Transcript for Protests continue after Georgia parliament approves controversial 'foreign agent' law

SPEAKER_29

00:00 - 00:12

Hello, this is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service with reports and analysis from across the world, the latest news seven days a week. BBC World Service podcasts are supported by advertising.

SPEAKER_24

00:25 - 00:46

They have buttery soft cashmars wetter starting at $50. luxurious Italian leather bags and so much more. Plus, Quinn's only worse with factories that use safe ethical and responsible manufacturing. Get the high-end goods you'll love without the high price tag, with Quinn's. Go to Quinn's.com slash style for free shipping and 365 day returns.

SPEAKER_25

00:46 - 01:19

Hey, it's Nora McNerny, host of the Head Start Embracing the Journey. This is season two, and if you're new here, these are real conversations with real people living with chronic migraine. This is a show that creates a little more space for empathy and understanding around asking questions and asking for help. So don't wait, jump into the conversation and learn a little more about life with chronic migraine. Listen to the head start embracing the journey on the iHeart Radio app or wherever you listen to podcasts.

SPEAKER_17

01:19 - 02:00

This is The Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Andrew Pigeon in the early hours of Wednesday the 15th of May these are our main stories. Riot police confront protesters in Georgia after Parliament passes a foreign influence law that opponents fear we use to stifle dissent. The US tells Ukraine more weapons run their way to the front line. Joe Biden accuses China of cheating not competing as he introduces a massive package of trade tariffs. Also in this podcast Donald Trump's legal team has been questioning his former fixer Michael Cohen's credibility as a witness at the ex-president's Hush Money trial in New York.

SPEAKER_07

02:00 - 02:05

And... It's the most important film festival in the world.

SPEAKER_01

02:05 - 02:09

I like when all the stars come to one city.

SPEAKER_17

02:09 - 02:55

The film world gathers in the south of France as the can film festival gets underway. Let's begin this podcast in Georgia. Being clashes between riot police and thousands of protesters in the Capitol to police, after parliament voted through a controversial bill which will force civil society and media organizations to register if they receive foreign funding. Critics are likening the bill to legislation in neighbouring Russia used to stifle dissent and silence criticism of the Kremlin. Thousands of protesters in the capital to Blycee chanted no to the Russian law. The government claims it's necessary to maintain Georgian sovereignty. Random E-tree is into Blycee.

SPEAKER_08

02:55 - 03:55

It's been a dramatic day here in Blycee. Protesters clashed with the police after more than three weeks of demonstrations. E-tree is a fight over Georgia's future. One that takes it to Europe or one that takes it back to Russia. They marched in with a warning against the protestors who have been demonstrating outside Parliament for weeks. Protesters stood defiantly refusing to move away and then violence. All in the name of a contentious law which protestors fear will mark the end of George's democracy. You get a sense now. They're moving more intensely. And the judges are beginning to move. They've been pushed away from the square.

SPEAKER_22

03:55 - 04:00

We will be in the U, we will be in the U, freedom to the judge.

SPEAKER_01

04:00 - 04:09

The judge and people are standing for their rights to make a decision, which is to be against this law. We do not wish it. It is dragging us back into the same hole that we finally pulled out of.

SPEAKER_08

04:11 - 04:22

A similar foreign agent's law exists in Russia, used there to crack down on government's critics. Georgian's worry, the same thing might happen here.

SPEAKER_01

04:22 - 04:28

Earlier, MPs from the governing party passed the law after a debate turned into a rule.

SPEAKER_08

04:40 - 05:28

Authorities defended the bill saying it would help protect Georgia from foreign interference. Critics suspect the government is trying to protect the interests of one man, Bettina Ivanishvili, a billionaire who made his fortune in Russia. These mass protests have been driven by Georgia's youth, standing up to defend the national dream over future in Europe. It's past one AM here, but many of the protesters still remain out in the streets. Earlier visiting European officials addressed the demonstrators and they said that the government refused to meet them, but they expressed support to the Georgian youth who are standing there here and fighting for their European future.

SPEAKER_17

05:29 - 06:09

random entry into BCC and for all the background on what's happening in Georgia this into the latest edition of the global story podcast which looks closely at the mass protests as well as the controversial law which sparked them just look for the global story wherever you get your BBC podcasts Next to Ukraine, you're not alone. That was the US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken's message to Ukraine. Almost four weeks since the US Congress approved $60 billion of military aid against an increasingly intense Russian offensive, but only after months of delays. Speaking in Kiev, Mr. Blinken assured President Vladimir Zelensky that weapons are now on their way to the front line.

SPEAKER_09

06:09 - 06:42

The American people support for Ukraine has been consistent. Over the course of the war, It has never wavered. Americans understand that our support for Ukraine strengthens the security of the United States and our allies. They understand that if Putin achieves his goals here in Ukraine, he won't stop with Ukraine. He'll keep going. For when in history has an autographed and satisfied with carving off just part. or even all of a single country. When has that satisfied Vladimir Putin?

SPEAKER_17

06:42 - 06:55

Although the US weapons are certainly needed, Ukrainian forces are still struggling to cope with a major Russian incursion in the northeast around the city of Harkiv. Our defense correspondent Jonathan Beal is embedded with Ukrainian forces there.

SPEAKER_11

06:58 - 07:41

There was some resistance when Russian troops first crossed the border. Video posted by Ukrainian border guards shows them trying to stop their advance. but there's drone footage too, a Russian troops simply walking across the border unopposed. They've captured more than 50 square miles of Ukrainian territory in a matter of days. Even Ukraine's most senior commanders emit the situation is critical, difficult and tense. People living close to the fighting are still fleeing. Some say the Russians were advancing with the sound of machine gunfire getting closer. Yana had already packed all her belongings. even before this latest Russian assault.

SPEAKER_05

07:41 - 07:51

Yes, we were ready. Yes, we were ready because all the warnings were just clear that that could happen.

SPEAKER_11

07:51 - 07:54

And do you think the Ukrainian army was ready?

SPEAKER_05

07:54 - 08:07

I don't think so. I don't think so. I think that they were ready that Russians could come, but our line of defense is not ready.

SPEAKER_11

08:08 - 08:33

This is the second time that Russian forces have entered Harkiv region. They've already left several villages and towns in ruins, and they're doing the same again. Ukraine pushed the Russians back in an offensive in 2022. But this time they've been starved of ammunition. Ukraine's limited resources are stretched, and President Putin's forces are making advances across the entire front.

SPEAKER_17

08:34 - 09:24

Art Defense correspondent Jonathan Beale with Ukrainian forces in Harkiv. Lawyers for Donald Trump being crossed examining his former Fixer Michael Cohen at the ex-presidents Hushmani trial in New York. Donald Trump has pleaded not guilty to falsifying business records and denies having a sexual encounter with the adult film actor Stormy Daniels. Speaking to reporters as he left court, Mr Trump gave his assessment of the day's proceedings. Michael Cohen was giving evidence for a second day and faced tough questioning from Mr. Trump's defense lawyers who sought to undermine his testimony. Our correspondent at the trial in New York is John Sudworth.

SPEAKER_04

09:25 - 10:01

In terms of that attack on his integrity, the prosecution tried to get their retaliation in early. They had Mr Cohen admit on the stand that he was, indeed, prone to having told lies that he was himself convicted and disgraced by in 2018 that he had fallen out with Mr Trump. But they were very careful in doing all that to make it clear in Mr Cohen's own words, that when he was lying, when he was doing those things, when he was engaged in criminal conduct, it was almost all at the best and under the instructions of his boss.

SPEAKER_17

10:01 - 10:11

So preacher Matt again called, one thing that I spotted today was that Dodd Trump seems to have quite an entourage with him as some of his Republican allies. It's what's that all about?

SPEAKER_04

10:11 - 11:41

Well, it's not the first time that we've had political supporters of Mr Trump turn up here at the court, but it was significant today because amongst the governors and the senators, there was also the speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, of course, a very senior political figure in America. Basically, here to support Donald Trump, But in doing so, making some pretty strident statements, he said, for example, that nobody should believe a word that Michael Cohen says on the stand. He called this a corrupt trial. He attacked the judge's daughter. All the things, of course, Andrew, that Donald Trump is prohibited himself from doing under the gag order. And, you know, looking at this, you can say of course that there are legitimate legal discussions, debates, as there always are high profile criminal trials over the merits of the case, the likelihood of its success, whether or not this case should be brought. But that is entirely different from the charge that this is a case that is brought. politically motivated backed by the Biden administration. There is absolutely no evidence for that claim, and some people will say that having senior Republican figures, people who hold a constitutional position here in making that claim is dangerous. It undermines American democracy, and there is of course a certain irony in that they are doing it in support of a man who himself is accused of having tried to illegitimately disrupt a legitimate transfer of power back in 2021, undermining democracy

SPEAKER_17

11:42 - 11:46

and does it feel like a serious legal proceeding or does it feel like a circus?

SPEAKER_04

11:46 - 12:17

Well there are two different trials taking place here and we're the one inside the court which is absolutely a serious legal proceedings and the proper evidential rules under the careful watch of a trial judge with a jury taking notes and a lot at stake outside of the court it is a different matter and it is clear that Donald Trump is determined not only to fight this in court but to fight it as he always does in the court of public opinion too and you know that on to rise we saw today the presence of Mike Johnston is all part of that bigger strategy

SPEAKER_17

12:18 - 12:46

John Sudworth with me from New York. When he was American President, Mr. Trump imposed steep tariffs on imports from China. Today, President Biden seems to be in agreement with his predecessor. He's not only keeping the tariffs from the Trump presidency, but bringing in far more. Mr. Biden accused China of unfairly pouring state subsidies into its industries, which make far too much and then flood international markets driving U.S. companies out of business. He announced the new tariffs at the White House.

SPEAKER_00

12:47 - 13:11

That's why today I'm announcing new tariffs and key sectors of the economy that are going to ensure that our workers are not held back by unfair trade practices. Twenty-five percent tariff on Chinese steel and aluminum products. A one hundred percent tariff on electric vehicles made in China. People say, wow, four percent from the United Twenty-five percent tariff on electric vehicle batteries from China. I'm determined that the future electric vehicles will be made in America.

SPEAKER_17

13:12 - 13:25

food being fairly executive vice president and secretary general of the Chinese Association of Autumn and Bill Manifantris, said Mr Biden wasn't just punishing China but also American consumers.

SPEAKER_03

13:25 - 13:38

The United States wants to impose tariffs on Chinese new energy vehicles, which is a typical example of trade protectionism which can only do harm, hurting businesses and consumers on both sides.

SPEAKER_17

13:38 - 13:41

I found out more from our North America business correspondent Erin Delmore.

SPEAKER_22

13:42 - 14:37

We're talking about tariffs hikes on $18 billion worth of imports from China. Some of these are existing and increased, but they're all focusing on the key industries that power the green transition. It's been a real cornerstone for the Biden administration, even going back as far as the inflation reduction act. These clean energy sectors looking to invest in them and to grow those sectors in those jobs in America. So we're looking at a 100% tariff on Chinese-made EVs. that are imported into the US up from 25%. A doubling of the tariff on solar cells to 50%. And a doubling of the tariff on semiconductors to 50%. We hear about semiconductors all the time. They're one of the hottest ticket items in tech today. So President Biden's administration says that these are designed to protect US manufacturers from being undercut by China. You went to the podium today at the White House talking about how important this is for protecting American jobs. And there's a real business, global, and also political imperative here.

SPEAKER_17

14:37 - 14:42

Now, China have come up with a sort of slightly cross-selling response today. What can they actually do?

SPEAKER_22

14:42 - 15:25

So, we are looking to see if there will be a response. And there is likely to be one. But when you flush this out step by step, you know, you start to ask whether we could start to see a tit-for-tat escalation. And remember, this has been going on for a long time. We all remember the President Trump era, steel and aluminum tariffs. And in fact, this Biden administration plan was born out of a review of those tariffs. So out of the $18 billion of imports, it strikes me that there's less than 5%. The ones targeted, I mean, are less than 5% of our total imports from China. And so the numbers themselves are a bit smaller than you might anticipate, especially from how big this announcement has been from the White House, that I expect to be an important factor in how China responds.

SPEAKER_17

15:26 - 15:37

The context of something you're so interesting, everything through the prism of the election coming up in November. We're going to get many months now of Trump and Biden tearing lumps out of each other and saying they hate each other. On this, they literally agree about every detail, aren't they?

SPEAKER_22

15:37 - 16:07

Close, yeah. And in fact, you know, this is something the president Trump came out and said he was talking about. a 60% or higher tariff across the board on imports from China. You know, when you look at the polling and I often dig into this from the Pew Research Center and others, you can see that being tough on Beijing is broadly popular among Democrats and Republicans. And we can't say that about a lot of things in American culture today. So I think both presidents know that this could do something especially in swing states to pump up their numbers come the election.

SPEAKER_17

16:07 - 16:33

Aaron Delmore with me. A new study has found the summer of 2023 was the warmest in the Northern Hemisphere in 2000 years. Researchers in Britain and Germany say temperatures last June, July and August were nearly 4 degrees Celsius warmer than the coolest summer in that period. They say global warming combined with the El Nino climate pattern made last year an exceptional event. Here's our environment correspondent Matt McGraw.

SPEAKER_15

16:33 - 17:13

One of the big challenges for climate scientists is trying to understand just how hot current temperatures are compared with the historical record. Reliable global data from thermometers exists only from around 1850. Going back further requires the use of indirect temperature measures such as tree rings, which record information about the state of the climate for each year that they grow. This study used ones that grew at high altitudes, such as the European Alps and the Russian Altaimountains. Professor Al-Bunchen from the University of Cambridge is one of the study's co-authors. He explained why the location of the trees was important.

SPEAKER_12

17:13 - 17:31

These are sides where tree grows is predominantly controlled by summer temperature. So, smart changes In a warmer or cooler summer, at these extreme sites, reflected in the different tree ring parameters. So how wide is the ring? How narrow is the ring?

SPEAKER_15

17:31 - 18:09

Having built an accurate annual picture of past summer temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere, the researchers were able to show that several years were cooled by sulfur and aerosols emitted from large-scale volcanic eruptions. The summer of the year 536 was almost four degrees cooler than 2023. The main takeaway is that last June, July and August, were more than two degrees warmer than the average over almost two millennia. This is due to climate change driven by humans, with some help from the El NiƱo weather phenomenon. There is such a hope that this greater clarity over climate past will prompt political leaders to do much more about climate present.

SPEAKER_17

18:14 - 18:15

and still to come in this podcast.

SPEAKER_27

18:15 - 18:26

But I think in complexities of life, you can hardly apply the words optimistic or pessimistic or happier on happy to them. They just seem to be terribly interesting.

SPEAKER_17

18:26 - 18:31

And let's one row the first Canadian to win the Nobel Prize for Literature has died at the age of 92.

SPEAKER_06

18:31 - 18:41

It's that time of the year.

SPEAKER_26

18:41 - 19:06

Your vacation is coming up You can already hear the beach waves, feel the warm breeze, relax and think about work. You really, really want it all to work out while you're away. Monday.com gives you a team that piece of mind. When all work is on one platform and everyone's in sync, things just flow. Wherever you are, tap the banner to go to Monday.com.

SPEAKER_28

19:09 - 19:38

Many of us have those stubborn pounds that seem impossible to lose, no matter how good we eat or how hard we work out. My solution is plushcare. Plushcare is a leading telehealth provider, with doctors who are there for you day and night, to partner with you in your weight loss journey. They can prescribe FDA-approved weight loss medications like Wagovi and Zepound for those who qualify. Plus, they accept most insurance plans. To get started, visit plushcare.com-weight loss. That's plushcare.com-weight loss.

SPEAKER_17

19:45 - 20:13

The Hollywood actor, Meryl Streep, has been awarded an honorary palm door of the opening ceremony at this year's Cannes Film Festival. Presenting the prize, the French stars Yuvia Penash, Thomas Streep, she changed the way we look at women. This year's film festival is being held against backdrop of a me two reckoning in France, so on the country's biggest film stars have published an open letter calling for a new law to crack down on systemic sexism and gender-based violence, from Can His Tom Brook.

SPEAKER_16

20:13 - 20:24

The French Riviera has been a buzzer as the world's biggest and arguably most prestigious film festival gets underway. Outside the Palais de Festival in Can where films are shown, tourists and movie fans gather.

SPEAKER_07

20:25 - 20:29

It's the most important film festival in the world.

SPEAKER_01

20:29 - 20:32

I like when all stars come to one city.

SPEAKER_16

20:34 - 22:56

But there's been uncertainty in the air it can this year with a threatens strike by behind the scenes workers including projectionists and ticket sellers. And there's also massive chatter about a possible Me2 protest in which a French website may reveal the names of significant figures in the French film industry and their alleged military transgressions. The festival is trying to keep the focus on move it. One of the more eagerly awaited films in competition this year is Megalopolis from legendary 85-year-old U.S. director Francis Ford Coppola. It's a sci-fi drama set in a city that resembles New York, with Adam Driver playing an architect who believes he can stop time. But during the 12 day festival can exist as a world apart, a film lovers paradise packed with screenings and blitzy events. But the harsh realities of the outside world won't be kept at bay this year, because they'll be evident in several festival films. an air raid siren in cleave can be heard in a funeral scene in the haunting can documentary called the invasion. It comes in one of Ukraine's foremost filmmakers, Sergei Lesnitzer. It's a mammoth work involving a series of carefully composed extended sequences showing life in Ukraine since the invasion. And the Israel guards are conflict will no doubt colour how festival guards perceive the can film the bell from Gaza, a documentary in which transgender women and all from Palestinian families are seen on the streets of Tel Aviv discussing their lives. And while former President Donald Trump sits in a New York courtroom 4,000 miles from Can, one of the bigger attractions at the festival will be the apprentice of film portraying him in his younger years as a rising force in the New York real estate world. Can has a neck for recognizing great cinema. Last year the French legal drama Anatomy of a Fall and the British Polish Holocaust era picture the Zone of Interest were both launched at Can where they would give and prizes. They went on to win critical acclaim around the world and Academy Awards. So what we may be witnessing here in Can next few days is the emergence of early contenders in next year's Oscar's race.

SPEAKER_17

22:57 - 23:18

In northern France, two prison officers had been killed as an inmate was freed by a heavily armed gang, as he was being transported back to jail. The man who was freed, Mohammed Amra, is believed to have links to a criminal gang. A huge search involving hundreds of police officers is still underway. The French Prime Minister Gabriel Atal says the group will be brought to justice.

SPEAKER_10

23:21 - 23:39

Everyone will be done to find the perpetrators of this despicable crime. We will spare no effort, no means. We will track them down. We will find them and they will pay. We owe it to the victims. We owe it to their families and loved ones. We owe it to all members of the prison administration. We owe it to all French people.

SPEAKER_17

23:40 - 23:45

I correspond and he's go field is following developments and spoke to my colleague, Sean Lay.

SPEAKER_13

23:45 - 24:29

This is shocked that the nation at the government has determined that every resource should be thrown at the tracking down of these men. It means that there are hundreds of officers out there, you'll end up in police in the area. and beyond now and there'll be some on the ground with many others I'm sure pouring over the various bits of intelligence which are going to be coming in and from analysis of the scene and so on. You know, once a spec that eventually they'll be cornered but who knows where they had a good advance and they zoomed away in cars that the vehicles were left behind so there are in other cars which won't be necessarily known to the police. It's a big operation because the country and the government are particularly appalled by the savagery of the attack and the one-ton violence and the willingness to take lives which accompany you.

SPEAKER_14

24:29 - 24:33

You're at the scene and there's signs of just how violent this was.

SPEAKER_13

24:33 - 24:48

Clearly the police are there and I've been pouring over the detail and the forensic detail they can get from the scene. I couldn't see enough because we were kept well back to see traces of blood or anything like that but it was all that had all been clearly

SPEAKER_14

24:48 - 24:56

We're clearly five of these these fatalities. And what do we know about the prisoner who has escaped the man who was being freed?

SPEAKER_13

24:56 - 25:40

There's an awful lot to being speculated about him. One of the things that's been said is why such an enormous professional criminal job to rescue a man who would buy all accounts all to all appearances was only a kind of medium-sized fish. In the criminal pond, clearly he had the long criminal record, but if it's sort of middle-ranking things like theft mainly, he was involved possibly in a murder than in Marseille, but that hasn't been convicted of that. The speculation is that he was rather bigger fish than people maybe realized, or maybe the authorities realized, than that from his cell, because he's been in jail a lot, and he was in jail. He'd been operating systems and networks from his cell.

SPEAKER_17

25:40 - 26:00

A correspondent, he's go field. Elections to the European Parliament are now just a few weeks away with immigration, the economy and environmental measures topping the agenda. A Borschen rights campaign is say women's health issues aren't getting sufficient attention. A Europe correspondent Jessica Parker has this report from the German City of Hamburg.

SPEAKER_21

26:03 - 26:21

Adriana Behran volunteers to help improve abortion access after having won herself five years ago. She and a fellow campaigner are talking about information leaflets. In Germany, abortions are, in reality, permitted during early pregnancy, but remain technically illegal.

SPEAKER_19

26:21 - 26:47

When I read the penalty law, it really crushed me because it really says you still criminal when you decided to have an abortion. You can do it until 12 weeks without being actually punished, but you still kind of a criminal. And also the law is written like that. They try to force you to think about it and to keep the pregnancy. So they're really pushing you into one direction.

SPEAKER_20

26:47 - 26:57

Do you think this issue women's health issues have a prominent enough place in public debate? Of course not.

SPEAKER_19

26:57 - 27:08

Women's issue are most of the time not like the main priority. I really prefer if we had like an EU law that ensures that everyone has access to safe abortion.

SPEAKER_21

27:11 - 27:57

In central Hamburg, people relax in the sun, sipping coffees. Even in wealthy liberal cities like this, campaigners say women face barriers to abortion. While access across Europe can significantly vary, from France where abortions have become a constitutional right to almost totally legality in Poland and Malta. abortion laws are set by member states, but a majority of EU lawmakers in the last parliament called for access to be guaranteed across the block. It's a prime example of how some often more in the centre or left of politics see the EU as an engine for social change while others often more to the right. Belief Brussels is already too interfering.

SPEAKER_02

27:59 - 28:03

They're overstabbing their competencies because that's not really their business.

SPEAKER_21

28:03 - 28:18

In Hamburg, Park, I meet Cornelia Kaminski. She leads a group called Action Right to Life for All, that campaigns against abortion. While the EU Parliament's vote was largely symbolic, she warns against EU over each.

SPEAKER_02

28:18 - 28:49

up to the nations to say whether they want to have this of a particular abortion law and the EU shouldn't deal with that. They've done that with other things. They try to interfere with nations sovereignty and I think they shouldn't push the nations too far. We've seen what happens if they do that and when people pick up on those ideas in particular countries you saw that in the UK and they play it well then people might turn away on a larger scale from the European Union and that's not a good idea.

SPEAKER_21

28:49 - 28:57

And a law professor at Hamburg University, Marion Albers believes any EU wide change is a distant prospect.

SPEAKER_31

28:57 - 29:08

I think members that focus very much on having competencies in criminal law and especially in this sensitive areas of abortion

SPEAKER_21

29:08 - 29:32

I'm standing on a street in Western Hamburg and look you can certainly tell. But EU elections are just around the corner, there are campaign placards up all over the place. And if, as some polls predict, there's a right would shift in this election, that could diminish calls for embedding abortion rights, as parties push starkly different visions of how far the EU should reach into people's lives.

SPEAKER_17

29:34 - 29:47

Jessica Parker reporting, flooding in southern Brazil has continued to worsen after three more days of heavy rain. 148 people are known to have died across Rio Grande de Sol State. Here's Leonardo Roscia.

SPEAKER_32

29:47 - 30:26

After the heavy rain of the previous two weeks stopped on Friday, some of the 600,000 people who had been forced to leave their homes returned to clean up. But the lull didn't last. Fresh storms hit the hills outside the state capital Portoileglie, causing new landslides and flooding. What are levels on the Guayuba River, which passes through the city, have been rising again. Then now expected to reach a new record high. Many areas of Porto Allegri are city of 1.4 million people remain underwater and without power. This is the worst natural disaster in the history of Rio Grande do Sul Brazil's southernmostate.

SPEAKER_17

30:27 - 30:47

Canada's first ever winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature Alice Monroe has died at the age of 92. She got the award in 2013 for her ability to master the notoriously difficult art of the short story, which she only started writing because she felt she had none of the time nor the talent to perfect novels. Vincent Dowd looks back at her career.

SPEAKER_18

30:48 - 31:33

Alice Monroe was born in the small town of Wingham, Ontario, and she spent much of her life in Ontario, which supplied the characters she wrote about with insight. Her subjects, ambition and failure, and the comedy of human existence, rang true with readers well beyond her own country. Her books of stories led some to call her Canada's check-off. The first collection came in 1968, five years before that, she and her first husband had opened a bookstore in British Columbia called Monroe's Books, as a writer more than a dozen collections of fiction followed. And in 2009, she was awarded the Man Booker International Prize. Four years later, came a bigger award.

SPEAKER_23

31:33 - 31:43

The Nobel Prize at the Literature, or Shugo 113, on Tildelas, then Canada Ansiska for Fattar and Alice Monroe.

SPEAKER_18

31:43 - 31:55

The Nobel citation described her simply as a master of the short story. Alice Monroe once said in an interview that as she grew older, her view of life became less gloomy.

SPEAKER_27

31:56 - 32:23

I think it's terribly easy when you're young to be very tragic about everything, perhaps very pessimistic and to feel that this really marks your maturity. That's been leaving me in the last few books. So I think some fairly happy things happen. I think the thing is now that I think in complexities of life, you can hardly apply the words optimistic or pessimistic or happy or unhappy to them. They just seem to me terribly interesting.

SPEAKER_18

32:23 - 32:37

Alice Monroe said the starting point of a story was normally a small incident in real life. She said she'd found the first 20 years of her life difficult. What came later had been much easier.

SPEAKER_17

32:42 - 33:04

And that's all from us for now. There will be a new edition of Global News to download later. If you'd like to comment on this edition, drop us an email. It's global podcast at bbc.co.uk or on x. We are at global news pod. This edition was mixed by Nick Randell. The producer was Stephanie Tillettson. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Andrew Page. Thanks for listening and until next time. Goodbye.

SPEAKER_25

33:14 - 33:43

Hey, it's Nora McNerny, host of the Head Start Embracing the Journey. This is season two, and if you're new here, these are real conversations with real people living with chronic migraine. This is a show that creates a little more space for empathy and understanding around asking questions and asking for help. So don't wait, jump into the conversation, and learn a little more about life with chronic migraine. Listen to the Head Start Embracing the Journey on the iHeart Radio app, or wherever you listen to podcasts.