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Global News Podcast
Trump blames diversity policies for US air crash
00:29:44
Investigators say they will be looking at facts
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- [00:00]
Paul Moss
This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the uk. What does it take to go racing in the fastest cars in the world? Oscar piastri. Your head's trying to get roofed one way, your body's trying to go another. Let's roll. It's very extreme in the sense of.
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Donald Trump
How close you're racing.
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Paul Moss
Wheel to wheel. We've been given unprecedented access to two of the most famous names in Formula One, McLaren and Aston Martin.
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Lando Norris
I'm Landon Arts.
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Paul Moss
They build a beautiful bit of machinery that I get to then go and have fun in. They open the doors for their factories as the 2024 season reached its peak. I'm this is Josh hartnett. This is F1 back at base. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Paul Moss and in the early hours of Friday, 31st January, these are our main stories. President Trump blames diversity employment policies for the fatal plane crash in Washington. Israel finally releases more Palestinian prisoners after complaining about the chaotic handover earlier of Israeli and Thai hostages. And there are fears of an outbreak of Ebola in Uganda as a nurse dies in a hospital in Kampala. Also in this podcast, why strict rules in schools in Japan are making pupils miserable. And I sit and we say goodbye to Marion Faithfull, who's died at the age of 17. What caused a passenger plane and a helicopter to collide in Washington on Wednesday night, killing all 67 people on board? It might seem way too soon to know. The investigation's likely to be long and painstaking, and yet one person is already pretty sure about what was behind it. Donald Trump has been outlining his theories, making sure first to say he'd been shaken by what happened. This was a dark and excruciating night in our nation's capital and in our nation's history, and a tragedy of terrible proportions. As one nation, we grieve for every precious soul that has been taken from us so suddenly.
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Donald Trump
And we are a country of really.
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Paul Moss
We are in mourning. But the US is also a country, Mr. Trump said, where mistakes have been made. He claimed his Democrat predecessors, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, had weakened safety meas. And he also blamed the encouragement of people from diverse backgrounds to apply for jobs they shouldn't have, something he claimed had happened at America's Federal aviation Administration. The FAA's website states they include hearing vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability and dwarfism.
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Donald Trump
All qualify for the position of a.
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Paul Moss
Controller of airplanes Pouring into our country, pouring into a little spot, a little dot on the map. It wasn't exactly an explicit response, but after the President spoke, the chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board gave a news conference. Geneva homendy emphasized that the accident required a thorough investigation to determine what had happened. We are all here because this is an all hands on deck event and we're here to assure the American people that we are going to leave no stone unturned in this investigation. We are going to conduct a thorough investigation of this entire tragedy. Looking at the facts. Well, while the investigation may have begun, the clear up is also still very much ongoing as our correspondent Nomia Iqbal explained from Reagan Airport where the passenger plane was heading. It's almost back to business here at the airport. There have been so many planes flying in the skies. But if you're a passenger on that plane and you look out the window, you will still see the Black Hawk and the airliner half submerged in the icy waters of the River Potomac. The recovery operation is still very much underway. Behind me now, the National Transportation Safety Board has said that it's investigating multiple factors. It's confirmed that they have not recovered the flight data, also known as the black boxes. They plan to issue a preliminary report in around about 30 days, but they have said it will take some time because there's so much information that they have to verify. And even though President Trump seems to have prejudged the investigation, saying what he thinks caused it, the Safety Board says it's refusing to speculate. Well, Sarah Smith is our North America editor. Was Donald Trump speaking off the top of his head when he was talking about diversity policies being behind what happened? He didn't have any evidence for that. But what he has done is sign a memo demanding that this be investigated, that all hiring practices at the Federal Aviation Authority over the last four years whilst he's been out of power be investigated. And if there is anybody who has been hired who doesn't meet quality requirements, then they should be sacked and replaced immediately. Because he says he is convinced that it is these diversity policies that have lowered aviation standards. Now, it is being reported here that staffing levels were not normal in the air traffic control tower last night, that jobs would normally be assigned to two different controllers were being done by just one person who by themselves was having to handle all the planes that were landing and taking off, as well as dealing with all the helicopters that were in that airspace. Now, we don't know whether that's routine on occasion, whether that's unusual. But it's definitely something that the air accident investigators are going to have to be looking into along with every other aspect of this crash. Sarah Smith those on board the plane included a number of ice skaters and coaches. They were returning from the US Figure Skating Championship in Wichita, Kansas, where the mayor, Lilly Wu, paid tribute.
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Marianne Faithfull
It was truly an honor to have future Olympians and those who are at the highest competition level of figure skating.
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Paul Moss
Right here in the Air Capital. We were so excited to have the.
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Marianne Faithfull
Opportunity to host the national championship.
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Paul Moss
And even yesterday I had folks tell.
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Marianne Faithfull
Me how wonderful these last few days have been with additional individuals that came into our community, whether to watch or to participate.
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Paul Moss
As well as the skating competition, many of those on board the plane had then attended a training camp. The BBC's Verity Wild follows the sport closely and explains how news of the crash first spread. Figure skating is quite a small community. It's got a very active social media, and they were in absolute panic this morning because yesterday there were all these young skaters posting pictures from their camp in Wichita. And they made that link very quickly between skaters, Wichita and flights. And they've been trying to figure out all day who's been on there. And it does look like it is those kind of younger skaters, perhaps, and their coaches and their parents that have been affected.
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Verity Wild
And not just Americans, but also some Russians.
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Paul Moss
Yes. Now there are actually quite a lot of Russians, former skaters in the States. The US Is one of the big countries in figure skating. Its center is US, Canada, Russia, Japan. And actually what happened is quite a lot of Russian skaters, particularly from the sort of late 80s, early 90s, moved to America when they retired to coach or to take part in ice skating tours. And that's what we think the Russians who are on this plane were doing. Their former skaters, in fact, former world champions Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov are the ones we know of who was coaches at a club in Boston. Verity Wild Speaking to Mark Lohan, Anyone who's been on a Tokyo tube train at rush hour will know what a crush you're in for. But one thing you notice is that unlike in some countries, the children on their way to and from school tend to be rather well behaved. No yelling, throwing chocolate wrappers around, or maybe getting into fights. And that's partly because children in Japan are accustomed to very strict discipline at school. In fact, so much so, they've now been moved to make them just a little less severe. Asia Pacific regional editor Celia Hatton knows all about Japanese school rules and began by giving Me some examples.
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Marianne Faithfull
A lot of schools, for example, ban boys in particular from wearing coats over their school uniforms. Girls are allowed to wear coats, but girls have a whole list of things that they have to follow. Their underwear has to be a certain color, their socks have to be a certain color. Their pencil cases can only be a certain shape. They have to be a box shape. Girls have to wear their hair over the their ears. And in many schools, anyone who genetically just kind of has light colored hair has to dye their hair to make it even more black. Students are often banned from bicycling to school. The lists go on and on and on. And that's why many feel that Japanese high schools are quite oppressive places and, and they're just misery inducing, really.
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Paul Moss
Are we talking just about secondary school here or, or primary schools are like this as well?
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Marianne Faithfull
No, there's a whole different list of rules for primary school students. I spent quite a lot of time when I was a reporter in Japan looking at primary schools, and they have their own lists of rules. So, for example, students have to help clean their own classrooms in Japan when you're in primary school. But also at lunchtime, primary school students have to eat their lunches in a certain order. So they have to eat everything on their tray that's in box A and then move on to box B. And that's been a subject of discussion in itself. Some people think that it encourages eating disorders because students aren't allowed to decide in what order they're going to eat their lunches.
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Paul Moss
So if these rules are so widespread and in primary and secondary schools, what's prompted the idea that things need to change?
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Marianne Faithfull
There's been an ongoing discussion in Japan, particularly over the last few years, that centers around rising levels of youth depression and correspondingly rising levels of youth suicide. So we've seen actually in the past year, 2024, suicide rates in Japan have actually gone down, but youth suicide is at a record high.
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Paul Moss
Do you think there's going to be resistance to making these rules less severe? Presumably some Japanese people think it's good that kids are subject to this kind of strong discipline.
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Marianne Faithfull
Japanese society does have a focus on being polite, to be considerate of others, and to kind of really think about the wider greater good. And so following the rules is also kind of, this idea sort of carried into the workplace. But I think in the past few years in particular, many parents are beginning to question whether the school and teachers and headmasters at schools are actually more important, whether they should have a bigger say in their child's lives. Than they do. And so there's this kind of push and pull between schools and parents and I think parents are starting to slowly gain a bit of the upper hand.
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Paul Moss
Celia Hatton the singer and actor Marion Faithful has died, an icon of London's swinging 60s whose music career lasted more than half a century. She was 78. Faithful shot to fame as a teenager with a song written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are the Rolling Stones. But amidst all her success, her career was overshadowed by a battle with drug addiction which lasted until the mid-80s. David Sillitoe looks back at her life.
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Verity Wild
Marianne faithfull in the 60s she was a star. She had a run of chart hits. She was Mick Jagger's girlfriend. She was one of the in crowd. But that golden era didn't last long. Marianne Faithfull described her childhood as like living in a Renoir painting. Her family were bohemian, but school was strict. However, everything changed when the startlingly beautiful 17 year old met the Rolling Stones and their manager, Andrew Luke Oldham.
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Paul Moss
I went to a party, the Rolling Stones were there and I was looking very shabby. And they came up and said to the person I was with and can she sing? And they had a conversation over my head and then they arranged where I was to be and I went there.
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Verity Wild
And you recorded as Tears Go By?
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Paul Moss
Yes, I sit and watch as tears Go by.
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Verity Wild
Thirty years later, she talked of how she had secretly hoped that the record would fail. Because I had a vague idea that if this was a hit all hell would break loose. This all went on in my summer holidays.
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Paul Moss
So I was just thinking I'd got away with it and I would go back to school and get on with my A levels. And then in October it took off and that was that.
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Verity Wild
The image of shy, wistful 60s innocence was shattered, though when she was caught up in a drugs raid on Keith Richards home, the lurid and false headlines about her left deep wounds. By the 70s, she was a heroin addict. But she continued to record and in the mid-80s, quit drugs.
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Paul Moss
It is the evening of the day.
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Verity Wild
You could hear the darkness, the cracks and scars of those years in her music. She had endured more than her share of the era's sexism. But the artist that emerged was, she said, no one's victim. And you could hear it all in this a re recording of her most.
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Paul Moss
Famous song as Tears for My.
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Verity Wild
Proud, Unapologetic, the voice of Marianne Faithful.
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Paul Moss
Marian Faithful ending that report by David Sillitoe. Still to come, could a $50 painting found in a garage sale be a van Gogh worth many millions more.
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Jennifer Mass
I started out appropriately, scientifically skeptical, and in literally the past month or so, I am starting to feel quite confident.
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Paul Moss
World of Secrets is where untold stories are exposed. And in this new series we investigate the dark side of the wellness industry. Following the story of a woman who joined a yoga school only to uncover a world she never expected. I feel that I have no other choice. The only thing I can do is to speak about this where the hope of spiritual breakthroughs leaves people vulnerable to exploitation. You just get sucked in so gradually and it's done so skillfully that you don't realize. World of Secrets the Bad Guru Listen wherever you get your BBC podcasts. It's been another day of human exchange in the Middle east. Hostages for prisoners as the Gaza peace agreement requires. Thursday saw the freeing of eight people seized during the Hamas led attacks of 7 October 2023. Three Israelis, a soldier and two civilians and five Thai men. Lucy Williamson sent this report from Tel Aviv. Released from Captivity into chaos, two Israeli hostages bundled through the surging crowd. 80 year old Gadi Moses and 20 year old Abel Yehud, released along with five Thai farm workers in Khan Younis today after 15 months in captivity. Their short walk to freedom brutally public, painfully long. In northern Gaza, a separate ceremony for kidnapped soldier Agam Berger, highly controlled and choreographed graffiti mocking Israel's military units decorating the stage. The rubble of Jabalia refugee camp draped in Palestinian flags. Her release was broadcast live on television back in Israel, watched by her childhood friends, among them Bar Hen. It felt like something is, is missing inside of us, of our heart because she's really, really a good friend of us. She's like one of the group. Each exchange, each reunion, bringing a family together, but also bringing Israel and Hamas closer to negotiations over how to extend this ceasefire deal and the conflicts over Gaza's future that's likely to involve Lucy Williamson. In return for Hamas releasing that latest group of hostages, Israel has released 110 Palestinian prisoners. They were given a boisterous welcome when they arrived after much delay in the city of Ramallah on the occupied West Bank. Well, our correspondent Wira Davis is in Ramallah and he watched the homecoming.
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Verity Wild
What we saw today, both on the Israeli side and here in occupied Palestinian territories were joyful scenes as families were reunited with their loved ones. At one stage it looked like it might not happen because of Israeli government anger about the way the host hostages were handed over in Gaza. They had threatened to delay, even postpone the release of these 110 prisoners but eventually it did happen here in the early evening, and then it was slightly delayed for more, I suppose, acceptable reasons, when thousands of people who had come to meet these prisoners flooded the streets of Ramallah and stopped the buses reaching their destination. But when they did, many of the prisoners, about 60 of them, were released into Ramallah, came off and were given a hero's welcome. Among them was one man who'd been arrested more than 20 years ago. He'd never even been able to hug or kiss his youngest daughter because her mother was pregnant with her when he was arrested. And these are the kind of family arenas that made it a very joyous occasion. Less joyous if you are an Israeli looking on might be the site of somebody like Zakaria Zubaidi, who was a former commander of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, convicted by Israel for his role in the deaths of many, many Israelis. He was freed today into the custody of his family in Jenin, and he was carried aloft by his supporters here in Ramallah.
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Paul Moss
Now, this has all happened on the same day that the United nations agency unrwa, that the ban on them working there has come into force. What difference is that making?
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Verity Wild
Too early to say, because I think it's been slightly overshadowed by these releases today. But UNRWA have been saying, you know, for many weeks now, ever since this Israeli threat, in fact, this new Israeli law had materialized, that it was going to severely affect their ability to offer all of the aid they do to Palestinian refugees, all of the schooling, all of the health facilities they run, not just in Gaza, but also, remember, in the occupied East Jerusalem, Israel can't really enforce that ban in the occupied Palestinian west bank because Israel isn't the legal authority here. But in places like East Jerusalem, and of course, in Gaza, where there's a huge humanitarian need, the formal closing of underwater operations will lead, I think, to a worsening of the humanitarian situation. And in places like East Jerusalem, you know, many of the Palestinian children, children who go to school or families who go to clinics can have to be provided with alternatives, perhaps by the Israeli municipal authorities.
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Paul Moss
Wera Davis, As I said, of the eight hostages released in Gaza today, five were Thais, part of a large community of farm workers who travel from poor regions of Thailand attracted by the offer of higher salaries. Thailand's prime minister said she was elated by their release. And yet most of the ties who were taken on October 7 have not made it back to Israel alive. As we heard from our Southeast Asia correspondent, Jonathan Head, there were officially eight.
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Donald Trump
People still technically being held. But we already knew that two of them had died in captivity. They're among the 44Thais who have died either in captivity or in the initial Hamas attacks. So that left six. And I think a lot of people here were hoping that all six would be released. But five of them, all men who are farm workers who've come from mostly the northeast and north of Thailand. That's where most of these guest workers come from to work in Israel. It's a long tradition going back many decades with ties to go to Israel. And yep, they've all been released. As far as we can tell, they're in reasonable health. We can only imagine the conditions they've been held in. I mean, I can remember talking to hostages who were released after only about 50 days and they were pretty traumatized by the experience. So we can't even guess what their state of mind is. The big question is still this one remaining man, whose wife actually I've been in touch with since the very start of this. And we really had hoped that he would be among those released. We don't know what's happened to him. There's no record of his name. Hamas haven't mentioned holding him. He's not recorded as having died. So it's the one last remaining contingent among the Thais who were caught up. And remember, the Thais were the largest group of foreign nationals who were caught up in the whole Hamas attack and the hostage crisis after that.
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Paul Moss
Have you heard from or have you.
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Verity Wild
Seen any reaction from the families of the five released today?
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Donald Trump
Yes, we have. I mean, I've been reporting from Bangkok, but my Thai colleagues have gone off to talk to someone. They're all quite a long way away. It's absolutely fantastic. I mean, the sense of relief, you know, they don't show emotion very much all along they're quite stoical. They've been buoyed by their communities. They usually live in quite tight knit communities in the villages they come from. But the not knowing when or whether their sons, husbands, brothers would come out has been very, very painful. And you have this absolute gush of relief that's come from, for example, Willett tainer, he's a 65 year old man and his son Pong Sac has been held for all that time. And I think my colleagues have spoken to before, you know, he was beginning to lose hope. Remember, Thailand has been running its own diplomatic track to try and get the hostages out. It's not a party to the conflict in the Middle East. And Thailand tries to maintain good relations with everyone, but actually has quite a good relationship with Iran. So they've been talking directly to the Iranians, to the Qataris, to the Egyptians in the hope that they would be able to get their own people out. But, you know, they did get 23 out the month following the initial attacks, but there's been no progress, partly because of the devastating Israeli operation. And it just. Everything's been frozen for this last year while that's gone on. So it's been a very long wait and a very difficult one. But as far as the ties are concerned, apart from this one man who's missing, their saga is now over.
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Paul Moss
Jonathan Head, speaking to Mark Loewen. There are some diseases whose very name is enough to inspire fear, and Ebola is surely one of them. A truly horrible infectious medical condition. It causes those who catch the virus to suffer fever, nausea and sometimes hemorrhage. Left untreated, Ebola can have a mortality rate as high as 80 or 90%. So it's no surprise that the announcement of an Ebola death in Uganda has caused considerable alarm. So far, one person has died. Our Africa health correspondent, Dorcas Wangira told me about the circumstances.
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Lando Norris
The first case is a male nurse, a 32 year old male nurse who had been ill for five days. He had been to several hospitals in different parts of Uganda before coming to the capital where he unfortunately died. And he had also seen a traditional healer before his death.
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Paul Moss
Well, given that the patient had traveled around whilst apparently infectious, what are the health authorities in Uganda now doing?
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Lando Norris
So the health authorities now are trying to assure the people that they are in control, that they're trying to contain the outbreak. So they have come up with several measures, including tracing anyone who came into contact with him. And they're also making plans for vaccination for those who have been in contact with him, particularly the healthcare workers, because he went to different healthcare facilities.
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Paul Moss
Kampala, the capital of Uganda, is a large, very crowded city. Presumably it's very difficult to find everyone who's been in contact with this man.
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Lando Norris
Yes, it is. You know, you cannot see a disease with your eye, you cannot see a virus with your eye. But as difficult as it may be to trace everyone who may be infected, this first case went to specific healthcare facilities. So they're able to look at the healthcare workers, family members who are in contact with him. But the thing with Ebola and contact tracing is that there are known signs and they're known symptoms. So that besides just knowing who did this person come into contact with, they're Also on the lookout for the same symptoms that he had.
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Paul Moss
I know you've managed to speak to some people in Kampala. Is this something people there are worrying about? Are they talking about it?
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Lando Norris
Well, so whenever there is an outbreak, obviously it's always a cause to worry, particularly because this patient died yesterday. But when you look at the many places he was able to visit, it's not just Kampala, it's different places. So far, it's a face of the ministry saying we are in control. It's not a cause for panic or alarm, but it is something to worry about.
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Paul Moss
Kampala is also one of those cities which has very good links to other places in Africa. Presumably there must be worries about it spreading further in the East Africa region and beyond.
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Lando Norris
That's correct. We do say that a disease anywhere is a disease everywhere. Just today in the Africa Centers for Disease Prevention and Control briefing the Director General, Dr. Jean Kassea said that they're also suspecting another outbreak of ebola in the DRC, where they're suspecting 12 cases. So it's not just about Uganda. Kampala is interconnected with Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, and even South Sudan. And this particular type of Ebola is known as the Sudan Ebola virus. So because there are different types of it. So the one thing they always try to find out is where could it have possibly come from and where else could it spread?
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Paul Moss
Dorcas Wangira, do you think you might have a van Gogh painting in your attic? That might sound like a rather daft idea, but in fact, every year hundreds of people announce they've come across works of art in their homes which they believe were produced by the famous Dutch post impressionist. Not surprisingly, it's extremely rare that these claims are taken seriously. But that has just happened. Some experts believe that a painting bought for $50 at a Minnesota garage sale may be a Van Gogh original. Among them is Jennifer Mass, the founder and president of the Scientific Analysis of Fine Art, a company which provides artwork authentication. James Menendez asked her the 64 million dollar question, or perhaps that should be the 15 million dollars question. Does she think the painting really is by Vincent van Gogh?
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Jennifer Mass
Well, I have been working on this painting for three years now, and in general, it is my role to have data and not necessarily have an opinion. But after spending 30 years, my entire career looking at works of art, of course I do have an opinion. And I have to say that I started out appropriately, scientifically skeptical. And in literally the past month or so, I am starting to feel quite positive, quite confident about this work, what happens then?
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Donald Trump
So you and the other experts put.
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Paul Moss
Forward what a dossier of what you think is the evidence, and then who decides? Is it the Van Gogh Museum who has the final say?
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Jennifer Mass
So traditionally in the art market, there'll be one or two art historians that will be the deciders that every painting has to go before them. And yes, the Van Gogh Museum has played that role, absolutely. And in some sense, their job, very appropriately, is to always say no, because they are really protecting his reputation and our understanding of the history of his work. But they have changed their minds over time and it's all a matter of the information that we can present the museum with, just so we can go beyond connoisseurship, which is absolutely critical. And none of the technology and science that we do is ever going to replace the connoisseurship, but it is also critical in terms of coming up with a positive attribution. And so the LMI group that I'm working with, they are profoundly data driven. And so the type of materials, data that I collect and techniques on the paintings, that's just part of the data that we're collecting on an artwork.
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Paul Moss
If it does turn out to be genuine. How significant would this be? I mean, it's quite a find. Isn't.
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Jennifer Mass
Absolutely is. And I think what's fascinating about Van Gogh is that he's done approximately 900 paintings, and yet in the public eye, we get to see the same 70 to 100 paintings over and over again. And there's so much more to the artist than that. And so this painting, while it might look unusual, for example, compared to Starry Night, it actually fits in perfectly with what he was doing in this particular point in his career. Turning back to the earlier palette he used in the Netherlands, the fine art.
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Paul Moss
Expert Jennifer Maas talking to James Menendez. And that's all from us for now. There'll be a new edition of the Global News podcast later. If you want to comment on this podcast, all 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@global newspod. This edition was produced by Judy Frankel and mixed by Daffod Evans. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Paul Moss. Until next time. Goodbye. What does it take to go racing in the fastest cars in the world? Oscar Piastri. Your head's trying to get ripped one way, your body's trying to go another. Let's stroll. It's very extreme in the sense of how close you're racing wheel to wheel. We've been given unprecedented access to two of the most famous names in Formula One, McLaren and Aston Martin. I'm London Arts. They build a beautiful bit of machinery that I get to then go and have fun in. They open the doors to their factories as the 2024 season reached its peak. I'm Josh Hartnett, this is F1 back at Bass. Listen, wherever you get your podcasts.