Jamaicans hunker down for Hurricane Melissa

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Speaker 1 This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.

Speaker 1 I'm Nick Miles, and in the early hours of Tuesday, the 28th of October, these are our main stories.

Speaker 1 Hurricane Melissa has intensified into the strongest possible storm category, with winds of nearly 300 kilometers an hour.

Speaker 1 President Trump has held talks with Japan's new Prime Minister, promising a stronger relationship than ever before.

Speaker 1 Also, in this podcast, concern after Russia says it's tested a new nuclear-powered missile.

Speaker 7 We are entering very dangerous territory. We are very rapidly entering this new Cold War nuclear arms race dynamic that nobody wants and nobody really understands where it's going to end.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 we find out the real reason for the dawn chorus.

Speaker 1 Viewed from space, Jamaica and much of the southern part of the Caribbean is covered in a vast swirling mass of cloud.

Speaker 1 At ground level, Hurricane Melissa is causing havoc and destruction with winds of up to 300 kilometers an hour.

Speaker 1 At the time of recording this podcast, the hurricane is bearing down on Jamaica and due to make landfall imminently. Meteorologists are warning that torrential rain will batter the island as well.

Speaker 1 And because the storm is moving very slowly, it's likely to cause widespread damage, severe floods and landslides. It is now confirmed as the world's strongest storm of the year.

Speaker 1 Milton Walker is head of broadcast news at RJR Gleaner Communications in Jamaica.

Speaker 8 We have 2,002 persons in shelters. There are 800 shelters that are open.
133 are active so far. And the persons are in shelters in four parishes.

Speaker 8 All hospitals remain open, but the government is concerned about three or four of them, which are on the coastline.

Speaker 1 And Milton, people on the island are used to storms and hurricanes, but perhaps not of this strength. What would you say the mood is amongst the people that you're speaking to?

Speaker 1 And what are they doing to try to protect their own properties?

Speaker 8 Well, you know, persons over the last four or five days have been battening up their homes, putting up shutters, purchasing flyboard to board up their windows and also a lot of sandbags we've seen being mounted to protect their homes from flooding and stocking up on bottled water and thin food and other non-perishable food items.

Speaker 8 The government has also been issuing evacuation orders for about six or so communities. The people though have not been very willing to obey those instructions.

Speaker 8 The Prime Minister issued compulsory evacuation orders and the police and the army went into some of those communities.

Speaker 1 So what are the prospects for the coming hours? Our correspondent David Willis is monitoring developments from Los Angeles.

Speaker 9 The National Hurricane Center here in the U.S. is predicting catastrophic flash flooding and numerous landslides once Hurricane Melissa makes landfall in Jamaica.

Speaker 9 Tropical storm force winds are expected to spread across the island starting actually in the next few hours with hurricane force conditions reaching the southern coast of Jamaica early on Tuesday morning and dumping up to 40 inches it's thought of rain in some places moving across the island during the day and more than 880 shelters have been set up across Jamaica evacuation orders have been issued for people living along the coast and those in flood prone areas are being urged to move to higher ground and the flood-prone warnings are significant because the capital, Kingston, is surrounded by mountains, the Blue Mountains as they're known, which rise to over 7,000 feet above sea level.

Speaker 9 And it's feared that water pouring down the slopes could easily inundate low-lying coastal areas, leading to the flooding and the landslides that everybody is fearing.

Speaker 9 Yet, despite a lot of precautions in place, trimming of trees, blocking windows, stockpiling food, and so on, there are fears that Melissa could prompt an economic as well as a humanitarian disaster for Jamaica.

Speaker 1 David Willis in LA.

Speaker 1 She may only have been elected last week, but Japan's first ever female Prime Minister, Sanei Takaichi, has already been hosting President Donald Trump in Tokyo.

Speaker 1 The self-styled Iron Woman of Japan will be hoping to build a strong relationship with the American leader. And as Takaishi started by laying out her vision: vision,

Speaker 10 on diplomacy, I am determined to restore dynamic Japan's diplomacy to protect Japan's own national interests.

Speaker 10 In addition, I am ready to promote further collaboration with you and with the United States toward our shared goal of achieving a free and open Indo-Pacific.

Speaker 1 For his part, President Trump had warm words for his host and said it was important to acknowledge her victory.

Speaker 11 It's a great honor to be with you, especially so early in what will be, I think, one of the great prime ministers. I'd also like to congratulate you on being the first woman prime minister.

Speaker 11 That's a big deal. That's a big deal.
And I want to congratulate you on that. I think that has to be called out.

Speaker 1 Our Tokyo correspondent, Shaima Khalil, gave me her assessment of today's meeting.

Speaker 12 There's a lot of goodwill between those two leaders and I must say what really stood out for me is how much praise he's given her, the fact that he said what he said in that clip, but also, you know, starting off by saying, if you need any help, if you need any advice, I'm always here to help Japan.

Speaker 12 And it just felt to me that the late former Shinzo Abbey, who's been a close mentor to Sanai Takaichi and a close ally and friend to Donald Trump, who was killed over three years ago, was very much present in spirit between those two leaders.

Speaker 12 But putting the pleasantries aside, and I hate to be the cloud in these silver linings, there is a lot of difficult conversations to be had. Japan doesn't have a lot of room to maneuver.

Speaker 12 Washington could still re-impose tariffs. Japan wants to avoid this at all costs.

Speaker 12 And I think there are two rooms of vulnerabilities that are very obvious to Tokyo that it really needs to strike a balance with, and that's the car industry.

Speaker 12 This is the backbone of their economy and exports. Now they're at 15%.
They do not want to go any higher.

Speaker 12 They want to keep this steady, but also agriculture, because expect Washington in the nitty-gritty of the business deals to push on more access to Japanese markets when it comes to things like rice, soybeans, and dairy.

Speaker 12 And while Sanai Takaichi could make an opening, she will also have to strike a balance of trying to reassure the farming industry, the very powerful farming lobby that is in charge of a lot of rural voting, that their industries, their livelihoods are not at risk.

Speaker 1 So those contentious trade issues aside, Shaya, there were an area of agreement, if you like, amongst security issues, aren't there, particularly rare earth metals.

Speaker 12 Absolutely.

Speaker 12 And I think this is where Japan has a lot of room to maneuver, has a lot of leverage, if you will, because remember that Washington really wants to move away from its reliance on China when it comes to rare earth minerals that really go into everything from electric vehicles to the defense industry.

Speaker 12 And China all but monopolizes this, and it has been playing hardball by restricting exports in the midst of this U.S.-China tariff war.

Speaker 12 So I think with agreements with Japan, with Malaysia, with with Thailand, with Australia, Donald Trump goes into that upcoming Xi Jinping meeting in a much stronger position.

Speaker 12 Japan is known to have a wealth of these rare earth minerals, but they're underwater, so they will need the know-how to mine them. And I think defense as well.

Speaker 12 Donald Trump is pushing into an open door with Sanai Takaichi because she is known to be a hawk on defense. She wants Japan to be stronger militarily.

Speaker 12 And she's already promised a 2% hike in defense spending as early as this March.

Speaker 12 So we know that Washington wants wants more on this, and I think he will get it because I think Sanai Takaichi seems open in that regard.

Speaker 1 Shy McAlil.

Speaker 1 Horse racing is big business. It's estimated to be worth $400 billion a year, but it has a growing number of critics, and that is because so many horses still die on the race course.

Speaker 1 In fact, a new report by the Coalition for the Protection of Racehorses, or CPR, in Australia has found that a record number of them are dying.

Speaker 1 The report says 174 horses died as a result of injuries sustained during races or training between August 2024 and July of this year. CPR's general manager is Heli Ahadson.

Speaker 13 Horses are dying on the racetrack because they are being pushed way too far, they are being pushed way too fast and they're started way too young.

Speaker 13 We're seeing horses who die on the racetrack in Australia on average every second day and these are horses that 85% of the time will fracture a front limb.

Speaker 13 We're also seeing horses who die from fractured pelvis, internal bleeding, exercise induced bleeding. We're seeing horses who simply collapse and die from a heart attack in front of racegoers.

Speaker 1 Heli, I had perhaps naively assumed that safeguards for animals, horse racing in particular, was improving here on Europe. That's clearly not the case as far as you're concerned.

Speaker 13 No, I think this record number of horses dying in the past year is clear evidence that the racing industry has become even more relentless in the pursuit of profits at the expense of the horses that they rely on to exist.

Speaker 1 One animal rights group in the United States called Horse Racing Wrongs says that death is built into the horse racing systems. Killing is inevitable.

Speaker 1 Do you think that's true and what can actually change that?

Speaker 13 Yes, I totally agree. The cruelty is inherent in racing because it's an industry that's built on profit.
And as long as that's the case, welfare will always come second.

Speaker 13 That's what we see proof of all the time. And it's not only the deaths that happen on the racetrack.

Speaker 13 The numbers of horses killed from training and track work were twice as many as the ones we could detect dying directly on the track.

Speaker 13 The massive overbreeding of racehorses is not just an issue in Australia, that's worldwide.

Speaker 13 You have to breed thousands and thousands of thoroughbreds to try and find that one special horse that might be a winner.

Speaker 13 And sadly, there's no transparency into where these horses end up when they're done on the racetrack. On average, they race for about three years, but horses live for 25 years.

Speaker 13 The horse racing industry in Australia is a billion-dollar industry and then they could afford a proper retirement plan for their horses.

Speaker 1 So do you think reform is impossible?

Speaker 13 There are plenty of things we could do to improve their lives and lower the risk. A few years ago, they introduced mandatory CT scans to avoid more horses being killed on the Melbourne Cup race day.

Speaker 13 And since twenty twenty one, when they introduced the mandatory CT scans, there hasn't been any on-track deaths during the Melbourne Cup.

Speaker 13 And we're just saying why won't they introduce CT scans of all horses all year round, no matter which race track? They would certainly do that that if they put welfare over profit.

Speaker 1 That was Heli Erhadson.

Speaker 1 No matter where you live, if there are birds around, you will get a dawn chorus as the sun rises.

Speaker 1 Well, scientists in South Korea now think they might have an explanation as to why it happens, as the newsroom's Isabella Jewell reports.

Speaker 3 It's nature's alarm clock. Wherever you are in the world, birds break into song at dawn.
The melodic phenomenon has inspired artists for hundreds of years.

Speaker 1 Teacher, sprite or bird, what sweet thoughts are thine. I have never heard praise of love or wine that panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.

Speaker 3 A verse of Two a Skylark by the English romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. And there we see the sense of wonder inspired by our feathered friends.

Speaker 3 But now we may be closer to understanding why they do it.

Speaker 3 Scientists at the Career Brain Research Institute conducted a series of experiments on zebra finches, a species found in Australia and Indonesia.

Speaker 3 The birds were raised in a laboratory and the researchers controlled the lighting in the room.

Speaker 3 What they found was that the birds would stay silent when it was dark and would begin to sing when the lights came on.

Speaker 3 But the team then began to play with the timing of the lighting, turning it on several hours before and then after the natural time of dawn.

Speaker 3 The scientists said that the longer the birds had to wait, the more intense the sound of their dawn chorus.

Speaker 3 They even trained the birds to press a lever to gain 10 seconds of artificial light, and found that the birds would press it frequently when the light was delayed. Their conclusion?

Speaker 3 That the zebra finches build up their motivation to sing overnight in the time between waking up and the sun rising.

Speaker 3 In other words, when the birds are prevented from singing by being in darkness for longer, their desire to sing increases.

Speaker 1 Still to come in the Global News Podcast.

Speaker 6 You know, in Canada, it feels like he's got a bit of divorce dad vibes happening.

Speaker 6 There are people who look at that and think, okay, and good luck to you, Justin, as you figure out what life looks for you.

Speaker 1 Is it a celebrity couple to rival the Obamas or Harry and Megan?

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Speaker 1 Not appropriate.

Speaker 1 That was the uncharacteristically understated reaction from President Trump as he described Vladimir Putin's announcement on Sunday that Russia had tested a new nuclear-powered cruise missile.

Speaker 1 Moscow says the missile covered more than 13,500 kilometers during a 15-hour flight. The Russian leader was dressed in military fatigues when he publicly shared the news about the missile.

Speaker 1 Called a storm petrol by the Russians, but known as a skyfall by NATO.

Speaker 1 This is, after all, a unique product, unlike anything else in the world. Moreover, I remember well when we announced that we were developing such a weapon.

Speaker 1 Even highly qualified specialists told me that yes, this was a good, worthy goal, but not achievable in the near future. So, how serious a moment is this?

Speaker 1 John Wolfstahl is a former senior director at the U.S. National Security Council for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.

Speaker 7 Unlike cruise missiles that the United States and Russia have had for many, many decades, this new system doesn't have a gas or electric motor. It has a nuclear reactor for propulsion.

Speaker 7 So in addition to carrying a nuclear warhead, it is powered by a small nuclear reactor, which allows it to fly for potentially days at a time.

Speaker 7 For the last 15 years or so, Russia has been investing heavily in a very diverse set of what we call novel nuclear delivery systems.

Speaker 7 In addition to developing long-range missiles that can maneuver in flight, long-range underwater torpedoes that can go at very high speeds, they have been developing this nuclear-powered cruise missile, which is designed to attack its target from unpredictable directions in order to evade potential U.S.

Speaker 7 and European missile defenses. This is a system that's not covered by any of the existing arms control agreements, including the New START Treaty, which is due to expire in February.

Speaker 7 We are at a point where both Russia and the United States are moving to expand their nuclear arsenals largely free of any transparency, verification, or controls.

Speaker 7 We are entering very dangerous territory where neither the United States or Russia or China for that matter, who's building up its nuclear arsenal, feels constrained, increasingly feel that nuclear weapons are usable politically and potentially usable in a military sense.

Speaker 7 And so we are very rapidly entering this new Cold War nuclear arms race dynamic that nobody wants and nobody really understands where it's going to end.

Speaker 1 Weapons expert John Wolfstahl.

Speaker 1 10 people are on trial in France, accused of cyber-bullying the country's first lady, Brigitte Macron.

Speaker 1 Malicious posts alleged to have been made include claims that she was born a man, for which there is absolutely no evidence. If convicted, the defendants face up to two years in prison.

Speaker 1 Catherine Norris Trent from the TV news channel France24 was in court for day one of the hearing. She spoke to Sean Lay.

Speaker 16 There was a great deal of commotion at the courthouse with a large number of journalists, not only from France but around the world, present, so lots of TV cameras, and also quite a large queue of people, members of the public, queuing up to try and get in the public gallery.

Speaker 16 In In fact, there wasn't enough room. An overflow courtroom had to be provided.

Speaker 16 There's been quite a bit of public attention in this case and we saw some people there who appeared to be supporting those who'd written these tweets about Brigitte Macron, applauding some of those who were accused as they arrived at court with their lawyers.

Speaker 16 It was a bit procedural inside the courtroom. The lawyers taking a long time going through the identities and backgrounds of the clients.
Those who who were accused in the doc were all defiant.

Speaker 16 They're all pleading not guilty and some of them saying that they absolutely didn't regret writing online what they had been writing about Brigitte Macron.

Speaker 15 It's perhaps no surprise that the Macrons are taking action of their own.

Speaker 15 I think in the United States against a social media influencer there who's big in the sort of MAGA movement that supports President Trump.

Speaker 15 Presumably, given that these rumours have dragged on for years, they've kind of lost patience with them.

Speaker 16 Yeah, I think that's it.

Speaker 16 These rumours have been swirling for really quite some time and came to a head in the years after COVID when they got a large presence online with lots of views for podcasts and other articles and books that have been reported on these rumours.

Speaker 16 These are unsubstantiated claims, but there's been a few figures who've been really pushing this narrative.

Speaker 16 And Bridget Macron has said in interviews that she basically had enough, that whenever she went on state visits around the world accompanying her husband, that people were aware of this wherever she went in the world.

Speaker 16 And she said that often it was the spouses of foreign leaders who commiserated with her about these claims.

Speaker 16 So she felt it was becoming not only very embarrassing and distressing, but also a distraction from Emmanuel Macron's role and position.

Speaker 16 And she's made something of a point of taking a stand against cyber bullying, saying that she's taking this on despite the risk that it might give it more publicity, but saying she's taking a stand against bullying online, that this is her battle, really.

Speaker 15 something significant changed in france i mean one thinks of for years when i mean french presidents other public figures were kind of committing adultery left right and centre there was a sort of media lackout on people's private lives and to get to a stage where something like this such kind of an offensive rumour against somebody about how they were born and how they choose to live has been given such publicity including by the mainstream media yeah i think something has changed but i think it's the salacious nature of the rumours surrounding brigitte Macron that have really caught people's imagination, really titillated them.

Speaker 16 She is 24 years older than her husband, and they did meet when he was very young. She was his drama teacher, and he was still a teenager.

Speaker 16 Now, the couple say they didn't get together until later on, but that has sparked a lot of rumours about the nature of their relationship.

Speaker 16 But the rumours surrounding the supposed nature of her being born a man, which again is an unsubstantiated claim, that has really caught on online.

Speaker 16 And and I think it's that the transgender nature of the debate which has made it different.

Speaker 1 That was Catherine Norris Trent from France24.

Speaker 1 Until recently, France and Italy led the way when it came to beauty products, but then along came the Korean or K-beauty trend. Korean skincare products now dominate exports, particularly to the US.

Speaker 1 But with thousands of companies branding themselves as K-Beauty, are people getting the real thing? David Kahn reports.

Speaker 1 K-Beauty began its global rise in the early 2010s, with BB Blemish Balm Cream leading the way. The trend grew before exploding in 2017.

Speaker 1 Total K-Beauty exports went from 650 million US dollars in 2011 to $4 billion in 2017, a six-fold increase in just over six years. And the industry kept growing.

Speaker 17 We expect to do over 14 million sales in 2025.

Speaker 1 This is Anne Majewski, Director of Retail Relationship with Solceuticals.

Speaker 17 And we've seen global acceptance. We've recently started selling in India, Latin America, Europe, and Australia.

Speaker 1 But here's the twist. Solceutical is not a Korean company.
In fact, they are based in America and manufacture their products in America. An American company.

Speaker 1 The website does, however, feature a page titled, Really Korean, saying it's one of the most common questions they're asked.

Speaker 17 What we were seeing that allowed us to identify it as K-Beauty were the ingredients. Things like snail mucin, Centella Asiatica, green tea.
We source our key ingredients in Korea because

Speaker 17 we wanted to be able to legitimately say we are a K-Beauty brand.

Speaker 1 Not everyone would agree with this.

Speaker 18 The first thing that I am thinking now is that the products should mostly be manufactured by a Korean manufacturer.

Speaker 18 And that doesn't just mean using Korean ingredients, but it also means the products are made with Korean expertise and know-how.

Speaker 1 Meet Sungu Kim. He and his wife Elisa Arompa Kim co-founded Hwaranpum.
Although they are based in Finland, all of their team except Eliza are Koreans.

Speaker 1 And they manufacture their cosmetic products in South Korea.

Speaker 18 The most important thing that we both absolutely agree is that the branch basically should develop its concept and ideas and products with a Korean perspective.

Speaker 18 That can come through in the ingredients, the design, or cultural elements. Basically, anything that clearly connects with the brands to Korea or at least reflects a Korean influence.

Speaker 1 But it still doesn't answer the question of what K-beauty is beyond philosophy and culture. So, I decided to speak to someone who might have an idea.

Speaker 1 This is Chang Nam Jang, chairman of K-Beauty Industry Association, the only K-Beauty organization officially approved by the South Korean government.

Speaker 20 It's literally Korean beauty. So a company that's registered in Korea and officially tested and approved by Korea food and drug admin, the KFDA,

Speaker 20 it has stricter regulation for certain ingredients. At the end of the day, it's determined by the consumers.

Speaker 20 If the product is developed in a way that suits the climate and the environment of Korea and is recognised as a viable product in the Korean market, then we would acknowledge it as K-Beauty.

Speaker 20 And we believe that the KFDA's regulations reflect the Korean market's needs.

Speaker 1 Hwarang Pum, the Finnish Korean skincare company you heard from earlier, decided to do exactly that.

Speaker 18 What we are trying to achieve is that we should be perceived or recognized by Korean customers as this is a Korean brand that is popular in Korea.

Speaker 1 So the customers are the ultimate decider on what K-beauty is.

Speaker 1 That report was by David Cann.

Speaker 1 And finally, in dating news, the former Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, has appeared in Paris with the American singer Katy Perry.

Speaker 1 Well, the two were photographed holding hands at an event at the weekend.

Speaker 1 So how is this pairing going down in Canada, where Justin Trudeau was was replaced as Prime Minister this year after nearly 10 years in office?

Speaker 1 The BBC's Evan Davis was joined by Gronya Maguire, comedian and co-host of The Way They Were podcast about celebrity relationships, and Stephanie Levitz, senior reporter at the Globe and Mail newspaper in Ottawa.

Speaker 6 The joke here in Canada is this. Right now, relations between Canada and the U.S., as your listeners might know, are a little bit frozen.
Nobody wants to go to America.

Speaker 6 Nobody wants to cross the border, buy American goods. But yet, the relationship between our former prime minister and an American superstar is with us.

Speaker 6 A little bit of it is the light news we need up here in Canada, and a little bit of it is not really being talked about at all, except in political circles amongst the people who still very much loathe Justin Trudeau

Speaker 6 for how he was as prime minister, especially in the final year, final months, I should say, of when he was in charge.

Speaker 6 And they're sort of fixated on it as some sort of proof point that, in their view, he ought not to have been prime minister in the first place.

Speaker 1 Now, Gronia, can you tell us about the family form? Because

Speaker 1 older listeners will perhaps remember there is something of this in the Trudeau blood, isn't there?

Speaker 21 Yeah, well, famously, Justin's dad briefly dated and very nearly married icon Barbara Streisand.

Speaker 21 And I think that's the only thing Katie Perry will ever have in common with Barbara Streisand, but good for her. So I think they do have a tie.

Speaker 1 Gronya, one one of the serious issues, if we could try to make a serious issue out of this, is whether politics is becoming too celeb and whether public figures just see themselves in a kind of celebrity frame these days.

Speaker 21 Well, I think a lot of it is a lot of the celebrities that we're sort of thinking about in this are relatively young.

Speaker 21 So especially if we think about like American politics, like the old Barack Obama was in power for eight years and then he had this whole life afterwards, you know, that he, the whole idea that you go and sort of garden and then pop back, so they do have to sort of rebrand themselves.

Speaker 21 And I think it's really interesting that these sort of like celebrity politicians, like I would put Trudeau and Perry in the same category as like the Obamas, like the Cloonies, like Harry and Megan, where they have sort of vague charities, they give sort of bland speeches about the environment and have a podcast.

Speaker 21 So I think we've just got a new couple, a new star couple has been born.

Speaker 1 Stephanie, who's doing more damage to the other's other's career or who's doing more benefit to the other? Who stands to win or lose most from this relationship, do you think?

Speaker 6 It's a good question. There are folks in Canada who will point out that Justin Trudeau was prime minister when he was relatively young.

Speaker 6 And a lot of the parts of being relatively young, say social media, were not anything he had any control over. He had no private life.

Speaker 6 And in the meantime, his marriage, unfortunately, was disintegrating over time. And he had three young children.
So the pressure's in office.

Speaker 6 Right now, you know, in Canada, it feels like he's got a bit of divorce dad vibes happening.

Speaker 6 Like when he finally took back over his own social media, he was shopping for kitchen supplies and it was very kind of sad dad.

Speaker 6 There are people who look at that and think, well, okay, and good luck to you, Justin, as you figure out what life looks for you.

Speaker 6 Because in reality, he was a celebrity before he even became prime minister because of his parents. He has always

Speaker 6 operated at that sort of level.

Speaker 1 Stephanie Levitz with Gronya Maguire and Evan Davis.

Speaker 1 And that is all from us for now, but there will be a new edition of the Global News podcast later on. If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email.

Speaker 1 The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X at BBC World Service.
Use the hashtag Global Newspod.

Speaker 1 This edition was mixed by Martin Baker, and the producers were Isabella Jewell and Paul Day. The editor is Karen Martin.
I'm Nick Myers, and until next time, goodbye.

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