bought back the master recordings, which she also spoke about on that podcast and was actually very emotional about it and spoke about how it felt to own her life's work.
- [25:06]
Valerie Sanderson
Now you're a fan, a personal fan. What's your takeaway? Was it really exciting to see her? Because she doesn't give many interviews, does she?
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Dalia Shandon
No, she doesn't. And it was the first time us as fans got to see her and her boyfriend Travis Kelsey interact together and actually sit down together. Before that, we've just seen clips on social media of them at football matches or paparazzi photos. As for how excited I am about this album, very excited as I, as all of the Swifties are, because this album is going back to her pop roots, which might even attract even more fans.
- [25:40]
Valerie Sanderson
Our very own Swifty Holly Gibbs. Now, what's the dress code where you work? Are you comfortable with it or do you think it's too formal or even too casual? Well, in the US some companies have brought in a no shoes policy and that means taking your shoes off when you come into the office. Slippers are optional. The movie is getting lots of reaction online. Some people are surprised and some are aghast and some are saying actually this is the norm in their part of the world. One of the companies with a no shoes in the office policy is Smallest AI, a startup that builds AI voice models. Liana Burton spoke to their CEO Sudarshan Kamath.
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Holly Gibbs
We just wanted our office to be like a house. We did not want it to be like a professional setting so people sit on the floor, people can sleep on the floor if they want to lie down in random places. And then if we get your shoes in, it gets a little dirty. So generally we kept like a nice carpet and like for people to just come in. And that's the reason we said, hey, keep your shoes outside so that people can treat this like a house. People are more productive I've seen people just get drenched in their work and just forget about where they are, how they are sleeping, all of those things.
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Dalia Shandon
What about socks? Would you say to your workers, you need to wear socks because if people.
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Holly Gibbs
Are going around barefoot, there could be.
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Dalia Shandon
A bit of a funky smell.
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Holly Gibbs
Yeah, I think personal hygiene generally is something, a kind of culture we have in our office. If someone has stinky feet, we will call them out and saying, hey, you're not allowed. If you do that, like, better wash your feet and come.
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Dalia Shandon
Apart from the no shoes rule, is there any other dress code that you have?
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Holly Gibbs
As long as they wear something, they're welcome in office. Just wear something. Yeah, yeah, just, just wear something. And like, don't offend anyone. But like, you can wear your shorts, you can wear Bermudas. Like, don't come topless, don't wear your underpants. But like, just, just wear anything. Anything that is. Normally you would dress outside and we are completely fine with it.
- [27:42]
Valerie Sanderson
Stinky feet in the office. Yuck. Zadarshan Kamath speaking there to Lianna Byrne. And that's it 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, send us an email. The address is globalpodcastbc.co.uk you can also find us on XBCWorldService. Use the GlobalNewspod. This edition was mixed by Chris Hansen. The producers were David Lewis and Stephanie Zakrasi. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Valerie Sanderson. Until next time. Bye. Bye.