Welcome to the global news podcast your sourcefor the latest and most comprehensive coverage of global events breaking news and in-depthanalysis we are here to guide you through the top stories from around the worldwhether it's politics economics culture or science I'm Nick Miles and in the early hoursof Wednesday the 14th of February these are our main Stories the US Senate passes a 95 billiondollar Aid package most of it will go to Ukraine President Biden has this message for HouseRepublicans history is watching failure to support Ukraine at this critical moment will neverbe forgotten we hear from the Democratic Republic of Congo where a rebel group is closing in on thecity of GMA and hunger Bears seem to be at most risk they're not as skilled as hunters and theyalso are smaller they're not able to accumulate.
As much body fat worrying new evidence ofhow global warming is threatening polar bears also in this podcast could anIsraeli ground offensive in Rafa be avoided following more ceasefire talks in Egypt and audience previously we just hadPakistani audience now we have people from the UK Brazil China so it feelsvery good the Pakistani pop group making Global waves thanks to some helpfrom the British star zann Malik after months of political wrangling the USSenate has approved a $95 billion Aid package predominantly for Ukraine but also for IsraelPalestinian civilians and Taiwan the senate had previously been divided but this time someRepublicans joined forces with Democrats to pass.
It easily but the bill now heads to the Republicancontrolled House of Representatives President Biden urged republicans in Congress to support thebill and and funding for Ukraine in its crucial time of need the stakes in this fight extend farbeyond Ukraine if we don't stop Putin's appetite for power and control in Ukraine he won't limithimself just to Ukraine and the cost for America and our allies and partners are going to rise forrepublicans in Congress who think they can oppose funding for Ukraine and not be held accountablehistory is watching failure to support Ukraine at this critical moment will never be forgottenthe majority leader in the Senate Chuck pleaded with the house Speaker Mike Johnson to not blockits passage and I call on speaker Johnson to rise to the occasion to do the right thing bring thisbill to the floor it is clear that if our bill.
Is brought to the floor it will pass but if thehard right kills this bill it would be an enormous gift to Vladimir Putin it would be a betrayalof our partners and allies and an abandonment of our service members Chuck Schumer so does MikeJohnson have the power to stop this Aid bill from being passed our Washington correspondent is Nanikbal he very much does and he's almost indicated that that is likely to happen that it mightnot reach the floor for a vote so we could be in a situation where it might be weeks or monthsbefore Congress sends the legislation to President Joe Biden's desk if at all I mean what Mr Johnsonhas to do he has to decide whether to bring the package to a vote in the chamber attempt to amendit send it back to the senate or just ignore it entirely and of course remember Mr Johnson he'sfacing huge pressure from those Republicans that.
Are very closely aligned to the former presidentDonald Trump and Donald Trump he's likely to be the Republican presidential candidate he wantsto kill this bill he doesn't believe in any more support for Ukraine so we just have to waitand see what happens next and nomia what do you think if anything could change the mind ofMr Johnson and the other prot Trump members of the House basically this legislation was passedafter Republicans block this broader Bill last week and that would have combined foreign aid witha bipartisan border deal so Republicans wanted the border security to be part of the bill but thenthey went on to reject the bipartisan border deal and that was following these attacks by DonaldTrump top House Republicans so if suddenly they combine border security with it that might changethings but what the Republicans want the more.
Extreme Republicans is very much odds with whata lot of the Democrats want it's really hard to see what will happen because Donald Trump sort ofshadow looms over a lot of this I mean Mr Johnson denies that he said that you know it's DonaldTrump isn't having any influence but it's hard to see how that's not the case um you know youmentioned Chuck Schumer there he has basically said it's up to the house and he said it's up tothem to save democracy so he's really laying out what he thinks is at stake here no mean thereare certain things in the bill like money for Taiwan money for Israel that you'd imagine a lotof Republicans would support and yet do you think the situation is not good AUD even though uh themoney will just disappear for those causes as well it doesn't look like that's going to happen atthe moment I mean like I said they either have.
To bring the package to a vote in that chamberattempt to amend it send it back to the Senate ignore it entirely do remember also that therewere two Democrats who voted against the package as well they cited deep concerns over supportingthe Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin nety who's military campaign also Senator Bernie Sandershe's independent but he does caucus with the Democrats and also voted against it for the samereason so we have to just see what happens next n ikbal in Washington Ukraine will be watching theHouse of Representatives closely in the coming days so will Moscow research suggests Russia'smilitary has lost more than 3,000 tanks since invading Ukraine equivalent to the number it hadWhen The War Began The International Institute for strategic studies says Russia has the vehiclesin reserve to replace losses for years but at.
A lower quality the think tank says the war inUkraine as well as other Global conflicts has driven defense spending to new highs here's oursecurity correspondent Frank Gardner over the last 12 months says the report published todaythe world has entered a new and more dangerous period conflicts raging in Ukraine and the MiddleEast have helped drive up Global defense spending to record levels the report finds that apart fromthe US NATO member states are now spending nearly a third more on defense than they were beforeRussia invaded Crimea 10 years ago Fel mcgerty from The International Institute for strategicstudies is one of the report's authors a key finding from this year's military balance from theISS is that the deteriorating security landscape has seen the increase in defense spending drivento the highest record level of $2.2 trillion which.
Is a 9% nominal increase over spending levelslast year Russia's losses in Ukraine have been staggeringly high around 3,000 tanks so far that'sas many as it started the fullscale invasion with two years ago it's trying to replace them asfast as possible putting its factories onto a war footing and going for quantity over qualityUkraine on the other hand is tending to replace its Battlefield losses with more modern Westernsupplied equipment Ukraine is suffering from serious shortages of troops and ammunition butthe report says ke demonstrates its Ingenuity by striking Russian targets beyond the frontlines and by developing its own homegrown systems to keep Russia's Black Sea Fleet at BayFrank Gardner to the Middle East now and as the conflict in Gaza continues discussions areunderway on a framework for a temporary truce.
Between Israel and Hamas negotiating teams fromthe US Israel Egypt and Qatar have begun talks in Cairo and qatar's former director of Defenseintelligence operations naaf Alani says he's optimistic about a possible deal there is a goodchance of success and fortunately we've said this in the past negotiations have broken down in thepast there have been adjustments made the Israeli uh prime minister has put some roadblocks alongthe way unfortunately but the Biden Administration I think pressed the prime minister of Israel togo for the possible rather than the perfect the need for a ceasefire is particularly acute forthe more than a million people who fled to Rafa and the southernmost part of the Gaza Strip Israelhas bombarded the city at a full Israeli ground offensive May soon follow the BBC's Nick beakin Jerusalem told me more about how these latest.
Ceasefire talks were going well Nick according toPresident Biden the the key elements of a deal are on the table but according to him gaps remainwe're not going to see anything imminently the Americans have been quite optimistic in theirlanguage over the past week or so saying that there is the potential for the differences to bebe bridged between Hamas and Israel let's assume there were to be progress what would it look likewell there was this framework which was hammered out in Paris a couple of weekends ago and in thatthere would be potentially A Lull in the fighting of say six weeks during which time the remaininghostages taken by Hamas on October the 7th would be released at the same time as Palestinianprisoners in Israeli jails being freed and also there would be this pause in the fighting somore humanitarian Aid could get in but the thing.
Is Benjamin Netanyahu the Israeli Prime Ministerhas said that hamas's demands that they put on on top of this framework were delusional so thatsort of language meant that a lot of people were not really filled with much hope clearly a lotof people in Gaza aren't filled with hope either because people who Moved many times over thelast few months are now moving again where are they going and what are they going to find wherethey get there well they don't know where they're going and a pretty bleak picture will be whereverthey end up really there was one woman today who was saying she was leaving with her family andthey weren't sure where they would go and this is the point that the United Nations and multipleAid agencies are making that they say no place is safe in Gaza so many different places thathave been hit by the fighting and this is why.
The United States the UK allies of Israel aresaying really they should think twice before they embark on any sort of massive operation tomove 1.5 million people out of Rafa so that the promised military campaign can begin there Nickbeak in Jerusalem to the Democratic Republic of Congo now where escalating violence has forcedmore people to flee to a city that may soon be under siege itself Rebels from the M23 group areadvancing on the eastern city of G and have been attacking nearby towns and Villages they're alsoblocking two main roads into G and have cut it off from the Farms that feed its inhabitantsthe BBC's Miley Jones has more in an unusual move the dlc's defense minister jeanpier BBA isvisiting Eastern DLC for the second time in less than a week he assured the local populationthat the government is working closely with.
Monusco the un's peacekeeping mission at a time ofescalating tensions in the Central African country protesters have attacked Western embassies and amonusco office in the capital kinasa accusing the International Community of ignoring the conflictin eastern DRC and of supporting Rwanda which has been Accused by the UN of backing the M23 Rebelson Monday there was a bomb explosion at a camp for displaced people in the town of sake in easternDRC the town has been repeatedly targeted by M23 in the past week forcing thousands of people toflee 25 km Southeast towards the major city of GMA humanitarian agencies have expressed alarm atthe optic in fighting between government allowing forces and M23 in recent months 1.1 million peopleare currently displaced in the north kevu Province by the conflict Rwanda has denied supporting M23which says it's protecting the minority tosti.
Population in eastern DRC from discrimination bygovernment aligned forces Mane Jones now another Stark warning about the impact of climate changepolar bears face a growing risk of starvation as the ice melts in the Arctic because they can'tadapt their diets to living on land and that is the finding of a study by researchers fromWashington State University and the US Geological Survey the team monitored dozens of bears inCanada for several weeks each year from 2019 to 2022 our environment correspondent Matt mcgrhas this report a polar bear splashes in the ice free Waters of Hudson Bay in Canada trying andfailing to eat a dead seal this bear was one of 20 studied with collar cameras over a three-yearperiod to try to understand how the animals are responding to increasingly ice-free Summers polarbears depend on the sea ice as their platform to.
Hunt seals their main source of nourishment whenthe ice is gone they have to spend more time on land some forage for berries eggs and grassesothers conserve their energy and wait for the ice to return neither strategy Works accordingto this study with all but one of the Bears losing up to 11% of their body weight over theSummer according to the lead author Dr Anthony Pagano from the US geological survey the youngerBears suffered more it's really the subadults the younger bears that seem to be at most riskthey're not as skilled as hunters and they also are smaller they're not able to accumulate asmuch body fat and that puts them a much greater risk of being able to endure this longer periodon land the prospects for polar bear survival are complicated as in some regions populations havegrown thanks to Greater protection and increased.
Availability of prey however this study showsthat adaptation is not a strong suit for these animals and in a warmer world that may meanstarvation is a never presentes threat Matt mcgr still to come on the global news podcastif you do find eggs period eggs it's usually as eggshell but not as a whole egg and so that itselfis amazing that we managed to recover this egg and could that egg that goes back to the rans bethe oldest of its kind ever to be discovered as you heard in our earlier Global News podcastpolice in Northern India had to fire tear gas to stop thousands of agricultural workersfrom marching to Delhi the farmers want the government to guarantee the price they getfor their produce police set up spikes and barricades on roads leading to the capital theprotesters seemed in no mood to let that stop.
Them the current situation is ouryoungsters have removed a layer of barricades that the police put inplace and we will remove the rest as well see how peacefully the farmers are Marchingyet the police are dropping tear gas shells from drones hovering in the sky our South AsiaRegional editor ambras Anin was following Tuesday's events there were thousands of farmerstrying to March towards Delhi but most of these incidents happened far away from Delhi like 200km 100 km well beyond delhi's borders they were all coming from the states of Punjab and haranawhich are very well known for agriculture and now the first dat was lot of tear gas some batn chargeand then some people were injured so the formats were taken by surprise with the Readiness of thesecurity forces and the government how they were.
Handling it what we have to wait and see is abouthow this is going to trigger more reaction from the farm because they have been insisting all theywant is to go to Delhi and hold a protest peaceful protest and the road barricades were put up by thegovernment now from the government's point of view they will want to get this done and dusted prettyquickly the voting in the general election starts in two months time what will it take to preventthe farmers from carrying on protesting what the fers are pointing out is that 2 years ago when theprevious protest ended the government made lot of promises for example the minimum support pricesfor all the crops on the government side what they are saying is that we cannot do it in a hurrywe have to discuss with all the stakeholders and given that is there much sympathy from from otherpeople across India because they might say look.
I don't get a guaranteed price for for my servicewhy should the farmers but you have to look at the farming in India it is not simply a livelihood itis a way of life what we're talking about is 60% of the population involved in agriculture in someform or the other and most of them have 5 Acres or less so if you're going to put them at competitionwith some fers in the US or in Australia where they do this industrial production there is nomatch that's why the government looks at the cost of production now what the farmers are arguingis the production cost has gone up and the labor cost has gone up so that is why they want minimumsupport prices and they are also worried about private investment to be on par with Internationalagriculture to make it more profitable whereas the farmer say know we need more help it is notsubsidy you are supporting people a community.
Amran Erin since Russia invaded Ukraine anincreasing number of videos have appeared online where Russians apologize for various allegeddefenses that contradict the kremlin's dominant Ideology Now it started happening in occupiedparts of Ukraine where some residents have been forced to record apology Clips after expressingpro-ukrainian views vital chunu has been investigating at the very end of last yeara private party was held at a nightclub in Moscow where guests some of them bigpop stars were told to appear almost naked in the current climate of thewar in Ukraine they were condemned as unpatriotic and soon enough theystarted issuing videos full of remorse.
Such Clips are part of a culture of apology videoswhich have increased in number since the invasion almost two years ago now this practice hasspread to occupied parts of Ukraine then theet one woman was forced to record an apology videoafter posting Pro Ukrainian views and Ukrainian songs online to protect her identity we'llcall her Nina which isn't her real name and her words are spoken for her by someone else thisis how she describes a visit to her home by local russia-backed security officers they said welllook we can be rude and we can be cruel to you we can bundle you up in a boot now and take youwherever we want there is no reason to be nice to you now after being interrogated and threatened bythe police Nina was handed a piece of paper with the apology she was supposed to read the textwas just atrocious it was the exact opposite.
Of what I thought it was designed to break methey wanted me to say that I support Russia that theet would flourish as part of Russia thatUkrainian troops are criminals fascist and so on the final straw was when the security officersthreatened to send Nina to jail and her child to an orphanage that's when I started cryingdifferent thoughts were swirling in my head was this just a police intimidation tactic andthey w't actually do it or did they mean it it was certainly within their power in the end Ninarecorded the apology video of the police wanted the experience left her devastated I felt my soulbeing raped they were trying to break disgrace and humiliate me worse of all I felt defeated so whyis this happening Russian social Anthropologist Alexandra arhipova describes the videos as ritualsof guilt and shame that amount to extrajudicial.
Punishment this violates internal Freedom this hasbecome the norm this is very bad if someone does something wrong the first thing they're supposedto do is record an apology video Mr hi believes that the videos are a product of a presidentwho treats Russia like an overbearing father everyone else is like children who have no legalagency of their own the father is always right so if they do anything wrong what do they have to dothey have to apologize to their father missu has come under pressure from the Russian authoritieswho have designated her as a foreign agent vital shevchenko now how do you like your eggs in themorning well probably a bit fresher than this one after unearthing it during an archaeological digover a decade ago UK scientists have discovered that a 1,700 year old egg still contains liquidthe Revelation makes it the only intact egg from.
Roman Britain and the oldest egg ever discoveredthat wasn't deliberately preserved Edward bidol from Oxford archaeology led the excavation inSouthern England Tim Franks asked him about the significance of this discovery the egg wasactually excavated a while ago in 2010 as part of an excavation on the Housing Development andthe Egg was found in a water logged pit and when conditions are right then organic objectswhich don't normally survive can survive like wooden objects and leather and things likethat and the site was part of a Roman town just outside elbury it was a reasonably large sizedtown and this waterlock bit which had been used to extract water for molting and Brewing it'sstill very wet when we exate it and it seems that the Roman people had after the pit had beenused for molting and Brewing used it to throw in.
Coins and other objects as offerings to the godsand included these eggs there were two other eggs with this one unfortunately two disintegrated onexposure to the air but we managed to recover one so normally if these things don't survive I meanif you do find eggs r period eggs it's usually as eggshell but not as a whole egg and so that itselfis amazing that we managed to recover this egg now several years down the line we did all the POexavation analysis and published the results but we had to think about the long-term storageof this egg and this is where the conservator we work with Dana Goodburn Brown did a micro CTscan of the egg because we had to know quite what we were dealing with and and scan just showedit's contained the liquid so what you're going to presumably introduce an extremely narrow needlein a a syringe in a very controlled environment.
To ensure that it doesn't shatter yes we're stillmaking arrangements to look into the possibility of doing this and a very fine hole can be madeinto the egg and the liquid extracted have you any idea what bird it might be have you gotany theories I think it's a chicken's egg that hasn't been confirmed because chickens wereactually quite important in the Roman world and apart from just being a food source they were usedfor um sacrifice or for ritual feasts and things like that and so it makes sense for it to be achicken's egg and and a superficial examination of the egg suggest that it may well be and whenthe other two eggs with it sort of shattered on exposure to a they they did emit eggy smells wewe think that the contents still have something of the original content absolutely nobody really hasthe chance to deal with something that's quite so.
Old and still in this level of preservation so soactually there's story that just continues to run as we find more and more out about the egg I meanof course there are older preserved eggs perhaps in Egypt for instance mummified eggs but thiswasn't intended to be preserved is it putting it too strongly Edward to say that archaeologists aregoing to sort of have to reink how they excavate because obviously if you just gone in with yournormal Excavating tools it may not have survived course we do have a range of methods to dealwith all sorts of conditions and it's not all with a you know massive dier and and big toolsto to exate but you know it does make you aware of what could survive it is a reminder reallyyou know that we have to be prepar prepared for anything really Edward belf speaking to Tim Franksthe power and politics of textiles in art is being.
Explored in a new Exhibition at the baracancenter here in London it's about fabric used Through the Ages to tell stories that transgressbound and challenge power structures Julia Brian Wilson author of fry art and textile politicshas advised on the exhibition and LJ Roberts is an artist whose work is in it Michelle Husseinstarted by asking Julia for a few examples of how fabric has challenged power politics sure I'llgive a couple of examples of course we live our lives a wash in textiles and they are absolutelyintegral to how we code ourselves as we dress every single day we are wrapped in textilesfrom the the moment that we are born until we die and so they are just charged with all kinds ofissues around gender class around colonization the movement of bodies um signification of subculturalstatus Etc and fabric is often used by artists and.
Activists as a way to push back against kind ofcodes of normativity one example might be from this island um which is the suffragette bannersthat were stitched and held aoft by women seeking to Advocate the power for women's rights to voteyou izing fabric um to make powerful statements in public that would be legible and also reallyimportantly turning to the needle and thread which has often been coded as a kind of domesticor pacifying activity but using it against itself yes I'm also reminded of Gandhi challenging theBritish Empire campaigning on cloth you know making the point that British Imports of clothhad affected the Indian economy 100% And Gandhi of course a very iconic Photograph by Margaret BKEwhite in front of the spinning wheel someone who is who really pushed back against the idea thattextile fabrication was being Consolidated by the.
British Empire and really hoping for generatingmore local economies precisely around fabric LJ your work is in the exhibition what is thatwork can you describe it yeah the work is um three portraits that were taken from a seriescalled carry you with me that I began in 2011 I make these very small portraits they're about4X 6 in so pardon the American measurements of friends and collaborators and loved ones in myextended queer Community um they're all hand stitched with a single thread and I work on themin the subway is it like an embroidered portrait they're embroidered portraits and they're shownin a way where they're suspended in glass so it's figurative on one side so you see the person sortof posed in a traditional portrait there's lots of kind of queer signifiers either sometimes sthey're at protests or at home or with each other.
At parties but then you can also see the back ofthe portrait and those threads um are very Tangled they're a little chaotic they're beautiful andto me they're almost more indicative of a human experience than the body is I'm thinking that overthe ages and perhaps even now do you struggle that sometimes people perceive it as craft rather thanart I like to embrace the word craft personally and that's been something that has been um aregular to use a textile metaphor thread in my work there's a lot of controversy about theword craft but for me craft is something where it is constantly challenging the center but forme it's much more productive to be on the margins and constantly Reinventing those margins andJulia has written really beautifully about craft over the years too so that work that she's donehas been incredibly informative LJ Roberts and.
Julia Brian Wilson speaking to Michelle Husseinthe British singer zann Malik has propelled the Pakistani group or into the Global Spotlight bycollaborating on their track to ha Kahan it means where have you gone in eru and is already a hugehit in their native Pakistan Zan Malik who used to be a member of the British chart topping band OneDirection was born in England and his dad is from
Salle trafic global 😊