Friday 21st August 2026. US debt. Spain Ceuta children. Ukraine election call. Ireland Zuckerberg castle. China robots. UK good lungs...

0:00 Send seven is on a semi break during August, with episodes being released on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. We will be back five days a week in September. Good morning, This is Send seven World News in seven minutes. I'm Stephen Devinchenzie. Today is Friday, the twenty first of August twenty twenty six. Starting in the Americas. Today, in the United States, public debt has passed forty trillion dollars for the first time. The debt has doubled from twenty trillion dollars since the start of Donald Trump's first term as president in twenty seventeen. During the current fiscal year, the US government has received around four point five trillion dollars in taxes and forms of income. However, it has spent

1:03 six point three trillion. Interest payments towards the public debt are the second largest cost to the U S government after Social security payments. In Colombia, a landslide at a mine has killed thirteen workers in the southwestern region of Nadigno. Local officials have said. In Peru, heavy rains have caused floods and landslides. Access to the ancient inca site of Matchupichu has been disrupted by blocked roads in Israel. The United States Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, has criticized Israeli settlers in the West Bank who have been blocking Palestinians from leaving their homes around the town of Kuzra, a situation that has been described as a siege. Huckabee is a Baptist Christian minister and has previously supported Israeli settlements

2:04 in the West Bank. However, speaking to Reutter's yesterday, he said that stealing Palestinian land was against God's law.

2:13 Let's go to the Ten commandments, Thou shalt not steal, so you shouldn't even covet. We have personnel that have gone into the area of Kusra and continually monitor what is happening. We're appalled at some of the things that have happened to families who are the victims of just criminal activity that is inexcusable and repugnant. And I think if we're going to be true to faith, true to heritage, then you recognize that if you don't own something, you don't take it and you don't desire it. So if someone owns the land and they own their house then having someone come and take it over and scare the family away from it. That's a violation not just of man's law, that's a violation of guard's law, and it

3:00 should be called out as such.

3:03 Also in Israel, the Israeli military has admitted that its soldiers fired at a car in which a five year old girl and six other family members were killed in Gaza in twenty twenty four, and also at an ambulance which attempted to rescue them. The story became a major news item in twenty twenty four after various rights groups and newsgroups gave evidence to show that the Israeli military had attacked the car and ambulance, which Israel denied until now.

3:37 In Indonesia, an eighty four year old woman was recovered alive three days after being trapped under her destroyed home on the island of Flores where an earthquake hit on Saturday. In China, the World Robot Conference is currently taking place in Beijing. Over three hundred companies from around the world are showing their robots, including robots used for specific industrial reasons and humanoid robots which can perform various tasks. Africa, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The number of confirmed deaths from this current ebola outbreak has risen to two thousand, three hundred and twenty five, making this the deadliest ebola outbreak ever in the DRC. The United States has deported twenty people to Liberia. Liberia's Information Minister Jeralin

4:40 mcpeare has said that Liberia will accept one thousand, two hundred deportees from the United States, including people from Africa, North and South America, and the Caribbean. Spain has said that five hundred migrant children in the enclave of Ceuta will be relo to mainland Spain Europe. In Ukraine, former defense Minister Mikhailo Federov released a video this week in which he calls for elections despite the war with Russia.

5:16 Elections would have been held in twenty twenty four. However, Ukraine has been under martial law since the first day of Russia's full scale invasion in February twenty twenty two. During martial law, elections are suspended until now. All major politicians, including opposition politicians, have agreed that there should not be elections until the war is over or there is a ceasefire with people generally saying that it would be extremely difficult to organize elections as Russia occupies about twenty percent of Ukraine, with millions more people living in frontline areas and almost a million soldiers are currently dipped Lloyd and millions of Ukrainians are living in other countries as refugees.

6:06 In a future presidential election, Mikailo Federov Mikailo Fedorov is considered a possible challenger to President Vladimir Zelensky, as opinion polls often show him to be very popular. Also in Ukraine, a Russian missile and drone attack killed at least seventeen people in the capital Kiev between Wednesday night and Yesterday morning, and at the time of recording there are more attacks ongoing in Kiev. In Ireland, the US billionaire and CEO of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg has bought the strang Kali Castle estate for around twenty million euros, which is about zero point zero one percent of his wealth. And in the UK, London's ultra low emission zone has led to children having better lungs, according to a recent study. Since twenty nineteen,

7:04 there has been a charge for cars to enter greater London if they don't meet emissions standards, generally because they are older. This has caused fewer heavily polluting cars to drive in this area. A study of three thousand, four hundred primary school children within the Julez Zone found that children showed better lung growth since the introduction of the scheme That's Your World News for this week. To get this podcast without adverts, with bonus episodes or the transcripts written by us every day vocabulary lists, worksheets and quizzes, you can become a seven supporter. You can lock in our older lower price before our prices go up in September.

7:53 Click the link in the episode description or go to send seven dot org slash support. Have a great weekend. If you are a seven supporter then I'll see you later for the quiz, and if you are not a supporter, then I'll see you on Monday.