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00:00:05Once considered one of the world's most
00:00:06World Service, what began as a dangerous countries El
00:00:09Salvador has seen violent crime fall
00:00:12dramatically. Now on BBC News Global Eye
00:00:15asks what lies behind the headlines.
00:00:40Hello and welcome to Global Eye from the BBC World
00:00:43Service. Each week we
00:00:46right, of bring you the best of the world services investigative journalism
00:00:48and unmissable reporting from BBC teams around the globe.
00:00:52I am Joan Felette and this week we're in
00:00:55Brazil.
00:00:57The country is deeply divided ahead of an.
00:01:00election that pits president Lula against the son of his old rival
00:01:03Jaid Bolsonaro who is now serving a 27-year sentence
00:01:07for plotting a coup after the last election and she
00:01:11has hundreds of thousands of followers, millions of views
00:01:14and powerful voice in Brazil's election campaign,
00:01:17but the fireal political pundit known as Dona Maria is not
00:01:21all that she seems. Also on the program, as Bolsonaro
00:01:25Hails El Salvador as a model for how to be tough on gang
00:01:28violence will... investigate the crackdown's disputed
00:01:33silent, that's what legacy, the murder rate has plumited, but at what
00:01:35cost?
00:01:39this is the liberdaji avenue right in the heart of São
00:01:42Paulo, and every two years it gets very colorful because of all the
00:01:46political ads that are put up here ahead of an
00:01:49election, and the election we're having in October is
00:01:52very big one. brazilians are basically choosing between very
00:01:56different views for the country, and this isn't
00:01:59important. just for Brazilians, Brazil
00:02:02is the biggest economy in Latin America, it's one of the
00:02:05largest democracies in the world, and it's home to the
00:02:09largest portion of the Amazon Rainforest,
00:02:12so what happens here can affect things well beyond the
00:02:16country, from climate and trade to the fight
00:02:19against international drug
00:02:21trafficking.
00:02:24Brazil's left-wing president Lula, who is running for re-election, is
00:02:28leading in several polls. Among his main proposals are
00:02:31expanding social programs and investing in public education and
00:02:35healthcare.
00:02:38The other leading candidate is right-wing senator Flavio
00:02:41Bolsonaro, the son of former president Jaid
00:02:44Bolsonaro. He says he will stay true to his father's
00:02:47controversial legacy and take tough approach to
00:02:50crime. The outcome could have major consequences for the
00:02:54country and his father who is currently serving a 27-year
00:02:57sentence for plotting the failed coup that. saw his supporters storm
00:03:01Brazil's government buildings in 2022, but one of
00:03:05the most talked about figures in this election campaign is not
00:03:08a candidate at all. for over year now, millions of
00:03:12brazilians have been sharing and discussing the views of Dona
00:03:15Maria, an elderly black woman who emerged on social
00:03:18media and within weeks went viral, but Dona
00:03:22Maria doesn't actually exists. my colleague Luis
00:03:25Fernando Toledo has been exploring how an AI generated
00:03:29avatar... became a prominent voice in Brazil's political debate
00:03:33and what that means for the
00:03:38so there we started to see that already in election.
00:03:41ai generated Brazil's president Lula. ai generated former
00:03:45president Jair Bolsonaro. ai-generated voter.
00:03:48deep fakes and AI generated videos intended to drive votes or attack
00:03:52political candidates are reaching millions of people in this year's
00:03:55brazilian elections. quem não apertar já escolheu o lado da extrema direita. se
00:03:59você é 22. vai votar nele, clique em todos os botões ao lado. Some
00:04:03social media profiles used to promote AI content have millions of
00:04:06followers. These are voters who will be choosing the president of Brazil on October
00:04:104th. I spent four months investigating this market for AI
00:04:14generated videos to find out what is driving it and how it's
00:04:17influencing this year's general election. This is
00:04:20Dona Maria. On social media, she presents herself as noter woman
00:04:24outraged by the government of Brazilian President Lula and by ministers
00:04:28of Brazil's Supreme Court. compartilha essa verdade agora com todo mundo que
00:04:32você conhece, the creator behind the image, which is generated by
00:04:35ai is uber driver Daniel,
00:04:38daniel says he drew inspiration from his grandmother when creating the
00:04:42character, ela tem características assim da minha avó né,
00:04:45ela deuu a base de de da criação, desde
00:04:49pequeno as coisas certas, as coisas erradas, one of his
00:04:53videos received more than 8 million views, at least 12 videos have
00:04:56surpassed 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
00:05:24melhorando,
00:05:29aprendendo, sabendo mais ou
00:05:32menos como que funciona o algoritmo que tipo assuntos que geram revolta
00:05:35social, algoritmo ele entrega, entendeu? se você fizer
00:05:42um vídeo com falando muita verdade, mas sem aquele toque de de apimentado". ali não entrega, não adianta, o brasileiro tá acostumado a ver
00:05:45desgraça na internet, entendeu? daniel said he
00:05:49created the AI character as a way to express his political views
00:05:53anonymously and earn extra income. i confirmed through court
00:05:56records that he did in fact, work as number driver. didn't find
00:06:00any evidence that at the time of my reporting he was receiving money from
00:06:03politicians. the pages rich led lula workers part in its allies to
00:06:07ask Brazil's electoral court to suspend the characters accounts. the
00:06:11main page was taken down few weeks later, Danielle did not give
00:06:15up, he began using another account which already had more than 100
00:06:18thousand followers and started selling courses on how to produce videos with
00:06:22AI. he didn't tell me how much money, but his course
00:06:26costs 150 ries or 25 lbs and the last
00:06:30time i checked it had around 70 active students, this is
00:06:3310,00 raises a month or 1,400 lbs, that is
00:06:37six times brazil's minimum wage and three times the average earnings of
00:06:40newber driver in real.
00:06:42the electoral debate over the political use of AI during the campaign, grill
00:06:46and presidential candidate Flavio Bolsonaro, second in the opinion
00:06:50polls, used the nevatar of his father, former president Jair
00:06:53Bolsonaro at the launch of his campaign, o Brasil tem
00:06:57futuru Bolsonaro presidente. That
00:07:00same week, other avatars of former president began appearing on
00:07:04social media, sometimes asking people to vote for his son,
00:07:07sometimes saying fl should not become president. The videos
00:07:10received tens of thousands of
00:07:13views and likes, but how do they impact the elections? parte das pessoas
00:07:16acredita que é verdade, que é uma pessoa de verdade
00:07:19e isso mexe mais ainda com os
00:07:23sentimentos né, dessa pessoa, ela pode se
00:07:26identificar com uma personagem, no caso dona
00:07:29Maria, non si dà per affermare che vado a decidere una elezione,
00:07:32ma puoi impedire molto alcune campagne,
00:07:35soprattutto negli ultimi giorni che è quando devono sorgere lì queste
00:07:39denunce, queste questi attacchi di... ultima
00:07:42ora:
00:07:48Brazil's election is taking place against the backdrop of a long-running battle
00:07:51with organized crime. Gangs control territory in some of the
00:07:55country's biggest cities and public safety remains a critical
00:07:59issue for voters here. Many people are looking beyond Brazil's
00:08:03borders to the country of El Salvador in Central America,
00:08:06where violent crime has fallen dramatically. For years,
00:08:10gangs terrorized the country and it was known. as one of the most dangerous
00:08:13places on earth, then a new president came and the numbers
00:08:17began to fall sharply, but what lies behind the
00:08:21headlines and what has this transformation really
00:08:24cost? for BBC Brazil, I travel to El Salvador to
00:08:28investigate.
00:08:37In this alley, it seemed like
00:08:39there were motorcyclists, five dead people. We
00:08:43were going to church with my children and suddenly the
00:08:46commotion that, oh, another dead person,
00:08:50the neighborhood
00:08:53there were
00:09:12dead people. They would strip the
00:09:15wires, make some direct connections and then charge you.
00:09:18Oh, they would charge for electricity, the electricity they were going
00:09:22to give you, and
00:09:24they would charge for water, they would charge for water, for everything they would give you,
00:09:28if it was here, they were the owners of all basic services,
00:09:30the Barrio 18 and Mara
00:09:34Salvatrucha gangs emerged on the streets of Los Angeles in the
00:09:381980s, founded by young Salvadorans who had
00:09:41migrated to the United States in the 1990s after
00:09:44a mass deportation of these men, the groups made their way
00:09:48to El Salvador. Right and left-wing presidents took
00:09:52turns in power, trying different ways to deal with the gangs.
00:09:55Meanwhile, they grew stronger and tighten their grip on the
00:09:59neighborhoods. We stayed here
00:10:03which was one gang, my relatives stayed in Apopa which
00:10:06was the opposite, my mom I spent almost 9 years that I could
00:10:10only see her like this at the market.
00:10:14On November 16, 2009, was my graduation
00:10:18and that day we decided with
00:10:20my three friends to bathe in the river, the
00:10:24river and it was already starting to be a
00:10:27boundary point of another
00:10:31gang, so to speak, when suddenly three people
00:10:35arrived with hoods and and all
00:10:38of a sudden, without saying a word, they started telling us to
00:10:41kneel down and started
00:10:44shooting, I am alive because at that moment
00:10:47I occurred to play dead,
00:10:51so when I didn't hear anything anymore, I tried to
00:10:55arm myself but I couldn't walk
00:10:57and one of those bullets hit
00:11:00my spinal
00:11:02cord,
00:11:05leaving me causing paraplegia
00:11:08right,
00:11:11that is, before I was a young man, a child who
00:11:14liked football, who liked to run and suddenly
00:11:18because of an act of violence, end up
00:11:21using a wheelchair for life. In
00:11:252010, the war between the gangs reached a new level of
00:11:29brutality.
00:11:3917 people were burned alive, anyone who tried escape was shot.
00:11:43By 2015, El Salvador had the highest
00:11:46homicide rate in the world, setting the stage for
00:11:50major shift in the country's
00:11:52politics.
00:12:25alongside the military. months
00:12:28later, buchelli won the power struggle when his political party
00:12:31secured more than 2-3irds of the seats in the election to
00:12:35renew Congress. five justices were replaced by people
00:12:39aligned with Bukeleli. with control of Congress and the
00:12:42judiciary, he had a clear path implement the security
00:12:46policy that would come to define his government. queda
00:12:49aprobado el proyecto de decreto que contienen
00:12:53régimen de
00:12:57exception initially said to last 30 days, the state of exception
00:13:01granted sweeping powers to security forces. it allowed
00:13:05police to arrest people without warrants and hold them for
00:13:08long periods before formal charges are
00:13:11filed. el salvador became the country with the
00:13:15highest incarceration rate in the world.
00:13:182.5% of salvadoran adults are currently
00:13:21behind bars. four years later, the st
00:13:5585% of the vote. In
00:13:582025, Congress changed the constitution to
00:14:02allow unlimited reelection. Presidenti
00:14:04became a globally prominent figure. So I knew him as
00:14:08a very young man, now he's just young man. He's done
00:14:12a fantastic job. Mr. President, it's an honor to have you.
00:14:15But how have these security policies affected the
00:14:18daily lives of other Salvadorans and at
00:14:22what cost were they implemented? We began
00:14:25looking for answers by meeting with an evangelical pastor who
00:14:29was interviewed by the BBC seven years ago,
00:14:33freeed from custody into the arms of the church. In
00:14:372019, the BBC visited Ebenezar Church on
00:14:40the outskirts of Sant Salvador to learn about this pastor's work
00:14:44with former gang members.
00:14:48The church is in Ladina, a neighborhood
00:14:51many fear even enter.
00:15:04happened to those people, all that ended, that is, everything that refers to
00:15:08social insertion eh, for for
00:15:11gang members opportunity to
00:15:14integrate ended already in 2022 when the state
00:15:18of exception begins and the
00:15:21policy of the government of... of
00:15:25no more gang members in freedom, right, although
00:15:29many had purged sentences and already, well, they had already
00:15:32served their sentences and that was the requirement to enter here
00:15:36included. everything, without
00:15:38exception of none, right, that is, everyone
00:15:41it's prison,
00:15:45under the state of exception, El Salvador increased the prison
00:15:49sentence for gang membership to as much as 45
00:15:52years, since the courts consider gang membership
00:15:56an ongoing offense, people who had already served time
00:15:59for other crimes were arrested again,
00:16:03now these people left jobs.
00:16:07families, their wives, nothing to do with the world of gangs and that
00:16:11is one of the very painful things that we observe
00:16:23the face, we as family members of innocent
00:16:27detained people are demanding an
00:16:31answer to the petitions if the state of exception were
00:16:34only for gang members who truly
00:16:37investigated and then apprehended, we would be
00:16:40happy, grateful and this country would be different,
00:16:44but here they have gone to apprehend the righteous and the sinner as we say, right,
00:16:48and now my daughter is part of the famous and called
00:16:52margin of error, margin of error was the expression
00:16:56used for innocent people arrested under the state of
00:16:59exception, of the roughly 90,000 people
00:17:02detained, at least 8,000 have been released for
00:17:05lack of evidence, according to
00:17:15Here we don't have a supreme court, what we have here is a supreme president of the republic, who is the one who gives
00:17:18the orders for everything, Bukele
00:17:21believes that he is the one, he manages the country as his own
00:17:24company, he here does not allow anyone to oppose him, that
00:17:28no one contradicts him, that is
00:17:31a dictatorship, but he can still meet and make
00:17:34a demonstration, they are new type dictatorships.
00:17:45In June 2025, Human Rights lawyer Ruth Lopez, one of the
00:17:49best known critics of the Bukeleli government, was arrested.
00:17:53Prosecutors accused her of illicit enrichment.
00:17:56Lopez denies the allegations and says she is a political
00:17:59prisoner. The NGO Cris, where
00:18:02she worked, closed its office in El Salvador, mentioning
00:18:06risks to it.
00:18:43I prefer to be called a dictator than to see how Salvadorans are killed in
00:18:47the streets.
00:18:50Anna Mercedes Garcia Grandes San was taken by the
00:18:53police in 2022. The only
00:18:56crime that the prosecutor's office takes is that because he doesn't have a
00:19:00degree, he doesn't have a car, he doesn't have a house, he doesn't
00:19:03have a wife with children. Imagine everything they put us through is so that.
00:20:38and I see my son's photo there that said with a cross and it said
00:20:41we regret the death of José Alfredo González
00:20:44it said and
00:20:46what look at me
00:21:01Over more than a month we contacted the government seeking an
00:21:04interview with presidenti or another official about the country's
00:21:07security policy. After several follow-ups we were told
00:21:11it wasn't possible due to scheduling
00:21:14conflicts. We also contacted Congress but were
00:21:18referred back to the presidency.
00:21:50demand their rights because there is a
00:21:54regime,
00:21:57for me it is not a dictatorship, for me it is freedom, a
00:22:00freedom where we Salvadorans can go
00:22:04from corner to corner in our country and nothing happens,
00:22:08however before we couldn't even leave the neighborhoods,
00:22:12but now we live in a free
00:22:13country,
00:22:18they have the regime? so that we don't speak and stay
00:22:23I understand about the regime, and you're not afraid to
00:22:26speak, I won't tell you no, it would be
00:22:30a lie to tell you I'm not afraid, but at the same
00:22:33time my situation gives me
00:22:35courage,
00:22:38and if my destiny for telling the truth is that they will even
00:22:42take me away, well, I lost my son, what else can I give with my
00:22:46life?
00:22:51After so many decades of turmoil, El Salvador
00:22:54hopes to finally leave its violent past
00:22:58behind,
00:23:02but like a dormant volcano, all
00:23:04tensions still lie beneath the surface, and
00:23:08no one knows if or when they might erupt
00:23:12again.
00:23:19Five months ago, BBCI broadcast damning undercover
00:23:22footage from a government hospital in Pakistan, footage that showed
00:23:26blood contaminated syringes been reused
00:23:29on children, someho were just babies. The investigation
00:23:33reviewed that more than 300 children had been diagnosed with
00:23:36HIV after receiving treatment at this hospital.
00:23:40Reporter Gazal Abbasi has an update on this story
00:23:44and on the extraordinary impact that the BBC's journalism can
00:23:47have.
00:23:59Syringes reused, unqualified volunteers on the
00:24:03children's ward and viles of blood contaminated medicine being
00:24:07injected into child after child. In April
00:24:102026, BBCI revealed that in less
00:24:13than year at least 331 children in the
00:24:16city of Donsa were diagnosed with HIV after. receiving
00:24:20treatment its government hospital.
00:24:23The investigation ran across the BBC World Service, in English,
00:24:27in Urdu and many other languages. It was streamed on
00:24:31YouTube, appeared on the BBC's website and was watched by more than
00:24:3511 million people on TikTok and Instagram. But in
00:24:38Pakistan, the story was just beginning. The first to pick up on the
00:24:42BBC's findings were political commentators, but soon
00:24:45doctors, celebrities and sporting heroes are speaking out and
00:24:49Pakistan. tv news was not far
00:24:51behind. Punjab ke ek sarkari aspatal mein
00:24:55sangen tibbi gaflat aur medical mall pract. The exposer
00:24:58hit the evening bulletins and sparked prime-time discussion on one of the
00:25:02country's biggest tv channels. This is
00:25:05criminal to say the least. Pakistan's press was calling this a public
00:25:08health emergency. An outrage soon reached the country's
00:25:11parliament disease
00:25:14HIV.
00:25:17days later the chief minister of Punjab announced. new disease
00:25:20prevention program with the focus on HIV, but that didn't
00:25:24stop the scrutiny. the global fund to finance most of
00:25:27Pakistan's HIV programs announced it would visit the country
00:25:31to examine its handling of HIV. The
00:25:34prime minister also intervened ordering new national screening
00:25:37program for HIV and hepatitis across all government
00:25:41hospitals and confirmed that 60 new specialist HIV
00:25:44treatment centers would be set up across the country
00:25:482027 by
00:26:02anywhere in Pakistan. Thanks to the reach and credibility of the BBC
00:26:08report and 331 children in rural Punjab
00:26:12ignited national conversation in Pakistan, a
00:26:15conversation about public health and poor governance, a conversation which
00:26:19changed the law and which will surely save children's
00:26:22lives. Thanks for joining me in
00:26:25Brazil. Global I will be back next week.
00:26:29Goodbye.
00:26:39'I've always been fascinated by science since I was
00:26:42kid really, it's just such a broad subject.
00:26:45Sometimes science story can seem quite abstract, and once I've got my
00:26:49head around the story, it's really my job to try and guide the audience
00:26:53step by step through it, but it's not just
00:26:57about explaining or understanding the difficult
00:27:00concepts, it's also about explaining'. why it matters? what
00:27:03i want to do was to bring the audience with
00:27:06us. the altemis two mission
00:27:09was such visseral experience seeing the
00:27:13engines fire. it was almost blinding.
00:27:16wow, oh my goodness. it
00:27:20does feel like we're entering into a new
00:27:23era of space exploration, and the artemis 2
00:27:27mission is just the start. there's no limit
00:27:30to how far science can take us, there is always more to
00:27:34discover.
00:27:39I just kind of work without fear, because it's fun for me, it's like, if
00:27:43I fail, it's no big deal, if something don't work out, I'm not afraid of of
00:27:47failure, because to me, I never feel like loser, she could act, she could sing, she
00:27:50could write songs, and she was the complete package, to millions across
00:27:54the globe, Dolly Partton was a true one off,
00:27:58lady who, I truly believe was the
00:28:01most belove. human being in the world, fans
00:28:05from Nashville, Dolly, we love you to Newcastle have
00:28:09been celebrating the star's life. God bless her,
00:28:12it feels a little bit like when the queen died, it honestly
00:28:16does.
00:28:19This is how the world paid its respects to the
00:28:23undisputed queen of country. The idea of a
00:28:26world without Dolly in it, it just doesn't seem
00:28:29real.
00:28:32down to Dollywood, you'll have fun and we'll treat you good, so come on down
00:28:36to Dollywood, it's better on
00:28:37fast,
00:28:43I was here at the very first protest the corporate chanter party had organized
00:28:47about a month ago, and this is so much bigger, we've been
00:28:51driving towards the sight of this wildfire, but we've just stopped at the
00:28:54side of the road here because of what we saw out the window, Spain is still
00:28:58burning, this man has been pulled out successfully, it's taken up.
00:29:02mammot rescue effort, these young rebels are
00:29:06heading back to the front line to perform,
00:29:09there's a hunter base there, which these
00:29:12men have been trying to take two years now, from the
00:29:16entrance of the pub this morning, you get very little sense of the
00:29:19terrible scenes that were witnessed here last night, there when
00:29:23the story breaks, bbc
00:29:25news, here at bbc verify, we use forensic
00:29:29investigative techniques and tools to fact check stories, verify
00:29:32information and counter disinformation. Using data
00:29:35analysis and the latest technology, our journalists examine the evidence and get
00:29:39to the facts. Watch our BBC Verifier reports on the BBC news channel or go
00:29:43online to find out more.
00:30:07live from London. This is BBC News. Ed Shieran
00:30:10apologizes for what he calls mistakes as he
00:30:13returns to the stage for the first time since the rapper McLamor was dropped
00:30:17from his US tour over pro-Palestinian
00:30:20remarks. What is happening in Gaza is
00:30:24catastrophic and unjustifiable and
00:30:27disproportionate. My heart has been broken by the scale of
00:30:30devastation and loss and of civilians lives, of
00:30:34children's lives.
00:30:37President Trump says he will form an AI force and
00:30:40appoint new advisor to oversee the
00:30:43industry. Voters head to the polls in two German
00:30:46states as chancellor Friedrich Merts faces growing political
00:30:50pressure. And Scotland's efforts to tackle
00:30:53Europe's worst drug death rate or challenged by hundreds of
00:30:57powerful new synthetic substances.