Investigators: 'Cable snapped before Lisbon funicular crash'

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This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.

I'm Paul Moss, and in the early hours of Sunday, the 7th of September, these are our main stories.

Transport authorities in Lisbon say the funicular crash, which killed 16 people this week, was caused by a cable snapping.

International post deliveries to the United States have plunged sharply since new customs and tariff rules were brought in.

And the Brazilian football star Rafinha has accused staff at Disneyland Paris of racism after his son was passed over for a hug.

Also in this podcast,

Israel destroys another high-rise building in Gaza.

A local journalist tells us why these attacks provoke particular fear.

People are terrified if a high building will be targeted 500 meters away from you, you will be affected by this.

The authorities in Lisbon are still trying to identify some of those killed when a carriage on one of the city's famous funicular railways suddenly hurtled downhill and crashed.

The accident on Wednesday left 16 people dead and many more injured.

Now, Portugal's National Transport Safety Office has issued a statement confirming that the main cable holding the carriage snapped.

Here's our correspondent in Lisbon, Alison Roberts.

This statement is a statement of the facts.

What the investigators were able to see on the face of things, it's not, they're very clear any conclusions so it's saying no conclusions can be brought from the list of facts that they have enumerated in this statement but they do say a number of very relevant and interesting things for example they confirm that the cable that connected the two funicular cars came detached from the upper car and that that caused it to start accelerating down the slope they also state that the brake man, the driver in that upper car, did apply the brakes that were available to him.

So that was a manual brake, and also there's an automatic pneumatic brake.

But it does raise the possibility that another automatic system that should have kicked in when the electric circuit was cut due to the cable coming loose, that that may not have been applied.

It also mentioned a number of other details, such as, for example, that when the car derailed and hit a building right near the bottom of the slope, that it was traveling at that point at 60 kilometers per hour.

It says rather curiously at this point in the proceedings that it still is not possible to state with certainty how many people were in the two cars, and that's perhaps because some people are so badly injured.

It's not clear in the confusion whether some of them were standing on the pavement or were in the cars at that point.

Alison Roberts.

It's only a week since the United States introduced new restrictions on parcels being sent into the country, but already the effect has has been dramatic.

There had been a rule which said you could post small parcels or gifts to someone in the US, and as long as they were worth less than $800, they weren't liable for tax, nor all the customs bureaucracy which goes with it.

But that exemption disappeared at the end of August, and since then, the amount of post coming into America has dropped by 80%.

As the BBC's correspondent in Washington, Arunade Mukherjee, explained, that's partly because the post offices in many countries won't now accept parcels destined for America.

Companies are saying they're looking at ways to try and tide over this and get the shipments moving back to the U.S.

as fast as they can.

But the change in policy has left postal services without clear guidance on how to prepay, collect or remit duties for the affected items.

So there still remains a fair bit of uncertainty and confusion.

Which does raise the question, I guess, why?

Why did Donald Trump issue this new rule?

Well, he signed an executive order last month ending the global import tax exemption on these low-value parcels, as you pointed out.

And the White House has been very clear in its reasoning and rationale.

It had said that ending the duty-free exemption would combat what they felt were, quote, escalating deceptive shipping practices.

They had said there was illegal material coming in or even a duty circumvention.

They had even gone on to claim that some shippers had abused this exemption in the past to send illicit drugs to the U.S.

So essentially tying in with an issue of national security.

What's also important to note is that the biggest beneficiaries of this exemption have been countries like China, Canada, and Mexico, and you know, who were significant sources of low-cost parcels coming into the U.S.

And remember, relations with all these countries have been tenuous, especially as far as conversations over tariffs have gone.

Given that the amount of posts coming in has dropped by 80%, presumably that means an awful lot of Americans haven't been receiving the gifts and parcels they were hoping for.

What's the public reaction been to this?

Well, we've been trying to scan social media or get a sense of how the public would be reacting.

It's still early days, I think, and there will be, however, some confusion, frustration, and chaos chaos as companies try to figure out how to restore this.

The US exemption so far had meant that consumers could buy affordable things like clothes, household goods from online platforms without paying import duties.

Now, as you said, anything above $100 will be charged, so that means it's a direct impact on the people who have been going on these e-commerce websites to try and get these parcels into the US, which were at affordable rates.

Arunadeh Mukherjee.

Is this the beginning of Israel's final and total total sweep into Gaza City?

Benjamin Netanyahu and his government have vowed to take over the strip's main urban center, and the last few days have seen even more airstrikes than normal.

They have a specific target: tall buildings.

The Israelis claim these are used by Hamas for intelligence gathering, though they haven't provided any evidence for this.

However, the Israeli military did share video footage of towers being hit.

The first was on Friday, and then Saturday, a residential building, the Susi Tower, was completely flattened.

Gaza has long been one of the most crowded places on the planet, and as local journalist Garda Al-Khurd told my colleague Krupa Padi, that makes the destruction of tall buildings particularly frightening for people living there.

The situation is horrible.

People are very afraid, very terrified from the targeting of the high buildings.

It's just like 10 to 15 floor here in Gaza City about the high building.

Gada, we're getting reports of people being out in the street, scrambling for shelter.

We can say, like, most of Gaza City, they are in the street, living inside tents.

Even for people who are living inside a destroyed building, also they are gathered in western areas of Gaza City and the coastal road of Gaza City.

So, people, while their houses are being d destroyed, they directly went to the street, living in the street, maybe on the pavement, maybe on just their stuff, whatever they can take from their tents or from their buildings, and they just

stay in the in the street.

Some of the people, they start to live to the middle area and the south of Gaza city.

And Gada, are you in a high-rise residential building as we speak?

No, it's not a high building, but all the high buildings, they are around us, so it will harm the total complete neighborhoods here in Gaza.

Gaza is a very small city.

Like if a high building will be targeted like five hundred meters away from you, you will be affected by this targeting.

Are you planning to leave Gaza City?

To this moment, I don't have any place to go to the south of Gaza as before because there is no safety place even in the south and I have no other place remained there.

It's completely crowded.

People, they just go there and they try to find some places.

For me, actually, I don't have a place to go there.

You've chosen not to leave, but there's also a very high risk with you choosing to stay.

Just help us understand your thinking here.

Both options, they are very dangerous and risky.

You cannot decide about what you are going to do.

It's not like before or at the beginning of this war.

Gada al-Kurd.

There's been another protest within Israel against plans to launch a further assault on Gaza.

Thousands came out in Tel Aviv on Saturday evening, demanding that the government instead makes it a priority to get Israeli hostages released.

But their demands would seem to be falling on deaf ears.

As our correspondent in Israel, Weira Davis, says a full-scale invasion does seem to be approaching.

If you believe the words and the communications of the Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz, then it does look like Israel is preparing for something very major in Gaza City.

He posted a video on social media today showing the blowing up of one of those high-rise buildings with the words we continue.

And previous to that, he said that the gates of hell will now be opened on Gaza.

So the possibility, the probability of an Israeli ground offensive to go along with this offensive from the air that we've seen, I think is very high on the agenda.

There is no chance realistically of a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel.

Israel has toughened its line in recent weeks saying that it has to control the whole of the Gaza Strip to defeat Hamas and secure the release of hostages.

And that is where we're at now.

That is why Israel is trying to persuade tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of civilians from Gaza City to move further south to what is described as a safe zone around al-Muwasi.

But in reality, there are no safe places in Gaza.

And even Al-Muwasi, which has been repeatedly designated by the Israelis as a safe zone, has been repeatedly attacked.

And many people have been killed there, including in the last few days.

We've seen continued protests inside Israel against the continuation of the war, with hostages, families in particular getting involved.

I wonder if these voices are having any influence on the government there.

They're having influence in Israel.

I think the government itself or the tight cabal of ministers around Benjamin Netanyahu and his supporters are pretty much unmoved by it.

Again, if you listen to what Netanyahu says, if you listen to what other ministers on the right say, that they are determined to prosecute the war until its final end.

We heard intriguing noises from Washington last night, from Donald Trump, saying that he thought there may be a chance of a breakthrough after talks between the American government and Hamas, but the reality on the ground is very different.

We've just been discussing now what's happening in Gaza.

Hamas don't want to pursue a deal that would see them releasing all of the hostages if there's no end-of-war peace deal.

And the Israelis are reluctant to end the war.

So I think that the signs on the ground are very ominous indeed.

Yeah, I mean, listening to you, all these talks we do hear occasionally of Israel and Hamas meeting via or talking via intermediaries, it sounds like Israel's working on the basis that none of this is going to succeed.

Indeed, and there's been some very critical opinions in the the Israeli newspapers, not just those who are normally critical of Netanyahu.

Many people in Israel are asking, does he really care about releasing

alive the remaining 20 hostages?

We had a video, a propaganda video, released by Hamas yesterday, which featured two hostages, and that seems to suggest that at least 10 hostages may be in

Gaza City.

And Hamas has made it clear that they are going nowhere.

They remain in Gaza City.

So if there is a full-scale Israeli military assault on Gaza City, City, many hostages, families and many Israelis are worried what it might mean for their future and their chances of survival.

Weird Davis.

Police in Australia say a man is dead after what's believed to have been a shark attack near Sydney.

Our correspondent Katie Watson has this report.

The attack happened at a beach in the northern part of Sydney further up the coast from here, a place called DY.

Now, authorities say the victim was an experienced surfer.

He'd been on the water for about 30 minutes before the attack happened, and they were about 100 meters from the coast.

Now, his friends saw it happen, they saw him in distress, went to rescue him.

He'd lost several limbs and they brought him back to shore, but he'd lost a lot of blood and died shortly afterwards.

Authorities have recovered two parts of the surfboard, and they're analysing that as we speak.

Now, it's been a very sunny weekend here in Australia.

It's been a really, really wet August.

We're coming out of winter, so people were taking advantage of the better weather, enjoying the swimming.

There were lots of surfers on the water at the time.

Now, although obviously Australia is known for its sharks, fatal attacks are rare, especially here in Sydney.

The last attack was three years ago when a British diving instructor was killed by a great white, but before that, it was more than 60 years ago since the last fatal attack here in the city.

Katie Watson.

Still to come.

We used Instagram to message our friends, small businesses that operate with social media.

It will be difficult for all of them, too.

Nepal shuts down dozens of social media platforms, including Facebook and Instagram.

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Have a family of visitors to Disneyland, Paris, been victims of racism?

That's the claim made by the Brazil and Barcelona football player, Rafinha.

He says when his son visited the amusement park just outside the French capital, two of the mascots refused to hug him, but did hug other children who were white.

A global affairs reporter, Leonardo Rocha, has more.

Rafael Díaz Berloli, known across the world as Jafina, is one of football's biggest stars.

He came from a very poor background in southern Brazil and in several occasions considered giving up a career in football.

He only broke into the international scene in his mid-twenties when he joined Leeds United and later signed for Barcelona.

Like millions of Brazilians, Jafiya and his wife dreamt of taking their kid to Disneyland.

It's almost a rite of passage for families who can afford it in Brazil.

Jafina is on international duty in South America, so his wife decided to take a young guy to Disneyland, Paris, but the experience let the family down.

In the video posted on Jafiña's social media account, you can see his young son trying to get the attention of two mascots, dressed as the characters Chip and Dale.

In the background, you can hear a woman, probably the player's wife, saying,

Oh, he doesn't want to hug.

Let's try the other one.

They then approach the other mascot, but as Jafin's son gets close to him, he's cut off by an older girl.

She gets the hug before the mascot gets up and moves away.

Jafin has accused Disneyland Paris staff of discrimination.

He said he understood that people working at a busy park could get tired and overworked, but insisted there was no justification for snobbing his son.

Leonardo Roche, and as we record this podcast, there's been no comment from Disneyland Paris.

It's not always easy to get on the internet in Nepal.

The mountainous country has lots of barely accessible villages in remote places, many of which don't even have reliable electricity, let alone landlines or Wi-Fi.

But now, even those Nepalese who can get online face difficulties because many of the most common social media websites have been blocked by the government, a move which has certainly not gone down well among those who rely on these services.

It's affecting our daily lives.

We used Instagram to message our friends, so that part is also a bit affected.

From small businesses to big ones in Nepal that operate with social media, I feel like it will be difficult for all of them, too.

We mostly use Facebook for the news, so being deprived of that has made us feel sad.

The problem has come about because of new rules in Nepal, which require all of these companies to have a local office and local representatives.

Rules many companies have failed to comply with.

Our South Asia analyst Ambarasanathirajan explained why these rules were introduced.

The government is saying like they want to have control over social media platforms because they want to prevent cybercrime, money laundering and also hate and rumors.

And most importantly in case if there is any post causing social disharmony, they want to take them as early as possible.

So they want to have a local contact a grievance officer a liaison officer and also someone who can respond to the any of the government requests and orders this is what the government says because it is causing a lot of problems within society as in many other countries social media platforms play a key role in nepal on the contrary the critics would say is that increasingly governments in the region they want to regulate social media platforms because they don't want criticism because people are criticizing quite freely on social media platforms.

That is causing concern for various governments.

But given that companies like Meta have vast resources, why aren't they prepared to have a local office?

I mean, it's not exactly going to dent their budgets, is it?

One of the reasons why these companies are not very keen is they don't want to be controlled because the whole idea of social media platform is to have a free-flowing discussion debate.

But at the same time, don't forget, even in a country like Nepal, more than 50% of the population have access to internet, they use internet, and mainly 80% of the traffic is through social media platforms.

So it is incredibly important for the population, not only for people within, you know, you have about 5 million Nepalese working in the Middle East and in Southeast Asia.

They communicate with their relatives and friends, these expatriate workers, through social media because it is cheaper.

It doesn't cost them anything except for the internet charges.

So that is where it plays a very crucial role.

Within South Asia, it's not just Nepal, is it, that's introduced rules like this?

India has already set in established procedures in asking these companies to register and have offices in the country.

And according to the social media platforms like X, India tops the countries among those countries which is asking the X to take down posts.

And at the same time, Pakistan has also put in a lot of restrictions, especially for those, you know, people are saying it is criticizing the government.

They are are being asked to regulate the social media platforms.

So it is not just Nepal.

The countries are increasingly seen as they want to see the social media platforms are regulated and controlled.

Ambarasan Ethirajan.

Governments are often quick to shout from the rooftops about successful military operations, but less so about missions which fail, and particularly if this failure is politically sensitive.

We all heard about the crack U.S.

Navy SEALs unit which killed Osama bin Laden in 2011.

There was an award-winning Hollywood film about it.

But six years ago, that same unit is thought to have carried out another mission in North Korea, one which allegedly failed and caused the death of innocent civilians.

Donald Trump was in his first presidency at the time, and the story only came to light through the work of two New York Times journalists, Dave Phillips and Matthew Cole.

Dave Phillips told my colleague Cruper Puddy what the operation was meant to achieve and what went wrong.

The United States was in the middle of nuclear negotiations with North Korea and wanted to be able to listen in on Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea's conversations.

So it decided it would try to plant an electronic listening device in North Korean territory.

And that basically meant they were going to take a nuclear submarine to the edge of North Korea and send SEALs in on stealth mini-submarines.

They would go to shore and try to plant this device.

What steps were taken and what went wrong?

Well, they thought, the Navy SEALs thought that they would be going into a deserted shore where they could sneak in and out carefully and not spot anyone.

But when they got to the shore, they realized they had missed a small boat that was floating very near their mini-subs.

The SEALs on the shore were afraid

this boat was going to recognize.

and discover their mini subs and so they opened fire on the boat.

The SEALs then swam to this boat to make sure that everyone was dead and they didn't find any security force uniforms or weapons on this boat and they realized that in all likelihood they had just killed two to three civilian fishermen and it may have affected United States and North Korean nuclear relations which

right afterwards fell apart and have have never recovered.

There are risks, of course, for these individuals speaking out now.

Oh, sure.

This is all still classified.

And so, you know, potentially discussing it as a crime.

And who knew about the operation in the first place?

Well, we don't know because that's a secret, but a very small group of people, probably SEALs and planners

that helped.

The guys who drove the submarine probably knew a little bit.

And of course, the president.

David Phillips.

Now, here's some health advice.

Slip on a shirt, slap on sunscreen, and slap on a hat.

Slip, slap, slap.

Older listeners in Australia might well recognise that as a famous advert broadcast in the 1980s.

The song was upbeat, but the message was a deadly serious one.

Protect your skin from the sun to avoid getting skin cancer.

And perhaps most importantly, wear sun cream.

Australia, by some measures, has the highest rate of skin cancer in the world.

So it's come as quite a shock there to discover that some of the most popular brands sun cream on sale do not actually provide the level of protection they claim.

Our reporter Tom Bailey has been following the story and told me first how this failure was discovered.

This was an investigation carried out by the consumer advocacy group Choice Australia and what they actually did was they took 20 of Australia's leading sunscreens, bought them and sent them off to a laboratory for independent testing.

And what they actually found was that 16 of these 20 did not meet the skin protection level that it stated on the label.

So, effectively, people who thought they'd taken measures to protect themselves to the level they required, in fact, it appears were not.

Do we have any idea what was wrong with these sunscreens?

Was it sort of not enough of the active ingredient, whatever that is, that stops the sun's rays getting through?

Yeah, it's still quite unclear the kind of chemistry of this and exactly what the issue is here.

But what's come out recently is that five of these were actually produced in the same factory.

So, that's obviously raised a lot more questions here.

Now, it is really important to say that while these products did underperform in the tests, most did still actually offer moderate protection.

But understandably this has really shaken consumer confidence and sparked a pretty big backlash from consumers in Australia.

Skin cancer is a particular problem in Australia.

That's partly because it's very sunny and also a very outdoor lifestyle and there's been this huge campaign persuading people they must wear sunscreen to avoid skin cancer.

How has this gone down?

Yeah, as you say, you know, Australia is somewhere you conjured up images of beaches and an an athletic lifestyle and kids from a very young age are taught of the dangers of sun damage and sunscreen.

So this obviously has been a you know a real jolt to many, many Australians to learn this.

The BBC we've been hearing from people affected by this.

One woman who was diagnosed with a low-grade skin cancer last year has spoken to the BBC of the real anger she felt really when she learnt that the sunscreen she'd been using for many many years was one of these identified as unreliable and it's as I say really has sparked quite a backlash from customers.

As for the manufacturers well well some of them initially questioned these findings and insisted their products did provide the levels of protection they state some have said they carried out their own independent tests and that backs up their side of this.

Others have paused products sales and some have actually been withdrawn from the market altogether as further testing is carried out.

But what they also point out is this is actually a really difficult thing to do.

Everyone's skin responds differently and there's factors such as sweat and makeup and all sorts of things that make measuring how a sunscreen is going to react to different people's skins really, really difficult.

So they're saying, Look, this is a tricky thing to get right, but obviously, we do need to get this right, and further testing will be carried out.

Regulatory bodies and industry stakeholders are under huge pressure to ensure more transparency and improve testing standards.

But in the meantime, health officials, the message they're really, really keen to get out is that though these findings are unsettling and consumer confidence has been shaken, it is really important that people going out in the sun do continue to wear sunscreen.

Tom Bailey, let's return to events in Gaza.

I mentioned earlier that there were protests in Israel on Saturday night.

The people gathered there demanding an end to the war and a return of the hostages.

But whatever opposition to the war there's been inside Israel, it is as nothing to the international condemnation which has headed Israel's way, whether that be from governments, individuals, or human rights organizations.

There's currently a flotilla of boats on its way to Gaza, hoping to bring aid supplies to the territory, or, failing that, at least to draw more public attention to the suffering of the civilian population.

Dr.

James Smith is a British emergency doctor who's worked in Gaza.

He's joining the flotilla, and he explained to my colleague Bernadette Kehoe why.

I'm doing this, I'm participating in the flotilla because I have friends and colleagues in Gaza, and you know, I'm in contact with them every day.

And nothing thus far has made any significant difference to the material conditions in Gaza.

Day on day, the situation is getting worse.

Now, you're on a flotilla, you're going to be sailing towards Gaza, but realistically the flotilla hasn't really got any chance of getting to Gaza, has it?

We are very well aware that the flotilla is facing one of the most well resourced and determined militaries that has acted with impunity, not only over the course of the last two years, but for several decades.

Over the course of the history of flotilla actions, there are some flotillas that have reached Gaza and they were able to bring humanitarian aid and also transfer patients in need of medical care out of Gaza, but they are the exception rather than the norm.

I think that people are determined of course and are committed and are hopeful that we might reach Gaza and of course the kind of cascading effects of solidarity activists physically reaching Gaza are important to think about.

But we're also very well aware that there is a very high likelihood of interception and detention.

So do you have fear for your own personal safety?

I think everyone is fearful for their safety, but these are risks that people are willing to take to show solidarity with Palestine and the Palestinian people through an act of direct action.

Those risks are calculated.

You know, among the flotilla participants, we have many people from very different walks of life, different ages, different backgrounds, and of course, from more than 40 or 50 different countries, if not more.

People that feel very, very strongly that this is something that they have to do, that they are morally and politically obliged to do.

Dr.

James Smith.

And that's all from us for now, but there'll be a new edition of the Global News Podcast later.

If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email.

The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk.

You can also find us on X at BBC World Service.

Use the hashtag hash global newspod.

This edition was mixed by Jack Wilfan, and the producers were Alison Davies and Mickey Bristow.

The editor is Karen Martin.

I'm Paul Moss.

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