Canada to impose retaliatory tariffs on US

24:09Welcome back to News Out. Coming up next, we'll hear why the editor of the US military newspaper, Stars and Stripes, has been given his marching orders. But first, for several years, scientists have been finding evidence that seas, lakes and rivers are being contaminated by traces of drugs, including antibiotics and opioids. Recently, though, there have been more cases of these kinds of substances being found in marine animals. earlier this year, sharks in the Caribbean were for the first time found to have swallowed caffeine. So what's going on and how can these drugs be removed from marine environments?

24:45The BBC's Ryan Keane has been looking into the phenomenon.

24:55The soundtrack to a typical club night. But for the waterways surrounding these types of venues, as well as festivals and house parties, it's more than just the music they absorb. Illicit drugs like MDMA, crystal meth and ketamine can end up in our rivers and lakes thanks to their consumption by partygoers. Even pharmaceutical drugs such as antidepressants can too. From fish in Florida to crabs in southern England, evidence of our human footprint on waterways has been made clearer with recent research. One of the main ways drugs enter wild water is through sewage plants. When people don't finish a course of antibiotics or antidepressants, for instance, they might flush them down the toilet hole.

25:36And even if they do finish the course traces of these drugs can enter the sewage system through their urine or fecal matter. But why aren't some sewage plants filtering out these toxins? They were designed to filter out solids and nutrients like nitrogen. In periods of heavy rain and flooding sewage naturally overflows especially before it's been screened and treated. And of course if untreated sewage is going into wild water and into wildlife So are the traces of drugs inside it. One study conducted this year in the Bahamas uncovered a new substance present in sharks, caffeine. Natasha Woznik, who led the study, told me she was shocked by the findings that were gathered through blood sampling.

26:15I guess what surprised us the most was finding these substances in sharks in a place we often imagine as a pristine paradise, far from pollution and other human disturbances. We detected cocaine alongside caffeine and painkillers, showing that very different substances from our daily lives are making their way into the marine environment. And that was the real eye-opening for us. It's unknown how caffeine affects shark behaviour, but one aquatic species where behavioural changes have been logged as a result of drug pollution is Atlantic salmon. So what are some of the possible solutions to drug pollution?

26:49One obvious suggestion is to improve filtration techniques in sewage plants. While bigger picture solutions are being discussed by regulators, One expert I've spoken to says a shorter-term solution could be explored. Charles Tyler at the University of Exeter in the UK says that despite few anti-waste programmes existing, one country is leading the charge for change. Now in Sweden it's very different, largely through things like extensive public awareness campaigns on the risk of drugs to wildlife and the environment. How likely it is that other governments will follow suit is debatable, but the scheme in Sweden shows that where there's a will to keep drug traces out of our water sources, there's most certainly a way.

27:27And that report was from the BBC's Ryan Keane. You're listening to NewsHour from the BBC World Service.

27:40You're listening to the BBC World Service and this is NewsHour, coming to you live from London with James Kamarasamy. Tensions between the current Pentagon and the press have been clear for some time, but they've taken a new turn with the editor-in-chief of the US military newspaper Stars and Stripes saying that he's been fired for insubordination. Eric Slavin said he was targeted after speaking out against potential editorial interference in this interview with CBS News. Do you have red lines in your mind? Yes, I do. Give me a red line. Well, don't run a perfectly accurate story. Run this instead.

28:22here it is, written by the Pentagon. That would be a red line. Well, the newspaper's publisher has also been fired, as has a reporter who wrote about the hardships faced by sailors on board the USS Abraham Lincoln. Stars and Stripes is part of the US Department of Defence and its reporters are Pentagon employees, but it has long maintained its editorial independence, trying to provide independent news for the US military community at home and around the world. The Pentagon has told the BBC it wouldn't comment, but it referred us to a memo from the recently appointed military deputy to the publisher in which he committed to the continued independence of Stars and Stripes.

29:01Well, earlier I asked Eric Slavin whether he was surprised by the Pentagon's decision. It's certainly not what I expected when I woke up on Friday morning. Certainly there were tensions that went back all the way to a January the 15th tweet by a senior official in the Pentagon press office talking about changing Stars and Stripes substantially. And that tweet came with absolutely zero notice. At the same time, a federal regulation was removed and a story was leaked to a friendly news organization talking about firing a bunch of our reporters. So we had some idea that there were problems, but still did not expect this to happen.

29:47When that process began and you got wind that changes were coming, substantial changes from the Pentagon, what did you do? Well, initially we attempted to contact them for more information and they referred us to the tweet. And then nothing really happened for about two months. And we felt rather secure that maybe things could, you know, die down a bit. And then another memo came out on March the 9th, which proceeded to reaffirm our independence, but then place new restrictions upon the organization. And the appointment of a military deputy to the publisher, was that an important moment? Well, we were unaware that that was going to happen.

30:28It was only just a few weeks ago. And I would say that there has not been a military public affairs officer within stars and stripes in many decades. So that was a surprise, yes. now though and you gave I guess what would now be seen as a fateful from your point of view interview to CBS in which you were asked about red lines the Pentagon shouldn't cross and you talked about censorship is that because you believe now that censorship is in place well that was my own official opinion that I gave to CBS and they asked me and what my red line would be. And I said, if there was a perfectly accurate story that we weren't allowed to run, and then they gave us something else that was written by the Pentagon, that that would be a red line for me.

31:15I never said that I would disobey any sort of directive. I simply explained what I thought the rules were, because the rules say that we must remain editorially independent. That's actually Defense Department policy. And for that, I was given a separation notice for insubordination. The Pentagon, when we asked them for a comment on what's happened at the newspaper, they referred us to a statement that was put out by the newly or recently appointed military deputy, Captain Bill Urban, to the publisher and in which he has said that I will not hesitate to report on service members who have been left behind or disadvantaged by the decisions of our leaders.

31:59I believe in a Stars and Stripes that fully reports the impact the Department of War policies have on you, and I will report the good with the bad. What are your thoughts on that? I sincerely hope that Stars and Stripes can continue to report independently. Of course, I'm concerned, given what has recently happened. Why is it so important that a newspaper is independent, but it is for servicemen and women? why is it so important that it does report independently and is not, if you like, an in-house magazine that is used to boost morale? I think it is ultimately one of the best expressions of American values that we can show the world.

32:42Here is a news organization that is partially funded by the government and part of its job is to hold government to account. That was Eric Slavin, former editor-in-chief of the US military newspaper Stars and Stripes. The social media company TikTok has agreed to pay$400 million to settle a lawsuit with the US government, which had accused it and its parent company ByteDance of collecting vast amounts of data on millions of children. Child privacy is also at the heart of the case against Meta, which opened in California this week. 29 US states are suing the company that owns Facebook and Instagram in a jury trial that's attracted a huge amount of interest including from parents who accuse social media companies of contributing to the deaths of their children.

33:32Erin Popolo is one of those parents who went to Oakland to hear the opening arguments of the trial. Her daughter Emily took her own life in 2021 and Erin began by telling me about Emily. She was a nature kid. She loved to be outside, loved to go fishing and catch frogs and go for nature walks and identify every kind of bug she could find. And she's someone who's you or together with her, you kept her off social media until she was 16. She had no interest in it, honestly, until the pandemic hit. And that's when she really got on Instagram and Snapchat. And it was really because she was isolated at home.

34:13She wanted to be able to connect with her schoolmates. As the pandemic wore on and she was more and more isolated and she started to delve into the social media platforms a little bit more. And that's the same point where people started to realize she was on these platforms. And the same kids who would bully her in school found her and sought her out on social media. Yeah. What does she say to you about it? You know, she did okay at first, but then when they started to bully her, she would come to me and she'd be like, this kid's being mean to me. They are saying bad things to me. And I would look at the messages.

34:49I would block them. I would delete them. But kids, they just, they know their way around everything. And did you go directly to the companies? I tried. There was one point where she was working in Target, just in their little cafe. the kids went into Target and took a picture of her. But then they posted this picture of her saying, you know, don't go to the Target cafe. Emily's eating all the pizza. Everywhere she went, she would see that picture. People would reshare it. They put it on different platforms. I tried to reach out to Instagram. I would report every picture that I saw. They have a little ready report button.

35:27You would push it and it would say, if this goes against our community standards, we will take it down. We would never hear anything back and it was never taken down. There was no way to contact them. And eventually, well, eventually she took her own life. And she did. She took her own life in January, on January 29th of 2021. one um and you know i know that all of this played into it these kids can only take so much of kids being mean to them she was never away from it first thing in the morning you know before bed at night what you feel about and what what you believe social media companies are responsible for is what exactly?

36:15I mean, it's not, you know, I've spoken to some parents who've lost children who certainly believe that there were bugs and features of the system that led them to see images that, you know, were harmful to them. For you, it sounds like it's more when you approach them to take down certain images. Yes. You've got nothing. Is that how? Yes, that's correct. So you've been to the trial, the meta trial in Oakland, haven't you? What do you, what did you make of what you saw there? Meta's going to defend themselves. They're going to say that, no, we've taken steps to put out teen accounts and we've taken steps to update our reporting features.

36:56And, you know, maybe they have. It's not enough. The kids know their way around everything. If I were to go and say, listen, this is what we need you to put in place. When you know a child is signing up for your platform, lock down that profile. Let the parents say, you know what, I want them to have access to this feature. I want them to have access to this and release those permissions. It shouldn't be the other way around, that a parent has to go on with the kid to try and find ways to lock down the profile. These kids don't know enough. Their brains aren't developed enough to be able to process all of the information that is available on these sites.

37:43And that was Erin Popolo. Now, as a summer of sport winds down, the participants in the second World Humanoid Robot Games have been booted up. The tournament, which features 2 ,000 robots from 16 countries, has got underway in Beijing today. The participants taking part in a range of traditional sporting events as well as some less traditional ones, such as bricklaying and bottle cap opening. Well, Gavin Cooney is a sports correspondent with the Irish Times. He's written about what are known as the Robot Olympics. So what does he make of them? I saw a few viral clips from these robotic games last year.

38:17So these are the second instalment of them. They were in Beijing again last year. And the clips that went viral online from the events last year were the ones in which things went wrong. You know, there was a kickboxing robot that tried a roundhouse kick, fell over and then jerked in spasms on the ground. There was a robot who was a DNF in the 1500 meters run because his head flew off halfway through. And every time I watch a clip of one of these robots malfunctioning, I feel a sense of relief, you know, as if like, ah, these robots aren't quite as advanced as the companies trying to sell them will tell us they are.

38:51But I thought about it again. I mean, robots won't ever really replace humans doing sports, right? I mean, certainly not the sport that we want to watch. I don't know why anyone would tune in to watch an Olympic Games in which robots can beat against one another, because it's the human limits that makes things interesting, right? Yeah, haven't you sort of answered the question, though? It's a bit of fun, isn't it, this? And as you say, the viral clips are the ones where things go wrong. It is a bit of fun in one sense, but it is also an expo for humanoid robots and what they can do. And because hidden away and what people kind of don't know as much about these world robot humanoid games is that there are 51 events, 30 are traditional sports like those we've been talking about.

39:35And another 21 are scenario based events, which are basically competitions made out of quotidian human life. So there's competitions around housekeeping, around block laying, around book sorting, around office work. And robots will compete at that as well. and I think that's to showcase how the robots will replace the rest of us. So while I am not worried about Olympic athletes being replaced by robots in 50 years' time, I am quite worried about those other jobs that we do being replaced by robots in 50 years' time. So really, when I think about the terrifying vision of the future that is ogred by the World Robot Humanoid Games kicking off in Beijing this week, it's not one in which humans are watching robots for sports, it's one in which the robots are watching us for sport.

40:21The Irish Times' sports correspondent there, Gavin Cooney, ranging far beyond his normal brief, talking about the human-robot games.

40:40You're listening to the BBC World Service and this is NewsHour, coming to you live from our studios in central London with James Kamarasamy. Iggy Pop, Neil Young, David Bowie and The Cure, some of the many bands whose music videos have been directed by Tim Pope, one of the most in-demand and creative forces at work during the golden era of the music video in the 1980s and 90s. A music fan from North London who ended up filming and getting to know some of his childhood heroes, he has a new memoir out called I Shoot Rockstars. And as he told me, it was a piece of audio from one of those heroes that inspired him to write the book.

41:20Hello, it's David Bowie trying to get a hold of Tim Pope. I'll try a bit later on this morning to see if there's anybody there. No message, really. I'll just call him later. Bye-bye. I had no intention of writing a book, I have to say. It was the last thing I ever thought about. A very good friend of mine, who is the singer of a band called Dether, a guy called Matt Johnson, phoned me a few years back And he said to me, I've got something I think you should hear. What it turned out to be was a message from David Bowie left on an answer machine. He'd wanted to contact me in the 90s. And he had tracked me down.

41:58I was going over to Matt's house. He tracked me down. He played me this message down the phone. And it was eerie because David had been gone, bless his heart, for quite a few years. And suddenly it was like he was speaking to me from beyond the grave. I had no choice in it. After that, I realised, my God, I was around all these amazing people and I should write it down. And that's what I decided to do. Tell us about your first forays then into making videos. I think, well, your first concert video sounded like quite a traumatic experience. It was the specials. They were very famous for having a skinhead audience.

42:35And I was on stage and there was a stage invasion and someone whacked me in the face, grabbed the camera. I was more worried about the camera than my face. Your first big video was Bedsitter, wasn't it, by Soft Cell. Tell us how that came about. By lying. I do a lot of talking to film students and I encourage them to lie. And what I mean by that, there is a deeper meaning to that. The thing about film is you have to put everything into it and you have to be able to sell your mother for doing it. That's just the rule of making films. So I just told endless lies, got into the room with Mark Ormond.

43:10I claimed I'd make this video and that video completely lied through my teeth and pitched the idea. Bedsitter was about the sort of 1980s sort of club world and how alien the world can become. So I came up with the concept of Mark Ormond wearing matching shirts to the wallpaper and a very, very simple idea, but I think quite effective. Let's turn to the band I suppose you're most associated with to this very day, which is The Cure, and your introduction to them. I guess a lot of people's introduction to them listening to A Forest, wasn't it? I went to, by coincidence, went to a 21st birthday party above a kebab shop in Haringey, which is where I first heard the band that I would mostly get known for, which is The Cure.

43:56And with whom I still work to this day, I heard the song A Forest and it blew me out the water. I thought, wow, who is this band? Let's talk about perhaps your most famous video, which is Close To Me by The Cure. I mean, it's an amazing video filmed inside this wardrobe, this sort of claustrophobic video. Tell us about that and the challenges of making it. I got this song close to me and the vocals were really whispered and up close to the microphone. And instantly I got a sense of claustrophobia and I wanted to put that over. And I was very inspired, actually, by like the films of Polanski from my film school days.

44:32And I mean, Robert always jokes about it because he always says I took it so literally. he had no idea I was going to then throw the wardrobe over a cliff, which I did at Beachy Head. You've worked with so many artists, it's hard to know where to go. But I mean, I want to ask you about that Queen video, It's a Hard Life, because that's quite an interesting one. It's quite famous, or is it more infamous? I'm not sure. Because of the way that Freddie Mercury dressed in it, he wanted to dress up in this mad costume, which many people say looks like a large Mediterranean prawn. and I said to Freddie, we're going to make this like a grand opera, which of course he loved.

45:09Let's return to where this started, which was David Bowie, because you did eventually meet him, and I guess they say never meet your heroes, but you had a slightly awkward, to put it mildly, first meeting with him, didn't you? James, you're being very provocative again. Can I say this stuff on the radio? Yes, I met David in a bar in New York, and also at the table there was Mick Jagger and a few other people, I think, and they were kind of ignoring me and then bowie turned to me he went tim pope funny little aren't you i'll leave you to give the reply to him yeah i know it's got a it's got a yeah c word in it hasn't it anyway that's how i respond to him and i remember the look on his face there was this teetering moment where he's clearly thinking who is this upstart i'm not used to working with people like this the ultimate thing was he asked me to film his 50th birthday party at madison Square Garden, which was incredible.

46:03The through line of the book is how I started in North London, loved all these bands and ended up working with many of them. And that was Tim Pope speaking to me about his extraordinary career making music videos. It's a career that continues with plans for a feature film and more collaborations with The Cure as the band's 50th anniversary approaches. Well, the end of this edition of News Hour is approaching quickly. So from me, James Kamarasamy and the rest of the team here in London, thanks very much for listening.

46:39Has Prince Harry and Meghan's American dream failed? I'm Asma Khaled, and I host the Global Story podcast from the BBC. The Sussexes are intending to return to the UK, six years after moving to California and striking multi-million dollar brand partnerships. Just last year, Harry told the BBC he couldn't see a world in which his family would return. So what's changed? Find out on The Global Story on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.