Kremlin: Russia is a real bear

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

I'm Nick Miles, and at 17 Hours GMT on Wednesday, the 24th of September, these are our main stories.

Russia has dismissed claims by Donald Trump that it is a paper tiger and that a real military power would have beaten Ukraine in a week.

Syria's interim leader, Ahmed al-Shara, will address the United Nations General Assembly, making him the first Syrian president to speak at the UN since 1967.

Also in this podcast.

This gene therapy news is really the first time in the history of Huntington's disease that we have convincingly slowed the progression of Huntington's disease.

How one of the cruelest genetic disorders has been successfully treated for the first time and a landmark deal to make a highly effective new HIV prevention drug available to poorer countries at a fraction of the price.

When it comes to the world's two largest nuclear powers, it's always better if they trade metaphorical blows rather than real ones.

And that is thankfully what the US and Russia have been doing.

In an animal-themed war of words, the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia is a real bear.

It was in response to this snub from Donald Trump after a meeting with the Ukrainian president in New York.

words matter when it comes to dealing with Mr.

Putin.

I'm beginning to wonder if they do at this stage, because there have been so many words and so little action.

And these particular words by Donald Trump, they may be the kindest so far towards Ukraine and the most critical towards Russia.

But we've learned

at this stage that the yes president's words have often been remarkably divorced from reality and action.

And there's no sign at this stage that what he said yesterday about Ukraine and Russia is going to lead to action or any changes in actual policy towards Russia and Ukraine.

When he posted on Truth Social

about Ukraine being potentially able to reclaim all of its territory back, maybe even more, he said.

He didn't say anything at all about how exactly that's going to happen.

So far, he's been so proud of not giving Ukraine anything that it needs.

He's allowed others to buy weapons for Ukraine.

But when it comes to action taken by Donald Trump's administration, there's been very little that could change the progress or outcome of this war.

And Dmitry Peskov has been saying, look, the Russian economy meets all the needs of the army.

We're not worried.

You've been looking at a reaction to Donald Trump's comments in Ukraine, though, haven't you?

I have been.

And at this stage, Ukrainians, well, they're paying much less attention to what the U.S.

President is saying about their country.

It's a remarkable turn of events.

After all, it's or it was the biggest donor of aid to Ukraine, the world's biggest economy.

And now what they're saying sort of oscillates between, well, do we really care?

And the other significant trend of thought is: well, it's good to see him criticise Russia, but we'll pay more attention when he does something.

Vitaly Shevchenko.

Later today in New York, Syria's interim president, Ahmed Al-Sharra, will address the United Nations General Assembly, the first Syrian leader to do so since 1967.

It is a symbolic moment for him and for his country that's just beginning to recover from 14 years of civil war.

Our senior international correspondent Ola Guerin has been in Damascus asking Syrians what they make of their new leader.

One woman told her that everyone will be watching Al-Sharra's speech.

We're like, oh my god, we're gonna be like represented somehow, you know, like it's it's been so long, like my dad doesn't even remember when the last time time something like that happened so like I've I've never never in my life lived a year in my life where but we were represented like that you know or like we were like acknowledged you know

so it's a happy moment yeah yeah obviously yeah

will you watch him when he speaks at the General Assembly at the UN?

Of course I will.

I think everyone will.

Our Middle East correspondent Lina Sinjab has more from Damascus.

It is a big moment for the country, but also for Ahmad Ahmed al-Shara himself, who was designated as a terrorist heading terrorist organization, now being lifted of this, cleared, and also welcomed by international leaders.

He'll be addressing the UN this evening.

There's already preparation for a big show here in Damascus and several cities.

They will be screening the speech immediately.

This is the first Syrian president to address the public at the UN since 1967.

Syria has also, under the leadership of late Hafiz al-Assad and then his son Bashar al-Assad, were on the terrorism list.

This country now is coming out of the brink.

It's coming out back to the international community.

Mr.

Es-Shara met with various leaders over the past couple of days and we're expecting a message of peace, a message of opening up and reconnecting to the world, especially in terms of relationship in the region with Israel.

We're expecting some sort of a peace agreement to take place in the coming few days.

So everyone is watching and Syrians are jubilant about this moment, although some are worried that there are still violations happening inside Syria, there are still problems with human rights, with transparency, with corruption, with non-inclusivity, including many Syrians in the leadership, and that's what everyone here is pressing this new leadership to do.

and it's all in the hands of Al-Sharah to do it.

Lina Sanjab in Damascus.

40 million people around the world live with HIV but after cuts to aid budgets concerns have been raised about the global fight against the virus.

Well there's been a deal to slash the price of the injectable HIV prevention drug Lenacabavir for low and middle income countries.

We asked Marnie Jones, BBC Africa correspondent, about the deal.

So it's a deal that was brokered by a number of organizations, philanthropic and health organizations, including former U.S.

President Bill Clinton's

Health Foundation, the Bill Gates Foundation, and South Africa's Research Institute, WITS RHI.

And basically, it's around this drug, which is the world's first twice-yearly injectable pre-exposure prophylaxis or PrEP.

You take it every six months.

They've managed to reduce the price of it from $28,000 a year per person to just under $40 a year, so around 0.1% of the cost.

This cheaper version is going to be manufactured in India, where the generics industry is pretty developed, and is going to be rolled out in 2027 in around 120 middle to low-income countries.

The reason it's taking this long is because they need to get approval.

Whereas the original drug has already got regulatory approval, the new generic version needs to go through the same process.

So the earliest these low and middle income countries are going to be able to access it is twenty twenty seven.

Now Manny, tell us why this drug is so important for the fight against HIV.

Well at the moment if you are at high risk of catching HIV, so you haven't got it yet, but you might be engaging in risky sex, then you can take a pill, but it has to be taken daily, ideally seven days before exposure at the same time.

And obviously, if you can't make plans ahead of time, but you think you might still be exposed, you take two pills in the same day.

That makes makes it difficult for lots of people.

People forget to take them, people may not have access to them.

The idea of this new drug is that because it's only injected twice a year, it's easier to remember.

It lasts a lot longer.

You take one injection, it lasts you six months than you take another one.

And so, for lots of scientists, they say this is going to be a game changer, particularly in countries where taking pills is stigmatized, where access to hospitals is difficult.

So, getting your daily pills might be hard.

And they also think that it will be significant in reducing infections among young women and girls who, at the moment, particularly in the developing world, are among the group that have the fastest growing rates of HIV infections.

They think for these women who perhaps don't want to be seen to be taking pills every day, having this twice-yearly injection will be a game changer for their infection rates.

Now, which kind of countries are going to be particularly benefiting from this?

Well, sub-Saharan Africa remains the epicenter of the HIV and AIDS epidemic.

Around 60% of new infections are still occurring on the continent.

So that's going to be the region that's going to benefit the most.

But there are other parts of the world, including Southeast Asia, Latin America, that will also be able to benefit.

So some of the poorest people in the world will be the ones that will be able to benefit from this generic version.

And obviously, lots of scientists are hoping that it will lead to a drastic reduction in the number of people that catch HIV every year.

Mariony Jones.

Now to another largely incurable disease, Huntington's disease.

It's often described as one of the most devastating genetic disorders.

It usually presents as a mixture of dementia, Parkinson's, and motor neurone disease.

There's also no cure, but it has now been successfully treated for the first time, according to the results of a trial which was shown to slow down the progress of that disease by 75%.

Professor Edward Wilde is a consultant neurologist at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery and a Huntington's disease specialist.

He led the UK part of the trial and told us more about it.

It really is breathtaking, and it's unlike anything we've ever seen before.

I've been doing Huntington's disease research and looking after patients with HD for 20 years.

And trial after trial after trial has, you know, we've been in the world of incremental progress, but each individual trial has ended in disappointment and a negative result.

We know what we need to achieve, though.

We know the cause of Huntington's disease, and that's what gave us us the head start.

And this gene therapy news is really the first time

in the history of Huntington's disease that we have convincingly slowed the progression of Huntington's disease and we have biochemical evidence that the mechanism is through rescuing neurons, protecting neurons from dying.

So the gene therapy is an inactivated virus which is injected deep into the brain, a part of the brain called the striatum.

It's a long neurosurgical procedure.

So

there's a lot of upfront work and risk.

Once the gene therapy has been delivered to the brain, that's it.

It's there, the virus gets into the neurons and injects a piece of DNA and it basically reprograms the neuron to become a factory.

for its own cure.

So

the neuron is producing the harmful protein, but it's also producing a molecule which halts production of that protein.

And that must be how we've slowed the disease.

There's less harm happening and the disease is slower.

Professor Edward Wilde.

Coming up on this podcast.

There's a big difference between the kind of people who were at the club last night and the kind of people who go and see a band.

I mean, when you go and see a band, you're just purely consuming.

Where people who go to clubs, you are your own visual entertainment.

You have to put a lot more into it.

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Typhoon Ragasa has made landfall in southern China after causing the deaths of at least 17 people in eastern Taiwan.

This year's most powerful tropical storm yet has battered the area with heavy rain and strong winds, but is now losing strength as it moves inland.

In Hong Kong, the typhoon didn't make landfall, but still unleashed such powerful wind and rain that 62 people were injured.

And that is the moment when a storm surge smashed through the doors of a hotel on the south coast of Hong Kong's main island.

Water poured into the hotel lobby, sweeping a man off his feet and causing panic amongst many others there.

Professor Johnny Chan is from the Asia-Pacific Typhoon Collaborative Research Center in Shanghai.

He is currently in Hong Kong and my colleague Sarah Montague asked him why this particular typhoon is so intense.

The typhoon gathers its strength from the ocean because of the warm ocean, then the typhoon can get stronger.

However, if a typhoon hits land, its circulation will be disrupted and so therefore it will weaken.

The reason why this one is particularly strong is because it comes through the Luzon Strait that is between Taiwan Island and the Luzon Island, and it came into the South China Sea unimpeded by any of the land masses, and therefore it can continue to develop throughout its whole lifetime until it's very close to land.

So, therefore, throughout most of its lifetime, it was able to continue to become stronger and stronger.

How does this compare with previous typhoons?

Okay, so the closest

similar one to this one was Typhoon Mankut in 2018.

It was almost about the same path as this one.

And at that time,

its circulation was also very large.

And so it actually brought quite a bit of damage to Hong Kong.

And in fact, because of this damage, people learned the lesson that these severe typhoons can bring a lot of damage.

And so this time when the government says, look, this is very similar to that of Mancut, then people said, ah, yeah, I remember that.

That was really bad.

So this time I would be prepared.

So most people were

a lot more prepared this time than the case of Mancut.

And is it expected that they will be as intense, increasingly intense in the future?

We expect the typhoons to be,

could be even more intense in the future for several reasons.

One is that the ocean continues to warm because of global warming.

And number two is that the atmospheric conditions can sometimes be even more favorable.

And as a result of that, both the atmosphere and the ocean will collaborate together to more intense typhoons making landfall along the east China coast.

I mean the destruction from this is absolutely phenomenal.

Are there ways that nations can better protect themselves against the effects of these storms?

No, you can't tame the storm, so you just need to be able to be prepared for it.

The thing is that in a typhoon, there are three destructive elements.

One is the severe winds, and second is the heavy rain, which then leads to flooding and landslides and so on.

And the third one is what we call the storm surge, which is the water coming in from the shore.

It's kind of like a mini tsunami, the water being pushed up by the typhoon against the shore, and so the water level goes up quite quickly.

In order to mitigate the potential damage that these typhoons cause then you need to have all these three adaptation measures.

So for example with severe winds then you need to make sure that any loose structures such as scaffoldings are tied up and then people need to tape the windows so the windows won't break and of course people need to stay home and not go outside and have fun.

The Danish Prime Minister is visiting the autonomous territory Greenland to apologize in person to the victims of a forced contraception program that Denmark ran for more than three decades.

Meta Friedrichson said that the apology constituted an important marking of a dark chapter.

Our global affairs reporter Paul Moss told me more.

Well this goes back to the 1960s when about four and a half thousand women became part of a program that lasted for several decades in which, as you suggested, they were fitted with contraceptive coils without proper consent.

Some of them were just schoolgirls.

Others say they were coerced or they certainly didn't understand what this device was for.

And crucially, the intention of the Danish government was explicitly to reduce the birth rate of the Inuit people.

I should explain that Greenland is this island, the biggest island in the world, in fact, up in the Arctic, in which about 90% of the people identify as Inuit.

It has its own parliament, but Denmark has sovereignty over it.

There'll be this formal apology in the Greenland capital.

I should say it's not just about the forcible use of contraceptive coils.

There's also been scandals of women having their children forcibly taken away and adopted because they were judged not to be suitable parents after tests which it's alleged were deliberately designed to discriminate against Inuit people.

Now this forced contraception program took place years ago.

Why the apology now?

It did take a long time to come to light.

Many of the women of course just didn't want to talk about it.

They were ashamed.

There was a big moment in 2022 when there was a podcast in Denmark all about the scandal and an inquiry was launched.

However, Nick, allow me to introduce an element of cynicism here.

Cast Your Mind Back six months.

And Donald Trump gave a speech to Congress in which he repeated an idea which he'd floated before, that the U.S.

should annex Greenland.

Its strategic position in the Arctic would be good for American security, he said.

And he added it would be good for the people of Greenland to be ruled by the U.S.

he said they hadn't been treated very well by Denmark.

Now some are suggesting that is why Denmark is now on a desperate, rather belated charm offensive with the Prime Minister falling over herself to say how much they're terribly sorry about what happened in the past.

I think this view was expressed rather well by Aya Chemnitz.

She's an MP from Greenland who sits in the Danish parliament.

She said she'd represented the island for 10 years and had never seen this kind of movement on the scandal.

She said it was totally because of Donald Trump's designs on Greenland.

That was Paul Moss.

In a much-anticipated episode of late-night television in the U.S., the talk show host Jimmy Kimmel returned on Tuesday night.

President Trump criticised the move before the programme aired, saying he couldn't believe ABC fake news had given Mr.

Kimmel his job back.

The comedian was suspended last week for comments he made about the killing of the right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.

In an opening monologue, Jimmy Kimmel said government pressure on his show was anti-American.

The President of the United States made it very clear he wants to see me and the hundreds of people who work here fired from our jobs.

Our leader celebrates Americans losing their livelihoods because he can't take a joke.

Our North America correspondent Peter Bowes was watching.

Back on the air, Jimmy Kimmel returned to late night television almost a week after he was suspended indefinitely.

Anyway, as I was saying before I was interrupted.

If you're just joining us, we are preempting your regularly scheduled encore episode of Celebrity Family Feud to bring you this special report.

I'm happy to be here tonight with you.

The comedian's bosses at ABC, which is owned by Disney, pulled the plug after America's broadcasting regulator, the Federal Communications Commission, threatened action over Kimmel's comments last Monday about the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.

There was a huge backlash to Kimmel's suspension.

Fellow comedians rallied to his defense, calling it an attack on free speech.

Hollywood Union members took to the streets to protest, while some Americans said they cancelled their subscriptions to Disney's streaming service.

Donald Trump claimed the late-night presenter had been dropped because he had terrible ratings.

Well Jimmy Kimmel was fired because he had bad ratings more than anything else and he said a horrible thing about a great gentleman known as Charlie Kirk and Jimmy Kimmel is not a talented person.

He had very bad ratings and they should have fired him a long time ago.

So, you know, you can call that free speech or not.

He was fired for lack of talent.

But as suddenly as he was taken off the air, Disney announced on Monday that Jimmy Kimmel was coming back, saying it suspended the show because it felt some of his comments had been ill-timed and insensitive.

But he isn't back on every TV screen.

Two of the country's biggest owners of local stations say they'll continue to keep Kemmel off the air.

Outside the theater in Hollywood, where the show is recorded, there were mixed views about its return.

He may be cracking jokes again, but tensions remain between America's broadcasters, the authorities that oversee them, and a president many fear is trying to silence them.

Peter Bose.

In the 1980s, the Blitz nightclub in London was the place where musical stars flaunted their lacy shirts and heavily lacquered hairdos.

After opening in 1979, it quickly became the place to go for stars of the new romantic era, like Spandau Ballet or singer-songwriters like Boy George.

It's the subject of a new exhibition.

It was a place where how you looked was at least as important as the music.

The experimentation led to the mixing 1940s tailoring with theatrical theatrical costumes, charity shop finds and full faces of makeup.

Vinton Dowd reports.

In the early 80s the Blitz Club had become a cultural phenomenon big enough to be analysed by the BBC Newsnight programme.

To outsiders or their more politically active contemporaries this set bent on enjoying themselves seems scandalously decadent.

The Romantics see themselves more as creative.

They spoke to the young Gary Kemp of Spandau Ballet.

There's a big difference between the kind of people who were at the club last night and the kind of people who go and see a band.

I mean when you go and see a band you're just purely consuming.

Where people who go to clubs, you are your own visual entertainment.

You have to put a lot more into it.

Today Gary Kemp says the performer who inspired the Blitz kids look more than anyone was two decades older.

David Bowie.

We were coming together, we were a bunch of kids who were influenced by Bowie and I think our influence with Bowie would have been you can wear different masks, you can keep changing, you definitely need to be theatrical.

Bowie even went to the club to find the most stylish people for his Ashes to Ashes video.

They got paid £50 each.

I think we did feel there was part of an evolution in youth culture.

It had its place.

We were the next big thing, if you like.

You know, we were taking the baton from punk and before then from Glam Rock.

Broadcaster Robert Elms went to the club virtually every evening it was open.

I would say there were about 120 regulars probably and it held about 200.

Boy George and Steve Strange and Spandau Ballet and Banana Rama and quite possibly Shardet.

But you would also have seen writers and dancers.

Michael Clark would have been there.

But at that stage, almost none of them were over 21.

I think it's hard to remember now just how randomly violent and sexist, racist, homophobic, all of those things Britain was in the late 1970s.

And so if you look like Boy George or Melissa Kaplan or even me or Chris Sullivan, you needed somewhere safe to go because it really genuinely wasn't safe to look like that and be dressed like that and be gay or be flamboyant or extravagant in normal places.

Two men were behind the club.

Steve Strange died in 2015.

His colleague was Rusty Egan in charge of the eclectic playlist.

But what mattered as much he knew was the visual image.

They made the clothes, they designed it, or their friend did.

The Spanner Ballad's album cover, Visage's album cover, the clothes, the hair, the makeup, the style, the video, everybody was all your friends and all your friends wanted to express themselves through you.

But in the age of social media, can any club matter the way the Blitz used to?

The show's curator is Danielle Tom.

Although certainly today the landscape is very different, what hasn't changed, I think, is the need for people, especially young people from marginalised communities and identities, to find a sense sense of home and of belonging.

So that need to find your chosen family, so to speak, and club culture is an important mechanism for that.

Danielle Tom, ending that report by Vincent Dowd.

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

But before we go, it's almost two years now since the war in Gaza began after the Hamas attacks on October the 7th.

And to mark the anniversary, we're going to be making a special global news podcast.

We'll examine the conflict from lots of different angles, from the situation on the ground in Gaza to public opinion in Israel.

But we also want to hear from you.

What questions do you want to ask our Middle East correspondents in Jerusalem?

Please send them in, either written in an email or attached as a recording.

The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk.

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

The address is the same one, globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk.

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

Use the hashtag globalnewspod.

This edition was mixed by Craig Kingham, and the producers were Carla Conte and Charles Sanctuary.

The editor is Karen Martin.

I'm Nick Miles, and until next time, goodbye.