Global News Podcast: Zelensky tells UN that Russian 'evil cannot be trusted'

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

I'm Robin Brandt and in the early hours of Wednesday the 20th of September these are our

main stories. President Zelensky has warned that Russia is a threat to the whole world.

In his first in-person speech at the UN General Assembly since the invasion of Ukraine.

Azerbaijan has said it won't stop its assault on the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh

until ethnic Armenian separatists surrender. One of Colombia's largest remaining rebel groups

has agreed to a ceasefire and renew peace talks. Also in this podcast.

Only a very small fraction of the Missense mutations are known to be either benign or

disease causing. With our model that proportion goes to 89 percent. Researchers have developed a

tool that uses artificial intelligence to identify DNA mutations that might cause diseases.

First Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned world leaders that Russia's

invasion of his country is a grave threat to the whole world. He was making his first speech

in person at the UN General Assembly since Moscow's full-scale attack began last year.

President Zelensky urged the U.S. President Joe Biden and other allies present to remain united

in backing Ukraine to ensure its victory. We have to stop it. We must act united to defeat the aggressor

and focus all our capabilities and energy on addressing these challenges. As nukes are restrained

likewise the aggressor must be restrained and all its tools and methods of war each war now

can become final but it takes our unity to make sure that aggression will not

break in again. Well a short time before that President Biden had warned the world leaders

at the UN meeting to resist what he called Russia's naked aggression in Ukraine. We have to stand up to

this naked aggression today and deter other would-be aggressors tomorrow. That's why the United

States together with our allies and partners around the world will continue to stand with

the brave people of Ukraine as they defend their sovereignty and territorial integrity

and their freedom. But the audience for his address was missing notable counterparts with

France, the United Kingdom and Russia all not sending their leaders. I spoke to the BBC's

Nader Tophik who's in New York and asked her did it help that Mr Zelensky was actually there in

person. Well I mean you can certainly tell that you know attention was going to be high and certainly

was. I mean even when he came into the UN General Assembly there was a swarm of press. He's been

doing the press round several interviews since he's been here. He got a standing ovation before

and after his speech so I think him being here in person has certainly highlighted what he has to

say. It's given him that real platform but as you say it was a very familiar message. What he did

note was that he is going to outline details of his peace proposal in a security council meeting

but we saw him holding bilateral meetings with the likes of South Africa's President Cyril

Remaposa and others who haven't been as outright in condemning Russia for its invasion. So I think

him being in person being able to speak face to face with these people he's hoping it does have

an impact. There is other topics clearly climate I think sustainable development goals but is the

truth that this meeting is all Ukraine Ukraine Ukraine. Well certainly the next several days

there are going to be attention on President Zelensky's movement as I mentioned the security

council meeting then he goes off to the White House on Thursday to meet with Joe Biden there

and congressional leaders who are a bit conflicted on the Republican side about continued aid. So I

think we're going to see eyes focused on him but we really have been seeing leaders and others

focusing on things like climate and it is getting a decent amount of attention here.

Nedotovic in New York Azerbaijan says it will continue its military assaults on Nagorno-Karabakh

until Armenian separatists there surrender. Officials in the disputed territory say 25 people

have been killed and more than 80 injured since fighting broke out early on Tuesday.

Azerbaijani forces have launched artillery missile and drone attacks in the breakaway

enclave which is recognized internationally as part of Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan insists it was

forced to take action after six of its citizens were blown up by landmines but a spokesperson

for the administration running the enclave Ghegem Stepanyan said Azerbaijan wants to ethnically

cleanse Armenians from the territory. Azerbaijan is using all kinds of weaponry starting from

artillery rockets UAVs they are targeting not only a military object but also civilian communities

they are calling this attack counter terrorist operation but this is nothing else than a

bloody stage of Azerbaijani genocidal policy. Well for more on this brewing conflict I heard

from our Caucasus correspondent Rehan Dimitri. It's increasingly looking like it's a major

military operation taking place in Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan has launched what is described as an

anti-terror operation and it looks like Azerbaijan is determined to establish full control of its

breakaway region populated by 120,000 ethnic Armenians. We're trying to piece together the

picture of what's happening and that of course we're looking at social media and the videos that

are being posted so there are reports of casualties among the civilian population including children

and one video which I saw showed the main hospital in Stepanakert which is the regional

capital showing a kind of chaotic scenes and more injured people being delivered there.

However Azerbaijan claims that it is specifically targeting only a military infrastructure it issued

a warning to the ethnic Armenian population asking them to seek cover and saying that they

will not be harmed. Armenia is describing this as ethnic cleansing and it says that the aim

of this military offensive by Azerbaijan is to drive ethnic Armenians out of the territory.

So can you just clarify despite Azerbaijan saying it is targeting military installations

it gave a warning as you just reported there are some reports of civilian casualties including

children. That's correct yes civilian casualties and that number is rising so it's really difficult

to say how many are now the latest figure I saw was 25 and two of them were civilian casualties.

There has been a growing international pressure on Azerbaijan from the EU foreign policy chief

from the German chancellor and a number of other European nations and they're all calling

on Azerbaijan to immediately stop its military offensive and return to negotiations. They're

saying that Baku should talk directly with Karabakh Armenians but Baku is saying that it is ready

to hold talks on its territory with representatives of the Armenian community of Nagorno-Karabakh.

However it says that it will continue its anti-terror operation until the local government

which it calls a puppet regime in Stepanakert surrenders and disarms fully.

Rehan Dimitri a former member of Belarus's security forces has told the Swiss court

how his unit abducted three opposition activists in 1999 before killing them. At his trial Yuri

Goravsky said he was involved in snatching the men from the streets of Minsk but he told the court

several times that he was not the gunman. Sarah Rainsford has more. Yuri Goravsky arrived in

court with police protection and his hood pulled down low over his eyes because he says the testimony

he's giving here has put his own life in danger. The former special forces soldier has confessed to

taking part in the abduction of three men in Belarus in 1999 or three were killed. They were

opponents of Alexander Lukashenko who was then tightening his grip on power. Today two daughters

of the disappeared sat and hugged in the front row just meters from the man who described how his

secret unit had snatched their fathers from the streets of Minsk. He said both have been killed

with two shots each to the back. We're going to go to Libya now where the World Health Organization

says more than 400 migrants are among those who'd lost their lives in last week's devastating floods

in the east of the country. The organization said the figure came from deaths reported by

Libyan hospitals. Thousands of African and Middle Eastern migrants are temporarily based in Libya

with many hoping to reach Europe from there. Estimates of the overall number of people who

died in the storm vary widely but hospital reports put the figure at around four thousand.

Many died in the coastal city of Derna where torrential rain caused two dams to collapse

triggering catastrophic flooding. On Monday the house of the ousted mayor of the city was

torched and there were large protests. Now journalists are being told to stay away from

Derna. Rebecca Kesby spoke to the BBC's Anna Foster on Tuesday. She's one of those who had

been in the city but was asked to leave. Well we've been operating in Derna for several days now

and we've noticed as more and more journalists have arrived it has become a little more difficult

in terms of getting permission to go in and operate in the city. We heard late last night a

rumor that the journalists weren't going to be allowed to operate in Derna anymore and in fact

that was the case today. Local journalists, international journalists were asked to leave.

I think the timing is quite interesting because there were protests in Derna last night. The

protests against the eastern-based administration people very unhappy with their leadership

feeling like they failed when it came to things like maintaining those dams that burst and

allowed all of that water to flow through Derna washing so much of it away and then less than

24 hours later we see this crack down on reporting from the city. We saw a real communications black

out this morning you know areas that we were moving through that that had had patchy but

existent phone reception and data were now completely out of contact and really now we're

sort of waiting and watching to see what the authorities will do. They said that there were

too many people in Derna hampering the recovery effort that was their excuse for doing this

so we look to see whether this is something that changes that goes back in the next few days or

whether indeed they are trying to to seal this city off when it comes to reporting and to finding

out what's going on in there. What's been your experience with local people when you've been

talking to them? Have they been happy that you've been there to report the story? In situations like

this you know often people they appreciate the opportunity to actually talk about what has

happened to them and to let the wider world know what has happened to them and of course when people

don't we sort of leave them in peace. I don't feel like I've seen journalists particularly

getting underfoot I mean there've been a lot of them volunteer workers as well people from different

parts of of Libya who've come across and who've been involved in that recovery effort including

people who have come from the west from Tripoli and there are some suggestions again I don't know

how much truth there is in this that now perhaps the eastern-based authorities don't want people

from the west to be here anymore given that split that there is in Libya given that you have these

two rival administrations that they perhaps have have accepted that early help but they want to try

and return to the old order a little bit now. Anifoster in Libya. Japan has long been engaged

in a struggle to provide for its aging population it has one of the lowest birth rates in the world

just how acute the problem is is illustrated by new data which for the first time

shows that more than one in 10 people in Japan are now aged 80 or over. Tim Franks spoke to Dr

Paul Morland a demographer and author of the forthcoming book Procreate or Perish.

Well the Japanese Prime Minister has talked about civilization or collapse and I think we have to

give him the credit for knowing what he's talking about. Japan is at the cutting edge of what the

rest of the world is heading for which is what happens when you've had 50 or 60 years of too

few births and significantly too few in the case of Japan and an extending life expectancy

we should celebrate the extending life expectancy and the Japanese have done a fantastic job at

keeping people alive but if you're not having the children to support that aging population

it's going to be a disaster. And the turnaround in figures is utterly stark isn't it I mean I was

reading I think the figures from some research that you've done but about you know the number of

young people there were for every elderly person back in the 60s and how that has changed. Yes when

Japan hit a hundred million people back in the mid 60s there were five or six workers for everyone

over aged over 60 when it gets back to a hundred million on the way down which is going to be in

the 2050s there's going to be less than one person in their 20s to 60s to everyone over 60 how a

society like that is going to function where you have less than one person in work for every one

retiree it's very hard to fathom. What are the answers I mean how far are countries such as

Japan looking at other possible solutions like encouraging immigration? Migration has been an

incredibly important part of the picture for countries in Europe that are prepared to undergo

rapid ethnic change. Japan is not prepared to do that and Japan is a very distant and obscure

culture for people in the high fertility parts of the world it's not somewhere they understand

it's not somewhere they have communities and mass immigration is not wanted in Japan and even for

those of us in countries like Britain that have had mass immigration we have to realise

that the fertility rates are dropping in countries like Poland where we've traditionally recruited

people from so we're just moving pieces around on the chessboard for Japan the only answer is to

increase its birth rate its fertility rate per woman and that requires not just government policy

and the government has been trying but a complete cultural turnaround. Right and I guess the issue

I mean you know for people such as you who study these things it's not just that this is

sort of a pressing need right now but I mean it's something that's going to need quite a sustained

effort because presumably demographic trends are not something that you sort of you change in an

instant. No even if Japan's women now started having larger families there are so few young

women of fertile years in Japan it's going to take a very long time to turn around and that's

because we've been sailing into this iceberg for 50 or 60 years and paying it almost no attention.

The demographer Paul Morland

still to come. Sometimes I can collapse I can lose my sight in a flash I can have a consistent

pain that goes on for days on end. We look at the debilitating condition of migraine after

another sufferer said she was resigning as a British government minister because migraines

meant she couldn't do her job properly. At Staples Business Advantage nothing can top the

smarts and instincts of the thousands of experts on our team while AI excels at processing data,

automating tasks and providing insights for better decision-making and when they're used together

they're far more powerful than either is alone. Whoa I've never felt more alive. Let Staples Business

Advantage use today's latest innovations plus our team's experience to make business easier for you.

Sign up today and save 20% Staples Business Advantage Business is human. This ACAS podcast is

sponsored by NetSuite 36,000 the number of businesses which have upgraded to the number one cloud

financial system NetSuite by Oracle 25. NetSuite just turned 25 that's 25 years of helping businesses

streamline their finances and reduce costs one because your unique business deserves a customized

solution and that's NetSuite. Learn more when you download NetSuite's popular key performance

indicators checklist absolutely free at net suite.com slash optimize that's net suite.com slash optimize

I had just come out of one of my bare-knuckle boxing matches I don't know why but the first thing that

came to my brain was what if I do a drag show. Remarkable personal stories told by the people

that lived them. I could easily have pulled that trigger but that was not my brief I was not an

assassin I was not told to do that I was not told to murder him. Lives less ordinary from the BBC

world service find it wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Welcome back to the global news pod now

to an area of India where ethnic tensions are extremely high more than 200 people have been

killed so far and incidents of violence continue in Manipur state in the northeast of the country

where violence broke out between the majority Mai Tai and minority kooky communities in May.

It's a conflict marked by brutal murders and sexual crimes against women

which have shocked India and left the state deeply divided. Our South Asia correspondent

Yogita Lemay went to Manipur. This bloody conflict descended after months of tensions

between the two communities over quotas and jobs in education land rights and political power.

In the first few days of the violence those killed were overwhelmingly

from the cookie minority and they still account for two-thirds of all casualties.

While the violence in Manipur started in early May it only really came into both the national

as well as the international spotlight in late July when a video was circulated on social media

which showed two women being paraded around naked by a mob of men and the younger woman

in her 20s was allegedly gang raped afterwards. I'm about to meet the mother of the younger woman

now her husband and her 19 year old son were killed by the same mob.

Watching the video made me want to die to see how my daughter was treated to know

what was done to my family. My husband's arms were slashed with knives. My son was in the 12th

grade. He was brutally beaten with rods. They were killed in front of my daughter.

What we are seeing on both sides of this conflict in Manipur are civilians telling us

that they feel like they have to pick up weapons to protect themselves their families their villages

their community. I'm at a bunker on the cookie side and it's essentially just a makeshift shed

which has been propped up with bamboo sticks and it has thin sheet for a roof. There are three people

in front of me there who have guns and they're pointing towards the other side which is the

one man who works as a laborer told us why he was there.

It's up to us to defend ourselves now we have no evil intentions we do not want violence

but this has become necessary now because we don't trust the police or other security forces to

protect us. Less than a mile across the paddy fields we also went to a very similar bunker

on the Maite side. I am 26. I'm 26. In front of me right now I can see four men they all have

big guns. When did you learn how to fire a weapon? Two months ago. We've been struck by how many

civilians we've seen carrying weapons some even in front of Indian security forces. Their spokesman

didn't respond to the BBC's questions but have claimed they are seizing illegal weapons.

It's easy to understand how the enmity between the communities became so bitter and deep so

quickly when you hear details of the violence. I've come now to a small house in the countryside

to meet with the family of 33-year-old David Tolol who was killed on the 2nd of July.

His family says that he was killed by a mob of Maite men. We have seen a very graphic video

and I'm now going to speak to his brother Abraham.

It was so painful seeing the video. I have trouble sleeping. I don't even keep his photos on my

phone because if I see them it keeps coming back. People from both sides of the conflict are expecting

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's national government to step in and resolve the crisis. They've told

us that they are disappointed that despite the severity of the violence for months he didn't

speak about it and they say even now there are no concrete steps being taken on the ground

even though both the regional government of Manipur and the national government of India

are run by Mr Modi's party. Yogi Tert Limay reporting from India's northeast. The Colombian

government and the EMC rebel group have agreed to resume peace talks and implement a 10-month

ceasefire starting next month. The first round of negotiations will be held near the border with

Venezuela. Leonardo Rosha reports. The EMC or Estado Mayor Central has about 3,000 members.

It's the largest dissident faction from the FARC rebel group which broke away when the FARC signed

a peace agreement with the government in 2016 after six decades of fighting. President Gustavo

Petro Afomo Marxist rebel himself has promised to break Colombia's historical cycle of violence

by inviting all armed groups to peace talks. The EMC leader Ivan Mortisco initially refused to

engage in negotiations but he changed his mind after surviving a deadly attack against one of

the group's camps a year ago. Leonardo Rosha reporting. Now head pain, fatigue, problems with

your sight. All these are symptoms of migraine. A type of headache which can be so debilitating

that people find it impossible to do their job. And this week a British member of parliament,

Dehena Davison, resigned in her job as a government minister saying chronic migraines have made it

impossible to do that job. But what's it like having chronic migraines and how does it affect

your life? James Reynolds spoke to two people who suffer from the condition. Kerry Spalding from

Leicestershire in central England and Cynthia Camuna from Nairobi in Kenya. First Cynthia and

some people may find the following distressing. Several things happen so sometimes I can collapse,

I can lose my sight in a flash, I can have a consistent pain that goes on for days on end.

One of the examples I could share is I've had once a migraine that went for about 31 days

of consistent pain without any ease. So it's crippling, it affects your work, it affects your

social life, it affects your way of life and it's not an easy issue to deal with especially if you're

working in a very busy environment. It sounds terrible, particularly that 30 odd day attack

that you had. And let's bring in Kerry here in England. You've just heard Cynthia describe

the excruciating pain that she goes through. How is it for you? Actually there's several

different types of migraine that people can suffer from. I'm a vestibular migraine patient

which all sounds very familiar to the other sufferer that's just been talking. I get persistent

vertigo as well. So I have vertigo where it feels like it's spinning on the inside of my body

and on the outside of my body which then causes me to vomit constantly and that can last for

days on end. I think the longest bout I've had is like seven days literally vomiting night and day.

My attacks can last anywhere up to six weeks at a time. I also go blind. I have to stay in a dark

room. I can't bear any light at all. I can't bear any noise at all. So I just become completely

debilitated in bed and completely isolated from the world, unable to work, socialise and basically

you know get out of bed. Well vivid descriptions there of severe symptoms from migraine sufferers

Kerry Spaulding here in England and before her Cynthia Kamuna from Nairobi in Kenya. Now the

artificial intelligence company Google DeepMind has used its technology to identify mutations

in human DNA that might cause diseases. The development is expected to speed up efforts to

find new more effective drugs for conditions such as brain disorders, heart disease and cancer.

Our science correspondent Palab Ghosh has more. Our DNA contains the information to build bodies.

It contains repeated blocks of chemicals known by the initials A, C, T and G and they have to be

in a particular sequence. If there's a mistake in the order of the letters it can lead to a

faulty gene and cause disease. But there are billions of these blocks and so far scientists

have identified a tiny fraction of the changes in order that lead to disease. Experts at Google

DeepMind have developed an AI tool called Alpha Missense that's about to make the search for

faulty genes or mutations much easier. Pushmead Kohli is in charge of the firm's drive to develop

AI tools for science. The knowledge that we have acquired till now is fairly limited only a very

small fraction 0.1% of the Missense mutations are known to be either benign or disease causing

with our model that proportion goes to 89%. DNA leads to the creation of the body's

building blocks which are called proteins. Last year Google DeepMind's AI worked out the

shape of nearly all of them. The new system can tell if the letters in the DNA will produce the

correct shape. If not it's listed as potentially disease causing. Palab Ghosh reporting.

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 the topics covered in it you can of course send us

an email the address globalpodcast.bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X formerly known as Twitter

at Global NewsPod. This edition was mixed by Caroline Driscoll the producer was Lea McChefrey.

The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Robin Brandt. Thanks for listening. Goodbye.

At Staples Business Advantage nothing can top the smarts and instincts of the thousands of

experts on our team. While AI excels at processing data, automating tasks and providing insights

for better decision making and when they're used together they're far more powerful than either

is alone. Whoa I've never felt more alive. Let's Staples Business Advantage use today's

latest innovations plus our team's experience to make business easier for you. Sign up today

and save 20% Staples Business Advantage business is human. This ACAST podcast is sponsored by

Netsuite 36,000 the number of businesses which have upgraded to the number one cloud financial

system Netsuite by Oracle 25 Netsuite just turned 25 that's 25 years of helping businesses streamline

their finances and reduce costs one because your unique business deserves a customized solution

and that's Netsuite. Learn more when you download Netsuite's popular key performance

indicators checklist absolutely free at Netsuite.com slash Optimize that's Netsuite.com slash Optimize

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.