Latest / The Rest of the World Podcast / The Rest of the World Report | September 30, 2026 — Evening Edition

Transcript

The Rest of the World Report | September 30, 2026 — Evening Edition · The Rest of the World Podcast

• 0:00
  [music]
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Good evening from Paris.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Rudy Martinez with The Rest of the World Report for Wednesday evening, September 30th.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Fly Dubai flight FZ1073 left Dubai for Tel Aviv at 0305 UTC on Wednesday.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Just past 0520, air traffic controllers watched its altitude swing wildly.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: A drop of more than 14,000 feet in under 30 seconds, then a climb.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: At 0528, the crew transmitted code 7700, the General Emergency.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Seven minutes later, the code changed to 7500.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Unlawful interference.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: The aircraft turned toward Saudi Arabia and landed
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  SPEAKER_00: at Tabuk's Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz International Airport at 0645 UTC.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: What happened in the cockpit during those 80 minutes is only partly confirmed.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Captain Smit Machar, an Indian national, was stabbed by his co-pilot.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Wounded,
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  SPEAKER_00: Machar managed to open the cockpit door,
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: letting passengers and crew overpower his attacker.
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  SPEAKER_00: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called him a true hero.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: The co-pilot's identity is less settled.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: An unnamed Israeli official described him as an Omani national,
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  SPEAKER_00: a detail that has not been independently confirmed.
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  SPEAKER_00: Israel's defense minister,
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  SPEAKER_00: Yisrael Katz,
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  SPEAKER_00: went further, calling the incident an attempted jihadist terrorist attack.
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  SPEAKER_00: There has been no independent confirmation of a hijacking attempt.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Passengers restrained the co-pilot once he was overpowered.
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  SPEAKER_00: He was arrested on landing.
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  SPEAKER_00: All 174 people survived.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Fly Dubai itself declined to characterize the incident,
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  SPEAKER_00: saying the reasons and motives behind it are unknown and remain subject to
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: a formal investigation.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: The airline asked all parties to refrain from speculating.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Netanyahu met arriving passengers personally at Tel Aviv's airport.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid called the reception cheap politics a reference
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: to Israel's approaching election.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: Translator's note.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Israel's government assigned the incident an ideological motive within hours,
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: before an investigation in Saudi custody had produced findings.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: The airline itself refused to.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Al Jazeera's coverage draws that contrast plainly.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: The hero pilot framing alone doesn't carry the gap between
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: an official characterization and one that remains unconfirmed.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: What American readers need to know.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: A flight full of dozens of Israeli citizens nearly went down over the Gulf today.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: The pilot, who stopped it, is being celebrated correctly.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: But the identity and motive of the man accused of trying to crash it are not established facts.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: They are claims from one Israeli official repeated by Israeli political leaders in
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: the language of terrorism.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Saudi investigators who have custody of the case have said nothing publicly.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: Those are two different categories of fact and American coverage built entirely on
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: the hero narrative risks collapsing them into one.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: The Pentagon confirmed Wednesday that the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq is complete.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Ending a military presence that began with the 2003 invasion.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: The last troops left an airbase in the Kurdish north.
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  SPEAKER_00: Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell called it a transition from
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  SPEAKER_00: a wartime coalition mission to an Iraqi-led security effort.
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  SPEAKER_00: Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi framed the departure as the start of
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: a new phase built on Iraqi sovereignty.
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  SPEAKER_00: He committed to continuing operations against ISIS remnants and
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  SPEAKER_00: to disarming armed groups outside state control by mid-2027.
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  SPEAKER_00: Iran-backed Kata'ib Hezbollah,
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  SPEAKER_00: one of the most powerful of those groups,
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  SPEAKER_00: celebrated the exit as the beginning of full sovereignty.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: It warned al-Zaidi's government against pursuing what it called American policies.
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  SPEAKER_00: As of early September, five militia factions had refused to disarm at all, according to Ruddow.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Some had added demands of their own,
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  SPEAKER_00: including removing Turkish forces from Iraqi soil and dissolving
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  SPEAKER_00: the Kurdish Peshmerga.
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  SPEAKER_00: It is not confirmed whether that standoff has changed in the three weeks since.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: Kurdistan's regional government is the most exposed party in the handoff.
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  SPEAKER_00: Its Peshmerga Ministry says the region absorbed more than 1,000 drones
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  SPEAKER_00: and ballistic missile attacks during the recent U.S.-Iran conflict.
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  SPEAKER_00: The U.S. Patriot batteries that helped defend it have been relocated to Jordan.
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  SPEAKER_00: British air defenses have moved to Cyprus.
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  SPEAKER_00: Nothing is replacing them at Erbil's airport.
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  SPEAKER_00: What the 23 years actually cost and built is measurable on its own terms.
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  SPEAKER_00: The documented civilian death toll from the violence since the 2003 invasion stands
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  SPEAKER_00: at 200,065 to 226,628.
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  SPEAKER_00: Nearly 4,500 American service members died over the same period.
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  SPEAKER_00: For comparison,
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  SPEAKER_00: the death toll of the Anfal campaign alone,
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  SPEAKER_00: Saddam Hussein's 1988 assault on the Kurdish north, is put at 50 to 100,000.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Kurdish officials have cited figures as high as 182,000,
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  SPEAKER_00: a number Ali Hassan al-Majid himself disputed under oath.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: Iraq's GDP per capita in constant $2010 was $2,250 in 2003.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: It was $4,005 in 2025.
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  SPEAKER_00: Electricity generation has grown fivefold in absolute terms from
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: an actual daily output of roughly 4,000 megawatts in 2002 to about 21 gigawatts
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  SPEAKER_00: of available capacity today.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: But demand has outgrown supply just as fast.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Iraq's minister,
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  SPEAKER_00: Translators note,
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  SPEAKER_00: The Pentagon's own language,
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  SPEAKER_00: a successfully defeated ISIS and an orderly handoff,
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: is close to the only framing most American coverage offers.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Ruddow, reporting from the Kurdistan region,
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  SPEAKER_00: frames the withdrawal almost entirely around what protection is being removed.
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  SPEAKER_00: Rather than what sovereignty is being restored,
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: describing Patriot batteries and UK air defenses leaving Erbil exposed
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: with nothing replacing them.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: That is not the framing the Pentagon is using for the same handoff.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: What American readers need to know,
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: the war that started in 2003 formally ended today by
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  SPEAKER_00: the only measure Washington controls, the last soldier left.
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  SPEAKER_00: Whether Iraqis are better off than if it had never happened is not a question with
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: a settled answer.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: This report can't settle it either.
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  SPEAKER_00: The casualty figures are large and disputed depending on whose count you use.
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  SPEAKER_00: The economy is bigger than it was.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: The electricity grid is bigger than it was and still can't keep the lights on.
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  SPEAKER_00: Iran-backed militias that fought against American troops for years are now
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  SPEAKER_00: the ones deciding whether Iraq's government can actually govern.
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  SPEAKER_00: Those are the facts.
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  SPEAKER_00: What they add up to depends on what you're measuring.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: Russia launched one of its largest bombardments of Ukraine
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  SPEAKER_00: in months overnight Tuesday into Wednesday.
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  SPEAKER_00: It fired roughly 188 Shahed-type strike drones toward Kiev and beyond.
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  SPEAKER_00: 86 of them were jet-powered.
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  SPEAKER_00: Iskander M and S 400 ballistic missiles came with them along with Zircon
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: and Onyx cruise missiles.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: Five people were killed across Ukraine, including a child.
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  SPEAKER_00: Two women died in Kiev.
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  SPEAKER_00: At least 14 people were injured nationwide.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: Ukrainian air defenses shot down or neutralized 160 of the incoming targets,
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  SPEAKER_00: including five ballistic missiles and 155 drones, but not all of them.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: Strikes hit residential buildings,
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  SPEAKER_00: a grocery store,
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  SPEAKER_00: warehouses,
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  SPEAKER_00: and grounds near an embassy in Kiev's Shevchankivsky district,
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  SPEAKER_00: along with targets in Sumy, Zaporizhzhia, and Odessa.
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  SPEAKER_00: It was a difficult barrage,
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  SPEAKER_00: Zelensky said,
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  SPEAKER_00: citing nearly 190 attack drones and ballistic missiles aimed at
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  SPEAKER_00: the capital's energy infrastructure.
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  SPEAKER_00: What American readers need to know.
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  SPEAKER_00: This is a larger,
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  SPEAKER_00: more coordinated strike than the drone attacks on Kiev's National Academy
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: of Sciences and a medical center reported earlier this week.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: Energy infrastructure hit deliberately as winter approaches is the target
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  SPEAKER_00: that matters most for how many Ukrainians get through the cold months with heat
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: and power.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: Krista Gale Pike was scheduled to die by lethal injection at 10 a.m. Wednesday.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals stayed her execution roughly an hour
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  SPEAKER_00: before it was set to happen in a two-to-one ruling.
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  SPEAKER_00: Judge Jane Stranch wrote that the case required a short stay of execution to allow
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: the court to properly weigh her claims.
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  SPEAKER_00: Judge Richard Griffin dissented.
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  SPEAKER_00: Neither Tennessee Governor Bill Lee nor the U.S.
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  SPEAKER_00: Supreme Court had intervened before the appeals court acted on its own.
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  SPEAKER_00: The state has since asked the Supreme Court to lift the stay.
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  SPEAKER_00: Pike's legal team has responded.
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  SPEAKER_00: Pike is the only woman on Tennessee's death row.
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  SPEAKER_00: She tortured and killed Colleen Slemmer,
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  SPEAKER_00: a fellow Job Corps student, in January of 1995 when Pike was 18.
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  SPEAKER_00: She was convicted in 1996.
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  SPEAKER_00: Her boyfriend at the time was 17, too young to face the death penalty.
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  SPEAKER_00: Another woman testified against her.
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  SPEAKER_00: Neither was sentenced to death.
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  SPEAKER_00: Pike's lawyers argue her original trial counsel failed to present the full extent
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  SPEAKER_00: of her childhood trauma.
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  SPEAKER_00: She was sexually abused by her grandmother's boyfriend from ages 2 to 5.
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  SPEAKER_00: A neighbor raped her at 11.
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  SPEAKER_00: She was assaulted again at 17 in North Carolina.
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  SPEAKER_00: Citing that history,
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  SPEAKER_00: Pike asked to be executed by firing squad with an all-female execution team rather
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  SPEAKER_00: than by lethal injection.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: She feared the injection procedure would trigger flashbacks.
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  SPEAKER_00: Her lawyers later proposed hanging as an alternative.
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  SPEAKER_00: They also argued she has small veins and that would make an IV difficult to place.
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  SPEAKER_00: Had it gone forward,
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  SPEAKER_00: the execution would have made Pike the first woman executed in Tennessee in more
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: than 200 years.
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  SPEAKER_00: It would also have made her the only person executed in the modern era for
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: a crime committed at 18.
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  SPEAKER_00: Women have made up just over 1% of executions in the United States since 1976.
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  SPEAKER_00: UN human rights experts have called for her sentence to be commuted,
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  SPEAKER_00: citing her remorse and her age at the time of the crime.
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  SPEAKER_00: What American readers need to know.
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  SPEAKER_00: This is a stay, not a reprieve.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: The underlying claims about her trial counsel still have to be litigated,
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: and nothing has been said yet about Tennessee seeking further review.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: The five methods of execution in use in
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: the United States today All have documented records of failure.
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  SPEAKER_00: Courts have also shifted the burden onto condemned prisoners.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's the prisoner, not the state, who has to identify a less painful alternative.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's the procedural reality behind one woman's request for a firing squad.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's it for tonight's edition of The Rest of the World Report.
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  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for listening.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Rudy Martinez, and I will see you all again in the morning.