US State Department defends Venezuela oil deal

0:00Hello and welcome to News Out from the BBC World Service. We're coming to you live from London. I'm James Menendez. And coming up later, the trailblazing American feminist glorious Steinem has died at the age of 92. We'll be speaking to the current executive editor of Merz magazine, which he co-founded and here attribute from an American Iraqi friend. She never dispeared when women lost rights in America or in any other country. She never dispeared at back lashes. She just looked at the light in the middle of the darkness and kept on saying we can do it. We're not going to give up. We will try and. Well, here, those tributes are towards the end of the program. But we will be hearing from glorious Steinem herself, our own words in about 15 minutes. But we are going to begin, as we did yesterday, with the deal sign between the US and the interim Venezuelan government giving Washington effective control of about a fifth of the country's vast oil reserves.

1:01Little is known about the details of the agreement. However, today we've had the opportunity to put some of the questions raised by our coverage on Wednesday to the US government. We'll play you that interview with a State Department spokesman in just a moment. In the past few hours, though, there's also been reaction from the woman widely regarded by Venezuelans as their legitimate leader, the Nobel Peace Laureate, Maria Corina Machado. She's put out a video statement. Here's part of it. In the last hours, the Venezuelans, in recent hours, a major oil agreement has been announced between the United States government and the regime of delthy Rodríguez. I know what you're feeling, sadness, anger, and that painful sense so familiar throughout our history that someone else is making decisions about what belongs to us in our name without us. We still do not know the true scope of this agreement,

2:03who is signing it, what exactly is being signed, who is putting up the money, who is providing the guarantees, how will this benefit the Venezuelan people? These are legitimate questions and understandably this announcement has raised profound concerns about what it could mean for the future of our country. President Trump has had his eye on Venezuelan oil for some time, here he is speaking in December of last year, just two weeks before Venezuela was raided, and President Nicolas Maduro taken. You remember, they took all of our energy rights, they took all of our oil from that that long ago, and we wanted back, but they took it. They illegally took it. Well, these people in the capital, Caracas, told the BBC they were unconvinced of the benefits of the deal. It's crazy. It's not a good option for Venezuela, because I don't know, we don't know about the contract or the agreement.

3:03We as Venezuelans deserve more transparency and accountability, whether the details, whether the conditions, and what are going to be the benefits for Venezuelans. Well, on New Zealand yesterday, we heard from Elliot Abrams, US Special Representative for Venezuela, during the first Trump administration, he's now a senior fellow at the Think Tank, the Council on Foreign Relations. He's described the deal as, quote, a kind of fever dream of what colonialism looks like. Had this been developed, honestly, openly, privately with oil companies, approved in the right way by a democratic government of Venezuela, it would have been the right path to take. They do have these mammoth reserves. Ideal that would benefit the government and people of Venezuela, and that would produce another, say, million barrels a day, would be good for them and be good for everyone. But this is not the way to go about it. Well, when I spoke to the US State Department, spokesperson Tommy Piggett a little earlier,

4:04I began with this question, aren't the rights to Venezuela's oil been given away for free? No, so what we're talking about here is two deals, and that's what's important here. We're talking about, on one part, these concessions that are given from the interim authorities to North American blue energy partners. So that's one part, and we're talking about tax royalties and other parts from that part of the deal. The part I'm talking about of no cost for American taxpayer is the equity stake in that company. Those are two different things. And what this actually will facilitate and allow is that increased production. Just think of what we've seen over the last few days of oil companies announcing that increased production. This is a game-changing deal. From a model where we had revenue going to Maduro and his cronies, fields operated by Iran, Russia, and China, now operated by private companies with a revenue going to Venezuela people and lower gas prices for the American people. If it's a game-changing deal, as you say, and you're so proud of it, why not make the details public?

5:05Why has it been such an opaque process? Well, you can go to whitehouse.gov and see if actually detailing all the details of this deal right now. This has been a very transparent process in terms of the details of what we're seeing. And I can make sure, and I want to make sure your listeners are rest assured that this will be governed by the highest levels of US governance, including auditing, including Americans on this board, including jurisdiction and US courts. That's part of the deal as well. Which department is making this investment in that company in North America and Blue Energy Partners? Well, the equity stake, again, will be held by the Department of War. But I do want to say that is separate from the concessions. And I think that's part of the confusion here, the fact that there are two separate actions that are happening here. The concessions giving from the Venezuelan government and the equity stake that is being done, do it going to be held by the Department of War? Why is the Pentagon involved? That's part of the legal authorities we have here in terms of allowing that equity stake to happen. So that's part of the legal authority. So that's, again, part of making sure that this is done with the highest levels of US regulation of auditing based off of statutory authorities

6:06that currently exist. Well, we spoke to the former US special representative to Venezuela, who served under President Trump in his first term. He said it was inappropriate that the Pentagon was involved and would probably be challenged in the courts. Well, I'm certainly not going to get ahead of any sort of judicial process. But what I can say is that this is based off of existing statutory and regulatory authorities, which is why the Department of War is involved. The company that obtained these licenses, I mean, was there an open bidding process for that? Well, again, we're talking about a proven operator. And I think that actually is an important point and gets to an important point on this. And the fact that we're going to see impact from this over the short term as well. We're talking about an operator that operates in Venezuela currently, which means this is scalable. This is something that you can scale rapidly. So we will see the first off-take rights from this deal over the next several months. Not going to put too much time on it while this continues to develop. But was it an open process? Sorry to interrupt you. Was it an open process? Because if not, many people will say

7:07that looks a lot like crony capitalism. Well, I mean, what we're talking about is a proven operator that was looking for partners and has chosen to partner with the United States. This is a private company that was looking for partners in the United States as a partner it chose to partner with. So that's what happened here. That's what we're looking at. So in fact, what we're talking about is a great benefit for the American people. And we're continuing to see a variety of different oil companies announcing, expanding of operations in Venezuela. Which I think reinforces how much of a game-changing deal this is the fact that new model has been established to allow for private development of these fields in better production. What evidence has said that the company led by this businessman, very wealthy businessman, Alejandro Betancourt, is a proven operator. Many Venezuelans were point to the fact that he was given contracts to build new power plants in Venezuela and that ever since Venezuela has still been plagued by blackouts. Where is the proof that he can get this job done? Well, North American Blue Energy Partners is currently operating in terms of producing oil and Venezuela.

8:07That's where you get the proven operator. Which means this is scalable. I do want to stress again, the importance of the highest levels of US governance auditing, making sure this deal be implemented the way that it should be. Yeah, I know I'm... This is an operator. Yeah, so what I'm saying and proven operator is currently the company produces something around 250,000 barrels of oil a day out of Venezuela. A former senior executive at the Venezuelan oil company said that the firm North American Blue Energy Partners doesn't have the capability, doesn't have the technical know-how to get some of these oil fields which require a huge amount of investment, a huge amount of work to get going. So who is going to do that hard work? Well, another part of the benefit of this deal is we expect about $100 billion to be invested in the Venezuelan economy as part of this. We are going to see increased investment. We also have seen other companies announce their own investment into Venezuela and oil field. So we are seeing that investment already happening. I think that point you're making actually points to a benefit of this deal. And again, a deal only President Trump could have accomplished in terms of a win-win-win across the board. Isn't the Trump administration essentially doing business

9:12with the Maduro regime, but without Maduro at the top? I mean, nothing has really changed apart from the fact that it's been decapitated. Nothing has changed. That's a ridiculous thing to say. Is it? Where we are to see it is entirely and about to explain to you why. Think of where we were nine months ago. Oil fields operated by Maduro and his cronies. Now we have oil fields and announced investment of private enterprise developing this a new deal. We have talks ongoing between the National Assembly from 2015 and the interim authorities. We're seeing the release of political prisoners. Of course, there is much work to do. Why not hold those elections first and then go through this process? Once a government with genuine democratic legitimacy is in place. And wouldn't that also encourage investors who would be able to say, look, we have confidence in this government. We have confidence in its durability and therefore we have the confidence to start putting our money into the country. Well, two things on this first is we want to make sure that Venezuela and the government that will be coming

10:12into Venezuela has revenues in place where they can have that reconstruction happening. The second point quickly is that our goal is not just one election, it's enduring elections. It's an enduring republic. In order to have an election, you need an election infrastructure you can trust. You need opposition leaders that are able to organize. You need a free press. You need all of those things operating in order to have a successful election. And we're working on all of those. The women who most Venezuela's a large majority of Venezuelans regard as their legitimate leader, Maria Corina Machava. She doesn't like this deal. She says Venezuela needs political stability, democracy, transparency, before Venezuela's all assets are sold off. She's right, isn't she? I mean, essentially our goal here is to make sure there's a process in place where a government that comes in has not inherited a field state has revenue in place where they can do what they need to do to help the Venezuelan people. And also make sure we have elections, a process in place where the Venezuelan people have elections that it's not just one election, it's enduring elections. Well, there was a process and then Maduro stole that election.

11:13I mean, no one's in any doubt what the outcome will be. Well, you're actually kind of making my point for me with that example. You just actually made my point in terms of there was an election that was not legitimate. We need a legitimate election and to have a legitimate election, you need a process in place that includes opposition parties, that includes a free media, that includes election infrastructure that you can trust. We are working on all of those things. So the point you just made actually makes the point that I'm saying here, which these things have to happen in tandem. It's the process where you can develop it. Yeah, accept the so-and-so, but accept that by doing this deal doesn't it entrench the interim government that's there in place at the moment? And entrenched Elcio Rodriguez, who was, after all Nicolas Maduro's is deputy, entrenched her power. The deal that the United States is making is with a private company. And importantly, what this is is a new model. That's why I keep on stressing the point before about Maduro and his cronies with these oil fields. They were pocketing this revenue. That is no longer happening. So this actually helps further the democratic process. By having a model in place that a government that comes in

12:15can have these tax royalties, can have this revenue, and a model of an oil field and oil infrastructure that's already producing revenue for the Venezuelan people, that is vastly different than what existed just under a year ago. And that was Tommy Piggert, spokesperson for the US State Department, speaking to me about that deal signed in correct as on Wednesday between the US and the interim Venezuelan government. You're listening to News Air from the BBC World Service. It's just to come how a medieval artwork reaches across the centuries from William the Conqueror to King Charles. The bio-tabistry or the counter-reimbroidary, as it might just have been called, recounts a conflict, yet here it is today,

13:17nearly a thousand years later, as a precious symbol of trust. We're on that coming up in just over 10 minutes. Our main headlines from the BBC Newsroom at the moment, the Israeli Security Minister's outline plans to remove almost two million Palestinians from Gaza. There's been another outbreak of mass food poisoning linked to government-issued free school meals in Indonesia. The US Space Companies, SpaceX and Blue Origin, have pulled out of an international summit in Paris after a ported pressure from the White House. This is James Menendez, we're news our life from the BBC. One of the great feminist figures of our time has died. Glorious Stynum was 92 in Pasta, where I'm home in New York City. She was an award-winning journalist, writer and publisher, as well as an activist and campaign who helped women demand

14:18and get greater reproductive rights, economic parity, and protection against sexual harassment. Speaking to the BBC in 2015, Stynum talked about what first inspired her activism, including the moment in the 1960s when she went as a reporter to an event where women were talking about abortion, then an illegal procedure in the US. For the first time in my life ever, I heard women stand up and tell the truth, tragic, funny, personal, about being one of every three American women who has needed an abortion at some time in her lifetime, and it revolutionized me, setting their listening, to women tell the truth about the humiliation, the danger, the surrealism, the funny, terrible things that happened, to women who were made to seek out an illegal procedure in order to get what should have been a legal one. And that's what made me start to ask questions.

15:19If this has happened, if this is necessary for so many of us, why is it illegal? Why is it criminal? Why is it dangerous? Joseph has used to be afraid of public speaking when she first started out. A speech teacher once told me that since I had first been a dancer and then been a writer, I had chosen my professions because I didn't want to talk. And some of that may be genderized because women sometimes tend to feel an open mouthed flight to fear before audiences even more than men. But I certainly devoted much of my life to avoiding it. It was only my inability to publish what I wanted to about the explosion and excitement of the women's movement and my profoundly disinterested editors that I'd been freelancing for that made me desperate enough to think, all right, the only way I can report on this

16:19is to speak to the campuses who are inviting me. But I absolutely could not do it by myself. So I asked a friend who I thought would fill in knowledge I didn't have in vice versa because she was running a childcare center, had children herself. She is black, I am white. But most importantly, she was fearless. So we began to speak together. There's a saying, follow your fear, fear is a sign of growth. In my case, it definitely turned out to be true because what I discovered is that what happens in a room when we are in the same space, when we can see, touch, feel, use all our five senses to understand each other, to empathize with each other. Absolutely cannot happen on a printed page, much as I love the printed page, and cannot happen on a screen either. So it caused me to discover something. I never otherwise would have known.

17:20So what, looking back on her decades campaigning and organizing? Did she think she'd achieved? You know, I can't know that. I think it's really for other people to say where I might have said something or been something or written something or organized something that they found changeful. It's my job to do my best. I think it's all of our jobs to do our best. I think we worry too much about what we should do and we don't think enough about doing everything we can do. Gloria Steinem speaking to the BBC, and we will, as I said earlier, be returning to this story a little later. Now the sharp Vilmascarif in 1960 was one of the defining moments in the fight against white minority rule in South Africa. It was also one of the darkest. 69 people were killed when police opened fire on a demonstration against racist laws preventing freedom of movement. One now more than six decades on survivors

18:21and relatives of those killed are suing the South African government over its failure to repeal an apartheid era law that's preventing them from seeking justice and compensation. As Pumsafiqlani now reports. Heaps of rubbish are piling up around the township, and many young people of university going age are sitting idle on street corners. It scarcely looks like the home of a historic fight against apartheid laws. When Shafel, south of Johannesburg, it's a township slowly crumbling. Here on the 21st of March in 1960, at least 69 people were killed by state police while demonstrating against the racist apartheid regime. Abraham Fugain was only 20 years old at the time and still bears the scars of that day. A bullet is still lodged in his spine

19:22and he has a gentle limp from a gunshot to the leg. The life we were living under apartheid was a life of oppression. If you were from Shafel, you could not go outside its vicinity without a pass. We ended up planning too much to the police station in the morning, then there was some friction between us and the police and we saw a stone being thrown into the police station. All hell broke loose. That is when they started shooting. He and more than 200 people were injured and recent estimates by South African researchers say the number of those who died from that incident could be as much as 91. Another survivor, Lazarus Mahozzi, now 90 years old, takes me to the cemetery where most of those who died are buried. They graves form one long row. There's even a 12-year-old. He tells me he needs time to compose himself, his eyes filling with tears. We heard gunshots coming from behind us.

20:22We hit inside the store, peeping to see what was happening outside. People were lying on the ground. When we looked out again, we saw that some were trying to get up, but the police were just shooting at them. Others were using machetes to strike the heads of people who were still moving. The Indemnity Act 61 passed by the Abarthaid government in the aftermath of the shooting, protected the police from having any criminal charges or civil claims made against them by victims or their relatives. That law remains in the country's statute books. Now, South Africa's lawyers for human rights, a local NGO, alongside UK-based firm Lee Day, are bringing a court action to have that law repealed. But the community is looking for its basically reparations that could enable their healing. One of the lawyers on the case, Shane Tracey, explains,

21:25the community has also expressed that sharpness is forgotten community. They feel that South Africa and the government are quick to celebrate what happened on the day and the aftermath of all of that. But nothing has been done to assist their healing. Part of the court application includes getting a class action certified. If approved, this means that for the first time, dozens of victims could collectively sue the state and possibly even have criminal charges brought against the perpetrators. The government told the BBC it has supported abarthaid victims over the years and will continue to do so, but does not oppose survivors and families pursuing legal remedies. For many in the community of Sharple, the scars of the past remain, and so people here hope that restitution will help heal decades. Of lingering trauma. Abraham Muhotzi again. It would make us very happy.

22:26At the end of the day, abarthaid is dead and buried. A win would bring complete healing, not just for us, but for future generations as well. It may be months, even years before the case is finalised, but for the first time in a long time, many of the survivors say they have something to look forward to. That was the BBC's Pums of Fiklani reporting there from South Africa. You're listening to NewsHour? Do you still with us? Lots more to come. You're listening to NewsHour. Yesterday we heard about the history of the biotapistry, which goes on public display in London next week. But there's also some heavy political symbolism at play too. King Charles has hailed the loan as the best possible symbol of the close relationship between the UK and France. He was given a private viewing of the medieval artwork, alongside the French president Emmanuel Macron at the British Museum.

23:26From there, the BBC's culture editor Katie Razzle reports. And here is the absolute iconic moment of the tapestry, where we see Harold standing, holding the shaft of an arrow that has pierced him through the right arm. It is an astonishing sight, nearly 70 metres long. And I'm standing looking down over the tapestry with the King and Queen, the president, the prime minister, and all sorts of other dignitaries standing and being led along it. The lighting is incredibly low, that's to protect this fragile artwork. But there is enough light to see the drama of it, this epic story of angular French relations. Back in 1066. The arrow is quite thin. The arrow is sort of very pale yellow. As they toured the biotapestry nearly a thousand years after the death of the English King and the Norman Conquest, the message was that the loan of the work to the UK

24:26is a sign of Anglo-French reconciliation, not enmity. This is the French president Emmanuel Macron. A thousand years ago, this work depicted across things that changed history. And today it crosses the channel through Tunnel that we build together, a reminder of what our two countries can achieve when they join forces. If anyone remembers what we did here today decades or even centuries from now, I would like to believe that they will remember not only the story told by a biotapestry, but also the tale of two countries, which after centuries of shared history, choose to forge a bond as cloth as the threads of the thousand year old embroidery. A loan to Britain was first requested back in 1931. Nearly a hundred years on, it was pushed through to the opposition of some by the French president who is believed to have wanted a reset in Anglo-French relations after Brexit.

25:28King Charles reminded guests that Windsor Castle was built by William the Conqueror and echoed the warm words about the two countries shared history, adding a joke about the tapestries heritage. Commissioned in Normandy, yet most likely, to have been embroidered in Canterbury by English crowds people. The biotapestry or the Canterbury embroidery, as it might just have been called, recounts say, I'm conflict, yet here it is today, nearly a thousand years later, as a precious symbol of trust, at a time when trust seems sadly to be in short supply between nations. The 58 scenes embroidered on linen are a medieval blockbuster about the build up to 1066, a defining moment in English history. Katie Razzle, the BBC's Culture Editor Report, there, from the British Museum.

26:31This is the BBC in London, you're listening to News Air and I'm James Menendez. There was a warning today from the UN's World Meteorological Organization or WMO that a supercharged El Nino weather system could cause huge damage to lives and livelihoods all over the world. The agency said this year's El Nino, which causes temperatures to rise in the Pacific Ocean, may become the strongest for more than 70 years. The WMO Secretary General is Professor Celeste Sallor. She told the BBC that governments around the world needed to be prepared for much more extreme weather. If you expect droughts, you can prepare in advance and plant seeds that are resistant to droughts. If you expect floods, you can do exactly the opposite. But these are decisions that it's not for an individual to take. But what I would like to emphasize is that because we live in a globalized world with a globalized economy, this El Nino will affect the food you take every day, the water you have access to,

27:34and the prices you pay for everything. And that is why we are not only warning but calling to action in advance. Well, it's already been felt in Indonesia where the extra heat has led to some regions having had no rain for months. And that's exacerbating wildfires, which are now spreading a toxic haze across a large sway of Southeast Asia. The BBC's Leicester Cappapati is in the capital Jakarta, and it's been telling me more. The World Fire Center in Indonesia have burned for weeks now. It begins in the late July, and then it's continued throughout August and still burning until now. The epicenter of the fire is in the island of Sumatra, and also in Borneo, which is in Indonesia we call Kalimantan. And the two provinces that have the highest hotspot throughout Indonesia is Central Kalimantan, and West Kalimantan. Both of the provinces have more than thousands of hotspots.

28:36Because the huge amount of wildfires that happen, the haze has been transpounded to Malaysia, Brunei, and even to Philippines. Right, so it's been spreading all over the region. I mean, is it right to say there are fires every year, in which case are these much worse and how much worse are they? The worst wildfires that Indonesia had is in 1997 and 1998. But it got a little bit worse in 2015. This year, the land fires happened really, really rapidly, triggered by El Niño, which makes everything really dry. Yeah, so as you said, it's been very, very dry. I mean, has there been any rain at all in those provinces that you talked about? No, there has been no rain in the last few months. Even the biggest river in the island gets dried up in some parts of the river. Are these all wildfires, or are some of them fires that have been started by people burning agricultural land?

29:44The Indonesian government has been calling 20 entities, 20 companies. They found out that this corporation conduct a land crearing by a slas and burns, which is illegal in Indonesia. So you can say it's a deliberate fires that spread out really quickly and also being triggered by El Niño. So that's the situation. Let's talk about the impact it's having on people, because it is having some severe effects on people's health, isn't it? Yeah, it does. It affected more than 5 million people, also more than 50,000 people now in treatment because of the difficulty of breeding and respiratory illness. Especially for the sensitive groups like elderly and also children. And so what, have schools been closed some of the time, presumably hospitals of full of people with breathing problems? School have been closed for 10 to 12 days now. In the morning, the haze is really, really thick.

30:45You can only see like one and two meters ahead, even though you put like N95 masks, you can still feel the smoke. Inside your throat. What sort of other things are people doing to try and protect themselves? Because we're always told in these situations, you know, you need to stay indoors, but presumably the smoke is so thick that it's getting into people's houses as well, right? Yeah, that's true. We talked to some of the residents in South Kalimantan and she said that even though she tried to cover the windows and doors with cloth, because the haze is really thick, it still got stiffened into her house. So it's really, really scared that her children, she has three year old children, because a lot of children now have respiratory problems. And so what are the prospects for the coming weeks? Because my understanding is that, well, for Indonesia anyway, September's the peak month for El Nino. So I guess this is the height of the crisis, isn't it?

31:47Yeah, even our, for us, ministries say that September this month will be the peak of the gray season. So they really try to put out the fire with everything they got. And even some people, you know, in the area that affected by land fires, they have this in Indonesia, we call it solid, a mystic or like the prayer of calling for the rain as another, you know, measure to help in relieving this dry season. The BBC's Lesia, Carito party in Jakarta. It's not though just El Nino, finding the flames of the fires. Many of them start according to environmental groups and others when companies use fire to clear land for agriculture. At the same time firms have been draining Indonesia's ancient peat lands to grow crops, usually a dark, wet mulch, the dried out peat is extremely combustible. And when it does burn, releases huge amounts of carbon dioxide, some are calling them carbon bombs.

32:48Well, Susan Page is a professor of geography and environment at the University of Leicester in the UK. The ones that we're most concerned about are the peat lands and any forest or other vegetation that they support. And the reason why we're really concerned about the peat lands is because they store a vast amount of carbon. And if those peat lands go on fire, that carbon is emitted directly into the atmosphere and they're as a result contributing to global warming. And as easy as about a third of all tropical peat in the world, that carbon has accumulated over millennia. Most of these fires are actually burning in the peat itself. They're not surface fires, they're burning out or just below the ground surface and consuming the peat. And as a result of that, they are also very difficult to control and very difficult to extinguish.

33:50People think about peat lands, perhaps they might think of peat bog, something very wet waterlogged. How come then this peat is burning? What's happened to it to allow it to burn? So in their natural condition, these peat lands in Southeast Asia are super wet. They're covered in a type of rainforest called tropical peats on forest. And those natural systems are waterlogged, they have very high water levels and the vegetation itself is kept humid as a result. So actually in their natural condition, they are at very, very low risk of combustion. But the problem has been that over the last 25 years, the decision has been made to drain peat lands so that what we might call dry land crops can be grown. Those are a range of crops, plantations, drained particularly for example for all palm, growing all palm. And once you drain the peat lands and you may be draining the peat down to depths of half a meter or meter, then that upper peat is then being dried out.

35:02Combined with the drought, that means these peat lands are super vulnerable to combustion to be set on fire. Did those who took the decision to allow the peat lands to be drained for agriculture, were they warned of the dangers of doing that? Informally, yes, before some of the big drainage schemes started in the mid-1990s. But I think the big warning came from when we had us very strong El Nino event in 1997 and 1998. And that was when we saw the really, the first really extensive peat and fire. So a large area of peat land had been drained in central Kalimantan as a result of that drainage and combined with the droughts that came with the El Nino, there were huge areas of land that were burned at that time. And so the warning was there, the warning was there, you know, whatever that was 25 years ago, that draining peat lands can lead to really significant risk of fire.

36:04And those peat lands fires in 1997, 1998 led to really globally significant carbon emissions to the atmosphere. So we estimated anywhere between 1 and 2.5 billion tons of carbon were emitted at that time. During the late 1990s, that was the equivalent of 13 to 40% of total global carbon emissions from fossil fuel consumption at that time. A vast amount of carbon released. Yes, absolutely vast. Those fires were so extensive and and emitted so much carbon that it was picked up as a spike on the Mountle lower record in Hawaii. So the observatory on Mountle lower that records atmospheric carbon does like concentration. You can see the consequence of those fires, so a truly global impact. And so that was the warning really if you carry on draining peat lands and if you don't have adequate water management on those peat lands, then whenever you have the next strong drought period, there's a greatly enhanced risk of fire.

37:18That was Pete Land expert, Professor Susan Page. Now, 2% to explore the planet Mercury have detached from the spacecraft, which has carried them from Earth, carried them since lift off in 2018. That's almost eight years ago. Susie Imbert is Professor of Planetary Science also from Lester University in the UK. She's on the team that built an instrument on board one of the two spacecraft and she told NewsHour what that instrument will measure and first about that epic journey. Mercury is incredibly difficult to get to much harder to get to Mercury than the outer solar system, actually. And that's because you're sort of falling towards the sun and you want to end up in the same place moving in the same direction as Mercury. So you can be captured by its very weak gravitational field. And that means that you have to do these laps of the solar system, sort of gradually spiraling towards where Mercury is until this moment really over the next few months.

38:18We detached from this transfer module and then gradually we end up in our final orbits around the planet itself is also the incredible radiation environment and the thermal stress on your spacecraft. It's Mercury is incredibly hot. So yeah, those challenges are quite difficult to overcome. But we've built one of the 11 instruments on board the European Space Agency spacecraft and our X-ray spectrometer is going to show us what the surface is made of. So for the first time, we'll get incredible resolution data back as to what Mercury's made of itself. And we'll also be looking at Mercury as a rurer, which we see in X-rays. So we're hoping to get some data back over the next few months that will allow us to begin both of those scientific investigations. Susie Embert, whose Professor of Planetary Science at Leicester University on that mission to Mercury and those instruments. She was part of the team that built one of those on board, one of those projects. You're listening to News Out from the BBC World Service.

39:23This is James Menendez with News Out. Let's return to one of our earliest stories, the death of the great feminist campaign, a glorious Steinem at the age of 92. We contacted her friend, the American Iraqi author, Zayn Absalbi, who co-founded daughters for Earth and also women for women international. Zayn Absent has this message, in tribute. I was a young woman when I first met Gloria Steinem. I had just founded Women for Women International and organization that works with women survivors of wars all over the world. But I also was a woman refugee myself, or an immigrant myself, coming to America from Iraq, a country that had already been destroyed by war and many wars that followed. And I was initially, was of course enchanted at meeting Gloria Steinem, the iconic feminist leader. And over the years, I was not only touched by her support of not only my work publicly, but also of the conversations, the intimate conversations we had over meals and walks,

40:34about what it means to be a feminist from my own culture, being a feminist who is a Muslim, and a believer, and an Arab, and an Iraqi, and a global woman. And what is it to be a feminist who not only works on the outer world and what we want to accomplish in the world, but the importance of working on our inner journey, on our healing as women. That really stayed with me, with Gloria, and as a matter of fact, that is what's the most important thing for her. But perhaps what I will carry on the most in terms of her memory is how an optimist she was. She never dispeared when women lost rights in America or in any other country. She never dispeared at back lashes. She just looked at the light in the middle of the darkness and kept on saying, we can do it. We're not going to give up, we will try of. And it is in that spirit that I shall carry Gloria Steinem's legacy in my heart by emulating that, by keeping the positive optimism, by keeping the work on the inner journey, and knowing as connection with the outer work that we want to do in the world.

41:48And that by knowing that diversity of voices and experiences are critical to our liberation, even when we don't agree with each other. Then up, Salby World, Kathy Spiller was a close collaborator of Gloria Steinem. She's executive editor of Ms. The magazine that Gloria Steinem co-founded back in the early 1970s. How will she remember her? Oh, my goodness. In so many ways, both on a personal level is someone of great generosity and kindness and brilliance. But also, you know, the founding of Ms. magazine was an extraordinary moment in the contemporary feminist movement. And it has made such a difference in so many ways, not only in individual women's lives. Often a woman would pick up or a girl, pick up a copy of Ms. for the first time and begin reading it and think to herself. It turns out I'm not the only one who feels out of place, who feels something isn't right.

42:49I can't understand why I was denied an opportunity for education or for work because of my sex. And her work is continuing to this very day. Ms. magazine is continuing to cover all of the current issues of our times through a feminist lens, which all too often is not in the mainstream media. But people understand how important this coverage is for understanding the world. And she came back to help the magazine out when it ran into trouble, didn't she? She rescued Ms. Magazine so many times and ultimately coming to us in 2001, telling us that she always wanted Ms. to be in a nonprofit feminist movement-oriented organization. And we decided to rise to the challenge, understanding just how important Ms. was to not only the movement but to individual women, not only here in the US but all over the world.

43:53So she stayed with us ever since 2001 in an advisory role, always helping us to figure out when we ran into a roadblock in some way or another, and always agreeing to write or to be interviewed and to help in any way she could really an extraordinary, extraordinary contribution to this movement in addition to the magazine. How comfortable was she being for many a figurehead of the feminist movement, you think? She always pointed to others whenever someone would say, you know, you're the leader. She would say, wait, let me introduce these activists young and old and all over the country and all over the world who are working every day to improve women's lives. And she often said that she wasn't interested in passing her torch. She wanted to use her torch to light other torches. And she did that throughout her life all the way until these last few months, always remembering that she could inspire the kind of organizing that the movement requires going forward.

45:13And as I was saying, she never despaired, you know, knowing that there would be setbacks she fought on and she always encouraged us to view the backlash as, you know, what would happen when we made for progress to think about the progress we had made and then to go on fighting. Yes, because of course some of the gains have been eroded in recent years. I'm thinking of course about abortion rights. I mean, what did she feel about that? Did she stay positive? She stayed positive only because she knew this movement would find a way around the setback, around the restrictions. And indeed, feminists have through the distribution of the abortion pill. In this country, it means that women, even in states that now ban abortion, can gain access. It's not a perfect solution, but it is part way there. And she always, always knew that we ultimately would be included in this constitution here in this country and always championed the equal rights amendment.

46:17That is how ultimately we are going to regain the rights that we have lost. And as we make up that ground, we're going to keep pushing forward as well. And that's just briefly, I mean, is that her legacy, even if it's the occasional step back, it's two steps forward. Absolutely. And never to give up, just never give up because if you do, we stop making forward progress. And she was always willing to march and to rally and to write and to meet and to gather. And that was a tremendous power that she had. Kathy Spiller, executive editor of Merse the magazine, the glorious time co founded in the early 1970s. That just about brings us to the end of this edition of News Adevicate. You can keep up to date with all our latest stories on our website, BBC.com forward slash news. But for me and the rest of the team here in London. Thanks so much for listening. Until the next time. Bye.

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