Janak Jalil (1:49)

The Caribbean island of Curacao celebrates becoming the smallest nation ever to qualify for a football World Cup. In one of the deadliest Russian attacks on western Ukraine since the war began, at least 25 people have been killed, three of them children and around 70 others wounded. In the city of Ternopil, two blocks of flats were hit by Russian strikes. Images show the crumpled buildings on fire with the top floors destroyed, and it's thought that many more people remain trapped under the rubble. Other parts of Ukraine were hit, including Kharkiv in the north, where dozens more were wounded.

BBC Correspondent (2:35)

There were three impacts somewhere nearby and then there was a big strike. All the windows were completely blown out and the smoke was so thick we took towels, soaked them in water to be able to breathe. This isn't the first time either. About six months ago a cluster bomb fell here and everything was damaged. People had just replaced the windows. And now this has happened again.

Janak Jalil (3:00)

There have been power cuts across the country as Russia again targets Ukraine's energy infrastructure. This comes as President Zelenskyy is in Turkey in an attempt to revive U S led efforts to end the war. Our defence correspondent Jonathan Beale, who's in Kyiv told me more about these latest Russian attacks on Ukraine.

George Addo (3:19)

471 way attack drones, what we know as Shahi drones fired from Russia as well as 48 cruise missiles. A lot of those were shot down, Ukraine says, but clearly if you're firing that number, some get through. The focus of this attack, yes, it was across the country. So Kharkiv in the northeast was hit overnight. But the focus of most of this attack was in the west of Ukraine, which is obviously far from the front line. But in it is where Ukraine has some of its military infrastructure, but also its energy infrastructure. And that has been the particular focus of Russia in recent months as the temperatures plunge and much of the country is having energy rationed at the moment. And of course when these power stations are hit, then there are emergency outages too. But I think the tragedy here was clearly these two apartment blocks hit in, in the city of Turniple, which is a city of more than 200,000 people not regularly targeted by Russian. But the casualties are there and it's not just the dead, but also hundreds injured, including kids as well. So it is a tragedy there. And as you say, they are still going through the rubble. We still see the emergency services at the scene.

Janak Jalil (4:37)

And Poland and Romania had to scramble NATO fighter jets early on Wednesday with a drone reported to have breached Romanian airspace.

George Addo (4:47)

Yes, I think, you know, after that incident earlier this year when more than a dozen, I think 20 drones, and they were decoy drones, they weren't armed drones went across into Poland. We know that NATO stepped up its air policing operations, its air patrolling operations. They are concerned that that was an attempt by Russia to test NATO's air defenses. And I think when they do have strikes on western Ukraine, that is clearly nearer NATO's border, its eastern flank, and therefore they are more vigilant.

Janak Jalil (5:21)

And President Zelensky is in Turkey right now for talks. There are reports of a secret peace plan being worked on by Donald Trump's administration along with Russia. What more can you tell us about what we're expecting to come out of these talks in Turkey?

George Addo (5:34)

Well, it's clearly the US Leading talks of peace and we know that stalled. But there are reports, as you say, that Steve Witkoff, President Trump's negotiator, has been having direct talks with his Russian counterparts. We don't know the details of these Plans. Russia's not saying anything about details of these plans. We have heard that they may be briefed to European allies. But there was a suggestion, for example, today that President Zelensky would be in anchor at the same time as Steve Wyckoff. Steve Wyckoff, as we understand, is not there. So I think the focus in Turkey will be more on issues that are more immediate, like prisoner swaps, getting Turkey to help Ukraine, because it does have good relations, President Erdogan with President Putin. So I think that these are important, but they're not part of the peace process in any sense, if there is a process.

Janak Jalil (6:24)

Jonathan Beale in Kyiv. Well, as we just touched on, NATO is extremely concerned about the risk Moscow poses to offshore infrastructure following the recent sabotage of several undersea telecom and power cables. Now, Britain has reported that a Russian ship operating on the edge of the UK's territorial waters has, has directed lasers at Air Force pilots sent to monitor its activities. The British Defence Secretary, John Healy, said the ship, the Yantar, was designed to gather intelligence and map undersea cables. Our UK political correspondent, Ben Wright is following the story.

BBC Correspondent (7:00)

John Healey said it's used for surveillance in peacetime and sabotage in conflict. And this isn't the first time it's been seen moving in and out of British waters. Earlier this year, a Royal Navy submarine surfaced right in front of this ship as an act of deterrence. But now it's loitering again on the edge of British waters. And for the first time, it flashed lasers at the pilots of RAF planes that were tracking it. John Healey explained what had happened and had a warning for Russia. We deployed a Royal Navy frigate and RAF P8 planes to monitor and track this vessel's every move, during which the Yantar directed lasers at our pilots. That Russian action is deeply dangerous. And this is the second time this year that this ship, the Yantar, has deployed to UK waters. So my message to Russia and to Putin is we see you, we know what you're doing, and if the Yantar travels south this week, we are ready. John Healey didn't elaborate on what further action there may be, but he put this in the context, of course, of growing Russian aggression, the war in Ukraine, drone incursions across Europe, thousands of cyber attacks on the UK defense systems. He was making a speech on how the government is trying to ramp up the UK's defence industry. But his speech comes as a cross party group of MPs. The Defence Select Committee issued a pretty critical report warning that Britain isn't ready. In its view, in the event of any future attack on the uk.

Janak Jalil (8:39)

Ben Wright A giant conspiracy to promote addiction, spread chronic disease and cause us to lead shorter, sicker lives. That's what ultra processed foods are essentially, according to a global study published in the Lancet Medical Journal, which argues that so called UPFs are linked to illnesses such as cancer and diabetes. Chris Van Tulleken is Professor of Infection and Global Health at University College London. He's one of the authors of the study and he's also the author of the influential book Ultra Processed People.

Professor Chris Van Tulleken (9:11)

Ultra processed food is a formal scientific definition. It's also known as Nova Group 4 and it broadly describes the category of packaged goods made by transnational food corporations. And to understand how they're made and why they're so full of additives, you've got to sort of imagine that you're running a food company. So if you're running a food company and I'm running a food company, we've only got two ways of making money. We can drop the price of ingredients, so we start using additives, flavors rather than strawberries, emulsifiers rather than eggs. And we can also engineer our food so that it's very hard to stop eating and people buy lots and lots of it. We can, we can dominate food environments, we can suppress real and whole food. And so that's the project of transnational food companies. And I say that without agenda, that's, that's sort of what we pay them to do in a way.

Janak Jalil (10:00)

And you're a co author of this paper in the Lancet. Just tell us what its findings are.

Professor Chris Van Tulleken (10:04)

So this is a series of three papers published in the Lancet today, being launched at the Royal College of Physicians in London. The authorship is primarily from the global south, from Latin America and Brazil, and from sub Saharan Africa. There are authors also from all around the world. There are 43 of us. The paper is broken up into three sections. First of all, we look at the scientific evidence linking ultra processed food to health harms. And we've done a formal meta analysis of more than 100 of the kind of studies that links tobacco to lung cancer. And we've looked at lots of experimental evidence, both animal evidence, human evidence, laboratory evidence, alongside this population data. So we're very clear now that we have reached the threshold where we can say a dietary pattern high in ultra processed food causes negative health outcomes. And there's a wide range of these. Obesity, weight gain, metabolic disease, cardiovascular disease, cerebrovascular disease, stroke, gastrointestinal disease, depression and early death from all causes and we know from other published work that poor diet has overtaken or is at least on parity with tobacco now as the leading cause of early death on planet Earth.

Janak Jalil (11:14)

And this has long been a problem in the west, but it's a growing problem in places like Africa and Latin America. And there's no benefit for people there because these are big multinational companies that are making the profits, whereas people in places like Africa and Latin America are suffering all these health consequences.

Professor Chris Van Tulleken (11:33)

You talk about the companies that do this sort of processing. There aren't a long list of them. They're the brands, you know, they make your breakfast cereals, your favorite cola, drink your ready meals, your, your candy and chocolate. They are primarily, most of the shareholders of those companies are institutional investors based in the global North. That's, that's broadly true. And so any benefit accrues into high income settings that already have high income settings. And we also have healthcare infrastructure to deal with the appalling externalized cost of the diet that the food industry essentially forces people with low incomes to eat. And so when we look at that in a low or middle income context, it is completely unaffordable. And I think that's why such strong advocacy has come from particularly south and Central America, where in a single generation obesity went from being essentially unheard of to being the dominant public health problem.

Janak Jalil (12:28)

People like you have been giving out this message for years now, and yet consumers of ultra processed foods don't seem to be listening.

Professor Chris Van Tulleken (12:38)

Oh, consumers of ultra processed foods are listening, but they are essentially, as I say, forced to eat a diet of ultra processed foods.

Janak Jalil (12:48)

You say that, but it's also about convenience, it's about price, and it's also about the fact that they really like the taste because it's got a lot of salt, sugar and fat, which some people might say is addictive.

Professor Chris Van Tulleken (12:58)

So the convenience and price point are the reasons that I frame it as they're forced to eat it. They're forced to eat it by a set of very loose regulatory policies that misprice food. So yes, the food is convenient, it's marketed very aggressively, it's often sold as healthy. If a product has a health claim, if you let anyone listening to this go and look at a box of breakfast cereal, it is covered in health claims. It's almost certainly also high in calories, high in fat, high in salt, high in sugar. So people living on low incomes around the world find it increasingly difficult to access real food. It's not near them, it's not in the shops, and they can't afford it.

Janak Jalil (13:34)

You wouldn't say it's down to people's choice.

Professor Chris Van Tulleken (13:36)

So let me address that question very directly. The food that most people eat, they have approximately as much control over it as the air they breathe and the water they drink. That is how structural this is. You eat the food that your community eats that you can afford. So no personal responsibility in my view is, is not a part of this discussion.

Janak Jalil (13:57)

Professor Chris Van Tulleken the men's Football World cup hosted by three nations, the United States, Canada and Mexico will kick off in under seven months time. And as we record this podcast, nearly all of the 48 places have been decided with 42 countries qualifying. Among them the Caribbean island of Curacao, which even before the tournament has made history by becoming the smallest nation to qualify for a World Cup. With a goalless draw in Jamaica, this Curacao fan outside the stadium stadium in Kingston was delighted.

George Addo (14:29)

That was a great game for us for the first time as a small island as the possibility to join and we have now, we have played very successful tonight against Jamaica and I think we deserve this. And then we are now going directly to the World cup with our players. It's time to celebrate for us right now.

Janak Jalil (14:48)

Our sports reporter George Addo told me more about Curacao's unlikely journey to next summer's tournament.

BBC Sports Reporter (14:55)

Just as the fans said, there are just 150,000 of them in the country. That's less than half of Iceland who are the previous smallest country to make the World Cup. It's been really great to watch Curacao do what they have done. Their head coach, Dick Avocat will also be the be the oldest coach at the World Cup. He's 78 years. That's a record he's taken away from Oto Ri Hagel then he was 71 in 2010 when he handled Greece. Now let me just put this in little context. Ten years ago they were 150th in the world rankings. Today they 82nd and have qualified. Even in the match that we see them qualify in the fourth minute or five minutes added on there was a penalty that was supposed to go against them. Jamaica had an opportunity to score there but the referee had to go and check the var and decided that that wasn't a penalty and somehow they managed to stay right in there. So every good thing you can think about for now is all about Curacao and, and what they have done. And in the qualifying matches they won seven, finished the campaign unbeaten and mind you, they had countries like Jamaica Trinidad and Bermuda all in there. So this is a really golden story and we're all looking forward to see how they do at the World Cup.

Janak Jalil (16:05)

Yeah, phenomenal. Also through are Haiti and Panama, both with only one previous World cup appearance.

BBC Sports Reporter (16:12)

Yes, Haiti made the World cup back in 1974, but there's a real big one here because their coach, Sebastein Migne, actually has never stepped foot in the country since he took over the job, and that is pretty fascinating. He took over the job 18 months ago, hasn't been able to go to Haiti to coach a game or even see what it looks like, but they've been able to qualify. They played all their games, all their home games in Curacao and managed to get there. He was the assistant coach back with Cameroon in the World cup, but this has been another good performance there for Haiti, who did well. They also won their group, which included countries like Honduras and Costa Rica, who were quarterfinalists in the 2014 World Cup. So certainly they have really done well for Panama. The last time they were at the World cup was in 2018, and they've also pulled a brilliant, brilliant way to get into the World Cup. Really good to see them do this.

Janak Jalil (17:04)

Yes. And the reason the coach has not been able to go to Haiti is because of the awful, violent situation there. Scotland haven't made it to the tournament for nearly 30 years, but that changed when they beat Denmark. So it's going to be a massive deal for Scotland too, isn't it?

BBC Sports Reporter (17:18)

Oh, yeah. Big deal for Scotland. Remember that two of those opportunities they made to the World cup or those World cup qualifications in a role they were actually bigger there because England failed to make it in 1974 and 1978. So that long wait has been particularly tough for the Scots. But this was really good. The way they managed to to win this game against Denmark and the players that scored the goals really gives them that opportunity to go into the World cup, and I think that it's a very special one. All the Scots will be looking forward to this one. Good, good job done there, George Addo.

Janak Jalil (17:53)

Still to come on the global news.

Evil Corps Narrator (17:54)

Podcast, we knew that other primates kiss as well, but what I wasn't quite expecting to find is that lots of other animals do. Polar bears, prairie dogs, kiss albatrosses, even ants.

Janak Jalil (18:06)

The surprisingly ancient origins of kissing and the surprising range of animals which enjoy it.

Wan Ping Ao (18:20)

We got a call from the bank and said, are you aware that there's no funds in this account?

Evil Corps Narrator (18:25)

A string of victims across the US stretching from coast to Coast.

BBC Correspondent (18:29)

The amount of victims in such a short time was unbelievable.

Evil Corps Narrator (18:32)

Real people losing real money. But the criminals are ghosts.

Janak Jalil (18:36)

The anger, the frustration, the fear. This is Evil Corps the story of.

BBC Correspondent (18:40)

A cybercrime case that stretches from small town America to the back streets of Moscow.

Evil Corps Narrator (18:45)

Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

Janak Jalil (18:54)

China and Japan have a long history of conflicts and tensions, especially over the appalling crimes that accompanied Japan's invasion of China nearly 90 years ago. But the speed and the strength of the current downturn has been striking. It started when Japan's new Prime Minister, Sanae Takechi, suggested her country could respond militarily if China attacked Taiwan. Now the Chinese authorities have imposed a ban on all imports of Japanese seafood, as well as urging their citizens not to travel to Japan. One Ping Ao runs a Tokyo based travel company often used by Chinese tourists. She told my colleague Tim Franks what she made of the latest developments.

Wan Ping Ao (19:36)

There are two main segments of Chinese tourists coming to Japan. We could label them as like individual travelers who travel in small groups. And then we also have Chinese tourists who are coming to Japan on tours. So they are the customers who will use the large motor coaches and go visit the stores to do tax free shopping. So right now, from what I hear from my Chinese friends who own transportation companies and bus companies, business is actually doing very well, like seeing no reduction in the number of tourists. But on the other hand, the people who are using the large motor coaches, they are seeing a large reduction in the number of their tour participants.

BBC Correspondent (20:24)

There seems to be a bit of a clash at the moment between the governments in Tokyo and Beijing. I wonder if you or the people that you know in the industry, whether you've already seen an effect that maybe fewer Chinese people are coming or are booking or whether you're concerned that that will be the case.

Wan Ping Ao (20:48)

From what I see on the ground in popular sightseeing places like Hakone or Mount Fuji, it's actually overpopulated with tourists from like America and Australia and India from all over the world. So I think the percentage of Chinese tourists there is a decrease, but it's not significant.

BBC Correspondent (21:06)

But presumably in the course of a normal year there is a reasonable number of Chinese tourists who come to Japan.

Wan Ping Ao (21:14)

Yes, I think the problem now is that people who are new to Japan, they usually need to apply for their visa and if their visa doesn't get approved, they just can't come. No matter how much they want to come, they wouldn't be able to come.

BBC Correspondent (21:29)

We've seen relations between China and Japan sometimes go through episodes where there is real tension. I just wonder if this is something that you have seen before and you think, well, you know, the numbers may go down a little bit, but in the long term we'll be all right.

Wan Ping Ao (21:48)

I have seen this like a few times. This is just politics at play. I think things will be figured out. It's just that local businesses will have to take the brunt of it. And whichever industry is involved, it's just unfortunate that they are part of this political play.

Janak Jalil (22:06)

Wan Ping Ao, who runs a Tokyo based travel company, the boss of the South Korean carmaker Hyundai, says the White House phoned him personally to apologize after a major immigration raid at one of its factories in the U.S. state of Georgia back in September. Speaking at a high profile business conference in Singapore, Jose Munoz said the raid was a bad surprise, but that most of the workers have since returned and it hasn't shaken Hyundai's multi billion dollar plans for manufacturing in the U.S. nick Marsh reports.

Nick Marsh (22:39)

This is the first time that we've heard publicly, at least from Hyundai, saying that the White House personally phoned Jose Munoz to say sorry about this raid. He was talking earlier actually, and he said that the governor of Georgia even called him to say, I don't know what happened there. We're really sorry about the raid. But those images of hundreds of South Koreans shackled on the factory floor detained for a week, week, that provoked a lot of anger in Seoul. It also confused a lot of South Korean government officials who have committed to investing billions into American manufacturing. And then this is what happened. It turns out that these were skilled workers sent by Hyundai to set up this new factory in Georgia. They've now since returned to work. We know Donald Trump wasn't very happy about this raid, but it is an interesting confluence, if you want, of the two impulses of the Trump administration cracking down on illegal immigration on the one hand, but then encouraging foreign firms to invest as much as possible in American manufacturing. Like I say, it seems to have settled down by now. But the fact that the White House is personally phoning CEOs and they haven't confirmed it yet, but a personal phone call to CEOs shows a good degree of embarrassment we might not have considered before and also genuine concern at losing these crucial billions of dollars of investment in American manufacturing.

Janak Jalil (24:02)

Nick Marsh, the auction house Christie's is suspending the auction of a rare example of the first calculating machine in history, which was expected to sell for between two to three million dollars. Here's our global affairs reporter, Sebastian Usher. La Pascaline is one of only nine.

BBC Correspondent (24:20)

Examples of the world's first calculating machine still in existence. And it remains fully fun. Developed by the French mathematician, inventor and philosopher BLAISE PASCAL In 1642, when he.

Janak Jalil (24:33)

Was just 19 years old, Christie's has.

BBC Correspondent (24:35)

Described the box as the most important scientific instrument ever offered at auction. But for now, at least, its sale has been halted after a court in Paris suspended authorization for export late on Tuesday evening.

Janak Jalil (24:49)

That came after scientists and researchers had.

BBC Correspondent (24:52)

Urgently appealed for any potential export of a machine to be blocked. They want the instrument to be classified as a national treasure.

Janak Jalil (25:00)

Sebastian Usher. If you thought kissing was a simple romantic quirk humans came up with somewhere along the way, think again. Chimpanzees, gorillas and even polar bears have been known to share a kiss. Now scientists believe they've traced the origins of the practice, which they say likely evolved more than 20 million years ago. Researchers did this by finding evidence of animals that kissed to construct an evolutionary family tree. To find out when the kiss was likely to have evolved, Victoria Gill has been looking at the science behind a smooch.

Victoria Gill (25:36)

The scientists studied kissing because it's something of an evolutionary puzzle. It has no obvious survival or reproductive benefits, and yet it's seen across the animal kingdom. By finding evidence of other animals engaging in kissing, scientists were able to construct an evolutionary family tree to work out when it was most likely to have evolved. To ensure they were comparing the same behaviour across different species, the researchers had to give a very precise, rather unromantic definition to a kiss. In their study, published in the journal Evolution and Human Behaviour, they defined it as a non aggressive directed oral, oral contact with some movement of lips or mouth parts and no food transfer. Nice. Dr. Matilda Brindle is an evolutionary biologist at the University of Oxford and she led the study.

Evil Corps Narrator (26:21)

We found lots of evidence that chimps, orangutans, bonobos, kiss and some gorillas. And we use that evidence kind of in conjunction with information on their evolutionary relationships. So we know humans, chimps and bonobos all kiss, so probably their most recent common ancestor kissed. And we think that kissing probably evolved around 21.5 million years ago in the large apes.

Victoria Gill (26:48)

In this research, scientists found behaviour that matched their scientific definition of kissing in wolves, prairie dogs, polar bears, very sloppy, by the way, lots of tongue, and even albatrosses. The same study also concluded that Neanderthals, our closest ancient human relatives that died out around 40,000 years ago, also kissed.

Evil Corps Narrator (27:08)

Given that we know Neanderthals probably kissed, that obviously doesn't mean that they kissed humans. But what we've just, just suggested in the paper is that given that most humans of non African ancestry have a small amount of Neanderthal DNA, so we know that we interbred with them. And then there was this other really cool study that showed that modern humans and Neanderthals, long after the two species split off, they shared this oral microbe, which means that they must have been swapping saliva for hundreds of thousands of years.

Victoria Gill (27:41)

While this study pinpointed when kissing evolved, it wasn't able to answer the question of why. There are already a number of theories that it might have come from the grooming behavior of our ape ancestors, or that it's an intimate way to assess the health and compatibility of a partner. But Dr. Brindle hopes that this study will open a door to answering that question.

Evil Corps Narrator (27:59)

It's really important for us to understand that this is something that we share with our non human relatives and we don't. People don't collect data on it enough. We should be looking at this stuff and not just dismissing it as silly because maybe it's got a romantic connotation in humans.

Janak Jalil (28:17)

Dr. Matilda Brindle, ending that report by Victoria Gill. 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, you can send us an email. The address is global podcast at.co.uk. this edition was mixed by Sid Dundon. The producers were Chantal Hartle and Ariane Kochi. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Jeannette Jalil. Until next time. Goodbye.

Wan Ping Ao (28:53)

We got a call from the bank and said, are you aware that there's no funds in this account?

Evil Corps Narrator (28:59)

A string of victims across the US.

Janak Jalil (29:01)

Stretching from coast to coast.

BBC Correspondent (29:03)

The amount of victims in such a short time was unbelievable.

Evil Corps Narrator (29:06)

Real people losing real money. But the criminals are ghosts.

Janak Jalil (29:09)

The anger, the frustration, the fear.

Evil Corps Narrator (29:11)

This is Evil Corps.

BBC Correspondent (29:13)

The story of a cybercrime case that stretches from small town America to the back streets of Moscow.

Evil Corps Narrator (29:18)

Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.