Friday 8th August 2025. Ghana helicopter crash. Brazil Bolsonaro arrest. Armenia Azerbaijan deal. France fire. Putin-Trump meeting...

World news in 7 minutes. Friday 8th August 2025.

Today: Ghana helicopter crash. Sudan hunger. Nigeria Spotify. Brazil Bolsonaro arrest. US tariffs. Armenia Azerbaijan deal. Israel Gaza control. Russia Putin trump meet? France fire. UK cinema auction.


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Since 2020, SEND7 (Simple English News Daily in 7 minutes) has been telling the most important world news stories in intermediate English. Every day, listen to the most important stories from every part of the world in slow, clear English. Whether you are an intermediate learner trying to improve your advanced, technical and business English, or if you are a native speaker who just wants to hear a summary of world news as fast as possible, join Stephen Devincenzi, Juliet Martin and Niall Moore every morning. Transcripts, vocabulary lists, worksheets and our weekly world news quiz are available for our amazing supporters at send7.org. Simple English News Daily is the perfect way to start your day, by practising your listening skills and understanding complicated daily news in a simple way. It is also highly valuable for IELTS and TOEFL students. Students, teachers, TEFL teachers, and people with English as a second language, tell us that they use SEND7 because they can learn English through hard topics, but simple grammar. We believe that the best way to improve your spoken English is to immerse yourself in real-life content, such as what our podcast provides. SEND7 covers all news including politics, business, natural events and human rights. Whether it is happening in Europe, Africa, Asia, the Americas or Oceania, you will hear it on SEND7, and you will understand it.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, this is Stephen. Just a reminder that during August
this podcast is released only on Tuesdays and Fridays, but
in September we will be back every day. This podcast
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of it, you can become a seven supporter and have
access to all of our transcripts written by us not Ai,

(00:25):
as well as vocabulary lists for every episode and weekly
worksheets and world News Quiz. There's a ten euro discount
on becoming a yearly supporter during August using the code
August twenty twenty five. Just go to sendseven dot org.
Good morning, this is Send seven World News in seven minutes.

(00:48):
I'm Stephen Devinchenzie. Today is Friday, the eighth of August
twenty twenty five. Starting in Africa today, Garner's Defense Minister
Edward Boama, Environment Minister Braham Muhammad and three other officials

(01:10):
have died in a helicopter crash, as well as three
Air Force crew, the government has said. The Presidential Chief
of Staff, Julius Debrah, said that the crash of the
military helicopter happened on Wednesday, without giving a cause of
the crash.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
I have done present duty sadly to announce a national
tragedy involving the crash of a military helicopter this morning
around that a Dancy area in Ashanti.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
Region in Kenya. There was also a small aircraft crash
yesterday in the middle of the capital city of Nairobi,
killing at least four people on the plane and two
people on the ground. In Sudan, there are reports of
increasing hunger in the Darfur region, which is mostly controlled

(02:04):
by the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group. The city of alfacer,
which is the only large city in Darfur still in
control of the Sudanese army, has been under siege for
around two years, with the RSF controlling all routes in
and out of the city, and there are reports of

(02:25):
severe shortages of food and water in Alfacier. Charity Medisine
San Francier also says that it has treated over two
five hundred cases of cholera in the last two months.
In Nigeria, Spotify has removed the ability to comment on podcasts.

(02:46):
Spotify hasn't said why the decision was made to remove
comments in Nigeria, however, it may be related to new
social media regulations. In most of the world, it is
now possible to leave comments on podcast episodes like this one.
We do read all of the comments that you leave

(03:06):
for Simple English News Daily Americas. In Brazil, former president
Jayir Bolsonaro has been under house arrest since Monday, with
Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Morees saying that Bolsonaro has
violated court orders. Bolsonaro is under investigation related to an

(03:31):
alleged attempted COUPDTA to prevent the transfer of power after
he lost the twenty twenty two presidential election. Yesterday, the
conditions of his arrest were relaxed to allow family members
to visit him without needing judicial approval. United States President

(03:51):
Donald Trump recently announced fifty percent tariffs on imports from
Brazil and included the trial of Bolsonaro in reasons for
the tariffs. Earlier this week, President Luis Nacio Lula da
Silva told Reuter's news agency that he doesn't see any
point in talking to Trump and called Trump's tariff's blackmail.

(04:16):
United States tariffs on over sixty countries came into effect yesterday.
The most common tariff is fifteen percent. However, imports from
many countries now have tariffs of twenty percent. Thirty percent
or even forty percent, with Brazil currently the highest on
fifty Asia. The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan are expected

(04:45):
to meet today in the United States to sign a
peace deal. Armenia and Azerbaijan have been engaged in various
wars since gaining independence from the Soviet Union in nineteen
ninety one. Has reported that the deal will also give
the United States development rights in a corridor in Armenia

(05:08):
which links most of Azerbaijan to the exclave of Naktchivan.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday that Israel intends
on controlling all of the Gaza Strip and then handing
it to Arab forces, but not Hamas or the Palestinian authority,

(05:29):
which governs the West Bank. In Taiwan, three employees of
the micro chip maker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing have been arrested,
accused of stealing technology trade secrets. Taiwan is the biggest
producer of microchips in the world europe Russian President Vladimir

(05:53):
Putin will meet United States President Donald Trump over the
next few days, according to officials from both countries. Ten
days ago, Trump gave a deadline of ten to twelve
days for Russia to agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine.
Otherwise the US would impose heavy tariffs and sanctions on

(06:16):
Russia and also impose tariffs on countries that continue to
buy Russian oil. Yesterday, Trump suggested that Ukrainian President Vladimir
Zelenski would also join a talk with Putin. However, Russia
has denied this. In France, over two thousand fire fighters

(06:37):
have been fighting the biggest wildfire in France for seventy
five years. The fire is in the southeastern department of
Ord and covers more than one hundred and sixty square kilometers.
Thousands of people have been forced to leave their homes,
and the mayor of a small village said that a

(06:59):
woman has died after refusing to leave her home. Smoke
from the fires has traveled across the touristic towns on
the Mediterranean Sea and Cupboard Roads to Spain. Yesterday morning,
officials said that the fire was still not under control.
In Spain, there have also been at least three wild

(07:20):
fires recorded in the last few days, and in the
United Kingdom, a large set of cinema memorabilia has gone
on display before it goes on auction next month. The
items that will go to auction include Indiana Jones's whip
used by actor Harrison Ford, the Spider Man suit used

(07:44):
by actor Toby maguire, the sign for Platform nine and
three quarters from the Harry Potter films, and the item
expected to sell for the most money is Darth Vader's
light saber from the nineteen eighties Star Wars films, which
has been estimated to sell for more than two million dollars.

(08:08):
A big thank you to Yusthin in Norway and Katy
in Spain for becoming our newest supporters. The next episode
will be with Juliet Martin on Tuesday. Have a great weekend.