This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Part of why I blew the whistle was I didn't want to lay in bed in 20 years. Having seen another million people die. I know that I could have done something when when I had a chance. This week on the interface, we're talking to Francis Haligan. The Facebook whistleblower who leaked the documents that changed how the world saw social media. And now she is the subject of Aaron Sorkin's latest movie, the social reckoning. So join me, Thomas Dermain and me, Jess Maddox. For the interface, listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. The Hubble Space Telescope was designed to peer deeper into the universe than ever before. Unlocking some of its greatest secrets, but after launch, a devastating flaw emerged. The significant spherical aberration appears to be present in the optics. National disaster, Hubble launch with flawed mirror. The BBC Space Podcast, 13 minutes, is telling the inside story of how NASA rescued Hubble. The future of space astronomy depends on it. From the BBC World Service, 13 minutes, trouble with Hubble. Listen now, wherever you get your BBC podcasts. This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Celia Hatten, and at 13 hours GMT on Wednesday, October 7, these are our main stories. Israel marks three years since the Hamas led attacks of October 7, while Gaza counts the cost. Ukrainian officials say at least 20 people were killed overnight. After Russian missiles and drones pounded residential buildings, industrial facilities and infrastructure. And two scientists are named this year's winners of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. For solving a mystery about how molecules are made. Also in this podcast, the men in South Africa trying to break the cycle of violence against women. I remember myself grabbing her, slapping her. Yeah, I was so aggressive. And seeing what's happening around the world, I feel much more pain. I feel like I have contributed to what's happening. It's October 7, the anniversary of a day when things changed for many in the Middle East. Today marks three years since Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups launched a brutal attack on Israel. In total, around 1,200 people were killed, and 251 others were taken as hostages, making it the single deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust. Israel responded by launching a military offensive in Gaza, triggering a war in which more than 74,200 Palestinians have been killed. That's according to the Hamas-run health ministry. Across Israel, there have been a number of memorial events marking the anniversary, bereaved relatives gathered at the side of the Nova Music Festival, where hundreds of Israelis were gunned down. This is the last place where Shon was, and I feel him here. I'm terribly sorry, I couldn't save him. I couldn't help him get out of this massacre. I miss him so much, and this place does something to me. Despite the fact that it takes a lot of energy from me, my family and our friends, I feel together with him here. I remember the moment that she called and asked to come and take her, because there were missiles in the air. And I remember the second call that she called us from the world, and screaming that they are shooting at her. And we saw bodies on the floor, and we saw things that you can forget. Our Middle East correspondent Yolan Nell has also been to the site. We've seen many moving scenes here of bereaved parents cleaning and putting candles to the memorials of their loved ones. Right behind me is the dance floor of the Nova Festival. It was turned into really a killing field three years ago today. Now it's been transformed into a memorial, and for each of those people who were killed, mostly Israelis in their 20s and 30s who just come here for a party at the end of the Jewish holidays, there have been big sort of posts put up which have their names, their stories, and pictures of them. And we have seen buses of young Israelis coming here. Some of them with school groups who've seen Israeli politicians arriving to pay their respects on this day of reflection, visiting foreign dignitaries have been here as well. Yolan, you mentioned politicians arriving where you are. We're just a few weeks away from some crucial elections in Israel. How have the legacy of those Hamas attacks affected the discussion that's being had inside Israel now? I mean security is really a major issue going into this general election. It's the first election that will be taking place since the 7th October attacks. And many people were surprised actually that the government's choice of timing, which in the end, means that the elections come just when this anniversary will be very much in people's minds. But there have been demands particularly from those who were personally affected by what happened on that shocking day for a state commission of inquiry that has not happened up to now from the government of the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. And his political rivals are really accusing him of being responsible for many of the failures in security that led to the 7th October attacks. Yolan, now, as families gathered for that memorial event at the festival site, not far away just across the border in Gaza, loud bangs were heard early on Wednesday. Israeli air strikes in Gaza have continued, despite a US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas last year. Palestinian officials say two people were killed in that latest strike overnight. So how are Palestinians feeling today on the 3rd anniversary of the October 7th attacks? I spoke to our Gaza correspondent, Rushdie Abu Al-Luf, who's in Istanbul. There is no official memorial or any event in Gaza to mark that day, but hundreds, maybe thousands of Palestinians use the social media to mark that day people are posting before and after. Before, when they used to enjoy the life in Gaza, despite all the difficulties and after, since October the 7th, they are not enjoying one day of full peaceful despite a year of a ceasefire. The situation continued to deteriorate. Humanitarian situation in Gaza is very bad. People still, after a three years, are queuing to get a clean water and afford many of the 2/3 of the population, they live in a makeshift tense across Gaza and the majority of the people lost their homes, their loved ones. Despite the ceasefire, about 1,500 people have been killed in a continuous Israeli targeting, Mellie Hamas, but many civilians are always caught in the Israeli strikes in Gaza. So it is a day that has changed their life once and forever. Rushdie, going back to that day, I was presenting on BBC television that day and I was the first person to interview you, you, inside Gaza, when Hamas started firing rockets into Israel. I remember you were standing on the roof of the BBC Bureau in Gaza at first, not even with a helmet or a flat jacket on and as the day wore on, I remember you put that protective gear on as I continued to speak with you. Going back to that day, how long did it take you to realize that this was an event like no other that Gaza had seen? It was very chaotic the first couple of hours, we were just starting our day as normal, when kids were getting ready to go to school and suddenly we had big explosions and rockets flying from all over Gaza, but then we were not recognizing that Hamas is doing this massive attack on Israel and very quickly we started to receive videos and photos from Hamas and some local journalists about it. And then a couple of hours we realized that this is the biggest event we might face and we might cover, even standing in that roof that they were not safe. Buildings were collapsing around us and we were all the time trying to protect ourself while continuing to cover the story and nobody in Gaza was ever expected. Like these people clearly mark this today in their post, they were saying that we would never expect that the next morning is not coming yet. Like most of them said that we are still stuck in that morning and we are still stuck, people are suffering and they will continue to suffer for a long time because there is no solution in the horizon, there is no negotiation, everything is stopped. Rusty Aboualouf. To Ukraine were a wave of Russian missiles and drones pounded residential buildings, industrial facilities and infrastructure overnight. Ukrainian officials say at least 20 people were killed. President Zelensky has described the attack as the Russian army's birthday gift for Vladimir Putin. Vitaly Shuchenko, chief analyst at BBC Monitoring told me more about what's happened. It happened in a town called Breluki which is just east of Kiev where a Russian missile hits a five story apartment block and I would say a couple of dozen.
households have been reduced to a heap of rubble. So far, the authorities say that at least 14 people have been confirmed dead there, including four children and at least 50 wounded elsewhere in in Kremlin Chuk, for example, further east. Part of a street was completely erased by more Russian missiles and more apartment blocks were hit there as well, two people dead. Overall, at least 20 people have been confirmed dead in strikes across Ukraine overnight. Vitaly, are we entering an era where Ukraine's simply unable to defend itself against Russian missiles and Russian jet-powered drones? It's an endless game of cat and mouse, if you like, a tragic game, where it all comes down to a quantity and quality. In terms of quality of Russia's weapons, they are getting better. They've started installing jet engines on their drones, but they also have ballistic missiles, which Ukraine is struggling to decept. It needs American patriot and deceptive missiles. It doesn't have enough of them. There's also glide bombs, which are all but impossible to intercept. So Russia has really good weapons, and it's got a lot of them, and it's really bad news for Ukraine. It's really struggling to come up with interception means. It's amazing, Vitaly, because it wasn't that long ago. Back in July, the director of the CIA in the United States estimated that the average Russian soldier lasted around 20 to 30 minutes on the battlefield. Because Ukrainian AI-powered drones were so powerful, so what's changed? When did Ukraine lose that upper hand? I would say that what's happening along the front lines is still very important. However, there's been very little movement there on the ground. And it's probably still true that the Russian average soldier's life expectancy is very short, but the importance of Russian air attacks on cities is getting bigger and bigger. Vitaly Shivchenko, staying in the region, the US President Donald Trump has said he'll speak to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin soon about the death of a lab worker at a plague research center in Siberia. The World Health Organization says it's requested more information from the Russian authorities over reports a second employee at the laboratory had also contracted pneumonia. The WHO is seeking clarification on the cause of the severe pneumonia and the pathogen involved. Steve Rosenberg in Moscow has been speaking to Russian officials and told us more. I managed to ask President Putin's spokesman, Doichi Peskov, about the situation in Irkutsk region. I put it to him that a lack of official information was spawning rumors and speculation. He didn't agree. He said Russia was providing comprehensive information about what was going on down there through the country's public health watchdog. Now, if you look at the statements that that watchdog has been putting out, the message from Moscow is pretty clear. There is nothing to worry about. There is nothing to see here. According to official information, the lab worker didn't die of plague, but died of, quote, pneumonia of unknown origin. America has offered Russia assistance in this situation, but you get the impression that the Russians aren't exactly thrilled by this offer. And in fact, Moscow made a counter offer to America saying that will help you sort out your infectious diseases that you're struggling with, like the measles. Steve Rosenberg. Still to come in this podcast, do you notice if the AI agent you're using is presented as male or female? When we have these AI assistance, are they gendered? Are they assigned a human-like identity? And does that human-like identity affect the way we interact with them? We hear about new research that says it matters. Part of why I blew the whistle was I didn't want to lay in bed in 20 years, having seen another million people die. I know that I could have done something when I had a chance. This week on The Interface, we're talking to Frances Haligan. Now she is the subject of Aaron Sorkin's latest movie, The Social Reckoning. So join me, Thomas Germain. And me, Jess Maddox, We're The Interface. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. The Hubble Space Telescope was designed to peer deeper into the universe than ever before, unlocking some of its greatest secrets. But after launch, a devastating flaw emerged. A significant spherical operation appears to be present in the optics. National disaster, Hubble launched with Flood Mirror. So, quick summer recap. Dave's data leaks, AI hacks, holding phones, and a viral spinally challenge record. Yeah, I think that covers it, right? I'm Thomas Germain. I'm Jess Maddox, and the interface is back from its summer break. New season, new co-host, same deep dives into the tech that's shaping our world and our lives. So before AI wipes out all of humanity. Allegedly. Join us for the interface. It felt like everything I believed in was suddenly collapsing. This is the story of an Islamic boarding school in Indonesia with a dark secret. Of the school's head teacher. This was someone I respected above anyone else. And the investigation led by students he's trying to silence. If this is believed to the media, I'll be destroyed. This is World of Secrets, catching my teacher. This is the Global News Podcast. Malaysia used to be one of the strongest critics of the military regime in Myanmar. But in a signal of changing regional alliances. Myanmar's ruler, Minal Line, is in Malaysia for talks with the Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim. The two day visit comes as Malaysia pushes ahead with a controversial move to repatriate thousands of migrants from Myanmar. Many of the Muslim Rohingya refugees. The repatriation is happening even though rights groups and UN experts have warned. Those people could face danger and persecution back in Myanmar. Or a civil war is being fought. I asked our Southeast Asia correspondent Jonathan Head and Bangkok to tell me more about Malaysia's U-turn on Myanmar. Malaysia's the fifth member of Asia now to accept official visits by Minal Line. Since he held his much criticized election earlier in the year, cementing his position as president, Malaysia is the most significant because of its previous stance. Such strong stance against the military government and its legitimacy. Malaysia still doesn't officially recognize the government. It's bizarre that he's getting this official state welcome. Yet his government is not legally recognized. Malaysia's ambassador doesn't actually sit as an ambassador in Myanmar. Anwar Ibrahim has done this. He says simply because he said there are practical requirements that there are things I have to talk to the man who effectively runs the government in Myanmar about. And that most critically is the number of asylum seekers from Myanmar in Malaysia. 200,000 Rohingyas, tens of thousands of other Burmese as well. And he says that unless I meet him, we can't address this. And it's become an extremely heated issue in Malaysia after this toxic online campaign of hostility towards Rohingyas back in June and July. At a time where Mr. Myanmar's popularity has fallen sharply, he faces an election within a year. It's a very heated topic. So you can understand why he sees the need to be responding to the hostility towards migrants to be doing something. The question really is, what's he going to get out of this visit? And I would question whether he's going to get anything meaningful at all. Well, some migrants have already been sent back to Myanmar. What awaits them there? It's very unclear and we're not getting much transparency from the Myanmar government. I mean, everyone knows about the 1500 who went back in Myanmar Navy ships last week. There have been thousands of others who had to pay for their own airfares who flown back. And in those cases, they probably got some family support. But none of the migrants who've gone back by the way so far are Rohingyas who are the target of hostility. So Prime Minister Anwar has let people believe that these arrangements he's made to send migrants back are targeting Rohingyas. There are none and there's a good reason for that because Rohingyas are not recognized as citizens and are only allowed to live in Rakhine state, which is in a complete state of war and fundamentally out of the control of the central government. So then Prime Minister Anwar says, you know, we're going to negotiate to get the Rohingyas sent back. That just isn't going to happen. But the other groups who've gone back, also many of them come from war torn parts of Myanmar. There are chins there. There are ethnic Rakhine.
it's very unclear about whether they will be able to go back home. And if they are young men, they face the gruesome prospect of forced conscription. The Myanmar militaries engaged in a massive conscription drive at the moment. They're quite literally kidnapping people off the streets at night to try and fulfill the quotas, to throw them into this dreadful meat grinder of a civil war where new recruits suffer very, very high casualties. So, human rights groups are quite right. They're definitely not going back to a safe and unstable country. Jonathan Head. Lots of excitement, I'm sure, in parts of France and Japan today, after the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to the French scientist Henri Kagan, and the Japanese organic chemist, Kenso Soi, for their work, providing a solution to the chemical mystery of life's asymmetry. Our science correspondent, Palab Gush, told us more. It's a mystery that no one really knows about, so let me explain it. Think about a molecule. It's a kind of stringy thing that's a bit of a funny shape. It is a particular type of shape. It's left-handed. If you put your left hand in front of you, and then next to it put your right hand, in the middle of it, if you put a mirror, you can see that one's a mirror image of another. So, there's this whole world of mirror molecules that largely don't exist in life. So, why should that be? Something must have happened in deep time to favor the world of left-handed molecules and left-handed plants, animals, and life. And so, this mirrorness has been a mystery in chemistry for about 100 years. And in the 80s and 90s, these two scientists began to solve just what happened back then to make life as it is. Fascinating. I mean, they won the award together today, but actually they didn't work together. Did they won, made some breakthroughs, and then the other followed on about a decade later? Well, that's right. That's how Nobel Prizes work. That's how science works. It's, you know, you might have heard the expression on the shoulders of giants. Albert Einstein's theories built on the work of Isaac Newton. And so, the Nobel Prize celebrates something that usually happens a long time ago, not always, but in this case, the first piece of work was done in the 1980s. They do that just to see if it really has a big ramification. So, Ory Kagan did the initial work to show that certain types of chemical reactions magnify a particular type of handedness. And then, so, I found out that if you have a bit of one type of handedness, there's a feedback effect. You get more and more of it. So, it's like a snowball getting bigger and bigger. So, somewhere in the gloopy mess that resulted in eventually you and me talking, there was a series of reactions that favored one kind after another. Palabgosh. And now, the recent spade of killings of women here, Johannesburg, has reignited anger over South Africa's long-running crisis of gender-based violence. In a televised address last week, the country's president, Cyril Ramaposa, promised new measures to protect women, but campaigners say government action alone will not solve the problem. In one Johannesburg community, men are being encouraged to confront violence and their own behavior. The BBC's Christian Parkinson went along to one of their meetings to meet some of those involved. Men, they shout, we are men. I'm at an all-male gathering outside a tavern in an area known as organic market. It's an informal settlement to the north of Johannesburg, a maze of corrugated metal shacks and narrow and paved roads. But we can sit down with men and talk and resolve the problem with men before it happens. Some of the men are sipping on bottles of beer and in the middle of the group is itumileng Steven Tamaga, known locally as Bras Steve. As I'm sure you picked up the subject today's gender-based violence from Femiside, something that many around here are familiar with. That's Homo Tswamateka, a local man who's attending today's meeting, and as in like seeing what's happening around the world, I feel much more pain. I feel like I have contributed towards happening. Bras Steve is the local organizer of Father and Nation, a non-profit that focuses on using positive male role models to help end violence against women and try to fix broken neighborhoods. It's a pandemic. It's been a tough time in South Africa. The issue of Femiside and violence against women has dominated the headlines and sparked outrage after a string of brutal murders in the east of Johannesburg. Recent government measures aimed at curbing violence against women here as seen by many as too little too late. Zizipolm Twesi is the project coordinator of Father and Nation. So when I read about the murders that have been happening, most of the time I get very angry. I question myself, are we doing enough when it comes to gender-based violence? And some of the questions I also have is, why do we wait for something to happen for us to start addressing it? Also at today's meeting is Craig Wilkinson. He's the founder of Father and Nation. I have absolutely no doubt that we need to focus on prevention. The pain that will change it is raising boys to be good men, is raising the standard of what masculinity is. So I'm utterly convinced that this kind of program, focusing on prevention, that is what this country needs because that is ultimately what will reduce and ultimately hopefully eliminate the scourge of gender-based violence. I'm now walking around the area with Bras Steve. There's a group of people in the local salon doing their hair. Amongst them is Providence Massacre. And Providence isn't the only one who's scared. Doing her washing in a large metal bucket nearby is Linky Mashele. She was beaten up by a mini bus taxi driver last year. We are afraid when we see the cast ending just behind us when we feel afraid, we feel scared. What if this guy's gonna kick-knit me or do something to me? We are not safe. Back at the tavern today's men's meeting is wrapping up. Komoto is impressed with what he's heard. My message is to other men. Stop lying, be protectors of your community by protecting your children and yourself by being the good role models to them so that when they grow, they become a better nation out there. I have what it takes to be a powerful force, to be a powerful force. Christian Parkinson. While staying with gender issues now, we're finding more and more uses for artificial intelligence in our everyday activities, especially at work. But is there a risk that gender biases that exist in the real world can be transferred onto how we feel about the AI bots that shape our days? Dr. Mary Housefeld from the University of Limerick in Ireland thinks so, she's the co-author of some new research into how we interact with AI assistants that are presented to us as being male or female. I asked her to tell me more about what she's found out. This was part of a broader program of research. It was a big collaboration between a scheme of business school, University of Zurich and University of Limerick, and I was brought in because of my expertise and gender in the workplace. So we set real knowledge workers in Switzerland up in the lab and we even brought the lab to them, hooked them up to VR headsets, and they started working on different tasks. So idea generation tasks. And they had an assistant for these tasks. And the assistant was an AI agent and behind the scenes, the AI agent was the same exact AI model, but it was presented either as a robot or as a human-like AI agent. And then the human-like agent, of course, was gendered. There was a male presenting version of Johann and a female presenting version of Johann. So they worked on these tasks together in collaboration with their AI assistant. And we asked them questions about how much they trusted their AI assistant, how much credit the AI assistant deserves for the work. And then we gave them an opportunity to reward their AI assistant for the work it contributed. And what we found was that despite saying that the male version and female version of the AI deserved similar levels of credit for the work, they actually paid Johann about 10% less than they paid Johann. That's incredible. And what else did you learn about how much they trusted the female presenting agent versus the male presenting agent versus the robot? So this part is really interesting because what we found was that women participants in our sample tended to trust Johann and Johannes similarly and trusted them both more than the robot. But the male participants only trusted Johann about as much as they trusted the robots. We were not exactly sure what explains this, but it does align with some other work in the gender space of
I'm indicating that maybe women's competence is less trusted. Dr. Hosefield, so what do we all take away from this? Should we be paying attention to how AI bots are presented to us and our everyday lives? - I think we need to be careful, right? This is only one experiment. And for me, it raises a lot of questions, but these are very important questions. So a question I would have for us and also for businesses is when we have these AI assistance, are they gendered? - Dr. Mary Hosefield. And that's all from us for now. But before we go, we have a request. Did you know there are nearly 1,300 terms and phrases used by election officials in the United States? So with the midterms fast approaching, the Global News podcast is joining forces with America's. Together, we'll be offering you a one-off jargon-busting special and want your suggestions, please, for words and phrases that could do with an explanation. Nothing is too simple in our sites already, our senate, caucus, and gerrymander. Please let us know what else to add. It's the usual address,
[email protected]. We look forward to hearing from you. And you can also now watch our episodes in full. Just search for the Global News podcast on YouTube. This edition was mixed by Calla McClain and the producer was Adrian White. Yet, editor is Karen Martin. I'm Celia Hatton. Until next time, goodbye. (upbeat music) Part of why I blew the whistle was, I didn't want to lay in bed in 20 years. Having seen another million people die, I know that I could have done something when I had a chance. - This week on The Interface, we're talking to Frances Haligan. - The Facebook whistleblower who leaked the documents that changed how the world saw social media. - And now she is the subject of Aaron Sorkin's latest movie, The Social Reckoning. So join me, Thomas Dermain. - And me, Jess Maddox, We're The Interface. - Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. (upbeat music)
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