← The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim
The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim
Looking Back at 2024: A World in Turmoil
00:25:07
In this special episode, Richard and Yalda take a look back at the biggest world news stories of 2024. From reporting on the frontlines of Ukraine and Lebanon, to witnessing the election of Trump in Washington, Richard and Yalda have criss-crossed...
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- [00:01]
Richard Engel
Yalda, it is amazing that we're together in the same place. We're here in Doha, Qatar. What a great opportunity to be at the same place, same time in person.
- [00:11]
Galda
Exactly. It's always great to have our paths crossed and be in the same room together. And hello and welcome to the world to our listeners, as Richard said. I'm Galda.
- [00:22]
Richard Engel
And I'm Richard Engel. Thank you to everyone who's following us. And if you're not following, please do so. You never miss an episode and you can Write in@theworldsky.uk you can also watch us on our YouTube channel. So let's get started. This episode is going to be a little different because it's holiday season and we're going to be doing a bit of a look back. A lot of people do year in review shows or year in review articles, which, by the way, I always read. Do you read those?
- [00:58]
Galda
All of the time.
- [00:59]
Richard Engel
I love these. I love them. Look back at the most interesting stories. So we're going to look back at some of the stories that we remember most.
- [01:06]
Galda
Absolutely. It's been a huge year for world events. We haven't stopped, have we? I mean, whether it's been the war in Ukraine, the conflict in the Middle east and of course the US elections.
- [01:18]
Richard Engel
So I think when I look back at this year, obviously for me it was dominated a lot by the aftermath of the October 7 attack. The ongoing war in Gaza, I think, was a memorable event and a dominant event also the war in Ukraine. But in our business, as you know, you don't just think about stories. Yes, there's the war in Gaza. You think about people. And there's this one young woman in Gaza named Nadine and she's a. Well, she's a teenager, really. A few years ago, I met this, this young woman named Nadine and she's from a very educated family and she speaks English and she has an older brother, a younger brother, loving mom and dad. And I used to sort of check in on them and get a pulse because they were, you know, regular people. They were not extremists, they were not extremely rich, they were not extremely poor. They, they were reasonable, nice people. And what struck me most about this year is I saw her again, I didn't see her in person. We got all these videos. We decided since I have this relationship with her, we were going to go and film with her. And this is a young woman who lived in Gaza City in a nice apartment with plants and flowers and books and they wanted to be doctors and had high hopes and, and they had high expectations for their futures because they, they, they seem like that kind of people. They valued education. Now, when I saw this video, I was, I don't know, stopped in my tracks. She's living in a. A tent is not the right word to describe it. It's like a, A shelter. It looks like some sort of animal corral made of flattened cans, a canvas on top. She and her family have made a sink with, again, flattened metal. And they carved together or cobbled together this wooden frame for it. And I was watching just the squalor that they're living in and how she's changed. She's now wearing a veil she never used to before, so her talk is peppered with religious talk. Her brother, her older brother is dead. The house is destroyed. The younger brother got badly sick from one of the many communicable diseases that are going around in Gaza. He almost died. He is now recovered, so to speak, and is living in this corral that they've managed to build for themselves, this sort of devastated world. And cries. You know, we interviewed him and how he feels about his brother, and he, he was saying, oh, the little, the little boy. I don't care about all the. That we've lost, that the house is lost. I just want my brother back. And I just, I'll just remember that. That, for me, encapsulated that. What happened to Gaza in this last year through this story of this young woman who I knew before in a different life, in a different circumstance, a circumstance that was tough before, but not this, and it's not over. She's still there. She's there now.
- [04:41]
Galda
You know, you realize, Richard, just the horrors of war and what it actually does to people and their lives. And that's why I always think that what we do when we personalize the story or talk about individuals in these situations, because they're not just numbers. These are people with stories and lives and school, and they want to fall in love and they want to go to work and they want to have a better life for themselves.
- [05:11]
Richard Engel
And she's not an extremist or wasn't before, but I don't know what's going to happen to the young people who are there. How angry are they going to get when you see this misery all around you and Gaza's been destroyed and made unlivable. These people who are people at the end of the day, not just numbers or a problem that has to be dealt with as they grow up. So that's one story I'll remember. What about you? Any.
- [05:39]
Galda
Yeah, I mean, I think for me, if, I mean, the, the situation in Gaza is unbearable and devastating and always hard to talk about. But if I were to slightly shift our attention and you know, I remember being in India and I got a text message from someone in the United States going, something has happened to Donald Trump. He was at a rally and you know, they can hear gunshots. Turn on your tv, find out from your newsroom what's happening. And because he was seeing some wires come through. So I contacted the newsroom and they said, yeah, we're not quite sure what it is, but they heard gunshots and turned out someone had actually, you know, attempted to assassinate Donald Trump. And you know, the way we are, we just kind of drop everything.
- [06:23]
Richard Engel
Yeah, I remember watching that.
- [06:25]
Galda
Forget absolutely everything.
- [06:27]
Richard Engel
Mother. At the time we were both watching the TV transfixed and trying to figure.
- [06:30]
Galda
Out what, what's going on.
- [06:32]
Richard Engel
I thought Trump just won the election at that moment is what I. What. That's the thought that went through my mind.
- [06:36]
Galda
Well, it was the image is that when he emerged and the fist up in the air and the screaming into the chanting into the mic, fight, fight, fight. And you realize ever the forever, he kind of has an understanding. You know, he's a 78 year old man, but he has an understanding of what those images mean. And he wanted that image to be captured. Blood running from the side of his face, fist up in the air, chanting fight, fight, fight. As he's being bungled away by the Secret Service. So all this is developing and I'm now looking for a flight out of India. I get myself to back to London, I switch bags and it is now 24 hours.
- [07:16]
Richard Engel
So you just left right then and there.
- [07:17]
Galda
I was like, I got to get out of here, Trump. There's just been an assassination attempt. And you know, you suddenly realize these stories that period so much happened that you would think that we'd be talking for months about the assassination attempt on Donald Trump. But so much has happened since, it now feels like a blip in, in kind of a long list of other things that happened.
- [07:35]
Richard Engel
Yeah, a presidential or presidential candidate assassination almost got him.
- [07:40]
Galda
Absolutely.
- [07:41]
Richard Engel
You know, a couple of centimeters grazed his ear and it could have changed the course of history.
- [07:47]
Galda
He credits those immigration charts that he was talking to for tilting his head and the gunman missing him. He said he had an immigration chart up and as he was looking up at it, the guy hit.
- [07:57]
Richard Engel
It's very possible maybe, but so I.
- [07:59]
Galda
Get myself, it's now 24 hours away from the Republican National Convention. This is the convention where they come to endorse the candidate that they want.
- [08:07]
Richard Engel
It was that close, right? It was right on the eve of the rna, the Republican National Convention.
- [08:12]
Galda
Absolutely. So I got myself to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a city I quite like. I spent a lot of time there during the 2020 election.
- [08:19]
Richard Engel
And for non Americans, this is the event where the Republicans announced their candidate. Everyone knew that he, he was going to be the presidential candidate, but this was his official sort of coronation. He's our guy. In a big lavish event with music and pop stars to say, he's our man. Let's get excited about bringing him to the White House.
- [08:39]
Galda
Exactly. They announce him, they, they, they sort of make it official that he is the candidate at that point. So I arrive in Milwaukee, security's tight. But it was extraordinary being inside because it wasn't just a regular rnc. It felt almost cult, like the MAGA movement. They were talking about the fact that Donald Trump was there for a higher purpose. He had survived this assassination attempt to become almost. It was sent by God.
- [09:07]
Richard Engel
Other people wearing the, everyone was wearing the, the cotton bandage on their, on their ears and in solidarity and maybe more in emulation.
- [09:15]
Galda
Absolutely. And as I said, it started with an assassination attempt. Joe Biden then steps down. Kamala Harris within the space of three of those three or four days, Kamala Harris then is coronated. And rather than an actual open process, they said, you know what, we're going to put our lot behind her. We're going to endorse her.
- [09:35]
Richard Engel
I wonder how well that decision holds up the scrutiny of history. But that's a conversation for another day. Today. This is the look back year in, in our, in our memories, in our journalistic memories. What else?
- [09:49]
Galda
Well, from one assassination attempt to ending up in Lebanon, Richard. When the pages went off, when, when Hezbollah fighters suddenly had these pages that were exploding. Oh yes, in their faces, on their belts. I also had a moment where I thought, pages, who still uses pages? But they were using these pages not to be trapped, you know, and yet it turned out that the pages were suddenly exploding on people's hips and in their faces.
- [10:19]
Richard Engel
That the Hezbollah thought, well, we use these pagers because they're old fashioned technology. They'll be safer and harder to track than, than an iPhone which could be hacked and tracked. Whoops.
- [10:31]
Galda
Walkie talkies were exploding. Everyone was thinking, my God, what's happened?
- [10:34]
Richard Engel
Is this memory too?
- [10:35]
Galda
This is memory two. So I go from an assassination attempt on Donald Trump which as we can see, won him that election, we end up in Lebanon, where Hezbollah is not only decapitated, but their longtime Secretary General, Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of, the charismatic leader of Hezbollah, revered but also reviled, who was famous and then infamous across the Arab world and who had organized this, this extraordinary army, non state actor of an army. And suddenly he's assassinated. And we've seen how that has changed the course of the reshaping the Middle east as we see it now profoundly.
- [11:20]
Richard Engel
And that's, that's my, my. You want to hear my second one?
- [11:22]
Galda
Absolutely.
- [11:22]
Richard Engel
Good. So the first one was this, this, this sort of gut punch experience of watching the video first, because I couldn't see Nadine. I was watching the video and the conditions, and I went. It was. We had hours and hours of footage of, of her and her, her family, or what's left of her family. The other image I think I'll, I'll always remember of this, this year that has just passed or that is coming to an end is I remember being in the. Standing on a rooftop in Tyre in southern Lebanon. And the hotel we were staying at was this old fort. And it was an old Crusader era fort. And next to it was a Phoenician temple, or Phoenician port, I should say, but it had columns. And then nearby there was an actual Phoenician and later Roman era temple. And I used to go swimming every day. There were columns below. I saw a turtle swimming by, which was beautiful. So I would go out and interview Hezbollah fighters and see the destruction and then come back to our medieval fort, take a swim through the ruins. And it's a beautiful, just extraordinary place. It's a terrible tragedy that all these, these conflicts and wars happen in such, such gorgeous historic places often. But the memory I have is standing on the roof of this fort when the Iranians fired their ballistic missiles. And it was the second time. So I was in Jerusalem for the first time. And I remember that distinctly. And I remember watching the Iranian missiles fly over the old city. And flying, I could see them going up and over the Al Aqsa mosque at altitude. And then I saw them again standing on the roof of this old fort in Tyre, Lebanon, and watching this amazing light and sound show, mostly light show, because it was at such altitude, you couldn't hear the explosions. You could just see them bursting like fireworks in the air. It was middle of the night. And I remember so distinctly thinking, the Middle east is changing. This is not going to go unanswered. There are going to be massive consequences for what I'm seeing right now, and I think we are seeing that realignment in the Middle east that you're just talking about with spillover into Syria, obviously consequences for Iran, even here in Doha. One of the main subjects at this conference is all about the knock on effects of the Lebanon war, of the Gaza war, and where does it go from here? So I think sometimes interesting to think back at these little moments when, you know, in that moment, I know it was the start of something new, shifting.
- [14:10]
Galda
I think, like you say, you know, when we saw those sequence of events in Lebanon. So we, you know, we were exhausted coming back from the United States when so much, has so much political upheaval. Donald Trump gets shot, Joe Biden steps down, Kamala Harris steps in. So we come back and we're hoping for some kind of respite. And then Lebanon erupts. I mean, we've seen the, the, the turmoil in Gaza and the devastation. And then of course, Lebanon erupts, as you say, the pages exploding, the walk talkies, Hassan Nasrallah being killed. And then the, the s. The missiles that we saw. I mean, we were both in country when that was happening, which is when.
- [14:51]
Richard Engel
We launched the world. We launched this podcast which has become a fun new part of our, our lives. Should we, should we take some questions?
- [14:59]
Galda
Yeah, let's go for it.
- [15:00]
Richard Engel
We've got a few written down here. One is from Jose Ayubi. When will the international community take action on Afghan women's rights? You have to take this one.
- [15:14]
Galda
I have to take this one. Richard. You know, we talked about the stories that have made impact on us this year, but I think for me, the Afghan story makes an impact every single day. You know, not only is it well over 1177 days that Afghan girls or more now where they can't go to school, but just in the last few days, we heard a new edict, a new restriction. Nurses and midwives can no longer study at university. They cannot operate and function. I mean, just think about this. Women in childbirth, what are they supposed to rely on?
- [15:51]
Richard Engel
And I don't even. What are they? What's the point of this? You know, Taliban has serious issues. Men and women shouldn't be mixing. Fine. It's their. I kind of get it from their perspective. Fine. But you don't want, okay, you don't want male doctors touching women or seeing women. Okay, fine, it's extreme. But you don't even want women.
- [16:11]
Galda
Women.
- [16:12]
Richard Engel
So what are they supposed to do? They're all good. They're all supposed to just die.
- [16:14]
Galda
Well, they're supposed to just, you know, maternal mortality rates in the last 25 years don't even get the logic of this gone down. In Afghanistan, there's been massive improvements. I mean, some places felt like in Badakchan, for example, you felt like you were in the 6th century before the Americans came in.
- [16:30]
Richard Engel
But I'm not asking you to be a Taliban rep, but what's the, what's the. Even the logic to say we don't want women to learn how to become midwives, Richard. So who's supposed to be delivering the babies?
- [16:39]
Galda
What is the logic of not allowing women to take their children to a park? Women are banned from taking their children out of the house into a park, let alone, you know, preventing midwives and nurses from operating and going into hospitals and working or even home births. This is going to set the country back in a massive way. So just to answer Jose Ayoubi's question about when they're going to take, take action, I mean, I think one of the, the most disappointing things about the Biden administration abandoning Afghan, the Afghan project was that when you talk so much about human rights, women's rights, democracy, and then you've got these Afghan women who can not only go to school, but they're also now supposed to give birth without any health care.
- [17:25]
Richard Engel
Your mother was a midwife.
- [17:27]
Galda
That's right, yes. So this story is actually quite personal about the midwives, for me is quite personal because my mom, I always heard about, she worked as a young midwife in Afghanistan before I was born.
- [17:38]
Richard Engel
So it was a normal traveling across the provinces, go and, and help women deliver.
- [17:43]
Galda
When the Soviets were in the country, she would travel from province to province and, and help women in, you know, the, the darkest corners of the country. And yet today in 2024, midwives are being told, stay at home.
- [17:57]
Richard Engel
I just don't even, I don't even get it. I don't even get it. I don't see how that is in any way part of their sort of. They claim to be this, you know, true Islamist, but half the world's population are women. They have no concern. They have wives, they have daughters.
- [18:14]
Galda
It's, it's baffling. I mean, they do send their daughters here to Doha to study and come to school. So that's probably.
- [18:20]
Richard Engel
The leaders do.
- [18:20]
Galda
The leaders do, yeah. But let's, let's take a question.
- [18:23]
Richard Engel
I bet you they have somebody helping them give birth.
- [18:26]
Galda
Absolutely. Well, they're in Doha, aren't they? And when their daughters are operating here and going to school in Doha and going to university, I met a Taliban leader's daughter who proudly told me she goes to university.
- [18:36]
Richard Engel
Do as I say, not as I do.
- [18:37]
Galda
Exactly this. Let's take another question from Tekendra Sharma, who's asking, is the world heading towards World War 3 and will the spark again be in Europe?
- [18:49]
Richard Engel
Will the spark again be in Europe? Oh, I hope we're not heading toward World War iii. But can I sound. I don't. Do I have to sound overly posthumous? We said, come and join us. Have a glass of eggnog, and we'll tell you our stories. And I'm gonna say I. I wouldn't rule out World War III if you, you know, I drink the eggnog, enjoy it, because you don't know if you're gonna have it next year. I don't think it's that imminent, but I do think that it is very possible. We've had two world wars, and what's to suggest that we won't have another? People talk a lot about AI. I don't think necessarily AI is going to take over the Terminator effect, that AI computers are just going to wake up and take over the machines and decide that we as humans need to be eliminated. Maybe. But I think it's more likely that this kind of technology speeds up conflicts. I think we're seeing the pace of conflicts intensify, and AI is all about games and problem solving, and countries are already starting to use AI and militaries are already starting to use AI to figure out how do we beat our adversary or how do we protect against a foreign invasion. So I think once you start to see that come online, I think it will speed up and intensify conflicts. So I hope I'm wrong, but generally, whenever there's a new transformative technology like nuclear technology, we immediately use it, and we immediately use it for war.
- [20:17]
Galda
Yeah. And I think we barely survived the 20th century, so who's to say that.
- [20:22]
Richard Engel
We'Re going to get through have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas?
- [20:26]
Galda
But, you know, in all seriousness, I mean, you know, we saw what happened in the 20th century. Are we going to go into a third world war? We talked about the different arenas of war, the different theaters of war. In one of the other episodes, I don't think any region is distinct. They're all interconnected, whether that's Asia, Europe, or the Middle East. We can see now the way that these wars are conducted and the way that these leaders operate. They use each other's proxies and, you know, fight each other's wars for them. So we may or may not be, you know, heading towards World War iii. But I wouldn't rule out what worst case scenario could look like.
- [21:04]
Richard Engel
So should we wrap up this Holiday edition with a couple of year ahead predictions?
- [21:11]
Galda
Are we doing a year ahead prediction?
- [21:12]
Richard Engel
Year ahead prediction? You always like the long term predictions.
- [21:14]
Galda
I do.
- [21:14]
Richard Engel
I do long term predictions or year out predictions, 2025 predictions.
- [21:20]
Galda
I think over the course of the next year, I'm going to watch Iran very closely and see. We keep hearing maximum pressure on Iran and that's what's coming from the Trump administration. Will Iran make the concessions? And we've seen the Iranian empire weaken. What sort of concessions will they now make as we move into 2025?
- [21:43]
Richard Engel
You stole mine. I agree with you wholeheartedly that, yes, I think Iran is in the crosshairs and will increasingly be in the crosshairs. Now, what does that mean? If Iran is under a lot of pressure, it can either react very violently and it could be a conflict and Netanyahu and Trump could decide to put maximum pressure, military pressure on it. Or it could force Iran to shift and change and maybe adapt a different, take a different approach. I don't know. But I think Iran is in play next year. I think big changes are going to come. But since you already picked Iran, let's go somewhere beyond the region. Don't have anything off the top of my head. I think Ukraine, I think Ukraine war enters a new phase. Probably wraps up. And it probably wraps up not in an end of conflict. I think the Ukrainians are going to get a raw deal. I think they know it's coming. They're looking for NATO, they're looking for reassurances. They want, they want to, to win somehow. I'm not sure they're going to get it. I think that with Trump and Russia in a pretty strong position, they'll say, you know what your deal is, you know what you're getting. The bombings will stop and not much more than that. Europeans will step in. Maybe the Europeans can do it. I don't have tremendous confidence in their ability to get that kind of unified political support. Find the money necessary to pay for sustaining Ukraine. So maybe the Europeans start and keep it going for a few months, six months or whatever. But over the course of the year, of next year, I think it's going to be, it's going to be very tough, tough for Ukraine.
- [23:30]
Galda
And their greatest fear, that the war wraps up, you know, on paper, but actually a war of attrition continues at their expense.
- [23:40]
Richard Engel
Well, what a happy, optimistic show. Thank you all for listening. And, you know, don't throw yourselves out the window. Didn't we say at the beginning we're going to do this podcast to help unpack the world to make it seem less scary.
- [23:57]
Galda
What are you doing for Christmas?
- [23:59]
Richard Engel
Me? I'm. Well, I'm hoping. I'm hoping. In this business, you never really know to spend it with. With family. And as you know, I like to go to Italy. So my hope and plan is to go to Italy and stuff myself with as much pasta as I could possibly eat and. And drink a lot of water. Breakfast ice cream for breakfast. That's Theo's favorite thing. We go and have granita, which is like. Like Italian, kind of not gelato, but it's like an Italian shave ice. And in Sicily, they have it for breakfast. It's amazing.
- [24:28]
Galda
With brioche, of course. I am going home to Australia. I go every year over the Christmas period. It's when I try and decompress. I'm also so far away from the rest of the world that I can shut down and have some time at the beach with my family, my parents and the rest of my family. So, you know, let's hope.
- [24:47]
Richard Engel
Let's hope you don't have another Mumbai experience. I know when something suddenly get dragged away.
- [24:52]
Galda
Nature of our business.
- [24:53]
Richard Engel
It is great to see you in person.
- [24:56]
Galda
So good to see you, Richard.
- [24:57]
Richard Engel
Until next.