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Chapter 1: What is the current situation in Venezuela after the earthquakes?
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This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Pete Ross and in the early hours of Saturday the 27th of June, these are our main stories. The search for earthquake survivors in Venezuela continues as the UN confirms more than 50,000 people are still missing. The US says it's launched what it describes as retaliatory strikes on Iran.
President Trump's former National Security Advisor John Bolton pleads guilty to mishandling classified information. Also in this podcast... We thought that this kind of complex system was associated and could only form through plate tectonics, but our results suggest that Mars found another way. Scientists find huge magma systems on Mars that point to the potential to sustain life.
Chapter 2: What retaliatory actions has the US taken against Iran?
We start this podcast in Venezuela, where the number of dead after Wednesday's devastating twin earthquakes is rising dramatically as more bodies are recovered from collapsed buildings. The latest official figures say over 900 people have been killed. The United Nations says more than 50,000 people are still unaccounted for. Those figures alone give us a sense of the scale of this disaster.
The northern state of La Guaida was one of the worst hit areas. Our reporter Vanessa Silva is there.
The level of devastation has no words to explain what we have seen. In this area of this coastal town of Venezuela, the one that was hit with more force with the earthquakes that shake the country on Wednesday. You can see there's so many destruction. Wherever you see is a building collapsed. This building at my back is just completely destroyed.
lining to one side is about to collapse and there is so many places and you can see people struggling with their own hands trying to remove the rubble, the concrete,
Chapter 3: What new discoveries have scientists made about Mars?
everything in the searching of the loved ones, but it's a lot of work that is needed. The international rescue teams are arriving to Venezuela, but still it's not enough, still it's not deployed in all the places that we are seeing today. I mean, we literally see the floor open, the earth breaks in this area of La Guaira.
Vanessa Silva in La Guaira. Just to the south of there in the capital Caracas, our Latin America correspondent Will Grant has been back to the neighbourhood where he used to live.
I'm standing on the very corner of my street and only a matter of metres away is a completely flattened building. I used to walk past it every day. I lived three doors down. A very, very strange feeling to be looking at that building so devastated, knowing that as the earth moving equipment moves in now to pull out rubble and make a situation safe for rescue crews to try and go back in again.
That sort of game of stopping earth moving to listen again and see if there's any signs of life.
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It's just harrowing to see, with all the neighbours sitting out on their porches, waiting for information, crossing their fingers, praying and so on. And I'm looking right as we speak at homes that have had the complete front of them sheared off, apartment blocks that will never be possible to be inhabited again. I've seen...
groups of architects and surveyors, presumably from the city and some private firms, trying to work out what is safe, what can be salvaged and what eventually will need to be demolished. But for right now, I think the majority of the focus of most Venezuelans is on this shocking, this awful figure of 50,000 missing.
Yeah, that's quite an overwhelming figure. Do we have any updates on what more we can expect from that? And can you describe the sort of response? I understand that it's quite chaotic. The earthquake perhaps is exposed.
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You know, the fragility of the medical system there due to economic reasons, etc. What exactly is going on with that as well?
Well, let's start with the numbers. I mean, we've seen the number of dead creep up from, you know, around about 100 to then over 200 and now closer to a thousand. And the fears are that those numbers, that shocking number of 50,000 missing, will start to be converted into, unfortunately, numbers of dead in due course.
As for the second question about whether or not the state can cope, basically, whether or not there's sufficient equipment, earth-moving equipment and so on, what the response has been, well, I think it's fair to say it's been patchy, as you might expect. Venezuela has been through some extremely tough economic times in recent years. There's been deep-seated problems with corruption and so on.
So at a time like this, you're right, those things are exposed. There's the fact that in the economic turmoil of recent years, somewhere between 20% to 25% of the population left.
Chapter 6: How has a German mathematician accurately predicted World Cup winners?
There's been this massive outward exodus of young people and expertise. Plus, of course, the political situation that only a matter of months ago, six months ago, There were airstrikes in this city. This nation had its president removed at gunpoint by US troops. All of these things create instability, of course.
So look, I think the truth of the matter is that Venezuelans are coping the very best they can. The response among ordinary people is really impressive, really laudable. Everybody is turning out as best as possible.
I'm seeing so many people volunteering, health workers walking past me right now, no doubt doing extra shifts and shifts on top of shifts, and of course ordinary people turning out with water and food and donations at every turn.
Will Grant in Caracas.
Chapter 7: What challenges are European countries facing due to extreme heat?
The US military has conducted strikes on Iranian targets. The move comes after President Trump accused Tehran of a foolish violation of its truce following an attack on a cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz. No casualties were reported when the ship was struck by a drone on Thursday. I heard more from our correspondent in Washington, Hal Griffith.
We've had a statement from the US Central Command saying that it's carried out a powerful response, in its words, to yesterday's attack. It says that a US aircraft has struck Iranian missile and drone storage locations and a coastal radar site. It says it's justified in doing this because of that attack on the Singaporean vessel, which it describes as an Iranian act of unwarranted aggression.
And it says that U.S. military forces are going to remain in the area to ensure that the memorandum of understanding between the two countries signed only just over a week ago remains in full force. More recently, in the wake of the attack, we've heard from the vice president, J.D.
Chapter 8: How does climate change relate to the current heatwave in Europe?
Vance, who posted on social media that Iran had violated the ceasefire, that the U.S. was honoring it. And if Iran had a disagreement about how the Memorandum of Understanding is being applied, it just needs to pick up the phone. However, the message ends with violence will be met with violence. And have we had any reaction from Tehran yet? It's a dynamic situation.
As I speak to you, reports have been coming in that Iran has retaliated. The Revolutionary Guard has carried out an attack in areas where there are US forces deployed. Now, we don't have any details or confirmation of that, but it may follow a pattern that we saw in the early part of the war earlier this year, where some of the Gulf states were targeted by Iran.
We also know that Iran has justified that attack on the cargo ship, saying that it was using an unauthorized route to transit through the Gulf. And it accuses the U.S. of provoking parties to bypass Tehran's control of the Strait of Hormuz, which is one of the points in that memorandum of understanding. Clearly, this all raises concern that situation could escalate.
Neither side wanted to back down or seem weak, while in reality, probably neither side wants this to blow up, given that there's very little domestic appetite for the war in Iran to continue here in the US at the moment. You mentioned the Memorandum of Understanding there. One of the other key aspects was Israel's presence in Lebanon.
We're learning that Israel and Lebanon have now signed a US-brokered framework aimed at restoring Lebanon's sovereignty. Can you tell us more about that? Yeah, that was signed here in Washington between the two nations. However, vitally, Hezbollah is not party to the agreement.
So the agreement states that both countries should be able to live in peace as neighbors and calls for a cessation of hostility between them. It also discusses the release of detainees and the returns of remains between the two countries. However, nothing in the agreement stops either country from defending itself against attack.
And we know from what we've seen in years now that is sometimes used as justification for military action, particularly by Israel. We've heard from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
who's reiterated that his forces remain in southern Lebanon and will do so until Hezbollah disarms, while allowing the Lebanese army in some cases to eventually take over control of territories and pilot areas. But I think on the ground, little has changed, even though this understanding is a positive and suggests cooperation and peace between the two countries potentially further down the line.
Harold Griffith in Washington. Is there life on Mars? So the song goes anyway, and now new evidence has emerged that the red planet once had enormous Earth-like magma systems deep beneath its surface that contained some of the ingredients vital for life. Previously, it was thought Mars lacked the geology necessary for such activity.
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