Global News Podcast
Myanmar declares week of mourning as death toll rises following earthquake
Tue, 01 Apr 2025
A religious leader in Mandalay says the situation is dire following Myanmar's earthquake. Also: shock Le Pen verdict rocks French far right; Nasa's Butch and Suni adapt to life back on Earth.
Chapter 1: What are the main stories covered in this episode?
This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Nick Miles, and in the early hours of Tuesday 1st April, these are our main stories. The situation in the Burmese city of Mandalay is said to be dire, four days after a devastating earthquake. Hopes of finding people alive under the rubble are fading.
The US has called on all sides in Gaza to respect international humanitarian law after Israeli forces killed 15 Palestinian medics and aid workers, but it blamed Hamas for everything that's happened in the territory. France's far-right leader Marine Le Pen, the strongest candidate in the polls for the elections in 2027, has strongly attacked her conviction for embezzlement.
Also in this podcast... Do you know a girl called Katie Leonard? Yeah. Describe each other as friends then. Is she dead then?
Chapter 2: What is the current situation in Myanmar following the earthquake?
How a TV drama looking at online misogyny is causing political debate in the UK and beyond. We begin in Myanmar. A religious leader in Mandalay says the humanitarian situation in the country's second city following Friday's earthquake is dire. People camped out in the streets for a fourth night. One rescue worker in Mandalay has been in touch with the BBC.
He wanted to remain anonymous because of fear of the military authorities. He says that some villages around the city are even worse affected than the city itself. The rescue worker described pulling out more than 100 dead bodies in one small village alone. One of our producers has voiced his words.
People are using their hands to remove the debris. We found a child trapped under the rubble. I gave the child a straw so the water could reach through the debris. Sometimes I can hear voices that are calling for help. We're trying to save the lives of people trapped – But even if we manage to get them out and bring them to the hospital, they can't treat them. There's no electricity or water.
There's a shortage of fuel, so we can't get any water from the water pumps or transport the injured. Normally, there'd be many more young people to support us in the rescue efforts. Because of the conscription law, many young people have left the country or joined resistance groups. If they come back to the cities, they'll be arrested. So there aren't too many young helping hands.
Another aftershock happened and people are trying to rescue as good as they can. The problem is that some of the buildings are nearly collapsed and nobody can help. The real need is to get the machinery to clear all of this. We need the help of the international community.
Meanwhile, the military rulers in Myanmar have declared a week of national mourning as the death toll from the earthquake rises. The judges said on Monday that around 2,000 people are confirmed dead, but the number of those killed is difficult to verify and is predicted to be much higher.
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Chapter 3: How is the international community responding to the crisis in Myanmar?
As aid workers struggle to reach many areas, the military has continued to launch ground attacks against rebel groups in the region worst affected by the quake, Saigang. The UN Assistant Secretary General, Kani Wignaraja, said a ceasefire is needed for relief efforts to go ahead.
you've got to look at this as a moment to actually push for peace. And I would urge the countries of ASEAN and the bordering region countries to really urge a moment now for mediation and peace. This population just cannot take any more hits.
For more on the extent of the devastation, our correspondent Anna Foster sent this report from the Thai-Myanmar border.
What is coming out of the country is very limited. The military junta that runs Myanmar has made it very clear. They issued a statement saying that they weren't going to give working visas to international journalists to go into the country and report. They said that they were too busy to process those and too busy to do that. So it means that we don't have that usual process. flow of information.
And the death toll is particularly notable because it wasn't updated for several days. It went to just over 1,700. It's risen to more than 2,000 today, but it took three days to have that relatively small jump in numbers.
Now, the US Geological Survey said if you look at the size of the earthquake, 7.7 magnitude this was, and the areas that were affected, they said perhaps a death toll of something in the region of 10,000 could be expected from something like this. And what we do see, the times that we're able to speak to people, make contact, see videos that people have filmed.
The BBC Burmese service are obviously doing a lot of important work in the country as well. We see collapsed buildings. We see those little moments of hope where people are being pulled out, occasionally still alive. But we do see these scenes of devastation in different places, particularly around Mandalay, which is the second biggest city.
And I'm in Mae Sok right on the border because we can't go any further than this. But this is a real hub. It's one of the busiest crossing points on the whole of the border between Thailand and Myanmar. And this is actually a really big home to members of the Burmese diaspora as well. Tens of thousands of them live here. Many of them have come here because they disagree with the military junta.
They describe themselves as activists. They're against the people who control the country. And they are struggling to get information about friends and family as well.
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Chapter 4: What is the impact of the Marine Le Pen verdict in France?
She said the US expects all parties on the ground to comply with international humanitarian law, but declined to say whether the State Department was carrying out any assessment of its own when asked about the attack, given the US is Israel's biggest arms supplier.
The UN's humanitarian agency has said five ambulances, a fire truck and a UN vehicle were struck one by one on the 23rd of March and that 15 bodies, including paramedics still in their uniforms, had been gathered and buried in a mass grave.
The Israeli military said its troops fired on vehicles advancing suspiciously without headlights or emergency signals and said a Hamas operative and other militants were among those killed but did not offer any comment on the accounts of bodies being gathered up and buried in the sand. Tom Bateman.
The French far-right leader Marine Le Pen has condemned as a political decision her conviction for embezzlement. A five-year ban on her running for public office means she won't be allowed to take part in the presidential election in two years' time. She said, I'm not going to let myself be eliminated like this. I'm going to pursue whatever legal avenues I can.
Ms Le Pen says she's innocent and backed by millions of people in France and will appeal. She's been sentenced to four years in prison, half of it suspended, for diverting European parliamentary allowances for her own party's use. The BBC's Europe editor, Katia Adler, reports now on the day's events from the French capital, Paris.
There was pretty much a sharp intake of breath across the country when the Le Pen verdict became known. The judge really dragged out the drama. And TVs were on in bars and cafes. People were listening on the metro and in their offices. She is a huge political figure here in France, the face of the nationalist right.
And even though, as you say, she has come out fighting, defiant, she's going to appeal the verdict, she says. Deep down, she knows. This could spell the end of her political career and the ends to her long cherished hope of becoming France's next president. Silent fury oozing out of her, Marine Le Pen marched out of the Paris courthouse today, even before the final verdict. Why?
It was perfectly clear, she said on French TV tonight, the judge was out to bar her from running for president.
Monday, 31st of March, is a dark day for our democracy and our country. Millions of French voters are being deprived of their favourite presidential candidate. If that isn't a political decision, I don't know what is.
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Chapter 5: What are the implications of Ukraine's mineral deal with the United States?
It was President Zelensky who first pitched trading Ukraine's natural resources for American security guarantees. But Donald Trump has so far resisted, insisting the mere presence of US companies would put Russia off from breaking a future ceasefire. Nevertheless, Kiev was willing to sign an agreement. Until now, it seems.
Volodymyr Zelensky claims America's latest draft proposal includes demands that have either been undiscussed or previously rejected. In a leaked copy seen by the BBC, it seems the White House has toughened its stance further, with demands that Kiev would have to open its government books for inspection and that the US would get first refusal on all future investments.
That would be in breach of the European Union's strict competition laws, and with Kiev still ruling out any compromises on its potential path to EU membership, this rare-earths agreement looks likely to remain unsigned.
James Waterhouse in Ukraine. Law enforcement authorities on both sides of the Atlantic have given new insights into the activities of an Irish crime gang that's risen from being a bunch of small-time dealers in Dublin to becoming one of the biggest such organised crime groups in the world. The Kinnahan cartel's leaders are the subject of a $5 million bounty in the US.
As our Ireland correspondent Chris Page now reports, the story of the Irish crime gang has been reported in television documentaries.
The Kinahan Transnational Criminal Organization, also known as the KTCO, has been accused of a wide range of heinous crimes all around the world, including murder, trafficking in firearms, and narcotics.
You're in the league of Pablo Escobar, Chapo Guzman. They've come a long way.
The United States will bring their leaders to justice no matter where they are.
The Kinnaghan cartel began as a small-time street drug-dealing operation in Dublin in the 1980s. It's now one of the most feared criminal organisations in the world. The BBC documentary series, Kinnaghan, The True Story of Ireland's Mafia, shows the extent of its multi-billion dollar activities, including in the United Kingdom.
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Chapter 6: How did an Irish crime gang become a global criminal organization?
I'm arresting your suspicion, conspiring to import and supply class A and B controlled drugs, conspiring...
The most senior members of the organisation live in Dubai. A lawyer for the Kinahans said rumours and theories about them haven't been tested in court and that a massive investigation by five countries ended with a dismissal of the main charges. The cartel came to international attention when a feud began with another criminal organisation, the Hutch Gang, in Dublin in 2016.
The murderous dispute started when an associate of the Kinnahans was shot dead at a boxing weigh-in in the Irish capital. It descended into months of lethal violence. The Hutch-Kinnahan feud has claimed 18 lives. The Kinnahans were responsible for 16 of them. It was around this time that the authorities in the US started to take a bigger interest in the Kinnahans.
The series has a new insight from Gregory Gijanis, who was the Associate Director of the Department of the Treasury.
There was a capacity to use the U.S. financial system because they were engaging in so many crimes, we needed to protect the U.S. financial system. This was a criminal organization that was in its ascendancy, and it was violent, it had global reach,
It was affecting our European allies, and it was vulnerable to sanctions because they were looking to enter legitimate markets as sports and things of this sort. And we saw this as an ideal opportunity to target them early in their ascendancy.
Three years ago, the department took the rare step of offering a reward of $5 million for information about the cartel's alleged leaders, Christy Kinahan and his sons Daniel and Christy Jr.
One of the reasons why Washington had become so concerned was that investigators believed the Kinahans had developed links with the Middle Eastern Islamic militant group Hezbollah, which was raising finances through the international drugs trade. A retired Drugs Enforcement Agency officer, Jack Kelly, explains.
Customs and Border Protection, one of their top members, who was a partner with me, was trying to get my attention on the Kinahans and explaining the importance of them. Specifically, Daniel Kinahan.
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