Indonesia earthquake: rescuers search for survivors

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1:00Almost 50 people have been confirmed dead after a powerful earthquake hit Indonesia. Israel carries out its deadliest strikes in southern Lebanon for months. And Moroccan police stop hundreds of migrants breaking into Ceuta, two weeks after tens of thousands rushed into the Spanish territory. Also in this podcast... The good news is, as it is a dorsal fin, so it didn't enter into a muscle. We saw her hunting, depredating, feeding. An orca known among the boat-sinking community survives a pellet gun attack. On Saturday morning, Indonesia was hit by a powerful earthquake.

1:43Buildings collapsed and people ran for safety as the 7.7 quake rocked the island of Flores. At least 47 people died, but the number is expected to rise as rescuers continue to pick through the rubble. Many survivors spent the night in evacuation camps while the injured are being treated in hospital.

2:05The wound on my head is getting better, but my leg still hurts. It was broken when the house collapsed on me. It was six in the morning. I was taking a shower and getting ready for work when the earthquake suddenly struck. My grandchild was outside, so I ran to save them. I shielded my grandchild under my stomach, and I was the one who was hit when the house collapsed. A tsunami warning was issued but lifted around three hours later. Aftershocks included a 6.4 magnitude earthquake in North Sumatra. BBC Indonesia's Astudestra Arjun Rastri told us about the ongoing rescue operation. The local government has now been deploying their own local rescue teams, and the national agency from Jakarta is now also deploying their resources to help with the local governments.

2:58The search and evacuation process is still ongoing because several people are still stuck under the rubbles, but at the same time, it is also the government also increasingly focused on providing emergency shelters and aid like clean water and food. About 2 ,000 residents are now still evacuating independently. So the plan is for the government now to provide a more coordinated help for those people. And we heard more from our Southeast Asia correspondent, Jonathan Head. In this area, Flores, there aren't any big high-rise buildings, you know, large buildings. I mean, Marmaria, which is the largest town on Flores, is quite close to the epicentre.

3:43There's only about 300 ,000 people, but people who were outside or in public buildings It's a Catholic part of Indonesia. So if there were people at mass in the morning, I mean, some of them were injured when roof tiles or roofs caved in. And people just rushed out. Because they know about earthquakes, the first thing was to get out of buildings. Buildings are not always very strong there. We've seen videos of public buildings, not quite collapsing, but large chunks of concrete coming down. We saw videos from the port in Malmari, where a large ferry was docked, taking on passengers. as people on the gangway there were thrown into the sea when the whole thing collapsed into the water.

4:20And a lot of people got on motorbikes and started heading inland, and that's because there were tsunami warnings. At 7.7, this was a very powerful earthquake in the sea to the north of Flores, and people there have a strong collective memory of a catastrophic earthquake back in 1992 where more than 2 ,000 people died, almost entirely because of a tsunami, a very high one. In this case, it didn't happen, and that probably minimised loss of life. But as things stand, it was felt very widely all over Flores, lots of small towns. It's a very mountainous area. So it's taking Indonesia's very experienced search and rescue team some time to reach all the communities where buildings have collapsed and where there may be trapped people.

5:04There have been landslides on the roads. The roads are not very good anyway. So a lot of places are cut off and it's proving quite difficult both to reach those areas and to make a full assessment of exactly how bad the damage is. But it looks, it's not catastrophic, but it's pretty bad. This is a very poor region and a lot of buildings are quite badly damaged, a lot of houses uninhabitable. Our South East Asia correspondent Jonathan Hett. Israel has carried out its deadliest strikes in Lebanon for months, killing 11 people. The Israeli government said it was targeting the Iran-backed group Hezbollah and argued the attack should help rather than hinder peace talks with Lebanon.

5:43Doran Spielman is the Israeli prime minister's spokesman. Hezbollah committed two major violations today. They struck Israeli troops who were operating in the security zone in contravention of the ceasefire agreement. And then when Israel responded, they moved civilians inside their terrorist headquarters. They used their own civilians as human shields so that later on they could point at Israel and say that Israel is targeting civilians, which we are not doing. But the Lebanese president, Joseph Aoun, condemned the attack, which came ahead of a planned eighth round of US-brokered negotiations.

6:18Hezbollah, which is not involved in the talks, has called on the Lebanese government to walk away and vowed to respond to the latest Israeli strikes. We heard more from Neda Homsi, a correspondent for the National News in Beirut. It is the single deadliest attack since June when the ceasefire was renewed and the U.S. brokered framework agreement was signed with, as you said, 11 people killed, five of them, three children and two women, civilians and all from the same family. Israel says that it attacked infrastructure belonging to Hezbollah and that it targeted a Hezbollah military commander. But of course, this drew significantly harsh response from Lebanese authorities, with the Lebanese prime minister, Noé Faisalem, responding today that women and children who were killed are not military targets.

7:08And he and the president both said that these strikes sent a clear message with regard to the negotiation process, which by all accounts is already stalled. It is a little bit of a mess. A significant portion of people in Lebanon are very critical of this framework agreement because they don't have faith that, well, first of all, Hezbollah has flat out rejected it. Obviously, that complicates things. And then also Israel doesn't exactly have a very good reputation for abiding by these kinds of agreements. That's certainly the case for the 2024 ceasefire. And as we're seeing, it's the case now.

7:45Nedah Homsi in the Lebanese capital, Beirut. Just over two weeks ago, tens of thousands of people in Morocco forced their way into Ceuta, the Spanish territory at the tip of North Africa. Around 100 people died trying to swim along the coast to bypass the border. Since then, there have been fears there may be another attempt to rush the frontier and get into Europe. But on Saturday, police in Morocco said they managed to stop hundreds trying to breach the border. Spain says it's fortified all points of entry. Stephanie Prentice has been following this for us, so are things now under control in Ceuta?

8:21You could say in one way yes, but more broadly no. So as you mentioned, we saw this organised, robust response Saturday to large groups of people moving close to the border. Security forces were ready this time. There were people in the hills nearby, including some in riot gear. And reportedly, officials used tear gas to disperse groups that were seen gathered on those nearby hills. As well as that, officials had been monitoring social media, where we know that videos have been inciting crossings, making it seem easy to get there. And they say 60 people have been arrested for inciting illegal migration.

8:59That is, of course, a stark contrast to the scenes we saw just weeks ago, where around 100 people died trying to reach the beaches. Tens of thousands made it onto land. So from a security perspective, yes, it's seemingly under control in Ceuta. But the human impact on the ground from that first onslaught is ongoing. and the wider geopolitical impact also still being felt. Yeah, after that big breach, many thousands went back into Morocco, but quite a few remained in Ceuta. What is the situation for them? Well, absolutely worth mentioning. Ceuta is small, so its population is around 85 ,000 people.

9:43Some estimates of that initial breach say almost 80 ,000 migrants got into the territory. and as you said many were returned to Morocco but that mass crossing which was mainly by sea it left thousands of migrants living in these shanty towns along the beach they're now overflowing with waste and rubbish and we've seen unverified videos on social media of local people complaining about the social impact showing people begging for food begging for money and highlighting sanitation issues now some of the migrants still in Ceuta say they want to make asylum applications but they're not being processed.

10:21Mohamed Bargain is one of the men who managed to swim to Suta's shores after leaving his home in Casablanca.

10:31We don't know how long we're going to live like this. People are dying. There are people who went without food for four days because they closed us in. People are in a terrible condition. Some have diabetes and some have been injured. They'd cut off the water from us. No food, no water, nothing. So there's this large scale humanitarian issue. It's getting worse. By the day the migrants left after that initial breach, they're in limbo, while people who live in Ceuta accusing Madrid of not doing enough to resolve this. And authorities between Ceuta and Madrid, they're still going back and forth on issues like how to process unaccompanied minors now left in the territory.

11:12And what's been the political fallout from all this? Because quite a few European governments are under pressure over immigration. Yes, so even though the crisis calmed down quite quickly after it happened in late July, that tension between the EU nations is still rumbling on. A lot of criticism aimed at the Spanish government. So Ceuta is one of two land borders of the European Union with Africa. Many EU nations have open borders with Spain. And as we've seen recently, politically, there has been a wave of anti-migrant sentiment in certain EU countries. Now Spain did come out strong, sent reinforcements of troops, created a maritime barrier.

11:53The interior minister said migrants who entered irregularly would not be allowed to get to mainland Spain except in rare cases. But we saw Italy respond. It suspended the 29-member Schengen arrangement of free movement with Spain, introduced border checks on arrivals from Spain. It was backed up by Finland and Denmark. Separately, the Czech Republic called for Spain's membership to be temporarily suspended. Spain reacted to that with Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez saying Ceuta was not part of the Schengen area. So it's also ongoing. And while Brussels has backed Spain, those tensions undeniably remain.

12:32Stephanie Prentice. Still to come on the podcast. When you wear a headdress, that's usually something that's gifted to you for an honour. It's not something you can just go buy off Etsy. Why beauty pageants in Canada are getting a dress code.

13:07and engage with the account while your teen learns how to invest and manage money. Learn more at schwab.com. Hello, Greg Jenner here. I'm the host of You're Dead to Me, the BBC comedy show that takes history seriously. Every episode, I pair up a top historian with a fantastic comedian, and we have a lovely, funny, fascinating chat about a different subject from world history. And in this new series, we're beginning with an epic voyage through the story of Homer, the Iliad, and the Odyssey. and that's with Kyle Smith-Bino joining us and then we'll be learning about Francis Galton and the racist discredited pseudoscience of eugenics with Desiree Birch we'll meet many medieval saints in their bone boxes with Rachel Parrott so if that sounds like your sort of thing listen to You're Dead to Me wherever you get your podcasts thank you, bye

14:25abductions, as I heard from our global affairs reporter Richard Kugoi. We heard from the groups of regional and international observers, what they say is they noted that in just the day of the elections and after the election there were incidences of violence. So this involved destruction of property across five provinces in Zambia. There was also the targeting of election officials. And also they say that there had been reports of people who had been abducted and also people being intimidated. In fact, the EU Observer Mission representative said that the election itself really took place within an atmosphere of constrained democratic space.

15:15So it's trying to create basically the picture of what it was like, especially for members of the opposition who felt that sort of like the government had sort of like a due advantage. Now, Zambia has had a reputation as one of Africa's most stable democracies. Is that now being undermined? It's sort of like been a debate in the run-up to the elections, but comparatively to other elections elsewhere, Zambia still stands out because they've had sort of like the history of power transfer since the return of multi-party democracy in 1991. But this election actually was being seen as a test of its democratic credentials because of all the allegations that had been raised by the opposition in the run up to the election itself.

16:07So basically the conduct of the Electoral Commission and also the government even during the post electoral period is something that is being watched very closely. Tell us about the two leading candidates in the race and the issues that will have been on voters' minds when they went to the polls. Yes, so the two leaders, because you had 14 candidates, but two of them most prominent, of course, are the incumbent President Hitchlema and Brian Mundubile, who is a former government minister and was also allied to the former, later President Edgar Lungu. So, you know, HLMA has really been banking on his economic track record to endear himself to the electorate.

16:50So if you have, speaking to an ordinary Zamban, they would say, at top of their mind, the issues that was really going to influence how they voted, it's basically unemployment and also the rising cost of living. This is despite the fact that the economy has experienced rapid growth in the past five years, partly because of the policies and the reforms that President Haka Indihichilema has made. But of course, then there are people who argue that the benefits didn't quite trickle down to the electorate. Richard Kagoi on the election count in Zambia. A female orca known for ramming boats off the coasts of Portugal and Spain has been seen swimming in the Strait of Gibraltar with what looked like pellet gun wounds on her dorsal fin.

17:37Spanish officials have launched an investigation. Tonyi the whale and her pod made headlines in 2020 after sailors told of their boats being spun around or tipped sideways by the orcas, which scientists said could be a form of play or a means of practising hunting skills. Yannick André from environmental group We Whale has been tracking the pod. They all have like their own character, they have different moods, so they are sentient beings and that's important to understand also that's something of course we want to show the world and make the world understand. That's because also the female who got shot, Toni, she's the oldest one.

18:14She has a leading role, let's say, in this whole group. We went out on Tuesday morning, and as soon as our team arrived, we saw that there were wounds on a dorsal fin. Then we took pictures, and then when we analyzed actually the photos, we clearly saw that they are like pellet bullets, ammunition, like in the dorsal fin. You also could see it like with your on-site with your, let's say, from the boat, from the top side of the boat. So these animals, they like to be curious around boats. They like to be playful around boats. And some people just don't like that because it might be that the boat got damaged.

18:55And that could also lead to the boat sinking because water could enter into the hull because of that. And then, yeah, I mean, people then maybe just think, well, before something like that is happening to me, I will shoot the animal. The good news is as it's a dorsal fin, so it didn't enter into a muscle in that sense. because there's no muscle inside the dorsal fin. So we can only observe and see what's going to happen. How is she today, now? Well, we haven't seen her the last two days because we could not go out because of the wind. So the last time we saw her was on Wednesday and we saw her hunting, depredating, feeding.

19:38She was around with her adoptive son. She adopted a male orca in the last years and together with a third orca called Scarlet. So she was OK, but she was not kind of interested in the boat very much. And normally she sometimes is, so most probably she still is also trying to get some rest and recovering from the situation. Janek André talking to Caroline Wyatt. In recent years, there's been growing concern about safety in professional cycling. Six riders have died in road races in the past three years, the latest being 19-year-old Finlay Tarling, killed on Friday in the Tour of Portugal. He reportedly collided with a vehicle that wasn't involved in the race.

20:24His team has now withdrawn. The cyclists' union said on social media, we are speechless and filled with anger that it's not possible to prevent such serious accidents. Cycling journalist Ned Bolting explained what went wrong. It happened on stage eight of the Tour of Portugal, effectively, which is a very old, very well-established and very venerable race, dating back almost 100 years. Road racing is carried out on public roads that have to be closed for the duration of the race, clearly. There are different levels of closure. And what appears to have happened is that a car, a vehicle, has got onto the road, for whatever reason, and has driven into the peloton and seems to have struck Finn.

21:05So a totally anomalous incident, but it's resulted in his death. There have been of late a string of incidents that have resulted in fatalities. While you try and learn individual lessons from individual cases, it's very, very hard to draw conclusions that would make this sport completely safe. What I would say is that, going back to my point about closing roads, I think this is very, very important because fatalities like this haven't happened at the Tour de France. And the Tour de France is obviously the best resourced race in the world. And just to give you a sense of how this works, the state, because it's of such national importance, so Paris pays for every single stage to be policed by, so there's a gendarme literally standing at every junction that feeds onto the race route all day.

21:57So it's almost impossible for a vehicle to encroach on the race route. That costs a phenomenal amount of money. and the Tour of Portugal doesn't have those kind of funds. So the further you go down, if you like the pyramids, the greater the risk. Ned Bolting. The Miss Universe Canada pageant is introducing a comprehensive costume guide after a row triggered by two contestants wearing indigenous-style costumes. One had a feathered headdress and a small red-painted hand on her cheek. The other wore a two-piece Arctic beauty-themed outfit with hair braids and mucklucks, light winter boots made from animal skin.

22:34There was an outcry from Canada's First Nations communities who called it cultural appropriation. Ashley Callingball, the first Indigenous Miss Universe Canada, co-presented this year's event. She told Paul Henley what happened. I was just checking in on the pageant before I got there to host the finals and I was watching the national costume competition And my jaw just dropped because I thought, how did they let this happen? Who approved this? Who allowed this on stage? Like, how did it get this far? Immediately, like, called the organization. And I was really, really upset because I won that title just two years ago.

23:14And I'm like, how can they not be educated on this or do the research? Or how can the contestants not know any better as well? I mean, they're grown women. I understand like ignorance can go so far, but you're in a country where you have the resources to educate yourself for free about the true history of Indigenous people. It just blew me away and not in a good way. I've seen the photographs and you might just have to describe the looks for our listeners because to me it looks like a bad 1970s costume party. Yeah. So one of the contestants is wearing a headdress and a ribbon skirt and like a crop top and heels.

23:54And when you wear a headdress, that's usually something that's gifted to you for an honor. You're either a chief recognized warrior in your community. It's not something you can just go buy off Etsy. And that's what that contestant did. And she just assumed that it would be okay. And to do kind of like a little hip motion dance at the end of it was just even worse. And then when the other contestant came out, it was a Fashion Nova bought outfit. So none of these outfits were culturally appropriate. None of them were from actual authentic indigenous artists. There was no consultation made. It was basically like buying a Halloween costume and putting it on and going on a national stage.

24:39To an extent, was it inviting disaster, even having a national costume segment of a beauty contest? I mean, modern Canada doesn't have a very long history. Would Indigenous contestants be allowed to wear costumes like this? I mean, how should it work? Well, that's the thing. Indigenous people know better. We know those aren't costumes. We don't even refer to headdresses as costumes. Like that to us is our regalia. And we know better not to wear regalia in a costume competition. So they very specifically state that like everything has to be a costume where it's like Vegas style. It has to be big over the top on stage.

25:23It can't be anything that's traditional or sacred or culturally appropriating anything. And I thought, you know, people should know better that you shouldn't wear another ethnic group's culture or sacred garments. That's just something I think is common sense. Ashley calling Bull the first indigenous Miss Universe Canada. And that is all from us for now. But the Global News Podcast will be back very soon. This edition was mixed by Philip Bull and produced by Siobhan Leahy. Our editor is Karen Martin. I'm Oliver Conway. Until next time, goodbye.