Russian strikes hit dozens of locations in the Ukrainian capital

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

I'm Jackie Leonard, and at 13 hours GMT on Thursday, the 31st of July, these are our main stories.

Russian strikes kill at least nine people in the Ukrainian capital Kiev and Washington's envoy Steve Witkoff is meeting the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to try to salvage ceasefire talks and help improve the dire conditions in Gaza.

Also in this podcast, the World Food Programme in Nigeria says drastic aid cuts have left a million displaced people at the mercy of jihadists.

It will be much easier for the militants to lure other youths to join them and spiral the insecurity across the whole region.

And what do we need to know about children and screen time and how to protect developing brains?

We start in Ukraine, where the capital Kiev has come under fire again by a barrage of Russian weapons.

At least nine people were killed and dozens more were injured as drones and missiles hit at least 27 locations.

Several districts of the city were attacked and an apartment block was destroyed.

The dead included a six-year-old boy.

This man was in his apartment when the attack happened.

The main thing is that we're alive, and I hope the apartment will be okay too.

I was just lying in bed when there was a really bright flash, then a very loud explosion.

We'd heard blasts before, but nothing like this.

Our defense correspondent in Kiev, Jonathan Beale, Beale, told us more.

There were more than 300 drones fired from Russia towards Ukraine overnight.

Most of those focused on the capital, Kyiv.

And it's been a fairly quiet few days, partly because they're thunderstorms.

So, quiet in the sense, no not many Russian strikes going on, but certainly last night it was quite intense.

Also, missiles fired, lighting up the sky as they hit the ground, that orange glow lighting up the night sky.

And there have been significant civilian casualties.

And among those killed includes a six-year-old boy and his mother, a child of five months, has also been injured.

So a very heavy, difficult night for Kyiv.

It's not the first I remember this has happened, but I think the timing is significant.

Yes, this is just a few days after President Trump issued a new ceasefire deadline to Vladimir Putin.

Russia doesn't seem to be taking much notice, does it?

No, it doesn't.

And let's be honest, there have been lots of sanctions imposed on Russia and it may have made the economy, how the Russian government

tries to make its budget work, more difficult.

But at the end of the day, they are able to get around these sanctions.

And the threat of more sanctions from President Trump has clearly not changed the direction of President Putin's war.

And it's not just a war in the air, it's a war on the ground too.

And that is continuing.

Yes, that war is continuing.

Russia says that it has made an important advance in the east of Ukraine.

What can you tell us about that?

So, this is the claim from Russia about the town of Chasivyar, which I've been to many times.

It's an important strategic goal for the Russians because it does give them high ground and it gives Ukraine high ground to defend.

But Russia clearly targeting that city because then they believe they can move on to other cities like Pokrovsk, which is already under huge threat, and Konstantinivka, so getting more of the Donbass essentially.

So we have seen on social media scenes of Russian flags being raised.

in Chasivyar.

That said, Ukraine is adamant that Russia does not control Chazivyar in its entirety and that fighting is still going on.

But, you know, this is a pattern we've seen repeated throughout the war where a fierce battle goes over against a town or a city slowly but surely, given that the Russians throw lots of resources, lots of people, and a lot of them die at taking these objectives, that this looks like it will be the next one to go.

The overnight attack in Kiev did nothing to deter demonstrators who gathered outside Ukraine's Parliament building today.

They were holding a rally in support of President Zelensky's bill to restore the independence of two key anti-corruption agencies, reversing a bill he introduced only last week.

Ukraine's parliament has voted overwhelmingly in favour of it.

BBC Monitoring's Russia editor Vitaly Shevchenko told us more.

It's an amazing U-turn.

Last week, Parliament voted on a bill essentially handing over control of these two key agencies to a political appointee, a Zelensky loyalist.

And predictably that triggered those massive protests.

Thousands of Ukrainians taking to the streets across Ukraine saying that this is not what we want.

And also predictably, Ukraine's Western allies have expressed concern.

Now, not one of those MPs who voted to curtail those agencies' authority, well, essentially, they did the opposite.

They backed a presidential bill restoring their independence by a huge number, 331 for, not a single one against.

You describe it as an amazing U-turn.

Has this damaged President Zelensky?

What this vote shows is that he's still very much in control.

He's not a lame duck.

I was listening to the debate in Parliament before this vote, and the MPs made critical, angry noises saying that we're not going to be dictated, we're not going to follow whatever the EU tells us or the President tells us.

But yet, in the end, they voted the right sort of way.

It begs the question of what was the point in the first place of allowing this to happen.

Damage was done to Ukraine's credibility as a fighter against corruption, but this vote, pretty much unanimous, is probably the best way of containing that damage.

Can you just explain for us how big an issue is corruption in Ukraine right now?

It has been a huge issue for decades, for generations.

Having said that, over the past years Ukraine's made huge strides, well mainly thanks to those two agencies, in fighting corruption.

Transparency International ranks Ukraine pretty highly in its corruption perceptions index, and over the past years we've seen numerous examples of high ranking officials being exposed, and now the fear that caused all these protests and all this concern was that if those agencies were subordinated to a political appointee controlled by the government, years of hard work would have been undone.

Vitaly Shevchenko of BBC Monitoring.

To the Middle East now, and the person Donald Trump entrusts with much of his diplomacy, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, is back in Israel today.

He's meeting senior Israeli officials to discuss how to get more aid to civilians in Gaza and efforts to kick-start stalled ceasefire talks.

So, could this trip be more successful than previous visits, particularly as President Trump has been coming under increasing pressure to intervene in the humanitarian crisis?

Dennis Ross is a longtime former Middle East envoy for the U.S.

I think with regard to President Trump, he seems to be more and more concerned about the realities in Gaza.

I don't believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu can say no to him.

That's also one of the reasons I think Witkoff is going out there to impress Prime Minister Netanyahu on what the administration needs to be done.

So there's a climate that is changing here.

I think it's very much in Israel's interest to find a way to end the war.

Obviously, Hamas has a say in that, but I think if the Israeli position were to change to one in which it would announce that they will end the war provided all the hostages are released, with the understanding that if Hamas tries to reconstitute itself, Israel will act again.

I think it would be difficult for Hamas not to release the hostages under those circumstances.

Our correspondent in Jerusalem, Yoland Nell, told us more about Mr.

Witkoff's visit.

Well, local media are expecting him to meet the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, about now, but we haven't had an official schedule.

He's coming here really at a critical moment, expected to meet different Israeli officials to talk about the ceasefire and hostage release deal after efforts to secure this deal really stalled last week.

You had both both Israel and the US pulling their negotiators out of indirect talks that have been going on for weeks in Qatar.

And in recent days we've had Israeli officials being quoted threatening punitive action against Hamas if it does not in the coming days accept this deal for a 60-day truce and returning hostages that is on the table.

At the same time, the deep humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

And we had President Trump earlier this week saying that the US and Israel would team up to set up new aid centers in Gaza.

Now, the White House has not given any information.

Israeli officials have not given any information about what that might mean.

And that's why, against that backdrop, there's a lot of interest in the media reports that we've had that Steve Witkoff could indeed go to Gaza, as he has done once before since taking up his job, to see things on the ground for himself and to look at those controversial aid sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

And as I mentioned in the introduction, Israel does appear to be increasingly isolated diplomatically.

Certainly more countries like Canada is the latest to talk about potentially recognising Palestinian statehood.

What is the reaction to all of that where you are in Jerusalem?

I mean it's just been a sort of consistently angry reaction that's come from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs saying that this both harms ceasefire efforts and it gives a reward for terrorism to Hamas.

And, you know, that was a big policy shift announced by Canada, as we've had by other close allies of Israel, France, and the UK in recent days.

All of them saying, you know, this is conditional, this move that they're suggesting they could make to recognise a Palestinian state.

Canadians are talking about it needs reforms to the Palestinian Authority, which governs parts of the occupied West Bank.

But really, this is getting a lot of attention.

Israelis do feel increasingly isolated internationally, while the US is standing by the Israelis.

I've just been at a rally with hostage families calling on Steve Wickoff to do more to try to get their loved ones released from Gaza.

But there, the people were saying that they felt betrayed somewhat because they believe that hostage releases should come before any recognition of a Palestinian state.

Of course, the Palestinians have really welcomed this move.

It's something that President Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority, has really been pushing for with other officials, especially those in the West Bank, for years now.

since back in 2014 we had the last direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians stalling, with nothing really to replace those in the last decade.

That was Yoland Nell and she was speaking to Ben Brown.

The UN in Nigeria says it will today run out of money needed to continue supporting over a million people displaced by militants.

The Boko Haram Group is considered one of the world's deadliest.

It has killed thousands of people across northern Nigeria and forced tens of thousands more to flee and seek refuge in UN camps.

But now the World Food Programme says cuts to global aid budgets, including by the US, which was the biggest donor, could leave people hungry and force families back into the hands of insurgents.

Anne Soy reports from Gwoza in northeastern Nigeria.

I'm walking in the middle of the internally displaced persons camp in Gwoza, and there are children all around me.

Millions of Nigerians across the northeast have fled to camps like this one over the last 10 years for their safety.

They are fleeing from militants.

And just beyond the camp, I can see in front of me there are beautiful hills.

But it can be misleading because just beyond those hills, that's where the militants are located.

And I'm told from time to time they do come into the camps to attack people.

I meet 40-year-old Aisha Abubakal.

She abandoned her farm and fled from home after her family was attacked.

I had 10 children in total.

Six have died and four are alive.

Some of my children died of illness, while others were abducted.

My husband was killed too.

And that means Aisha is entirely dependent on aid.

It's full distribution day at the camp.

There are easily hundreds of people here seated in the shade, women on one side, men on the other.

They are holding debit cards that are loaded with cash.

So rather than give them food in kind from the World Food Programme, they get cash.

And there are retailers here.

They have grains, they have cooking oil, they have all sorts of food supplies.

So the internally displaced people will buy the food using their cards, but it's the last amounts they are receiving.

Our warehouse are empty?

That's Trust Mulambo, the World Food Programme's head of operations for Northeast Nigeria.

So you don't have any more to give them?

We don't have any more to give them.

The situation is dire and it's desperate.

So if the support that you've been giving these people ends, where does that leave them?

It will be much easier for the militants to lure other youths to join them and spiral the insecurity across the whole region.

For years, Nigeria has failed to tackle the insurgency.

What's clear is that the crisis is not waiting.

Things are getting worse by the day.

I've come to the Hausari Bay Nutrition Center in Goza.

I can see dozens of mothers here who have brought their children.

Some of them are sat on a mat, others on plastic chairs waiting for their turn to be seen.

25-year-old Hawa Badamasi has brought her children here.

She's just received the news from the mediques.

Her oldest, Amina, who's three and a half, is malnourished.

I feel so bad.

Every mother wants her baby to be healthy.

Hawa and other mothers here do not know it yet, but this clinic, as well as many others in this region, may just close because of funding cuts.

I asked her where it would leave her and her family.

The people are in a difficult situation, and there are no farmers.

When the farmers enter the bush to farm, they get killed.

The aid has stopped, and and people are killed in the farm.

What are we going to do with our lives?

We will be in a dire situation with no food and no medicine.

Our survival depends on these essentials.

And as she leaves the clinic, Hawa is given a bag with the nutrition supplement to take home to continue the treatment.

But this might just be the last batch she receives here.

That report by Anne Soy in northeastern Nigeria.

One of the great fears of modern times is that we are somehow rewiring children's brains by the use of screens, rewiring them in a way that reduces their capacity and causes them mental decline that will affect them as adults and so affect all of society.

Australia seems to be leading the way when it comes to direct measures to limit screen time, most recently planning to ban YouTube accounts for under-16s to go alongside bans on TikTok and Instagram, etc.

In Britain, recently an online safety bill was partly aimed at reducing access to pornography.

But what about the wider question of screen time for children, which so many parents grapple with all the time?

Here's our technology editor, Zoe Kleinman.

The reason I started looking into this is because we see so many headlines about the worries and the fears of screen time.

And there are some scientists who are saying, actually, if you look at this scientifically, the evidence base that we have for all of this is not there.

and they argue is actually quite flawed.

So, they say the way in which this data is gathered is generally

quite unscientific.

You're asking people to self-report how much screen time they've had and how it made them feel.

You're not necessarily asking them what it was they were doing on their screens during that time.

Were they doom scrolling or were they learning a language and talking to other friends around the world?

What else was going on in their lives at the time?

And they also say there's issues with correlation.

So, for example, in one big data set they found there was a small link between increased screen time and depression but there was the same statistical link in the same data set between reports of feeling depressed and whether or not the people the person had eaten potatoes in the last seven days so you know the argument is that you're you're you're sort of looking for something in in in data that's not really scientifically there yet there's also some studies that suggest blue light is really bad for you before you go to sleep it stops you sleeping but equally there are others that say do you know what it It doesn't make much difference at all.

There really isn't the conclusive evidence scientifically that we might think there is, even though obviously parents will say, well, we can see it.

Yeah, but that's the point, isn't it?

The evidence would be the link.

I mean, and that would put to bed the potato thing, wouldn't it?

Because what is missing with the potatoes is a link between the two.

And that is what a lot of parents think is actually there and is visible to them.

Yeah, and I spoke to one neuroscientist several years ago, actually, who said she thought screens were changing children's brains.

And this was like a climate emergency situation, you know, that we really should be a lot more worried about it than we are but the science has never really backed that up and one study looked at the brain scans of 11 and a half thousand nine to twelve year olds and didn't find any changes and you've got to also bear in mind that everything changes your brain that's how we learn and you know that the evolution of our brains happens quite slowly one neuroscientist said to me if our brains changed dramatically very quickly in response to environmental factors we'd be extinct by now because you know we wouldn't be able to keep up with our environment around us.

And there are some concerns that by making screens a forbidden fruit, are we driving it underground?

Are we making it harder for children to feel like they can ask for help?

And because there aren't really any consistent official guidelines, so there are lots of pediatric bodies that don't have any screen time guidelines at all.

The World Health Organization does have some, but it's really more geared around keeping children active rather than keeping them on their screens.

You know, I'll be creating an unlevel playing field here where we're going to have some tech-savvy children and some who aren't.

And then when they do get online, they're likely to be more vulnerable.

That said, there are others who say, no, that you know, there is absolutely no controversy around this.

Screens for children are bad.

One

psychologist I spoke to, Jean Twenge, worked with Jonathan Haight, who's very well known in this space.

And she says she started out looking at why depression rates were rising dramatically in US teens.

And she didn't set out to prove that smartphones were evil, but it was the only common denominator that she could find.

And she thinks the only answer is to delay them for as long as possible.

Zoe Kleinman was speaking to Justin Webb.

Still to come in this podcast, what archaeologists are learning from the tattoos of a mummified woman discovered in Siberia.

What I hope people take away from it is the increased sense of respect and awe for the people back in the day.

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A BBC Verify investigation has revealed that the identities of British public sector workers are now being cloned using AI by a Russian-linked disinformation campaign.

An emergency medical advisor from Preston in northwest England was stunned to learn that his voice had been faked in a campaign spreading fear ahead of Poland's presidential election earlier this year.

Olga Robinson has more.

Earlier this year, Aaron, an emergency service co-operator from Preston in England, recorded a video for the NHS, the UK's public health service, about his work during the Easter holidays.

Hello, my name's Aaron.

I'm an emergency medical advisor on one of the National Programs.

But to his surprise, his voice was stolen by a Russian-linked disinformation network to create an AI fake pushing pro-Russian messages.

I have many friends who are paramedics in Poland.

They are terrified of the upcoming election because I tracked Aaron down on social media and told him his identity had been stolen.

When we finally interviewed him, he told us the fake scared him.

Why would the Russians choose me?

Why would it be me that they've chosen out of all those thousands of videos that are out there on Facebook and Instagram?

In this case, the operation seemed to try and spread fear ahead of the May presidential elections in Poland, which is a staunch ally of Ukraine.

We've also found that the quality of fabricated videos like this is getting more sophisticated.

We've compared the audio of the fake featuring Aaron with his real voice and found that it's similar.

I don't think my friends or family would have been able to tell it was fake.

I think they would have probably believed it was real.

Independent researchers have also helped us to confirm that this is part of an extensive Russian disinformation campaign which BBC Verify and other analysts have been tracking for years.

Previously, they impersonated dozens of media outlets, journalists and academics, but now seem to have broadened their tactics to exploit British public sector workers.

Guillaume Kusta, the CEO of CzechFirst, a Finnish analytics company that has previously linked the network to Russia, says that the operation keeps evolving.

They are trying something new.

They are, you know, throwing spaghetti in the wall and see what sticks.

Aaron is not the only one to have his identity cloned using AI.

We found at least four other British public sector workers whose videos have been exploited like this.

Luckily, none of their fakes went viral, but there's no guarantee that another one wouldn't.

I warned my little brother and my little sister about using social media sensibly, so for my video to be used, it's quite scary, really.

That report by Olga Robinson.

The military junta, which seized power in Myanmar four years ago, has for the first time lifted the state of emergency under which it's been ruling the country.

The junta has announced plans to hold an election at the end of the year.

Our Southeast Asia correspondent, Jonathan Head, explained what the move means.

It's really a technicality, although of course the state of emergency is the fig leaf under which the military has given itself the aura of legitimacy ever since it deposed the elected government of Aung San Suu Ki four and a half years ago.

You have to remember the Myanmar military, they wrote a constitution under which Myanmar has been operating way back in 2008.

So while many people say they violated it with the coup, they do try to adhere to it.

Under that, they could declare a state of emergency for six months.

So they've renewed this state of emergency every six months.

It's been renewed eight times.

The reason they've not renewed it this time, the last one's just expired, is because under the Constitution you can't hold an election if a state of emergency is in place.

That means all this talk of an election at the end of the year is serious.

The military wants to hold an election, possibly December, possibly January, despite the fact that it doesn't control a lot of the country, there's armed insurgency and a great deal of it,

that a large part of the population is unlikely to take part.

But they're still pushing ahead, and I think this the fact that they've suspended the state of emergency shows that they're set on doing it.

But given all those conditions that you just mentioned, is Myanmar in any state to hold a free and fair election?

Most countries would never hold an election this state.

It's certainly going to lack credibility of any real kind, particularly as the military is organising it.

The most popular party, Aung Sin Suu Ki's party, will not be able to take part.

And they've just passed a pretty savage law that penalises any sort of criticism of the election process, any attempt to disrupt it.

And the fact is there will be disruptions.

If they try to hold it, there's no doubt that the various insurgent groups will try to stop it.

They've said it's not legitimate, it shouldn't happen.

Behind Myanmar, though, there is some diplomatic support, partly from China, we believe.

Not that China approves of much of what the Myanmar military has done, but that China views some kind of election, even if it's deeply flawed, as the only off-ramp from the debilitating civil war that Myanmar is stuck in.

And I think that might encourage the generals to push ahead in the hope that they come up with some kind of government that can be worked with to find a solution solution to this ongoing conflict.

Will ending the state of emergency actually make any other difference to normal life?

I doubt it.

You know, I think the military has got a very firm grip.

You know, there's extreme violence, they operate with impunity in much of the country.

There's aerial bombardment.

The war won't stop, and I think most Burmese won't notice the difference.

That was Jonathan Head.

Now, would you feel safer in a plane being flown by a female pilot or a male one?

New research is suggesting that women perform better than males in some scenarios.

A study by the University of Waterloo in Canada of pilots in their early stages of licensing has shown that female pilots make fewer flight control errors in simulations when stress levels increase.

But that's not the full picture, as the lead researcher Dr.

Nyla Ayala told Pre-Arai.

Females in these high-stress emergency situations tend to perform better even though we didn't find any differences in visual attention, which was not at all something that we hypothesized.

This is about stress levels, right?

So what are some of those situations where women are potentially dealing with it better?

This is one paradigm that we looked at in a wider range of nine different scenarios.

So four of those scenarios were really easy, the nicest skies, weather conditions pilots could probably dream of.

And then another four conditions were a little more difficult.

Now across all those different types of scenarios, it was in the last type of scenario, which was our emergency engine failure scenario, that we surprised pilots with where we started to see differences between female and male pilots.

There was evidence of female pilots being able to identify the emergency quicker than male pilots.

There was significant differences in their ability to maneuver the plane and land the plane safely, significantly faster than their male counterparts.

And they were also able to maintain consistent airspeed and not deviate from the recommended airspeeds for final approach and landing compared to their male counterparts, which actually demonstrated significantly larger deviations from what was recommended during their final approach during these emergency scenarios.

But actually, there were some scenarios, I believe, where you found better things about how men were reacting.

Yes.

I think what this really shows us is that there is more research that needs to be done to identify these different strengths and weaknesses, and there's more innovation that is also required to be done and integrated into training organizations and training institutions so that they can actually almost build off of the current training protocols to something that's more adaptive to the individual.

Dr.

Naila Ayala.

And a shout out to my cousin, the airline pilot Janice Gibson.

Archaeologists have produced high-resolution scans of the tattoos found on a 2,500-year-old ice mummy found in Siberia.

The decorations were on the body of a woman who was preserved in an ice cave.

Our science correspondent Georgina Ranard told us more about them.

They're actually really beautiful, I think.

So they're on the arms and hands of a woman who's aged about 50.

She was with the Pazaric people in Siberia in the 5th century BC.

And on the pictures in the scan, you can see these really thick black lines.

They're quite large.

And then the tattoos were a mixture of wild animals battling.

So there's leopards encircling a stag.

The sag's got kind of long back legs and antlers.

Another tattoo shows this mythical creature, the griffin.

So it's half lion and then it has the head and wings of an eagle.

But my favourite one actually is this tiny little rooster with a long neck and that was on her thumb, which they said sort of shows her flare.

They are very beautiful.

What do we learn from them?

So we knew these ice mummies existed from these caves.

They were found in the 19th century, but these scans are the first time they've seen the tattoos in sort of very crisp detail.

And they worked with a modern tattooist who himself decorates his own body with these ancient decorations.

And his conclusions mean they think they pencilled the design onto the skin first and then used needles probably made from animal bone.

So it's really rare to get this level of detail from an ancient culture.

And the archaeologists are delighted.

So we spoke to Dr.

Gino Caspari from the Max Planck Institute about his work.

What I hope people take away from it is kind of an increased sense of respect and awe for the people back in the day.

Tattooing is a practice that's very important for a lot of people around the world today.

And back in the day, it was already a really professional practice where people put a lot of time and effort and practice into creating these images.

And they're extremely sophisticated.

So Georgina, how does this art, this technique, technique, compare with modern tattoos?

So on first glance, when you look at the pictures, I think they don't look too different from what you would expect.

I think some people think tattooing is quite modern, but lots of cultures around the world, indigenous cultures, have done it for centuries.

And clearly, we know that they've been doing it for thousands of years.

So you would think, oh, well, probably a modern tattooist could do this quite easily.

But actually, they think that these were quite difficult techniques called hand poking, where they're sort of obviously doing it by hand and sort of incising into the skin.

And if you think about the conditions they were working in, they lived on the Central Asian steppe, probably very cold and windy at times of year.

And these needles were made from animal bones, so they would have needed to be really careful about the risk of infection.

You know, we know that when you tattoo, there can be blood.

So I think it was probably a far cry from the sterilised tattoo parlours we think about today.

That was Georgina Ranard.

And if you'd like to see those images, do take a look on the science pages of the BBC News website.

And that's it from us for now.

But there will be a new edition of the Global News podcast later.

If you would like to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, do please send us an email.

The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk.

You can also find us on X at BBC World Service.

Just use the hashtag globalnewspod.

This edition was produced by Alice Adderley and Adrienne White.

It was mixed by Chris Lovelock.

Our editor is Karen Martin.

I'm Jackie Leonard.

And until next time, goodbye.

This is Larry Flick, owner of the Floor Store.

Labor Day is the last sale of the summer, but this one is our biggest sale of the year.

Now through September 2nd, get up to 50% off store-wide on carpet, hardwood, laminate, waterproof flooring, and much more.

Plus two years interest-free financing, and we pay your sales tax.

The Floor Stores Labor Day sale.

Don't let the sun set on this one.

Go to floorstores.com to find the nearest of our 10 showrooms from Santa Rosa to San Jose.

The Floor Store, your area flooring authority.