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First malaria treatment for babies approved
00:26:43
The new drug should be rolled out in Africa within weeks
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- [00:00]
Valerie Sanderson
This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the uk.
- [00:06]
Sebastian Usher
World of Secrets the Killing Call a BBC World Service investigation into the murder of Punjabi singer and rapper Sidhu Musiala.
- [00:15]
Makiuchi Ukufar
The facts, they aren't out in the open.
- [00:17]
Valerie Sanderson
Why Sidhu Muse Wala, you know, uncovering.
- [00:19]
Sebastian Usher
A global criminal underworld that reaches far beyond India's borders.
- [00:24]
Makiuchi Ukufar
There are so many rumors, no one wants to talk.
- [00:27]
Sebastian Usher
There might be repercussions.
- [00:29]
Laura Bicker
Listen now.
- [00:29]
Sebastian Usher
Search for World of Secrets wherever you get your BBC podcasts this is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Valerie Sanderson and at 1300 hours GMT on Tuesday 8th July. These are our main stories. The first ever malaria treatment for babies and under fives has been approved with a rollout in African countries in weeks. The Red Cross says Gaza's overwhelmed health system has seen a huge rise in injuries and deaths linked to controversial aid distribution sites backed by Israel. At least 50 people have been killed in an attack by gunmen in central Nigeria.
- [01:13]
Michael Bristow
Also in this podcast, it's divided opinions. Some support her decision, other think it's just a step too far. She shouldn't have done it without the approval of her husband.
- [01:22]
Sebastian Usher
The Internet piles in after a South Korean actress becomes pregnant against her ex husband's wishes using an embryo created with him during the marriage. We don't often begin this podcast with good news, but today is an exception because the first malaria treatment that can be given to babies and to very young children has been approved and could be rolled out in African countries within weeks. Until now, the only option for under fives was to give them versions formulated for older children, which came with the risk of overdosing and even so, an estimated 450,000 babies and toddlers die in Africa every year from malaria related illnesses. Dr. Caroline Bolton, global Malaria Program head at Novartis, gave us a sense of the scale of the problem. It is the first ever malaria treatment for newborns and young infants less than 5kg who have malaria. There are potentially 30 million births across African American areas where malaria is prevalent. The best evidence we have is from West Africa which suggests that we have.
- [02:37]
Laura Bicker
A prevalence somewhere between 3% and 18%.
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Sebastian Usher
Of the babies that are born there have malaria. Dr. Caroline Bolton, our Africa Health correspondent Makiuchi Ukufar is in Lagos in Nigeria and tell me more about this drug.
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Leifi Tivert
It's the first ever malaria treatment specifically designed for newborns and infants weighing about less than 4.5kg. Now this is really interesting and it's coming at a great time because it will be filling a Treatment gap, which is the fact that babies and infants have had to be given drugs meant for older children. And doctors have had concerns that this might lead to overdose and it might not be so suitable for them because babies have really delicate and vulnerable bodies like the liver, which processes drugs, might not be able to process the drug meant for older people. So this is a great and interesting news. I have a colleague who just gave birth and earlier this morning when we were speaking and he said he was greatly excited because malaria is a disease we face here in Nigeria in great.
- [03:43]
Sebastian Usher
Numbers and a number of African nations were involved in the trials for this drug, weren't they?
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Leifi Tivert
Yes, you're right. There are about eight African countries that took part in clinical trials of this drug, included Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Malawi and Tanzania. There are about eight of them. And these countries are said to be the first in the coming weeks that will approve these drugs and perhaps start distributing them to mothers for their new babies.
- [04:14]
Sebastian Usher
And how quickly do you think this could be ruled out from the statement.
- [04:19]
Leifi Tivert
The company that produced this drug put out, it did say it will be approved within weeks. And considering that the clinicals are all done, I think that this might be quite speedy in the rollout. So in the couple of weeks, maybe mothers would have this available for their newborns.
- [04:40]
Sebastian Usher
Makochi Okafa in Nigeria next to Gaza. And as people there wait for a ceasefire, the suffering goes on. At the time of recording this podcast, the International Red Cross has just issued a statement saying there's been a huge rise in injuries and deaths linked to aid distribution sites which are now being run by the heavily criticize U S Israeli Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Our Middle east analyst Sebastian Asher, who's.
- [05:04]
Makiuchi Ukufar
In Jerusalem told me more, the ICRC is speaking out about this because it's the ICRC's field hospital in the south of Gaza, which is where many of those who have been wounded or killed in these incidents near the new aid distribution sites, the Gaza Humanitarian foundation have been taken. This is a 60 bed hospital which is under, as the ICRC says, extraordinary pressure, both from the numbers of wounded who are coming in on an almost daily basis, which the ICRC describes as unprecedented, that the numbers are more in the past month than have been seen for a year in that area. But also the lack of supplies, the great difficulty that a field hospital like that has in managing that number of casualties. And it essentially is saying, as we've heard and as has become clear over the past five weeks since the Gaza Humanitarian foundation began to operate the way that it's operating. The fact that Gazans are having to go to these areas, often in darkness, in chaos, in very, very difficult conditions, have led to countless incidents now where Israeli troops have opened fire, other armed groups have also opened fire, and the result has been 20, 30, 40, 50 people at a time killed and many more wounded. So it's really a warning and a cry of desperation from the ICRC about this situation, but it just can't continue as it has been doing.
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Sebastian Usher
Sebastian Usher in Jerusalem. China has a tight grip on the supply of a group of rare earth minerals essential for modern life. Without them, factories making smartphones, TV screens, wind turbines and electric cars could all grind to a halt. It's given Beijing huge leverage over Washington and in trade negotiations with President Donald Trump. But the BBC has discovered that this dominance has come at a huge environmental cost. Our China correspondent, Laura Bicker, has travelled to the country's two biggest mining regions, where she found a toxic legacy of polluted water and contaminated soil.
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Laura Bicker
Farmer Hwang is guiding us uphill to his forestry land, which is surrounded by rare earth mines.
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Leifi Tivert
We are filing complaints to force them to operate illegally.
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Sebastian Usher
Right now, their land use is illegal.
- [07:38]
Laura Bicker
The mountains of Ganzhou in southern China's Jiangxi Province are dotted with bright turquoise chemical ponds which help separate the valuable minerals from the soil. We arrive to the site of a landslide. The mining company has planted small trees, but the damage is still clear.
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Michael Bristow
The authorities inaction is the main reason.
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Leifi Tivert
These landslides keep happening.
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Sebastian Usher
Farmers like us, we are the vulnerable ones.
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Leifi Tivert
To put it simply, we were born at a disadvantage. It's pretty tragic.
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Laura Bicker
Our interview is interrupted by men wearing uniforms with the rare earth company logo. Even as we walked downhill, we found our car blocked in and at least 12 men waiting for us. You've blocked the car in? One told us he was a manager at the mining company before confronting our interviewee. It's not a secret. It's their land. He refused to let us leave for around three hours. We asked the China Rear Earth Jiangxi Company to comment, but they declined. There were once more than a thousand mines in this one county, an indication of the chokehold China has on the world's supply of a group of metals needed for nearly everything that we switch on every day, from smartphones to Bluetooth speakers, computers to TV screens. But the country was in such a rush for rare earths that it developed first and hoped to clean up later, says Professor Julie Klinger, author of Rare Earth Frontiers.
- [09:21]
Dame Wendy Hall
That was a strategy that was implemented despite the carefully documented social and environmental impacts and Although there's a lot of research, there's a lot of data on.
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Makiuchi Ukufar
Those impacts to water, to land, to.
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Dame Wendy Hall
Air quality and the impacts on human mortality. I think actually it's very difficult to know the true human and environmental cost.
- [09:43]
Julian Borgini
Of that sort of development model.
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Laura Bicker
Some of the worst health effects have been found in the north of the country in Inner Mongolia, near the world's largest rare earth mine. I'm walking beside the Yellow river, the second largest river in China, staring at a skyline of the city of Bao Tor, which has become famous in this country because of rare earths. Toxic chemicals used to separate rare earths from the soil have created a huge tailings pond which is slowly leaching towards this mother river. We drove around the man made lake full of grey radioactive sludge. The villagers who once lived here have been moved after investigations into cancer clusters and birth defects.
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Sebastian Usher
Laura Bicker Gunmen have attacked a village in central Nigeria, killing at least 50 people. The victims were from a volunteer for UP to Protect Villages from raids. Our Africa regional editor Will Ross told me more about what had happened.
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Valerie Sanderson
A large group of this sort of self defense militia, as it were. So these are vigilante groups set up in the different villages to try and protect the population from attacks by armed gangs because they say the police and the army just aren't protecting them. These people set off into a nearby forest near the village of Kukawa or the town of Kukawa, and they tried to then target a base belonging to an armed group and were then ambushed. And that's how dozens of people were killed. It's quite chaotic. The information coming in. It's thought that many more bodies could still be in the forest, but there have been funerals held already. But it's clear that this is kind of completely out of control. The insecurity in this particular part of Plateau State.
- [11:41]
Sebastian Usher
I mean, what do we know about the armed groups who are there?
- [11:44]
Valerie Sanderson
So what's been going on for a long time has been a lot of rivalry between cattle herding communities and then settled farmers. That's often to do with land, access to water, but also to do with access to jobs, etc. But the big problem now in Nigeria is that this is just one of a number of security challenges and the problem in north central Nigeria, this area here has reached a kind of peak. Amnesty International says during the first two years of the current government's time in power, President Tinubu's time in power, well over 8,000 people have been killed in Benue and Plateau states. So that's Central Nigeria. Then you head up to the northeast and you look at the rise of the jihadist groups. They are carrying out more and more attacks. They had been subdued, but those Islamist militant groups are again carrying out more attacks. There are other states in the northwest where criminal gangs are extorting money, basically ringing people up, forcing them to pay and killing families if they don't pay up. And it's as though, you know, you've also got the, the southeast Nigeria, a secessionist group there. So there are just too many huge security challenges for the state to cope with. And right now, the central north, central Nigeria, this plateau state, is where that's most evident.
- [13:18]
Sebastian Usher
Will Ross South Korean actress Lisa Hung, star of the Netflix horror series Sweet Home, has revealed she's expecting her second child, news that would traditionally be greeted with congratulations all round, but the way she became pregnant has caused controversy. The 43 year old used an embryo created with her ex husband before they were divorced. Divorced and he didn't consent to it being used by her to have a child. Our Asia Pacific editor Michael Bristow is following the story.
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Michael Bristow
Actress Lisi Hung, she got married to a businessman in 2017. They had a son. They wanted a second child. They had difficulty conceiving, so they went through IVF treatment that resulted in several embryos which were frozen. Now, subsequently, the relationship has ended. They got divorced earlier this year, but these embryos still existed. Now, the actresses told her fans on social media that she's pregnant with one of the embryos. The ex husband didn't want this to happen. So of course this raises all kinds of moral and ethical questions.
- [14:24]
Dame Wendy Hall
And how did she explain her decision?
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Michael Bristow
Essentially, it came down to motherhood. She's spoken a little bit over recent years about becoming a mother, how she's enjoyed it, spending time with her son and she wanted a second child. And it just so happened that these eggs could be preserved for five. That term was coming to an end. So she had to make a decision whether or not she wanted to use them or not. She decided to use them despite the husband's objections. She said she's been through all the scenarios, all the difficulties, looking forward, and she kind of came to the decision that she just had to do this. She couldn't bear to waste these embryos.
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Sebastian Usher
And how's it being viewed in South Korea? What are fans seeing?
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Michael Bristow
It's divided opinion. Some support her decision. Other think it's just a step too far. She shouldn't have done it without the approval of her husband. Interesting. Interestingly, since she announced this, the husband has come out and said, okay, I didn't want it to happen, but it has happened. So now I'm going to take responsibility as a father. So he seems okay with it. So perhaps everything will be all right.
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Sebastian Usher
Michael Bristow speaking there to Katie Watson still to come in this podcast we.
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Leifi Tivert
Are working with mental coaches, performance coaches, everything. We are managing vitamins, food, everything before tournaments.
- [15:41]
Sebastian Usher
The new generation of video gamers taking over the world of esport World of.
- [15:54]
Laura Bicker
Secrets the Killing Call A BBC World.
- [15:57]
Sebastian Usher
Service investigation into the murder of Punjabi.
- [16:00]
Laura Bicker
Singer and rapper Sidhu Musiala.
- [16:02]
Makiuchi Ukufar
The facts, they aren't out in the open.
- [16:04]
Sebastian Usher
Why is uncovering a global criminal underworld that reaches far beyond India's borders?
- [16:11]
Makiuchi Ukufar
There are so many rumors, no one wants to talk.
- [16:14]
Sebastian Usher
There might be repercussions.
- [16:16]
Laura Bicker
Listen now.
- [16:17]
Sebastian Usher
Search for world of Secrets wherever you get your BBC Podcasts America's top medical organizations are suing Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. The US health secretary, over the agency's COVID 19 vaccine recommendations for children and pregnant women. On May 27, Mr. Kennedy said the shot would no longer be included in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's recommendations for those groups. Dr. Susan Kressley is President of the American Academy of Pediatrics, one of the organizations behind the lawsuit, and she told us this is not just about COVID.
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Julian Borgini
It is true that the Secretary is responsible for making us policy, but what is upsetting to the medical community and to the pediatric leaders in America is that the process that we have had in place to use the science to guide recommendations and have experts and the appropriate expertise around the table collaborating to come up with science based recommendations has been dismantled and replaced and a unilateral decision by the Secretary without the transparency or science based conversation was made and the experts were not in the room to help guide the recommendations. For us. This isn't really about COVID This is about eroding the trust and the infrastructure of vaccine recommendations and delivery across the country, which has led to further questioning and unnecessary anxiety in families trying to make decisions for their children. In all the vaccine groups, not just the COVID vaccine, we had a very robust collaborative expert based, science based process which is also embedded in the vaccine delivery infrastructure in our country. And so 17 members of that committee were fired and replaced by eight people who were not vetted in the usual process way in order to promote an agenda that was not in keeping with the trusted process that had been counted on by many for decades.
- [18:42]
Sebastian Usher
Dr. Susan so far Robert F. Kennedy's department hasn't commented despite concerns from Many sectors, experts say artificial intelligence can be a force for good. The question is how? What can encourage friendly use of AI by humans? Well, that question is a central one. At the AI for Good summit, which a group of UN agencies are hosting in Geneva. There is one major sticking point. The big tech companies aren't there. Dame Wendy hall is professor of Computer Science at the University of Southampton here in England and a UN adviser on AI policy. She told the BBC's Justin Webb what needs to be done.
- [19:20]
Dame Wendy Hall
We need leadership around the world on this. There's less and less Americans here, of course, these days because of what the Trump saying they're not going to regulate.
- [19:31]
Valerie Sanderson
I mean, just to be really blunt about it, if they follow through and say we're going to let AI companies, particularly in the United States, do what they want to do, we're going to take all the shackles off them, we're not going to regulate them, it doesn't really matter about a UN conference, does it? Because the work will be done and there's nothing the UN or any of these bodies can do about it.
- [19:52]
Dame Wendy Hall
Yeah, I'm afraid, Justin, I do agree with you and that's what my call is, for the governments of the world to actually talk about bringing this spring together. What we can use AI for that, it's not something we want to say. We don't ever want to use AI because it's so dangerous. It isn't. It's really, it's going to be a power for good and it's going to really help us do things that we couldn't do before. But we do need to bring together what the tech companies are doing and they're of course all in the west coast of America and we've got to have leadership that's doing that and that's what I'm calling for all the time now.
- [20:30]
Valerie Sanderson
How hopeful are you that your call will be heard?
- [20:33]
Dame Wendy Hall
Well, just at this moment in time, I think it's really difficult and that's why I come here to try and talk to people of a like mind to see where we can put the pressure point.
- [20:44]
Sebastian Usher
Dame Wendy hall speaking there to Justin Webb. A court in Slovakia has begun trying a 72 year old man over the attempted murder of the country's Prime Minister, Robert Fico last year. Juray Siddhala is accused of firing five shots at the Prime Minister after a government meeting. The defendant admits firing the gun, but insists he was only trying to wound Mr. Fico, not to kill him. But if he's found guilty, he could face Life imprisonment. As our Prague correspondent Rob Cameron explains.
- [21:14]
Valerie Sanderson
Juray Sintula shouted long live democracy. As he was led by heavily armed police into court in the city of Banska Bistrica. Scintilla faces life in prison after prosecutors upgraded the premeditated murder charge to terrorism. But that may be difficult to prove. There's no evidence he acted as part of a conspiracy and the Supreme Court has cast doubt on the reclassification. Mr. Fitzo himself says he bears no personal animus towards the gunman, instead blaming the liberal opposition and the media for creating an atmosphere of hatred in Slovakia.
- [21:52]
Sebastian Usher
Rob Cameron. Wednesday, the 9th of July could be the shortest day in history, and it's all down to the Earth's rotation unexpectedly speeding up. That's according to the astrophysicist Graham Jones from the University of London, who's predicted that time will drop by up to 1.3 milliseconds. So why is this happening? And how do humans perceive the passing of time? Emma Barnett spoke to the philosopher Julian Borgini, and first to Dr. Hannah Fry, professor of the Public Understanding of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge.
- [22:24]
Dame Wendy Hall
For almost all of history, we set our time by the Earth. The Earth is an absolutely rubbish timekeeper. I mean, it's this wobbly rock floating around in space, and so it's not consistent. And the thing is is that the spin on its axis changes over time. So we know, for example, that actually it used to spin much faster. And you can tell this by cutting into ancient coral and counting up the rings like, like you would on a tree. And you can see sort of summer and winter and day and night. And we know that 430 million years ago, there were like 420 days in a year, right? So, you know, way more sleeps between birthdays. So we know that Earth is sort of slowing down on its axis, but this thing is that it looks like there's some inside the Earth's core. It's a bit like an ice skater spinning really, really fast when they bring their arms in, which is just ever so, ever so slightly speeding the Earth up. Julian, let me bring you in.
- [23:15]
Sebastian Usher
The way that we think about it passing is, what do you think? How can we explain that?
- [23:20]
I
First of all, you think about all human beings. The physics of time doesn't really tell us anything about that. There's no kind of past, present or future in physics. And also, there's no real sense of the direction of time. It could be going backwards or forwards for all physics cares. So the way human beings experience is kind of very sort of different. From a scientific understanding of time. But then also you've then got the possibility of, like, cultural variation. But if you think about it, it's quite remarkable that human beings are able to both experience the moment, as we think all animals do, but also have that sense of the future and the past and to plan and to have memories and so forth. And it does seem that in different cultures, in different times, we've also got to fashion that in different ways. So in our contemporary Western culture, we very much have an idea of time having a direction, a purpose. You know, in Christian times, it was heading towards the salvation. In secular times, it was about progress going forwards. Whereas in most traditional societies, people think about time much more, about the cycles of time. You know, the seasons, the sun rising, the sun sets. There's a sense in which everything always comes back to where it was.
- [24:28]
Dame Wendy Hall
I think quite a lot of physicists would say that physics does really care about time. And these numbers that we're talking about for tomorrow, I mean, they are so tiny. We're talking about sort of one and a half milliseconds. And by the way, it takes five milliseconds for a bee to flap its wings. So you're probably not going to notice a big difference on the sort of the scale of your own human life.
- [24:49]
Sebastian Usher
Dr. Hannah Fry and Julian Bugini. If you were asked about one of the world's biggest professional sporting events that's underway in Saudi Arabia in an industry worth billions of dollars, would you know what it's about? It's not tennis, cricket or football. It's esports, short for electronic sports, also known as competitive video gaming. Well, thousands are expected to cheer on their favorite players in arenas across Saudi Arabia's capital, riyadh, for the 2025 Esports World cup, with even more watching live online. Leifi Tivert is a top professional EAFC player with Team Liquid, based in the Netherlands, and he says it's very hard work.
- [25:31]
Leifi Tivert
I think there is like a kind of stereotype of a gamer, maybe someone who is going to bed at 6, 7am, eats pizza a lot and doesn't really take care of his health. I think that's completely wrong. As you can see, we are working with mental coaches, performance coaches, everything we are managing, vitamins, food, everything before tournaments.
- [25:52]
Sebastian Usher
And let's get more from our reporter Andrew Rogers.
- [25:56]
Leifi Tivert
The tournament attracts the biggest prize pot in competitive gaming, with more than £50 million up for grabs over the next seven weeks across 25 games, including call of Duty, Street Fighter and even online chess. Now in its second year, the event has encouraged some esports teams to scale up and take part in as many events as possible. That's because the club with the most individual wins gets an extra £5 million. Sorely needed as some investment in the industry has dried up and clubs need to do more to compete for the best global talent. The Esports World cup hasn't been without controversy, though some fans and players aren't happy. It's hosted and largely funded by Saudi Arabia, a country where women have fewer rights than men and it's illegal to be gay.
- [26:41]
Sebastian Usher
Victor Hussens is the founder and CEO of one of the world's most successful esport clubs. I mentioned earlier, Team Liquid, who are based in the Netherlands. He says taking part in a competition based in Saudi Arabia will was a tough decision.
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Michael Bristow
We believe in esports for all for almost the last 15 years. We'd really done our best to empower the LGBTQ community within esports as well, and so that's been difficult to navigate. At the same time, we are also certain that if we want to be around five years from now, 10 years from now, we need to be playing in the esports World Cup. We need to be playing in the biggest events.
- [27:18]
Sebastian Usher
Victor Hussens. And that's it 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, send us an email. The address is globalpodcastbc.co.uk. you can also find us on XBCWorldService. Use the hashtag globalnewspod. This edition was mixed by Charlotte Hadroy Tojimska. The producers were Stephanie Prentice and Stephen Stephen Jensen. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Valerie Sanderson. Until next time. Bye bye.
- [27:58]
Laura Bicker
World of Secrets the Killing Call A.
- [28:00]
Sebastian Usher
BBC World Service investigation into the murder of Punjabi singer and rapper Sidhu Musiala.
- [28:06]
Makiuchi Ukufar
The facts, they aren't out in the open.
- [28:08]
Valerie Sanderson
Why is, you know, uncovering a global.
- [28:11]
Sebastian Usher
Criminal underworld that reaches far beyond India's borders?
- [28:15]
Makiuchi Ukufar
There are so many rumors no one wants to talk.
- [28:18]
Sebastian Usher
There might be repercussions. Listen now. Search for World of Secrets wherever you get your BBC podcasts.