Nine critically injured in mass UK train stabbing

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Speaker 7 This is the global news podcast from the BBC World Service.

Speaker 7 I'm John Sudworth and we're recording this edition in the early hours of Sunday the 2nd of November. Our main stories.

Speaker 7 Counter-terrorism police in the UK are dealing with a large-scale stabbing incident on on a train, with witnesses likening it to a horror film.

Speaker 8 I had Daisy suddenly run past going, run, run. There's a guy stabbing literally everyone and everything.
I put my hand on this chair and then I look at my hand and it's covered in blood.

Speaker 8 And then I look at the chair and there's blood all over the chair.

Speaker 7 After Hurricane Melissa, badly needed aid flights begin to arrive in Jamaica. and a long-awaited apology from Spain over its conquest of the Americas.

Speaker 7 Also in this podcast.

Speaker 11 When someone says, let's impose tariffs on foreign imports, it looks like they're doing the patriotic thing by protecting American products and jobs.

Speaker 10 And sometimes for a short while it works, but only for a short time.

Speaker 7 Canada apologizes to Donald Trump over an anti-tariff ad campaign it ran in the U.S. featuring former President Ronald Reagan.

Speaker 7 We begin in the UK where counter-terrorism police are investigating a mass stabbing on a train which has left nine people with life-threatening injuries.

Speaker 7 Police and other emergency services are at the scene in Huntingdon, in Cambridgeshire, after armed officers boarded the train and arrested two men.

Speaker 7 They were responding to reports that multiple people had been stabbed, with witnesses describing bloodied passengers trying to escape through carriages and barricading themselves into bathrooms.

Speaker 7 Ollie Foster was on the train and told us how some of the victims tried to save others.

Speaker 8 like just trying to push myself forward and then I look at my hand and it's covered in blood and then I look at the chair and there's blood all over the chair and then I look ahead and there's blood all on the chairs and I'm thinking okay this is this is pretty serious and someone kind of said they they thought they had a gun um so we ran to the end of the carriage kind of we pulled the uh the emergency alarm and just trying to work out can we barricade the doors can we lock the doors there was a girl bless her who was really really in a bit of state because the guy had actually tried to stab her and one of the older guys was an absolute hero blocked it with his head and he's got this like gash he had his gash on his head um he's got his he's got i think a gash on his neck and he's kind of getting we're kind of giving him like our jackets to keep the pressure on the blood.

Speaker 8 And then it felt like literally forever. But eventually, the train kind of stopped.
Everyone's kind of running off. I didn't look back.

Speaker 8 Two people that I was with did, and they believe that he was a black man in his mid-20s. And that was all that they saw.

Speaker 7 Videos from witnesses outside the train show emergency services rushing to the station.

Speaker 7 Two, four, six, eight. There's at least ten ambulances, twelve ambulances.

Speaker 7 Oh my god.

Speaker 7 Dean McFarlane was on the platform when the train pulled in.

Speaker 12 I see a guy hanging out the train door bleeding. As I look further up the platform, I see people running down the platform panicking and bleeding.

Speaker 12 And that's when I heard someone shout, he's coming, he's coming. And I see a guy suddenly running down in a black hoodie.

Speaker 12 I can't tell whether that was one of the attackers or whether that was one of the victims. So obviously I grabbed a load of people and just said to them, please get out of the station.
Go, go, go.

Speaker 7 For the latest, I spoke to our correspondent, Barry Caffrey.

Speaker 3 Ten people have been taken to hospital. Nine of those ten believed to have suffered life-threatening injuries and one person being treated for non-life-threatening injuries.

Speaker 3 This took place aboard a train on Saturday evening.

Speaker 3 And British Transport Police have said that at around 20 to 8 in the evening, they were called to reports of a multiple stabbing aboard that train in Cambridgeshire.

Speaker 3 British Transport Police say that officers immediately attended Huntington Station alongside paramedics.

Speaker 3 Armed police from Cambridgeshire police boarded the train and arrested two people in connection to the incident. Those two have been taken to police custody.

Speaker 3 And they say that 10 people have been taken to hospital. Nine of the ten have suffered life-threatening injuries, we understand, and one of them being treated for non-life-threatening injuries.

Speaker 3 They did confirm that there have been no fatalities. This has been declared a major incident.

Speaker 3 Counter-terrorism policing are supporting the investigation too, while they establish the full circumstances of the incident. But of course, this was a 6.25 p.m.

Speaker 3 train service on a Saturday evening. Presumably, there would have been a lot of people on board that train traveling into London for a Saturday evening out.

Speaker 3 I would imagine a very, very difficult, traumatic experience for those. Lots of footage, which has been shown on social media, too,

Speaker 3 of all of the emergency services and the paramedics at the scene, and also of officers running up along the platform towards the front of the train.

Speaker 7 As you say, Barry clearly, a terrifying incident for the passengers.

Speaker 7 There's been some political reaction as well.

Speaker 3 There has. Sir Kier Starmer, the Prime Minister, released a brief statement calling this an appalling incident in Cambridgeshire.

Speaker 3 He said it was deeply concerning and he urged people to follow the advice of the local authorities. Of course, the local MPs said very similar.

Speaker 3 Kemi Vadenock from the Conservative Party saying very similar too.

Speaker 3 I should have mentioned to you too that an eyewitness told the BBC that they saw a man bolting down the carriage with a bloody arm saying that they've got a knife run,

Speaker 3 and another eyewitness describing a man collapsed on the floor.

Speaker 7 Barry Caffrey.

Speaker 7 If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet.

Speaker 7 That's how Donald Trump chose to announce possible US military action in Nigeria after his administration accused the government there of allowing the mass killing of Christians.

Speaker 7 Mr Trump, who's made it his mission to be seen as a global peacemaker, said Washington may go in. Guns are blazing.

Speaker 7 Nigeria has rejected the claim that Christians are disproportionately targeted by Islamist insurgents in the Muslim majority north of the country.

Speaker 7 Daniel Lippmann, a reporter for Politico covering the White House, doesn't believe the president will follow through on his threat.

Speaker 14 If you look at what analysts who study Nigeria say, is that Christians are actually not the majority of the victims, that actually Muslims in the majority north are primarily targets of attacks, but often by other Muslims, the Islamist insurgents.

Speaker 14 This has been a long-standing problem in Nigeria. You also have to wonder: did Trump see something on television? Did Nigeria political analysts give this to him to try to tweet out? Or Christians...

Speaker 14 Remember, he won the 2016 election in large part due to American Christians who were very happy that he was going to install pro-life justices on the Supreme Court. And so he

Speaker 14 wants to almost repay the favor and help Christians wherever he can.

Speaker 7 Our North America correspondent, Peter Bowes, has more on President Trump's ultimatum to Nigeria.

Speaker 15 It is an extremely strongly worded post from, as you imply, a president president who prides himself on stopping wars. His tone here is very aggressive.

Speaker 15 He is threatening to send US forces into Nigeria with, as he puts it, guns are blazing if he says that the country doesn't stem what he describes as the killing of Christians by Islamists.

Speaker 15 He said he's asked the Pentagon to map out a possible plan of attack.

Speaker 15 If the Nigerian government continues to allow the killing of Christians, he writes, the USA will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria and attack with the goal of completely wiping out the Islamic terrorists who are committing these, as he puts it, horrible atrocities.

Speaker 15 And this comes just a few days after he warned that Christianity was facing an existential threat in Nigeria.

Speaker 9 I remember in the last few days that he put Nigeria on a watch list of countries where they thought there was sort of some kind of concern.

Speaker 9 Why now then is this statement being made compared compared to those last few days and the feelings there?

Speaker 15 It hasn't come out of the blue.

Speaker 15 This decision really follows months of lobbying by US officials who've argued that Christians in Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, are facing, to use their term, genocide.

Speaker 15 Conservative politicians have led the charge. In March, the U.S.
Congressman Chris Smith called for Nigeria to be listed, as you say, a country of particular concern, a CPC. Now, some background here.

Speaker 15 Donald Trump had listed Nigeria as a CPC during his first presidency, but the decision was reversed by Joe Biden. And then last month, the U.S.

Speaker 15 Senator Ted Cruz, Congressman Riley Moore, accused the Nigerian government of turning a blind eye to the mass murder of Christians, an existential threat, as we have heard, to Nigeria's Christian population, according to the President.

Speaker 9 Have we heard anything from the Nigerian government in response to this yet?

Speaker 15 Yes, there has been a brief response. The country's president said that the characterization of Nigeria as religiously intolerant does not reflect its national reality.

Speaker 15 This is President Tinubu posting on X on Saturday saying religious freedom and tolerance have been a core tenet of our collective identity and shall always remain so.

Speaker 7 Peter Bowes, speaking to the newsroom's Chris Barrow.

Speaker 7 Hurricane Melissa is now known to have claimed at least 19 victims when it smashed into the island of Jamaica. But it also left hundreds of thousands of people without power and much-needed supplies.

Speaker 7 Aid has started arriving, including on a first flight from Britain, but the dwindling supply of clean water, food, and fuel is beginning to take a toll on the exhausted islanders.

Speaker 7 The BBC's Will Grant travelled to Trelawney, outside the resort of Montego Bay, and sent this report.

Speaker 16 It has taken longer than expected, but for Jamaicans affected by Hurricane Melissa, the welcome arrival of help.

Speaker 16 Tons of humanitarian aid from a range of foreign governments and aid agencies is finally making it onto the tarmac at Kingston Airport.

Speaker 16 And hand by hand in a human chain, soldiers are loading the emergency packs onto trucks.

Speaker 17 They include everything the families stranded by the storm will be needing, cooking oil, tin goods, rice and so on.

Speaker 17 The Jamaican Defence Force is loading them onto trucks, getting them to their hub and from there, they tell me, to anywhere on the island that most needs them.

Speaker 16 One place they're urgently needed is in the tiny hamlet of Long Bay on the outskirts of the tourist resort of Montego Bay. Here the majority of houses have lost a roof.

Speaker 16 Some homes, like Colleen Barrett's, have gone completely.

Speaker 19 It's totally devastated. Most of the board structures, not most, all of the board structures are down.

Speaker 5 No roofing.

Speaker 19 We have babies here, we have disabled here.

Speaker 19 Water is the source of life. And we don't have any water.

Speaker 18 We can't cook.

Speaker 19 We can't take a shower. It's too much.
It's too much to bear, trust me.

Speaker 20 I'm still living in the car. I ride on my clothes all wet.
I've had the same clothes for about three days, four days now.

Speaker 16 Her friend, Darren Willis, helping her to mop out the mud from the money exchange shop she works in, is in similar circumstances.

Speaker 16 He's been sleeping in his car and hasn't changed his clothes for three days.

Speaker 20 So believe me, I don't have anything. I don't have a TV again, I don't have a computer again.
Nothing is there.

Speaker 16 And in some places, tempers are beginning to fray.

Speaker 16 On the road to Montego Bay in Trelawney, some have spent an entire day queuing at the petrol pumps for fuel, only to get to the front, Jerry can in hand, to be told there is none left.

Speaker 16 For Shay Jones, carrying her three-year-old daughter on her hip, Desperation is fast setting in.

Speaker 22 Every day, it's worse and worse every day. No food, no meal, no gas, nothing.
I'm here from four o'clock this morning trying to get gas and I cannot get nothing.

Speaker 22 We don't have any cash, we don't have any food, we don't have any water, we don't have any electricity, nothing.

Speaker 13 Nothing.

Speaker 16 Aid agencies have put together videos of their emergency supplies in Kingston. It is yet to reach the neediest in Trelawny or in flattened villages like Long Bay.

Speaker 6 That report from Will Grant.

Speaker 7 Russia has been trying to seize the key frontline town of Pokhrovsk since 2024 as part of its push to take full control of Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region.

Speaker 7 Now, the country's top commander says his troops are facing difficult conditions as they defend the city against Russian forces.

Speaker 7 General Oleksander Siersky says elite special units have been deployed to keep supply routes open, but he insists Ukraine still holds Pokhrovsk. From Kyiv, here's our correspondent, James Landale.

Speaker 21 Pokhrovsk is a crucial transport and supply hub on Ukraine's eastern front line.

Speaker 21 Russian forces have been trying to seize it for more than a year, and recent advances have raised fears the city could fall. General Sirsky said the situation was most challenging.

Speaker 21 His troops were facing a multi-thousand enemy force, but denied they were surrounded.

Speaker 21 He confirmed he'd deployed elite special forces to protect his supply lines, which Army sources said were all under Russian fire.

Speaker 21 The Defence Ministry in Moscow claimed Ukrainian troops were surrendering, and 11 of their special forces had been killed after landing by helicopter, something denied by Kiev.

Speaker 21 So the picture on the ground is confused, but much is at stake. If Prokrovsk fell, it would be the biggest city seized by Russia since Bakhmut in May 2023.

Speaker 21 Its capture could unlock Russian efforts to seize the resk of Donetsk. It might also help Russia persuade Donald Trump its military campaign was not stalling.

Speaker 21 Little wonder, President Zelensky said overnight, defending Prokrovsk was a priority.

Speaker 7 James Landale.

Speaker 7 For years, Mexico has urged Spain to apologize for the brutality of its 16th-century conquest of the Americas, when millions of indigenous Mexicans were killed by Spanish conquistadors.

Speaker 7 Now, at the launch of an exhibition of indigenous Mexican art in Madrid, Spain's foreign minister, José Manuel Albarez, has offered one of the country's clearest acknowledgments yet of that past.

Speaker 24 As in every human story, it has had light and darkness. There has also been pain, pain, and injustice towards the indigenous people.

Speaker 24 We dedicate this exhibition to. Recognizing this today is just and to lament it.
It's because that is also part of our shared history and we cannot deny it or forget it.

Speaker 7 Mexico's President Claudia Scheinbaum welcomed the gesture, describing it as an important first step towards reconciliation. Our global affairs reporter, Mimi Swabi, told us more.

Speaker 4 This comes after Mexican President Claudia Scheinbaum revived the call earlier this week, saying reconciliation requires acknowledgement of past wrongs. Mr.

Speaker 4 Alvarez said the relations between Spain and Mexico are a very human story, full of light and shadow.

Speaker 4 But he said the injustices, now five centuries ago, cannot be denied or forgotten as they are representative of the shared history between these two countries.

Speaker 4 This is one of the clearest acknowledgements by a top Spanish official of the suffering that was caused to thousands of millions of Indigenous peoples across Central and South America.

Speaker 4 This move now opens the door to deep diplomatic reconciliation. Clashing interpretations of the conquests have led to nearly seven years of very strained relations.

Speaker 4 In 2019, Andres Manuel López Obrador, the former president of Mexico, sent a letter to Madrid demanding an apology from the monarchy for abuses committed during Spain's conquest, but also during the three centuries of colonial rule after that.

Speaker 4 This request was rejected by Spain's foreign ministry. The government defended the nation's shared history, but it dismissed the idea of an apology.

Speaker 4 And now we're seeing the first acknowledgement, and as Claudia Scheinbaum has said, the first step to forgiveness. And that is going to take a long time.

Speaker 4 She made it very clear in her press conference this morning that not all is forgiven. This is the first step in a long journey of reconciliation.

Speaker 7 Mimi Swaby reporting.

Speaker 7 Also, in this podcast, a one-word Russian mouthful.

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Speaker 7 The Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has apologised to Donald Trump for a TV advert that went out to Americans.

Speaker 7 In the ad, the voice of Ronald Reagan was used to warn of the dangers of tariffs, one of Mr. Trump's signature policies.
Perhaps, not so surprisingly, this irked the US President. Mr.

Speaker 7 Carney's apology shows world leaders proceeding with caution when it comes to diplomacy with Donald Trump. David Lewis is following the story.

Speaker 13 There's do's and don'ts to dealing with any world leader, but you might have to be extra careful when handling the notoriously thin-skinned Donald Trump.

Speaker 13 After a disastrous ad campaign blew up in Canada's face, the country's downcast-looking Prime Minister Mark Carney faced the press in front of no less than six Canadian flags, offering a mumbled apology to his southern neighbour.

Speaker 27 I did apologise to the President. The President was offended by the act, or by the ad rather,

Speaker 27 and it's not something I would have done, which is to

Speaker 27 put in place that advertisement, and so I apologise to him.

Speaker 13 The spat stems back a fortnight or so.

Speaker 13 The Canadians, for reasons only they know best, put out an advert on US TV voiced using excerpts of a Ronald Reagan speech talking down tariffs, of which Trump is a fan.

Speaker 13 With soft music playing, the 40th U.S. President spoke over shots of American flags, families, and farmers.

Speaker 10 When someone says, let's impose tariffs on foreign imports, it looks like they're doing the patriotic thing by protecting American products and jobs.

Speaker 10 And sometimes for a short while it works, but only for a short time.

Speaker 13 The ad was commissioned by Ontario Premier Doug Ford. He'd initially stood foursquare behind it.
We have achieved our goal, he crowed, insisting the TV spot had garnered 1 billion views.

Speaker 13 Trump's response, crooked was his word. He then announced he was suspending trade talks with the Canadians and adding extra tariffs to Canadian goods.
Talk about an own goal.

Speaker 13 Soon after, Ford agreed to suspend the ad campaign, but only after it went out during the World Series baseball games.

Speaker 13 Fast forward a few days and there may be a rapprochement of sorts following Mark Carney's apology, which he gave President Trump personally while meeting him at a gathering of Pacific nations.

Speaker 13 Speaking on Air Air Force One, Trump acknowledged the Canadian Mirkulper and that they had spoken.

Speaker 28 He apologised for what they did with the commercial, because it was a false commercial. You know, it was the exact opposite.
Ronald Reagan loved tariffs.

Speaker 13 The fact that Ronald Reagan loved tariffs has been disputed by economists and his former staffers. But one thing is clear: be careful when annoying President Trump.

Speaker 7 The Japanese city of Nagoya is the fourth most populous city in the country, famous for making cars and being a relatively uneventful place.

Speaker 7 In fact, the name possibly derives from the Japanese word Nagoyaka, meaning calm.

Speaker 7 But since 1999, one man has been desperately trying to find the person who murdered his wife in one of the country's most high-profile, unsolved cases.

Speaker 7 Saturu Takaba has been preserving the apartment where his wife Namiko was stabbed to death, hoping to bring her killer to justice. Well, now it looks like that's happened.

Speaker 7 A woman's been arrested and Japanese police say she's admitted to the crime. The BBC's Will Leonardo told me more.

Speaker 29 26 years ago, Namiko Takaba, a 32-year-old new mother and housewife, was found stabbed repeatedly in her house steps away from her two-year-old son who was unharmed.

Speaker 29 For years, a police investigation yielded few clues, despite them interviewing around 5,000 people, and the case went relatively quiet for everyone, apart from her husband, Satoru.

Speaker 29 He, as he would, moved out of the apartment, but having been told that his wife appeared to have defended herself and therefore that some of the blood in the scene might have been for the attacker, he decided to maintain paying rent and kept the apartment as it was, with the bloodstains on the floor, children's toys in place, that sort of thing, all in the hope that it might help in any eventual investigation.

Speaker 29 For decades, it seemed in vain, but early this year, signs of activity resumed, with officers repeatedly questioning a local woman over the murder.

Speaker 29 And she at first refused DNA testing, but then changed her mind. And police have said that the DNA was a match for that found at the scene.

Speaker 9 And what do we know about the suspect who says that she did do it?

Speaker 29 Yes, so she's a woman called Kumiko Yasufku. Yasufko was a distant childhood acquaintance of the husband, Satoru Takawa.

Speaker 29 The husband has suggested in recent days that she may have had a crush on him at school, where they were in the same sports club, and apparently she used to even send him Valentine's gifts.

Speaker 29 And a year before the murder, we're talking in 1998, they'd met at a reunion where they'd spoken in passing and he'd apparently confided to her about the trials of married life. And in an even

Speaker 29 more disturbing turn of events, after the murder, Satoru and the suspect moved house and had ended up living very close to each other, meaning that he unwittingly would have been walking the same streets as his wife Werdewa for many years.

Speaker 9 And so, do we know what happens next? I'm presuming there's some kind of court case or trial or something.

Speaker 29 Well, according to Japanese police, she appears to have confessed to the killing.

Speaker 29 The Japanese justice system is kind of very much focused on obtaining confessions, so it's unlikely to go to a full trial.

Speaker 29 What it might go to, what we're going to have, is a sentencing, which I imagine, you know, this lack of a full trial would be a relief for the husband side or giving the huge amount of media interest in this case.

Speaker 29 On Saturday, the suspect was brought back to the crime scene for the first time, this flat that the husband has maintained for all these years.

Speaker 29 You know, she came in in a van and a huge, heavy police escort, and media were kind of being pushed back behind cordons. So you can see how much of a big impact this case has had in the country.

Speaker 6 Well, Leonardo,

Speaker 7 running the equivalent of 200 marathons in 200 days is no mean feat for even the youngest and fittest of athletes.

Speaker 7 But one British man who's just completed this feat at the age of 66 is being used as a guinea pig by scientists who are monitoring the impact on his body.

Speaker 7 Steve James ran around the coast of Great Britain and told us about the science part and why he's taken on this challenge.

Speaker 30 They're interested to see what's happening to my muscles. We know that I've lost weight, I've lost 10 kilograms, stone and a half, but what is the composition of that?

Speaker 30 How much of it is muscle wastage? And that is the bit that are interesting, particularly in people who are older.

Speaker 30 So every couple of weeks I've had to do tests, limb circumference, waist, weight, blood tests. Everything is plateaued out.
My blood markers apparently are consistent. There's no deterioration.

Speaker 30 So I'm looking after my muscles and in particular, not overstretching myself. So particularly coming downhill, the older joints, particularly the knees, are quite susceptible.

Speaker 30 So I have have tried to look after my body as best i can i've been able to eat anything which is quite nice um so i've been fueling a lot making sure i'm hydrated just you know trying to take care of the body over a long period which is different to say somebody who's running a marathon where it's you know it's three four five hours and they can rest it's also the inspiration of somebody my age that just because you get to 60 or whatever doesn't mean life stops there is still plenty of time to for most people not everyone i appreciate it, for most people to go out and do something that they've always wanted to do.

Speaker 7 Steve James, 66-year-old mega runner.

Speaker 7 Every language has its quirks. English learners, for example, have to deal with difficult pronunciations, including words that are spelt the same but said differently.

Speaker 7 But we're about to hear a word that will hopefully never come up in a spelling test. The Pushkin Institute, which promotes Russian, has declared it the longest word in the language.

Speaker 7 My colleague Will Vernon spent many years in Moscow. I'll let him take it from here.

Speaker 23 Tetregidre Pyranol Cyclopental Tetregidre Pirida Piridinovoye has been identified as Russia's longest word.

Speaker 31 Fifty-five letters in length, it's taken from an academic paper referring to a chemical compound containing the structures of two liquids, pyridine and cyclopentane.

Speaker 32 Not the most useful word then, but certainly the largest.

Speaker 31 The previous word believed to be the longest in Russian was

Speaker 23 matritostursi.

Speaker 31 Entered into the Guinness Book of Records in 2003, it was a polite way of addressing bureaucrats in the 19th century.

Speaker 7 Will Vernon, easy for him to say.

Speaker 7 And that's all from us for now, but there will 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 an email.

Speaker 7 The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk.

Speaker 7 You can also find us on X at BBC World Service. Use the hashtag global newspod.

Speaker 7 This edition was mixed by Zabahula Karouche and the producer was Guy Pitt. The editor is Karen Martin.
I'm John Sudworth. Until next time, goodbye.

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