European leaders denounce Moscow over attacks

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Get more with BBC Podcasts wherever you listen. Be the first to listen to your favourite shows like Evil Genius, Good Bad Billionaire and You're Dead to Me with a subscription to BBC Podcasts Premium on Apple Podcasts. You can also enjoy a range of our podcasts ad-free with an Amazon Music subscription. This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Paul Moss and at 14 hours GMT on Wednesday 2nd September, these are our main stories. European leaders have condemned Russia as it's held responsible for the attack on a German airport.

0:44Meanwhile, a Russian strike on the city of Odessa has left more than 300 ,000 Ukrainians without power. The man accused of murdering the American conservative activist Charlie Kirk last year has appeared in court and pleaded not guilty. Also in this podcast, the Hong Kong democracy activist facing a possible lifetime jail sentence and the simple cancer test, which could save thousands of lives. Patients at higher risk of having bladder cancer can be diagnosed earlier and treated more quickly.

1:22Europeans are faced with a hard truth ahead of the EU, said this is the new normal. Ursula von der Leyen was speaking after Russia was blamed for an attempted attack on a German airport last month when a drone full of explosives was found near a Ukrainian cargo plane in Leipzig. Miss von der Leyen was joined at a news conference by the NATO Secretary General Mark Rutter with a similar message and a similarly grim warning. Russia has grown increasingly reckless. As they continue their terrible war against Ukraine, we have seen more drones and missiles crossing into our airspace along our eastern flank, creating increased risk.

2:03And we have also seen an increase in malign activities, targeting our territory directly. Whether it is fires set in factories, producing defense equipment for Ukraine, or indeed the Russian hybrid attack in Leipzig. On the ground in Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky says Russian drones have struck targets across his country. Reports suggest hundreds of thousands have been left without electricity in Odessa on the Black Sea. Alexander Kolosyuk from the emergency services there described what happened.

2:37Throughout the night, Russia carried out a massive attack on Odessa and the region. Residential buildings and energy infrastructure came under attack. A 24-storey residential building was hit. The blasts also damaged nearby parked cars. So more attacks both in Ukraine and, it seems, on NATO member states, this time Germany. But amidst all the protesting, what are Western leaders actually going to do? A question I put to our diplomatic correspondent James Landale, who's in Kyiv. I think initially what they're trying to do is to be more explicit in trying to attribute responsibility to Russia for alleged actions against Western countries.

3:21The so-called hybrid war, one of the key defining characteristics is that a lot of the actions are unattributable. It's unclear who was responsible. Was it a Russian proxy? Was it, you know, we've got mysterious parcels exploding in warehouses. warehouses, you've got cyber attacks, information campaigns, where are they coming from? That's the space in which Russia is accused of operating. And I think what we're seeing is a clear attempt with Germany and now the EU and NATO waiting behind it, is to say, well, on this case, the alleged attack on Leipzig airport, they are trying to attribute responsibility by saying, look, there is clear evidence that Russia was behind this, essentially to try and impose greater cost on Russia to try and deter future attacks.

4:02But what are they actually going to do? I mean, And yes, attributing it to Russia, not mincing their words or beating around the bush. But is there any action that they promise they'll actually take now? In the short term, there will be diplomatic maneuverings. Various Russian ambassadors will be summoned. I think relations between Germany and Russia will deteriorate. There'll be a pulling back. There'll be any kind of cultural connections. They might be damaged by it. But in the longer term, I think the interesting question is whether or not any European nations use this to try and galvanise greater support for Ukraine?

4:37Because at the moment, so, for example, there is more talk about having another look at whether or not European nations can use all those frozen Russian assets that are trapped largely in Belgian financial institutions. Can they get a greater unity within Europe to use those to exploit that money to support Ukraine? Beforehand, Europe's been pretty divided on that. So I think it'll be interesting to see in coming days how various European nations use this greater unity against Russia to actually have policy decisions as a result. What's going on in Kiev where you are? We've heard of sirens. We've heard reports of explosions there.

5:14Well, there's another alert going on right now at the moment. There have been alerts all morning. We've spent the day so far going around seeing some of the outcome of those strikes. We've seen strikes pretty close down the road from where we are here, where a building quite close to the centre was hit. We know that a university has been hit in the city here. We've also been to see a customs warehouse that was struck, clouds of smoke pouring out. In other words, this is day seven of consecutive Russian daytime attacks. It's their new tactic. James Landale in Kiev. So the ship has arrived in port.

5:50its crew are finally walking on dry land once again. After a record 250 days at sea, the US aircraft carrier, the Abraham Lincoln, is in Thailand. It was serving as part of the US force attacking Iran. But the carrier's ever-lengthening deployment became a political issue itself, with reports that sailors weren't getting the most basic supplies like soap and toothpaste. There apparently wasn't even enough food on board. For some sailors, it was apparently too much, according to Natalie Oliverio, the Pentagon correspondent for the Military Times. There have been several reports of sailors attempting to jump overboard, some for alleged suicide attempts, others for alleged cries for help, so to speak.

6:35So you're looking at people who have been inside the interior parts of the ship for nearly nine months straight. So without seeing land, without stopping, without having any time off at all, they've really been burning the candle at both ends. The Navy's own plan, it says that every 36 months, only eight months should be spent deployed out at sea so that everything can stay on course. But with the USS Gerald R. Ford and now the USS Abraham Lincoln, those deployments are now being stretched, meaning that maintenance is being stretched, repairs are being pushed back, and sailors are being overextended past their threshold.

7:18The Abraham Lincoln has docked close to the Thai resort of Pattaya, which has long been a place where American service members go to drink, to carouse, and let's be honest, the town has long had a thriving sex industry. That said, at least one American sailor, when asked by reporters, said that he had different sightseeing priorities. First time visiting. I'm excited to see around, what the culture's like, go see some temples, go relax. The BBC's Southeast Asia correspondent Jonathan Head is in Pattaya and told us what the atmosphere was like as this new cohort turned up for shore leave. It's as chilled as it always is in Passiam.

7:56Look, this city absorbs so many different kinds of people from around the world, from all ends, all kinds of activities. They're pretty confident that they can accommodate 5 ,000 US sailors. who are under a certain amount of sort of regulation by their offices. There are places that they've been told not to go. They've been told to follow, you know, the normal code of conduct. We've seen quite a lot of them around. They're very conspicuous, walking around, most of them carrying quite big backpacks, looking a bit lost. The mayor has told us there are three streets not very far from here, just a bit further back going off, very famous, Soy 6, Soy 6 slash 1 and Soy 7, which are famous for their go-go bars.

8:34And, you know, we've just driven down a short while ago. It's absolutely packed with rather scantily clad women who are obviously plying their trade. I mean, prostitution is notionally illegal in Thailand. It's something the police have reminded the U.S. crews. But in practice, we think there are probably 25 ,000 to 50 ,000 sex workers in this city. They're not allowed to go to that street. Now, I don't know how strictly they'll police that. They can go to Pattaya's famous Walking Street, which is pretty racy as well. very colourful, lots of neon lights, all kinds of different bars and restaurants there.

9:07When that starts up just after sundown, it's a very, very vibrant scene. But in general, I think most of the city is open to them. They're not allowed to use the cannabis shops. There are a lot of those here now. And offshore in the sea here, you can go. There's lots of sea sports like paragliding and jet skiing. They're not supposed to do that either. Jonathan Head. And in our earlier podcast, we inadvertently referred to those on board the Abraham Lincoln as servicemen. Our listener Amelia Goff emailed to point out correctly that the crew is not just comprised of men. She said she was disappointed to hear such exclusive language.

9:42Amelia, you're right, and we'll pay more attention in the future. Now, as I mentioned earlier, the Abraham Lincoln had been deployed to the Persian Gulf as part of the US forces attacking Iran. While that ship may have departed, the conflict there has flared up. Once again, the US has struck targets in southern Iran. Iran then retaliated, as it has before, by attacking American bases in the region, this time in Jordan and Iraq. Kuwait has said residential buildings there had been hit by Iranian drones, though without any injuries resulting. Meanwhile, Iran's foreign ministry has described a US strike on a wedding in the south of the country as a war crime.

10:21The Iranian Red Crescent says shrapnel from the attack killed five people and injured dozens more. The Pentagon has insisted it doesn't target civilians. I spoke about this to our Middle East correspondent Yelan Nail in Jerusalem. She says this latest round of fighting could mark a return to all-out hostilities. It looks like that pause that lasted about a month in open warfare between US and Iran is over. This looks like a serious military escalation. The Iranians saying that they also attacked the United Arab Emirates. Already we've been hearing that Jordan, Bahrain, northern Iraq, Kuwait had all reported Iranian attacks in response to the latest US attacks on Iran.

11:04Of course those countries are all US allies in the region and they have US military bases there. Now there are reports coming from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard that four of its personnel were killed in the latest US strikes. That's after local officials and the Iranian Red Crescent had said there were about a dozen people who were killed in the south of the country, including those who were at this wedding. And as the US has been saying that it was targeting military assets, it was targeting also air defences and radar capabilities, the Iranian media reports have really been emphasising how there were also civilian targets that were hit.

11:49And they include a fish meal factory, a civilian airport and this house in the south of Iran, close to the Strait of Hormuz, where people were killed, including this child at the wedding. Now, from both sides, what we're seeing are stronger attacks than we're seeing even at the weekend when we had that first exchange of fire in a month. And more widespread attacks coming from Iran in retaliation too, with lots of strong rhetoric. What is the US saying about this suggestion that its attack has killed five people at a wedding? The US has acknowledged that there are reports about this, but it says it never targets civilians and pointedly added, unlike the revolutionary guards.

12:32So this is a new development. It's quite a large number of people who have been killed in these latest strikes, according to the reports we're getting from the Iranian side. Iran also claiming that it's killed a number of US soldiers. Have the US authorities said anything about that? So far, the initial reports coming from US officials are that there have not been US service personnel killed in Jordan, as Iran is claiming. They're saying that their initial reports are that there are no casualties in that case. And we have the Jordanian armed forces coming out saying that they had intercepted missiles that were fired at the country.

13:07There is video showing apparently one of those interceptions over the Jordanian southern port of Aqaba. We have previously seen the United States and Iran exchanging attacks and yet negotiations continuing. Is that happening now, do you think, or is this a sign that we're back to full-scale conflict with no prospect of any kind of peace agreement? Well, interestingly, Pakistan, which has been such a key mediator between the US and Iran, It has come out saying it remains engaged on talks and the conflict. It remains positive that the two sides will return to dialogue. But the message coming from President Trump when he was talking to Fox News was really that he was not trying to push Iran to go back to the negotiation table.

13:54He said that I think an agreement with them is not worth the paper it's written on. And writing on Truth Social, his platform on social media, he said when are the Iranian people going to rise up and fight? as though he is looking back to an uprising in Iran, the prospects of possible regime change. When there was the Iranian president, Masoud Pasehkian, speaking ahead of the latest US attacks on Iran, he did say that Tehran was ready to return to that memorandum of understanding that was signed in June between the US and Tehran. Of course, that fell apart quite quickly, but he said that Iran was ready to go back to that if Washington would follow suit.

14:34Yalan Nell. Every year, nearly a quarter of a million people worldwide die from cancer of the bladder. But this is a disease which can be treated and indeed sometimes cured if it's caught in time. Now, an at-home urine test has been developed, which, according to a new study, can spot more than nine in ten bladder cancer cases. Our medical editor, Fergus Walsh, told me how it worked. When you have cancer in the bladder wall, then sometimes cells will break off, a fragment off and be shed into the urine. And what this test does, it looks for something like 450 genetic mutations across 23 genes which are associated strongly with bladder cancer, and it tests for those.

15:22Now, the contrast is that the standard, the gold standard way of diagnosing bladder cancer is through what's called a cystoscopy, where a camera and instruments go up through the urethra and examine the bladder. And that can be uncomfortable. Some people even turn it down. And this would be a non-invasive way of testing for bladder cancer. So what happens now? I think there's going to be a larger survey that's going to be conducted. Is that right? Yeah. So this is research which has been going on for over a decade at the University of Birmingham, funded by Cancer Research UK. It's then been commercialised to a company called Nonicus in Birmingham.

16:11It's still at, in some ways, the research stage. Some hospitals in England are already using it. but they're not using it as a replacement for the gold standard cystoscopy. They're using it alongside at the moment. But if this new trial, which is being conducted now, if that comes out positively, then it could spare a lot of people, thousands of people, these invasive tests. Fergus, you've been on this programme and others many times, I know, talking about developments in the treatment and diagnosis of cancer, But it seems like this one really is being cited as a potential game changer, certainly for cancer of the bladder.

16:54Yes, and I think it's the direction of travel we have about genomics. And the UK has a very strong record on genetics, genomics. And of course, it's already been incorporated in terms of blood tests for some cancers. of patients with breast cancer, bowel cancer after surgery are often monitored now by looking for what they call circulating tumor DNA in samples of their blood, which help decipher whether or not their cancer has come back. So, you know, it makes logical sense with the bladder that you could use urine to keep an eye on whether or not an urgent referral really is urgent because there's cancer there or whether in fact it's less urgent and perhaps people don't need to undergo this invasive cystoscopy.

17:46Fergus Walsh. Still to come in this podcast, Ariana Grande makes an emotional exit from her tour after announcing she'll step back from public life. She said that, you know, she'll always remember this time with her fans and that she hopes to see them, you know, at some other point. She did not mention no when she would resume touring.

18:37This is the Global News Podcast. It's been almost a year since the American conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed at a university event in Utah, a shooting that President Trump called a dark moment for America. On Tuesday, the man accused of his murder, 23-year-old Tyler Robinson, appeared in court where he pleaded not guilty to the crime, as well as six other charges in connection with the shooting. The judge has ruled prosecutors can seek the death penalty at trial. Ryan McBride from the Utah County Attorney's Office outlined the seriousness of the case as they see it. Tyler James Robinson shot and killed Charlie Kirk because he disagreed with him.

19:19And he did it by firing a high-powered rifle into a crowd of over 3 ,000 people, which created a great risk of death that anyone would know about. Tuesday's appearance in court followed nearly a week of legal discussions. Following all this was the CBS reporter, Jared Hill. What we've been seeing over the past six or so days was this pre-trial hearing to decide, one, whether Tyler Robinson was going to be able to face a trial in this shooting case, in this murder case. And we saw the judge yesterday saying, yes, there was overwhelming evidence that would point to at least the allowance of the trial to continue.

19:57The other question here was whether he would face the death penalty potentially. And the judge said yes. What we saw within this was the prosecution making an argument that because Robinson, they say, allegedly shot into such a large crowd of so many people when this shooting happened, that he also endangered so many others, which then they say resulted in why he should be allowed to be tried with the death penalty as a potential consequence in this case. The judge said yes. So this was really just the first step to lay the groundwork to say if this thing could even go to trial. Robinson, what we have seen here from his defense are a couple of arguments, again, within this pretrial hearing.

20:39One, saying that he should not be tried for the death penalty because they believe that there was one shot that was alleged here and that no one else was targeted, no one else was being pointed at. But then they also say that there's not enough evidence to convict him. The trial, the date is still yet to be seen. We're expecting for there to be another hearing in October where the judge will presumably set the date for this trial. But this is just the beginning of what could potentially be a pretty long process. Jared Hill. The end of prison had been in sight for the Hong Kong democracy activist Joshua Wong.

21:14He's currently serving a near five year sentence for subversion, handed down after he and others tried to hold an election to choose candidates for Hong Kong's Legislative Council. Mr Wong was due to be released next year, but he's just pleaded guilty to new charges, which could earn him a life sentence. Our reporter Mickey Bristow told me what these charges involved. He's agreed, he's pleaded guilty to colluding with foreign powers. Essentially what that is is that he's agreed that he tried to persuade the United States and other Western nations to put pressure on China to allow more democracy in Hong Kong.

21:50This charge was brought under something called the National Security Law that was imposed by Beijing on Hong Kong in 2020, essentially brought in to kind of crack down on all the democracy activism that was going on at the time, essentially to crush it and to stop it dead. So that's the charge he faces. As you said there in the introduction, the interesting bit about this is that he was well into a five-year sentence when this charge was brought. He was looking forward perhaps to being released early next year. This charge means now he could spend a long time behind bars. And I think it's illustrative shows that the Chinese government is in no way ready to be lenient or merciful with any activists in Hong Kong.

22:33Do we have any idea why Joshua Wong pleaded guilty? I mean, other democracy activists have fought the charges that were put to them. Yeah, he hasn't answered that directly, neither is Lloyd. But I think it's not too wide of the mark to suggest that perhaps he wants the court to show some leniency in the sentence towards him. He's only 29 years old. This sentence carries a lifetime in prison, so he could be well into his old age before he comes out, unless the court gives him a lenient sentence. In fact, his prosecutor suggested that this perhaps was the reason for him pleading guilty. The defender suggested that the judge should give a sentence of no more than 10 years, not to give a sentence that would crush Joshua Wong, that would leave him with no hope of the future, no hope of getting out of prison.

23:21It suggested that he wanted to get out, perhaps to look after his elderly parents. So I think it's perhaps to get a lenient sentence. Joshua Wong, again in prison, other leaders in prison, some of them in exile from the pro-democracy movement. And I just wondered, does that pro-democracy movement still function in Hong Kong? Not really. And I think it's worth reflecting about Joshua Wong and who he is. I think of all the protests that emerged from Hong Kong 2014, 2019, his teenage bespectacled face appearing on magazine covers, in newspapers, on television documentaries, probably he represented that movement more than anyone.

23:59And I think the Chinese government's decision to kind of prosecute him so late into the end of one sentence shows that it's, as I said earlier, that they're not lenient. as far as the democracy movement broadly speaking is concerned China has really cracked down on everything there's very little chance of any kind of outshowing of dissent or disagreement with the Chinese authorities in Hong Kong none really whatsoever and I think this is just another example of that Mickey Bristow it was called the Eternal Sunshine Tour but Ariana Grande's series of concerts which ended on Tuesday night were anything but eternal.

24:38On the contrary, the international superstar has said she'll now take a substantial break from performing, with some suggesting it could be years before she takes to the stage again, if ever. Grande has recently faced intense media speculation about her health, while some suggest she's lost weight and may be fatigued. In her final concert in London, though, her thoughts were with her fans.

25:06Thank you for 10 beautiful London shows. She may have been grateful to fans, but Ariana Grande hasn't denied that her life in the spotlight is taking its toll, although she's tended to play down suggestions of any serious health problems. Our music correspondent, Mark Savage, was at Tuesday night's concert. A moving occasion, he says. It was an incredibly emotional night because fans knew that this was potentially the last time they were going to see Ariana on stage for years, potentially. You know, she said even before all of the speculation about her health, she'd called this tour one last hurrah and suggested she wanted to spend more time concentrating on film roles after her Oscar nominated turn in Wicked.

25:50And so this was always going to be a bittersweet night. And the fact that she's subsequently had to make this statement that she's withdrawing from public appearances, she's cancelled a planned theatre run in London next year. People were concerned, but also there to express their support. And you could feel that energy travelling between the stage and the audience and then right back towards Ariana. And that's why giving that speech at the end, she did start to tear up. She said she wanted to express her gratitude without sobbing completely. The O2, I mean, it's a huge venue, vast crowds for any performer to keep happy.

26:28I mean, were there any signs of those ill health issues that had been reported when she was on stage? Well, I mean, the only real sign that she was suffering at all was that she was not performing in stilettos because she had cut her foot. And so normally she's teetering around on these six-inch heels, sprinting up and down the stage. And last night she was wearing very flat boots. Although often standing on tiptoe, almost like she's in that famous scene from Barbie where the foot comes out of the stiletto but stays in the same shape. And I have to say, you know, I've seen the show a couple of times during this tour.