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Global News Podcast
Syria to join US-led coalition fighting IS group
00:30:36
US says Syria is joining the international coalition to combat the Islamic State group
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Adrian Sibley
This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the uk.
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Ankur Desai
This is the global news podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Ankur Desai and in the early hours of Tuesday, 11 November, these are our top stories. The US says Syria is joining the international coalition to defeat Islamic State jihadists and is resuming diplomatic relations with Washington. It follows talks at the White House between Donald Trump and the Syrian president Ahmed Al Sharam. The US Senate has voted in favor of a compromise funding package to try to end the government shutdown. And also coming up in this podcast, the UK's top literary award is handed out.
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David Soloy
Once it got some momentum and I felt that it was going to be good, then it became a pleasurable process to write it, but at the beginning was tough.
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Ankur Desai
We hear from the British Hungarian author David Soloy, who won the Booker Prize. The US has recruited a new member to its alliance of countries fighting the Islamic State group in the Middle East. Officials in Washington say Syria has joined the coalition after its president, Ahmed Al Shara, met Donald Trump at the White House. The two countries have also resumed diplomatic relations. Mr. Al Sharra is himself a former Islamist extremist with ties to Al Qaeda. But last year he led the overthrow of the Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad and became the head of the new government. Since then, he's been trying to build bridges with the west, promising to bring stability to Syria. On Monday, Mr. Al Sharra arrived at the White House without fanfare and entering through a side door. Afterwards, Mr. Trump said he liked and got along with him. We want to see Syria become a.
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John Thune
Country that's very successful and I think.
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Ankur Desai
This leader can do it.
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John Thune
I really do. I think this leader can do it and people said he's had a rough past. We've all had rough pasts, but he has had a rough past. And I think, frankly, if you didn't have a rough past, you wouldn't have a chance.
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Ankur Desai
Later, in an interview with Fox News, President Al Sharah was asked whether his past as an extremist had come up during the meeting with President Trump. I think this is a matter of the past. Now. We did not discuss this actively. We talked about the investment opportunities in the future in Syria. And so that Syria is no longer looked at as a security threat. It is now looked at as a geopolitical ally, is some place where the United States can have great investments, especially extracting gas. Our State Department correspondent Tom Bateman told me more about the White House meeting.
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Tom Bateman
I think my sense was that the White House really wanted to work through these two kind of critical issues for either side. One for the Syrians is about getting more sanctions relief because Syria still has a devastated, basically cash based economy and they need the US Congress to lift the sanctions that were imposed on the Assad regime for, for its human rights abuses. And for the Americans, they wanted an agreement from the new leaders in Damascus that they will join the American led military coalition which is still fighting the Islamic State group in parts of the country.
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Ankur Desai
It seems as though Mr. Al Shiraz has been spending quite a large part of this year trying to build bridges with the West. So President Trump, did he seem receptive to this? And I guess there are still a lot of concerns about the ongoing violence in Syria, especially against ethnic minorities.
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Tom Bateman
Yeah. You know, President Trump has embraced Mr. Al Shadra. I mean, he'd sort of repeated this phrase he'd used before after the meeting where he described him as a strong leader from a tough place who had a rough past. We've all had rough pasts. Though he said he'd previously described him as an attractive guy, he sort of tends to admire what he calls toughness in leaders. And I think he sees that in Ahmed Al Shara. This was a man who led an Al Qaeda affiliate that has now been accepted by the west as the best hope for a stable transition for Syria. But a man who had a $10 million US bounty on his head, who was a designated global terrorist by Washington just until last Friday. So there is this move by the Americans, by the west and key Arab countries to try to give this new transitional administration the best possible run at trying to stabilize and secure Syria. But huge challenges, not least of which are the risks of another slide into sectarian bloodshed. We've seen two severe moments really, of attacks on the Alawite minority, also the Druze minority, over the last year. And the issue of integrating the Kurds and the Kurdish security forces into the central Damascus government still hasn't been solved.
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Ankur Desai
This goes to show that President Trump is willing to meet absolutely anyone. As you mentioned, this was a leader who had a bounty on his head a matter of days ago, and there doesn't seem to be any boundaries as to who he'll meet and try to make deals with.
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Tom Bateman
This isn't exclusive to the Trump administration. I mean, the Biden administration were really on the front foot with trying to build relations when Hayatir al Sham, the group that he led, basically toppled the Assad regime and then took Damascus. So this was across US administrations, although I think stylistically Mr. Trump is. He tends to embrace it. But so have European countries and key Arab allies of the Europeans and the Americans on this particular front. But I think the question then becomes how long that can be kept going, particularly among the Europeans, where they've talked about the fundamental need for inclusive representative government from Damascus. And there are signs that that is not really happening or not in the way I think that many would have hoped. You know, stability may always come at a cost in these situations, in transitioning out of a devastating 14 year civil war. So I think there's a recognition of that by Washington and particularly by the Trump administration, that perhaps some of the more ambitious stuff around solving sectarian divisions and tensions in Syria might be harder to achieve. Mr. Trump tends to admire a strong man, and the White House might think that's what's needed at the moment. The risks of a slide back into despotism, into sectarian bloodshed remain very high in Syria, and how you prevent that, of course, will be an acute question going forward.
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Ankur Desai
Tom Bateman reporting. Politicians in Washington are a step closer to ending the longest US Government shutdown in the history of the United States. After senators voted in favor of a compromise, Republicans got the 60 votes they needed to pass a measure to reopen the government after several Democrats voted with them. Now it will go to the House of Representatives, possibly on Wednesday, to adopt this deal, if it will then be sent to President Trump to be signed. John Thune, a Republican, is the U.S. senate Majority Leader.
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John Thune
I want to take the time to say thank you to my staff who.
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Tom Bateman
Have worked around the clock tirelessly now.
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John Thune
For the past six weeks.
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I know that the strain of these.
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Ankur Desai
Weeks has been immense, that you all.
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John Thune
Have families, rent to meet, bills to pay, car and mortgage payments, and I'm grateful for all you have done to.
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Ankur Desai
Keep the Senate running and for all.
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John Thune
That you do every day, shut down.
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Ankur Desai
Or no shutdown to serve the Senate.
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John Thune
And to serve our country.
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Ankur Desai
The shutdown, which lasted 41 days, left government services suspended. Several Democrats broke ranks, angering many of their colleagues who labeled the move a betrayal. Some Democrats have called for the removal of the party's leader in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, our US Correspondent David Willis joined us.
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John Thune
Democrats, of course, had been holding out for an extension of health care subsidies for low income Americans. Those subsidies are due to come to an end at the end of this year. But Republicans had insisted that they were not going to engage on that issue until the shutdown was over. And all the Democrats ended up with out of this really Ankur, was a commitment from the Senate majority leader, John Thune, to hold a vote on that matter about possible extension to the health care subsidies. I mentioned by mid December, there's no guarantee that the House would vote on any such measure. And that's infuriated members of the Democratic Party who did not want to see an end to this shutdown just yet and were making that a condition. And they've accused their colleagues, the eight Democrats who voted in favor of betrayal, of surrender. And it's prompted calls once again, as you mentioned, for the removal of the party's leader in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, for failing to keep his caucus together. Even though it's worth pointing out that Mr. Schumer voted against the shutdown ending deal that was voted on successfully tonight. And many Democrats saw last week's election victories, I think as a validation of their shutdown strategy and did not want to capitulate.
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Ankur Desai
Is there anything that could get in the way, David, of finally ending this shutdown then?
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John Thune
Well, we've seen during these 41 days cutbacks in food aid programs, more than a million government employees working without pay and thousands of of flight delays or cancellations. And that's one thing that could get in the way of this move. Now, going before the House of Representatives flight delays that have resulted from thousands of air traffic controllers staying at home because they are not being paid could impede some lawmakers from returning to the Capitol, to Washington, D.C. from their districts. They've been out of session for more than 50 days, the house having been closed throughout the shutdown. But they need to get back to Washington, D.C. in order. It's thought to vote in favor of this measure, which would then go to the desk of President Trump ahead of paving the way for the shutdown to end Next weekend.
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Ankur Desai
And before you go, David, this shutdown's lasted up to 41 days. Now how has this affected the lives of American citizens day to day?
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John Thune
Oh, it's had a tremendous effect. I mentioned there cutbacks in food aid programs, what are known as food stamps here for about 42 million or so low income Americans who rely on those handouts. I mentioned the thousands of flight delays and cancellations. And we've had more than a million government employees working without paying throughout this long 41 day stoppage. And it's been very, very harmful to certain sectors of the economy. And much relief will be expressed I think when this shutdown does finally come to an end.
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Ankur Desai
Our US Correspondent David Willis. The Indian capital Delhi has been put on high alert following Monday's huge blast in a car near the historic Red fort. At least eight people were killed and 20 others were injured in the blast on a crowded road. The Home Minister who visited the scene said a meeting involving senior officials would be held later on Tuesday. A correspondent, Archana Shukla filed this report from the scene.
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Archana Shukla
Investigation into what caused it is still ongoing. So far investigative agencies have not said whether it was a deliberate blast or if they have identified a suspect. We understand that the senior security officials are going to have a meeting in just sometime from now and more details may emerge post that. But you know, this is something that has really shook the city. It shook the country. A blast of this nature has not happened in the capital city in many years. And this is a very, very famous site. It's a very crowded street. The Red fort is the 17th century fortress where Indian prime ministers deliver their independence speech every year. And this street is usually very busy with tourists, people, traders, etc. And in the evening it was the time when people were going back home and the impact was so high that people said that they could hear it at least a kilometer or two away. And the remains, the charred remains of the vehicles here show the impact of that blaze. The security agencies have said and even the Home Minister here in India have said they are not ruling out any possibilities. They are looking at all, all angles in the investigation. It's the anti terror team that's also on the ground. Security agencies, forensic and all hands are on the ground. Red alert and high alert has been put across the capital city here, also in Mumbai and some of the big tourist places across India.
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Ankur Desai
Now to the UK's top literary award that is open to novels written in the English language. This year's Booker Prize has gone to David Sloy for his novel Flesh. Roddy Doyle, who won the prize in 1993, was the chair of the judges this year, and he was joined on the panel by Sex and the City's Sarah Jessica Parker. So what's Flesh all about? I put that question to Charlotte Gallagher.
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Charlotte Gallagher
David Soloy is a British Hungarian author, so his father is Hungarian, and that's why he decided to set some of this book, Flesh, in Hungary. And it's a really interesting story about this character called Ishvan. And Ishvan doesn't really say much in the book, and things happen to him and he doesn't really ever mention it, like huge things. So the reader is left guessing what he thinks about things. And sometimes you think, is this man totally passive? Does he have opinions on anything? And you're left trying to work it out for yourself. But I would say it is an absolutely brilliant read. And it's a story as well about masculinity, what it means to. To be a man, also class and wealth. It's absolutely fascinating. And it's one of those books. I started reading it and I thought, I do not like this character. By the end of it, I was totally absorbed and I wanted him to win. I was really invested in him winning in this book. So I'd say it's definitely a very worthy winner. You know, the shortlist was brilliant. There were some fantastic authors in there. But I think Flesh was an incredible book. And I spoke to David just after he won and he was feeling a little bit stunned.
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David Soloy
I wasn't really sure how the book would be received. I guess I didn't really have a very strong expectation for how the book would be received. It's quite. It is quite an oblique book, in a way. It doesn't sort of tell the reader how to interpret it. Istraan himself is not an articulate character who explains himself to the reader. So I kind of knew what I was trying to do with the book, but I wasn't at all sure until the book was published and sort of started being read that that would be how readers perceived it too. But by and large, I think it is. Which is. Which is really fantastic.
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Charlotte Gallagher
And have you thought about what you're going to spend the £50,000 on? Last year they said, a bicycle.
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David Soloy
That's a very expensive bicycle.
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Charlotte Gallagher
Yeah, that's what I said, a very expensive bike.
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David Soloy
I probably won't spend it all on one thing.
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Jonathan Head
I will probably.
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David Soloy
Maybe we'll go on a nice little holiday. But mostly, I guess it will just be keeping the Wolf a little further.
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Charlotte Gallagher
From the door and you said you started this after you, you couldn't finish another novel and then you started this novel. So was that that pressure kind of on you need to finish this?
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David Soloy
Yeah, I mean, there was a real pressure. I think I felt more pressure than any other time in my career as a writer. Pressure to write something good and to write something good now. And that made it quite tough at the beginning working on this. But once it had sort of got going, once it got some momentum and I felt that it was gonna be good, then it became a pleasurable process to write it. But at the beginning was tough.
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Charlotte Gallagher
I know your Wikipedia has already been updated to book a prize winner.
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John Thune
That is fast.
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Charlotte Gallagher
Yeah, someone was watching and they've updated it already. So that's what you now are. Booker Prize winning author.
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David Soloy
I still haven't quite got my head around it, but it's, it's great.
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Ankur Desai
Lovely to hear from David Soloy, the winner also, personally, I really need to know from you, sjp, Sarah Jessica Parker, AKA Carrie Bradshaw was also there bringing a touch of glamour. Tell me more.
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Charlotte Gallagher
She was so, she was one of the judges this year and we spoke to her on the red carpet and she said she was just thrilled to be asked. She said, it's this prestigious literary award. She's known about it her whole life. She loves reading. She says she can't stop reading. So she was so excited to be one of the judges. And of course, as you said, Anka, she did just bring this Hollywood sparkle to the Booker Prize. I mean, she looked amazing. She looked fantastic. She had this gorgeous handbag that seemingly was covered in diamonds. But you could really tell as well that she was invested in the prize and who won. And I said, said, you know, when you read these books, do you think, oh, I want to make this into a film, I want to make this into a TV series, a plane. She said, no, I just read for the absolute love of reading. And you could tell that she was just really genuinely happy to be here.
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Ankur Desai
And just like that, she was off. Our very own girl about town, Charlotte Gallagher at the Booker Prize event in London. Coming up, a Chinese woman will be sentenced for her role in a bitcoin scam worth billions of dollars. Many families have been broken up. People have been left without money to pay for medical treatments.
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Jonathan Head
All this has really happened.
- [18:53]
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- [19:39]
Ankur Desai
This is the story of the One As a maintenance supervisor at a manufacturing facility, he knows keeping the line up and running is a top priority. That's why he chooses Grainger, because when a drive belt gets damaged, Grainger makes it easy to find the exact specs for the replacement product he needs, and next day delivery helps ensure he'll have everything in place and running like clockwork. Call 1-800-GRAINGER Click grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.
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- [20:44]
Ankur Desai
The body, which represents international media in Israel and the Palestinian territories, has urged Israeli officials to take immediate action to halt attacks on reporters by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank. The Foreign Press association cited two incidents involving journalists during this year's olive harvest. There's been an escalation in attacks by settlers on Palestinians harvesting olive trees this year. Our Middle east analyst Sebastian Asha is in Jerusalem and sent this report. They're being attacked.
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John Thune
On Saturday, a group of Palestinian villagers, activists and journalists came under attack from settlers in an area close to the Palestinian village of Beita, which has been a flashpoint for several years. And Israeli human rights activist Jonathan Pollock says that one of the journalists, Raneen Sawafter of Reuters, was the focus of the settlers attack, beat her up without.
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Ankur Desai
Mercy, continuing to stone her while she was on the ground, and then continuing to attack everyone who tried to come.
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John Thune
To her help and everyone who was.
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Ankur Desai
Running away from several sides.
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John Thune
Both Raneen Sawafter and the Reuters security advisor were wearing protective gear clearly marked with the word press. Several other people were also injured in the incident. The Foreign Press association says that journalists, both local and foreign, have clearly been targeted as they document what the organization calls an unprecedented level of unchecked violence against Palestinians during this year's olive harvest, which has seen olive groves set on fire. The Israeli army, which dispatched soldiers to the scene, has said that it condemns any act of violence and will continue to operate to maintain security and order in the area. But activists working to document the attack save at violent settlers are rarely held to account. One suspect has, however, been arrested over an incident last month in which a Palestinian grandmother was injured as she was harvesting olives near Ramallah.
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Ankur Desai
Sebastian Asher in Jerusalem. A massive cleanup operation is underway in the Philippines after typhoon Phuong Wong left entire villages completely submerged in flood water. The Philippines is no stranger to typhoons and good preparations and well timed evacuations probably saved many lives. Our Southeast Asia correspondent Jonathan Head filed this update from Eastern Luzon.
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Jonathan Head
The neighbourhood I'm in now is Matadero in Cabanatuan City. Now, we were down here yesterday and this community is right by a creek. The water levels were rising fast. The currents were very strong. People were rushing into their homes to pull out pets, feed, furniture, possessions. Really worried about how high the water levels were going to go simply because of the enormous quantities of rainfall that were dumped by Typhoon Phuong Wong. The winds were not as powerful as some of the strongest typhoons the Philippines experienced, but the amounts of rain were really hard to deal with. The water levels have actually gone down a lot. So that's a sign that for all of that water now there will be some relief. As those water levels go down, people will be able to to go back into communities. Cleaning up is going to take a long time. I mean, it's an awful thing to say. Filipinos are used to this, they're very good at it. People who live in these kind of poor communities really improvise, but they probably do need quite a bit of help to get themselves back on their feet. Then there are communities that are still cut off, where roads have been either washed away or bridges have been flooded and where in particular there've been quite a number of landslides reported. That's always expected during very heavy rainfall fall. And we are hearing of a number of landslides. There's one about 150km north of here where four people in a family were killed, but nothing bigger than that so far. So if in the end the death Toll stays as it is. It's in single figures at the moment. I think most Filipinos will feel that they got off relatively lightly, albeit this is just one typhoon after a series of natural disasters.
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Ankur Desai
Jonathan Head in Eastern Luzon, a Chinese woman at the heart of the UK's largest seizure of cryptocurrency is due to be sentenced on Tuesday in London for the role she played in a multi billion dollar fraud. Following an investigation by London's Metropolitan Police, Chan Jimin was convicted of trying to launder 61,000 bitcoin assets now worth around $6.5 billion, taken from investors in her native China. Tony han from the BBC's Global China unit has the story.
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Ankur Desai
I suppose we were just too weak to resist. They just pumped up our dreams until we lost all self control, all critical judgment.
- [25:52]
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For a while he was getting daily returns, but then in 2017 it all came crashing down. Law enforcement now say the whole thing was a massive scam. Yu's marriage collapsed and he found himself mired in debt.
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Ankur Desai
Many families have been broken up, people have been left without money to pay for medical treatments. All this has really happened.
- [26:18]
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When Chinese police started investigating Tian Zhimin, she fled China for the uk, taking with her a laptop loaded with bitcoin bought with investors money. Posing as a jewelry dealer, she started trying to turn her cryptocurrency into hard cash and real estate. When she tried to buy a lavish home in North London, she came to the attention of the UK police. The moment they raided her house is captured in this body cam footage. An officer found Tian in her bedroom.
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Ankur Desai
Hello madam. Pretty sure you're in bed. I've just got to record down your name if that is alright. So what's your first name?
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Adrian Sibley
The whole house, a very large house, fairly messy, and there was cash almost everywhere. Thousands of pounds, bundles of £20,000 here.
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As well as cash. DC Ryan and his team found laptops full of cryptocurrency that amounted to 61,000 bitcoin today, worth several billion dollars. The largest cryptocurrency seizure in UK history. A UK court is now deciding who will get that money. But only a small fraction of the victims have stepped forward to make a claim. A Chinese lawyer representing victims told us that many have struggled to gather evidence sufficient to meet the legal standard. In the uk, the Crown Prosecution Service is in the process of setting up a separate compensation mechanism, but the details are still unclear. You and the other former investors are watching closely.
- [27:50]
Ankur Desai
We all read Sherlock Holmes books when.
- [27:53]
Jonathan Head
We were younger and in our minds.
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Ankur Desai
That'S still the image of the real detective to find all this Bitcoin. Of course, we are very grateful here in China. We hope that we can get the capital returned to us. That's our great hope, to be able to save the victims of Lantianguru who are struggling and suffering, even to save their lives. What a noble act that would be. And if you'd like to hear more, please search for the Chinese Crypto queen. You can find that on BBC Sounds or wherever you get your BBC podcasts from. It's 100 years since the birth of Richard Burton, the son of a Welsh miner who rose to become acting royalty. He starred in many films, including the Spy who Came in from the Cold, who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf and of course, Cleopatra, which is where he met Elizabeth Taylor, who he married twice. Here he is reading the opening line of Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood for the BBC in January 1954.
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John Thune
To begin at the beginning. It is spring, Moonless night in the small town, starless and Bible black. The cobbled street silent and the hunched quarters and rabbit's wood limping invisible down to the slow black, slow black crow, black fishing boat bobbing sea.
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Ankur Desai
To mark a hundred years since his birth, a new documentary is being released about his life and career. Adrian Sibley is the director of the BBC documentary Richard Burton Wild Genius.
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Adrian Sibley
I think a lot of a certain generation know about Richard Burton, but it's remarkable about my daughter, who's 18, had no idea who he was at all. You know, she thought I was talking about Tim Burton, the director of Wednesday. So for me it was really important and I felt that to celebrate his centenary, to get across the most remarkable story. I mean, very few actors have got a story like him. He comes from a mining background in Wales, where acting was non existent. That said, you know, he picked it up and had this remarkable rise. So I really wanted to get across the impact of how he'd come from where he did and achieved what he did.
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Charlotte Gallagher
How do you approach a character like that and reflect all of the different facets of their personality?
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Adrian Sibley
The contradictions within Burton are part of what makes him great in many ways? I mean, if you take a film like the Spy who Came in from the Cold John Le Carrier novel that translated a few years after it was a bestseller into a movie, with Burton, he's amazing in it because he really shows that there's something else going on inside him. You know, those contradictions are what make him fascinating. You know, once he rode to conquer Hollywood and become a very successful actor, he had to deal with the fact that he'd left behind who he was, in a way, you know, his Welsh roots. And I think he was never at ease with that. You know, he was never at ease with the role of being an actor. I think he would have preferred to be a writer. He wrote some amazing diaries that were published after he passed away.
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Charlotte Gallagher
I find it sort of particularly interesting. There are some actors, you know, where they're from, their roots. It's not necessarily an important part of who they are, and we don't necessarily know that much about it. But with him, as you say, it really. It had an impact on everything he was and everything he did. And it's notable that you mentioned other Welsh actors. There are certain countries, certain parts of certain countries, where that becomes such a part, a vital part of a person's character.
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Adrian Sibley
Yeah, well, he's a cultural icon in Wales, and he never left Wales. In some ways, you know, he enjoyed the rugby. You know, he was always the one to back the Welsh side. He was a rugby player himself. He sort of was imbued with Welshness, but at the same time, ironically, you know, his voice was English. You know, in order to see succeed, he used this voice. I think there was a line of somebody saying that, you know, Richard Burton conquered the world and it wasn't even in his own language. And. And in some ways, that's true. His voice is just so powerful. You know, I wanted to make sure in the documentary, I didn't do loads of Welsh choirs singing along, you know, because it becomes a cliche, because Burton was something else. He really sort of, you know, managed to achieve great things, even with the issues of his drinking and. And his early death, really, you know, he's an Icarus figure. Burton, so brilliant, came from Wales and suddenly was on the West End stage selling out the Old Vic as Hamlet and was remarkable. So I was fascinated with what happened to him and finding out, and it was a privilege to make a film about him.
- [32:41]
Ankur Desai
Anna Foster, who is speaking to Adrian Sibley. And that's all from us for now, but there will be a new edition of the Global News podcast later. If you want to comment on this episode or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email. The address is globalpodcastbc.co.uk and you can also find us on X@BBC World Service. Use the hashtag globalnewspod. This edition was mixed by Kai Perry and the producer was Ed Horton. The editor is Karen Martin and I'm Ankar Desai. Until next time. Goodbye.
- [33:21]
Charlotte Gallagher
We got a call from the bank.
- [33:22]
Ankur Desai
And said, are you aware that there's no funds in this account?
- [33:27]
Charlotte Gallagher
A string of victims across the US Stretching from coast to coast.
- [33:30]
Ankur Desai
The amount of victims in such a.
- [33:32]
Adrian Sibley
Short time was unbelievable.
- [33:33]
Charlotte Gallagher
Real people losing real money. But the criminals are ghosts.
- [33:37]
Grainger Advertiser
The anger, the frustration, the fear.
- [33:39]
Charlotte Gallagher
This is Evil Corps, the story of.
- [33:41]
John Thune
A cybercrime crime case that stretches from small town America to the back streets of Moscow.
- [33:46]
Charlotte Gallagher
Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.