Global News Podcast 2024年9月13日: Putin warns the West will be 'at war' with Russia if Ukraine gets new missiles

“Hello, this is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service, with reports and analysis from across the world. The latest news, seven days a week. BBC World Service podcasts are supported by advertising.

This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Nigel Adderley, and at the early hours of Friday the 13th of September, these are our main stories. President Putin has warned that if the West allows Ukraine to fire long-range missiles at targets inside Russia, it will bring them into direct conflict with Moscow.

There's despair in Nigeria, where hundreds of thousands have been displaced by flooding. A Thai court has issued arrest warrants for six retired security personnel over the death of 85 Muslim protesters two decades ago. Also in this podcast.

In our skin, we have four main receptors, the type of texture of the object that we are interacting with, the type of stimulus, or what is the direction of the stimulus as well.

Scientists have unveiled new touch technology that potentially could help patients who've lost sensitivity in their hands and fingers.

“President Putin has said the West will be in direct conflict with Russia if it allows Ukraine to strike Russian territory with Western-made long-range missiles. Mr Putin said that because NATO military personnel would have to program the flight paths, such a move would drag the countries supplying Kiev into the war.

If this decision is made, it will mean nothing other than the direct participation of NATO countries, the United States and European countries, in the war in Ukraine. And this of course significantly changes the very essence of the conflict. This will mean that NATO countries are fighting with Russia.

And if that's the case, we'll make the appropriate decisions based on the threats that we face.

President vladimir Zelensky has been urging his allies to allow him to hit Russian military targets beyond his border, most recently to a joint UK and American mission. President Biden is expected to discuss the issue with the UK Prime Minister keir Starmer, on Friday in Washington. Our Russia editor Steve Rosenberg was asked if he thought these were the most hawkish comments yet we've heard from President Putin regarding the war in Ukraine.”

“I think so, yes. And what we heard from vladimir Putin today was a clear warning to the West. Do not do this.

Do not allow Ukraine to use your missiles to strike Russian territory. What we didn't hear from vladimir Putin was what Russia is going to do if this actually happens. He talked about taking appropriate decisions but without any detail.

Now, what might those decisions be? Well, in the past, President Putin has proposed providing advanced long-range weapons to Western adversaries to strike Western targets abroad. He's also suggested in the past deploying conventional missiles within striking distance of America and its European allies.

Now, Russian officials many times have accused the West of fighting Russia, of waging war against Russia on the territory of Ukraine. Putin made it clear today that if this goes ahead, if Western missiles are used to target Russian territory, this will take things to a whole new level. So, in a sense, Western leaders will have to decide which is greater, the risk of escalation or the need to help Ukraine and allow Ukraine to strike Russian territory with these missiles.

“Steve Rosenberg in Moscow, I spoke to the defense analyst Jonathan Marcus and asked him how serious did he think the Putin threat was.

I think there's been a long-standing pattern of these kind of inflammatory remarks from the Russian president. He's frequently stated in the past that one or other action, one or other supply of any new type of weaponry to Ukraine by the West will lead to all sorts of terrible repercussions from Russia. Often this has amounted to nuclear saber-rattling.

The reality is that at every stage, Mr. Putin's bluff has been called. And these remarks from him have always turned out to be just hot air. The Ukrainians have used Western weapons inside Ukraine to some extent already.

Ukraine, they've certainly fired them as well into Crimea, which of course was part of Ukraine, but Mr. Putin now believes it is part of Russia. Ukraine has invaded Russian territory in the Kursk salient. That hasn't brought any kind of Russian nuclear response.”

“So I think many people will write this off just as more rhetoric from the Russian leader.

Just to remind us what sort of weapons we're talking about here in this particular case.

Well, we're talking about two broad types of weapons. One is an air-launched cruise missile, launched from a fast jet. It's called Storm Shadow in Britain, Scalp in France.

It's essentially the same weapon. These have already been supplied to Ukraine, and as I say, used against some targets in Crimea and elsewhere. They have a range of in excess of 250 kilometers.

There's also then a missile system, which is fired from a multiple-launched rocket system, the ATACMS, the Army Tactical Missile System, which is a US supplied weapon. That has a range of up to 300 or so kilometers. And again, it's already been supplied and used by the Ukrainians in attacks against Russian facilities in Crimea.

Do you think the timing here was significant with President Biden and Prime Minister Stammer meeting?”

“Yes, absolutely. I mean, all the indications are that there seems to be a loosening of restrictions coming. Those are certainly the hints that seem to be coming from both Washington and from London.

The British government, I think, is perfectly happy to lift some of the restrictions, but it obviously needs US cover. And indeed, there are some electronics in its missiles which come, which are sourced from the United States. So the United States' permission is needed.

So I think there will be some kind of relaxation, but probably not an indiscriminate permission to use the weapons anywhere.

Jonathan Marcus, meanwhile, a Russian strike on Red Cross vehicles in the east of Ukraine has killed three aid workers, according to President Zelensky, who called it a war crime. The attack happened in a village 100 kilometers from the frontline in Donetsk. The Red Cross and its team had been preparing to distribute fuel to vulnerable households ready for the winter.

Two other team members were injured. Paul Henley heard more from our correspondent James Waterhouse, who was in Kyiv.

“We are trying to stitch this together, but President Zelensky posted a picture appearing to show a white ICRC lorry. You could see the Red Cross on the side. It was on fire.

There were crates at the back. And what the organization is saying is that these are teams that regularly operate in the area. They were in a village north of the occupied city of Donetsk.

This is somewhere very close to the front line, somewhere very dangerous. And they were giving out wood and coal briquettes, you know, the type you would see in a barbecue, to people there ahead of what is going to be a difficult winter, with the country's infrastructure continuing to be targeted. And what they're saying is that a group of vehicles came under artillery fire, where three Ukrainian team members lost their lives, and two other people were injured.

Incidents like these are rare. There was an international food kitchen vehicle that was hit in July. There were no casualties then.”

“But despite the very real dangers, where you have drones overhead, where you have the constant threat of missile and artillery strikes, humanitarian teams are rarely come into harm's way. But it's also a reminder of the very real risks they take because of how regular they head to these kind of areas.

Is there a definitive answer as to who's responsible?

It's very difficult to pin this down. President Zelensky, as I say, has called this another Russian war crime. It's clear in his mind.

The ICRC won't be drawn on this. They see that as a sort of crucial tenet of their presence as a humanitarian organisation. But if you look at the fact that it is often Russia that habitually targets Ukrainian-controlled territory with artillery strikes.

Sometimes they are targeted because of drone reconnaissance, for example, they are able to hit moving vehicles. There have been teams of journalists who have been targeted in this way in the past. But equally, we see indiscriminate Russian attacks time after time on residential areas.

“I don't think we will ever know for sure what the motive was, whether this was deliberate, and thus far we have had no kind of acknowledgment by the Kremlin. But at the very least, this is a very difficult, tragic day for teams concerned.

James Waterhouse in Ukraine. Now to northeast Nigeria, which has been hit by the worst floods in 30 years. Nearly half a million people in Borno State have been displaced, as entire residential areas in the state capital, Maiduguri, have been submerged.

Around 40 people are known to have died, but that number is expected to rise as search and rescue operations continue. Zana Barma of the Nigerian Red Cross Society is leading the emergency response from Maiduguri.

I'm right now at one of the search and rescue operations collection points, where we receive displaced persons in their thousands, mostly women and children who were trapped in different locations. We attend to women and children in their thousands stranded and we provide them emergency water. We equally along the process, we came across a number of corpses which we provide body bags.

“Our reporter, Aziat Oluo-Oluwa, has been covering the floods and she sent this update from the area.

A lot is needed to do three days into the flood disaster. Hundreds of people are still stranded. I was at one of the four settlement camps and what I saw was really emotional.

I was close to tears because I saw a nursing mother who has six children who said that they are not eating anything. She had to give them one plate of food for them to share and it was the same thing that many of the space persons in the camp told me. And when I asked the governor about why the supplies and the food they are sharing are not going around, he said that they are overwhelmed basically and it's falling on authorities and other organizations and even the residents basically to give as little as they can because this is a catastrophic incident that is going to hurt the state for a long time.

Our Africa regional editor, Will Ross, began by telling me about the dam collapse that unleashed the flooding.

“This dam, Alao Dam, which is south of the state capital, Maiduguri, was obviously getting extremely full over the last 10 days or so because of torrential rain, relentless rain. And there are some reports from within the city, from residents living there, that they spoke to the authorities and said, look, we're worried about this dam and the safety of it. And there was some kind of an inspection.

But within days, it had broken, the dam wall had broken. And basically this happened at night. And then the water just flooded straight into the city.

So people were asleep as it happened and then literally woke up as the water was kind of rising up through their through their homes. So absolutely terrifying scenes. And as we just heard there, you know, the rescue effort is extremely complicated.

And there'll be a danger now, of course, of waterborne diseases, which often happens in situations like this.

“This dam, Alao Dam, which is south of the state capital, Maiduguri, was obviously getting extremely full over the last 10 days or so because of torrential rain, relentless rain. And there are some reports from within the city, from residents living there, that they spoke to the authorities and said, look, we're worried about this dam and the safety of it. And there was some kind of an inspection.

But within days, it had broken, the dam wall had broken. And basically this happened at night. And then the water just flooded straight into the city.

So people were asleep as it happened and then literally woke up as the water was kind of rising up through their through their homes. So absolutely terrifying scenes. And as we just heard there, you know, the rescue effort is extremely complicated.

And there'll be a danger now, of course, of waterborne diseases, which often happens in situations like this.

“Yeah, I mean, my degree that the infrastructure is not great to start with even before this. This is a city that's been through a lot over the last decade and a half with conflict and everything. But from what we're hearing, most of the sewers are kind of broken down and there's a lot of contamination from the sewers into the water supply, but also just to get hold of food and water is difficult at the moment.

So that's bound to increase problems and make people more susceptible.

And we've heard about the situation in Borno State and Maiduguri, but this seems to be a region wide problem.

It is a region wide problem right the way across from sort of Sudan. We've had terrible flooding there, which has made, you know, all the efforts to get food to people affected by the war even harder. And then also in Chad, we're talking about one and a half million people affected according to the UN, 300 killed in or 300 dead in recent weeks.”

“And then in the far north of Cameroon, there's been very heavy rain since the end of July. And there are photos that I've seen today of people being rescued in wooden boats, 200,000 affected there, but also quite a big impact on farming areas with thousands and thousands of hectares of arable land destroyed. So that's going to create a sort of longer term problem.

Will Ross, Israel has faced international condemnation for an airstrike on a school in Gaza that's been used to house displaced people. The Hamas-run government in Gaza says 18 people were killed. The UN Secretary General described Wednesday's attack as totally unacceptable.

The UN's main agency in Gaza said six of its staff were among the dead. Israel maintains it was targeting Hamas fighters. Our correspondent Paul Adams sent this report from Jerusalem.

Israel says around half of those killed belonged to Hamas. It's published a list of nine men, all of whom, it says, were members of the group's military wing. For the Israeli government, this is the latest sign of Hamas' willingness to embed itself inside Gaza's civilian infrastructure.”

“David Mensah is a government spokesman.

When a school is no longer a school and becomes a Hamas command and control centre used by Hamas terrorists to plan and execute terrorist attacks, then it becomes a legitimate target.

Israel also claims that three of the men on the list published today were employed by UNRWA, the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees. For months, Israel has accused the UN, the Gaza Strip's biggest employer, of allowing Hamas operatives to infiltrate its ranks. UNRWA said none of the names published today was among 119 previously mentioned by Israel.

Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA's Commissioner General, said the attack on the school was devastating.

This shelter, which is a school in Usserat, a few days ago was used for our polio vaccination campaign. It is sheltering 12,000 people. We have United Nations staffer living there.

We had absolutely no information before the strike.

“That Hamas operates inside schools, hospitals, and other civilian areas is not in doubt. And earlier this year, the UN sacked nine employees after Israel provided evidence that they were indeed members of Hamas. But in its relentless pursuit of its enemies in Gaza, Israel has shown again and again that it's willing to kill significant numbers of civilians.

And since Israel continues to prevent foreign journalists from entering Gaza, it remains extremely hard to get at the truth of each and every tragic episode.

Paul Adams, two non-professional astronauts have carried out the first ever spacewalk by civilians. The American billionaire Jared Isaacman, who funded the Polaris Dawn mission, and musician turned engineer Sarah Gillis, stepped out of SpaceX's Dragon ship to test their next generation spacesuits. Our science reporter Georgina Ranard was watching.

Dragon SpaceX, we see it stalled.”

“EV1 is go to continue.

The billionaire Jared Isaacman paid an undisclosed amount to fund this five-day trip to space. He made history when he popped his head out of the SpaceX Dragon capsule for around 15 minutes and 435 miles beneath him, the blue curve of his home planet.

Back at home, we all have a lot of work to do, but from here, we're sure it looks like a perfect world.

Down on that perfect world, cheers erupted at the SpaceX headquarters. One of their own engineers, Sarah Gillis, aged just 30, was next to emerge, gently moving her limbs to test the suit while tethered to the craft.

Clearing for match closures. DD2 is clear of hatch seats.

Both were wearing newly designed space suits that can be used inside and outside of the craft. And for the first time in decades, there was no airlock in the capsule, exposing the crew to the space vacuum outside. It marks a moment when the private space sector matches or even overtakes government-funded space exploration, explains Simeon Barber, a research scientist at the Open University.”

“Today we've seen a glimpse of the future for human spaceflight with private companies conducting the first ever spacewalk, demonstrating new technologies including space suits that could be used on future missions to the moon and even onward to Mars.

Considering the risks of using an inexperienced crew to perform unregulated activities, Mr Isaacman will be pleased with the results. But it will be a long time before the ordinary person can afford his or her own spacewalk.

Georgina Rannard, Evan Davis spoke to former NASA astronaut Susan Kilrain and began by asking her about the new space suit being used on the SpaceX Polaris Dawn mission.

Well, they're significantly different. The new SpaceX space suits for going outside the vehicle are designed much like the ones that they wear inside, but with some, you know, strengthening, of course, it's kind of like body armor made from cloth, from fabric, so that it can take, withstand the pressurization of the space suit, withstand being in space, but also have some flexibility and the ability to work in space.”

“What's the status of these now? Are they considered tested? Will NASA now use these lighter space suits, do you think, or is it a SpaceX monopoly on those for SpaceX missions?

Well, they're considered having been on a test. There will be other tests. I would assume that they'll find things that they might want to modify from what they learned today and go on to modify more.

But NASA isn't going to be changing their space suits anytime soon. But I can't say that they won't use similar space suits in the future or perhaps even work jointly together on missions to the Moon and Mars in the future.

I was a bit surprised watching it, that they exposed four astronauts at the same time they depressurized the cabin. At the same time in these space suits, rather than one, if I wasn't designing it, I'd probably say, let's just try to one person first, maybe, or were you surprised at that?”

“Well, because Dragon doesn't have an airlock, it's not possible to just do one person or two people. If you think back to the original Gemini days and Apollo days, spacewalks were done the same where we depressurized the entire capsule. So, it's not new technology.

And I will say also that the Dragon has undergone significant testing in a vacuum environment to make sure that this was going to work without fail. As best as you can, of course.

Always, yeah. You know what Elon Musk's real mission is. He's been spelling it out again today, he's tweeted it out.

When we go out there to explore the galaxy, we'll find many dead one planet civilizations that never made it to the next planet. His goal is Mars. This is just the starter, isn't it?

How realistic in space industry are his aspirations considered?”

“first of all, I think most of us have realized not to underestimate Elon Musk in any of his endeavors. But I do think he is still a ways off. But he is working towards that goal.

And he's actually launched a mission yesterday, the Polaris mission, where they're doing significant testing and science, all about going further into space. They went higher up into space. They went into greater radiation area.

They've, you know, working on this new suit, done the first civilian extravehicular work. So, I mean, this is all towards going further into space.

Former NASA astronaut Susan Kilrain. Still to come.

A warmer atmosphere is able to hold more moisture. So when these storms do come in the future, they are likely to bring more intense rainfall and more of these issues with flooding.

We assess the reasons behind Typhoon Naji, which has battered Southeast Asia.”

“Workers at Boeing's West Coast Plants have started voting on a new contract offer offered by the US aerospace giant. If it's rejected by the 33,000 employees, strike action could begin on Friday. The proposed deal includes a general wage increase of 25%, a bonus, and a pledge to build Boeing's next commercial jet in the Seattle area.

Gideon Long heard more from the BBC's international business correspondent, Theo Leggett.

There's a great deal at stake here, Gideon, for 33,000 unionised workers in Washington state, mainly at Boeing's Renton factory, where it makes the 737, and at its Everett factory, where it makes the 777, and also some workers as well in Portland, Oregon, which makes parts for civilian aircraft and drones as well. What they're voting on is a four-year new contract that has been negotiated between the IAM, the union and Boeing. But the essential point that it makes is it will increase pay across the board by about 25% over four years.

“It includes extra benefits like reduced mandatory overtime, better health benefits, a slightly better retirement programme. And Boeing and the union leadership seem very pleased with this. But it has to be voted on by Boeing workers because if they approve it, it will go ahead.

If they reject it, they will also vote on whether or not to take strike action. And if two thirds of those balloted vote for strike action, then a strike could begin at Boeing from midnight Thursday into Friday Pacific time.

Do we get any sense of how likely it is to be approved?

So although the way the voting works, with a two thirds majority needed for a strike, that seems to put Boeing in the pound seat, it seems to suggest that this contract will be approved, it is by no means a done deal. The union leadership have recommended this. But there have been demonstrations over the past week, particularly outside Boeing's Everett plant, by a large number of workers who are clearly angry.”

“Some of them are suggesting even that they've been sold out by the union leadership. There is antipathy between Boeing's workers and Boeing management that is not new. It goes back years.

It goes back to a time when Boeing went into negotiations like these on previous contracts in a position of strength and effectively ratcheted down the terms and conditions of workers, including taking away their guaranteed pension plans, because it could threaten them with taking production out of Washington state and to other areas of the country where there would be much less unionisation. And that's why, incidentally, I think that one of the items that Boeing's put in this proposal is the suggestion that if it starts building a new aircraft design within the next four years, that new aircraft would be built in Washington state. But whether the workforce are impressed by that, whether they feel they can trust management, that's likely to be key.”

“Theo Leggett, a Thai court has issued arrest warrants for six retired security personnel over the deaths of 85 Muslim protesters two decades ago. A seventh suspect, an MP with immunity, has been ordered to appear in court. Mickey Bristow has the story.

The incident in 2004 is known as the Tak-Bai Massacre. It began when hundreds of Muslims protested outside a police station in the south of Thailand. Seven were shot dead, others were rounded up and crammed on top of each other into waiting trucks and driven five hours to an army base.

At the end of the journey, 78 had suffocated. No one has ever been prosecuted for the deaths. Families of those who died launched their own lawsuit this year before a 20-year window for prosecutions runs out.

Mickey Bristow. Millions of people across Southeast Asia have suffered the impact of Typhoon Yaji, the most powerful storm to hit the South China Sea in 30 years. It's caused widespread damage in multiple provinces and countries.”

“226 people have died in Vietnam. Nine people are known to have died in Northern Thailand. In Myanmar, 17 bodies have been recovered from flooded villages in the Mandalay region.

50,000 people have been forced to flee their homes. Ben Rich from BBC Weather told me more about the storm and where it could be heading next.

Yagi is not a typhoon anymore. It hasn't been a typhoon for several days because as soon as these storms make landfall, they lose the warm waters of the ocean. That's what gives them their fuel.

And so in terms of wind, the storm eases. This is not a typhoon anymore. But what we've got is an area of low pressure left behind, a lump of rain, if you like, that is pushing its way westwards.

It has been moving across some parts of Thailand. It is now moving across Myanmar. It will also, believe it or not, be affecting Bangladesh, northern parts of India as we head through the next couple of days.”

“Of course, it's the rainy season and we should expect storms at this time of year. But is there anything unusual about storm Yagi?

So yes, this is the rainy season, the southwest monsoon that affects that whole swathe of Southeast Asia. And what Yagi has done, or the remnants of Yagi, it's been an injection of extra moisture, if you like. So it has enhanced those monsoon downpours, made them more intense.

And that's why we've seen the widespread impact. Now, these typhoons and tropical storms in this part of the world, they tend to form in the Pacific. They then drift westwards.

And normally at some point, they bend northwards far enough that they're sort of taken away towards the northeast by the winds that blow high up in the atmosphere. This one has stayed on pretty much a solidly westward track. So it's avoided those winds that would have torn it apart and taken it away.

And that's why it's been allowed to move across all of these different countries in that southeastern part of Asia.”

“Looking at the data, is this an exceptional rainy season or the norm now?

This is obviously an exceptional thing to have happened at this point and obviously is enhancing the monsoon rains. Now climate change is making intense rainfall more likely. In terms of these storms, we are not necessarily going to see more of these tropical storms and typhoons as a result of climate change.

In fact the evidence is that we probably won't see more of these storms but when they do develop, higher sea surface temperatures will mean that they are able to intensify more rapidly so that could bring more intense winds, stronger and more damaging winds and then on top of that, a warmer atmosphere, warmer air is able to hold more moisture so these storms are able to hold and squeeze out more rainfall so when these storms do come in the future, they are likely to bring more intense rainfall and more of these issues with flooding.”

“Ben Ridge, researchers have unveiled new touch technology that potentially could help patients who have lost sensitivity in their hands and fingers. It could also be used to operate robotics for medical surgery or safely handle radioactive materials in nuclear decommissioning. Haptic technology is designed to create the perception of touch.

A new system was created by researchers and University College London who say it creates the real experience of touching objects, stimulating the full range of sensors on our fingertips for the first time. Dr. Sara Abad is the lead researcher on the project.

The new technology that we have developed is bio-inspired on the human sense of touch. So, we look into how we interact with our world, which is basically our skin. And in our skin, we have four main receptors which are mainly associated with touch.

Each one of them provides a different type of information. It gives us the type of texture of the object that we are interacting with, the type of stimulus, or what is the direction of the stimulus as well. So we can provide a stimulus across the whole finger so it's more realistic as well in that sense.”

“Depending on how much you have lost, we can quantify this so we can measure it periodically so we can study how it is evolving over time. It has so many applications. So for instance, it can be applied in the social context.

Nowadays, we do several video calls every day, but unfortunately the difference between a face-to-face interaction is we develop social bonding due to the sense of touch. If we provide that information using our fingertip interface to the video calls, we want to enhance those video calls and we would like to promote how it can enhance the social bonding. So what we will do is we will embed our interface in a globe so you will be able to, when you are interacting, you will receive the information, the stimulus, straight to your fingers.

Dr. Sara Abbott from University College London. And that's all from us for now, but there will be a new edition of the Global News Podcast later. If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email.”

“The address is globalpodcast.bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on x.globalnewspod. This edition was mixed by Gabriel O'Regan.

The producer was Liam McSheffrey. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Nigel Adderley.

Until next time, goodbye.”

提供元: Global News Podcast: Putin warns the West will be 'at war' with Russia if Ukraine gets new missiles、2024年9月13日
https://podcasts.apple.com/jp/podcast/global-news-podcast/id135067274?i=1000669373662