Global News Podcast: French president urges China to help stop Ukraine war

Hello, this is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service, with reports and analysis

from across the world. The latest news seven days a week. BBC World Service podcasts are

supported by advertising. This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service.

I'm Jonah Jalil and at 13 hours GMT on Thursday the 6th of April, these are our main stories.

France's president on a state visit to Beijing calls on China's leader to bring Russia to its

senses over the war in Ukraine. China moves its warships close to Taiwan after a high-profile

visit to the US by the Taiwanese president. There's alarming new research about Antarctica's melting

ice sheet. Also in this podcast, it is quite a huge task, quite nerve-wracking, but it's also an

honour to serve this country. A historic moment for Zambian women in tech. And we start this podcast

in Beijing. A Chinese military band played the French national anthem and there was a 21 gun

salute as France's president Emmanuel Macron was welcomed with full honours by his Chinese

counterpart Xi Jinping on a state visit, the latest in a series by European leaders. Mr.

Macron used his talks with Mr. Xi to urge him to use his influence with Russia to help bring an end

to the war in Ukraine. To speak of this beneficial strategic partnership between our two countries

is obviously to speak of peace and stability in the world. We are attached to it and I know that

you are attached to respect for the United Nations Charter, to the strict compliance with the texts

that apply to the nuclear field and therefore to everything that allows peace and stability

on the planet. And in this respect, the Russian aggression in Ukraine has struck a blow against

this stability. It has put an end to decades of peace in Europe. And I know that I can count on you

under the two principles that I just mentioned, to bring Russia to its senses and everyone to the

negotiating table. Mr. Macron's visit comes as relations between the West and the world's

second biggest economy have soured in recent years. He's being accompanied by the European

Commission Chief Ursula von der Leyen. After bilateral talks between the two men, the three

then held a joint meeting sitting around an extremely large table. This is what Ms. von

der Leyen said in that meeting. The European Union and China today have extensive and complex

relations. How we manage these relations will be a determining factor for our future economic

prosperity. This is why I do not see decoupling from China as a viable or desirable strategy,

but equally I do see a number of risks that Europe needs to address.

Our Asia Pacific editor Michael Bristow told us Ms. von der Leyen seemed to be playing

bad cop to Mr. Macron's good cop in dealing with China. There's a slight difference in tone by

the two European leaders, President Macron, slightly more flattering towards his host,

to suggesting that he has influence in Moscow to stop the war in Ukraine. He certainly does have

that influence, but Ursula von der Leyen then later on who joined the meetings, she struck a

kind of slightly more strident tone warning that there are big differences between Europe and China

and whilst she doesn't want to see a kind of decoupling, which is a thing that the United

States is talking about at the moment, she does see difficulties in the road ahead in their

relationship, so a slightly different attitude shown by those two leaders.

I was watching these talks on the television and I just couldn't help but be struck by how

enormous the table was that they were sitting around. Yep, big table, I mean we used to see

in President Putin sat around a bit sat at one side of a big table when he meets people as well,

so I mean it is usually awkward, there were three people here, so they had to get somewhere to

show a relationship which didn't perhaps show which one was more important than the other one,

but certainly that might as well be an indication of the kind of distance between the two sides

for people looking for meaning in tables, that's what they might be drawing from that.

A lot of people will be watching the tables there to see what symbolism can be drawn from that,

but Mr Ji also had a separate earlier meeting with the French president, what was discussed then?

Well it was a war in Ukraine that there was the main issue which has come out there as we've heard

President Macron suggesting that China should bring Russia to its senses, a real strident and strong

phrase that interestingly already Moscow has responded, a Kremlin spokesman has said that

well poured water essentially on the idea that China should act as a mediator, suggesting war

at the moment on fighting is the only way forward, so perhaps trying to neuter any kind of growing

momentum that might build up for China to put pressure on Moscow to stop the fighting.

Because China does have warm relations with Russia, but it clearly also wants to have good

relations with the EU and with France. That's why China is in a difficult position,

and it's in a difficult position of one of its own making really, because it's allied itself

and aligned itself quite clearly with Moscow over the last year. It hasn't criticised Russia's

invasion of Ukraine, it's also given it some support Xi Jinping visited Moscow just last month,

so that really undermines the idea that China could act as an honest broker and a neutral

party in any negotiations between Moscow and Kiev. Michael Bristow, another sensitive issue for China's

relations with the West is Taiwan, which Beijing claims as part of its territory. China puts a

great deal of effort into discouraging other countries from fostering relations with the

self-governing island, so it strongly condemned a meeting on Wednesday which took place on US soil,

between the Taiwanese president, Tsai Ing-wen, and one of America's most senior politicians,

Kevin McCarthy, the Speaker of the House of Representatives. Taiwanese officials say a Chinese

aircraft carrier has been spotted off its coast, and they see this as China's direct response

to that meeting. Shai Mikalil in Tokyo is monitoring developments.

Taiwan's Defense Ministry said that its warships are closely monitoring China's aircraft carrier,

the Shandong, from about five to six nautical miles. We know from the Defense Ministry statement that

the Chinese aircraft carrier passed through the Bashi Channel between Taiwan and the Philippines,

and then went on into Taiwan's southeastern waters. The Defense Minister said that while the carrier

was in training, as we understand it, the timing is quite sensitive, and of course the timing

that he's referring to is that meeting between Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen and the US House

of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Miss Tsai was on a stopover in California on her way

back to Taiwan, and the meeting happened at the Ronald Reagan Library. It was quite a friendly

meeting and again bolstering relations between Taiwan and the US. The rhetoric there from the US

and from Taiwan is one of friendship. Miss Tsai said that it was good to know that Taiwan is

not isolated, and of course all of that angered China who condemned the meeting. They said that

the US was on a wrong and dangerous road, and remember of course this comes at an all-time

high tension between the US and China and of the time where China is receiving European visitors

in Beijing. Yes, very sensitive time, and Taiwan is quite wary of inflaming anger in China too much,

because Kevin McCarthy had initially wanted to come to Taiwan like his predecessor Nancy Pelosi,

but Taiwan had judged it better for the meeting to occur in California between the Taiwanese

President and the Speaker of the House of Representatives. That's right, and it's a very

fine balance that they're trying to strike. On one hand, Taiwan knows how important it is to keep

those relationships between the self-governing island, between its government, and the United

States going. They want to show the world and they want to show the Taiwanese people that they're

not isolated, that they have the support of the United States. There are elections coming up

in January, and I think Ms Tsai, who cannot run for a third term, wants her party to go on and

continue to govern, so there is that internal politics. But as you say, it is very, very sensitive

and very tense. Shamak Aliil. Israeli police have stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem

for the second time in hours after raiding the compound on Wednesday and arresting hundreds

of Palestinians despite widespread international condemnation. The site is holy to both Muslims

and Jews, and tensions are high as the Jewish holiday of Passover and the Muslim holy month of

Ramadan overlap this week. Palestinian militants in Gaza fired more rockets into southern Israel

in response to these latest clashes. From Jerusalem, Lucy Williamson reports.

Video footage appears to show Israeli police entering the Mosque while being pelted with

objects from inside. Israel said its forces had successfully prevented people from barricading

themselves in the building for a second night and had allowed worshipers there to leave.

But the site of Israeli police entering the third holiest site in Islam has provoked warnings of

increased tension and instability from both the Palestinian presidency and militant groups.

Yesterday, the Islamic custodians of the Al-Aqsa site, known to Jews as Temple Mount,

called on Muslims to stay in the Mosque overnight throughout the month of Ramadan,

to protect it from police and Jewish settlers, they said. A U.N. spokesman said that the Secretary

General Antonio Guterres had been shocked and appalled by the images of violence and beating

inside the Mosque on Wednesday. This should be a time for peace and not violence, he said.

Lucy Williamson. It's still unclear who was behind the explosion which killed the Russian

pro-war blogger Vlad lent Tatsatsky in St. Petersburg on Sunday. The Russian authorities

have charged a 26-year-old woman with the killing. After the blast, Ukraine implied the

blogger might have been killed because of an internal power struggle in Russia over its failures

in Ukraine, and suggested Russians had become, quote, spiders eating each other in a jar.

Tatsatsky was one of Russia's war reporters, a loose but influential assortment of people

who support the invasion of Ukraine, but not always the commanders running it.

Vitaly Shevchenko has been looking at who they are.

The sound of Russian missiles being launched at Ukraine from one of countless videos posted

by Russian war correspondents. Known as Vyankore, they usually claim to have specialist military

knowledge and access to Russian troops. Some are employed by Kremlin-controlled media,

but others blog on social media, apparently without any links to any particular media outlet.

Yuri Padalyaka is one of the most popular of such bloggers.

If the Ukrainian state still exists after the war in any shape or form,

that would mean a defeat for us. That's why the only question is where Russia's border with

Poland would lie. That's it. The emergence of such bloggers after the initial invasion of Ukraine

in 2014 heralded a new era of war reporting in Russia. For many of them, supporting the war

does not necessarily mean supporting the top brass. Here's how Rubar, a telegram channel with more

than a million followers, reacted when the Defence Ministry stayed silent about a rapid Ukrainian

counter-offensive in Kharkiv region in September last year.

Dear Defence Ministry, we know that you see this and many other telegram channels which

allow themselves to criticise the progress of the special military operation as traitors,

provocateurs and fake news. You don't like us because we don't toe the party line,

but now is not the time to stay silent. And it's criticism like this of the

military authorities that makes war bloggers stand out from the all-pervasive Kremlin-controlled

propaganda. But prominent Walker respondents employed by traditional pro-Kremlin media

tend to be much more accepting of the official line. One of the most prominent of these

is Aleksandr Kots, who works for the Komsomolskoye Pravda tabloid and often reports from the front

line. Responding to the killing of Vladislav Tartarsky, Kots, similarly to Russian officials,

pointed the finger of blame squarely at Ukraine.

Earth must be satellite under every Ukrainian function, regardless of whether they are wearing

a uniform. These people must be destroyed. Much of the content posted by Walker respondents

is extremely graphic. One of the most infamous examples is Grey Zone, which posted footage

of the apparent murder of a traitor who is a sledgehammer in November last year.

Russian war reporters often call for the destruction of Ukraine as an independent state.

For example, Yuri Kachinok has said the very Ukrainian identity must be destroyed.

Even cancer can be cured, but Ukrainianism? Never. It's a type of satanism that can only

be destroyed with one thing, fire or consuming fire that will cleanse this filth.

Kachinok has more than 400,000 subscribers on Telegram.

That report by Vitaly Shevchenko. Zambia's mining sector has made history by appointing

its first female CEO to head one of the country's biggest mining operations.

Mifike Mikeyi will head the copper unit for cobalt metals.

The company uses artificial intelligence to identify battery metal deposits.

President Hagainde Heech Illyamey tweeted the news with the hashtags

women in leadership and inspiring women after congratulating her in his office.

We heard from Mifikeyi about what her appointment means to her.

It is quite a huge task, quite nerve-wracking, but it's also an honor to serve this country.

This country is known as a mining country for many, many decades.

And I think what we're trying to do is ramp up our copper production.

The project is currently a mining project under exploration, but there are many more projects

coming, Greenfield projects that the artificial intelligence technology that we'll be using

will be helping us find more deposits faster as we drive the renewable energy initiatives globally.

You are Zambian, proudly Zambian, but you've had connections both in the US and the UK,

where you also trained. And I just wonder what it means to you as a Zambian woman,

and what do you think it means to others who may be now looking towards the mining industry that

hasn't traditionally been a bastion of gender equality, if you like?

It's been, I would say, a 15-year journey, a small number in most of the long mining careers

we are used to hearing about. But I started out on the floor in the mines of northwestern

province at First Quantum's Kansanshi Mine and worked my way through those corridors and into

the mining services. So I think it means a lot for people who enter this sector. It's a sector

that's almost seen as in the corner somewhere, but it's pivotal to our economy. 70% of our exports

is copper. So it means a lot for myself personally, my family, and I think the industry means the

industry has been open to women. Contrary to belief, there are a lot of women in the Zambian mining

sector. I think it's just bringing them to the world to see that there's a lot of women working

in this sector, even though the percentages are still low, there is a significant populace.

Mifike Mikae speaking to Bola Maseuro. Famously shy and elusive, platypuses are only found in

Australia, like the more familiar koala or kangaroo. But what would you do if you saw a

platypus on your local train? Well, that's what happened to commuters near Brisbane.

They did in fact find themselves travelling alongside a wild platypus. The man carrying

it has now been arrested after allegedly stealing it from the wild and could face a fine of close

to US$300,000. Anna Murphy has the details. Platypuses are semi-aquatic egg-laying mammals.

Their description is rather comical, sometimes being described as a duck's bill sewed onto

a mammal's body. A 26-year-old man stole one of these animals from the wild in Australia

and took him on a train from Morayfield to Brisbane, carrying it in a plastic bag.

He even offered passengers around him the chance to pat the platypus. But those passengers would

have been well advised not to touch the animal, as despite their harmless appearance, the

spurs on their back feet are actually venomous. The platypus did not only pose a risk to the

passengers around it, but was in fact in danger itself. The Queensland Environment Department

stressed that the mammal was at risk of illness and even death if it was kept out of its natural

habitat for long. The man who took him from the wild has been charged with stealing an animal

that is classified as a protected breed and keeping it captive. Fortunately, the platypus

was rescued and released into a nearby river. But police say they were unsure of its condition.

Anna Murphy. Still to come on this podcast. Super Mario makes yet another return.

At normal transactions. Some kind of cyber attack on a bank.

Tens of millions of dollars. Something I don't think anybody has seen before.

The cyber criminal group. From the BBC World Service. The Lazarusized is back for season two.

It was really like in the movies. Find out more at the end of this podcast.

Welcome back to the Global News podcast. New research suggests Antarctica's melting ice sheet

could be retreating much faster than previously thought. The evidence comes from markings on

the sea floor off Norway. Dr Christine bachelor of Newcastle University is lead author of the study.

So in this study we analyzed a large area of the sea floor. We identified some landforms which we

call corrugation ridges which record how quickly the former ice sheet retreated because they were

formed when the ice sheet was retreating backwards but also moving up and down on the tides. So if

we know the spacing of the ridges and we know that one ridges produced each low tide when the ice

sheet sits down this allows us to calculate the retreat rate in the past. And it's a lot higher.

Yes up to 600 meters per day which is around 20 times faster than even the highest rate of ice

sheet retreat that we've seen over the satellite record so far. Dr Christine bachelor speaking

to my colleague Nick Robinson. Our science correspondent Jonathan Amos told us more about

the significance of these latest findings. Well we've learned just how quick an ice sheet can go

into reverse the margin of that ice sheet how quickly it can go backwards. Now we study Antarctica

today using a fleet of satellites. They pass over every few hours and they measure the height of the

ice but they also measure the speed at which it flows as well. And the particular area that

Christine bachelor is talking about is this area they call the grounding zone. So when ice flows

off the land there's a point at which that ice becomes buoyant and it lifts up and it's that

that zone the grounding zone that the satellites track the position of. And we can see some glaciers

moving at 30 meters a day backwards that grounding zone moving backwards as it melts.

And we're talking here in the past of 600 meters today up to 600 meters a day. So that is a 20 fold

increase in speed in reversal in withdrawal of an ice sheet. So that tells us that what we're

looking at today may not be the fastest that the Antarctic ice sheet can withdraw.

So what does this mean for concerns about sea levels and global warming?

Well at the moment a lot of Antarctica is still very cold. It's very static. There are places

where it snows quite heavily and the amount of mass being assembled on the Antarctic is increasing.

But we do see at its edges particularly in the west of the continent that warm water is starting

to get under the floating ice shelves there and erode them and those glaciers are going

into retreat. A glacier is always moving forwards obviously as it rolls off the land

but its front is being attacked and that is going backwards. Antarctica has contributed

about a centimeter to global sea level rise since the 1990s. What we're waiting to see

what we're watching is an acceleration in that contribution and we can see by studying the surface

of the oceans that that surface is rising. You know a few years ago it was about three millimeters per

year. It's now about four or five millimeters per year. So Antarctica is making a contribution

to that acceleration. Jonathan Amos. Now let's turn to the United States where the number of so

called ghost guns recovered from crime scenes has risen by an incredible 1000 percent since 2017.

These guns are homemade put together from a kit of parts or using a 3d printer so they don't have

serial numbers making them untraceable and they're sold online without background checks.

A New York correspondent Neda Tophik has been investigating. Angelie she was funny she came

out like me. Manuel Yambo had never heard of a ghost gun until his daughter was killed by one

according to prosecutors. Angelie was one block away from her school when she and two other teens

got caught in the crossfire of a gunfight. The suspect was 17 years old. Angelie wasn't the target

it was somebody else. He didn't even hit the kids he was attending to shoot at shooting a gun and

not even knowing how to point it. You would think that things like that you can't just order it online

like if it was a toy. That is not something that I take lightly when you bring that up. I wouldn't

want that to happen to my kids but it doesn't change what is true and what is real. Lauren Kelly

co-founded Polymer 80 the largest ghost gun manufacturer. He feels for Angelie's family

but despite data showing firearms are the leading cause of death for American children

he is against government regulation. Violence and guns they are oftentimes in certain situations

related because that's an implement used but violence is a thing unto itself. You can sit

there and call these data points not all you want because you've created a new category

the new category is called gun violence and of course they had to do that because there are

more guns than people in the United States. It's a distinction Angelie's family does not make.

She died just a few months after her 16th birthday where she shared a special dance with her father.

The family are now hoping to turn their personal tragedy into something positive

with the foundation in her name to prevent the loss of another child.

In Indonesia there are fears that a tribe that has remained isolated from the rest of the world

could be wiped out by a massive project to produce nickel for electric car batteries.

Indonesia hopes to become a major producer of the metal as countries ditch vehicles powered by

fossil fuels for electric ones. The Honghana Manawa which means people of the forest in their own

language are one of the last nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes in Indonesia. We heard from Callum Russell

from the rights group Survival International. We estimate that there are around 3,000 Honghana

Manawa people in total and that between 300 and 500 of them are uncontacted and have no contact

with the outside world. These are the most vulnerable peoples on the planet they rely

entirely on what nature provides to them as a nomadic hunter-gatherer tribe and without their

rainforest they will not survive. So we are extremely concerned about their fate and as we

are about the fate of all uncontacted tribes it is a terrible irony that they now risk being

wiped out entirely having contributed nothing to climate change in the name of a supposedly

sustainable lifestyle for people buying electric cars thousands of miles away.

What are the authorities saying then about this mining project and the impact that it may well

have on this tribe? So unfortunately the Indonesian government is really much pushing ahead with this

project as much as they can in terms of the nickel mining. The Indonesian president is very

keen on encouraging Elon Musk to invest Tesla and to invest in the electric car market and the

mining companies are going ahead with it as well despite having known about what's happening to the

uncontacted members of the tribe they're still going ahead with it and we are extremely worried I

mean we know from previous studies in the Amazon that 90% or even 99% of uncontacted tribal people

can die even just from disease when they are contacted so we're very worried indeed.

So an awful lot of members of this tribe then have been in contact with outsiders

have you been talking to them what are they saying about this mining project?

Yes they are extremely concerned I mean some of them have got contact and even though it's not

much contact obviously we wouldn't contact the ones which are uncontacted but the ones which

have some contact with the outside world are extremely worried I spoke to a man a few days

ago from the Hong Anaman Yawa tribe he told me he was extremely worried about his uncontacted

families who were hiding in the forest and he hopes that our campaign can stop the mining I mean

they don't know what's going on a lot of them. Imagine what it's like wandering through your

homelands and seeing a big you know holes gashed out of the grounds where the rivers are being

destroyed and forests are being destroyed and it's really heartbreaking for them they're losing

their every way of life and we're very concerned about them indeed.

Do the companies concerned here briefly do they know of this tribe's existence and the potential

danger their project poses to them? They do indeed I mean French mining company Aramette

which operates in the largest mining concession they've known since 2013 that an uncontacted

tribal people living in this area and yet they continue to mine on their lands and they really

should know better if they have any concern for sustainability or human rights.

Callum Russell speaking to Rob Young. Now take a listen to this.

That's the sound that's familiar to those of us who were around in the 1980s and 90s.

Super Mario the beaming Italian plumber with the big moustache and the star of many computer

games for decades. Technology has changed beyond recognition in that time but Mario has always

moved on and now fans around the world can watch a new film version of the old game.

So what is a secret to Mario's continuing appeal? We heard from technology journalist

Louise Blaine and the video game editor of The Guardian newspaper Kiesa MacDonald.

Mario is now I think he's now 38 he arrived in our caves as Jumpman in 1985 and since then

you know we've grown with him as we've grown with our love of video games Mario has grown

along with us so he's always been there. Yeah he puts a smile on people's faces Kiesa doesn't he?

He certainly does. I think the wonderful thing about Nintendo these days is that it's become

intergenerational so those of us who grew up with Mario when we were kids are now playing Mario with

our kids and in the same way that you'd pass down a beloved children's book or you'd watch a Disney

film together from you know 30 or 40 years ago he's become one of those family mascots that just

keeps on finding new life. He's a curious character to have created isn't he though?

Yeah he was based on Nintendo's landlord in America who was an Italian-American guy

that's who he's named after so he's kind of an accident like he was essentially he was designed

because his mustache his face and his hair and his hat and his overalls were all different colors

and that was easy to discern on a very blocky pixel screen in the 80s and he's kind of evolved

from there and become this beloved worldwide mascot. Kiesa the real question is whether you're

six year old like the film? As my six year old adored the film he really did I thought it was okay

I thought it really got like the exuberance and the visual um wildness of Mario out there

it got the sense of fun but yeah I think like kids are kids are the ones at whom this this movie is

aimed really and so it should be Mario's always really been treasurable for children.

And Louise the characters have grown as characters haven't they rather than sort of just animated

folk who whizz around a track and in my case fall off a lot of the time they are personalities we get

to know. Yeah absolutely they are massive personalities I mean they're massive personalities

that don't still don't say tremendously much you know we've not got full sentences coming from them

like like we do in the movie but we almost don't need it because they're almost caricatures they're

larger than life that actually don't need to say tremendously much but we know a lot about them we

know Luigi's terrified of things we know of Mario's bravery um so I think you know we we

attacked ourselves to these characters even if they don't say things all the time. Louise Blaine

and Kisa McDonald speaking with Nick Robinson. And that's all from us for now but there will be a

new edition of the Global News Podcast later. If you want to comment on this podcast or topics

covered you can send us an email the addresses globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk you can also find

us on Twitter at Global News Pod. This edition was mixed by Mike Hadley the producer was Alfie

Habeson the editor is Karen Martin. I'm Donut Juleel until next time goodbye.

Where does North Korea get the cash to fund its nuclear weapons program? North Korea is

nothing if it is not creative, clever, agile. Well according to US investigators cyber crime.

A cyber attack was on no one's radar. The attacker had very good knowledge of banking systems.

Below the regime denies any involvement evidence suggests that North Korea's hackers are getting

better and better at doing it. What they did was also quite sophisticated not something anybody

has seen before. The Lazarus Heist season two from the BBC World Service. I was put in handcuffs

both my feet bound and my hands taken to an interrogation centre. We were genuinely very

frightened. Search for the Lazarus Heist wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.