Protests in Ukraine as Defence Minister Resigns

19:07Mykhailo Fedorov:That's Davide Giglione on the Genoa Bridge Disaster.

19:15Mykhailo Fedorov:Frida Kahlo, a Mexican painter of the mid-20th century, has been the featured artist of a major international exhibition recently, first at the Museum of Fine Art in Houston in the United States and now at Tape Modern in London. The exhibition's called The Making of an Icon, and it's that tendency which troubles Christina Kahlo, the painter's great-niece, herself a successful photographer. She's been telling me why.

19:40Christina Kahlo:I have the feeling that for next generations, Frida Kahlo will be not exactly the great artist that she was. I think that more than that, she will become kind of an image because in many cases I have asked to people who have a T-shirt, for example, and I asked them, tell me two paintings by Frida Kahlo. And they really do not know. They know the image, know the personality, the face, etc. But not Frida as an artist. And I think that all this merchandising and products will in some way change the point of view of attention on Frida. On the other hand, all this merchandising in a museum, I have noticed that people do not read the explications on the walls.

20:42Christina Kahlo:They just look to the things, to the objects, to the paintings. So if you don't take the time to read the explanation why those things are in the context of a museum, then people can think that those objects are art also.

21:01Mykhailo Fedorov:Got you. So it can give a misleading impression. I know you never met your great aunt because she died before you were around. But your father, who was her nephew, I think he told you stories about his aunt, didn't he?

21:15Christina Kahlo:Well, my father passed away when he was 42 years old, so we didn't have enough time to talk about Frida. And at that time, Frida was not as famous as she become today. And one of the stories I remember very well, because it was like shocking, it was this day that Frida and my father went to the cinema and they were in a line waiting to buy the tickets. and the woman behind them started to laugh and to talk to her companion. And she was saying something like, look, this ridiculous woman with flowers in her hair and the dress of Tijuana. It's not a way to come to a cinema. And we have to think about that because the way Frida used to dress, it was not common in Mexico City.

22:09Christina Kahlo:So she turned to the woman and slapped her on her face and said, whatever you have to say about me, you tell me in my face. So my father was shocked about the situation. But that makes us clear that Frida Kahlo was a very strong woman at the same time that she was fragile because of her health and so on.

22:35Mykhailo Fedorov:She didn't mind attracting attention. And I just wonder whether she might quite have liked all these different representations of her on things every day.

22:45Christina Kahlo:Well, it depends in which way, because obviously she was someone who wanted attention on her person. But I think that it depends on how the image of Frida Kahlo or depends on which objects her image is on. because we have to remember that she had a very strong political idea. And in some way, I think that for her, it would not be nice to be in objects or products from selling companies. Because in my way of thinking, all these products do not have anything to do with art. The relation is with money only.

23:30Mykhailo Fedorov:For those people who are listening, who may be going to an exhibition of Frida Kahlo's work, an exhibition about her, what would you hope they would get from it?

23:41Christina Kahlo:What I think that we have to highlight in Frida is to be yourself. You have to have your own way of dressing, your own way of thinking, your own way of acting. and that's the message of Frida Kahlo. She was the person she wanted to be. She made the things she wanted to do and we do not need to copy her to be like her.

24:07Mykhailo Fedorov:That's Christina Kahlo. If you're in London at any point in the next few months, you can make up your own mind. Frida Kahlo, the making of an icon, runs at Tate Modern until the 3rd of January next year. This is NewsHour from the BBC World Service. We'll be back with you in just a minute.

24:41Christina Kahlo:Is the American Dream still possible? I'm Asma Khaled, one of the hosts of the Global Story podcast from the BBC. One of the most successful exports the United States has ever sold the world is the American dream, that tantalising promise of a better, freer, richer life. But is it still attainable? I feel like the American dream is alive, but not well. For more, listen to The Global Story on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

25:13Mykhailo Fedorov:Welcome back to NewsHour. Homer's Odyssey has become Christopher Nolan's. The multi-award winning director has received rave reviews for his new film version. He has very clear ideas of how he would like audiences to see it and that's in an IMAX theatre. I asked Matt Craig, who writes for Forbes magazine on the business of Hollywood, why Mr Nolan wanted to see viewers, audiences to see it in this format.

25:36Christina Kahlo:Well, I think it's all about differentiating the experience from watching movies at home. IMAX is one of just several emerging premium options at the movie theater. Dolby has a very good one. And really each theater chain is trying to come up with their own as kind of a way to incentivize audiences to leave the couch at home, come out to the theater, and see and experience a movie in a way that you can't. IMAX is Christopher Nolan's favorite format. And it has a slightly different aspect ratio and some other high-quality elements to it. But there's nothing special or particularly revolutionary about IMAX over these other premium formats.

26:20Christina Kahlo:It's just a very, very good format to watch a movie. Now, if he's going to shoot a movie, and this Odyssey is the first movie ever shot entirely in 70mm IMAX format, then he would like people to watch the movie in the exact way that he created it. And that's why he has made a big push to try to get people to come to these 70mm IMAX screenings for the Odyssey this week.

26:42Mykhailo Fedorov:he seems to be becoming an increasingly powerful figure in the film world. Why?

26:47Christina Kahlo:Yes, I actually, you know, folks have been telling me since Oppenheimer's release in 2023 that he is the biggest movie star in all of Hollywood, more than any A-list actor, more than any other director or producer. And there's a pretty, you know, clear reason for that, which is that his name and his name alone above a title can get hordes of people to come out to watch movies in a way that, Maybe in decades past, big movie stars, whether it's a Tom Cruise or a Brad Pitt, Denzel Washington, might have had that same power. And today, it doesn't feel like that same market power exists for actors in the way that it does for big-name directors.

27:23Christina Kahlo:And when you're talking about big-name directors, there is no one else in the league of Christopher Nolan at this point. So yeah, with that power comes the ability to make what movies he wants to make. And he likes making the biggest, most epic movies possible. and the Odyssey is his most ambitious project yet.

27:40Mykhailo Fedorov:Do you think we could see a kind of a revival of the movie theater as a result of not just him but other kind of big spectacle movies?

27:49Christina Kahlo:Yes, I think it's slightly different from that in that I don't think we'll ever get back to people going to a movie theater and then deciding what they want to watch or going to the movie theater two, three, four times a month habitually. I think the difference is now you need to have a huge can't miss event movie like the Odyssey in order to draw not just, you know, hardcore movie fans out, but the casual movie fans who maybe come out two, three, four times a year. So I think going forward, what you will see is even more investment into these huge can't miss movies.

28:25Mykhailo Fedorov:That's Matt Craig, who writes for Forbes magazine on the business of Hollywood.

28:42Mykhailo Fedorov:I'm Sean Lay, live at the BBC Studios in London, and this is News Hour. The Cairngorms are some of the highest areas in the north of Scotland, with a high mountain alpine environment. Despite that, firefighters right now are battling an extensive wildfire for a second day. It began late on Wednesday morning and within 24 hours it stretched across three and a half kilometres of land. Will Boyd-Wallace lives in Abernethy Forest in the Cairngorms National Park. He's one of the local volunteers who's been helping to fight the fire alongside the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service. Will told me what the past 48 hours have been like.

29:21Christina Kahlo:It's very, very full on. You're just focused completely on what is in front of your nose. you're there right in front of the fire and you've got a whole team of people, some with water carriers, they're spraying it to try and control it. And then the rest of us have big, long spade-like tears that we hit the ground with to try and beat it out. And just we have to keep going backwards and forwards and just keep going until on the edge of the fire. And today, though, it was really, really tough. And it was in ground that was too steep, too rocky, too difficult for people to get into. So we had to completely rely on a helicopter.

29:58Mykhailo Fedorov:Yes, I mean, it is a mountainous area, isn't it? So presumably if the flame is climbing, it's not a particularly safe environment for you to be trying to control it.

30:07Christina Kahlo:Well, it's OK. I mean, it's weird because it's kind of a mixture of being next to this cataclysmic, apocalyptic scene of flames and ash and fire. But you can step 10 feet away from it and you can lie down and have a drink of water and have a rest. It's actually, when you're there, you're just in it and you're getting on with it. But the ground today that the fire was in that we were trying to tackle was just too difficult. So we had to stand back today. Yesterday, for me, was far more grueling and for a lot of us. But yeah, there are people on and off all day.

30:41Mykhailo Fedorov:And they're going to be again tomorrow. I mean, it's looking like it's continuing, although the authorities say it's controlled at least. I mean, you've lived in the area, what, 30 years now. Is this becoming more of a problem than in the past, do you think?

30:54Christina Kahlo:It's a bigger worry, definitely. I think that we're getting longer, drier spells, really hot spells. And, you know, yeah, I've lived in this forest for about 20 years, but the area longer than that, but we're right in the forest. So those of us who live near these trees are very conscious that, you know, if a fire gets into this bit of forest, we're in real trouble. And so that's why so many people turned out to help. you know it's a it's a fantastic place as well and the habitat regeneration that's going on in abanepi is really astonishing led by the rspb the royal society protection of birds and uh you know we it would be heartbreaking just to see it all go up in smoke so as well as protecting us

31:36Mykhailo Fedorov:and our houses we're worried about that too yes indeed obviously some people were evacuated do you think there's a need longer term to rethink how the land is managed given the enhanced risk at higher temperatures of grassland and brushland being ignited yeah well it's really important

31:51Christina Kahlo:because some people sort of say oh you shouldn't be you should be you should be doing control burning all the time and you should be grazing more but then you don't get the trees so it's really really difficult but i think personally i think what we need to do is have look at ways of creating more fire breaks so areas where we know that we can control the fire and we can stop spreading beyond that point sort of thing. Because what we tend to do and what we were doing today was creating emergency breaks, you know, cutting down trees and, you know, even bulldozing the ground in some places to try and clear areas so that the fire doesn't go beyond those areas.

32:28Christina Kahlo:But that's real last-minute emergency stuff, and we could be doing potentially more of that in advance, you know.

32:35Mykhailo Fedorov:That's Will Boyd-Wallace, who's been helping to volunteer here to fight the fire in the Kangolms National Park. It's one of a series of wildfires which have broken out in parts of the UK since the weekend. It's currently experiencing atypically high temperatures for this early in the summer. The weather is causing problems right across Western Europe. At the end of last week, a wildfire in Almeria province in southern Spain killed 13 people and ravaged 7 ,000 hectares of land. Stefan Doerr is Professor of Wildland Fire Science at Swansea University in Wales in the UK. and he's editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Wildland Fire.

33:13Mykhailo Fedorov:I asked him whether the causes of the wildfires we are seeing tend to differ according to which part of the world.

33:20Christina Kahlo:Yes, every fire obviously needs an ignition source but it really depends on where you are. So, for example, if you're in northern Borel, Canada, if you're in remote parts of Siberia, it's usually lightning ignitions that are the main cause of fires. As you move to more populated areas, it's almost always dominated by human ignitions There may be some lightning ignitions, but it's usually humans causing those fires. Wildfires in the UK are caused by human action. That could be arson. That is very often accidental, but we are behind those fires.

33:52Mykhailo Fedorov:Are there changes in human behaviour that make some areas more vulnerable to wildfire activity than they might have been in the past?

34:00Christina Kahlo:There are a number of reasons where human behaviour actually causes more fires in some areas. For example, in some tourist areas where people are not really familiar with fire risk, it is often the tourists are actually responsible for those fires. And the more tourism we have, generally, we can expect more fires. The main issue in terms of human behavior is more how we deal with the vegetation. So our behavior, in a sense, has encouraged flammable vegetation to accumulate. That is in the UK, for example, in upland areas where we now see less grazing than we've seen in the past. In the Mediterranean in particular, we have depopulation of the rural areas.

34:38Christina Kahlo:Many villages are nearly empty now. And those areas around those villages would have been managed quite heavily by grazing, but also by other techniques, including just cutting wood, for example. On top of this, of course, we have climate change, which adds to the virus.

34:52Mykhailo Fedorov:Yeah, what is it about climate change that is increasing the risk of this kind of wildfire outbreak?

34:59Christina Kahlo:The primary factor is essentially the length of the dry period. That's one of the main driving factors. So we're now in the third heat wave here in the UK and also in Europe. And that means that the soils as well as the vegetation have dried out quite dramatically. How important is wind in all of this? Very important. This is the main factor that makes fires spread very fast once they ignite it and also makes them incredibly difficult to tackle. because the windier it is, the bigger the flames get and there's only a certain level of basically flame length that firefighters can actually deal with.

35:34Mykhailo Fedorov:Are there countries or parts of countries where they are effectively mitigating the risk of wildfires and is there anything that others could learn from their experience?

35:45Christina Kahlo:It's probably fair to say that countries that have had a long history of wildfires, say California for example, the US in general, Australia in particular, South Africa, they are very accustomed to fire. They have very well-trained firefighters. They also have resources to deal with them. But they also have increasingly recognised that it's important to manage the vegetation, so not worry about the fire happening itself and then fight it. It's like having a tooth cavity and getting to the dentist, but basically keeping the teeth clean, or in other words, making sure the landscape is not accumulating unnecessary fuels.

36:19Mykhailo Fedorov:We talk about wildfire, But is it possible once a fire has ignited, are there ways in which it can be controlled or at least it can be directed?

36:30Christina Kahlo:Yes, absolutely. So the firefighting techniques between urban firefighting and vegetation fires are very different. So what you basically do is you don't actually try and extinguish the fire directly unless it's relatively small. What you do is actually to try the fire to burn itself out. And the way to do this is to remove the vegetation ahead of the advancing fire front. So this can be done by bulldozers, for example. Very destructive, ugly scars on the landscape, very bad for moorlands. But it's still one of the most effective ways of actually fighting a fire.

37:03Mykhailo Fedorov:That was Stefan Doerr, Professor of Wildland Fire Science at the University of Swansea in Wales in the UK.

37:18Mykhailo Fedorov:To the Lumami National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo now, and if you listen carefully, you might just hear the distinctive roaring animal call.

37:38Mykhailo Fedorov:There's every chance, though, that you'll look in vain for the source. It's a monkey called colloquially loqueli, with black face and pinkish-orange lips which lurks in the forest canopy. So shy is the monkey that of the 52 villages below, only people in eight of them had ever seen it. But it's now been confirmed as a previously unidentified species of monkey. Professor Kate Detweiler of Florida Atlantic University told me the interest began with a blurry photograph taken by researchers back in 2008.

38:11Christina Kahlo:The Lakouru Wildlife Research Foundation at that time was leading field expeditions and trying to understand the distribution of animals in the park. And the early field expeditions came across a blurry photo. Then that didn't lead to anything because it wasn't having enough information. You know, go forward 10 years. They were back in that area because they had set up new patrol posts. So that was in 2018. and that's when they got new photos. So they had these much better photos. It captured the face and it captured, you know, the hand really carefully. So that's where they realized there was a reduced thumb.

38:54Christina Kahlo:It led them to thinking about a colobus monkey and they shared it with primatologists. That's where I got involved again. I was involved with the team on the ground for the first project. That was the Lasula monkey and that was discovered in 2012. So I think it brings a lot of attention to what's there, this amazing biodiversity, this amazing forest. It's really complex to be, you know, this reservoir for all these different species that scientists are still discovering.

39:23Mykhailo Fedorov:Now we've heard the roar. Describe what the monkey looks like.

39:27Christina Kahlo:This is a monkey that has all black silky hair, very much like its close relative over in West Africa, but its face is distinct. It's got a creamy orange border around the lips and it's not always the same edge in each animal, but it's distinct. And then it's got the masking around the eyes, like a paler grey. So there's just like contrast between black, this orange cream and then grey. And that's really unusual for colobus monkeys. They usually don't have that facial pigmentation or the contrast. So, yeah, an interesting radiation of monkeys.

40:02Mykhailo Fedorov:Why is it so elusive? Why has it not been seen? Because I gather from the research you've done that even quite a lot of the villages below the canopy in the park, people there hadn't actually seen this monkey themselves.

40:15Christina Kahlo:Yeah, I think it speaks to its behavior. So when colleagues were in the field, they kept saying, but Kate, when we see it, it's way high up and it's looking down at us. Like they kept describing behavior of watchful, shy. So that's pretty unique. A lot of monkeys will run away when humans stare up at them, especially in a habitat where monkeys are hunted for protein source. So it's a unique monkey in terms of its behavior that we really don't know enough about. So we've got to do some more research.

40:46Mykhailo Fedorov:It's a bit of a tradeoff for you, though, presumably, isn't it? You've discovered this new species, which is exciting and fascinating. You want to know more about it. At the same time, presumably, you don't want to disturb it and you don't want it to attract perhaps less desirable attention from others who might have different motives.

41:03Christina Kahlo:Yeah, I mean, luckily, the new species actually lives right in the centre of the national park. So as long as that park is funded and as long as that park has really effective management and works with the communities, they're going to be protected. But yeah, it's endangered. It's a cautious tale, right? We have to pay close attention to the quail.

41:24Mykhailo Fedorov:As Professor Kate Detweiler of Florida Atlantic University speaking to NewsHour on the BBC World Service. Back with you soon.

41:43Mykhailo Fedorov:In London, I'm Sean Lay and this is NewsHour. The port of Rotterdam is Europe's largest freight hub, built on land reclaimed from the North Sea and long powered by fossil fuels. It hosts some of Europe's biggest oil, chemical and container terminals, yet it's now pitching itself as a pioneer of green ports, promising to slash its own direct and purchased energy emissions by 2030 by 90 % compared to the levels in 2019. But it's facing a lawsuit which questions whether a port as big as Rotterdam can ever be truly green. Our correspondent in the Netherlands, Anna Holligan, has been given special access to the port and to the people shaping its future.

42:25Christina Kahlo:The port of Rotterdam has a problem. Our current emissions are 29 million tonnes of CO2. The equivalent of? 60 ,000 return flights from Amsterdam to Los Angeles. We're driving through the vast industrial site with Mark van Dijk, head of external relations at the Port of Rotterdam Authority. It's not very good. Sometimes we are just waiting till there is one magic solution that suddenly solves all the climate emissions. Well, I can promise you that won't be there. Standing on the edge of a grassy verge, The horizon is dominated by cranes, bulk carriers and container stacks. The visible parts of a vast energy and chemicals hub.

43:12Christina Kahlo:Just step down a little bit because we don't need to be in this. Sheltering from the wind. Director of the environmental group, Advocates for the Future, Michael van Vissen. We are not asking to shut down the port immediately. This is a really big industry. We are still, as a society, very dependent on it. He's launched a lawsuit to compel the port to reach its own climate targets faster. What the port is doing right now, they are building up enough things while not having a plan to build off the existing fossil industry that what we know in 2050 should not be here anymore. Among other things, the port is developing a hydrogen hub, investing in on - and offshore power, And there's also an effort to mitigate CO2 emissions with carbon capture and storage.

44:04Christina Kahlo:So do you think those innovations that they're working on will have any real impact? To be honest, no.

44:14Christina Kahlo:We've just boarded a gleaming white yacht. Have to get my sea legs back on. Hi, you're on the boat of the Port of Rotterdam. Oskar van Veen is the Port's Director of Innovation. We try to work together with the polluters and slowly phase them out, as fast as possible, of course. It's such a challenge when the core business is so fossil fuel intensive. We say we'd rather have it grey here than black elsewhere. So find innovative ways to phase it out and phase the new energy carriers in. What do you think will make the biggest difference? As Europe, we have to create a level of playing field. We want our part to be greener.

45:02Christina Kahlo:Do you see innovations being capable of getting to the point where the people who are working in the fossil fuel industry now will have been redeployed into something that's cleaner and greener? Absolutely. There will still be factories, only what we call coals anymore, but it will be hydrogen. Also with the digital transition, With every new technology, people were afraid of their jobs, but that it resulted in more jobs, only different. For instance, also AI. It can help us do our job better, plan for the energy transition, how to restructure our infrastructure. But what does that look like here in the port?

45:42Christina Kahlo:For instance, you still hear a fossil motor now of that boat passing us. There are also hydrogen boats and electrified boats and there will be more and more of that. So that's a simple example. The vision will be the same, but the noise will be different, I think. But many of the biggest emitters in this port answer to headquarters in the US or China. If the rules in Rotterdam become too tight, they can simply move. And a contrast in legislation sharpens Rotterdam's concern and the activists resolve. If we can get a court to say, you really need to do something against climate change, that can set a precedent not only for the Netherlands, but for the world as a whole.

46:27Christina Kahlo:The port insists they are heading in the same direction. The disagreement is over how fast and how radically to change.

46:37Mykhailo Fedorov:That's Anna Holligan reporting from the port of Rotterdam.

46:44Mykhailo Fedorov:To Iran now, where the US military says it's launched a new wave of strikes against Iran intended to degrade the country's military capabilities. The BBC's Daniel Bush is monitoring events from our Washington Bureau, and I asked him what was known about the number of strikes conducted and where they were taking place.

47:00Christina Kahlo:Well, we don't have a ton of details yet on exactly how many strikes are where. We know that they're concentrated along the Strait of Hormuz, some in southern Iran. We know that the U.S. is claiming that it's hitting some energy facilities, some other facilities. We've heard President Trump, you know, threaten in recent days to increase these attacks. These come as Iran, of course, has also fired at some ships moving through the Strait of Hormuz. The president has expressed a lot of frustration in recent days that Iran has not come to the negotiating table. And he's, again, threatened to increase attacks.

47:36Christina Kahlo:But it's also clear right now that the U.S. does not have a lot of leverage to get Tehran back to the negotiating table. But behind the scenes, U.S. officials are working with counterparts in the region, with U.S. allies, holding indirect talks through intermediaries with Iran, seeing if there's a way to restart these official negotiations. But for now, those negotiations are on hold and these strikes apparently will continue.

48:02Mykhailo Fedorov:Targeting the area around the Strait of Amos, presumably that complicates the picture for all those vessels stranded there waiting to try and get in or out.

48:12Christina Kahlo:That's exactly right. And that comes as the markets are reacting to this increase in attacks and counterattacks from both sides, oil climbing past$80 a barrel. Some analysts saying could go back to north of$100 a barrel. Right now, the average cost of gasoline at the pump for consumers in the United States is hovering at just under$4 a gallon. So there's also economic pressure both globally and here in the United States, pressure that President Trump is clearly aware of as Republicans prepare for a grueling midterm cycle where the economy will be first and foremost in mind for a lot of voters.

48:47Christina Kahlo:And a new poll just out today from The Washington Post and Ipsos shows that a majority of Americans are pessimistic about the president's handling of the economy, about his handling of the war in Iran, about their own economic prospects. So that's hovering over all of this as well.

49:02Mykhailo Fedorov:that is Daniel Bush in the BBC's Washington Bureau and just to bring you some breaking news we've been told by a senior official in the Trump administration that Ddena Kariri, a joint US-Iranian citizen detained since December 2024 has been freed her lawyer says that she'd been held on bogus charges and has now been freed from Iranian custody she's understood to be back in US hands This is NewsHour from the BBC.

50:04Christina Kahlo:This soft power, this influence, was an incredible invention. For more, listen to The Global Story on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.