--:-- Asma Khalid: This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. America is changing and so is the world. But what's happening in America isn't just a cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere. I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, DC.
--:-- Tristan Redman: I'm Tristan Redman in London.
--:-- Asma Khalid: And this is The Global Story. Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from this intersection where the world and America meet. Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Valerie Sanderson.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: In the early hours of Friday the 4th of July, these are our main stories. A former security contractor who worked for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation distributing aid says he saw colleagues firing on Palestinians who posed no threat.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Trump's big, beautiful bill passes narrowly, ready for the president's approval by his July the 4th deadline. Also in this podcast, in Sudan, warnings from a medical charity that civilians are facing starvation, sexual violence and executions in a city under siege by militia. And the object from outer space spotted by a telescope in Chile.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: The more sunlight it reflects, the easier it is to spot. So we know where the big stuff is. We know where those dinosaur killers or potential human killers are out there in the solar system.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: We start in Gaza, where there are reports that Israeli forces have killed a large number of civilians. Many of the 69 victims, according to the Gaza Civil Defence Agency, were attempting to get humanitarian aid.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Since May, the UN says more than 400 Palestinians have been reportedly killed since the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, backed by the US and Israel, took over aid distribution from the UN.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: The chair of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, Reverend Johnny Moore, an American evangelical pastor, said that the GHF investigated reports of killings near its aid sites.
--:-- Reverend Johnny Moore: In most circumstances, we haven't been able to identify anything, anything happening. Certainly there are people dying every day in the Gaza Strip. It is an active war zone.
--:-- Reverend Johnny Moore: We are not doing this work in the middle of a ceasefire. We're doing it in the middle of a hot war. Some of that is unintentional. I'm sure some of it is certainly intentional, at least on the Hamas side.
--:-- Reverend Johnny Moore: And the IDF has said, you know, overtly a few times that they're responsible for some casualties. However, I think people need to understand that it is disinformation that people going to GHF sites are being killed.
--:-- Reverend Johnny Moore: We have no evidence of that happening in proximity to our sites.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Now, a former security contractor who worked for the GHF has told the BBC that he witnessed colleagues opening fire, using machine guns to fire on Palestinians who posed no threat.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: The foundation says the claims are categorically false. Ahmed Lee's correspondent Lucy Williamson sent us this report from Jerusalem as Israel has barred international journalists from entering Gaza independently.
--:-- Lucy Williamson: Give me some shots! Days after Gaza's new aid operation began, one contractor was already having doubts.
--:-- Lucy Williamson: So out on that side of the berm, they're taking down the poles. Standing inside the perimeter at site number four, a security guard for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation told us he watched colleagues fire on a departing crowd of Palestinians.
--:-- Lucy Williamson: First machine gun fire from a watchtower, then more than 20 shots from a nearby security guard, clearly audible in the mobile phone footage he shared.
--:-- Lucy Williamson: When this guy was shooting into this group, this man dropped to the ground and was motionless. And then the other contractor who was standing there was like, damn, I think you got one.
--:-- Lucy Williamson: And then they laughed about it.
--:-- Lucy Williamson: The former contractor, who spoke to us on condition that we hide his identity, said his complaints to superiors were ignored.
--:-- Lucy Williamson: I brought this to the attention of the leadership directly. And then the leadership said to me, well, you have no way of knowing that that person was hit with a bullet.
--:-- Lucy Williamson: But maybe they tripped, maybe they were tired and they passed out.
--:-- Lucy Williamson: The whistleblower told us he saw Palestinians being shot at or injured by contractors several times, including one woman who was lifted limp and unconscious onto a donkey cart after being hit with a stun grenade.
--:-- Lucy Williamson: Team leaders referred to Gazans as the zombie horde, he said, and instead of clear rules of engagement gave this advice to contractors if there's anything that you feel uncomfortable with shoot and ask questions later if you feel threatened shoot shoot to kill and ask questions later.
--:-- Lucy Williamson: And that's a direct quote. That's a direct quote. And he even gave us like a a physical demonstration of like hey if you're if we're out on a site and you see someone with a gun um that's a that's a threat.
--:-- Lucy Williamson: Take them out. If we're on a site and somebody is any way aggressive towards you, take them out. That's a threat. And that's just, that is legally, ethically and morally, unequivocally untrue.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: GHF said the claims were categorically false, that gunfire heard in the footage came from Israeli forces and that civilians had never come under fire at its sites.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: The GHF narrative that no one at a site has been injured, hurt, shot at is an absolute boldface lie.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: It's not a, oh, we didn't know that, or, oh, we weren't aware of that. They are aware of it because I made them aware of it and they've seen it.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: But an internal report seen by the BBC suggests that 30% of Gazans had been harmed during distribution at GHF sites in one 12-day period.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: This new distribution system, which Israel says is designed to stop aid going to Hamas, has been widely criticised for making vast crowds walk through active combat zones to a handful of overcrowded sites.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Condemned by international aid organisations and Gazans themselves, It's also now being accused of negligence from within.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Lisi Williamson.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: We heard more on the latest Israeli strikes in Gaza from our correspondent Rushdie Abu Alouf, who's based in Cairo.
--:-- Rushdie Abu Alouf: Yes, about 70 people were killed in the last 12 hours or so, or since midnight, according to Hamasran Civil Defence Agency.
--:-- Rushdie Abu Alouf: About 13 or 14 of them were killed in a school, sheltering displaced people in west of Gaza City, people who were displaced or ordered to evacuate by the Israeli from the eastern side of the city.
--:-- Rushdie Abu Alouf: When an active Israeli military operation going on, they were targeted in the east.
--:-- Rushdie Abu Alouf: About 30 people, according to Hamasran Health Ministry, were killed near the GHF distribution centers in the middle like 12 people of one family in Khan Yunis.
--:-- Rushdie Abu Alouf: The Israeli army spokesman this morning said that they have carried out 150 airstrikes within the last 24 hours which is I think equal the number of airstrikes that at the start of the war the first week or two weeks of the war, Israel used to carry this amount of airstrikes.
--:-- Rushdie Abu Alouf: So the sound of bombs and airstrikes in Gaza are louder than the sound of talks and negotiation in Doha and Egypt, where Hamas are involved in talks with the mediators.
--:-- Rushdie Abu Alouf: So the war goes on in Gaza and the talks seem to be not making any progress.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: The BBC's Gaza correspondent Rushdie Abu Alouf.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: In the United States, after days of debate, what President Trump calls his big, beautiful bill has passed.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: On this vote, the yeas are 218, the nays are 214. The motion is adopted.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: The flagship bill of sweeping tax and spending cuts narrowly passed its final legislative hurdle in the US House of Representatives.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: In the end, only two Republicans voted against the legislation after massive efforts to bring rebels on side.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Mr Trump said the bill would turn the US into a rocket ship.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: The head of the Democratic National Committee said the legislation sent a message to America, if you're not a billionaire, we don't give a damn about you.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Speaking to the BBC, the Democratic congressman for Arizona, Greg Stanton, said the bill would prove unpopular with voters.
--:-- Greg Stanton: To their credit, they did pass this bill. The problem for them is what's in the bill.
--:-- Greg Stanton: The bill such vastly disproportionately helps the wealthiest Americans and the largest corporations, whereas working class Americans are hurt by this bill because it rips away health care from them.
--:-- Greg Stanton: Energy costs are going up. Clean energy is less expensive than other forms of energy. By getting us out of the clean energy business, energy costs are going up.
--:-- Greg Stanton: After issue after issue, the more the American people learn about the bill, the less they like it.
--:-- Greg Stanton: So certainly they got it done today. The president's going to sign that bill tomorrow. And in the next election, they're going to rue the day that they pass this bill.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: But it will be seen as a big success for President Trump.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: I got more from our North America correspondent, Peter Bose.
--:-- Peter Bose: Well, the initiatives in this bill were indeed at the heart of Mr. Trump's election campaign last year.
--:-- Peter Bose: And it's that important to him to fulfill his promises.
--:-- Peter Bose: Increased spending for border security to help achieve his target for deporting undocumented migrants.
--:-- Peter Bose: Also increasing spending for the US military and energy production, but not, as we've just heard, green energy.
--:-- Peter Bose: It will also extend large tax cuts that the president put in place during his first term in office.
--:-- Peter Bose: All of this comes at a cost. And to pay for these flagship policies, there will be cuts to health care benefits for low income Americans and food assistance programs.
--:-- Peter Bose: Now, the president says the changes to health care are to root out waste, fraud and abuse of the system, he says, rather than to make life harder for those who legitimately claim benefits.
--:-- Peter Bose: But are the poor going to suffer much more than the rich from this bill? That is the concern.
--:-- Peter Bose: The other big concern is the overall cost of this bill.
--:-- Peter Bose: According to the Congressional Budget Office, which is a non-partisan federal agency, the bill will add more than $3 trillion to the US national debt.
--:-- Peter Bose: And Republicans are bulking at that, especially conservative Republicans, arguing that they want the federal government to be much more frugal.
--:-- Peter Bose: And yes, on the issue of poorer Americans, moderate Republicans are worried about the impact on health care.
--:-- Peter Bose: Some critics suggesting that about 12 million Americans could be stripped of their health insurance coverage.
--:-- Peter Bose: And those Republicans in districts where this applies to many of their constituents, they'll be worried about the potential political implications come the midterm elections next year.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Do we know how this is going down with voters? I mean, any evidence yet of how Americans think about it?
--:-- Peter Bose: Yes, we've been hearing for weeks that Americans are uneasy about this bill.
--:-- Peter Bose: Views, I think it's still fair to say, largely divide down political lines.
--:-- Peter Bose: But on balance, more people have said when asked that they think the contents of the bill will hurt their families rather than help them.
--:-- Peter Bose: Again, health care is a prime concern, but also on the issues of tax breaks, with cuts for better-off Americans generally very unpopular, on immigration and extra funding for detaining and deporting undocumented migrants.
--:-- Peter Bose: One poll recently suggested about 45% of adults who were questioned said they were opposed to that, 41% said they were in favour.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: In Syria, years of war have left deep scars and deep divisions between those loyal to the Assad regime and those who opposed it.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Now, many in the Druze religious community, an offshoot of Islam, are worried about being isolated and targeted in post-war Syria.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: They're also fearful that Syria is drifting towards an intolerant Sunni-dominated order with little space for religious minorities like themselves, following violent attacks against them on the outskirts of Damascus in April.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: From Damascus, Lila Sinjab sent us this report.
--:-- Lila Sinjab: I've just arrived in Daraya, one of the neighborhoods in the western suburbs of Damascus that has been bombed and attacked by the Assad regime.
--:-- Lila Sinjab: This is where the first initiatives of peaceful protests started.
--:-- Lila Sinjab: So we had bombers in front of me, just in front of my home here.
--:-- Lila Sinjab: Lama was in her flat when the attack happened.
--:-- Lila Sinjab: She described men wearing military uniforms and riding in armored vehicles, moving just below her window.
--:-- Lila Sinjab: I could see people, but I was terrified, so I couldn't film them.
--:-- Lila Sinjab: Then came marchers calling for jihad against the Druze, with many long-beaded men and with some carrying the white Islamic flag, which made her even more frightened, she told me.
--:-- Lila Sinjab: It was all triggered by an audio recording with an alleged Druze religious leader insulting Prophet Muhammad.
--:-- Lila Sinjab: Although the leader denied it was his voice, and Syria's Ministry of Interior later confirmed the recording was fake, the damage was already done.
--:-- Lila Sinjab: This video of a student from Hong Kong University calling for immediate revenge against the Druze went viral.
--:-- Lila Sinjab: We just entered into the Sweda province.
--:-- Lila Sinjab: As you cross and enter the city, it's all manned by the Druze forces.
--:-- Lila Sinjab: So they haven't really joined forces with the Syrian government.
--:-- Lila Sinjab: This is where many shooting took place.
--:-- Lila Sinjab: We are on our way to see one family who had to flee their own village.
--:-- Lila Sinjab: I was in the front line of the ambush.
--:-- Lila Sinjab: We were hit by gunfire from multiple directions.
--:-- Lila Sinjab: There were hundreds of fighters.
--:-- Lila Sinjab: The gunfire was intense and they used mortars and drones.
--:-- Lila Sinjab: I was shot in the back.
--:-- Lila Sinjab: The bullet passed near my spine went through my lung, broke two ribs, and lodged under my collarbone.
--:-- Lila Sinjab: When the attack started in Ashrafiyat Sahnaiyah, Hadi and his friends took up arms and headed towards the area to help protect Druze there.
--:-- Lila Sinjab: He lost many friends.
--:-- Lila Sinjab: Frankly, we don't feel safe with these people.
--:-- Lila Sinjab: Their ideology is religious, not based on the law or the state.
--:-- Lila Sinjab: And when someone acts out of religious or sectarian hate, they don't represent us.
--:-- Lila Sinjab: What represents us is the law and the state.
--:-- Lila Sinjab: The law is what protects everyone.
--:-- Lila Sinjab: A view reflected among many here.
--:-- Lila Sinjab: Lama Zahreddin is a university student set to graduate this year.
--:-- Lila Sinjab: But the hate speech and rounds of violence made her and thousands other students leave universities and head home for their own safety.
--:-- Lila Sinjab: The sectarian incitement that happened, especially in Homs, they went into student dorms and threw dishes at students, beat them with chains.
--:-- Lila Sinjab: The promises need to be kept on the ground, not just talk.
--:-- Lila Sinjab: Anyone who incites sectarianism should be punished.
--:-- Lila Sinjab: There is big mistrust between the Druze community and the new Islamist-led government, a mistrust shared widely in the country.
--:-- Lila Sinjab: People want to see an inclusive civic state rather than an Islamic one.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: The Syrian government has repeatedly stressed the sovereignty and unity of all Syrian territories and denominations of Syrian society, including the Druze.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Still to come, the mystery of unusually large Roman footwear.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: America is changing. And so is the world. But what's happening in America isn't just a cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: I'm Tristan Redman in London.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: And this is The Global Story. Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from this intersection, where the world and America meet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: The Sudanese army has killed more than 60 fighters from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in airstrikes near the city of Al-Fasha in North Darfur.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: The armed forces have been stepping up their attacks in Darfur.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: El Fasha is the only city still under their control.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: It's been under siege from the RSF for many months.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Now the medical charity Doctors Without Borders, or MSF, says it's been forced to withdraw from the city.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: It's warning that civilians are facing starvation, sexual violence and executions by the militia.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Christopher Lockyer is the Secretary-General of MSF.
--:-- Christopher Lockyer: is about the people who have been besieged, attacked and starved and faced mass atrocities in the town of Al-Fasha and the nearby displacement camp of Zamzam, both in North Darfur.
--:-- Christopher Lockyer: What we aim to do is expose the levels of violence, particularly the ethnically targeted violence against the Zagawas, who are one of the non-Arab tribes in Darfur, at the hands of the Rapid Support Forces or the RSF.
--:-- Christopher Lockyer: And this is in light of both the violence that we're directly witnessing against them, whether that's siege, salvation, or the destruction of the health facilities.
--:-- Christopher Lockyer: But also considering that earlier in this conflict, also at the hands of the RSF, another non-Arab tribe, the Masalit, was targeted in mass ethnic violence in El Janino, the capital of West Arfor.
--:-- Christopher Lockyer: And so we're worried that we're seeing, on top of a famine-stricken population, a full-blown attack of a people.
--:-- Christopher Lockyer: And our patients, our staff, our survivors are talking to us and wanting us to tell that story.
--:-- Christopher Lockyer: So that's the reason behind the report today.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: You know, what we're seeing are several trends.
--:-- Christopher Lockyer: Firstly, there is the ethnic targeting.
--:-- Christopher Lockyer: We've had witnesses talk of RSF saying that they would clean al-Fasha, particularly of the Zagawa.
--:-- Christopher Lockyer: One man told us that they speak a lot, the RSF, saying that if they were to take al-Fasha, they would kill all phalange, which is a word used for slave, especially the Zagawa.
--:-- Christopher Lockyer: They used to say that if you kill 50 phalange, your face will glow in the morning.
--:-- Christopher Lockyer: So it's that sort of level of violence and hate speech that we're witnessing within Darfur at the moment.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Five years ago, the BBC reported that Nigeria was in the grip of an epidemic of kidnapping.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Today, the situation appears to be even worse, with kidnappers trying to extort a ransom no longer differentiating between rich and poor.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: The BBC has spoken to some of those who've been abducted who've shared their experiences of being beaten and starved.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: BBC's Chris Iwakor reports from the Nigerian capital, Abuja.
--:-- Chris Iwakor: Adiyo was kidnapped on a Nigerian highway along with three other people.
--:-- Chris Iwakor: Their captors demanded 50 million naira or just over $31,000 for each person.
--:-- Chris Iwakor: Most Nigerian families cannot raise such a sum.
--:-- Chris Iwakor: They told my wife, if you don't want us to kill your husband, bring money.
--:-- Chris Iwakor: They used to beat us when they want to negotiate with our people.
--:-- Chris Iwakor: When they are beating us, even the one that used to teach us what we will be saying, tell them you need money or else they will kill you.
--:-- Chris Iwakor: If we kill you, we don't lose anything.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: More than 2 million kidnap incidents were recorded in the one year to April 2024, according to a report credited to the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics, or NBS.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: While the government department later claimed that its website was hacked, even though it has not denied publishing the piece.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Another report by SBM Intelligence, a security intelligence and research firm, had a lower figure.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: It said almost 22,000 people were abducted in Nigeria in just over five and a half years.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: In Zamfara, northwest Nigeria, one woman who has been voiced by an actor to keep her identity hidden spent seven months in captivity after she was kidnapped.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Her mother died while she was held captive and she says it was caused by grief.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: We were regularly beaten, starved of food, and I fell sick while in captivity.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: The most horrific experience was when we were forced to dig a grave and bury another kidnapped victim.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: It was heart-wrenching.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Another Zamfara resident and his teenage daughter, whose identities were also hiding, were abducted after gunmen broke into their home.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: They were held for nearly two months.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: After paying the second ransom, I was released while my daughter was held back for another ransom, close to 6 million naira.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: We were insulted, dealt with, and in fact, all the 42 days I stayed there, I was chained.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Because of the beating, I'm still having problems with my spinal cord.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: While SBM's report says $6.8 million was demanded as ransom within one year, Nigeria faces a multitude of complex and persistent security challenges including terrorism banditry and kidnapping which have proven difficult to resolve.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Nigerians are warned that ransom payment is illegal but with no other alternative the families of kidnapped victims have to find the money or risk their loved ones facing death at the hands of their captors.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Chris Ebokor in Nigeria.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: And just an update on a story we brought to you a couple of days ago here on the Global News Podcast.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Anti-pollution measures in India's capital Delhi to curb smog and notoriously high levels of pollution are proving difficult to police.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: The selling of petrol for vehicles older than 15 years and diesel for vehicles older than 10 was banned on the 1st of July.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: But Delhi's Environment Minister has admitted that the ban is proving to be unenforceable because of technical problems like camera sensors that don't work and people driving out of Delhi to get fuel.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Next, to outer space, or rather to something from outer space that's hurtled into our own solar system.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: It's only the third such object to be detected.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Known as 3I Atlas, it was reported by a telescope in Chile.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: The BBC's James Menendez got more details from Dr Megan Argo, an astrophysicist from the University of Central Lancashire here in England.
--:-- James Menendez: We think this one's a comet. Right. So as you say, this is the third interstellar interloper we've seen in the solar system.
--:-- James Menendez: We only discovered the first one in 2017.
--:-- James Menendez: So we know these things are there.
--:-- James Menendez: We know they come through the solar system.
--:-- James Menendez: It's likely that there have been thousands, millions, over millions and millions of years throughout the history of the solar system.
--:-- James Menendez: But it's only in sort of the last 20 or so years we've really had the telescopes with the capability to detect them.
--:-- James Menendez: So now we're starting to get a handle on just how many of these things might be out there and what kind of a threat they could potentially pose in the future.
--:-- James Menendez: So how was this one spotted?
--:-- James Menendez: This one was discovered in regular observations of a telescope called ATLAS.
--:-- James Menendez: And ATLAS stands for Asteroid Terrestrial Impact Last Alert System.
--:-- James Menendez: And the idea of ATLAS is that it scans the sky for 24 hours a day.
--:-- James Menendez: So they've got telescopes in different parts of the Earth.
--:-- James Menendez: So at some point, it's always night for one of them.
--:-- James Menendez: So they can see the sky 24 hours a day.
--:-- James Menendez: And they're looking for not the big rocks that we know where they are.
--:-- James Menendez: Big ones are the easiest ones to spot.
--:-- James Menendez: So we think we have the big rocks in the solar system pretty well catalogued by now.
--:-- James Menendez: But it's the smaller stuff, the stuff that's still big enough to make it through our atmosphere and the stuff that's big enough that if it were to be on a collision course with the Earth, it could still do some regional damage.
--:-- James Menendez: So if you remember back to 2013, there was an asteroid that came in over Chelyabinsk in Russia and exploded in an air blast and broke lots of windows.
--:-- James Menendez: And there were a lot of people injured in that incident.
--:-- James Menendez: The idea with Atlas is we can see rocks of that size coming.
--:-- James Menendez: And if it's going to have an impact and we need to evacuate people, we have time to evacuate people out of the way.
--:-- James Menendez: So the telescope is doing exactly what it was designed to do.
--:-- James Menendez: You say get people out of the way.
--:-- James Menendez: I mean, you know, we may see this thing coming, but can we really do anything about it?
--:-- James Menendez: Well, with the big ones, it would be really, really difficult.
--:-- James Menendez: The big ones of the order of the thing that wiped out the dinosaurs, we think 66 million years ago, that would be extremely difficult to do anything about.
--:-- James Menendez: I mean, it might be better not to know, mightn't it?
--:-- James Menendez: Well, possibly there is that argument.
--:-- James Menendez: Yes, ignorance is bliss in a way.
--:-- James Menendez: But those large asteroids, things of that sort of size, we know where they are.
--:-- James Menendez: They're big. The reason we see them is because they reflect sunlight.
--:-- James Menendez: So the larger the object is, the larger the rocket is, the more sunlight it reflects and the easier it is to spot.
--:-- James Menendez: So we know where the big stuff is.
--:-- James Menendez: We know where those dinosaur killers or potential human killers are out there in the solar system.
--:-- James Menendez: It's the smaller stuff of the like that exploded over Chelyabinsk that are more difficult to spot on off.
--:-- James Menendez: And we do only see them with a few weeks, a few days, sometimes only a few hours notice.
--:-- James Menendez: So if we have a few weeks and we know it's going to hit somewhere like a major populated city, then we have enough time.
--:-- James Menendez: It would be a logistical challenge, but we would have enough time to move people out of the way to minimize the damage, minimize the risk to people.
--:-- James Menendez: And with the kind of air blast that happened in Chelyabinsk, if they'd known it was coming in advance, just people opening windows would have minimized the amount of damage because if your window's open, you don't get that much of a shockwave compared to if they're all closed when an air blast happens.
--:-- James Menendez: So it's things like that that could minimise the damage as well as reduce the risk of casualties.
--:-- James Menendez: Yeah, very interesting.
--:-- James Menendez: And just in a word, though, this one we're completely safe from, right?
--:-- James Menendez: Yes, this one's not going to hit us.
--:-- James Menendez: No, this one's not coming this far into the solar system.
--:-- James Menendez: So it'll leave quite happy and it will never come back again.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Astrophysicist Dr Megan Argo.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: And finally, unusually large shoes discovered at a Roman fort in Britain have left archaeologists baffled.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: The biggest sandal from the collection of ancient footwear was more than 32 centimetres long.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: That's approximately a UK size 14, a US size 15 or a European size 50.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: So way bigger than today's average.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: So what's gone on?
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Well, the BBC's David Lewis, who wears a whopping size 13 himself, is following the story.
--:-- David Lewis: So this is the tale.
--:-- David Lewis: Earlier this year, 32 shoes were dug up at the Magna Roman Fort in Northumberland.
--:-- David Lewis: That's not far from Hadrian's Wall in the far northeast of England, the edge of Rome's empire in Britain.
--:-- David Lewis: Eight of those shoes measured 30 centimetres long or more.
--:-- David Lewis: That's the equivalent of a size 13 or 14 today.
--:-- David Lewis: Why? We're not 100% sure.
--:-- David Lewis: But the theories are tantalising.
--:-- David Lewis: We have to assume it's something to do with the people living here having bigger feet, being potentially taller, but we don't know why.
--:-- David Lewis: That's according to the archaeologist Rachel Frame.
--:-- David Lewis: She's insisting the leather shoes were found in a defensive ditch, a place the invading army also used to dump rubbish.
--:-- David Lewis: They're estimated to be about 2,000 years old, which tallies the Romans were in Britain from about 43 AD.
--:-- David Lewis: But due to low oxygen conditions in the soil, the leather shoes have been preserved remarkably well for centuries.
--:-- David Lewis: It all sounds unusual, but it gets stranger.
--:-- David Lewis: Of the 5,000 shoes dug up at the nearby Vindolanda settlement, 12 or so kilometres away, just four or five of those were of the equivalent size.
--:-- David Lewis: So regarding this outsized Roman Hall, we might soon know a bit more.
--:-- David Lewis: Later this year, a specialist team will analyse some unearthed pottery and local soil layers to better analyse who was there and when.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: And that's it from us for now, but there'll be a new edition of the Global News Podcast later.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, send us an email.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: You can also find us on X at BBC World Service.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Use the hashtag Global News Pod.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: This edition was mixed by Darren Garrett.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: The producers were Marion Straughan and Charles Sanctuary.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: The editor is Karen Martin.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: I'm Valerie Sanderson.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Until next time, bye-bye.
--:-- Asma Khalid: America is changing. And so is the world. But what's happening in America isn't just a cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.
--:-- Asma Khalid: I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C.
--:-- Asma Khalid: I'm Tristan Redman in London.
--:-- Asma Khalid: And this is The Global Story. Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from this intersection, where the world and America meet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
