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--:-- Oliver Conway: Hello, I'm Oliver Conway. We're recording this at 13 Hours GMT on Wednesday the 13th of August.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: European leaders meet to voice support for Ukraine ahead of the Trump-Putin summit. Intense Israeli strikes hit Gaza before a new planned offensive to take over the territory. And the US puts a $5 million bounty on a notorious gang leader in Haiti.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: Also in the podcast... People expressing their irritation. Some saying that people are using one seat for hours after only buying a very cheap drink. Freeloading on the electricity, commenting about people's bad manners. Certainly generating a lot of online debate.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: How Starbucks in South Korea is dealing with laptop squatters.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: When Donald Trump met Vladimir Putin in 2018, he sided with the former KGB agent instead of his own intelligence agencies on the question of Russian election interference.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: Ukraine and its allies fear a similar outcome at the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska on Friday. So European nations have spent the past few days trying to persuade the US president to take Ukraine's views into account in any discussion of the war on its territory.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: There are a series of virtual meetings today hosted by Germany with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky in attendance. But the British defence analyst Paul Moorcraft is not optimistic European leaders will be able to influence President Trump's thinking.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: President Trump is very keen to get out and concentrate on the Far East. So really what the Europeans are saying carries very little weight.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: There won't be a coalition of the willing peacekeepers. The Russians won't allow that. So there's very little role for the Europeans.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: I asked our diplomatic correspondent, Paul Adams, what the Europeans can realistically hope to achieve.
--:-- Paul Adams: They know that they have got a difficult job here. They've heard the language coming out of the White House ahead of the Alaska summit. They've been alarmed, as have Ukrainians, by talk of territorial swaps.
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--:-- Paul Adams: Clearly an idea that Steve Witkoff, the Trump's envoy, and Vladimir Putin talked about when they met in Moscow last week.
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--:-- Paul Adams: The White House has kind of slightly lowered expectations in the last 24 hours or so, saying this is a listening exercise.
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--:-- Paul Adams: But still, I think there is a sense among Ukraine's European allies that this is a moment of great danger, that President Trump might be persuaded out of his desire to maintain a relationship with Vladimir Putin to give things away that are not his to give away.
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--:-- Paul Adams: And so I think they are capitalizing on their improved status with Washington, you know, all the efforts at European defense spending, the kind of flattery that leaders like Sir Keir Starmer of the UK and Mark Rutter of NATO have been able to wield or to manage over the last few months, has given them some credit, some diplomatic credit in the White House, and they are going to try and use that credit.
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--:-- Paul Adams: And if you look at what's happened this week, you know, already we had a meeting convened at very short notice here in the UK, down in Kent, involving national security officials from a number of countries, including top Ukrainian officials, at which J.D. Vance, the US Vice President, was present.
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--:-- Paul Adams: And now this meeting today involving on the phone Donald Trump and Vladimir Zelensky. Now, no one perhaps would have thought that that was likely to happen just a couple of days ago.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: Yeah, a ceasefire looking increasingly important for Ukraine. There have been numerous reports over the past 24 hours that it's suffering on that eastern front.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: The latest one says Ukraine has ordered evacuations from an area where Russia has made some advances.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: So Russia is on the front foot here.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: Yes, I think it is worth being a little cautious about what's going on around the town of Dobropilya, which is in the Donbass, in that area that the Russians allegedly want Ukraine to agree to pull out of altogether.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: It's an extremely contested area. The Russians have moved small units forward. We don't quite know whether these are just probing units or whether this is a precursor to something significant.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: Our diplomatic correspondent Paul Adams.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: Israel's military chief Eyal Zemir has approved the planned offensive to retake Gaza City, despite reports of his previous opposition to widening the conflict.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: Israel captured the area back in 2023 before pulling out. But the military has now confirmed that it's begun new operations there.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: Witnesses say there have been intense strikes in the past 24 hours, with 123 people killed, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, while another eight, including three children, have died of starvation or malnutrition.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: Ayad is a local humanitarian coordinator.
--:-- Ayad: The situation here is worse and more and more. Nothing tangible changed, even thought the slightly number of trucks that the Israeli occupation let it drink, the sum of it.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: The last 48 hours from the south, we heard very well the high explosion and bombardment and attacks from the tank shelters, arteries and bombings.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: At the same time, there's a new push for a ceasefire agreement after talks broke down last month.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said Israeli efforts were now focused on a comprehensive deal to release all the remaining hostages in one go.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: I heard more from the BBC's Yolande Nell in Jerusalem.
--:-- Yolande Nell: We know now that the Hamas delegation is back in Cairo for meetings with Egyptian intelligence.
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--:-- Yolande Nell: It still looks like a kind of long shot, but there is an assessment that there is a window of opportunity in these coming weeks because as Israel is preparing for this military offensive which has been condemned internationally, it says it's going to go into parts of Gaza where it doesn't have full control where most of the two million Palestinians are now living.
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--:-- Yolande Nell: Israeli media don't expect that to begin in earnest until October. That's the window and interestingly there is now more talk of a comprehensive deal instead of a partial one and in the past it's really been Israel that's been pushing for a phased deal to release the hostages.
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--:-- Yolande Nell: Washington has said it's no longer pushing for that And now it seems Benjamin Netanyahu has changed his position He said I want all of them the release of all the hostages both alive and dead That the stage we at when he was talking to an Israeli TV channel
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--:-- Yolande Nell: And we heard from Arab officials they're being quoted last week saying that Egypt and Qatar were preparing a new framework for a deal to release all the hostages in one go.
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--:-- Yolande Nell: That's picked up by an Israeli newspaper today saying that this could be a deal that would also end the war. And there'd be explicit clauses in there for the demilitarization of Gaza, the symbolic exile of some Hamas members from the Strip.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: And what are we to make of those comments from Benjamin Netanyahu that people should be able to leave Gaza, particularly in light of that report about possible talks with South Sudan?
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--:-- Oliver Conway: Yes, I mean, it has been the Israeli government policy to promote this, despite all the international condemnation.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: They were encouraged by that vision that President Trump laid out earlier this year. they basically want Gaza's two million people to leave for other countries.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: Now in the same TV interview Benjamin Netanyahu said I think that's the right thing to do even according to the laws of war as I know them it's to allow the people to leave and then you go in with all your might against the enemy who remains there.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: So he's quite vague on all of this but you know as much as Israel insists any plan would be voluntary Palestinians and human rights groups you know others in the international community are warning that you know It's not voluntary if the conditions in Gaza basically become unlivable.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: And, you know, this could amount to ethnic cleansing, to forced displacement, violations of international law.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: And, yeah, with all of that sort of being discussed, you have that AP Associated Press report on South Sudan.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: The Israeli foreign ministry has declined to comment on whether there are talks going on about sending Palestinians there.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: But this is not the first country we've heard about. There have been other East African countries that have been mentioned in the past, Libya as well.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: And Palestinians fear that if they left even temporarily from Gaza, then Israel would never let them go back.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: This would undermine all hopes of a Palestinian state, which should be in the West Bank and Gaza with East Jerusalem as its capital, according to the longstanding international formula for peace.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: You know, Palestinians fear that Gaza could ultimately be annexed by Israel to build new Jewish settlements there.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: Yolan now. Next to Taiwan. A typhoon has been pounding the island, bringing heavy rain and strong winds.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: I got the latest from our Asia-Pacific regional editor, Jae Sung Lee.
--:-- Jae Sung Lee: Well, officials there are saying that one person is missing after he went fishing and was swept away and that many more are injured now.
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--:-- Jae Sung Lee: More than 7,000 people have been evacuated from their homes. Tens of thousands of households are without power and flights have also been cancelled.
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--:-- Jae Sung Lee: And schools and offices have been shut in nine cities and counties in the south, including metropolises like Kaohsiung and Tainan.
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--:-- Jae Sung Lee: Now, the typhoon's impacts have been mainly in the southern areas. In the capital Taipei, which is up all the way in the north, there have been some strong gusts, but no significant damage has been reported.
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--:-- Jae Sung Lee: And the storm is now heading out into the Taiwan Strait and is moving towards China's Fujian province, which is in its southeastern coast.
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--:-- Jae Sung Lee: But even as the storm starts to move away from Taiwan, the weather agency there says as much as 60 centimeters of rain is forecast in the southern areas in the next few days.
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--:-- Jae Sung Lee: And as the island has a rugged terrain, about 70 percent of it is covered by mountains. the authorities are on high alert.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: So they have mobilized more than 30,000 troops to help with relief and rescue efforts.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: Now, of course, Taiwan has been hit by plenty of typhoons in recent months and years and the storms impacting an area that's already been affected.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: PODL, the latest one, is just the latest in a series of typhoons to either hit or impact Taiwan this year.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: But after Typhoon Danas, which hit the island last month, what followed was that more than a year's rainfall was dumped in a single week in some southern areas, unleashing widespread landslides and flooding that left at least four people dead and scores more injured.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: And as the Pacific Typhoon season is expected to continue until around October, we could see more storms, you know, impact or batter the island in the next coming days or weeks.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: And when some areas, as you've mentioned, are still recovering from the damage left behind by those previous typhoons.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: Jae Sung Lee.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: The US has imposed a bounty of $5 million on a notorious gang leader in Haiti. Jimmy Chirizier, known as Barbecue, runs a violent group that controls most of the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: The US alleges that Mr Chirizier, along with an American citizen, violated sanctions by soliciting funds from Haitians in the US to help pay gang members and buy guns.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: William O'Neill is the UN independent expert on Haiti.
--:-- William O'Neill: Charizier has had a horrendous impact on Haiti over the last five years or so, even longer, going back to 2017-18, when he was still in the Haitian National Police and was implicated in several massacres in 2017, 2018, 2019, where many, many people were killed, women were raped.
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--:-- William O'Neill: He then left the police and became a gang leader. And after the president, Moïse, was killed a little over four years ago now, he became more prominent and head of a coalition of gangs that morphed into a larger coalition last year, which has now taken over roughly 90 percent of the capital, Port-au-Prince, and has been responsible for, again, deaths, rapes and extortion of the population and many other human rights violations and grave crimes.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: There's a growing pressure being put on Haiti by the U.S. administration in several ways.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: There have been other sanctions announced recently before this one. This is a big one, though, $5 million.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: There have been several arrests in the United States, including in this case, there's an indictment of a Haitian-American who is alleged to have been funneling money and weapons to Cherizier and other gangs.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: It's more than symbolic, I would say, but it's hard to say it was going to lead to really quick, immediate change in the security situation in Haiti.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: William O'Neill, the UN independent expert on Haiti.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: Egyptian novelist Sonala Ibrahim has died at the age of 88 after a short illness.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: He was famed for his critiques of political repression and jailed as a young man for being a member of a communist organisation.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: Sonala Ibrahim won a host of awards throughout his career, but in 2003 he declined a prize in Egypt. accusing the government of having no legitimacy.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: I heard more about him from Mohamed Taha of BBC Arabic.
--:-- Mohamed Taha: Sunal Ibrahim has been known as the Franz Kafka of Egypt. He's that writer that is doing an experimental political writings and sometimes it was critical to the Egyptian authorities that put him in prison in the rule of Gamal Abdel Nasser but he tried to rectify that by other novels later by criticizing the authorities and the openness in the Sadat era.
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--:-- Mohamed Taha: Then he tried to be on the edge. So he's criticizing the authorities, but at the same time backing up.
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--:-- Mohamed Taha: He's a very interesting writer.
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--:-- Mohamed Taha: So mainstream success in terms of Egypt. Was he popular in the rest of the Arab world?
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--:-- Mohamed Taha: Indeed. Egypt is well known as the cultural hub of the Middle East.
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--:-- Mohamed Taha: So if a novel will be read in Egypt and will be known in Egypt, it will be well known in the Arab world.
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--:-- Mohamed Taha: Indeed, he was known in the Arab world.
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--:-- Mohamed Taha: And he moved to live outside Egypt in the year of 2000.
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--:-- Mohamed Taha: He went to Oman and he wrote some writings there.
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--:-- Mohamed Taha: And that's why he has this also Gulf elements.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: Still to come on the Global News podcast.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: What really fascinating is that keratin actually attracts calcium and phosphate from your own saliva to rebuild your tooth enamel.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: So it the first regenerative technology in dentistry that would allow to use a sustainable and naturally abundant protein.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: Ready to plan your next getaway? You're invited to score up to 50% off during Apple Vacations Friends and Family Sale.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: Whether you're dreaming of a family-friendly adventure in Cancun, a romantic retreat in Punta Cana, or some much-needed fun in the sun with friends in Montego Bay, we've got just the deals to make it happen.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: Visit AppleVacations.com or call your local travel advisor to get started today.
--:-- [Sound effects: gentle background chatter]
--:-- Oliver Conway: Apple Vacations, where your story starts.
--:-- [Sound effects: gentle background chatter]
--:-- Oliver Conway: Go on, get a little out there. into the big heart of Nevada, where you can go off-road and off the map, on two lakes or on horseback.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: Dip into hot springs and dive into deserts.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: Climb a mountain or make your best effort.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: See thousands of stars in some of the darkest skies.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: Stake out haunted hotels.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: Can you make it to sunrise?
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--:-- Oliver Conway: There's always something new to see because we've got plenty of space to just be.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: Plan your trip at TravelNevada.com.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: Now I'd like to introduce you to Meaningful Beauty, the famed skincare brand created by iconic supermodel Cindy Crawford.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: It's her secret to absolutely gorgeous skin.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: Meaningful Beauty makes powerful and effective skincare simple, and it's loved by millions of women.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: It's formulated for all ages and all skin tones and types, and it's designed to work as a complete skincare system, leaving your skin feeling soft, smooth, and nourished.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: I recommend starting with Cindy's Full Regiment, which contains all five of her best-selling products, including the amazing Youth Activating Melon Serum.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: This next generation serum has the power of Melonleaf stem cell technology.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: It's Melonleaf stem cells encapsulated for freshness and released onto the skin to support a visible reduction in the appearance of wrinkles.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: With thousands of glowing five-star reviews, why not give it a try?
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--:-- Oliver Conway: Subscribe today and you can get the amazing Meaningful Beauty system for just $49.95.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: That includes our introductory five-piece system, free gifts, free shipping, and a 60-day money-back guarantee.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: All that available at MeaningfulBeauty.com.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: According to a nationwide survey conducted by GeneSight, nearly 9 in 10 Americans who've been diagnosed with depression or anxiety believe that mental health medications are somewhat or very effective.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: However, despite that belief, more than half of those individuals say they have avoided taking medication due to concerns about potential side effects.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: That's why Dr. Whitney Brown, a family and psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner based in Alabama, often recommends genetic testing to our patients as part of their treatment journey.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: Dr. Brown explains.
--:-- Dr. Whitney Brown: As part of my treatment plan, I offer the GeneSight test, which analyzes how a patient's genes may influence how they metabolize or respond to certain mental health medications.
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--:-- Dr. Whitney Brown: It gives me insights and takes out some of the guesswork that can be associated with prescribing them.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: If you or someone you love is facing challenges with depression or anxiety, talk to your doctor about how genetic testing may help.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: To learn more, visit genesight.com.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: That's genesight.com.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: A cholera outbreak in the Darfur region of Sudan is getting worse, and the UN fears that more than half a million children are at risk.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: The area has seen sustained conflict between the Rapid Support Forces and the Sudanese army since the war broke out in April 2023.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: One of the worst affected places is the town of Tawila, where hundreds of thousands of people have sought shelter after being displaced by the fighting.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: Sylvain Penico is a coordinator for the charity Doctors Without Borders, or MSF, in Tawila.
--:-- Sylvain Penico: From the beginning of June, we started to get cholera cases notified from the villages around Tawila.
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--:-- Sylvain Penico: So we opened a cholera treatment centre and started to work at community level in order to raise awareness.
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--:-- Sylvain Penico: But unfortunately, things started to accelerate from July onwards.
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--:-- Sylvain Penico: On Saturday, 200 new cases referred to the facilities.
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--:-- Sylvain Penico: And as of today, we have treated a little bit more than 6,000 cholera patients in total.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: Describe to us then, if you can, a little bit the conditions people are living in.
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--:-- Sylvain Penico: Exactly. The conditions are extremely dire on the camp.
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--:-- Sylvain Penico: The colour hotspots, most of them, I mean, originate from the internal displaced person camp.
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--:-- Sylvain Penico: So as you said, we estimate the number of displaced persons within El Fashir between 400 and 500,000 persons.
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--:-- Sylvain Penico: Most of them women and children are fleeing the fight from El Fashir, which is approximately 50 kilometers away.
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--:-- Sylvain Penico: And one of the centers of the conflict in Sudan now.
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--:-- Sylvain Penico: They lack almost all of the basic necessities you can imagine. Food, health care, safe water and shelter.
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--:-- Sylvain Penico: So all of the organisations here are working to scale up, but the conditions are really difficult for this.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: Is it just the sheer numbers?
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--:-- Sylvain Penico: Because the situation has quite changed over the past months with the acceleration of influx of displaced population within the camp.
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--:-- Sylvain Penico: There is a constant influx of displaced persons from Al-Fashir with an extreme level of vulnerability, which puts pressure on resources in Tawila and also forces to respond fast as those persons are really needed for emergency aid.
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--:-- Sylvain Penico: For example, there was an attack on Monday in Al-Fashir and 200 families were reported arriving in Tawila yesterday evening.
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--:-- Sylvain Penico: So we are going there this morning in order to see how we can support.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: Rare earths have been a major sticking point in trade negotiations between China and the US.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: These critical minerals power everything from electric vehicles to fighter jets to data centres.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: And China has such a stranglehold on them that when it cut supplies earlier this year, production around the world was disrupted.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: But a project in Australia is hoping to provide an alternative source, as our Asia business correspondent Sir Anjana Tawari now reports.
--:-- Anjana Tawari: Drive three hours south of Perth and you end up in very barren terrain.
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--:-- Anjana Tawari: There's hardly anything here except highways running through acres and acres of red sand.
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--:-- Anjana Tawari: This is Western Australia's mining territory and I've been given exclusive access to a stockpile of rare earths belonging to a company called Iluka Resources.
--:-- [Sound effects: gentle background chatter]
--:-- Anjana Tawari: I'm standing in the middle of a massive pit and there are mountains of what looks like worthless dirt everywhere.
--:-- [Sound effects: gentle background chatter]
--:-- Anjana Tawari: But in reality, this is the source of those rare earths, the critical minerals that are so important for things like electric vehicles and defence systems.
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--:-- Anjana Tawari: Iluca Resources says here there are 1 million tonnes of the stockpile and that's already worth more than 650 million US dollars.
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--:-- Anjana Tawari: In one corner of the pit, trucks are dumping the minerals onto a separator.
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--:-- Anjana Tawari: Australia has some of the largest reserves of rare earths in the world.
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--:-- Anjana Tawari: They're lightweight, super strong and resistant to heat, making them useful in small electric motors and other applications.
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--:-- Anjana Tawari: But the process of extracting those minerals from the earth is expensive and complicated.
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--:-- Anjana Tawari: One country produces almost all the world's supply.
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--:-- Anjana Tawari: Dan McGrath is head of rare earths for Iluka Resources.
--:-- Dan McGrath: Back in the 90s, where rare earths were produced in France and other places, those operations relocated to China.
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--:-- Dan McGrath: So China has since then very deliberately sought to control the rare earth market for the purposes of supporting their downstream manufacturing and defence industries
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--:-- Oliver Conway: The Australian government is loaning Iluka billion to build a refinery
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--:-- Oliver Conway: It wants to reduce China's control of pricing and supply.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: The refinery won't be online for two more years, but Beijing's recent restrictions on exports upended operations for major automakers and defence manufacturers globally, with some having to pause production altogether.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: We know there are other governments around the world that want to participate.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: Government intervention is a strategic decision, says Australia's Resource Minister Madeleine King, to help the world rely less on China and in turn reduce Beijing's control over pricing and supply.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: The open international market in critical minerals and rare earths, It doesn't exist because there is one supplier of these materials.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: We can either sit back and do nothing about that or we take on the responsibility to develop a rare earth industry here that competes with that market.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: In China, environmental damage from years of processing rare earths has led to chemicals and radioactive waste seeping into waterways.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: That's something Australia will have to contend with too.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: I spoke to critical mineral expert Professor Jacques Eckstein from Curtin University.
--:-- Professor Jacques Eckstein: There is no metal industry that is completely clean.
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--:-- Professor Jacques Eckstein: In Australia, we've got mechanisms to handle that. We've got a legal environment and a framework to at least deal with it responsibly.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: Australia seems to have a lot going for it in the rare earth's race, as it tries to be a more reliable and cleaner source, and one that crucially is independent of China.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: It's not unusual for cafes to introduce policies to deter so-called table hoggers, people who spend long periods nursing a coffee while working on laptops.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: Some establishments have even banned laptops completely.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: Well, in South Korea, a Starbucks franchise has now asked people to stop bringing in bulky items, including desktop computers, printers and even partitions used to keep other customers out of the way.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: Katie Silver has the story.
--:-- Katie Silver: This trend of studying and working in cafes known in South Korea as Ka-Gong-Joo.
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--:-- Katie Silver: It's been intensely debated.
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--:-- Katie Silver: The term seems to have been coined back in around 2020, picked up in prevalence in the last few years.
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--:-- Katie Silver: Nowadays, when it's used on social media, not always used in a very friendly manner.
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--:-- Katie Silver: People expressing their irritation.
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--:-- Katie Silver: Some saying that people are using, you know, one seat for hours after only buying a very cheap drink, freeloading on the electricity, commenting about people's bad manners, certainly generating a lot of online debate.
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--:-- Katie Silver: Now, Starbucks, in a statement, has said that Starbucks Korea has updated its policy so all customers can have a pleasant and accessible store experience.
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--:-- Katie Silver: But they're far from the only cafe around the world looking to navigate how to balance this.
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--:-- Katie Silver: The BBC, for example, has reported about certain cafes in the likes of London and Newbery limiting laptops to just an hour on weekdays, banning them on the weekends.
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--:-- Katie Silver: We were also hearing as well about places where there were a lot of digital nomads, for example, in Spain, in Barcelona and Valencia, actually charging hourly charges to try and deter what they have called laptop squatters.
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--:-- Katie Silver: And indeed, there was a cafe in Australia, for example, that put up signs that prohibited Zoom calls.
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--:-- Katie Silver: One study even identified different types of cafe work from homers.
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--:-- Katie Silver: And I'll give you an idea.
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--:-- Katie Silver: One of them was called device disconnectors who like to visit third places for a quick break away from technology.
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--:-- Katie Silver: and they also had such terms as caffeine creatives who go to cafes in order to try and get their creativity.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: Well, your morning cup of coffee or tea and can of fizzy drink can be carrying hidden loads of microplastic.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: According to a new report, it's hot drinks that could be giving you the bigger dose.
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--:-- Oliver Conway: David Lewis has the details.
--:-- David Lewis: Well, there's a heatwave on in the UK right now, Oli, that I'm sure you've noticed and we've all been tucking into cold cans of drinks to cool down.
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--:-- David Lewis: But according to this study published in the journal Science of the Total Environment, they might well be loaded with microplastics.
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--:-- David Lewis: And in more terrible news for British people, hot tea might carry even more, these experts say.
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--:-- David Lewis: For those not in the know, microplastics are synthetic particles, generally not spotted with the naked eye.
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--:-- David Lewis: They're found in waters both fresh and marine as well as terrestrially and they come from the breakdown of larger plastics, so things like carrier bags, bottles and synthetic textiles, trash that's not biodegradable and can end up in the food chain and that can impact our health.
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--:-- David Lewis: And how did they find all this out?
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--:-- David Lewis: Well, researchers analysed dozens of drink samples of popular brands here in the UK from supermarkets and coffee shops.
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--:-- David Lewis: Refreshments included hot and cold coffees and teas, fruit juices, energy and soft drinks, things like that.
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--:-- David Lewis: Cold cups were filtered straight away, hot drinks given 30 minutes to cool down and then tested.
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--:-- David Lewis: The team said they found microplastics in all the beverages people reported drinking and they warned the warm temperature and brews accelerated the release of microplastics from the packaging.
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--:-- David Lewis: There are ways to limit ingestion for coffee and chai fans though.
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--:-- David Lewis: According to this report, boiling hot tea in paper cups had one third more microplastics present than drinks served in glass vessels.
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--:-- David Lewis: So opt for the latter if you
