At least 40 migrants feared dead after boat sinks near Italy

00:00: Hello, this is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service with reports and analysis

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00:30: your BBC podcasts. This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.

00:38: I'm Andrew Peach at 13 GMT on Wednesday the 9th of August. These are our main stories.

00:44: I witness this, say more than 40 migrants have been killed in a shipwreck off the coast of Italy.

00:49: nine bodies are found and are burned out holiday home for adults with learning disabilities in eastern France.

00:55: Poland increases troop numbers on its border with Belarus, as it says more migrants are trying to cross.

01:04: Also in this podcast?

01:05: Because of the three years of the pandemic, our incomes are not as stable.

01:10: We don't have customers like we did before.

01:14: People are paying less.

01:15: Consumer prices fall in China tipping the world's second largest economy into deflation.

01:24: First, eyewitnesses say 41 migrants have drowned off the southern Italian island of Lampedusa after their boat capsized.

01:31: Survivors say the vessel had set off from Tunisia.

01:34: Our correspondent in Rome Sophia Batizi reports.

01:37: We do know that 41 migrants died and they were killed in a shipwreck off the coast of Italy's

01:44: island of Lampedusa, which is in the south of the country in Sicily.

01:49: Now, this is all being reported by Italian media and by their news agency Ansa and they

01:55: have spoken to only four people who survived the shipwreck, three men and one woman from the Ivory Coast and from Guinea.

02:06: So what they said is that they were on a boat that had set off from Tunisia on Thursday.

02:13: They were trying to reach Italy.

02:15: They described it as a very small metal boat about 7 meters long.

02:21: They said that 45 people were on board and that includes three children.

02:28: Now they said that only they were at sea for about six hours which is not very long.

02:34: We were sailing in the Sicilian Channel and that's when the boat capsized and sank.

02:40: Apparently the boat capsized because of a very big wave that threw everybody who was on board into the water.

02:48: Now the survivors said that out of the 45 people who were on that boat, only 15 of them were wearing life-horses.

02:56: They were left in the water at sea for several hours before they were rescued by a cargo ship

03:03: and brought to the island of Lampidusa today.

03:07: Sophia Batitzer in Rome.

03:09: Nine people are known to have died following a fire at a holiday home,

03:12: hosting people with learning disabilities in eastern France.

03:16: The authorities say two people are still missing,

03:19: but are also presumed to have died.

03:21: This from our Europe Regional Editor, Paul Moss.

03:23: This was in the town of Vincentheim,

03:25: which, as you said, is in eastern France very close to the border with Germany.

03:29: What we know is that a fire began there at about 630, where, predictably, most of the people,

03:35: and maybe all of the people there were asleep, it began on the ground floor.

03:39: We understand people there were evacuated, 17 of them, although one needed very serious hospital

03:45: treatment, but the people were trapped on the first floor, and it seems that the bodies of

03:50: nine have already been found, two still missing. We understand that 10 of the people who appeared

03:56: to have died were people who as you suggested had learning difficulties.

04:00: They were there on a holiday and one of the missing was a supervisor who looked after

04:05: them. The interior minister of France, Gerard Damanard, has paid tribute to the rapid and

04:10: courageous intervention by firefighters, but it seems that wasn't enough.

04:16: And do the authorities have any understanding yet as to why this fire was so devastating?

04:20: It seemed to spread through the building so rapidly.

04:23: I think it's clear when you look at pictures from the scene, this was a building, a holiday

04:27: home made in the traditional Al-Zaz region style, which means they're very pretty, but they're made of wood.

04:33: And when you look at it, you can see this charred timbers and this gutted roof, exactly

04:38: the sort of place where a firewood spread very quickly.

04:41: We've had word from Philippe O'Willier, who's the commander in charge of the operation.

04:46: He said, they're having trouble still searching the building for those two bodies because

04:50: there's a huge amount of rubble and as he said many collapsed sections so I think it

04:55: may be a while before anything could be established for sure about what happened and before those two remaining bodies are found.

05:02: Paul Moss reporting.

05:04: Having been reinstated as an MP after a two-year sentence for defamation was suspended,

05:09: the Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi has gone on the offensive.

05:13: He's accusing the Prime Minister Narendra Modi of murdering mother India through how he's responded to armed clashes in Manipur.

05:25: It's a little of the reaction there, chance in the Parliament of Modi,

05:29: Modi to what Mr Gandhi had to say.

05:31: A correspondent in Delhi,

05:32: Rao Vendra Rao, is following the story.

05:35: It was a no-holds-barred attack from Rao Hul Gandhi

05:38: on Prime Minister Narendra Modi as he took part in this debate on the no-confidence motion,

05:44: which the opposition parties have brought against Mr Modi

05:47: government. Now, Manipur is one issue on which the opposition parties, they have been

05:54: criticizing Prime Minister Modi for having maintained a complete silence, but for the

05:59: occasion when he spoke briefly after a video went viral showing atrocities against a couple

06:06: of women. Now, as he took synthesis today in the parliament, Rahul Gandhi accused Prime

06:13: Minister Narendra Modi of murdering mother India in the violence state of Manipur. He said,

06:21: pointing towards the BJP legislators, he said that they killed India in Manipur,

06:26: their politics killed India in Manipur. And he basically doubled down on that, saying that

06:34: Prime Minister Modi did not go to Manipur because for him, Manipur is not a part of India. So all of

06:42: these statements which Rahul Gandhi gave, they drew sharp responses from the Treasury benches,

06:48: there was a lot of uproar in the house, people from the Treasury benches were trying to

06:54: rebut and contradict what Mr. Gandhi was saying. So a lot of acrimony in the house

07:00: till the time Mr. Gandhi was speaking.

07:01: Lots of sound and fury, but in the end, does the Prime Minister Narendra Modi have control

07:06: have authority in the House, he still does.

07:08: Well, absolutely, because BJP, remember, has a very commanding majority in the House

07:14: in a legislature of 545 members. The half-way mark is 272. And the BJP on its own has more

07:22: than 300 legislators there. And if you add their allies to them, the number goes up to around

07:27: 330. So the fate of this no-confidence motion is already a foregone conclusion that BJP

07:33: is going to sail through this rather smoothly. But for the opposition parties, this no-confident

07:38: motion is very significant and important because through this no-confident vote, they think that

07:44: they will finally be able to force Mr Modi to talk about Manipur, something which he has shied from doing so far.

07:54: I'm Vendor Rahe with me from Delhi. The end of the three-year COVID crisis in China was

07:59: expected to see its huge economy bouncing back strongly as restrictions were lifted on

08:04: people's movements and on business activity. The response from Asia's economic giant

08:08: has been sluggish at best figures today show consumer prices fell by 0.3% in July,

08:15: compared with the previous year, the first deflation since early 2021.

08:20: And there appears that poor consumer and business confidence could send China into a long

08:25: period of falling prices and stagnant growth, this from Steve McDonnell in Beijing.

08:33: The busling scene on Beijing's vast underground train network is exactly what you'd expect

08:39: for a modern city of more than 20 million people.

08:42: At times during the COVID crisis, it was strangely quiet though with many working from home

08:49: or choosing to stay indoors, these days, to zip COVID never happened.

08:54: The place value this would seem to show an economy rebounding strongly.

08:59: Well, analysts are telling us that's not actually the case.

09:07: The crowded walkways leading from stations to shopping centres, belive the fact that consumer spending, especially on big ticket items, has been quite weak here.

09:17: People are nervous about job security or about the value of their homes, so they're saving more.

09:24: Because of the three years of the pandemic, most people don't have as much money to spare,

09:30: to even buy certain foods, drinks and clothes.

09:34: They are just more cautious than before.

09:36: Our incomes are not as stable.

09:41: A woman running a shop selling pretty cheap pastries says she too is feeling the pressure.

09:46: We don't have customers like we did before.

09:50: People are buying less. We all know what the economy is like now.

09:55: Everyone is spending money on what's important.

09:59: Less spending and less confidence is pushing down prices on many products.

10:04: In one way that may sound good, but there are fears the country could be heading into a period of deflation with stalled business investment.

10:13: Harry Murphy cruise is an economist at Nude's analytics, specialising in China.

10:18: If you're a household, you're thinking you're buying a couch.

10:21: Well, if you think prices are going to keep falling, then you've got no incentive to buy

10:26: a fist month, but rather hold off to next month.

10:28: But because you've held off, that's pinching retailers.

10:31: They start to cut their prices already and you sort of entrench this cycle that's incredibly difficult to break.

10:38: On the outskirts of every major Chinese city, there are forests of tower blocks with flats

10:43: that nobody wants. Real estate over supply has driven down the value of family homes,

10:49: hitting the biggest investment of ordinary people. The government doesn't want to make the situation

10:54: worse, so it's been loathed to pump more money into propping up developers, but it needs a solution.

11:00: Again, Harry Murphy crews. There's certainly more stimulus that's going to be needed to actually

11:05: kickstart the economy and realistically one of the key challenges for Chinese households

11:09: is that property sector. So while that's still struggling, household spending is going to

11:16: really crawl. Home renovation support tourism stimulus and means to encourage more electric car

11:23: sales are all on the table. Ultimately though it might just be a matter of waiting. If the global

11:29: economy picks up next year this will drive international demand for the stuff China makes.

11:34: The shot in the arm for production here would then feed back into global growth.

11:39: So, maybe China's policy makers will just try to ride out for the next six months in the hope of better times ahead.

11:48: Steve McDonald in Beijing.

11:50: The latest in a series of typhoons that have been battering parts of Asia is slowly edging past Japan.

11:56: The storm has winds of up to 144 kilometres an hour and is expected to bring record, rainfall,

12:03: slides in the floods to Japan and then South Korea, which is expected to hit on Thursday.

12:09: Asia Pacific Regional Editor is Jason Lee.

12:12: It's killed at least two people last week in the southern Okinawa Islands in the Pacific

12:16: Ocean. Right now thousands of homes are reported to be without power as heavy rain pounded

12:21: the southern Kyushu island. Because of the storm's relatively slow pace, rain clouds

12:27: of Lingard resulting in these substantial downpours.

12:31: Hundreds of flights have also been cancelled and Japan's shinkansen bullet trains, which

12:35: are famous for their fast speed, have been halted in the southern areas.

12:40: Now the storm comes as the city of Nagasaki, which is located near the storm's path,

12:44: marks the 78th anniversary of the atomic bombing of the city, which has now been scaled down and moved inside.

12:51: The Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida also cancelled his attendance at the event because of this storm.

12:58: Let's talk about South Korea.

12:59: There have been all sorts of extreme weather events there.

13:01: There's been extreme heat and this typhoon is expected to do quite a lot of damage when it arrives in South Korea.

13:07: Yes, so it's expected to make landfall in South Korea on Thursday morning local time,

13:11: but rains and winds are already growing in southern areas as the storm draws closer to the Korean Peninsula.

13:18: Or 30% of the shoot hies the alert and flights have been grounded on the southern

13:21: in Jeju Island and ships at the country's two biggest ports in Busan and in China are being evacuated.

13:27: Now, it's worth mentioning that South Korea experiences typhoons regularly during its summer season.

13:33: Last month at least 47 people died due to torrential rains and floods and out of those

13:38: 47 we know that 14 of them died when an underpass was flooded in the city of Tongju.

13:43: An inquiry launched after the incident found officials had ignored multiple flood warnings,

13:48: So in order to prevent such tragic incident from occurring again, officials are putting

13:53: extra focus ahead of this typhoon, and onings expecting vulnerable facilities such as drainage facilities and underground tunnels.

14:02: Jason Lee reporting.

14:03: Now to Texas, and a story that's getting a lot of traffic online today, it's about a

14:07: woman called Peggy who was just doing some gardening when she was attacked by a hawk and a snake at the same time.

14:15: Here's Terry Egan.

14:17: It could be a story out of the Bible or an Asop's fable perhaps.

14:21: Peggy Jones was happily mowing her lawn in a town in Texas near the Louisiana border when something fell out of the sky.

14:31: A snake no less.

14:33: As if that weren't bad enough, a hawk that was circling overhead clearly regarded that

14:39: snake as its prey and wanted it back.

14:43: out of the sky, out of the clear blue, a snake fell onto my arm and he's wrapped around my arm

14:48: and just held on tighter. It kept striking in my face, he was striking my glasses,

14:54: just started praying out, Jesus help me, please, Jesus help me."

14:58: Eventually though, the hawk succeeded in dislodging the snake from Peggy's arm

15:03: and her startled husband drove her to hospital. Peggy regards herself as lucky to have survived.

15:09: There were punctuons, cuts, abrasions, scratches, and severe bruising, she said,

15:14: describing the attack as traumatic and adding that she thought she was going to die.

15:21: And just in case you think this is a rare fluke occurrence, Peggy went on to say that living

15:26: in rural Texas and having already survived a venomous snake bite, she's no stranger to wildlife encounters.

15:35: But not usually quite like this one.

15:38: Terry Egan reporting.

15:42: Still to come in this podcast, the Russian authorities introduce a new school textbook

15:47: which includes justifications for the war in Ukraine.

15:49: And...

15:53: The image on God saved the Queen by the sex pistols for the Queen's eyes and mouth,

15:58: hidden by the cut out words of the song's title is probably the defining image of punk in the 70s.

16:04: The man who designed that has died.

16:13: Do you ever feel a bit overwhelmed when you check the news on your phone first thing in the morning?

16:23: I'm Hannah, I'm the presenter of a new podcast called What in the World from the BBC World Service.

16:29: We're going to be here trying to help you make sense of the world around you so you can feel a little bit better about what's happening in the world.

16:37: You can find what in the world wherever you get to your BBC podcasts.

16:44: The US state of Ohio has rejected a Republican motion to make it harder to change the state's constitution,

16:49: a move seen as a defeat for anti-abortion groups.

16:54: Since the US Supreme Court overturned federal abortion protections with Roe v. Wade last

16:59: year, states have raced by the Protect or Restrict Abortion.

17:03: Ohio will vote on abortion in November.

17:06: Had this referendum passed, it would have made it harder for abortion rights to be protected.

17:11: The Democratic mayor of Columbus, Andrew Gintha, gave his reaction.

17:15: People came out and sent a very strong message to an extremist, supermajority in the legislature

17:22: they believe in fairness, they believe in freedom and they believe in the power to hold them accountable.

17:32: CBS correspondent Jared Hill told me more about the vote.

17:35: This on the bout itself was purely about the threshold to change the state's constitution

17:42: going from instead of 50% plus one vote to 60% vote.

17:46: We saw here as you mentioned that that got struck down keeping with a 50% plus one.

17:51: Now while the abortion issue was not on the ballot, we do know that Republican lawmakers

17:56: who supported this change linked these two together as they were advocating and pushing for the adjustment there.

18:03: So this definitely was in the end by and large about the issue of abortion at least largely within the state.

18:11: There were some people who were speaking a bit more broadly about wanting to maintain

18:15: the abilities both with them and voting for decades here.

18:18: But really this was about abortion.

18:20: And Biden is pleased he's hailing this as a victory for those who want to protect abortion rights.

18:27: What will the Republican legislature do in response to this, though?

18:31: Yeah, so President Biden is really attaching himself to this one because again, you do

18:36: have this 2024 vote coming up for presidency.

18:39: And some recent CBS News polling has shown that Democrats by and large are more motivated

18:44: to go to the polls around the issue of abortion than our Republicans.

18:48: Now when it comes to state republicans in Ohio and what they do next, they're essentially

18:52: accepting that this is the, now the law of the land that this is the vote.

18:57: They potentially could bring this up again, maybe not as early as next year, but at this

19:01: point they're saying that their focus really is going to be on trying to defeat the ballot

19:07: initiative in November that would enshrine the right, the protections to abortion in the state constitution.

19:14: So essentially at this point, they've moved on from this.

19:16: will take note of any shortcomings there might have been and really focus on making sure

19:22: that abortion is not a part of the state constitution in Ohio in that November vote.

19:26: And are we going to see processes like this playing out in other states?

19:29: Possibly.

19:30: So we have seen some attempts to get measures like this up for a vote in some other states though so far have failed.

19:37: But we do again know that ever since the Supreme Court overturned the federal right to an

19:42: abortion, said there was not a federal right to an abortion in the constitution.

19:46: This has really been something that has popped up in a lot of states.

19:48: We've seen a lot of states where this has come up since then rejecting this notion that

19:55: there should be a ban on abortion, at least when this is given up to the people and not

20:00: just left up to lawmakers in those states.

20:03: So again, this is an interesting test, as we're continuing to see, around how Americans

20:08: on an individual level, once they go into the voting booth, are weighing the right to

20:15: an abortion or in some cases the right to privacy as many of them might see it.

20:20: CBS correspondent Jared Hill from Ohio to California and a judge in Los Angeles has given

20:26: a 10-year prison sentence to Tory Lane's, the man convicted of shooting the Grammy-winning

20:31: rapper Megan Lee Stallion in the foot during an argument in 2020. It's a case with serious

20:36: celebrity interest. Lane's is a hip-hop artist. They both made music addressing the issues.

20:42: shooting took place after the pair left a party at the home of reality star Kylie Jenner.

20:47: The district attorney George Gascon said it also highlights the trauma experienced by

20:51: survivors like Megan the Stallion, whose real name is Megan Pete.

20:55: The fact that Miss Pete is a successful entertainer has brought a spotlight on the important issue of violence against women.

21:05: There are many people in our community that endure acts of violence every day from people

21:09: close to them and feel reluctant to come forward when this happened. I hope the

21:16: mispeeds bravery gets hope to those that feel helpless." A correspondent in Los Angeles

21:21: Peter Bose told me more about the case.

21:24: Torrey Lanes was found guilty in December of last year on three counts after the shooting of

21:30: Megan the Stallion. This followed a poor party at Kylie Jenner's home in the Hollywood Hills in 2020.

21:37: The two of them apparently had an argument. This is Tory Lane's and Megan about his musical ability.

21:45: She claims that he then told her to dance and that's when she ended up being shot in the foot.

21:52: Now he maintained his innocence throughout, his lawyer said there'd been a botched investigation.

21:57: But what we've just had, unusually long, today sentencing hearing, long because many people

22:05: came forward. Many letters were sent to the judge. Character witness is speaking up for

22:10: Tory Lanez in terms of his plea not to be sent to prison for this crime. He also spoke, he said

22:20: of Megan, he said she is someone I still care for dearly to this day, regardless of what she

22:25: may think of him. She said that he was the victim's friend and he talked about bonding with her

22:33: over the loss of their mothers. We didn't hear directly from Megan in that she wasn't in the

22:38: courtroom. She said she struggled with whether to appear in person but didn't for the sake of her

22:43: mental well-being. But in her statement, she said since the shooting, she hadn't experienced a

22:49: single day of peace and that he had shown no remorse. Peter Bowes in Los Angeles. Now, can you

22:56: remember the history you learned at school? School textbooks can be crucial to shaping a whole

23:02: generations perception of historical events. In Russia authorities have unveiled a new school

23:07: textbook including justifications for the war in Ukraine and accusing the West of trying to break

23:13: Russia. BBC Monitoring's Russia editor is Vitaly Shevchenko. The book presents Russia's

23:20: history as a centuries-old struggle between Russia and aggressive West. And essentially,

23:31: it's an example of how history is being weaponized in Russia because past events, real or imaginary,

23:40: are being used to justify the current government's policies, such as the war on Ukraine. To give you

23:48: one quote that I think encapsulates the thrust of what the textbook says about Russia's most recent

23:58: history. It argues that if President Putin had not started his so-called special military

24:07: operation against Ukraine, this would have possibly been the end of civilization on planet Earth.

24:16: And this textbook is full of very obvious manipulations and, well, untruths.

24:25: To give you an example, it says that until 2014, when Russia first attacked Ukraine, 80%

24:34: of residents of Ukraine said the Russian language was their mother tongue.

24:40: That's untrue, numerous opinion polls, surveys and a census in 2001 said that about a third

24:49: of residents of Ukraine say that Russian is their mother tongue.

24:52: It isn't uncommon for history to be told through the prison, through the lens of the nation

24:58: where children are learning it. So I'll let this go further than that though.

25:02: It does. This is how I was taught history as well back in the Soviet Union.

25:07: but this textbook, it feels kind of more relevant and more necessary for the government right now,

25:16: which is keen to use this textbook to justify its war in Ukraine. This is the first such textbook

25:22: to mention this war. Vitaly Shchefchenko reporting, Poland is increasing troop numbers on its

25:28: border with Belarus, as it says it's seeing an increase in migrants trying to cross in recent days.

25:34: The Polish government has accused Belarus of facilitating the passage of the migrants.

25:38: From Warsaw at Eastern Europe Correspondence, Sarah Reinsford has more.

25:42: Poland has been talking about securing its eastern border a lot in recent weeks.

25:47: First increasing the number of border guards and now sending in additional 2,000 soldiers in support.

25:53: That's as well as the giant metal fence that already separates Poland from Belarus and

25:57: is covered with cameras and motion detectors.

26:01: appeared after 2021 when tens of thousands of migrants were encouraged to be

26:06: Belarus and then helped across the EU's eastern border, creating a political and

26:11: humanitarian crisis here. The Polish government faces re-election in a couple of

26:15: months and it's been talking tough on both migration and security. It also says

26:21: it's worried that Russian mercenaries from the Wagner group, now in Belarus,

26:25: might somehow start to help the migrants to cross. That seems unlikely. They

26:30: needed two years ago, but both Poland and Lithuania are keeping a close and

26:34: wary eye on Wagner's movements across the border. Now taking health advice can

26:40: be a struggle. There is good news today from two new reports. One says something

26:44: as simple as eating nuts can reduce depression in adults. The other says we

26:49: don't need to walk quite as far as we used to think necessary to improve our

26:53: physical health. Here's Wendy Eurkis. For years, thousands of us have been pounding

26:58: the pavements trying to reach that magic goal of 10,000 steps a day to stay fit and healthy.

27:05: But new researchers found that walking just half of that could also save lives. Researchers

27:11: followed 227,000 people for seven years to complete their study.

27:16: What they found was that walking at least 2,300 steps a day was really good for the heart

27:22: and blood vessels, and the more people walked, the more they reduced the risk of dying from

27:26: cardiovascular disease and every 1000 steps above the 4000 steps mark brings down the risk of dying early by 15%.

27:37: Now the man who crafted the image which came to define punk music, the artist Jamie

27:41: Reed, has died at the age of 76.

27:44: Let's look back at his life with our arts correspondent David Silito.

27:51: The image on God save the Queen by the sex pistols with the Queen's eyes and mouth, hidden

27:56: by the cut out words of the song's title is probably the defining image of punk in the 70s.

28:02: Jimmy Reed had met the band's manager Malcolm McLaren at Art School in Croydon.

28:08: His lettering in the style of a cut and paste ransom demand was key to the pistol's look,

28:13: but this was just a small part of his life and work.

28:15: Deeply political, Jimmy Reed created banners, flyers and posters for dozens of protests

28:21: over the years, taking on the poll tax, English heritage and the Gulf War with a lipstick

28:25: wearing John Wayne, a radical to the end whose most notorious royal image is now hanging in the National Portrait Guard.

28:35: Our answer is Correspondence, David Sillato.

28:40: And that's all from us for now.

28:41: There will be a new edition of Global News later.

28:43: If you want to comment on this podcast and the stories we included, drop us an email.

28:48: The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk.

28:52: On Twitter, we are at Global NewsPod.

28:55: This edition was mixed by Chesley Forks Porter. The producer was Stephanie Tilletson. The

28:59: editor is Karen Martin. My name is Andrew Peach. Thank you for listening. Till next time.

29:04: Bye.