President Trump oversees agreement between Thailand and Cambodia

Speaker 1 This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.

Speaker 3 The following ad is sponsored by Pets Best Insurance Services. You knew right away he's perfect.
The one for you. Those puppy dog eyes, that cute little button nose.
You don't even mind the drool.

Speaker 3 When you find your perfect match in a dog or cat, the love is unconditional. Your budget, on the other hand, has realistic limits.

Speaker 3 Help protect your heart and your wallet with pet insurance from Pets Best. With plans starting from less than a dollar a day, you can get up to 90% cash back on eligible vet bills.

Speaker 3 PetsBest makes it easy to pick a plan that works for you and your bank account. Find the perfect match for your perfect match at PetsBest.com.

Speaker 3 Pet Insurance products offered and administered by PetsBest Insurance Services LLC are underwritten by American Pet Insurance Company or Independence American Insurance Company.

Speaker 3 For terms and conditions, visit www.petsbest.com backslash policy.

Speaker 3 Products are underwritten by American Pet Insurance Company, Independence American Insurance Company, or MS Transverse Insurance Company and administered by PetsBest Insurance Services LLC.

Speaker 3 $1 a a day premium based on 2024 average new policyholder data for accident and illness plans pets age 0 to 10.

Speaker 7 I can really focus on what is important now thanks to Willow. No more looking over my kids' shoulder and wondering if their teeth are clean.

Speaker 7 With Willow, the kids just pop the brush in their mouth, press a button, and their teeth are clean perfectly every time.

Speaker 7 The brush bot from Willow allows my kids to brush their teeth independently and do it the right way.

Speaker 7 If you want to take the worry out of brushing, check out thebrushbot at willow.com and check out their special savings. Visit wi L L O dot com willow.com

Speaker 8 this is the global news podcast from the BBC World Service.

Speaker 8 I'm Alex Ritson and at 0600 GMT on Sunday the 26th of October, these are our main stories.

Speaker 8 President Trump is welcomed at the ASEAN summit in Malaysia for the signing of a peace deal between Thailand and Cambodia.

Speaker 8 Jamaica, Haiti, and Cuba brace for what could be the strongest hurricane to tear through the Caribbean in decades.

Speaker 8 Tens of thousands of people take to the streets of Valencia in Spain one year on from the deadly floods.

Speaker 8 Also, in this podcast, early voting begins in the New York mayoral elections and the Japanese horror film that has been pulled from cinemas for now because it's too close to life.

Speaker 8 If President Trump has more or less neglected summits of the Southeast Asian nations, he's made sure to attend the one currently taking place in Malaysia.

Speaker 8 As usual, ASEAN brings together leaders from the Southeast Asian bloc, along with partners, including China and the US. And there, Mr.

Speaker 8 Trump has been overseeing the signing of a peace agreement between Cambodia and Thailand, one of the conflicts he's keen to say he's solved. Here's a little of what he had to say.

Speaker 9 Now these gentlemen are about to sign what we're calling the Kula Lumpur Peace Accords. Good name.

Speaker 9 Both countries are agreeing to cease all hostilities and work to build good neighborly relationships, which have already started.

Speaker 9 Eighteen Cambodian prisoners of war will be released and under this agreement observers from ASEAN countries, including Malaysia, will be deployed to make sure that the peace prevails and endures.

Speaker 9 I have no doubt that it will.

Speaker 8 Mr. Trump will also be meeting leaders such as Brazil's Lula de Silva and has even suggested a second face-to-face meeting with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un.

Speaker 8 And here's what Mr. Trump had to say earlier about a potential deal with China's President Xi.

Speaker 10 I think a complete deal. I want our farmers to be taken care of, and he wants things also.
We're going to be talking about fentanyl, of course. Fentanyl is killing a lot of people, a lot of people.

Speaker 10 It comes from China

Speaker 10 and

Speaker 10 we'll be talking about a lot of things.

Speaker 10 I think we have a really good chance of making a very comprehensive deal.

Speaker 8 So what's happened at the summit so far? It's a question I asked the BBC's Jonathan Head, who's in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur.

Speaker 11 It's the Trump show. I mean, you know, Mr.
Trump was a great salesman. You know, his speech was long, full of superlatives, and and part of a claim, this great claim he makes to be a great peacemaker.

Speaker 11 So he was really bigging up this deal, talking about saving millions of lives about these two countries, you know, being at daggers drawn until he intervened.

Speaker 11 I mean, it was classic Trump, and he was the centre of it, of course. Remember, this ceremony was specifically requested by Donald Trump as a condition for even coming to Malaysia.

Speaker 11 It's not part of the original ASEAN schedule. Thailand and Cambodia, frankly, are still at daggers drawn.

Speaker 11 What they've actually signed is some very technical agreements on how to start demilitarizing their border.

Speaker 11 Nothing to do with resolving the border dispute and as the Thai government spokesman said to us, this is just the very start of a process.

Speaker 12 But Mr.

Speaker 11 Trump wanted a grand peace ceremony, and they gave him one. This entire region is extremely dependent on exports to the US.
They've been massively disrupted by Trump's tariff war.

Speaker 11 They need to get on his good side. And he wanted a grand ceremony.
He got it. And I mean, it was in some ways almost comedy gold.

Speaker 11 He's such a great performer, Donald Trump, when it comes to sort of selling himself and selling what he's doing. And he just holds the limelight.

Speaker 11 I mean, perhaps the best moment was when his host, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, cracked a joke that might not go down very well with Donald Trump because Mr.

Speaker 11 Anwar referred to his time having spent time in prison, which he did, of course, as in effect a political prisoner, and then said to Donald Trump, you nearly went there too.

Speaker 11 We've yet to see what President Trump's reaction to that was.

Speaker 8 But the fact that these countries are humouring him, well he would see it as proof that his strategy of tariffs to force them to do what he wants are working.

Speaker 11 I think it does. I mean it works certainly in terms of getting them to concentrate their minds and to make progress.

Speaker 11 Even the Thais, who are far more reluctant about this whole thing, about internationalising their dispute, said, look, you know, there's no question Donald Trump has sped up the process of us beginning the talks with Cambodia on how we can demilitarise.

Speaker 11 It's just it's going to be a very very difficult process, as all these peace agreements that Donald Trump is brokering are going to be, you know, that you get them started, but actually making them work in practice is very, very difficult.

Speaker 11 But, you know, Mr. Trump, as we know, is on this campaign to be seen as a peacemaker.
We assume he's still pushing for a Nobel Prize next year.

Speaker 11 The Cambodian Prime Minister, Hun Manette, was very early in nominating him for the Nobel Prize. The Cambodians actually wanted him involved in this.

Speaker 11 And, you know, with the power the US has with its markets, the tariffs are a very powerful source of leverage and particularly in this region because they're so dependent on exports they kind of have to humor him.

Speaker 11 I don't think they mind too much. I think having Donald Trump here having the Americans here burnishes this regional summit and makes it seem more important.

Speaker 11 So everyone was willing to go along with this.

Speaker 8 The BBC's Jonathan head

Speaker 8 life-threatening and catastrophic words being used to describe Hurricane Melissa, which is bearing down on Jamaica, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Speaker 8 It's been upgraded to a category 3 hurricane and winds of up to 170 kilometers an hour are forecast. For these tourists at Jamaica Airport it's time to head home.

Speaker 13 We arrived on the 20th of October. Obviously there was no indications that there was a storm coming.

Speaker 13 We have spent since Thursday trying to figure out where and what but it wasn't until about an hour ago that we got a notification to say that we were going home.

Speaker 14 We were on vacation for like four days and we didn't, we decided to wait it out and not cut the vacation because we just hoped the weather would change.

Speaker 14 It didn't change and they switched our flight four times and so now we're just hoping that they don't switch the flight again.

Speaker 8 Three people have already been killed in Haiti in bad weather. I asked our Central America correspondent Will Grant to explain how bad the hurricane could be.

Speaker 2 The potential for Hurricane Melissa to hit Jamaica very, very hard is clearly there. So the islanders are obviously bracing themselves for a serious impact.

Speaker 2 Obviously, the beginnings of that are being felt not just in Jamaica, but also neighbouring Haiti and Cuba, the eastern tip of Cuba, the southwestern tip of Haiti, have already felt the rains and the high winds beginning to start.

Speaker 2 But the potential for this to be, as you say, one of the biggest storms to hit Jamaica on record is certainly there.

Speaker 8 Just how bad could this be, and how prepared is the island? And I noticed you mentioned Haiti. I mean Haiti is not a place that needs any more bad luck.

Speaker 2 No, it isn't, nor in fact is Cuba. Both of those islands in different ways are going through major crises.

Speaker 2 Certainly in the Cuban example it's already suffering from sometimes nationwide blackouts, major food shortages.

Speaker 2 So the idea of power being cut off to the eastern tip of the island for several days is very, very concerning to residents there.

Speaker 2 And of course, when there are so many blackouts, getting information to people is difficult in the first place.

Speaker 2 In the Haitian example, as you say, it is in the grip of its biggest security and humanitarian crisis, probably the biggest humanitarian crisis in the Americas.

Speaker 2 And the absolute last thing it needs is a Category Four or V hurricane smashing into part of the island of Hispaniola. So there are serious dangers there.

Speaker 2 In terms of Jamaica, people are, of course, experienced, not just in Jamaica across the Caribbean. People are very experienced with hurricanes.
But sometimes there is a limit to what can be done.

Speaker 2 Obviously, the authorities are setting up storm shelters, they are getting the word out, people are quite literally battening down the hatches, putting up boarding over businesses and homes, and so on.

Speaker 2 But when nations are as impoverished as some of these places we're talking about, again, particularly Haiti, there is a limit to what some people can do.

Speaker 8 Yeah, these predictions of it being the worst in 40 years, it does feel as though we're using this kind of language on an even more regular basis now.

Speaker 2 The magnitude and frequency of these storms has been increasing year on year. It's becoming noticeably more complex across the Caribbean.

Speaker 2 And the argument of some of the small island nations is that they are bearing the brunt of climate change, that they are actually the smallest contributors to carbon emissions, but they receive the rising sea levels, the worse hurricanes, the more intense and more frequent tropical storms.

Speaker 12 We'll grant.

Speaker 8 Let's go now to the Spanish city of Valencia.

Speaker 8 Where on the week of the anniversary of the floods that killed more than 200 people, tens of thousands of demonstrators marched through the streets to protest about the way the disaster was handled by the authorities.

Speaker 8 Vicente Carbonero was among the protesters. He's the secretary of the Association of Flood Survivors.
My colleague Paul Henley asked him if people were still angry.

Speaker 15 Still very angry here in the region, you know. We still feel like abandoned for that day.

Speaker 16 You've been having a monthly protest ever since the flood. Are things growing?

Speaker 15 Well, the first one was the biggest one, we have to say. And today's, I would say, is one of the biggest since one year ago.
Maybe the second or the third one.

Speaker 16 What do you hope to achieve? What do you want to happen?

Speaker 15 Well, Carlos Maton, who is right now is the local maximum representation for local government. We want him to go away.
That's it. As simple as that.

Speaker 15 He's not very empathic with the people, and he should be on chief of the situation. And he's lying every time, and he's not representing Valencian people at all.

Speaker 16 Tell me of your experience in these floods. You were caught by surprise in your home, weren't you?

Speaker 15 Yes, I was at home, no warnings. And all of a sudden, the water level was raising and raising and raising.
And it was quite scary, of course.

Speaker 16 The water was rising and rising. What happened? You had to move upstairs?

Speaker 19 Yes, of course.

Speaker 15 Hopefully, I have upstairs

Speaker 15 at home. But a lot of people, they haven't.
So I was lucky I could go to the upstairs, to the first floor.

Speaker 15 But it was scary that you saw that the level, water level was raising and raising, not stopping. And at the end, it was quite a scary situation.

Speaker 16 230 people died died that time during those floods.

Speaker 16 What is being done, if anything, now to make sure there aren't more deaths?

Speaker 15 There is reconstruction plans. They are starting to work with that.
Still, it's like maybe five, six years to achieve that. So we are still scared.

Speaker 15 You know, the last month we had a red warning for heavy rains again. And of course, people are scared in general because nothing has been done yet.

Speaker 16 You say you feel abandoned by the government. How so?

Speaker 15 For For the three, four very first days, nobody came. Nobody from institutions.
Nobody. Only volunteers, citizens like us from Valencia, from everywhere in Spain, everywhere in Europe.

Speaker 15 They came to help us, but not the institutions. We're really very hungry with that.
Totally abandoned.

Speaker 8 Vicente Carbonero in Valencia.

Speaker 8 Now, if there was one prisoner the British government wouldn't have wanted mistakenly released, it's Haddush Kabatu, an Ethiopian migrant sex offender jailed in September for 12 months.

Speaker 8 He'd sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl and a woman in Essex while staying at public expense in a hotel, sparking protests outside, and a growing sense the government hadn't got to grips with migrant issues in Britain.

Speaker 8 Kabatu was due to be sent to an immigration centre ahead of his planned deportation.

Speaker 8 Instead, on Friday, he was accidentally set free with money to help him and is still on the run, a turn of events which was quite extraordinary, as I suggested to our political correspondent Rob Watson.

Speaker 18 The real problem for the government of Sakir Stam and the relatively new Labour government is that this incident really plays into a wider sense that the British people have, and you might say it was fair or not fair, Alex, and that this is a country where nothing works properly.

Speaker 18 You know, whether it's the prison system in this case, whether it's transport, whatever it is, the sort of sense that Britain is broken because in releasing a prisoner who should have actually been sent

Speaker 18 for deportation, someone who was at the centre of all this sort of angry row in Britain about people who have arrived here on small boats, someone who'd been accused of and found guilty of sexual assault charges.

Speaker 18 I mean, you just couldn't make this stuff up.

Speaker 8 Yeah, of all the prisoners that could have been accidentally released, it is hard to think of one that could have created more of a headache for the British Government.

Speaker 18 It would be hard to disagree with you, Alex, absolutely, because again, if one thinks back to the summer and to the protests there were outside the hotel

Speaker 18 just outside of London where this man who had claimed asylum was staying and when people in the area found out that he'd been arrested for sexual assault charges and that then sparked off protests outside other hotels up and down the country, housing people who were trying to claim asylum.

Speaker 18 And the idea that it is this person,

Speaker 18 given all the focus, given all the anger that there is from voters on people coming in small boats, the idea that they are housed at great expenses in hotels, again, it is just profoundly uncomfortable for the government.

Speaker 18 But more than the government, the entire system, the prison system, the justice system, you name it, everybody is feeling, everyone in the system is feeling low.

Speaker 8 And a total gift for the government's likely main challenger, the Far Right Reform Party.

Speaker 18 Absolutely. The populist right-of-centre reform party led by Nigel Farage is already making ham.
And it was Mr. Farage who had drawn attention to these hotels holding asylum seekers.

Speaker 18 And Nigel Farage has said that this just shows that Britain is broken.

Speaker 18 And from the former governing Conservative Party, their leader has said that the level of incompetence on display here beggars belief.

Speaker 18 So, a political field day for the government's opponents, everyone taking a swipe, everyone getting into that narrative that somehow that sense of crisis around the Starmer government,

Speaker 18 the sense that it just can't get anything right.

Speaker 8 Rob Watson

Speaker 8 still to come on the Global News Podcast.

Speaker 8 Why the release of a Japanese film about a man eating bear has been delayed.

Speaker 3 Protect your pet with insurance from PetsBest. Plans start from less than a dollar a day.
Visit petsbest.com.

Speaker 3 Pet insurance products offered and administered by PetsBest Insurance Services LLC are underwritten by American Pet Insurance Company or Independence American Insurance Company.

Speaker 3 For terms and conditions, visit www.petsbest.com backslash policy.

Speaker 3 Products are underwritten by American Pet Insurance Company, Independence American Insurance Company, or MS Transverse Insurance Company and administered by Pets Best Insurance Services LLC.

Speaker 3 $1 day premium based on 2024 average new policyholder data for accident and illness plans pets age 0 to 10.

Speaker 22 When never thought this would happen actually happens, Serve Pro's got you. If disaster threatens to put production weeks behind schedule, Serve Pro's got you.

Speaker 22 When you need precise containment to stay in operation through the the unexpected, ServePro's got you.

Speaker 22 When the aftermath of floods, wildfires, hurricanes, and other forces that are out of your control have you feeling a loss of control, ServePro's got you.

Speaker 22 Simply put, whenever or wherever you need help in a hurry, make sure your first call is to the number one name in cleanup and restoration.

Speaker 22 Because only ServePro has the scale and expertise to get you back up to speed quicker than you ever thought possible.

Speaker 22 So, if fire or water damage ever threatens your home or business, remember to call on the team that's faster to any size disaster at 1-800-SERVPRO or by visiting ServePro.com.

Speaker 22 Serve Pro, like it never even happened.

Speaker 23 With markets changing and living costs rising, finding a reliable place to grow your money matters now more than ever. In the WellFront Cash account, your uninvested cash can earn up to 3.9% APY.

Speaker 23 That's a 0.65% boost over an already high rate for three months, just for being a new client.

Speaker 23 There are no monthly account fees or minimums, and you get free instant withdrawals to eligible accounts 24-7. So you always have access to your money when you need it.

Speaker 23 And when you're ready to invest, you can transfer your cash to one of WealthFront's expert-built portfolios in just minutes.

Speaker 23 More than 1 million people already use Wealthfront to save and build wealth with confidence. Get started today at WealthFront.com.
3.25% base APY via Program Banks as of December 19th, 2025.

Speaker 23 It is representative variable, requires no minimum, and is earned on funds wept to program banks. Instant withdrawal subject to conditions boost up to $150,000.

Speaker 23 Cash account offered by Wealthfront Brokerage LLC member FINRA, SIPC, not a bank. Investing involves risk, including possible loss of principal.

Speaker 23 Investment advisory services provided by Wealthfront Advisors LLC and SEC Registered Investment Advisor.

Speaker 7 I can really focus on what is important now thanks to Willow. No more looking over my kids' shoulder and wondering if their teeth are clean.

Speaker 7 With Willow, the kids just pop the brush in their mouth, press a button, and their teeth are cleaned perfectly every time.

Speaker 7 The Brush Bot from Willow allows my kids to brush their teeth independently and do it the right way.

Speaker 7 If you want to take the worry out of brushing, check out the brush bot at willow.com and check out their special savings. Visit wi L L O dot com, willow.com.

Speaker 8 There are just 196 groups of Indigenous people living in voluntary isolation left in the world, but half of them may be wiped out in the next 10 years if their governments don't do more to protect them, according to a new report by the advocacy advocacy group Survival International.

Speaker 8 The BBC's population correspondent Stephanie Hegety traveled to the Peruvian Amazon where the Mashco Pirro live, one of the largest of these isolated groups, to meet those fighting to protect their uncontacted neighbours.

Speaker 24 Thomas Añez de Santos is warning his neighbours he's here.

Speaker 24 He's planting in a clearing in the dense Peruvian rainforest, trying to avoid a tense encounter, like what happened last week.

Speaker 25 One man was standing right there, aiming an arrow at me. I don't know how long I was standing there.
I started to run.

Speaker 24 His neighbors are the Mashkapiro, nomadic hunter-gatherer people who've cut themselves off from the rest of the world for over a century.

Speaker 24 An elder in a small fishing village of Nueva Oceania, Thomas has been living side by side with the Mashkapiro for decades, but he rarely saw them.

Speaker 24 In this video, three Mashkapiro people are calling across the river to Thomas's village.

Speaker 24 They're the largest known group still living in voluntary isolation. They rely on the forest for everything they need to survive, hunting with long bows and arrows and gathering plants and fruit.

Speaker 24 There are up to a thousand Mashkapiro living here in an area the size of Ireland.

Speaker 24 The Peruvian government has a policy of no contact to protect the Mashkapiro from disease and exploitation. But this part of the forest is not a protected area.

Speaker 24 Logging companies operate here, and the Mashkapira are coming to this village more and more.

Speaker 25 You hear it every morning, the logging machines.

Speaker 25 We ask for the logging to be further away, but it's coming closer. The machines run day and night.
And those in the forest, our brothers, how do they feel?

Speaker 25 We're used to the noise, but they've never heard it, and they're watching their forests destroyed.

Speaker 24 It's a very different story on another side of Mashkapiro territory, where the forest is protected.

Speaker 24 Here there's a government control post on the wide Manu River, which was set up in 2015 after interaction between the Mashkapiro and local villages led to several killings.

Speaker 24 As the head of the control post, Antonio Trigosohidalgo's job is to stop that happening again.

Speaker 28 On Monday, they started coming out.

Speaker 28 We were having breakfast, and then they started shouting,

Speaker 28 Brother, they said, We need plantains, cassava, sugarcane, clothes.

Speaker 28 I shouted back, Okay, wait three days and come back.

Speaker 24 When they ask, the agents give the Mashcapiro some crops to stop them raiding nearby villages. Over the ten years he's worked here, Antonio has learned a little about the people he calls his brothers.

Speaker 28 What I understand now is that they stay in one area for a while, they set up a camp and the whole family gathers.

Speaker 28 Once they've hunted everything around the place, they move to another site, they rebuild their camp again.

Speaker 24 It's believed the Mashkapiros' ancestors fled into the jungle in the late 19th century to escape widespread massacres by so-called rubber barons, that they became nomads to stay safe.

Speaker 24 They speak in antiquated dialects of the indigenous Yin language, which the agents who are also Yinne have been able to learn. There are about 41 people that Antonio sees regularly.

Speaker 24 The chief is a stern man called Kamatolo, or honeybee. He never smiles.
Another leader, Kotko, or Vulture, is a joker. He laughs a lot and makes fun of the agents.

Speaker 24 But any time the agents ask about life in the forest, the Mashkapiro shut the conversation down.

Speaker 28 Once I asked how they light fires with wood, they told me, You have wood, you already know.

Speaker 28 I insisted, and they said, You already have everything. Why do you want to know?

Speaker 28 They don't want to show how they do it.

Speaker 24 The Mashkapiro are well protected here for now.

Speaker 24 But this is what the people of Nuevo Oceania would like to see for their own Mashcapira neighbors and for their forest.

Speaker 25 As indigenous people, we have the duty and the right to stand up ourselves. They need to be free like us.

Speaker 25 We know they lived very peacefully for years, and now their forests are being finished off, destroyed.

Speaker 8 That report by the BBC's population correspondent Stephanie Hegerty.

Speaker 8 It's a city election that has captured the attention of the world. In New York, early voting has begun as residents weigh up who should be their next mayor.

Speaker 8 But the issues at the center of the election go beyond the local, revealing deep divides at the heart of American politics, as the newsroom's Isabella Jewell explains.

Speaker 5 It is for many pundits a possible bellwether for the future of the Democratic Party.

Speaker 5 Not only are the two front-runners of the New York mayoral race registered members of the same party, but the contest has also seen the discussion of issues normally reserved for presidential debates.

Speaker 5 The war in the Middle East and migration have been key points of contention, as well as more local issues like living costs and safety.

Speaker 5 Voters now face a stark choice between candidates who offer drastically different politics and experience. Leading the polls is the Democratic nominee, Zohran Mamdani.

Speaker 5 He describes himself as a democratic socialist, and if elected, he would become the city's youngest mayor in a century, as well as New York's first Muslim mayor.

Speaker 5 But he has weathered anti-Muslim rhetoric throughout the contest. Here's what he said about it on TikTok as voting got underway.

Speaker 25 I will not change who I am.

Speaker 29 I will not change how I eat. I will not change the faith that I am proud to belong to.
But there is one thing I will change. I will no longer look for myself in the shadows.

Speaker 29 I will find myself in the light.

Speaker 5 Mamdani has captured the imagination of younger voters with his use of social media, pop culture, and shareable videos, and is calling for rent freezes and the creation of publicly owned grocery stores to address rising food prices.

Speaker 5 His closest rival in the race is the former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who's running as an independent candidate after losing the Democratic primary.

Speaker 5 Cuomo has criticised Mamdani for his condemnation of Israel's war in Gaza and is appealing to voters to pick him because of his political experience.

Speaker 5 Also in the mix is the Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa, whose central message is that he'll make New York safer.

Speaker 5 It builds on his colourful history as the founder of the volunteer group Guardian Angels in the 1970s, whose members would patrol the New York metro in red berets, performing citizens' arrests on those committing violent crimes.

Speaker 8 Isabella Jewell. For the chess community, the death of Grand Master Daniel Naroditsky last week was a tragedy, but the fallout in the days since has been ugly.

Speaker 8 A former world champion, Vladimir Kramnik, who was publicly accused of bullying Naroditsky, has now hit back, saying he's the victim of an unbelievable campaign of hatred and denigration.

Speaker 8 Will Chalk has the story.

Speaker 30 With hundreds of thousands of followers across YouTube and Twitch, American Grand Master Daniel Naroditsky was clearly passionate, not just about the game, but about teaching and helping others.

Speaker 30 But in his final stream, two days before he was found dead, he was obviously distressed.

Speaker 8 I know, just give me a few more games, and then I'll go to sleep.

Speaker 30 Daniel Naroditsky's family said his death was unexpected, but didn't reveal the cause.

Speaker 30 Many of his fans, though, were quick to point out that his distress had been building for a while and blamed the accusations of fellow chess player Vladimir Kramnik, the Russian former world champion had repeatedly accused Naroditsky of cheating in online matches without offering any proof.

Speaker 30 Naroditsky denied cheating and, in an interview last year, said the allegations were part of a sustained, evil, and absolutely unhinged attempt to destroy his life.

Speaker 30 It's a topic he came back to in his final stream.

Speaker 19 Ever since the Kramnik stuff,

Speaker 19 I feel like if I start doing well,

Speaker 19 people assume the worst of intentions.

Speaker 30 After Naroditsky's death, some of the biggest names in chess came out in support of him. World number two, Hikaru Nakamura, said Kramnik could rot in hell.

Speaker 30 Arguably, the game's biggest star, Magnus Carlsen, talked about the feud on one of his own streams.

Speaker 8 I thought, yeah, the way he was going after Naroditsky was

Speaker 8 horrible.

Speaker 30 On Wednesday, the World Chess Federation said it had launched disciplinary proceedings against Vladimir Kramnik over his comments both before and after Naroditsky's death.

Speaker 30 Now we've had a response from Kramnik himself. In a statement via his attorney, the 50-year-old said he was the victim, claiming there'd been an unbelievable campaign of hatred against him.

Speaker 30 He said he'd filed a criminal complaint after serious threats and unprecedented attacks on his personality and that of his loved ones. It looks then like this is far from over.

Speaker 30 Often in sport, grief can bring rivals together, but when it comes to the death of Daniel Naroditsky and the world of chess, it looks like the divisions are only getting deeper.

Speaker 8 to be built in London near the world-famous Tower Bridge.

Speaker 8 Beijing warned last week of potential consequences after the British government announced another delay before it decides whether or not to give the controversial project the go-ahead.

Speaker 8 The Chinese bought the site seven years ago, but its plans have led to concerns with some rooms blanked out for so-called security reasons.

Speaker 8 Jamie Kumarasami's report begins at the housing estate on the site, where the Residence Association's Mark Nygate has been leading local efforts to stop the embassy being built.

Speaker 6 So, this is the North Car Park.

Speaker 17 Our flats are here, there's 100 flats. Over this side is going to be Embassy House where the staff are going to be living.
They're going to convert that into 230 flats.

Speaker 17 All this will have residents in there watching us and thinking what they are up to.

Speaker 6 So, we're about how many metres?

Speaker 17 That's eight and a half metres.

Speaker 6 Are we standing then on Chinese land at the moment?

Speaker 17 Yeah, they own this land. I think when they move in, they will will see that we're right opposite.
They're not going to want that. Down the line they won't want us here.

Speaker 19 How would you feel about having to move out?

Speaker 17 That would wreck my life because I'm now 65. I'd have to move out of London.
I've been in London all my life so that's very difficult and very worrying.

Speaker 1 While one Londoner is worried about being exiled, a Hong Konger who's been exiled here has been leading protests against the embassy.

Speaker 1 Carmen Lau is a pro-democracy activist who fled to this country. When she came into the BBC, she told me about finding out she had a bounty of nearly a hundred thousand pounds on her head.

Speaker 33 After there's a bounty placed on me, I was constantly feeling unsafe. And it is not just a sentiment or a feeling because just outside of the streets I was followed by someone.
Just now?

Speaker 31 Yeah. Just as you came here to see us.

Speaker 33 Yeah. And there have been letters sent to my neighbors here encouraging them to bounty hunt on me.
They have my name, my address, my age, my height, and of course the charges they've put on me.

Speaker 33 And there's one very specific sentence in the end of the letter in red saying that if anyone could provide information or place me to the Chinese embassy, they would be granted one million Hong Kong dollar reward.

Speaker 1 That brings us to the new embassy.

Speaker 31 What are your concerns?

Speaker 33 We know that China has been actively repressing the dissidents overseas. You could see from the application by the Chinese embassy that there were a few rooms.

Speaker 33 They refused to specify what's the usage of those areas.

Speaker 12 And that's what's holding up the approval. Yeah.

Speaker 31 Because questions are being asked about that.

Speaker 33 And if we are taken into those rooms, I could only imagine tortures, non-stop interrogation, or even just locked locked us in and refused to release us.

Speaker 31 Here in the UK you think that could happen?

Speaker 33 Well technically the embassy according to international law is the land of that country.

Speaker 6 Well we're back at the site of the proposed Chinese embassy and standing at the front of it you get a real idea of its amazing location because just in front in the rain I can see the Tower of London and quite a few brave souls souls in open top buses driving over Tower Bridge and we've come back here to talk to Kerry Brown.

Speaker 6 He's Professor of Chinese Studies at King's College London but he's also a former First Secretary at the British Embassy in Beijing.

Speaker 6 So we're going to talk about the importance of this location to the Chinese.

Speaker 32 This is a really great place. China very entrepreneurial, big interest in growing wealthier and richer.
This is the old Royal Mint associated with money, literally making money.

Speaker 32 So symbolically this is a really great location for China and its aspirations in Britain and Europe.

Speaker 6 So why is it in Britain's interests for this to become the embassy?

Speaker 32 So Britain has a very underwhelming building in Beijing, a kind of really very small, pretty run-down, pretty cramped place.

Speaker 32 And I think if we don't allow this deal here to go ahead, we won't get a new embassy in Beijing. There are definitely risks and I suppose that's what the government is considering at the moment.

Speaker 32 But I think it is important. Britain can't ignore China and this embassy is symbolically important for China so it figures in that whole mix.

Speaker 8 Professor Kerry Brown ending that report by the BBC's Jamie Kumarasami.

Speaker 8 It's the time of the year when more horror films start appearing in cinemas as studios aim to capitalize on the Halloween season.

Speaker 8 But producers of a gory Japanese film about a bear attacking humans have decided to delay the release date because of a surge in real-life attacks in the country.

Speaker 8 At least nine people have been killed by bears in Japan this year, a record high, Shanto Hartle reports.

Speaker 4 A promotional video for the film shows a young man venturing deep into the woods where he encounters a ravenous bear.

Speaker 4 It's said to feature grisly scenes, including one where a person's arm is chewed off.

Speaker 4 When filming started in 2023, the producers said they wanted to highlight a growing trend of wild animals being pushed out of their natural habitat.

Speaker 4 Originally set for release this November, the film has now been postponed because of consideration for the real life victims.

Speaker 4 There have been recent reports of bears attacking tourists, entering supermarkets and venturing near schools in the north of the country, with more than one hundred people injured so far this year.

Speaker 4 Experts say the changing climate has resulted in low yields of acorns and beechnuts, two key food sources for bears, which could be driving the hungry animals into residential areas.

Speaker 4 Japan's environment minister has promised to introduce stronger measures, such as recruiting and training government hunters, to prevent further attacks.

Speaker 4 In one region in central Japan, police and local hunters staged a mock exercise which involved chasing a man wearing a bear mask with firecrackers.

Speaker 4 The drill also covered how to safely approach the animals after they're shot or tranquilised.

Speaker 8 Shandal Hartle.

Speaker 8 And that's all 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, you can send us an email.

Speaker 8 The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X at BBC World Service.
Use the hashtag Global Newspod.

Speaker 8 This edition was mixed by Derek Clark, and the producers were Isabella Jewell and Guy Pitt. The editor is Karen Martin.
I'm Alex Ritz, and until next time, goodbye.

Speaker 20 While holiday shopping is almost always fun, credit can be confusing. That's when you get My FICO.

Speaker 20 Download the My FICO app now and shop with confidence knowing that you can stay on top of your credit 24-7. Get your FICO scores straight from the people that created it.

Speaker 20 Plus, free credit monitoring and a free credit report every month. No credit card required.
FICO scores are used by 90% of lenders, so trust the MyFICO app to keep you in the know.

Speaker 20 Visit myfico.com/slash free or download the MyFICO app today.