Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Mm-hmm.
See you next time.
This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Julia McFarlane and at 16 hours GMT on Thursday the 8th of January, these are our main stories. The Lebanese government says it's completed the first phase of a plan to disband armed groups in the south of the country, the traditional heartlands of Hezbollah.
Protests and fury erupt in the US city of Minneapolis after a 37-year-old mother was shot dead by immigration agents. And President Trump withdraws the US from dozens of UN groups, including a climate change treaty and bodies to advance peace and democracy worldwide.
Also in this podcast... You still need to see what it does when things aren't smooth. You know, when it's bumbling around in the dark, when there's a tear in the carpet. Can it avoid those trip hazards? Can it still do all the computing, if you like, that we do in our everyday lives?
Humanoid robots unveiled at a trade show capable of folding laundry. Is it progress or a dystopian nightmare? The Lebanese military says it has successfully completed the first phase of its plan to embed across the south of the country, disarming local armed groups under the control of the Shia militant organisation Hezbollah, who for decades have dominated the area, which also borders Israel.
The cabinet in Beirut had earlier taken the decision for the move, and the information minister, Paul Morkos, said further operations were planned.
The Cabinet reviewed the Army Command's report and commended the efforts of the Lebanese Army in the region south of the Litani River to impose operational control over the area.
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Chapter 2: What is the first phase of Lebanon's plan to disarm Hezbollah?
Speaking to the BBC's US partner CBS News, the Minneapolis police chief Brian O'Hara said law enforcement officials are trained to avoid situations where the use of deadly force may be required.
In my years of experience as a police officer over the last 25 years, I can tell you police officers have been training more and more as time has gone on to try and avoid these situations in the first place, especially the last few years. There's been a very strong emphasis on trying to de-escalate situations whenever possible.
But certainly for many years, professional law enforcement training has been to try and avoid situations using tactics that place officers in a situation with an unarmed motorist where deadly force may be necessary.
So, Chief, it sounds like what you're saying is that this, what we see on that video is not the protocol your police officers would have followed in that situation.
I think the overwhelming majority of city police departments in this country have been training to try and avoid putting officers in situations where deadly force may be necessary, particularly when there is no underlying serious criminal threat.
In this case, it appears that this woman was not the target of any preplanned law enforcement investigation and that the initial reason for approaching the vehicle was because she was blocking the street. So that being in mind, certainly everything that we do in law enforcement, we are trying to be proportionate and reasonable.
So what more do we know about this woman whose youngest child, aged six, also lost their father three years ago? Nada Tawfiq is our correspondent in Minneapolis, and she's been speaking to Tim Franks.
Renee Nicole Good lived just blocks from where she was killed, so the people in that area had known her. They said she moved from Colorado to the Twin Cities and lived with a partner, and they described her as a caring, generous person. In fact, her mom was reached, and her mom said that what happened... happened, the way she was killed was stupid.
She said her daughter must have been so afraid that her daughter is not someone who would have been seeking to confront ICE agents in any way. She said she was the kindest person that she knew. So by all accounts, you know, She is a beloved member of the Minneapolis community.
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Chapter 3: How has Israel responded to Lebanon's disarmament efforts?
So that is one of the differences this time. And the other thing is that Iranians, it seems that this time they are having a leader at the helm of the protest, unlike the previous one in the Women, Life, Freedom movement. movement back in 2022. This time, many people across Iran are shouting and calling for Reza Pahlavi, who's the son of Iran's last Shah. That is an interesting development.
So then it would be right to say that these protests, at least now, are overtly political, even if they may have started on economic grounds. That is absolutely correct. So they started off because of the devaluation of Iranians' currency. against the U.S. dollar.
But then later on, it immediately turned into political, and we could hear people on the streets of Tehran and other cities chanting slogans like death to the dictator, and they want an end to this regime. But the reformist government of Masoud Pesachian at the very beginning tried to
adopt a more conciliatory approach and tone towards the protesters, saying that we recognize your protest, we understand that, and we try to have a talk with the representative of these people at the Grand Bazaar of Tehran, because it's where it all started. However, after a few days after protests spread to other cities in Iran and became more anti-government, they
We started that riot forces started using more force. They started shooting at the protesters and more videos emerged on social media of protesters being killed and being injured and wounded. And the number of casualties rose immediately. And also Iranian head of judiciary has said that because of the American support and because of the Israeli support this time around, we have no mercy.
This dimension of some people calling the name or supporting Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of the Shah, what do they want exactly? For him to return in a political guise or to return almost as a royal figure? What are people calling for? So he hasn't made it clear. He says that I want to step in as a transitional figure to help the transition into a democracy. He says that this is what he says.
He says that I want everything to be determined, you know, at a ballot box so people can vote whether they want a constitutional monarchy or they want, for example, a republic. That's what people are going to choose. But I'm going to step in as a person who's going to help that transition. What people want is that it's not clear what they want. They're just shouting his name on the streets.
We don't know if all of them want a constitutional monarchy, all of them want him to return as a monarch, or the reason they're calling him is because nobody has his political weight and leverage, so they are choosing him only for the transitional period. So that is not clear yet, and I think we have to wait and see for that.
Paham Gabbadi. Cambodia says it's extradited a billionaire businessman from China who's accused of masterminding a vast cryptocurrency scam in which trafficked workers were lured to labour camps and forced to defraud victims around the world. Chen Zhou was one of three Chinese nationals arrested on the 6th of January following a joint investigation with the US into transnational crime.
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