Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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A scam exploiting vulnerable families with sick children. I would have done anything to get the medicine for Khalil. The child is directed on camera to plead for help. I want to be a normal kid. I want to go to school.
They were going to upload it to social media.
Millions of dollars pour in, but the families never receive the money.
He told us it wasn't successful. As I understood it, the video just didn't make any money. They used to raise funds for their own benefit.
World of Secrets, the child cancer scam from the BBC World Service. Listen now wherever you get your BBC podcasts. This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Bernadette Keogh, and at 4.30 GMT on Thursday 18 December, these are our main stories.
As the youngest victim of the Bondi Beach shooting is laid to rest, Australia's Prime Minister promises a crackdown on hate, division and radicalisation. In an end-of-year speech to the American people, President Trump lists his top achievements.
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Chapter 2: What measures is Australia taking to address hate speech after the Bondi Beach attack?
So, again, he's running over all these tariffs in the hope that those opinion polls could change and the polls that matter, as politicians always say, is the one where people go into that polling booth. And what do you think the American public will make of what they heard in this speech?
You know, it's really difficult to say because President Trump uses these words and exactly these words in other contexts.
So, for instance, when he was talking about people from overseas coming from insane asylums, from hospitals and from prisons, that, for example, was very, very closely echoing what he wrote on Truth Social off the back of the death of Sarah Beckstrom, the 20-year-old National Guard from West Virginia who was shot up the road from where I'm talking to you from today.
now so an awful lot of the words will be very familiar to americans whether or not that translates into the modern era of people turning on their television or their smart devices and listening to every word of the president who knows now this was his last public commitment before christmas where will he and the first lady be celebrating
Traditionally, at this time of year, he does go to Mar-a-Lago in Florida. He spends an awful lot of time there. Now, although I don't have his exact schedule here, the reason he does that is he gets gatherings of people that he's very close to. And certainly, Melania is supposedly not really a big fan of all the building work at the White House.
Walking past it, as I have the privilege to do, is that east wing is being worked upon. You can hear that clattering, not just down Pennsylvania Avenue, which is often shut off to allow trucks down there.
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Chapter 3: What did President Trump highlight in his end-of-year speech?
but anything I imagine for peace and quiet from politics as well as the physical noise in the White House. Sean Dilley in Washington. In a separate development, new plaques have been unveiled at the White House outlining the legacies of previous US presidents as seen by the Trump administration.
The highly partisan descriptions have been installed beneath images of the former leaders on a presidential walk of fame created by Mr Trump earlier this year. His predecessor is named as Sleepy Joe Biden, by far the worst president in American history. Barack Obama is described as one of the most divisive political figures in American history.
The Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro, has issued a defiant message to the American president, accusing him of trying to turn his country into a colony of the United States. He was speaking a day after Donald Trump said that he'd imposed a total blockade of all US-sanctioned oil tankers going in and out of Venezuela, as well as accusing Caracas of stealing US oil and land.
Mr Maduro also said in a speech that any attempt by the Trump administration to overthrow him would end in failure.
The truth has been revealed. The intention is a change of regime in Venezuela to impose a puppet government that wouldn't even last for 47 hours, that would hand over the constitution, the sovereignty and all its wealth, that would turn Venezuela into a colony. This will just not happen. Never, never, never. Venezuela will never be a colony of anything or anyone.
Never. In recent months, the United States has launched attacks on alleged drug smuggling boats, killing at least 99 people. Venezuela claims these anti-narcotics operations are cover for a plot to overthrow the Maduro government. The UN has urged both sides to de-escalate. Luis Fajardo, BBC Monitoring's Latin American analyst in Miami, gave me the latest.
The Venezuelan government has sent a statement describing the call in which President Maduro called the UN Secretary General and complained about what he described as colonial American attitudes because of the growing tension and particularly the latest actions regarding oil tankers trying to leave Venezuela, unlicensed oil tankers. He also described American actions as barbaric diplomacy.
Clearly, Mr. Maduro shows a lot of concern and the Venezuelan government is showing a lot of concern about this latest escalation in these tensions with the U.S. which have gone on for several weeks now.
Now, President Maduro has said that oil exports won't be impacted by President Trump's blockade and that it's business as usual. Clearly, Venezuela is determined to sound a defiant note.
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Chapter 4: What are the implications of YouTube acquiring the Oscars broadcasting rights?
They say we do not like Maduro, but they are saying, some of them in Venezuelan media, we are against these potential U.S. actions, and particularly they are reacting very strongly against the claim made by President Trump in social media, saying that Venezuela had stolen U.S. oil. And a lot of people in Venezuela are saying that this is not the case.
They claim that there is no historical or legal justification to say that the oil in Venezuela would belong to the U.S. So clearly, I think many people are expecting a very strong impact on Venezuela's economy, on Venezuelan life in general, if these actions do take place and the flow of oil from Venezuela is seriously impeded.
Do Americans feel that they could be heading to war?
The opinion polls suggest that if that were to be the case, a lot of people in the US are not interested in escalating or getting very involved in a larger military conflict. In Venezuela, I think many people
are expecting and commentators are saying that even the threat of US military action would be enough to cause serious breaks in the government of Maduro to manage to change his opinion or maybe even force him to leave power. And I think many people are still hoping in the US that even the very large threat of military action would be enough to cause a change in political direction in Venezuela.
Luis Fajardo.
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Chapter 5: Why is there a warning about AI-generated bear videos in Japan?
Now to some big news in the world of Hollywood. For almost half a century, the Oscars, or the Academy Awards, have aired on the US television channel ABC, with the network paying around $100 million a year for the show. But organisers have agreed a new deal with YouTube, allowing it to have exclusive streaming rights for the ceremony from 2029.
Although viewership of the extravaganza did reach nearly 20 million for this year, ratings are still half of what they were decades ago. Pete Hammond is the chief film critic for US entertainment site Deadline. He told the BBC's Ed Butler this was a smart move by the organisers of the awards.
It is a big deal. It was rumored, you know, the Academy has been working on a new broadcast arrangement. And, you know, I was kind of shocked when I saw even saw YouTube on the list. It's stuff like NBC, Universal, Netflix, of course, ABC.
Yeah. ABC is going to was, I think, talking about kind of curbing some of the hundred million dollars or whatever it was paying for this current deal. How much do you think YouTube's been paying?
YouTube's paying well more than that because it's a big deal for them. It kind of makes sense in the scheme of things. And also ABC just basically stole the Grammy Awards from CBS. So they've got that. And I think they had less need to continue doing the Oscars. They got a decent rating last year, 18 million watch. But, you know, it's way down when you consider like 1998 Oscars.
when Titanic was in there and that was like almost 60 million and it might be a very shrewd move on the part of the Academy because with YouTube without that production infrastructure of a network or even a streamer like Netflix which is doing live events now they have the ability to have more control over the broadcast it can be longer it can be whatever you want on streaming
Yeah, because I mean, there were programs like ABC. They were bellyaching about the length of the show, weren't they? I mean, the Oscars just go on for quite a while.
Every year they have these discussions about can we take some categories off the main broadcast? They did it one year. It was a disaster. They did some of them in a pre-show and it didn't work out at all. You know, you have all these branches in the academy, the below the line cinematographers, all of that.
that really made a stink about it, and they don't want to go through that again, so this works for them. So it's no problem with YouTube, but I'll say the key thing here. In my opinion, it's international. It's the way the Academy membership's been going, and adding more and more international filmmakers to the membership.
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