Dozens killed while at prayer in Sudan

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

I'm Valerie Sanderson, and at 1700 R GMT on Friday, the 19th of September, these are our main stories.

A strike on a mosque in Darfur kills dozens of people as the UN warns the conflict in Sudan is intensifying.

The Taliban in Afghanistan released an elderly British couple who'd been detained since February.

Officials in India investigate the death of an African elephant which was kept alone for much of its life in a zoo.

Also in this podcast.

So if you have access to sensitive information relating to global instability or hostile intelligence activity, you can now contact MI6 and share this securely using Silent Courier.

Britain launches a portal on the dark web to recruit spies from abroad.

In Sudan, civilians are increasingly suffering in the ongoing civil war, which began more than two years ago.

A UN report says there's been a significant increase in the first half of this year in ethnically motivated killings.

The situation is especially bad in the city of Al-Fasha, the army's last stronghold in the western Darfur state.

It's been besieged for more than a year by the paramilitary rapid support forces.

Li Feng is the UN human rights representative in Sudan.

There are no safe exit routes out of the city, and civilians are trapped in a situation of impossible choice.

Either stay in Al-Fasha and risk bombardment, starvation, and atrocities if the RSF overrun the city, or flee and face the risk of summary execution, sexual violence, and abduction.

In the latest incident in Al-Fasha, a drone strike is reported to have killed at least 75 people.

I find out more details from our Africa correspondent, Barbara Playtasha.

What we have been hearing from residents of Al-Fashar is that the drone hit a mosque early in the morning, in fact, right in the middle of early morning prayers, and that there are significant casualties.

Video posted online, which the BBC has verified, do show a significant number of bodies.

There's also been a statement put out by local activists in the emergency response room.

They are the ones that look after the displacement camp, Abu Shook.

They say that some of the local leadership of that camp was killed at the mosque.

They were in attendance.

They've been displaced from the camp because there have been a lot of attacks there this week, but they were attending the mosque and have been killed as well.

So it seems like quite a significant attack.

Is the RSF gaining ground around El Fasha?

Because they've been besieging it for months.

All evidence and reports point in that direction.

They conducted a very fierce attack early this week, and then the army said it had repelled that attack, but they do seem to be continuing to advance, in particular in two areas.

They have entered the headquarters of armed groups that are allied to the Sudanese military.

It's a former UN compound considered to be a critical line of of defense.

So we have verified video showing RSF fighters in this compound, although it's not clear whether they have seized full control.

The war monitor, which is the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab, suggests also that they have taken control of this headquarters and that they now control much of this camp I mentioned, the Abushuk displacement camp.

If that is the case, that the RSF is in control of these areas, that would place key parts of the city, the airport, as well as the Army's division headquarters, both within direct RSF firing range.

So it does look as if they are making significant advances.

And meanwhile, the UN is warning that the situation for civilians is getting increasingly desperate.

Yes, they put a report out today saying that nearly 4,000 civilians had been killed or died in the first six months of this year, and that is a figure that represents about 80% of the total deaths in 2024.

So they're saying that the conflict is intensifying, especially the suffering suffering of civilians.

They mentioned several trends that were continuing.

That is the continued pervasiveness of sexual violence, indiscriminate attacks, and especially the widespread use of retaliation against civilians by both sides on an ethnic basis.

So that is, the RSF and the Army both target individuals belonging to different ethnic groups that they accuse of collaborating with opposing parties.

And we have heard accounts about this happening on both sides.

So that is something they say is particularly troubling and that it increases the ethnicization of the conflict.

The other trend they mention is the increased use of drones, especially in attacks on civilian infrastructure and in the north and the east of the country, which up until now have largely been spared by the war.

Barbara Platasher in Nairobi, in Kenya.

The Taliban rulers in Afghanistan have imposed yet another restriction on women's rights and livelihoods.

Women and girls have very limited access to work and education, and now books written by women have been removed from universities.

Shakiba Habib from BBC Afghan told me more.

If you look at the books that they are banned, it's mostly books related to women's rights, women sociology, and also issues related to women.

And also, besides this, there are other books that include, for example, history of religions.

The Taliban has mentioned that because they want the curriculum for the universities to be Islamic, and also they are banning these books because they think this is against the Sharia law.

And they have also banned teaching of 18 subjects at universities.

However, there are no female students at universities at the moment, but they have issued these bans recently.

And the recent earthquake highlighted, didn't it, how hard it is for women to get access to all kinds of aid?

When the earthquake struck, obviously soon after that, there were mobile health centers in the entrance to each valley that was affected by the earthquake.

However, in these mobile health centers, there was no female health worker.

So those females who were injured and obviously they were in need so they couldn't access those health centers so they had to be transported to the city of Jalalabad in Nangahor.

So it actually took a while for them to reach there.

So that's why they were not able to access those primary health care there and then.

So it sounds like life is getting increasingly desperate and restricted for women in Afghanistan.

I cannot think of anything that a woman can do apart from being at home, like doing the house chores or giving birth to a child.

Even giving birth to a child is faced with lots of problems because they cannot access female health workers.

And obviously, we have seen the reports recently back from Afghanistan.

The situation is really, really dire.

The help and aid is actually stopped, and people in there are living in really, really catastrophic situations.

Banning females from working and also from education has made it even worse.

I spoke to many women because I recently returned back from Afghanistan.

One example I can give you, there's a widow who was responsible for looking after three children.

And she said, I had a job and I was working and I was earning some money to feed my children, but at the moment I don't have any means of income.

And also they have asked me, and she was talking about the authorities, that she was asked that even if she gets a job, she has to have a male chaperone to take her there.

And she only had three little children and the son was going to school, so she said, it's actually really, really impossible for me to take my child out of school to take me to work.

Shakiba Habib.

And staying in Afghanistan, a British couple who'd been held in detention for almost eight months had been released following mediation by Qatar.

Barbie and Peter Reynolds, who are 76 and 80 years old respectively, do that bit again.

Barbie and Peter Reynolds, who are 76 and 80 years old respectively, had lived in Afghanistan for 18 years.

The Taliban said the pair had broken Afghan laws and were released after judicial proceedings, but have never disclosed the reason for their detention.

Landing in Doha, en route to the UK, there was an emotional reunion for the couple with their daughter, as our World Affairs correspondent Joe Inward reports.

It's astonishingly emotional scenes.

And I think it's made even more emotional because of the concerns there had been about their safety.

I mean, we'd heard over the last kind of few weeks and months of their deteriorating health.

It was suggested or thought that one of them had had a stroke, a mini-stroke in hospital that Peter had.

And there's, you know, they were held in

a very, very secure central carpal prison.

Their son, Jonathan, had said before they were chained to rapists and murderers.

So there was a real concern about their welfare.

In fact, the woman, Faye Hall, who was an American, they were arrested alongside, had previously said that she didn't know whether they would survive this.

So obviously, joy from the families, delight from the families.

And in the last few hours, their son, Jonathan, spoke to the BBC to talk with the families' relief at what's happened.

We're just so massively overwhelmed, really, with gratitude, just relief to know they're home, or they're on the way home anyway, I should say.

So, yeah, they're on the way home and really excited about that.

And just heartfelt appreciation to His Highness the Emir of Qatar and their compassion.

I think it's amazing.

I understand they're behind a lot of these tough situations in the Middle East.

And just, yeah, there's doctors on board on the plane, which I just massively appreciate that as well for health care for my parents.

And then obviously the British government for their commitment to all of the complexities of this and having to navigate it through with and for my parents.

Just the deep appreciation for all who are involved.

So that was their son, Jonathan Reynolds.

And he wanted to emphasise, as you could hear there, the role of the Cataris and of the British government as well.

I think it is worth sort of emphasising the Qataris have been involved not just in this, they've got a really broad sort of diplomatic footprint and role now, and they evidently were central to this.

It's understood that they were trying to provide, or they helped to provide kind of consular assistance to the Reynolds while they were in prison in Kabul and have been performing a lot of the sort of the diplomatic help.

And that was something that their daughter Sarah Entwistle, who we saw greeting her parents off the plane, that was something that she was really keen to emphasise when she spoke earlier as well.

I'm overwhelmed with gratitude and relief that we have our parents back after their incomprehensible detention by the Taliban.

This is a moment of immense joy for our family, and we are deeply thankful to everyone who played a role in securing their release.

This experience has reminded us of the power of diplomacy, empathy, and international cooperation.

We are forever grateful to the Qatari and British governments for standing with us during this difficult time.

Thank you for giving us our family back.

The couple's daughter Sarah Entwistle ending that report.

Britain's secret intelligence service MI6 has put out a recruitment call aimed at those around the world who might want to act on the agency's behalf offering information without the risk of meeting in person.

So if you have access to sensitive information relating to global instability or hostile intelligence activity, you can now contact MI6 and share this securely using Silent Courier.

Well, that's part of the proba advert made by MI6.

The organisation's outgoing head, Richard Moore, was in Turkey to announce plans to use the Dart web to recruit informants and gather secret information from countries like Russia.

Listening was the BBC's defense and security correspondent Frank Gardner.

And Tim Franks asked him if this is an attempt to get around increasing methods of surveillance.

Absolutely.

It's a challenge for any covert intelligence agency, whether it's the North Koreans, the Russians, the Chinese, the Americans or the Brits, to get their agents and indeed the people who run them in and out of countries undetected because the days of being able to whack on a false moustache and glasses and pretend you're Professor Higgins, you know, from this and that university.

are long gone.

I mean, they're not completely gone, but it's very hard to do that undetected because of biometric identification, CCTV camera surveillance, cameras that do gait recognition, facial recognition, iris recognition.

So they've had to come up with innovative ways to getting around that.

And interestingly, the woman who's about to take over running MI6, Blaise Metro Welly, has come from something called Q-Branch, which is a part of MI6 that deals with the tech.

They come up with gadgets to give to their agents to be able to communicate in secret.

Now, I have no idea how those work, but the one thing that has come out in public is this dark web portal called Silent Courier, which they hope will be a safe, secure way for potential new agents to contact them.

Although presumably they will also have to take some sort of measures to ensure that they're not simply getting that gateway inundated with a whole lot of useless slurry from other actors who want to gum up its works.

Yep, that is one possibility.

Another one is the dangle, as it's known in espionage terms, where a hostile target intelligence agency deliberately feeds one of their own people into your system, having trained them in pretending that they genuinely want to come across.

But actually, they are literally a double agent.

So, Russia, for example, there could be a disaffected Russian who's got a little bit of information, just enough to get MI6 interested, but they're going to have to be on the alert that this isn't somebody who is actually all along working for the SVR or the GRU or the FSB, whichever Russian agency it is.

And I think their main target with all of this is Russia, because when the full-scale invasion of Ukraine kicked in in February 22, ever since then, MI6 has been reaching out, trying to encourage

disaffected Russians to come and spy for them.

And this is an extension of that.

But you know, there is an inherent vulnerability with the dark web which is that not that long ago the CIA tried to run its agents in China using a kind of central node in the dark web which their agents would log into.

Well China's Ministry of State Security, the MSS, cracked that portal, got into it and they were able to then wrap up America's pretty much their entire network of agents inside China.

So I have challenged them when it came to a bit of QA as to sort of how you're going to stop that happening.

They insist that they've moved on and they're aware of the pitfalls.

The BBC's defense and security correspondent Frank Gardner speaking to us from Istanbul.

Still to come on this podcast, the awards for the latest scientific findings that make you laugh and then think.

Drinking alcohol sometimes improves a person's ability to speak in a foreign language.

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An inquiry is underway into the death of an African elephant, which was presented to India as a gift and kept in Delhi Zoo.

Shankar had spent much of his life in isolation, despite concerns over his welfare.

Our global news reporter, Camilla Mills, told me more.

So, the elephant Shankar, he was given to India by Zimbabwe as a diplomatic gift, which often happens between countries.

And that was back in 1998.

And he arrived at Delhi Zoo with another elephant companion, another African elephant.

And they lived there together for a number of years.

And then his companion died.

Following that, the zoos say that they tried to house it with other elephants, but they're Asian elephants, and they didn't get on, and there was some fighting, and there was some conflict between them.

So he essentially was put into solitary confinement, and he he was put into an enclosure on his own.

This is despite a federal ban in India on keeping elephants alone for more than six months.

So there's been a real outcry about this elephant being on his own for so long, and this dates back years.

Animal activists have said that it's wrong.

And also, last year, the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums suspended Delhi Zoo's membership over concerns about Shunka's living conditions.

And just recently following his death, which happened on Wednesday, activists have said his death reflects years of institutional apathy and neglect and systematic failure.

So Delhi Zoos say that they have launched an investigation into the death.

They said that he had stopped eating food and he just collapsed and died on Wednesday evening.

Had they tried to get him a companion elephant from outside the country?

Yes, so they made an appeal and it was also advised by the governing body of zoos.

that they investigate this and both Botswana and Zimbabwe, where he originally came from, they said that they would be able to offer a companion, either a male or a female, from Africa.

I mean, this is becoming a bit of an international incident, isn't it?

It is.

I think there's this great sadness because he was only 29 years old, and African elephants can live up to 70, so his life really has been cut short.

And

they're animal rights activists and just people generally on social media voicing their concern and raising questions about the living conditions and why he died.

Was it neglect?

Was it loneliness?

Was it just, you know, being completely and utterly ostracized?

And we should say this is Delhi zoo who would presumably have access to the top specialists and elephants around the world.

You would hope so.

And like I say, there's a governing body that oversees zoos and they were referred to this governing body.

They went and investigated the conditions and they made a number of referrals, one of those being that he really did need a companion.

Camilla Mills.

The family and friends of an athlete from Kenya say they're shocked to find out that he was captured in Ukraine after reportedly being recruited to fight for Russia.

In a video released by the Ukrainian military, Evans Kibbett says he was tricked into joining the war while visiting St.

Petersburg.

He said his passport and phone were taken and he was made to sign documents in Russian, not realising he was enlisting as a soldier.

In the video, he pleads not to be sent back to Russia, saying he fears for his life.

There's been no comment yet from Moscow.

UBC's Akisa Wandera is following the story.

Evans says he travelled to Russia as a tourist, but by the end of the trip, he'd been offered a way to stay in Russia and maybe get a well-paying job by the sports agent who sent him there.

That's how he ended up signing documents he couldn't understand and found himself

in the war zone, was taken for a one-week military training where he says it was just basic training of how to use an assault rifle, then sent out into war.

Evans in the video claims that he never participated in the war, instead escaped the Russian army, hid in the forest for two days in the northeastern part of Ukraine, just about five kilometers from the Russian border, and then was rescued by the Ukrainian forces.

And now he's pleading that he should not be returned to Russia.

That's what we have so far on what Evans is saying.

And we've also been trying to get hold of his family.

Many of the family and friends that I've spoken to are really still reeling from watching that video, some of whom were not even aware that he'd gone to Russia.

And those who are aware say that they knew it was a usual trip where he would be participating in the race.

And the family now says that they really would like to see the government intervening.

And I've been speaking to his younger brother, Isaac Kipiyago Masai.

As a family, we are shocked about the information that we received concerning our brother, whom we know has never been involved in such cases or scenarios.

we are pleading with the government of Kenya to intervene with the issue so that as a family we get back to the unity and union of our brother.

So we are really missing him and we are hoping that one day we will be back to the family and continue with daily activities.

I hope so, that very soon things will be okay.

There really hasn't been any reaction or official statement from the government.

The video only just started doing rounds yesterday, but we did reach out to the Foreign Affairs Ministry and are still waiting for a response from their end.

Akisa Wandera.

A BBC investigation has uncovered tens of thousands of Premier League tickets listed on unauthorised resale websites.

Selling football tickets on an unofficial online platform is illegal here in the UK, but BBC reporters were able to buy tickets for four top-flight matches last weekend using sites that are based abroad.

Reg Walker is a football ticket security expert.

The ticket touting problem involving the Premier League is absolutely massive.

It's probably worth somewhere between £200 and £300 million a year.

We are seeing attacks at every level on Premier League clubs.

You're ending up with significant amounts of away supporters in the home end and home supporters in the away end.

The findings raise fresh concerns over ticket access and fan safety, as our sports editor Dan Rohn reports.

BBC Sport discovered almost 33,000 tickets were listed on overseas websites for the four top-flight games we purchased tickets for, almost all priced well above face value.

That included the Manchester Derby, a match officially sold out weeks ago, but we were able to buy a ticket just days before the game at three times the standard price.

The seat was also in the home end, highlighting the risk of infiltration by away fans, undermining segregation intended to keep supporters safe.

The Football Supporters Association says the BBC's findings are very concerning, while some clubs insist they're taking the issue seriously, but some also want a change in the law in order to tackle sites that seem to be making it harder than ever for regular fans to go and watch their teams.

Dan Rowan.

Every year since 1991, the Ig Nobel Prizes have been awarded at a ceremony in Massachusetts in the USA.

They are a deliberate spoof of the serious Nobel Prizes and they celebrate research that makes people laugh and then think.

Richard Hamilton has been watching some of the highlights from Thursday night's ceremony at Boston University.

Organized by the humorous scientific magazine The Annals of Improbable Research, the Ig Nobel Prizes are presented by previous Nobel laureates and the winners receive a solitary banknote for 10 trillion Zimbabwean dollars, a collector's item worth less than half a US dollar.

Among the lucky winners was a plan to reduce people's calorie intake by putting Teflon into food in the hope it would satiate people's hunger before quietly sliding out.

Another food-related study found that lizards preferred four-cheese pizza.

The aviation prize went to researchers who plied Egyptian fruit bats with ethanol.

They concluded the bats which binged on fermented fruit may be at higher risk of colliding with obstacles.

And alcohol also featured in another prize.

The Ig Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to Fritz Renner, Inge Kersbergen, Matt Field, and Jessica Werthmann for showing that drinking alcohol sometimes improves a person's ability to speak in a foreign language.

In his acceptance speech, Dr.

Fritz Renner said Germans spoke Dutch with a better accent after a small sip of vodka, as it seemed to boost confidence without making the words fall apart.

But his co-researcher, Professor Matt Field, cautioned that the improvement wasn't huge.

It's not like people were transformed into perfect Dutch speakers after a single drink, he added.

Other unusual findings were that cows disguised as zebras suffered fewer insect bites, and that people became more narcissistic after being told they were more intelligent than most, even when they weren't.

And finally, the Ig Nobel Prize for Literature went posthumously to the late Dr.

William Bean from the University of Iowa, who documented the growth of his toenails over the course of 35 years.

That must have been a labor of love.

Richard Hamilton Reporting.

And that's it from us for now, but there'll 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 globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk.

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

Use the hashtag GlobalNewspod.

This edition was mixed by Kai Perry.

The editor is Karen Martin.

I'm Valerie Sanderson.

Until next time, bye-bye.

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