Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan sign a defence pact

0:03Hello and welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service. Coming to you live from London, I'm James Kamar-Kam. From speeches to actions, it seems that scarcely a day goes by without some kind of indication that the world order is in flux. Today it was the signing in the holy city of Mecca of a joint defence pact between Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan. Three of the world's most powerful Muslim nations, one of them a member of NATO, agreeing that an attack on one would be considered an attack on all. It's not entirely clear what that might mean in practice, but all three countries insist that the agreement is purely defensive in nature.

0:41It comes, of course, as the US-Israeli war against Iran has injected extra volatility into the region, with Iranian or Iranian-backed attacks on Saudi Arabia and other US Gulf allies raising questions about Washington's reliability as a guarantor of their defence. So, what's behind this agreement for Turkey? Ilnur Cevic is a former senior advisor to the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Well, what's driving that agreement is the volatility of the region. Turkey has been saying that regional countries should provide their own solution to regional problems. And the war with Iran, between U.S., Israel and Iran, has really turned our region into a very volatile area.

1:34and we feel that Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan should join forces to create a kind of defence posture. We're not calling it a defence pact, but we're calling it a defence posture to bring stability to the area because of this Iran-Iraq war. What does that mean, though, in practical terms? I think that's what people are wondering. Well, in practical terms, it boils down to three countries coming together. And let me put it this way, three Sunni countries. Let's underline that. Three Sunni countries in the region coming together and countering Iran. I mean, this agreement would not have been signed without the blessing of the United States.

2:30may be the encouragement of the United States. Oh, that's interesting. Does this in any way contradict any NATO commitment that Turkey has? No, on the contrary. It's like complementary to NATO. NATO, in its latest summit, which was in Ankara, in Turkey, showed that an attack on one is an attack on everyone else, Plus, that it will concentrate on the Russian threats and the transatlantic alliance will be stronger with a unified NATO structure against Russia. But nobody talked about the Middle East while everything was going on between the United States and Iran and the volatility. So I think the United States wanted another kind of NATO in this region to counter Iran.

3:28So do you know that the United States has encouraged this or are you supposing that? I'm supposing it, but let me put it this way. I half know. OK, very diplomatic, I think that is. tell us though where this leaves Turkey because clearly Turkey now has a lot of obligations it is it is in for all of NATO it's in for all of this new defense posture as I think you've called it in terms of what this is going to mean for Turkey's obligations how do you view it? Well there's no problem there because Turkey has a lot of obligations in the Middle East as well Turkey is in Somalia, for instance, with its military force.

4:15Turkey is in Qatar with its military force. And Turkey does not want the Shia element to overcome the Sunni element in the Middle East. You say, and all the leaders have insisted this is defensive, but clearly it comes, again, as you say, in the context of a war. I mean, might this end up being something that is offensive against Iran? No, Turkey has never wanted to pick a fight against Iran. Not that it dreads Iran. No, Turkey does not dread anyone in this region, as you well know from past experience. But Turkey feels that the fighting with Iran will not yield anything for anyone in this region, but that Saudi Arabia should be protected against outside interference.

5:13And, you know, interestingly, please don't forget that Turkey and Pakistan were once allies with Iran, with the United States and the UK in a pact called Sento. Sento fell apart after the demise of the Shah regime. But it's that kind of thing that brings Pakistan and Turkey together. It's a kind of defence pact of some kind. Ilnur Cevick, former senior advisor to the Turkish president, they're giving us the historical long view of this new defence pact. Well, for an American view, I spoke to the veteran diplomat David Satterfield, who was US ambassador to Turkey from 2019 to 2022. Picking up on the point we heard there from Ilnur Cevick, Does he think Washington has given a tacit nod to this agreement?

6:08I can't comment just like he on whether that in fact is the case, but I see no reason why President Trump or the administration would oppose this. It makes a great deal of sense in terms of symbolism, projecting capacity and resistance against Iranian and associated threat. But it also has a bit of a substantive element to it, particularly with respect to the Red Sea, where Turkey and Saudi Arabia are both involved and concerned about the Houthis and attempts to close the Bab al-Mandan. And again, we heard there from the Turkish gentleman that it does not in any way cut across Turkey's commitments to NATO.

6:52Should this in any way concern NATO? No, he is quite correct. This in no way transgresses NATO in terms of the pact, the alliance. It is complementary or simply additive to, or if you want, separate from. Does it, though, point to a degree of concern about just how much support America can give to its allies in the region? I think there is an element of that, but I would not put it first. I think what this reflects is urgency on the sense of Saudi Arabia with respect to the Houthi challenge. The Houthis have, as you all know, recently activated their own direct kinetic threats against Saudi shipping as recently as the last 48 hours.

7:45Saudi Arabia is extremely concerned about this because with Hormuz closed, their only exit points for hydrocarbons are the Red Sea, the Suez Canal, or the Bab al-Mandib. Turkey is present in Somalia. Turkey has concerns over this. And I think that's what's generated this sudden and somewhat unexpected announcement. It is more related to a combination of newly emergent threats as well as the existing Iran threat. But I have a question mark in all of this, which is what is the reaction in Abu Dhabi? How does the UAE view all of this? That is an extremely interesting question and not one with a certain response.

8:30Yes, interesting. And I suppose another question is what in practical terms might Pakistan and Turkey do if Saudi Arabia is attacked again by Iran? To be honest, there is very little that Pakistan can do. There has for decades been a very close Saudi-Pakistani military cooperation, including Pakistani deployments on the peninsula at times in the past. That's not new. The question is, what could Turkey do? And there the question again focuses on Turkey's presence in Somalia and their own concerns about who controls the Bab al-Mandib. And in diplomatic terms, Pakistan has clearly been very involved in trying to mediate between the United States and Iran.

9:17Might this have an impact on that role? Oh, I think it is certainly in the interest of the Pakistani leadership to once again be reinforced in the sense of their global posture, their global and their regional importance. But aside from that symbolic boost, I don't think it adds to the weight of Pakistan in terms of the actual negotiations such as they are. Well, I wonder if the opposite, it might sort of detract from the Iranians looking at them as a broker. Well, right now, the critical brokers are Iran and Oman. Qatar and Pakistan and Egypt have all fallen to the side as the focus has become entirely upon arrangements between Oman and Iran for the Strait of Hormuz.

10:06And that was the veteran US diplomat David Satterfield had many roles in the Middle East, including former US ambassador to Turkey.

10:24Thailand's Prime Minister has promised to introduce new firearm controls after a mass shooting at a school in which a teenage boy killed seven people before taking his own life. Investigations are continuing into the motive behind the attack near Bangkok. Our Southeast Asia correspondent Jonathan Head has been to the school and he sent this report.

10:49What had started as an ordinary school day turned into a terrifying ordeal for these students, filming themselves as they hid under their desks, listening to the gunshots. The gunman moved from classroom to classroom and up different floors of the large, multi-storey school, making it difficult for the students and teachers to know where he was going and where they could run. He first opened fire underneath building five, then went up the building shooting students as he went. After that, he went up to building four and shot at every room. I don't know why. Police officers were on the scene quickly and helped with the evacuation.

11:34By the time they found the gunman, 45 minutes after he'd started shooting, he'd turned the gun on himself. He turned out to be a 14-year-old pupil at that school. He had fired 26 shots and still had 30 rounds left when he took his own life. Dozens of ambulances varied the injured from the school and, once the shooting stopped, families arrived seeking information about missing children, many of them visibly distressed. The police say the young perpetrator was surprisingly confident in handling the weapon, which they say had belonged to his grandfather with whom he lived. He, along with the boy's grandmother, was shot dead earlier in the morning.

12:15The boy also appears to have been targeting his teachers. Five of them made up the total who were killed at the school. Prime Minister Anutin Chawirukun, who visited the scene later in the day, is now talking about tightening gun laws. The one used today was licensed, say the police. one of an estimated 6 million legally owned guns in Thailand. There are more deaths per capita from gunshots here than in the United States. Yet until now, little has been done to curb gun crime. And that was our South East Asia correspondent, Jonathan Head, reporting. You're listening to the BBC World Service and this is NewsHour, coming to you live from London with James Kamarasamy.

13:01and coming up later a typical summer scene in london well we came here thinking we were gonna have to stand but a table became available just as we got here but in this weather yeah we definitely prefer to be standing standing up or sitting down it's standing up 100 percent yeah the beer goes down a bit better also your bum hurts for a while when you just keep sitting but it's true we'll be hearing from drinkers in london's west end as proposals emerge which might reduced their opportunities to have a tipple while standing up. The headlines at this hour. Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan have signed a mutual defence agreement saying an attack on one of them would be seen as an attack on all three.

13:39And Colombia's new right-wing president, Abelardo de la Espriella, is due to be sworn in shortly. He's promised to shrink the state and to subdue illegal armed groups.

14:00You're listening to the BBC World Service. This is NewsHour, coming to you live from London with James Kamara-Sami. President Trump talks fondly and often about his prized pet project of building a$400 million ballroom on the site where the east wing of the White House used to stand. But that move has encountered another hurdle. A federal appeals court has upheld a previous ruling that construction has to be put on hold because the U.S. Congress did not approve the renovation. Our correspondent in Washington, Daniel Bush, has been telling me more. Well, this was a major rebuke to President Trump from the D.C.

14:37Circuit Court of Appeals, which sided with lower federal court rulings, finding that the president does not have the authority on his own without approval from Congress to unilaterally, as the court put it, dismantle part of the White House and replace it. The court pointed out that this has not been done in the past, that there's no precedent here. The ruling itself states, we are aware of no instance in American history in which a president unilaterally and using privately collected funds demolished substantial portions of the White House that Congress authorized to be built. So here the court is saying to President Trump, you cannot simply move forward with this project.

15:15And we did in the last couple of hours get a reaction from the White House, President Trump putting out a quite lengthy message on social media in which he blasted this court ruling. He said that it was horrendous, politically motivated and unlawful. And he made the argument that this ballroom project is needed on national security grounds. He said that the area underneath where the ballroom itself would be constructed, that part of the project has already started and is underway, includes a state-of-the-art hospital, medical facilities, bomb shelters, top secret military facilities, and more, and that all of that work was needed.

15:50And he said that the administration would immediately appeal this decision to the Supreme Court and urge the high court to side with him. So setting up right away, if the court takes up this case, a pretty significant legal battle and a clash over whether or not a president has the authority to go ahead with something like this. In the meantime, what is happening at the site itself? Well, the site itself has been something of a mystery only because there are tall walls around this big construction site. Reporters are not allowed in all that often. But the White House did release aerial photographs of the site recently in the last couple of days.

16:27And what you can see there is a huge hole in the ground. This is that underground portion of the project itself, which courts, including this one today, said that work can continue. And in fact, it is ongoing. So there is a rising underground structure, concrete and rebar right now where all those top secret facilities that the president referenced will take place or will go in, excuse me. On top of that work, that's where the ballroom itself will sit. Whether or not that ever gets built remains to be seen. So right now it's a massive construction project sitting right next to the White House and where the East Wing was before Trump tore it down.

17:03So does this definitely go to the Supreme Court? That's the big question here. That's up to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court could choose simply not to hear this appeal, right? Or they could choose to take up the case and then issue their decision. So a lot is going to be riding on what the Supreme Court does. And this puts the Supreme Court in a very difficult position because, as you said, this is a big pet project for the president. This is something he has focused a lot of attention on. And President Trump immediately today politicized the issue by putting it at the foot of the Supreme Court, saying he wants them to take it up.

17:35He wants them to rule in his favor. and of course we've seen since he returned to office there have been many instances where the court which has a 6-3 majority has sided with Trump but in some other cases including birthright citizenship, tariffs the court has dealt him big blows so if they decide to take it up it'll be a difficult case for sure. That was BBC's Daniel Bush in Washington on the implications of that ruling by the Federal Appeals Court upholding a previous one saying that the construction of the new ballroom Donald Trump's ballroom on the site of the White House needs to be paused.

18:11Welcome back to NewsHour. Now, if you step out onto the streets of central London this hot summer, you'll find crowds of people doing what's now officially being called vertical drinking in plain English, standing up with a drink in their hand. But Westminster Council, which covers the city's West End, says it wants to reduce the practice in order to discourage drunkenness. NewsHour's very sober Sean Lay popped out to a pub in London's Soho district and there he met Cat Gray, senior local democracy reporter for the MyLondon website who's been following this story. Yeah, so there's a lot of talk online about a ban on vertical drinking.

18:46I'm going to stop you immediately. Tell me what you mean by vertical drinking. So vertical drinking is pretty much what it says on the tin. It is standing up and having a drink. It's not like a separate licensable activity but a high-volume vertical drinking establishment is essentially like a pub or a bar where most of the customers are stood up rather than sat down. Right. So we think on a lovely summer's day like this, people standing outside, but they could equally be standing inside and clustered around the bar trying to get served or just drinking and talking to their mates. Yeah, exactly.

19:16So what is it Westminster Council is kind of worried about and happy about? What is it that wants to change, do you think? so from my understanding um they are encouraging businesses to take a more seated approach that doesn't mean everybody needs to sit down and you know all the pubs that already exist in soho are going to be made to have their customers sit down it means that when they're hearing new applications or variations if say a new venue wants to open they might look more favorably on one where there's more seats than there is you know mostly standing right and that would be quite a lot of relief to the drinkers around here on such a lovely summer's day.

19:53Catherine thank you very much. Thanks. So that's Catherine Gray explains to me what Westminster Council is doing. Now it just so happens if I go around the corner at the John Snow there are actually seats outside so before I go and find some drinkers standing up let's talk to some drinkers sitting down. Well we came here thinking we were going to have to stand but a table became available just as we got here but in this weather yeah we definitely prefer to be standing. I'm quite happy to sit down I've been walking all day. We're in the heart of what Westminster Council calls the cumulative impact zone which is jargon for basically saying and this has been its policy for a long time that no new licenses should add to the cumulative impact on the local community and one way of showing if you're applying for a license that you won't do that is to have more seating.

20:44Hello I'm sorry to interrupt you from BBC. I don't want to ruin your... He's already well into his first pint. Standing up or sitting down? Standing up, 100%. Do you think the beer goes down better? The beer goes down a bit better. Also, your bum hurts for a while when you just keep sitting. But it's true. After you drink enough and then you stand up and it just hits you, so you might as well feel it the whole time. Crowding round the bar, all that problem of getting seen by the barman or barwoman so you can order a drink. It'd be easier for you sitting down, wouldn't it? No, it's part of the great British culture.

21:17That's what they say, fighting at the bar. But also, can you imagine if a big football game's done and everyone's just sat at a table? That is absolutely ridiculous. I think you need to drink. Yeah, I do, yeah, you're right. NewsHour's Sean Lay speaking there to drinkers in central London about plans to possibly outlaw what's been called vertical drinking. You're listening to the BBC World Service. This is NewsHour, coming to you live from London with James Kamarasamy. There are several different ways to view the$567 million fine handed down to Meta by a judge in the US state of New Mexico over the company's failure to warn the public about the dangers its platforms pose to children.

21:59In purely financial terms, it is big, especially when added to the$375 million the tech giant has already been ordered to pay in the case, although perhaps not so big in the context of a company that had a$60 billion profit last year. Then there are the implications of the judge's ruling, in which he called the company a public nuisance comparable to air pollution, and he ordered the latest fine to fund treatment services for young people affected by the platform. Well, Meta disputes both of those rulings, as well as an earlier one in Los Angeles, which found the company could be held liable for building addictive platforms.

22:34It says it intends to appeal. So, big numbers, wide implications, but there are also the individual cases and what the ruling means to people who feel that they have suffered from the way that social media works. People like Juliana Arnold, whose teenage daughter Coco, died in 2022 after a person she met on Instagram sold her pills laced with fentanyl. She blames the app, which is owned by Meta, for her daughter's death and says it's about time platforms were held accountable. The court didn't just say Meta failed kids. You know, it put a number on it, 567 million. has meaning. And the fact that the judge found Meta knowingly built the products, you know, that harmed our children, and then just treated the harm as a cost of doing business, like it didn't care, really felt a little bit like a little bit of justice being done.

23:24And showing that we're moving in the right direction of holding these companies accountable for the harm that they're doing. In a statement, Meta, which owns Facebook, WhatsApp and Threads, as well as Instagram said, we work hard to keep people safe on our platforms and have been transparent about the challenges of identifying and removing bad actors and harmful content. We remain confident in our record of protecting teens online and will continue to defend ourselves against claims that misrepresent the facts. Well, the judgment may have been handed down in New Mexico, but it's being watched across the world.

23:59Here in the UK, Jess Phillips, a member of Parliament from the ruling Labour Party, who was until recently Minister for Safeguarding of Women and Children, said that this will help other countries harden their own policies regarding social media. Often the argument I got back when we were dealing in with trying to regulate child safety, especially child sexual abuse online, was that the US government and our diplomatic relations with them would be strained by it. And so the more action that is taken in the US courts to create a sort of polluter pays environment sort of changes that diplomatic relationship and enables us.

24:39So I saw cases previously where big cases against Meta or the platforms around cases of child suicide and child endangerment then genuinely led to things like Apple in the UK starting to age verify on our site. So those two things working in tandem across the world are starting to really chip away at the expectations on those companies of both governments and the courts. Former British government minister Jess Phillips there. Well, Naomi Nix is a technology reporter who focuses on Meta. Beyond the fine, I asked her, what is it that the company is being forced to stop doing? The judge really did weigh out some requirements for Meta in terms of protecting youth safety.

25:23So when it comes to issues around, you know, how much time teenagers are spending on the platform, the court went out and required meta to limit, you know, that time to say, you know, 90 hours a month, for instance. It also forced the company to eliminate push notifications to users under the age of 18 during certain times of day when they might be sleeping or perhaps should be sleeping. And it also required the company to make some investments around checking on users' ages and preventing potentially predatory adults from reaching out to young people and targeting them for exploitation. Perhaps we can talk a bit more about the problem that this is trying to address then.

26:12But you've spoken to teenagers, haven't you, about the kind of addiction that they have experienced. Just tell us a bit more what you have found. What exactly are they experiencing? I mean, I've spoken to teenagers and I've also spoken with a lot of researchers who study, you know, what teenagers have said and their behavior. There has been a deluge of complaints that social media with a focus on Meta has essentially exacerbated the youth mental health crisis that we've been seeing all around the world. that the company essentially intentionally made the platform through various features addictive, and that led to increased rates of depression, anxiety, suicide ideation, and that the company has to make changes in order to sort of adjust those issues.

27:00I think that's one layer of the mental health issues that have been at play. There's another layer that the New Mexico case and other cases have brought up, which is just purely predatory behavior that young people using social media sites like Instagram have fallen victim to things like sextortion schemes when an adult user encourages a young person to send illicit photos of themselves and then holds them ransom until they give them money under threat that they might share that footage. There have been allegations and cases that have shown that Instagram has been a place where pedophiles have been able to groom and form relationships with young people on sites like Instagram and how they've been fallen victim to that.