BBCNEWS — Global Eye
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[00:00:05] Once considered one of the world's most
[00:00:06] World Service, what began as a dangerous countries El
[00:00:09] Salvador has seen violent crime fall
[00:00:12] dramatically. Now on BBC News Global Eye
[00:00:15] asks what lies behind the headlines.
[00:00:40] Hello and welcome to Global Eye from the BBC World
[00:00:43] Service. Each week we
[00:00:46] right, of bring you the best of the world services investigative journalism
[00:00:48] and unmissable reporting from BBC teams around the globe.
[00:00:52] I am Joan Felette and this week we're in
[00:00:55] Brazil.
[00:00:57] The country is deeply divided ahead of an.
[00:01:00] election that pits president Lula against the son of his old rival
[00:01:03] Jaid Bolsonaro who is now serving a 27-year sentence
[00:01:07] for plotting a coup after the last election and she
[00:01:11] has hundreds of thousands of followers, millions of views
[00:01:14] and powerful voice in Brazil's election campaign,
[00:01:17] but the fireal political pundit known as Dona Maria is not
[00:01:21] all that she seems. Also on the program, as Bolsonaro
[00:01:25] Hails El Salvador as a model for how to be tough on gang
[00:01:28] violence will... investigate the crackdown's disputed
[00:01:33] silent, that's what legacy, the murder rate has plumited, but at what
[00:01:35] cost?
[00:01:39] this is the liberdaji avenue right in the heart of São
[00:01:42] Paulo, and every two years it gets very colorful because of all the
[00:01:46] political ads that are put up here ahead of an
[00:01:49] election, and the election we're having in October is
[00:01:52] very big one. brazilians are basically choosing between very
[00:01:56] different views for the country, and this isn't
[00:01:59] important. just for Brazilians, Brazil
[00:02:02] is the biggest economy in Latin America, it's one of the
[00:02:05] largest democracies in the world, and it's home to the
[00:02:09] largest portion of the Amazon Rainforest,
[00:02:12] so what happens here can affect things well beyond the
[00:02:16] country, from climate and trade to the fight
[00:02:19] against international drug
[00:02:21] trafficking.
[00:02:24] Brazil's left-wing president Lula, who is running for re-election, is
[00:02:28] leading in several polls. Among his main proposals are
[00:02:31] expanding social programs and investing in public education and
[00:02:35] healthcare.
[00:02:38] The other leading candidate is right-wing senator Flavio
[00:02:41] Bolsonaro, the son of former president Jaid
[00:02:44] Bolsonaro. He says he will stay true to his father's
[00:02:47] controversial legacy and take tough approach to
[00:02:50] crime. The outcome could have major consequences for the
[00:02:54] country and his father who is currently serving a 27-year
[00:02:57] sentence for plotting the failed coup that. saw his supporters storm
[00:03:01] Brazil's government buildings in 2022, but one of
[00:03:05] the most talked about figures in this election campaign is not
[00:03:08] a candidate at all. for over year now, millions of
[00:03:12] brazilians have been sharing and discussing the views of Dona
[00:03:15] Maria, an elderly black woman who emerged on social
[00:03:18] media and within weeks went viral, but Dona
[00:03:22] Maria doesn't actually exists. my colleague Luis
[00:03:25] Fernando Toledo has been exploring how an AI generated
[00:03:29] avatar... became a prominent voice in Brazil's political debate
[00:03:33] and what that means for the
[00:03:38] so there we started to see that already in election.
[00:03:41] ai generated Brazil's president Lula. ai generated former
[00:03:45] president Jair Bolsonaro. ai-generated voter.
[00:03:48] deep fakes and AI generated videos intended to drive votes or attack
[00:03:52] political candidates are reaching millions of people in this year's
[00:03:55] brazilian elections. quem não apertar já escolheu o lado da extrema direita. se
[00:03:59] você é 22. vai votar nele, clique em todos os botões ao lado. Some
[00:04:03] social media profiles used to promote AI content have millions of
[00:04:06] followers. These are voters who will be choosing the president of Brazil on October
[00:04:10] 4th. I spent four months investigating this market for AI
[00:04:14] generated videos to find out what is driving it and how it's
[00:04:17] influencing this year's general election. This is
[00:04:20] Dona Maria. On social media, she presents herself as noter woman
[00:04:24] outraged by the government of Brazilian President Lula and by ministers
[00:04:28] of Brazil's Supreme Court. compartilha essa verdade agora com todo mundo que
[00:04:32] você conhece, the creator behind the image, which is generated by
[00:04:35] ai is uber driver Daniel,
[00:04:38] daniel says he drew inspiration from his grandmother when creating the
[00:04:42] character, ela tem características assim da minha avó né,
[00:04:45] ela deuu a base de de da criação, desde
[00:04:49] pequeno as coisas certas, as coisas erradas, one of his
[00:04:53] videos received more than 8 million views, at least 12 videos have
[00:04:56] surpassed 1 million views in the most popular video
[00:05:24] "why he believes his videos attract so many views? com um tempo eu fui
[00:05:24] melhorando,
[00:05:29] aprendendo, sabendo mais ou
[00:05:32] menos como que funciona o algoritmo que tipo assuntos que geram revolta
[00:05:35] social, algoritmo ele entrega, entendeu? se você fizer
[00:05:42] um vídeo com falando muita verdade, mas sem aquele toque de de apimentado". ali não entrega, não adianta, o brasileiro tá acostumado a ver
[00:05:45] desgraça na internet, entendeu? daniel said he
[00:05:49] created the AI character as a way to express his political views
[00:05:53] anonymously and earn extra income. i confirmed through court
[00:05:56] records that he did in fact, work as number driver. didn't find
[00:06:00] any evidence that at the time of my reporting he was receiving money from
[00:06:03] politicians. the pages rich led lula workers part in its allies to
[00:06:07] ask Brazil's electoral court to suspend the characters accounts. the
[00:06:11] main page was taken down few weeks later, Danielle did not give
[00:06:15] up, he began using another account which already had more than 100
[00:06:18] thousand followers and started selling courses on how to produce videos with
[00:06:22] AI. he didn't tell me how much money, but his course
[00:06:26] costs 150 ries or 25 lbs and the last
[00:06:30] time i checked it had around 70 active students, this is
[00:06:33] 10,00 raises a month or 1,400 lbs, that is
[00:06:37] six times brazil's minimum wage and three times the average earnings of
[00:06:40] newber driver in real.
[00:06:42] the electoral debate over the political use of AI during the campaign, grill
[00:06:46] and presidential candidate Flavio Bolsonaro, second in the opinion
[00:06:50] polls, used the nevatar of his father, former president Jair
[00:06:53] Bolsonaro at the launch of his campaign, o Brasil tem
[00:06:57] futuru Bolsonaro presidente. That
[00:07:00] same week, other avatars of former president began appearing on
[00:07:04] social media, sometimes asking people to vote for his son,
[00:07:07] sometimes saying fl should not become president. The videos
[00:07:10] received tens of thousands of
[00:07:13] views and likes, but how do they impact the elections? parte das pessoas
[00:07:16] acredita que é verdade, que é uma pessoa de verdade
[00:07:19] e isso mexe mais ainda com os
[00:07:23] sentimentos né, dessa pessoa, ela pode se
[00:07:26] identificar com uma personagem, no caso dona
[00:07:29] Maria, non si dà per affermare che vado a decidere una elezione,
[00:07:32] ma puoi impedire molto alcune campagne,
[00:07:35] soprattutto negli ultimi giorni che è quando devono sorgere lì queste
[00:07:39] denunce, queste questi attacchi di... ultima
[00:07:42] ora:
[00:07:48] Brazil's election is taking place against the backdrop of a long-running battle
[00:07:51] with organized crime. Gangs control territory in some of the
[00:07:55] country's biggest cities and public safety remains a critical
[00:07:59] issue for voters here. Many people are looking beyond Brazil's
[00:08:03] borders to the country of El Salvador in Central America,
[00:08:06] where violent crime has fallen dramatically. For years,
[00:08:10] gangs terrorized the country and it was known. as one of the most dangerous
[00:08:13] places on earth, then a new president came and the numbers
[00:08:17] began to fall sharply, but what lies behind the
[00:08:21] headlines and what has this transformation really
[00:08:24] cost? for BBC Brazil, I travel to El Salvador to
[00:08:28] investigate.
[00:08:37] In this alley, it seemed like
[00:08:39] there were motorcyclists, five dead people. We
[00:08:43] were going to church with my children and suddenly the
[00:08:46] commotion that, oh, another dead person,
[00:08:50] the neighborhood
[00:08:53] there were
[00:09:12] dead people. They would strip the
[00:09:15] wires, make some direct connections and then charge you.
[00:09:18] Oh, they would charge for electricity, the electricity they were going
[00:09:22] to give you, and
[00:09:24] they would charge for water, they would charge for water, for everything they would give you,
[00:09:28] if it was here, they were the owners of all basic services,
[00:09:30] the Barrio 18 and Mara
[00:09:34] Salvatrucha gangs emerged on the streets of Los Angeles in the
[00:09:38] 1980s, founded by young Salvadorans who had
[00:09:41] migrated to the United States in the 1990s after
[00:09:44] a mass deportation of these men, the groups made their way
[00:09:48] to El Salvador. Right and left-wing presidents took
[00:09:52] turns in power, trying different ways to deal with the gangs.
[00:09:55] Meanwhile, they grew stronger and tighten their grip on the
[00:09:59] neighborhoods. We stayed here
[00:10:03] which was one gang, my relatives stayed in Apopa which
[00:10:06] was the opposite, my mom I spent almost 9 years that I could
[00:10:10] only see her like this at the market.
[00:10:14] On November 16, 2009, was my graduation
[00:10:18] and that day we decided with
[00:10:20] my three friends to bathe in the river, the
[00:10:24] river and it was already starting to be a
[00:10:27] boundary point of another
[00:10:31] gang, so to speak, when suddenly three people
[00:10:35] arrived with hoods and and all
[00:10:38] of a sudden, without saying a word, they started telling us to
[00:10:41] kneel down and started
[00:10:44] shooting, I am alive because at that moment
[00:10:47] I occurred to play dead,
[00:10:51] so when I didn't hear anything anymore, I tried to
[00:10:55] arm myself but I couldn't walk
[00:10:57] and one of those bullets hit
[00:11:00] my spinal
[00:11:02] cord,
[00:11:05] leaving me causing paraplegia
[00:11:08] right,
[00:11:11] that is, before I was a young man, a child who
[00:11:14] liked football, who liked to run and suddenly
[00:11:18] because of an act of violence, end up
[00:11:21] using a wheelchair for life. In
[00:11:25] 2010, the war between the gangs reached a new level of
[00:11:29] brutality.
[00:11:39] 17 people were burned alive, anyone who tried escape was shot.
[00:11:43] By 2015, El Salvador had the highest
[00:11:46] homicide rate in the world, setting the stage for
[00:11:50] major shift in the country's
[00:11:52] politics.
[00:12:25] alongside the military. months
[00:12:28] later, buchelli won the power struggle when his political party
[00:12:31] secured more than 2-3irds of the seats in the election to
[00:12:35] renew Congress. five justices were replaced by people
[00:12:39] aligned with Bukeleli. with control of Congress and the
[00:12:42] judiciary, he had a clear path implement the security
[00:12:46] policy that would come to define his government. queda
[00:12:49] aprobado el proyecto de decreto que contienen
[00:12:53] régimen de
[00:12:57] exception initially said to last 30 days, the state of exception
[00:13:01] granted sweeping powers to security forces. it allowed
[00:13:05] police to arrest people without warrants and hold them for
[00:13:08] long periods before formal charges are
[00:13:11] filed. el salvador became the country with the
[00:13:15] highest incarceration rate in the world.
[00:13:18] 2.5% of salvadoran adults are currently
[00:13:21] behind bars. four years later, the st
[00:13:55] 85% of the vote. In
[00:13:58] 2025, Congress changed the constitution to
[00:14:02] allow unlimited reelection. Presidenti
[00:14:04] became a globally prominent figure. So I knew him as
[00:14:08] a very young man, now he's just young man. He's done
[00:14:12] a fantastic job. Mr. President, it's an honor to have you.
[00:14:15] But how have these security policies affected the
[00:14:18] daily lives of other Salvadorans and at
[00:14:22] what cost were they implemented? We began
[00:14:25] looking for answers by meeting with an evangelical pastor who
[00:14:29] was interviewed by the BBC seven years ago,
[00:14:33] freeed from custody into the arms of the church. In
[00:14:37] 2019, the BBC visited Ebenezar Church on
[00:14:40] the outskirts of Sant Salvador to learn about this pastor's work
[00:14:44] with former gang members.
[00:14:48] The church is in Ladina, a neighborhood
[00:14:51] many fear even enter.
[00:15:04] happened to those people, all that ended, that is, everything that refers to
[00:15:08] social insertion eh, for for
[00:15:11] gang members opportunity to
[00:15:14] integrate ended already in 2022 when the state
[00:15:18] of exception begins and the
[00:15:21] policy of the government of... of
[00:15:25] no more gang members in freedom, right, although
[00:15:29] many had purged sentences and already, well, they had already
[00:15:32] served their sentences and that was the requirement to enter here
[00:15:36] included. everything, without
[00:15:38] exception of none, right, that is, everyone
[00:15:41] it's prison,
[00:15:45] under the state of exception, El Salvador increased the prison
[00:15:49] sentence for gang membership to as much as 45
[00:15:52] years, since the courts consider gang membership
[00:15:56] an ongoing offense, people who had already served time
[00:15:59] for other crimes were arrested again,
[00:16:03] now these people left jobs.
[00:16:07] families, their wives, nothing to do with the world of gangs and that
[00:16:11] is one of the very painful things that we observe
[00:16:23] the face, we as family members of innocent
[00:16:27] detained people are demanding an
[00:16:31] answer to the petitions if the state of exception were
[00:16:34] only for gang members who truly
[00:16:37] investigated and then apprehended, we would be
[00:16:40] happy, grateful and this country would be different,
[00:16:44] but here they have gone to apprehend the righteous and the sinner as we say, right,
[00:16:48] and now my daughter is part of the famous and called
[00:16:52] margin of error, margin of error was the expression
[00:16:56] used for innocent people arrested under the state of
[00:16:59] exception, of the roughly 90,000 people
[00:17:02] detained, at least 8,000 have been released for
[00:17:05] lack of evidence, according to
[00:17:15] Here we don't have a supreme court, what we have here is a supreme president of the republic, who is the one who gives
[00:17:18] the orders for everything, Bukele
[00:17:21] believes that he is the one, he manages the country as his own
[00:17:24] company, he here does not allow anyone to oppose him, that
[00:17:28] no one contradicts him, that is
[00:17:31] a dictatorship, but he can still meet and make
[00:17:34] a demonstration, they are new type dictatorships.
[00:17:45] In June 2025, Human Rights lawyer Ruth Lopez, one of the
[00:17:49] best known critics of the Bukeleli government, was arrested.
[00:17:53] Prosecutors accused her of illicit enrichment.
[00:17:56] Lopez denies the allegations and says she is a political
[00:17:59] prisoner. The NGO Cris, where
[00:18:02] she worked, closed its office in El Salvador, mentioning
[00:18:06] risks to it.
[00:18:43] I prefer to be called a dictator than to see how Salvadorans are killed in
[00:18:47] the streets.
[00:18:50] Anna Mercedes Garcia Grandes San was taken by the
[00:18:53] police in 2022. The only
[00:18:56] crime that the prosecutor's office takes is that because he doesn't have a
[00:19:00] degree, he doesn't have a car, he doesn't have a house, he doesn't
[00:19:03] have a wife with children. Imagine everything they put us through is so that.
[00:20:38] and I see my son's photo there that said with a cross and it said
[00:20:41] we regret the death of José Alfredo González
[00:20:44] it said and
[00:20:46] what look at me
[00:21:01] Over more than a month we contacted the government seeking an
[00:21:04] interview with presidenti or another official about the country's
[00:21:07] security policy. After several follow-ups we were told
[00:21:11] it wasn't possible due to scheduling
[00:21:14] conflicts. We also contacted Congress but were
[00:21:18] referred back to the presidency.
[00:21:50] demand their rights because there is a
[00:21:54] regime,
[00:21:57] for me it is not a dictatorship, for me it is freedom, a
[00:22:00] freedom where we Salvadorans can go
[00:22:04] from corner to corner in our country and nothing happens,
[00:22:08] however before we couldn't even leave the neighborhoods,
[00:22:12] but now we live in a free
[00:22:13] country,
[00:22:18] they have the regime? so that we don't speak and stay
[00:22:23] I understand about the regime, and you're not afraid to
[00:22:26] speak, I won't tell you no, it would be
[00:22:30] a lie to tell you I'm not afraid, but at the same
[00:22:33] time my situation gives me
[00:22:35] courage,
[00:22:38] and if my destiny for telling the truth is that they will even
[00:22:42] take me away, well, I lost my son, what else can I give with my
[00:22:46] life?
[00:22:51] After so many decades of turmoil, El Salvador
[00:22:54] hopes to finally leave its violent past
[00:22:58] behind,
[00:23:02] but like a dormant volcano, all
[00:23:04] tensions still lie beneath the surface, and
[00:23:08] no one knows if or when they might erupt
[00:23:12] again.
[00:23:19] Five months ago, BBCI broadcast damning undercover
[00:23:22] footage from a government hospital in Pakistan, footage that showed
[00:23:26] blood contaminated syringes been reused
[00:23:29] on children, someho were just babies. The investigation
[00:23:33] reviewed that more than 300 children had been diagnosed with
[00:23:36] HIV after receiving treatment at this hospital.
[00:23:40] Reporter Gazal Abbasi has an update on this story
[00:23:44] and on the extraordinary impact that the BBC's journalism can
[00:23:47] have.
[00:23:59] Syringes reused, unqualified volunteers on the
[00:24:03] children's ward and viles of blood contaminated medicine being
[00:24:07] injected into child after child. In April
[00:24:10] 2026, BBCI revealed that in less
[00:24:13] than year at least 331 children in the
[00:24:16] city of Donsa were diagnosed with HIV after. receiving
[00:24:20] treatment its government hospital.
[00:24:23] The investigation ran across the BBC World Service, in English,
[00:24:27] in Urdu and many other languages. It was streamed on
[00:24:31] YouTube, appeared on the BBC's website and was watched by more than
[00:24:35] 11 million people on TikTok and Instagram. But in
[00:24:38] Pakistan, the story was just beginning. The first to pick up on the
[00:24:42] BBC's findings were political commentators, but soon
[00:24:45] doctors, celebrities and sporting heroes are speaking out and
[00:24:49] Pakistan. tv news was not far
[00:24:51] behind. Punjab ke ek sarkari aspatal mein
[00:24:55] sangen tibbi gaflat aur medical mall pract. The exposer
[00:24:58] hit the evening bulletins and sparked prime-time discussion on one of the
[00:25:02] country's biggest tv channels. This is
[00:25:05] criminal to say the least. Pakistan's press was calling this a public
[00:25:08] health emergency. An outrage soon reached the country's
[00:25:11] parliament disease
[00:25:14] HIV.
[00:25:17] days later the chief minister of Punjab announced. new disease
[00:25:20] prevention program with the focus on HIV, but that didn't
[00:25:24] stop the scrutiny. the global fund to finance most of
[00:25:27] Pakistan's HIV programs announced it would visit the country
[00:25:31] to examine its handling of HIV. The
[00:25:34] prime minister also intervened ordering new national screening
[00:25:37] program for HIV and hepatitis across all government
[00:25:41] hospitals and confirmed that 60 new specialist HIV
[00:25:44] treatment centers would be set up across the country
[00:25:48] 2027 by
[00:26:02] anywhere in Pakistan. Thanks to the reach and credibility of the BBC
[00:26:08] report and 331 children in rural Punjab
[00:26:12] ignited national conversation in Pakistan, a
[00:26:15] conversation about public health and poor governance, a conversation which
[00:26:19] changed the law and which will surely save children's
[00:26:22] lives. Thanks for joining me in
[00:26:25] Brazil. Global I will be back next week.
[00:26:29] Goodbye.
[00:26:39] 'I've always been fascinated by science since I was
[00:26:42] kid really, it's just such a broad subject.
[00:26:45] Sometimes science story can seem quite abstract, and once I've got my
[00:26:49] head around the story, it's really my job to try and guide the audience
[00:26:53] step by step through it, but it's not just
[00:26:57] about explaining or understanding the difficult
[00:27:00] concepts, it's also about explaining'. why it matters? what
[00:27:03] i want to do was to bring the audience with
[00:27:06] us. the altemis two mission
[00:27:09] was such visseral experience seeing the
[00:27:13] engines fire. it was almost blinding.
[00:27:16] wow, oh my goodness. it
[00:27:20] does feel like we're entering into a new
[00:27:23] era of space exploration, and the artemis 2
[00:27:27] mission is just the start. there's no limit
[00:27:30] to how far science can take us, there is always more to
[00:27:34] discover.
[00:27:39] I just kind of work without fear, because it's fun for me, it's like, if
[00:27:43] I fail, it's no big deal, if something don't work out, I'm not afraid of of
[00:27:47] failure, because to me, I never feel like loser, she could act, she could sing, she
[00:27:50] could write songs, and she was the complete package, to millions across
[00:27:54] the globe, Dolly Partton was a true one off,
[00:27:58] lady who, I truly believe was the
[00:28:01] most belove. human being in the world, fans
[00:28:05] from Nashville, Dolly, we love you to Newcastle have
[00:28:09] been celebrating the star's life. God bless her,
[00:28:12] it feels a little bit like when the queen died, it honestly
[00:28:16] does.
[00:28:19] This is how the world paid its respects to the
[00:28:23] undisputed queen of country. The idea of a
[00:28:26] world without Dolly in it, it just doesn't seem
[00:28:29] real.
[00:28:32] down to Dollywood, you'll have fun and we'll treat you good, so come on down
[00:28:36] to Dollywood, it's better on
[00:28:37] fast,
[00:28:43] I was here at the very first protest the corporate chanter party had organized
[00:28:47] about a month ago, and this is so much bigger, we've been
[00:28:51] driving towards the sight of this wildfire, but we've just stopped at the
[00:28:54] side of the road here because of what we saw out the window, Spain is still
[00:28:58] burning, this man has been pulled out successfully, it's taken up.
[00:29:02] mammot rescue effort, these young rebels are
[00:29:06] heading back to the front line to perform,
[00:29:09] there's a hunter base there, which these
[00:29:12] men have been trying to take two years now, from the
[00:29:16] entrance of the pub this morning, you get very little sense of the
[00:29:19] terrible scenes that were witnessed here last night, there when
[00:29:23] the story breaks, bbc
[00:29:25] news, here at bbc verify, we use forensic
[00:29:29] investigative techniques and tools to fact check stories, verify
[00:29:32] information and counter disinformation. Using data
[00:29:35] analysis and the latest technology, our journalists examine the evidence and get
[00:29:39] to the facts. Watch our BBC Verifier reports on the BBC news channel or go
[00:29:43] online to find out more.
[00:30:07] live from London. This is BBC News. Ed Shieran
[00:30:10] apologizes for what he calls mistakes as he
[00:30:13] returns to the stage for the first time since the rapper McLamor was dropped
[00:30:17] from his US tour over pro-Palestinian
[00:30:20] remarks. What is happening in Gaza is
[00:30:24] catastrophic and unjustifiable and
[00:30:27] disproportionate. My heart has been broken by the scale of
[00:30:30] devastation and loss and of civilians lives, of
[00:30:34] children's lives.
[00:30:37] President Trump says he will form an AI force and
[00:30:40] appoint new advisor to oversee the
[00:30:43] industry. Voters head to the polls in two German
[00:30:46] states as chancellor Friedrich Merts faces growing political
[00:30:50] pressure. And Scotland's efforts to tackle
[00:30:53] Europe's worst drug death rate or challenged by hundreds of
[00:30:57] powerful new synthetic substances.