Guterres opens UN Assembly accusing countries of 'flouting international law'

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

I'm Nick Miles and at 17 Hours GMT on Tuesday the 23rd of September, these are our main stories.

The UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has opened the 80th General Assembly in New York with a warning that some countries are flouting international law.

Denmark's Prime Minister says she's not ruling out Russian involvement after Copenhagen and Oslo airports were closed by drones flying by.

Also in this podcast.

As a mother of two autistic children and a former labor and delivery nurse, I know how dangerous that retort can be if it's just made as a sweeping statement and not backed by science.

We hear from the families affected by Donald Trump's claims about autism.

We begin this podcast in New York, where the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has opened the 80th General Assembly with a warning that some countries are not adhering to international law.

We have our work cut out for us as our ability to carry out that work is being cut from us.

We have entered in an age of reckless disruption and relentless human suffering.

Look around.

The principles of the the United Nations that you have established are under siege.

Listen.

The pillars of peace and progress are buckling under the weight of impunity, inequality and indifference.

Sovereign nations invaded.

Hunger weaponized.

Truce silenced.

Rising smoke from bombed-out cities.

Rising anger in fractured societies.

Rising seas swallowing coastlines.

Shortly afterwards, the U.S.

President Donald Trump took to the stage.

During his speech, he highlighted American power and success and his diplomatic efforts worldwide, listing the seven wars he said that he'd helped to end.

He proceeded to tell world leaders that his track record underlined the ineffectiveness of the UN, who failed to help in the negotiations.

As we record this podcast, he is still speaking, but we'll bring you full analysis in our next edition of the Global News podcast.

President Trump, in his speech, also criticised the countries that have recognised Palestinian statehood over the last few days, saying it was a reward for Hamas.

The UK, Australia, France, and others say granting that recognition is an important way to maintain the prospect of a two-state solution as a way of ending the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

Mr.

Trump is due to meet Arab and Muslim leaders later to discuss alternative plans once the war comes to an end.

Paul Adams, our diplomatic correspondent, told us more about the significance of today's events at the UN.

This is a remarkable opportunity for an awful lot of people to meet an awful lot of other people and, you know, in between times, go and listen to a lot of, frankly, often rather boring speeches.

But the stuff going on in the margins can be very important.

You know, Donald Trump is going to be meeting President Zelensky at some point during today.

He'll also also be meeting the head of the European Council, Ursula von der Leyen.

So these are important gatherings.

And this one later on today, involving Arab and Muslim governments, is intriguing because there are reports around that Donald Trump has some new proposals to offer them for what happens in Gaza, if and when a ceasefire can be achieved, including post-war governance, what happens to Hamas, how and in what circumstances Israeli troops withdraw.

So all of these things I think will be of acute interest to those Arab and Muslim governments.

They obviously want some undertaking from the United States that it's prepared to underwrite an end to the war in Gaza.

They're conscious that Donald Trump has advanced various slightly outlandish proposals in the past.

And so, I think that's going to be a key gathering coming in the wake of, obviously, a couple of days in which all the focus has been on recognizing Palestine as a state.

And, Paul, what leverage do Arab nations have over Donald Trump?

Well, there is leverage.

Clearly, Donald Trump has a great interest in his relationship with the Gulf, with Saudi Arabia, with the United Arab Emirates, with Qatar.

And don't forget that the Abraham Accords, which saw the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain and other countries normalizing relations with Israel, was something that was done under his watch during his first term in office.

And the UAE has said that if Israel responds to this current move towards recognizing the state of Palestine by annexing parts of the West Bank, then that could jeopardize the Abraham Accords.

In other words, could undo something which Donald Trump sees as part of his case for winning, ultimately winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

So I think that is a specter which is definitely hanging in the air, and I think they will hope to use that to try and persuade Donald Trump, to persuade Benjamin Netanyahu, who is going to be in the United States later in the week and over the weekend, not to respond in the way that certain members of his government have threatened to respond.

Paul Adams.

On Monday night, the airports in Copenhagen and Oslo, two of the busiest in the Nordic region, were forced to shut down temporarily after drones were seen flying in the area.

Danish police said they were likely to be flown by what they called a capable operator.

The BBC's Aristo Pico told me more about what happened.

Late on Monday, two or three big drones were spotted first at at Kastop Airport in Copenhagen and later at Godrimuhen in Oslo, and this led to a total shutdown at both airports.

In Copenhagen, this lasted for about four hours, so until a bit after midnight.

No action was taken against these drones for security reasons.

I mean, shooting down drones over an airport is very dangerous.

The drones then left of their own accord, but we don't know where.

And police said that they were operated by what they call capable actors who were almost showing off what they can get away with.

And the Danish Prime Minister has responded.

Yes, Mitter Fredriksen has been surprisingly blunt about this.

She called this the most serious attack on critical Danish infrastructure so far and said that it was aimed at creating fear and testing the country's reactions, seeing how far one could go.

And she also linked this to incidents of similar nature quite recently.

We've seen drones over Poland and Romania and violations of Estonian airspace.

And Risto, hard question.

Do we know who's behind this?

We don't know, but Meta Fredriksen once again didn't mince her word.

She said it was utterly impossible to rule out Russian involvement.

There is no proof yet, but this incident follows a pattern that Moscow has been increasingly following.

There's been cyber attacks and other incidents like the ones we mentioned earlier, aimed at testing a country's defenses and its ability and willingness to take action against hybrid warfare.

Now, we need to add here that Russia, of course, has denied any involvement in this, but we must also add that Russia always denies any involvement in incidents of this nature.

Aristo Pico.

As we record this podcast, Hong Kong and southern China are bracing for super typhoon ragasa, with schools and businesses closed and shelves reportedly stripped of many goods.

The typhoon has already passed over the Philippines, where at least one person was killed when the storm triggered a landslide.

The BBC's Laura Bicca is in Zhuhai, Guangdong province, in southern southern China, where the storm is expected to arrive on Wednesday morning.

She spoke to Paul Henley about the situation there.

The winds are really beginning to pick up.

You can hear it howling around where we're staying here, and we're quite far back from the coastline.

We've had a look round Zhuhai today.

This is right down on the southern coast of Jinai, in Guangdong, this very densely populated province of southern China.

And it's where many of the things that China sells are made.

And then, of course, you've got just up the road, you've got the technology hub of Shenzhen.

And today, it was-I mean, the city just slowly, hour by hour, became a ghost town.

You had people taping up their windows, you had restaurants and businesses making sure that they had sandbags around the door in case of tidal surges.

This is an area that is prone to these kinds of typhoons, but this one has authorities worried, and that is because these winds are extremely high and also they're expecting around a month's worth of rain in just a day.

And that's going to fall on already saturated ground.

So there's a lot of concern here.

Authorities taking it very seriously.

And I think around 400,000 people already have been evacuated from low-lying areas.

And you say the area is used relatively used to storms, but how equipped is it when the authorities order mass evacuations?

Where are people supposed to go, for instance?

Well, so China here they're very well organized.

We've seen hundreds of evacuation centers in schools, and many of them have been moved into hotels.

They're nearby where we are at the moment, families kind of slowly moving in out of low-lying areas.

It's a very well-organised operation.

And then, of course, if you go anywhere near the coastline, you'll have dozens of police with megaphones moving you away in case of these coastal surges.

And then, even further tonight from just the last hour for instance, they are saying the roads are closed, there are road closure operations in force.

China is used to this kind of mass mobilisation event, trying to make sure that everybody stays inside.

But still, you can tell that they are concerned because the rainfall that's going to happen, it's difficult to predict how that or basically how areas will react when a lot of rainfall happens on on very saturated ground, and that could cause landslips.

And that's something that you can't really prepare for.

So they're doing their best to make sure that everybody's staying inside and hunkering down.

Laura Bicker.

Still to come in this podcast.

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President Donald Trump has delivered an impassioned speech about the rise of autism, calling it amongst the most alarming public health developments in history.

Joined by several federal officials, including the health secretary Robert F.

Kennedy Jr., Mr.

Trump made a series of unsubstantiated claims linking the use of paracetamol during pregnancy to an increased risk of autism in children, which contradict decades of medical consensus.

So, what does the scientific data say?

Professor Brian Lee is one of the researchers involved in a study in Sweden that looked into the links between paracetamol use during pregnancy and autism or ADHD in children.

He spoke to the BBC's Sharma Khalil.

We did a study of 2.5 million pregnancies, the moms and their kids in Sweden over 20 years, and we found no good evidence to suggest that acetaminathin use or paracetamol, as it's called in Europe, is associated with risk of autism and ADHD.

Have you found any link at all?

all?

We did.

So this is where it gets a little bit tricky for folks because when you compare kids who are exposed to acetaminophen versus kids who weren't exposed, you see a slight statistical association.

But as we know, association is not causation.

And the example I like to use is eating ice cream and drowning.

So these two things, eating ice cream and drowning, are statistically associated, but it's actually due to a third variable, hot weather, which causes you to eat more ice cream and to go swimming, which causes drowning.

In other words, there are many other factors that go into this.

Not just the fact that a pregnant woman uses Tylenol or paracetamol with that active ingredient, acetaminophen, that then causes autism.

Exactly.

So no one takes acetaminophen for fun.

You take it because you are in pain, because you are sick, because you have a health condition that needs treatment.

Some of these very health conditions, like an infection during pregnancy or a fever, are actually themselves known to be associated with autism or other adverse outcomes in the child.

But then the other big factor at play here is that autism and ADHD and other neurodevelopmental disorders, these disorders are highly heritable.

And so what that means is that a lot of this is due to family genetics that are passed down.

And so a lot of the studies that have worked on this topic, you know, that have found an association, have not actually taken into account genetics.

For example, for autism, I believe scientists estimate around 70 to 90 percent heritability.

And not skipping over the technical mumbo-jumbo, what this means is that this is a highly genetic condition.

Of course, environment can still play a factor in this.

But if you don't account for the elephant in the room, you're going to see signs of evidence that are possibly not real.

I've never been pregnant myself, so I can't claim any personal knowledge on that.

But I know in my sister's three pregnancies and from friends that doctors have said that paracitamol was the safest pain reliever option for them and for pregnant women.

If the advice changes in the United States, what are the alternative and how safe are they?

But also, if women are advised or banned from taking paracetamol or Tylenol when they're in pain, what are the implications?

I think that's a very tricky question.

I'm not a clinician, first of all, but if Tylenol is removed from the alternative list, there's few others to go on.

Opioids during pregnancy are not exactly a first-line recommendation.

NSAIDs are contraindicated against a high-dose aspirin as well.

And so this leaves really few options on the table other than Grin and Barrett.

So how do the families of children with autism feel about the president's advice?

Stephanie Hanrahan is an activist and a mother of two autistic children.

As a mother of two autistic children and a former labor and delivery nurse, I know how dangerous that retort can be if it's just made as a sweeping statement and not backed by science.

And so this is not new information to the autism community.

We have previously been told that autism has been linked to medications or immunizations, even to nutrition, environmental factors, genetics.

So that's not new news, but the definitiveness in which it was presented and the decisiveness was.

And what I was really searching for was some kind of science to back those sweeping statements, and that was what was lacking.

So my heart really went to the autism families like my own, and especially those who are newly diagnosed, who may be hearing this information for the very first time.

And it's creating cycles of fear and shame and that type of spiral that places blame on the families when we are only talking right now about correlation and not causation.

Stephanie Hanrahan.

NASA has announced 10 new astronaut candidates selected from a poll of 8,000.

They'll undergo two years of training in the hope of joining the first manned mission to the moon in more than half a century.

10 American men and women will begin their basic training that spans two years to eventually earn their wings and join NASA's active astronaut corps.

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NASA is unveiling the next phase of the Artemis program today with the ultimate aim of reaching Mars.

Nick Robinson spoke to Sean Cleaver, power and avionics lead on the Artemis-Orion European Service Module project Adairbus.

We're about to see the launch of Artemis II that will happen in the first part of next year.

It's such an exciting mission because it's the first time that we will have returned astronauts to the moon in over 50 years.

So there's really a lot of groundbreaking missions ahead of us and it's just, well, one of the first really to get us there.

now i don't want to spoil it but there is talk of delays isn't there that spacex who are building the starship are struggling to meet their deadline when you're in the space industry you're quite used to hearing about delays but they're for good reason i mean particularly on a program like this we're sending people up there into space and so the organizations NASA, the European Space Agency, they're not going to take any risks.

So it's not unheard of to hear of delays whilst we wait for everything to be perfectly in position to do the mission successfully.

Why the excitement about returning a place we've already been?

Yeah, so it's a bit more than that this time.

So the Artsmas program is all about going to the moon, but going to the moon with a view to then going on to Mars.

So we want to sort of build up a sustainable human presence on the lunar surface.

We want to build up infrastructure.

We want to have like an orbiting gateway around the moon.

And these things will allow us to then make that next step and go on to Mars because it's very difficult to do that directly from Earth.

Nick Robinson was speaking to Sean Cleaver.

Now, to West Africa, where Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger have decided to withdraw from the International Criminal Court.

The court was established to prosecute the most serious offences, like war crimes, when countries lack the will or capacity themselves.

But the three Sahel countries, all ruled by the military, say the ICC is a tool for neocolonialist repression and has anti-Africa bias.

This follows the country's increasingly close ties to Russia, which is not a member of the court.

Beverly Ochieng, Sahel analyst with the Control Risk Consultancy, told us why they pulled out.

They termed that the ICC is a neo-colonial outfit.

They have misgivings over how it allegedly only tries suspects who come from the continent and the fact that there is some, according to them, foreign influence.

But it is a pre-emptive step.

It's only going to take about one year for this to be effected after the UN Secretary General has been notified.

It's not the first time there's been misgivings, not just by the Sahelian countries, but even various other countries.

In Kenya, for instance, when there were post-election violence cases being tried at the ICC, there were some discussions around the country withdrawing.

Burundi did formally withdraw from the ICC nearly a decade ago, and also other countries like the Philippines.

There are ongoing cases in the ICC, including some that were filed by Mali at the time when the insurgency had broken out in 2012.

So it just feels like a selective thinking around international institutions when it works for them and when it appears not to be working for them.

Does it matter whether they are members of the International Criminal Court or not?

Because the United States, Russia, China, Israel are not, and there are indictments out against the leaders of Israel and Russia.

Yes, it's true.

It doesn't really make much of a difference.

I mean, even if the ICC is, for instance, investigating any ongoing allegations of rights, abuses, or war crimes in the three countries, it makes very little difference.

Other parties can still file suits against them.

It's only that the ICC itself will not be as empowered to continue conducting investigations.

They do have personnel present in Mali, in Barmako, so it's likely that we will see calls for them to possibly withdraw from the country, which would then hurt any ongoing investigations, if there are any, or even the cases that are currently at the court.

But the ICC has largely been seen as not necessarily following through with some of their jurisdictions, some of the investigations.

In many instances, cases do take quite a bit of time.

So, this will mostly appear to be symbolic in a statement for these countries, although they are in the process of establishing their own what they're calling a Sahelian criminal court that will look into war crimes and human rights allegations abuses.

Beverly Ochieng.

We broadcast this program from London.

It is one of those cities that attracts talented, ambitious people from around the world, looking for greater opportunity.

But what happens to the places they left behind?

A growing number of countries are offering incentives to lure back their citizens living abroad.

Daniel Rosney has been looking at the massive tax breaks proposed by Cyprus to reverse its brain drain.

Tonight marks a turning point.

This initiative, led by the government of Cyprus, is not just a call to action, it is a homecoming.

In May this year, the Minds in Cyprus programme taglined the Brain Gain Initiative was launched in the UK, where it's estimated more than 300,000 Cypriots live.

Together, we can reverse the brain drain into a brain game.

Cyprus wants its talent back as it's making waves in the business, technology and innovation sectors.

We have been experiencing a very strong growth.

Irene Pickey is the Deputy Minister to the President.

She's tasked with coordinating the government's program.

Nearly the size of our population, people that live in the country, we have a similar number of people living abroad.

We thought it was the right time to bring back our people, our talented professionals.

As well as having a small population of around 800,000, Cyprus also has one of the smallest economies in the European Union, contributing just 0.2% of the total bloc's GDP.

It wants to change that, and to do so, it needs more companies moving there and is hoping some from Silicon Valley could be persuaded to move to the Mediterranean Sea.

The first question they were asking was, what type of talent do you have in the country?

The government has come up with a plan.

If you've been living away from Cyprus for more than seven years, come back and you'll get some tax cuts.

One includes raising the tax exemption from around 10,000 US dollars to roughly 30,000.

If bigger companies, more higher-paid roles are opened up in Cyprus, I think that will definitely make it more attractive for me to return.

Nicholas is a 28-year-old paralegal working for a shipping firm in London.

He'd qualify for the financial rewards under these proposals and is weighing up his options.

It is a positive change.

It is something I will consider.

It's my career that dictates my next move at the moment.

Ask me in three years' time and maybe I change my mind.

Other nations are offering similar schemes.

Croatia also provides financial benefits to returnees if they resettle in less developed regions, while Portugal is slashing taxes for under-35s to try and prevent them from leaving in the first place.

Kacha Battista is a professor of economics in Lisbon and specialises in this field.

This is something that I've seen being done by a variety of countries.

I mean, low-income countries like in Africa, those are the ones that are most affected by the so-called brain drain, and those are the ones where policy responses are harder.

Follow your way home, your future awaits, is what the targeted adverts for the Mines in Cyprus program say.

Housing on the small nation may be an issue if large swathes do move back, but when pushed, the government says it's hoping only around 5,000 will take up the offer, although there is no limit.

So it could be a very expensive bill and a very crowded Mediterranean island if those tax savings appeal to huge numbers of the diaspora.

Daniel Rosney reporting.

Now, have you ever got in trouble at work for taking something from the office fridge that you thought you were allowed to have?

Well, a case in South Korea has sparked public outcry after a man was prosecuted for taking a snack without permission.

Pete Ross explains.

The case came to prominence after a security guard at a logistics firm was found guilty of taking two snacks worth less than a dollar from an office refrigerator belonging to another firm.

The man argued that eating such snacks after overnight shifts was a common practice amongst employees and denied any intent to steal.

However, the firm filed a formal complaint and prosecutors charged the security guard with theft.

Dubbed the Choco Pie Incident, the name of one of the stolen snacks, it stirred a national debate about whether officials should have sought prosecution.

Critics argue that given the relatively low value of the stolen goods, the cost of dragging someone through the courts was a clear waste of public money.

In response, prosecutors say that if the victim of a theft insists on prosecutions, they have to proceed.

At an appeal hearing last week, the judge remarked, how harsh do we really need to go this far?

The John Ju District Prosecutor's Office says it's now considering a review.

Pete Ross.

And that's all from us for now, but there will be a new edition of the Global News podcast later.

But before we go, it's almost been two years now since the war in Gaza began after the Hamas attacks of October the 7th.

And to mark the anniversary, we're going to be making a special Global News podcast.

We'll examine the conflict from lots of different angles, from the situation on the ground in Gaza to public opinion in Israel.

But we also want to hear from you.

What questions do you want to ask our Middle East correspondents in Jerusalem?

Please send them in, either written in an email or attached as a recording.

The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk.

And if you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email to that same address.

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

Use the hashtag global newspod.

This edition was mixed by Trissa Blackwair and the producers were Carla Conte and Charles Sanctuary.

The editor is Karen Martin.

I'm Nick Miles and until next time, goodbye.

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