Ukraine's former defence minister calls for election

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Is President Trump snubbing South Korea to reignite his friendly relationship with Kim Jong-un? I'm Asma Khaled and I host the Global Story podcast from the BBC. The US and South Korea have been close allies since the 1950s, but this week Trump announced that the US will substantially reduce joint military exercises with South Korea. He cited his very good relationship with North Korea's Kim Jong-un. For more, check out the global story on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

0:39Hello and welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service. Coming to you live from London, I'm Rajini Vaidinaven. The Chinese humanoid robot company Unitree has made its stock market debut. We'll assess how the robot industry is changing and how is changing our lives. Humanoid robots are a big step from your typical industrial robots because the idea behind them is that they can fit into any workplace that a human could fit into and they can work alongside people without causing any sort of danger. All of that in about 20 minutes and we'll hear from the singer Anjali Kidjo who's built an international career spanning more than four decades and 18 albums.

1:21She's made history by becoming the first living black African to get a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame. But first, as the war with Russia continues, Ukraine's President Vladimir Zelensky is facing other battles at home. Anti-corruption investigators have begun a major operation into money laundering, targeting an alleged criminal organisation involving politicians and senior government officials. President Zelensky has later now fired the deputy head of his presidential office, Irina Mudra. And another sacking is continuing to haunt him. Fired weeks ago by Mr Zelensky, former defence minister Mikhailo Fedorov now called for elections in Ukraine.

2:02He's been critical of the current administration in a video he's posted online. We must answer a fundamental question. How should the state function if the war lasts for years? Can Russia in effect gain the right to decide when Ukrainians will again be able to elect their authorities? I am convinced that it cannot.

2:26Earlier, around 200 protesters gathered outside Ukraine's parliament, calling for Mr Fedorov to return to his post. They were protesting against the voting in of his replacement, Yevheni Hamara. Vote against Hamara, they are shouting. So is all of this a serious challenge to President Zelensky's authority? I've been asking our Ukraine correspondent, Dan Johnson. It's certainly the boldest move anyone has made against President Zelensky during the course of this war. Some are already trying to slap down Mikhailo Fedorov, saying he's overstepped here, he's misread the level of support that he has.

3:08Those protests have been going on for the past month since he was sacked, calling for him to be reinstated. He'd said he would be willing to come back into the government, but only in the role of defence minister. That was the only job he said he wanted, the one that he'd been sacked from. But the statement that he issued overnight is much broader than that. It goes much wider, and it hints at, although he's not explicitly stated it, presidential ambitions of his own. He's calling for elections, presumably because he thinks there is political change needed at the top. He doesn't name President Zelensky.

3:38He doesn't criticise him directly. But this is a sweeping, blistering broadside against that government and its conduct over the past few years, alleging corruption is hampering the war effort and making it harder for Ukraine to win, saying that appointments are made on the basis of personal loyalty and not results in the job, and saying that there should be elections, there should be new leadership, there is a need to rebuild trust between citizens and state, and a need for people to have their hope restored. And, of course, another blow for Mr Zelensky, these anti-corruption raids that have been taking place.

4:12What more do we know, Dan? Yes, the timing of all this is very curious. They were confirming the new defence minister today. Mikhailo Fedorov's drive-by was issued overnight. And then this morning, an announcement from the anti-corruption authorities that they were searching the presidential officers, that they were alleging involvement of some high-level officials, lawmakers, bankers, and a deputy head of the presidential office in a corrupt money laundering scheme that involved almost£3 million in Ukrainian currency being siphoned from a state-owned bank in order to pay the bail of a former energy minister who had been arrested, was being investigated, and held on suspicion of money laundering himself, a deputy head of the presidential office has been sacked today.

5:03They've given no reason for that. But it all puts the allegations of corruption that have swirled around Volodymyr Zelensky's government for the past few years, even closer to his inner circle. And that is the sort of thing Mikhail Ovedrov is highlighting and saying needs to change. That's the BBC's Ukraine correspondent Dan Johnson there. Well, let's get more on that call for an election by the former defence minister. Ukraine hasn't had one in a while. President Zelensky's five-year term as president was due to end in 2024. But elections have been suspended in the country while it's under martial law.

5:40That's been in place since Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022. Well, Oleksandr Maresko is chair of Ukraine's Foreign Affairs Committee. He's an MP with President Zelensky's Servant of the People Party. Politically, it's very dangerous because Putin will definitely use this as a moment of kind of division, political infighting, and he will use it in his favor. So the thing is that holding elections right now, it might just bury the country. Do the opposition agree? Enesovsons from the opposition Holos party in Ukraine. I have never supported any elections under martial law. That is A, illegal, B, technically impossible.

6:23And I am, to put it mildly, very much surprised by yesterday's video address by former minister, further of calling for such elections, because nothing has changed. The legislation is still the same. The security situation is still the same. And unfortunately, in this situation, we just cannot do elections. So the very call for that was a surprise, to put it mildly, for many people in Ukraine, myself included. And again, I reiterate once again that no elections are technically possible under these circumstances. We're going to hear from a pollster in a second. But if there was an election to be held soon, do you believe that your party would win?

7:07I do not make such forecasts because I believe that at the moment we arrive in a situation where such elections can take place, that the political landscape will just change dramatically in a minute. and very much will depend on how we will end this war, how we will lift the martial law and so on. So I don't think that any predictions right now make any sense because the situation changes dramatically and very much will depend on how the war will end and thus leading to the elections themselves. We've just been talking about these anti-corruption investigation and raids that are happening at the moment in Ukraine.

7:46What are your thoughts on that? Well, that is striking, of course. That's probably one of the reasons why so many people, even though they understand that technically, legally, it's impossible to hold elections, but they're seeing all those corruption allegations among the people who are closest to the president. I mean, all of this doesn't look good for President Zelensky, does it? It looks terrible. It does, and unfortunately, it's not the first time we have seen that. and of course new allegations, new corruption cases, that's just striking. And that is why I do think that while we cannot do elections but we could have changed the leadership of the country and include people from the opposition, include people from the civil society, do some sort of unity government, that would take away the people who are closest to the president who are so much involved in the corruption cases.

8:42So why not call for an election then as an opposition party? Why not push for an election? Because I care about my country. I don't want the election to tear it apart. I want people who are now fighting on the front lines to be able to fully participate in the elections. It would be extremely unfair to do elections while they cannot participate in those elections. And also because, again, it's illegal. It's against the Constitution. What questions are you as the opposition now wanting President Zelensky to answer? Well, first of all, about how he selects new people, how he's planning to change the situation where we have so many corruption cases among his closest leadership.

9:27If he is willing to include people from the opposition who have good reputation, who are not involved in any corruption cases in the new government. Those are the sort of questions that I would like him to answer. but unfortunately he is not ready to talk about that openly to the public. Inisovson there from the opposition Holos party in Ukraine. Well, I've also been speaking to Evgenia Blisnyuk. She's the founder of Gradus Research. It's a research and polling institute based in Kyiv. To get her thoughts on whether the Ukrainian public has any appetite for a general election. Obviously not. It is impossible technically to proceed elections in our country right now because it might lead to massive manipulations or just not representative results.

10:16The mood of population of Ukraine is that during the active phase of war, it is technically impossible and quite risky to go to the electoral process because there is a lot of security issues and not clear how to vote under the bombs. And what about the mood towards the current government? I mean, we've seen another corruption inquiry into lawmakers and advisers of President Zelensky today. What is the mood towards the government? The Ukrainian population is in two minds about all these issues. On one hand, Ukrainian people are really tired of corruption, scandals and all these things. And the demand of justice is really, really high.

11:15It's almost the same as demand on the security. But on the other hand, people are expecting from the current government and current president to lead country through this wartime. And it puts us in the situation of tolerance to mistakes of these people in power. Is President Zelensky considered popular from all that you've seen and researched? Yes, paradoxically, each and every crisis adds kind of additional level of trust to President Zelensky. And I would like to emphasize that for Ukrainian population, President now is not just a political figure or political leader of our country, but as well as symbol of Ukrainian resistance and ability to fight with aggressive country.

12:15You work for a research and polling institute. What concerns are you hearing from ordinary Ukrainians? The main concerns are, of course, about corruption and about the wish of Ukrainian people to stand on the democratic path. And it is really important to get the people this feeling that their sentiments and votes and beliefs are important for people in power and for president himself. And what are feelings towards this ongoing war? I would say that Ukrainian people are expecting when the war would end and after that they will be ready to think about the political preferences and voting. That's Yevgenia Blizniuk, the founder of Gradus Research, based in Kiev, giving us a flavour of what the Ukrainian view is about.

13:16Any calls for an election there?

13:36This is Rajini Vaidyanavan with NewsHour, coming to you live from the BBC in London. It's a mass drugging case which shocked France with allegations spanning nearly a decade, and it's a case which has yet to come to trial. 248 women accused former civil servant Christian Negra of drugging them during job interviews at the Ministry of Culture between 2009 and 2018. Some have now spoken to BBC Global Women, saying that delays to justice have left them feeling victimised a second time. The BBC put the allegations to Negra through his lawyer, who declined to comment. Nuala McGovern has more. She said, did you know Mr Negra was conducting an experiment on you?

14:19This is what a detective asked Marie-Hélène two years after a job interview with a French government official that took a humiliating turn. I've come down to the canal with Marie-Hélène, The canal is wide and green and the leaves of a horse chestnut tree draped down into the water, providing some much-needed shade on this very hot day. This beautiful setting, however, is in stark contrast to the dreadful experience that Marie-Hélène went through just close to here. It was an interview that started quite normally. He suggested that we continue the interview outside while walking. Quite quickly during this walk, I felt an urge to urinate.

14:58Police say Christiane Negret spiked her coffee with powerful diuretics, triggering an urgent need to urinate, then led her away from toilets. The urge started to become unbearable, to the point that I had tears streaming down my cheeks from pain. I couldn't hold back and I urinated on myself, with a terrible feeling of humiliation. For years, she blamed herself, until a detective revealed she was one of nearly 250 women police say Negret targeted. They found an Excel table on his computer, which was called Experiments P, in which he noted the time the medication was administered, description of the urine stream, description of underwear.

15:40And then she pulled out a binder, and I see photos of women's legs taken under the table. And then she says to me, do you recognise yourself? I was in shock. Negre was placed under investigation for charges including drugging and sexual assault. he declined the BBC's request for comment. While the allegations against Christiane Negra remain untested in court, it is one of several high-profile cases about alleged drugging that have sparked a national debate in France. A new scheme being piloted gives women direct access to toxicology testing if they fear they've been drugged. I've come to Garche Hospital campus in a leafy suburb of Paris to meet with Professor Jean-Claude Alvarez.

16:24Professor Alvarez is a toxicology expert, and I've come to his lab to find out just how effective tests are to prove diuretic drugging. Here we are in our lab. We identify more than 400 molecules in blood, urine, viscera, and hair, of course. In just six months, 200 women have sought direct testing at this Paris lab. Each envelope is one hair case. This is an example of hair, of a strand of hair that we can receive. We receive a lot, many strands every day in order to make a test. This is the results with the two peaks here. It's a positive sample. Results from this lab can be vital evidence in court.

17:15But with new drugs circulating online, Professor Alvarez is having to cast the net ever wider to identify them. Meanwhile, the wheels of justice are turning slowly. Seven years after the investigation into Christiane de Grey began, no trial date has been set. The BBC asked the French police, judiciary and government about the criticism of their handling of the case, but they did not respond. A decade on, Marie-Hélène says she still suffers from nightmares and urinary problems. By speaking out, she hopes to cast off the years of shame that she felt over what happened that day. I actually need people to know what happened to me and what happened to us.

17:58It's a small way to tell myself not to be ashamed or to hide. The BBC's Nuala McGovern, there.

18:13That's the slick sound of a promotional video from the Chinese robot maker Unitree, showcasing its latest creation, Superman, a silver human-like machine which the company says can run faster than Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt. The firm, which produces a range of humanoid robots, made its stock market debut in Shanghai earlier, seeing shares soar by more than 500%. It's a boost for China's AI robotics industry. But what is the future for humanoid robots? Will they soon take over our lives? Nathan Wallace is the head of robotics at NextGenRI in Nottinghamshire here in the UK. It's a partner of Unitary.

18:52We spoke as he sat with a humanoid robot called Destiny. So what are robots like Destiny being used for? Humanoid robots are a big step from your typical industrial robots because the idea behind them is that they can fit into any workplace that a human could fit into and they can work alongside people without causing any sort of danger. Tell us about Destiny, the robot that's beside you right now while you're speaking to us. Yes, she's sat here now not really doing a lot, but her possibilities are pretty limitless and we can get her to do whatever we need. Which is what? It depends on the task.

19:29We normally put them in any place that you wouldn't want to put a person for whatever reason. So whether that be dirty or dangerous. Generally, we see a lot of cases in sort of warehousing and manufacturing. So whether that be something simple like stacking boxes onto pallets or a little bit complex like unloading boxes from the manufacturer and putting them into your custom branded boxes. So she's made by Unitary. Unitary in the news today because it's the Chinese humanoid robot company which has made its stock market debut. Tell us more about Unitary. Yep. So Unitary are based in China and they started a few years ago with a robot called the X-Dog.

20:12And since then they've evolved into making affordable but also really effective Quadruped and then more recently humanoid robots. So China is really pushing its humanoid robotic technology then? Definitely. I mean, you can imagine that things come out of China so quickly because the parts can be made cheaper and faster. Having been to China myself, they are far more technically advanced than ourselves. They have robots wandering the streets and walking through hotels and nobody bats an eyelid because it is just the norm over there. But it is terrifying. I've said this already and there'll be people listening who will say, I mean, this is going to lead to job losses.

20:50It's going to lead to a lack of critical thinking. There's lots of downsides to the rise of robots. If you look at it from the perspective of job losses, then, of course, it's very easy to think that humanoids and robots in general could be the downfall of humanity. But if you look at it more from the technological advancements, and we actually look back in history, for example, with the introduction of the ATM, the ATM was set to reduce jobs and push people out of work. But actually, the introduction of the ATM increased jobs because it meant everything was cheaper to run. It meant that more branches opened up and there was more people in those branches that could do the more complex tasks.

21:28I was looking online. I mean, you can buy some for$5 ,000,$20 ,000,$200 ,000. I mean, they're available online, but who's buying them? Those cheaper ones are more aimed at the consumer. So believe it or not, we do just get regular consumers who want a robot just to have at home or to play with their kids or whatever it might be. We get a lot of inquiries from companies that just use them for marketing. On a more serious note, we are seeing humanoid robots used for other tasks. For example, reports that they could even be used at the US border for immigration patrols. Yeah, you know, Unitary have a strict no military, no dangerous operations policy.

22:11But at the end of the day, it is very difficult to control things like that. And it is a shame because I think we are kind of going the wrong direction in that sense. They were not designed for military use. But again, some people see it as you are taking then people out of the dangerous situation. There'll be robots reading the news next. That's Nathan Wallace from NextGenRI.

22:35Is President Trump snubbing South Korea to reignite his friendly relationship with Kim Jong-un? I'm Asma Khaled, and I host the Global Story podcast from the BBC. The U.S. and South Korea have been close allies since the 1950s. But this week, Trump announced that the U.S. will substantially reduce joint military exercises with South Korea. He cited his very good relationship with North Korea's Kim Jong-un. For more, check out The Global Story on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

23:08Welcome back to NewsHour. More than 100 people are known to have been killed in a landslide at a gold mine in the Central African Republic on the border with Cameroon. Paul Ngea joins me now from Yaoundé in Cameroon. Paul, welcome to NewsHour, a distressing story. What more details do we have? Really distressing story, Rajini. As we know, Cameroonian officials have confirmed to the BBC that at least 107 miners were killed in that landslide near the border with the Central African Republic. And on the Cameroonian side, the governor of the East region said that between three and five nationals were also killed as a result of the mine collapse and that arrangements were being made for them to be taken back home for burial.

23:57And as it stands now, the Cameroonian and Central African authorities appear to be collaborating to address the situation. Do we know any more about what caused this collapse? It is really unclear what caused the collapse. But of course, these are areas that are very risky, according to some analysts and experts. And it makes it very susceptible to collapse, especially during the rainy season, because the soil then becomes fragile. Now, miners there, they often do unregulated work, and that means that they will dig and leave pits open, making it risky for them. And then also that would leave the soil fragile and it's easy for the soil to collapse on people.

24:38We did see the distressing videos, which have been making the rounds on social media, and people appear to be running away for safety, just as the soil was falling on miners there who were digging for gold. It's really, really a sad situation. Yeah, I mean, you mentioned there people digging for gold. A lot of gold mining in the region is carried out by hand, isn't it, Paul? How common are these kinds of incidents? These incidents are common both in the Central African Republic and, of course, in Cameroon. Mining, especially unregulated or artisanal mining, is the main source of livelihood for thousands of people living in these areas.

25:19And so they often go to these mines to get gold. But in terms of the regularity of these accidents, as I did mention earlier, it's quite common. And in the Central African Republic, there was a similar collapse in June, where several people were killed still along the border between both countries, but in another area. And also in mid-March, there was a similar incident that killed about seven people. OK, Paul and Gia, thank you very much for bringing us up to date on the latest on that story. and as we were saying just then, more than 100 people are known to have been killed in a landslide at a gold mine in the Central African Republic on the border with Cameroon.

25:58We're hearing that many more miners are believed to be buried under the debris that's coming from the municipal administrator of the nearby Cameroonian border town. There'll be more on the BBC News website and across the World Service on that developing story, so do stay with us for that.

26:37You're listening to NewsHour from the BBC World Service with me, Rajini Vaidyanathan. As you've been hearing in the news, the Israeli military has announced today it's going to open an internal criminal investigation into two of the most high-profile attacks on Palestinians during the war in Gaza. The killing of five-year-old Hind Rajab in January 2024 and the killings of 15 emergency aid workers a year later. Both of those incidents drew international outrage. Well, more than 1 ,200 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes since the ceasefire was announced last October, bringing the total number killed during the war to more than 73 ,000.