Delcy Rodriguez sworn in as Venezuela's new president

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2:01This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Will Chalk and in the early hours of Tuesday the 6th of January, these are our main stories. Venezuela's new president is sworn in, while the old president, who insists he is still in charge, sits in jail in New York. We investigate the court case crisis in South Africa, where thousands of trials are being left in limbo. And how close are we to a world where AI does all of our driving for us? Also in this podcast. We had an imposter, somebody wearing a rear admiral's uniform and medals. One of the medals, nobody has ever been able to wear that medal.

2:48It hasn't been presented to anybody as yet. How a fake admiral fell on his own sword.

2:58So Venezuela officially has a new president. The former vice president, Delce Rodriguez, has been sworn in as leader in the capital, Caracas. Except thousands of miles away in a court in New York, Nicolas Maduro, the man spirited out of the country on Saturday morning by US special forces, had insisted he was still president as he pled not guilty to drugs charges. So by any reckoning, what life is going to look like in Venezuela after the removal of its erstwhile leader is yet to become clear. And to confuse matters more, the US State Department's been posting images of Donald Trump online with the caption, This is our hemisphere, the Western hemisphere.

3:38A lot to unpick. Let's start with the country's new interim leader. Ivan Brisco works for the International Crisis Group and has met Delce Rodriguez three times. She is a trained lawyer. She's very professional. She's technocratically skilled. She has been deeply involved in the economic liberalization of the country over the last few years. But she's also a hardline ideologue. So contrary to the impression which some media outlets have been giving, that she's a moderate, I have more of the impression that she's someone who holds the independence of Venezuela and the values of the Chavista movement very dearly and someone who will have been personally affected by the arrest and capture of President Maduro.

4:28Well, as she was sworn into office, Delcy Rodriguez said she was pained by what had happened to her predecessor. She described him as a hero. She took her oath in front of the National Assembly in Caracas. Our correspondent, Will Grant, has been following developments from the Venezuela-Colombia border. He told me the ceremony was obviously under unique circumstances. I don't think she ever would have imagined this would be the way that she would take over from Nicolás Maduro if he was ever going to stand to one side had the Americans not removed him from power. But this is how she became Venezuela's first woman president, only the third person to govern Venezuela since the turn of the century, not including a very short-lived coup in April 2002.

5:16So unique circumstances, but these are unique circumstances. After the United States whisked Mr. Maduro and his wife from Venezuelan soil, they've been in a court in New York today facing drug trafficking charges there. And as that was happening, Del Cid Rodriguez was sworn in. Venezuelans, as it were, were watching the two things simultaneously, hoping, I think, for some kind of indication from Del Cid Rodriguez of where she plans to take the Bolivarian revolution, if she plans to make overtures to Washington and so on. They got none of that today because it was very simple swearing-in ceremony, but they will be very, very anxious to hear more, to hear some clarity about what comes next.

6:00Yeah, as part of the ceremony, she made some promises, though, to the people of Venezuela. Yeah, I mean, the ones that I saw were pretty generic about maintaining sovereignty and so on. What I thought was interesting were those references, obviously, to Mr. Maduro, the one you've mentioned calling him a hero, saying that Venezuela has, as she put it, two heroes held hostage by the United States of America. this could be seen simply as pushing back against Washington because that is her role, that she has to say, I'm paying to be doing this, I'm obviously honoured, but ultimately I shouldn't be here because what happened to my predecessor was illegitimate, illegal and a violation of our national sovereignty.

6:43In truth, what may go on behind the scenes is what she called extending an agenda of cooperation. And I think that's where things lie at the moment. We really need to still see what that would entail if it is the sort of compliance that Donald Trump, the Trump administration, expect from her having threatened more military action unless they get what they want. That was Will Grant. As Will was saying, by the time Delcy Rodriguez had taken her chair in Caracas in New York, her predecessor, Nicolas Maduro, had made his first appearance in court in charges of narco-terrorism and drug trafficking, which he denies.

7:20Across town, the UN was holding an emergency meeting about his seizure. Our North America editor Sarah Smith sent this report. Wearing handcuffs, dressed in prison clothes and surrounded by heavily armed guards, Nicolas Maduro began the journey from the prison in Brooklyn, where he's being held, to his first US court appearance. TV cameras followed every step of the elaborate security operation, the images illustrating the deposed president's humiliation. Maduro, seemingly walking with a limp and his wife Celia Flores were then put on board a helicopter bound for Manhattan After arriving at a waterfront heliport they were escorted towards an armoured vehicle Historic scenes, the Trump administration say show a law enforcement action while others see an illegal foreign military operation Finally, the motorcade arrived at the courthouse around 7.40 in the morning outside some demonstrators celebrated maduro's capture others angry about president trump's claim that he will run venezuela and control its oil maduro and his wife both pled not guilty to charges of narco terrorism and drug trafficking miss flores had a bandage on her forehead and what looked like bruising on her face inside the courtroom nicolas maduro was asked only to enter a plea.

8:43But speaking in Spanish, he insisted that he is still the president of his country, complained that he had been kidnapped by the United States and described himself as a prisoner of war. Maduro was returned to prison after his brief court appearance. This is just the start of a legal process that could last for years. Across town at the United Nations, an emergency Security Council meeting discussed Venezuela. American allies made clear their reservations that the US has breached international law and may have set a dangerous precedent. Friends of the Maduro regime, like Russia and China, went even further.

9:22We cannot allow the United States to proclaim itself as some kind of a supreme judge, which alone bears the right to invade any country, to label culprits, to hand down and to enforce punishments irrespective of notions of international law. We urge the US to heed the overwhelming voice of the international community, abide by international law and the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, and cease infringing upon the sovereignty and security of other countries. President Trump's envoy to the UN said the US was entirely justified in its actions. There is no war against Venezuela or its people.

10:02We are not occupying a country. This was a law enforcement operation in furtherance of lawful indictments that have existed for decades. So is Nicolas Maduro simply a wanted criminal who was legally arrested by the United States? Or an example of the lengths President Trump will go to to assert his will in what he views as America's backyard? Sarah Smith with that report. And for more on that Venezuela story, you can go on our YouTube, search for BBC News, click on the logo, then choose podcasts and global news podcast. There is a new story available every weekday. Now, the biggest speed bump for self-driving cars has always been safety concerns.

10:48And now the US tech company NVIDIA has introduced a new artificial intelligence technology that the chip designer says will help self-driving cars reason more like humans. In a presentation in Las Vegas, NVIDIA's CEO Jensen Huang said the autonomous vehicles will be able to safely navigate city chaos and predict hazards. Alpha Maya does something that's really special. So not only does it take sensor input and activates steering wheel brakes and acceleration, it also reasons about what action it is about to take. It tells you what action it's going to take, the reason by which it came about that action, and then, of course, the trajectory.

11:32Well, for more on how this will work, here is our tech correspondent, Lily Jamali. NVIDIA boss Jensen Wong told an audience at the annual Consumer Electronics Trade Show in Las Vegas that its Alpamayo AI system will enable autonomous cars to handle complex places and situations. The system will be the centerpiece of a new driverless vehicle called the Mercedes-Benz CLA, which Wong said was being manufactured in partnership with the German automaker. NVIDIA says the vehicle will be available to customers first in the U.S., then Europe and Asia this year. It could challenge companies including Elon Musk's Tesla.

12:10Tesla started testing a robo-taxi service in Austin, Texas last year, but it lags behind the front-runner Waymo. NVIDIA is planning a robo-taxi service of its own with an unnamed partner by next year. Our tech correspondent Lily Jamali. The story now of a British man who's been fined the equivalent of almost a thousand dollars after being caught out posing as a senior naval officer at National Days of Mourning, when in fact he was nothing of the sort. The former history teacher Jonathan Carley appeared alongside VIPs as a highly decorated rear admiral on at least four occasions, as Stephanie Prentice reports.

12:52Two high-ranking military officers standing in front of a war memorial in Wales, laying a wreath to pay their respects in front of crowds of mourners. As they execute a right turn to leave, the man at the front appears to have less precise footwork than the other. That man was Jonathan Carley, standing proudly in full uniform and wearing an impressive array of medals. Local politician Janet Finch Saunders was there and the 12 medals caught her eye, including one for high level gallantry. It was pointed out to me that we had an imposter, somebody wearing a rear admiral's uniform and medals, medals that actually, one of the medals, nobody has ever been able to wear that medal.

13:43It hasn't been presented to anybody as yet. So I made it my purpose to go and speak with the gentleman in particular who dismissed me as having met me before And I know jolly well I've never met this gentleman before. When she checked the event's records, she found that nobody of that rank had been due to attend. Janet wasn't alone. At the same event, veteran Terry Stewart spotted a man pushing his way to the front just before a minute's silence began. The rear admiral pushed his way through, stood with the dignitaries. and I just remember asking the people around me, is this the same guy that was here last year?

14:25Yes. Does anybody here know who he is? No. And I said, I'm going to have to fall out of this parade and I'm going to have to challenge him. Terry was right. The man had been there a year earlier where Tony Mottram, a photographer for the local council, was taken aback by an officer who turned up with a large sword. I thought, why has he got a sword on? Oh, crikey, who is this guy? He obviously was very good at it, I think. I did spot it also with our parade marsh as well. And we did have words about his dress and his manure, the way he was acting. I mean, he didn't even parade. He just appeared sort of, hang on, you should go on a parade to go to Cenotaph.

15:09The extent of the fake Admiral's appearances is unclear. But video footage from another remembrance service in 2019 shows him brandishing a sword and giving a two-minute speech. As I say, it's a remarkable commemoration. Jonathan Carley was arrested a few days after the ceremony in Wales, telling police officers, I've been expecting you. He cited a desire for a sense of belonging and affirmation as his motive, and later pleaded guilty to the offence of wearing a military uniform without permission. Stephanie Prentice. Still to come in this podcast. K-beauty did not emerge overnight. It developed over 20 years alongside the rise of K-culture.

15:59How K-beauty became a billion-dollar business.

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18:25Poland, where businesses don't just grow, they're built to last. Find out more at polandyourplacetogrow.com If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

19:13This is the Global News Podcast. Hundreds of holidaymakers are stranded on the island of Socotra off the coast of Yemen due to the recent flare-up of violence on the mainland. Socotra is famed for its extraordinary landscape and its unique flora and fauna. Our global affairs reporter Sebastian Usher told my colleague Alex Ritson more about the tourists. This is an island which is part of Yemen but it's a long way off the coast of Yemen. It's about 350 kilometres from Yemen in the Indian Ocean. It hasn't been affected that much by the war, as you can understand, being so remote. It was taken over by a group called the Southern Transitional Council.

19:58They are separatists in the south and they're backed by the UAE. And the flights which come, and there are very few of them, three a week maximum, coming from Abu Dhabi in the UAE, show the control essentially that the UAE has there. This island is well and truly off the regular tourist trail, and yet it really is a fascinating place. It's an extraordinary place. It's extraordinary. It's landscape. It's a kind of otherworldly landscape, great crags, white sands, and the flora and fauna, some of it, I think a third of it, is unique to the island. The symbol of the island, something which if anybody knows anything about it, will have seen is this extraordinary looking tree called the dragon's blood tree because of a resin that comes out of it is crimson it's the color of blood so it's a great draw for that reason it's a unesco world heritage site so how are these tourists going to get back to the outside world well they're going to have to wait until flights start again i mean this brings us to what's been happening in the south of Yemen over the past few weeks.

21:08I mean, when people think of Yemen, they think about the Houthi rebels, they think about the attacks that they've carried out in support of the Palestinians, Hamas, targeting Israel, and the attacks that have been against them from Israel, from the US, the UK, etc. But down in the south, there's been a separate conflict going on to some extent. The internationally recognised government, the Saudi supported government is nominally based in Aden, the big port down there, but it hasn't had full control really of a whole of the south of Yemen. And just in the past few weeks, the separatist movement, which is in control of the island of Socotra, the Southern Transitional Council, it took over two of the main provinces down in the south.

21:51So that raised the threat of a new conflict within the wider conflict erupting in Yemen. Our global affairs reporter Sebastian Dean Usher speaking to Alex Ritson. Let's move on to South Africa and its justice system, which is in crisis, with many trials taking years to get to court. An official watchdog believes the backlog could involve some 40 ,000 cases, but experts believe the real figure is far higher. One prominent case involving the murder of the country's football captain remains unresolved after more than a decade. Our correspondent Pumza Falani has this report.

22:35South Africa's Senzo Meiiwa was a beloved footballer and a star player. His career cut short by criminals. The football captain was killed while visiting his musician girlfriend in Foslerus, south of Johannesburg. At the time, the high-profile murder case dominated headlines. Extensive state resources were directed at cracking the case. Police even offered a$23 ,000 reward for information. but 10 years on, the case is still yet to be resolved. The trial in the Pretoria High Court has been plagued by troubles, including changes in judges and legal teams and accusations of botched investigations by the police.

23:20We're at the Pretoria High Court where Senzo Meyiwa's murder trial is finally underway. It's taken several years to get to this point, But it's one small example of just how slowly justice turns here. South Africa's judges and magistrates are grossly overstretched, facing a backlog of cases going into the tens of thousands. This leaves families in limbo. Jason Pistorius knows the pain of court delays all too well and says each postponement feels like losing his mother, Charlene, all over again. She died in hospital after being set on fire. Two years on, the suspect is yet to stand trial. Court records show a string of postponements, from missing reports and incomplete investigations to unavailable judges and administrative delays.

24:11I asked Jason about the impact of losing his mother at a young age. It's emotional, but not only for me, as I'm the provider now for my siblings. Financially, it's taking a strain, because I'm the one that must be the provider now for more than one person, which was varying from my grandmother to my small child because my mother used to help them out as well. And what about healing for the family and those who mourn Charlene? No healing can be done without putting something to rest. We aren't certain what's going to happen now so I'm too scared to think about it even. So the clarity of the case needs to be shown to us.

24:47Activists and organisations working to help victims of crime navigate the country's broken system say the courts and government are failing the people. It's something head of court administration Laki Mohalaba admits is a problem, but says reforms are imminent. These include hiring more magistrates and judges, as well as advocating for a change in working hours to turn things around. On a daily basis, there is a woman in the majority who are provided with orders for maintenance for the support of their children. There are criminals who are convicted for their crimes by the courts. But despite the progress that we've made in this regard to serve the members of the public, we still do acknowledge and that is a fact that there are matters which could have been processed much quicker within the criminal justice system.

25:37But hope may not be enough. In a country with alarming levels of violent crime and too few prostitutions, For those affected, experts say this is leading to a loss of confidence in South Africa's legal system and a growing sense that their justice has been denied. Pumsa Falani in South Africa. One of the world's biggest football clubs, the English Premier League team Manchester United has sacked its manager again. The Portuguese national, Ruben Amorim, was in charge for just over a year. I think even the most ardent Manchester United fan would admit they are a shadow of the team that won basically everything under their former manager Alex Ferguson.

26:21And he retired more than a decade ago. Since then, a succession of underperforming men have managed the team. Our sports editor Dan Rowan has more on this latest failure. Ruben Amrum was meant to be the coach to finally restore Manchester United to former glories. But 14 months after arriving at Old Trafford, he's become the latest to be shown the exit. In a statement, the club said that with United sixth in the Premier League, its leadership had reluctantly made the decision that it was the right time to make a change. But there had also been tensions with United's hierarchy, and after the draw with Leeds United, Amirim suggested his authority was being undermined in an outburst that now looks to have cost him his job.

27:01I came here to be the manager of Manchester United, not to be the coach, and that is clear. It had all seemed very different when United invested heavily in Amirim after he'd enjoyed success in Portugal. But such faith was not rewarded. In his first season, United finished 15th, their lowest ever position in the Premier League. And although the final of the Europa League offered redemption, it was lost to Tottenham Hotspur. £200 million was then spent on new players in the summer, but a League Cup defeat to lowly League Two side Grimsby in August, one of the worst results in United's history, was a stark reality check.