Johnny Diamond
speaker
143 appearances
9 recordings
1 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard 3 Jul
Johnny Diamond’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 3 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.
Appearances
Global News Podcast · The Global Story: Mohammed bin Salman from pariah to peacemaker · 16 Mar 2025
podcast
You mentioned... the golf championship. It may seem to some like a diversion, this new golf competition that the Saudis have set up, but it's not a diversion, is it?
It's part of the other bit of Mohammed bin Salman or one of the other bits, which is this soft power, which is part of, some would say the modernization, some would say the sports washing, whatever you want to call it, but it's part of the change of that he has brought about. It's an important part of what he's trying to do, and the golf is just one part of it, isn't it?
One of the things that happens when I talk with friends about... Saudi Arabia and about Mohammed bin Salman is they say, oh, you're always going on about the negatives. You never talk, you media people, about what he has done inside Saudi Arabia, about the modernization, about the liberation of women, about the blossoming of culture.
It's true, isn't it, that Saudi Arabia is a very different place from what it was 10 years ago. I mean, certainly 20 years ago. It's radically different, isn't it?
The reason we're talking today, Jonathan, is because all of a sudden... Riyadh is this enormous diplomatic stage. First, the meeting between the Russians and the Americans, the first meeting in however many years, then the meeting between the Americans and the Ukrainians. And it's no coincidence that it's happened in Riyadh. There's a reason for it. What does it say, do you think?
about the position that Saudi holds in the world and that Mohammed bin Salman has managed to create?
Given what you understand about MBS, both his personality, his vision, let's be honest, also his ego, Do you think the positioning of him and his country at a sort of diplomatic center or the attempt to is about ego and position and Saudi Arabia sort of coming of age globally? Or is it about what he can then leverage from that, whether it's business or personal or consolidation of his own power?
Do you admire him?
Thank you so much for your time. It's a pleasure, Jonny. And thanks so much to you for listening. We're back at the same time each weekday on the BBC World Service. You can also listen as a podcast. Just search for The Global Story wherever you get your BBC pods. If you want to get in touch, you can email us at theglobalstory at bbc.com.
Wherever you're listening in the world, we'll catch you next time.
He inspires passion and loathing in equal measure. He rose to the presidency as an outsider, dominating social media and railing against progressive elites. And when he lost power in the election, he refused to concede. Instead, his supporters stormed the Capitol, falsely claiming the election had been stolen. But he is not Donald Trump. He is Jair Bolsonaro, until 2022, the President of Brazil.
The similarities led to the nickname Trump of the Tropics. The relationship between the two men is so strong that Bolsonaro was invited to Trump's inauguration. He said he was so excited that he'd stop taking Viagra. So, with Trump back in office, is Bolsonaro on his way back? His supporters, and he has lots, would love that.
But he's been barred from running for election by the courts, and now he's been accused of planning a coup. Is this the end for Jair Bolsonaro? With me today is the BBC South America correspondent, Ione Wells. She's in Sao Paulo. Hi, Ione. Hi, Jonny. Jair Bolsonaro is a curiosity because he has a very high name recognition for the president or the former president of a South American nation.
People know who he is in a way that they don't know the names of other former presidents. How is it that he made his name in Brazilian politics?
Well, that's right.
You draw the parallel with Donald Trump with those assassination attempts, but there are political parallels and parallels between the sort of electoral machines that they ran as well, aren't there?
And he is, for want of a better phrase, a sort of a man's man, isn't he? He projects a kind of meat-eating macho thing, which doesn't leave much space for doubt about how he wants to live his life and how he thinks other people should live theirs.
So he overturns, you say, four terms of victories from the left when he wins the presidency in 2018. And there's a sense, I think, at that point, that he's, I mean, pretty much unstoppable, but that fades away pretty quickly.
And that was reflected in the 2022 presidential election, which, though he lost, it was more fingernail loss than landslide, wasn't it?
Did Jair Bolsonaro go to the inauguration ceremony where Lula was inaugurated, where he became president?
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