This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.

I'm Jenut Jalil and at 13 hours GMT on Thursday the 22nd of August, these are our

main stories.

The Indonesian government appears to have dropped plans to

pass a controversial election law which critics said was designed to strengthen

President Joko Widodo's influence. The US Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim

Walls introduces himself to Americans as he goes on the attack against Republicans.

The new boss of Starbucks is facing criticism after it was revealed that he's been offered a corporate jet to commute to work.

Also in this podcast, the second biggest diamond ever found is unearthed in Boswana.

The Indonesian Parliament has shelved controversial plans to change the election laws

after tens of thousands of people took to the streets in cities across the country to protest.

The demonstrators were angered by what they saw as an attempt to strengthen the influence of the outgoing President Joko Widodo who's due to leave office in October.

Such was the strength of feeling that some protesters tried to tear

down the gates of Parliament in the capital Jakarta only for police to use water

cannon on them. Shortly before we recorded this podcast our correspondent Nick Marsh told a

can on them. Shortly before we recorded this podcast, our correspondent Nick Marsh told us it appeared

that the protesters had succeeded in making Parliament back down.

It does seem like this very controversial law change has been dropped by the

Parliament at least until the end of this parliamentary session. So there's no

prospect of this legislation resurfacing until after the current President Joker,

Widodo, steps down in October. So quite an interesting development, that's on

pause basically. In terms of the actual protests yeah I mean there was at least a thousand in Jakarta hundreds in other cities across

...