--:-- Valerie Sanderson: This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Valerie Sanderson.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: At 13 Hours GMT on Friday the 29th of August, these are our main stories. In Thailand, the Prime Minister, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, has been removed from office by the country's top court.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: This was her reaction. I accept the constitutional court's verdict. As a Thai citizen, I would like to reiterate that my intentions were for the benefit of the country, not for personal gain.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: So what happens next? Jonathan Head is a Southeast Asia correspondent. Jonathan, can you explain the court's decision?
--:-- Jonathan Head: Well, the court said that it accepted the complaint that she had violated ethics. Now, that's a very broad definition in the constitution, but specifically it was a very embarrassing phone conversation.
--:-- Jonathan Head: It was clearly never meant to go public. The Cambodian strongman Hun Sen leaked it very deliberately to cause a crisis which is what happened and it's probably had a big impact on the border war.
--:-- Jonathan Head: But in it, she appealed to him because Hun Sen and her father Thaksin, who's the real power behind her party and her government, have been long-standing friends and business partners.
--:-- Jonathan Head: So she appealed to him in the name of that friendship to put aside their tension on the border and the spats between their troops and try to find a way through.
--:-- Jonathan Head: And she was very conciliatory to him, very respectful. And she also criticised one of her army commanders, the man who actually commands Thai troops on the Thai-Cambodian border, saying he's actually in the opposition, he opposes my government, he's difficult, I'm having a problem with him.
--:-- Jonathan Head: So once Hun Sen leaked that, which is pretty shocking, it's quite rare for heads of state or heads of government to do that in this part of the world, it really caused an enormous uproar.
--:-- Jonathan Head: It painted Paetongtarn as inexperienced. I mean, she's young, she had no political experience before she became prime minister last year and has having poor judgment and being outplayed by this wily old veteran and of being disloyal to her own troops.
--:-- Jonathan Head: So this court has ruled many times on very, very trivial matters and dismissed prime ministers. It's dismissed governments. It's dissolved parties.
--:-- Jonathan Head: But I think in this case, many Thais felt this was a bit more serious. And the judges clearly found it was serious enough to make her unsuitable for high office.
--:-- Jonathan Head: So what happens in Thailand now? It's pretty chaotic, to be honest. I mean, and nothing's really been settled in this country since the election of two years ago, which was won, or the most seats were won by the most youthful and reformist party.
--:-- Jonathan Head: Most Thais wanted that, but the unelected Senate stepped in and blocked that. So Ms Paetongtarn's party, Pheu Thai, came second, cobbled together a coalition with many of her former Conservative opponents with a promise to revive the economy.
--:-- Jonathan Head: It's a difficult global environment. And Thailand's economy is in a long-term sort of structural stagnation as well. So they failed to do that too.
--:-- Jonathan Head: Now this border war has blown up. It's given a lot of weight behind nationalist conservative opinion and old accusations that Ms Paetongtarn's family, the Shinawatra family, put their business interests with Cambodia before those of the nation have surfaced and really weakened her party.
--:-- Jonathan Head: And I don't think it's going to be easy for Thailand to cobble together a stable government. They've got a very limited number of candidates that are allowed by the constitution.
--:-- Jonathan Head: The current coalition has a very slim majority. It's very likely that within a few months they will be forced to call another election. But this is a polarised country. It's fragmented between different political views.
--:-- Jonathan Head: It's not clear that even an election would deliver stability.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Jonathan Head, thank you.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Israel says its attack on Gaza City is in its initial stages and it's ended humanitarian pauses in fighting in the area.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: It also says its forces have found the body of an Israeli who was killed in the October 7th attacks by Hamas. He died trying to defend his kibbutz and his body was taken into Gaza.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Here's our Middle East correspondent, Yolan Nell.
--:-- Yolan Nell: First of all, I mean, the discovery of the body of Yolandele. He was 56 years old, the head of the security squad in his kibbutz when he was killed in those Hamas-led attacks on the 7th of October, 2023.
--:-- Yolan Nell: The Israeli military is also saying that it has findings related to the remains of another hostage retrieved from Gaza and that an identification process is going on.
--:-- Yolan Nell: Prior to this, there were 50 hostages believed held in Gaza, 20 of whom thought still to be alive. The Hostages and Missing Families Forum did come out with a statement about the remains of Elaine Weiss being brought back, saying that this brought some comfort to his family after 692 days of waiting in the nightmare of uncertainty.
--:-- Yolan Nell: And they also repeated their call for a ceasefire deal for Gaza that would bring back all of the remaining hostages.
--:-- Yolan Nell: Meanwhile, in Gaza City, what we've been hearing from witnesses, actually, is that in the past hours there have been more intense airstrikes, just initial reports coming through of that.
--:-- Yolan Nell: Meanwhile, the Israeli military making this declaration that Gaza City was now a dangerous combat zone and that it was suspending these tactical pauses in fighting that were introduced about a month ago to get more aid in just for Gaza City.
--:-- Yolan Nell: This all seen as being part of the preparations for a bigger operation to conquer Gaza City. The UN's humanitarian office has put out some new figures saying that since this new operation was announced, about 60,000 people have been newly displaced in the Gaza City area.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Yolan Nell, thank you.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Yet more stark warnings are emerging about the city of El Fasher in Sudan, which has been under siege by the paramilitary group, the RSF, for more than a year.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Amid reports of squalid conditions and starvation, we're now hearing that civilians are increasingly being targeted in attacks.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Dr Mohamed Faisal Hassan from the Sudan Doctors Network gave us just one example.
--:-- Dr Mohamed Faisal Hassan: Three days ago, they targeted the South Fashion Hospital, which is one of the big hospitals that serves a big Kashmir area in North Darfur.
--:-- Dr Mohamed Faisal Hassan: And this resulted in a massive massacre as well for patients and the medical staff.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: James Copnell presents Newsday here on the BBC World Service and is a former Sudan correspondent.
--:-- James Copnell: So the rapid support forces have been besieging El Fasher for 500 days, a bit more than 500 days now, and the accusation has always been not just disregard for whether civilians are killed, so you see shelling of civilian areas, but increasingly and often targeted attacks on people they consider a threat, including civilians from ethnic groups they feel they're in conflict against.
--:-- James Copnell: So we've had the deaths this week of dozens of civilians from shelling, but also of people trying to flee El Fasher, civilians, including children who've been killed by the RSF.
--:-- James Copnell: And both major participants in Sudan's war have been accused of atrocities and abuses, but overwhelmingly the RSF has been accused of more of those including what the UN believes are credible accusations of genocide elsewhere in Darfur.
--:-- James Copnell: And who are they targeting specifically? They targeting what are considered Africans in Darfur. So you have Arabs and Africans.
--:-- James Copnell: The RSF forces come mainly from an Arab Sudanese group, but have often been in conflict with the Zagawa, the Fur and the Masalit, which are considered African ethnic groups.
--:-- James Copnell: And you have been speaking to a former Sudanese politician about this, haven't you?
--:-- James Copnell: Yeah, this is Adid Abdurman Youssef, he's former governor of central Darfur state. He works now with the People2People NGO, which has people inside El Fasher, and he's extremely concerned about the situation there.
--:-- Adid Abdurman Youssef: Over the last few days, there's assassination of civilians, those who try to escape and they catch them and then they kill them.
--:-- Adid Abdurman Youssef: Everybody has seen this killing, calling people by the name of their ethnic group and then they shoot them to kill.
--:-- Adid Abdurman Youssef: So the civilian population in El Fasher are paying the heaviest price of all of this.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: James Copnell, thank you.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: The government of Punjab says it's launched one of its largest rescue operations in years, as more than a million people have been affected by floods in Pakistan's most populous province.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Hundreds of thousands of residents have been evacuated so far in Punjab, and more than 800 people have been killed across the country since monsoon rains started in June.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: The BBC's Pakistan correspondent Azadeh Mishiri reports from Lahore.
--:-- Azadeh Mishiri: I'm in a luxury residential neighbourhood in Lahore. And when people moved here, they were promised beautiful parks, a scenic view of the Ravi River and new-build modern homes.
--:-- Azadeh Mishiri: But looking at it now, the river has completely swollen and submerged several homes. Thousands of rescuers have been deployed to areas like these.
--:-- Azadeh Mishiri: And across Punjab, there are 1,700 villages that have been flooded. So rescuers today are still travelling back and forth across the Ravi River to help anyone who is still stranded, anyone who refused to evacuate before.
--:-- Azadeh Mishiri: When families do come back, many will find their homes wrecked, just like the ones I'm looking at now.
--:-- Azadeh Mishiri: The government has pledged financial support for people who've been affected by the floods, but this isn't the first time families in Pakistan are seeing their lives upended, having to start all over again.
--:-- Azadeh Mishiri: And scientists are warning it won't be the last time either, that climate change is intensifying the monsoon rains that the country has to go through every single year.
--:-- Azadeh Mishiri: In the immediate future, officials are warning that more rains are coming, and with it, more damage, more lives at risk.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Azadeh Mishiri, thank you.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: EU foreign and defence ministers are meeting in Copenhagen, where they're discussing Ukraine.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: It comes soon after the heavy Russian strikes on Kyiv that left 23 people dead, most of them in an apartment building that collapsed.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Here's the lead EU spokesperson, Anita Hibber.
--:-- Anita Hibber: Putin understands only one word, and this is strength. So we will do anything in our power to increase our pressure on Russia.
--:-- Anita Hibber: Until now, we had 18 sanction packages. We're now working on the 19 sanction packages. So we will do everything in our power to ensure Ukraine remains strong and Putin comes at the negotiation table and also, most importantly, the killing stops.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: The rescue work at the bloc has now finished, but the morning goes on.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Here's Katie Watson, who's in Kyiv.
--:-- Katie Watson: The recovery operation at that block of flats that saw 22 people die of the 23 who died in that massive airstrike on Thursday morning. That has now finished.
--:-- Katie Watson: There are still eight people missing. But people here are still reeling from what happened in the early hours of Thursday morning.
--:-- Katie Watson: President Zelensky has once again called for strength, not just words from allies, to try and bring an end to this war.
--:-- Katie Watson: There's been diplomatic outcry. Of course, the EU delegation building here in Kyiv was damaged, as was the British Council building.
--:-- Katie Watson: So, you know, a resounding criticism of what happened at these Russian attacks.
--:-- Katie Watson: But on the ground, speaking to those residents and neighbours watching the recovery operation yesterday after a missile hit a low-rise residential building, there was a lot of disbelief, a lot of shock.
--:-- Katie Watson: People telling me that they see this and they never think it would happen to them, but it does.
--:-- Katie Watson: One lady told me of just the cruelty of it, that these drones and these missiles, there was a barrage of them coming in simultaneously in different directions, and it was just incomprehensible, very difficult to try and get their head around what had happened.
--:-- Katie Watson: So I think people were very much in shock, trying to get an understanding of exactly, of course, what this means for potential peace, because of course, Ukrainians here were wary of whether any peace could come from this flurry of diplomatic talks.
--:-- Katie Watson: There was optimism, but now that's been undermined by what we saw with those attacks early yesterday morning.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Katie Watson, thank you.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Let's hear from Moscow. Here's our Russia editor, Steve Rosenberg.
--:-- Steve Rosenberg: If you look at the last six weeks or so, you know, there's been so much talk, so much diplomatic activity and so little progress.
--:-- Steve Rosenberg: You know, we've gone from Donald Trump's 50-day ultimatum to Russia to stop the war or face new sanctions, to a 12-day ultimatum, then a 10-day ultimatum, which turned out to be no ultimatum, no deadline at all, really.
--:-- Steve Rosenberg: Instead, we got this US-Russia summit in Alaska, which did not bring an end to the war in Ukraine.
--:-- Steve Rosenberg: The Kremlin again rejected the idea of a ceasefire from Alaska.
--:-- Steve Rosenberg: Then we went to Washington, and that meeting of Presidents Trump, Zelensky and European leaders, talk of a possible, even probable, Putin-Zelensky summit until the Kremlin poured cold water on that.
--:-- Steve Rosenberg: And then yesterday, yes, that massive Russian attack on Kyiv.
--:-- Steve Rosenberg: I imagine Russian officials will be satisfied by the initial and rather subdued response from the Trump administration to that attack.
--:-- Steve Rosenberg: The White House press secretary saying that President Trump was not happy by the strikes, but also not surprised by them.
--:-- Steve Rosenberg: So it appears right now that we are no closer to peace.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Steve Rosenberg, thank you.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: The government of Punjab says it's launched one of its largest rescue operations in years, as more than a million people have been affected by floods in Pakistan's most populous province.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Hundreds of thousands of residents have been evacuated so far in Punjab, and more than 800 people have been killed across the country since monsoon rains started in June.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: The BBC's Pakistan correspondent Azadeh Mishiri reports from Lahore.
--:-- Azadeh Mishiri: I'm in a luxury residential neighbourhood in Lahore. And when people moved here, they were promised beautiful parks, a scenic view of the Ravi River and new-build modern homes.
--:-- Azadeh Mishiri: But looking at it now, the river has completely swollen and submerged several homes. Thousands of rescuers have been deployed to areas like these.
--:-- Azadeh Mishiri: And across Punjab, there are 1,700 villages that have been flooded. So rescuers today are still travelling back and forth across the Ravi River to help anyone who is still stranded, anyone who refused to evacuate before.
--:-- Azadeh Mishiri: When families do come back, many will find their homes wrecked, just like the ones I'm looking at now.
--:-- Azadeh Mishiri: The government has pledged financial support for people who've been affected by the floods, but this isn't the first time families in Pakistan are seeing their lives upended, having to start all over again.
--:-- Azadeh Mishiri: And scientists are warning it won't be the last time either, that climate change is intensifying the monsoon rains that the country has to go through every single year.
--:-- Azadeh Mishiri: In the immediate future, officials are warning that more rains are coming, and with it, more damage, more lives at risk.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Azadeh Mishiri, thank you.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: From today, any packages entering the US that are worth more than $100 will be subject to tariffs.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: So, bad news if you're a small business owner who sells to the States. Great news, Donald Trump would argue, if you're an American business.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: It's because a rule which used to exempt goods valued at $800 or less from border tax has been removed.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: This was already in force on packages from China and Hong Kong, but now will apply to the rest of the world.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Our Asia business correspondent is Surinjana Tiwari.
--:-- Surinjana Tiwari: It was really a loophole that's allowed billions of dollars of goods to enter the US duty-free.
--:-- Surinjana Tiwari: It's very old, been around since 1938. And in recent years, it was largely used to foster small business growth on e-commerce marketplaces.
--:-- Surinjana Tiwari: If you can imagine businesses around the region, especially here in Australia and in Asia, selling to American customers on things like Etsy and eBay.
--:-- Surinjana Tiwari: But earlier this summer, President Donald Trump said he would eliminate the waiver that allowed those goods worth less than $800 to enter the US duty-free.
--:-- Surinjana Tiwari: And now the exemption has gone away completely as of today.
--:-- Surinjana Tiwari: So what effect, Surinjana, will this have, do you think, on global trade?
--:-- Surinjana Tiwari: Well, we spoke to a lot of small business owners. You know, one maternity company that was based in, maternity clothes company that was based in Australia.
--:-- Surinjana Tiwari: And he said because there's been so much chaos, there's been so much uncertainty about who will pay the duties, the Australia Postal Service has actually stopped these parcels going into the US at all.
--:-- Surinjana Tiwari: So that means that he's having to look for new markets and he's having to redirect a lot of his deliveries.
--:-- Surinjana Tiwari: And essentially, he was saying that he's not going to be able to market his goods to American customers as a result.
--:-- Surinjana Tiwari: But more broadly, I think there is still a lot of confusion around Donald Trump's tariffs policy.
--:-- Surinjana Tiwari: And this is just another example of it.
--:-- Surinjana Tiwari: And you mentioned the Chinese and Hong Kong exemptions. They were removed earlier this year.
--:-- Surinjana Tiwari: And that really affected e-commerce sites, big Chinese retailers like Timu and Shane, from being able to deliver their packages to U.S. customers.
--:-- Surinjana Tiwari: So this is likely to have a big impact for many types of businesses around the world.
--:-- Surinjana Tiwari: And crucially, what effect is this going to have on consumers, particularly in America?
--:-- Surinjana Tiwari: Yeah, well, we're already hearing that one South Korean skincare brand has actually just across the board adding 15% surcharges to its deliveries.
--:-- Surinjana Tiwari: So essentially, things are going to become more expensive because while the receivers generally pay these tariffs and these extra taxes, at some point, these businesses are going to have to pass the money onto the costs onto the customers.
--:-- Surinjana Tiwari: So we've heard from a lot of really big companies, Adidas, Nike, all saying they're going to have to increase prices in order to be able to navigate these new tariff policies.
--:-- Surinjana Tiwari: And it seems that the only person that can really pay in the end will be the customer.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Surinjana Tiwari, thank you.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni says those responsible for publishing doctored images of herself and other prominent women on a pornographic website must be punished with the utmost firmness.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Giorgia Meloni has spoken of her disgust, telling an Italian newspaper that women should immediately report images posted online without their consent.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Our correspondent in Rome, Sarah Rainsford, told me more about the website.
--:-- Sarah Rainsford: It has closed itself down, in fact, but this is a website that's existed for 20 years.
--:-- Sarah Rainsford: And there was very recently, in the last few days, an explosion of outrage when it was discovered that the site, an adult website, a pornographic website, was displaying doctored images of very well-known female figures here in Italy, including the Prime Minister, including a number of opposition politicians, celebrities, influencers, using images that have been stolen, in many cases, from their personal social media accounts or taken from public images posted online at public events.
--:-- Sarah Rainsford: And then those images were altered before being posted online alongside some obscene captions, very vulgar commentary and sometimes violent commentary.
--:-- Sarah Rainsford: In some cases, I've been told, incitements to rape. So extremely serious allegations about this website.
--:-- Sarah Rainsford: It has now taken itself offline. There is a police investigation, but the website says with regret that some users had been abusing the platform.
--:-- Sarah Rainsford: They said it was set up with the best possible intent, and it was for the sharing of content, supposed to be a safe space.
--:-- Sarah Rainsford: But they are claiming that that space was misused.
--:-- Sarah Rainsford: But certainly those who were targeted, the women who were featured on the website, are outraged.
--:-- Sarah Rainsford: There's been a huge amount of coverage of what's happened here in Italy.
--:-- Sarah Rainsford: And as you mentioned, the prime minister herself has expressed her disgust and said that those responsible need to be dealt with.
--:-- Sarah Rainsford: And are they going to be held accountable, those responsible?
--:-- Sarah Rainsford: Well, there is an investigation. As I say, the website has been closed, but it's not an isolated case.
--:-- Sarah Rainsford: There was, in fact, just a few days ago, another big noise about a Facebook group known as My Wife.
--:-- Sarah Rainsford: When it was revealed that men who were using that site were posting pictures of their partners, very explicit, obscene pictures in many cases of their partners, again, possibly altered and certainly shared without the consent in many cases of the women who were featured.
--:-- Sarah Rainsford: And the outrage again over that led by celebrity figures here in Italy, cultural figures and politicians, forced Meta to close down that Facebook group.
--:-- Sarah Rainsford: But I think there is a real focus now on those kinds of platforms, the kind of images that are being shared and the fact that that's being done in many cases without the consent of the women involved.
--:-- Sarah Rainsford: So the real focus on trying to identify who's responsible and trying to stop it and also calling for women who find their images being shared to report that to police.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Sarah Rainsford, thank you.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: The BBC has spoken exclusively to some of the Rohingya refugees who were deported by the Indian government and dumped in the sea just off the coast of Myanmar, a country in the midst of a brutal civil war.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: The Rohingya, a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority, face violent persecution and genocide at the hands of Myanmar's military government.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: More than a million Rohingya have fled to neighbouring countries, including India.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: In an exclusive interview, the refugees recounted how they were taken and left at sea at the hands of Indian authorities.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: BBC's South Asia correspondent Samira Hussain reports from Delhi.
--:-- Samira Hussain: Hello, hello. A group of seven men appear on my screen. They're all sharing a mobile phone.
--:-- Samira Hussain: We were so helpless. We were waiting for someone to come. And they're desperate to tell their story.
--:-- Samira Hussain: How they were thrown in the sea and ended up stranded in Myanmar. A country they fled in fear of violent persecution.
--:-- Samira Hussain: We don't feel secure in Myanmar. This place is completely a war zone.
--:-- Samira Hussain: That's Sayed Noor, and he's one of 40 card-carrying UN-recognised refugees living in Delhi who were put on planes to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, then put on a naval vessel in the Bay of Bengal headed towards Myanmar.
--:-- Samira Hussain: Fourteen hours later they were told to board smaller boats. They brought four light boats and we were brought to two light boats, 20 people in each boat.
--:-- Samira Hussain: Our hands were bound in that light boat for more than seven hours. They asked us to jump off the light boat one by one and we swim around 100 plus meters to get the seashore.
--:-- Samira Hussain: When you got on the bus to go to the boats, who took you on the bus?
--:-- Samira Hussain: Yeah, the same Navy. How do you know they were Navy?
--:-- Samira Hussain: We know that because of the Basque inscription like The Hindi word for Indian Navy.
--:-- Samira Hussain: Then, he says, one by one, they were pulled aside on the boat and questioned by Indian authorities.
--:-- Samira Hussain: They would call someone and talk in Hindi and they would even say something like, why didn't you become Hindu?
--:-- Samira Hussain: So the question to Christians, Rohingya Christians, why did you convert Muslim to Christianity? Why didn't you become a Hindu?
--:-- Samira Hussain: And even they treated us to uncover our pains or to confirm whether we are circumcised or not.
--:-- Samira Hussain: And they said, why did you come to India? And why didn't you choose another country instead of India?
--:-- Samira Hussain: Despite being registered as UN refugees, the Indian government says the more than 20,000 Rohingya refugees living in India are illegal immigrants.
--:-- Samira Hussain: This is a matter of life and death for these people.
--:-- Samira Hussain: Tom Andrews is the UN's special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar.
--:-- Tom Andrews: I've been receiving reports of refugees being detained, interrogated, mistreated. And these are people who are not in India because they want to be.
--:-- Tom Andrews: They're there because of the horrific violence that is occurring in Myanmar. They literally have been running for their lives.
--:-- Samira Hussain: I'm walking up the stairs of a four-story building in the Vikas Puri neighborhood in Delhi. I'm going to meet with Noorul Amin.
--:-- Samira Hussain: He's 24 years old. Noorul Amin's parents, two brothers and sister-in-law, are among the 40 deported refugees now in Myanmar.
--:-- Noorul Amin: We are humans, not animals. How can you just throw people into the sea?
--:-- Noorul Amin: In my heart, there is only this fear that the Indian government will also take us and throw us in the sea at any point.
--:-- Samira Hussain: India's Rohingya community, already existing on the margins, are now living in fear.
--:-- Samira Hussain: Not welcome in their home country and not wanted in the country where they sought refuge.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Samira Hussain, thank you.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Scientists are decoding the DNA of some of the UK's most ancient oaks in order to understand the genetic secrets of the tree's success.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Oaks can live for centuries withstanding climate change and disease.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Conservationists say gleaning that knowledge will help restore Britain's woodlands.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Our environment correspondent Helen Briggs went to see the first sample being taken from the Druid's Oak in South East England.
--:-- Helen Briggs: I'm going to pull all that top. Hang on, I got caught there. Very good.
--:-- Helen Briggs: This picturesque woodland in Buckinghamshire is home to a very impressive tree. Over nine metres in good. Nine metres, 20.
--:-- Helen Briggs: For hundreds of years, the so-called Druid's Oak has withstood droughts, storms, heat waves and more.
--:-- Helen Briggs: Top 100? Yeah, one of the biggest trees in the UK.
--:-- Helen Briggs: And today, the mighty oak is being measured up and getting a DNA test that could unlock the secrets of its superpowers.
--:-- Helen Briggs: Its extreme resilience, its ability to withstand. This is Dr Ed Pine, a conservation scientist for the Woodland Trust.
--:-- Dr Ed Pine: So we know trees like this are survivors. This tree's been standing in the same place for 800 years, maybe 1,000 years.
--:-- Dr Ed Pine: But we don't know what enables it to be so successful compared to other trees. Is it just that it's got lucky? Has it led a stress-free life?
--:-- Dr Ed Pine: Or is there something special about the genes of this tree? Is there a secret to longevity within its genome?
--:-- Dr Ed Pine: And we're hoping to really dig into that and find that out.
--:-- Helen Briggs: If you get very close, you can see it's all hollow inside, and that's a great place for wildlife.
--:-- Helen Briggs: A single oak can support hundreds of different species of plants and animals.
--:-- Helen Briggs: And that's why there are growing concerns for these majestic living giants, many of which have no legal protection.
--:-- Helen Briggs: If you lose an ancient oak tree, you lose the wildlife too.
--:-- Helen Briggs: My name's Emma Gill-Martin and I work for the Arboricultural Association.
--:-- Emma Gill-Martin: Ancient trees like this, they're historical and cultural monuments, I would call the monuments of nature, and they inspire a sense of wonder in all of us, I think.
--:-- Emma Gill-Martin: But this project will allow us to tease out what's so special about ancient trees and help us to make the case for them to be better protected.
--:-- Helen Briggs: Meanwhile, in Mockers Park Nature Reserve in Herefordshire, unwanted conifers are being removed and oaks put back into the ground to encourage a diversity of wildlife.
--:-- Helen Briggs: Acorns are really easy to grow anybody can do it.
--:-- Tom Simpson: So this tree is about 16 years old and it was one of the trees which was grown on from acorns collected from the 800 year old trees in the park.
--:-- Tom Simpson: We're seeing a really sort of a boom in sort of the bird population here so we've got meadow pippets tree pippets wood warblers coming up here.
--:-- Tom Simpson: We've got spotted fly catchers as well. So in a short period of time, that 16 years of restoration, we are really seeing the sort of nature recovery up on this site.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Helen Briggs, thank you.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: A new police officer in South Korea has managed to cut crime on his beat by more than a fifth. It'd be impressive for a real police officer. It's even more impressive for a hologram.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Will Chok has the story.
--:-- Will Chok: Night time in Seoul and like every night South Korea's first holographic police officer is on duty.
--:-- Will Chok: His beat is a local park and projected from behind onto a life-size acrylic panel from a distance he does look eerily real.
--:-- Will Chok: Choi In-jung lives nearby. It looks just like a regular person, and when I see it at night, it really feels like there's a police officer standing next to me, and that makes me feel safer personally.
--:-- Will Chok: The hologram is the brainchild of police officer Kim Soo-hyang.
--:-- Kim Soo-hyang: My family and friends often told me that they would avoid passing through the park because it felt too scary.
--:-- Kim Soo-hyang: But as you know, it's impossible for CCTVs or police officers to be stationed everywhere 24-7.
--:-- Kim Soo-hyang: That's when I thought if we could create a visible police presence, it might help.
--:-- Kim Soo-hyang: So we decided to introduce the holographic signboard police officer.
--:-- Will Chok: Every two minutes between 7 and 10pm, the hologram will pop up.
--:-- Will Chok: He's in a busy area with lots of bars and with bars often come late night crime.
--:-- Will Chok: But the hologram's been surprisingly effective.
--:-- Kim Hyun-don: After introducing this holographic officer, crime rates dropped by approximately 22%.
--:-- Kim Hyun-don: The biggest impact was on impulsive crimes such as drunken violence or disputes.
--:-- Kim Hyun-don: Since these crimes are triggered by sudden bursts of emotion, it's usually very difficult for officers to intervene beforehand, which makes prevention challenging.
--:-- Kim Hyun-don: In that sense, the visual message that the police are always watching helped raise awareness and acted as an effective deterrent.
--:-- Will Chok: Pre-intervention or the idea that someone is always watching might be an unnerving concept for some, but it seems in this case, just reminding people on their way home from a night out that actions have consequences has nudged their behaviour in a more acceptable direction.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Will Chok, thank you.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: 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 James Piper and was produced by Charles Sanctuary and Isabella Jewell.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: The editor is Karen Martin.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: I'm Valerie Sanderson. Until next time, bye-bye.
