--:-- Alex Ritson: This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Alex Ritson.
--:-- Alex Ritson: Hungary says it's been given a full and unlimited exemption from US sanctions on Russian oil imports. Republican senators failed to overcome the impasse overpaying essential federal workers like air traffic controllers during the US government shutdown. And the Nobel Prize-winning scientist James Watson, who co-discovered the structure of DNA, has died at the age of 97.
--:-- Alex Ritson: Also in this podcast... Offshore oil workers are told to lose weight or risk losing their jobs. Last month, in a bid to help end the war in Ukraine, President Trump effectively blacklisted two of Russia's largest oil companies, threatening sanctions on those that buy from them. This caused a headache for among others, one of Mr. Trump's closest allies in Europe, the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Most of his country's energy imports come from Russia, due, he claims, to Hungary being landlocked. But following a meeting between the two leaders at the White House, it's been confirmed that Budapest has been given a one-year exemption from the sanctions.
--:-- Alex Ritson: Ahead of the meeting, President Trump gave his reasons why it was something he was considering. They don't have sea, they don't have the ports, and so they have a difficult problem. But when you look at what's happened with Europe, many of those countries, they don't have those problems and they buy a lot of oil and gas from Russia, and as they know, I'm very disturbed by that.
--:-- Alex Ritson: Our correspondent Nick Thorpe is in the Hungarian capital, Budapest. This is about two pipelines in particular. Hungary is dependent on Russian oil from the Druzhba, the friendship pipeline coming from the east, and on gas, again, Russian gas, coming through the Turkstream pipeline up through the Balkans to Hungary.
--:-- Nick Thorpe: And what apparently has happened, exactly what Prime Minister Orbán wanted to happen, that thanks to this special friendship he has with Donald Trump, he's backed him in both terms in office. Mr. Trump has agreed that Hungary has little other option or few other cheap options and has allowed Hungary an exemption from general American sanctions that were announced just a week or so ago on the two big Russian oil companies, Lukoil and Rosneft.
--:-- Nick Thorpe: Yeah, because these sanctions were put in place because President Trump has long blamed European countries for buying oil from Russia, thus ultimately funding the war in Ukraine. If he makes this exception for Hungary, what does that say? Well, Hungary pays a year in trade with Russia approximately $5 billion. So since the start of the war or the full-scale Russian invasion, that's close to $15 billion over those three years.
--:-- Nick Thorpe: Of course, Hungary is a relatively small country in the bigger picture of things. A lot of Russian oil is sent around the world as seaborne oil, so not coming through a pipeline. So Hungary is in a slightly different situation to many countries around the world, and presumably the American sanctions will stay in place on those seaborne supplies.
--:-- Nick Thorpe: Also, we don't know many details yet about the form in which this exemption will take. Another big question on all of this is, America agreed in the deal signed today to sell much more LNG, liquefied natural gas, to Hungary. One might ask, if Hungary continues to get, as it says, cheap Russian gas through the TurkStream pipeline, why would it agree to buy large amounts of American gas as well?
--:-- Nick Thorpe: President Trump has an interesting relationship with Viktor Orban of Hungary, doesn't he? He was full of praise for Hungary's immigration policy. President Trump praised Viktor Orban to the skies, really, as a great man, as a great leader, for getting migration policies right. This is a reference, obviously, to Viktor Orban being the first country or one of the first countries in Europe to build a large border fence back in 2015 to try to limit the flow of irregular migration up through the Balkans.
--:-- Alex Ritson: Yet another attempt to end the US government shutdown after a record 38 days has not succeeded. A vote in the Senate again failed to pass. The proposed measure would have provided immediate compensation for some 2 million civilian and military employees who've been obliged to work without pay.
--:-- Alex Ritson: Democrats opposed the partial pay plan, saying it was a tactic to prolong the shutdown without addressing their demands for health care and social funding protection. The Republican Congressman Don Bacon is from Nebraska. He's not standing for re-election next year, so perhaps he's able to be a little more candid in his assessment of how his party and his president are handling the situation.
--:-- Don Bacon: Well, it's disgusting. It's embarrassing that the United States government is so dysfunctional that this is happening. And obviously, the Democrats in the Senate have filibustered the funding of all these programs because they want concessions. Concessions, by the way, that many Republicans are willing to work with them on. But this is really more of a fight against President Trump.
--:-- Don Bacon: But unfortunately, we're losing flights. We've had airports closed. We have 42 million Americans who are losing SNAP benefits, 1.4 million federal workers who aren't being paid. I think it's a very disgusting time.
--:-- Alex Ritson: One of the most severely affected areas has been transportation, with some 1,200 domestic flights being cancelled because of a shortage of air traffic controllers. I asked our U.S. correspondent David Willis why the Republicans appeared unable to solve the standoff given that they control both houses and the presidency?
--:-- David Willis: Very good question, Alex. And as you say, this is now officially the longest government shutdown in American history, 38 days, and still it would seem no end in sight. The Democrats are demanding an extension of health care subsidies for low Americans. They're concerned about cuts that are proposed to health care programs. And currently, such subsidies are due to expire at the end of this year.
--:-- David Willis: And that would raise premium costs for millions of people here. Republicans have consistently said that they won't negotiate on those sort of demands until the government here is reopened. And a Republican bill to extend government funding has been rejected by the Democratic opposition no fewer than 14 times.
--:-- David Willis: Earlier today, as you mentioned, Alex, the Republican leader in the Senate, John Thune, rejected a new offer by the Democrats to reopen the government in exchange for a one-year extension of those health care subsidies. He called such a move a nonstarter.
--:-- David Willis: President Trump has called for an end to the shutdown. He said today that members of the Senate should stay in Washington over the weekend and indeed until such time as they reach a solution to this crisis. And he's also called for the legislative filibuster, which requires 60 Senate votes in order to pass most legislation to be scrapped, thus allowing Republicans to bypass Democrats altogether in this regard.
--:-- David Willis: But Republicans so far in the Senate have rejected that call. Republicans, of course, did poorly on Tuesday in a number of regional elections. Can we conclude that Americans are perhaps blaming them more than the Democrats for this shutdown? I think that's fair to say and certainly opinion polls tend to suggest that and there does seem to be perhaps more at stake for the Republicans in all this than there is for the Democrats.
--:-- David Willis: And normal life in the meantime is being disrupted considerably for people here. Food aid for 42 million low-income Americans has been placed in jeopardy. A judge has ordered the Trump administration to fund the $4 billion shortfall in those sort of benefits, but the administration has asked the Supreme Court to overturn such an order.
--:-- David Willis: So a lot of questions there. Airlines, as you mentioned, Alex, have cut more than 1,000 flights because of the shutdown, because of failure to pay air traffic controllers for nearly a month. They're staying at home in many cases. And it's expected there could be more cancellations next week as those controllers miss a second paycheck.
--:-- Alex Ritson: James Watson, one of the scientists who discovered the structure of DNA, has died. He was 97. In 1953, Watson, an American and a British scientist, Francis Crick, identified that the DNA molecule is shaped in a double helix, which resembles a spiral staircase. Their model showed how the molecule could duplicate itself, store biological information, and be used to make a living organism.
--:-- Alex Ritson: The breakthrough paved the way for advances in genetics, medicine, and forensics. Watson, Crick, and another scientist, Maurice Wilkins, shared the Nobel Prize. Speaking on the BBC World Service in 2010, James Watson said the discovery surprised him and Crick.
--:-- James Watson: I don't think it was intellectually that clever. We were just there at the right time. And I told Francis if we were chemists, we would have found it in six weeks at most. And I was an ex-bird watcher, and he was a physicist. And so neither of us knew the chemistry that we should know.
--:-- Alex Ritson: And when you think back, well, why didn't the chemists do it? But James Watson was also controversial. He often disparaged female scientists, including Rosalind Franklin, who he and Crick didn't credit, even though they used her work to make their modeling possible.
--:-- Alex Ritson: And in 2007, Watson was quoted as saying that he was inherently gloomy of the prospects for Africans as their intelligence, he said, was not the same as other races. He later apologized and said there was no scientific basis for such a belief.
--:-- Alex Ritson: Celia Hatton has been speaking to Nancy Hopkins, a professor of genetics, who was a student and friend of James Watson.
--:-- Nancy Hopkins: Oh, well, he changed my life. In addition to changing the entire world and the future of science, I met him when I took a class as an undergraduate at Harvard University, and I heard him talk, and one hour later, I knew I'd found the purpose of my life and wanted to be a molecular biologist.
--:-- Nancy Hopkins: And I was lucky enough to go and work in his laboratory. And we became friends and he became my mentor and friend for life. So I was very lucky.
--:-- Nancy Hopkins: We've just heard that James Watson didn't really rate his discovery at the time that he made it. But how important was the discovery of DNA? How important was it?
--:-- Nancy Hopkins: Well, it was one of the considered three most important discoveries really made in biology. There was Darwin, there was Mendel, and then there was Jim Watson and Francis Crick, and of course, the others who worked with them.
--:-- Nancy Hopkins: So it's so profound, it's hard even to grasp, but it really was the secret of life. They really did discover the secret of life. So I think he sounded a little modest for Jim in those comments too, frankly, a little uncharacteristic.
--:-- Nancy Hopkins: I mean, indeed, he was accused of not sharing the credit enough for discovering DNA. Is that fair?
--:-- Nancy Hopkins: Ah, such a fascinating question. There's been a lot written about it. I think that today it might have been done differently. But I think in that era, they were young, highly driven, and the circumstances were very odd.
--:-- Nancy Hopkins: And the other person who made such a critical contribution was a woman, and women tended to be omitted from getting credit. So I think it looked very different back then.
--:-- Nancy Hopkins: But they certainly did lean upon the data that came from Rosalind Franklin and from Wilkins, her collaborator. Today, probably her name might have been on the paper or there would have been two Nobel Prizes and one for Wilkins and Franklin and one for Watson and Crick.
--:-- Nancy Hopkins: But, you know, it was a different era, and it's still much debated of how it should have played out. And James Watson is celebrated for his scientific work, but he also voiced some very controversial views in his later years.
--:-- Nancy Hopkins: For example, he argued that embryo screening and genetic engineering should be used to improve the health of the population. What do you make of that?
--:-- Nancy Hopkins: Well, I feel in a way as a good friend who cared so much about him and whose life was inspired by him. You know, I wish that he could have been remembered for the science that literally changed the world, truly affects everybody's life, and not for these views where I really think he's overstepped the line.
--:-- Alex Ritson: In an earlier edition of the podcast, we told you how the world's richest man, Elon Musk, is set to become even richer. Tesla shareholders have approved an astonishing pay package that could make the electric car company's founder and CEO a trillionaire.
--:-- Alex Ritson: But he does need to hit certain performance targets for the company to get it. Among them, he has to sell one million AI humanoid robots. Promotional videos show the robots doing household tasks, including mopping floors and washing dishes.
--:-- Alex Ritson: Something you might be asking, does anyone really want a human-shaped, human-sized robot performing tasks inside their home? A question for Alan Fern, Professor of Robotics at Oregon State University.
--:-- Alan Fern: I think all of us would be ready to have a robot that will do all of our chores. I don't think the technology is quite there yet. We can get robots to dance and do acrobatics and do very repetitive tasks that we teach them to do with lots and lots of training data.
--:-- Alan Fern: But going into an arbitrary home and being able to fill the dishwasher and clean your messy house, I think we're quite a few years away from that general capability. But I think, yeah, we're definitely on the road there.
--:-- Alan Fern: I think the first customers will be more industrial customers. So probably Tesla will be able to use them themselves. They'll be able to train the robots to do certain tasks in their factories. You can imagine warehouses where you can have robots that are doing relatively repetitive things moving boxes around in relatively structured ways, and they can be trained to do that.
--:-- Alan Fern: So I think those will be the first applications. My ideal vision is we have a hard time getting enough people for the labor jobs we have now. We'd love to be able to build a lot more, a lot faster than we can now.
--:-- Alan Fern: I imagine a future where you have one worker who's doing the actual tasks now, managing a team of 10 robots doing that task. That's the vision that I have. We'll accelerate our productivity. And that's usually been good for society over the years.
--:-- Alan Fern: Getting them in the homes, I think there's a lot of challenges, both safety-wise and also just technologically being able to have the intelligence in these robots that will handle all the diversity of tasks they need to do.
--:-- Alex Ritson: Still to come on this podcast, all roads lead to Rome. If the land is flat, it makes sense to build a straight road. But we do see particular locations where the road is more sinuous and follows the landscape and the terrain.
--:-- Alex Ritson: Now researchers have made an interactive map of an ancient highway network. Hey guys, it's Erin Andrews from Calm Down with Erin and Carissa. So when the pressure's on, you remember the people who helped you get this far, whose knowledge guided you and whose care kept you grounded.
--:-- Alex Ritson: For me, it was my dad, my mentor, who believed in me when I was just getting started in journalism. A real-life example that showed me when you work with someone who knows a lot and cares even more, you're unstoppable.
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--:-- Alex Ritson: Last week's election in Tanzania was criticised by observers and branded a sham by the opposition. The Tanzanian Electoral Commission declared that President Samia Suluhu Hassan won with a whopping 98% of the vote, cementing her party's decades-long hold on power.
--:-- Alex Ritson: But many Tanzanians were unhappy that the opposition was barred from taking part and took to the streets. Some reports suggest 800 people died in the ensuing crackdown, though the government says the figure is exaggerated.
--:-- Alex Ritson: Now the authorities are charging at least 240 people with treason for their alleged involvement in the protest. Oliver Conway heard more about the events of last week from our reporter Anita Nkonge.
--:-- Anita Nkonge: What proceeded to happen after the general elections was that many Tanzanians across the country went out onto the streets to protest what they were saying was a rigged election.
--:-- Anita Nkonge: If you remember, President Samir Sulu-Hu-Hasan was the main candidate running for the elections, and two of the main opposition leaders, one had been barred from vying and the other is currently in prison being charged with treason.
--:-- Anita Nkonge: And so what a lot of those who are protesting and also opposition critics have been saying is that that election was never democratic. It was a mockery of democracy. And it was a very violent day.
--:-- Anita Nkonge: It was. It was a very violent day. And it proceeded for three more days where there was a crackdown on protesters. We have heard reports from opposition members who claim that hundreds of people lost their lives during a protest demanding for electoral reforms.
--:-- Anita Nkonge: We have also heard of videos of killings and police brutality emerging on social media, but the BBC has not been able to verify the numbers of those people who were killed or the videos either.
--:-- Anita Nkonge: But we do understand that it was a very, very violent couple of days. So according to the opposition, the violence was meted out by the authorities, but by the government's actions, it looks like they're pinning the blame on the protesters with all these arrests.
--:-- Anita Nkonge: Yes, they were. President Samia Soluhas and during her speech even went as far as claiming that it was foreigners who had come in to try to instigate and cause disruption in the country.
--:-- Anita Nkonge: And tell us more about these charges. Well, we do know that right now it's 240 Tanzanians. We do not know if there'll be more arrested or more who will come up in court, but we know that so far it's more than 200.
--:-- Anita Nkonge: And they've been charged with treason from a Tanzanian magistrate court. According to the charge sheets, The accused are alleged of having incited public demonstrations at various times with the intention of obstructing the general election that took place.
--:-- Anita Nkonge: Many of them actually are young TikTokers, prominent businesswomen and men, all who have been very open about how they feel about the government, which is critical.
--:-- Anita Nkonge: And what is the mood in Tanzania following all that violence and the election result? Well, to be honest, shock and fear.
--:-- Anita Nkonge: We have been getting reports of people who are trying to look for their family members. Some of the family members are missing and they're not quite sure how to trace them. Lots of questions.
--:-- Anita Nkonge: I think it's important to add that Tanzania is a multi-party democracy, but over the years, the country has seen an increased crackdown on anyone who opposes the government, from opposition leaders to government critics and citizens who oppose the government.
--:-- Anita Nkonge: So I believe what's going on in Tanzania is a very tense time right now.
--:-- Alex Ritson: New Zealand's former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, a special envoy for Oceana at this year's COP climate summit, has warned that inaction and political division risk the survival of entire nations in the Pacific.
--:-- Alex Ritson: Speaking to the BBC in Brazil, she called on leaders to take politics out of the debate on climate change. Without significant change, you run the risk of a planet that's so warm that people will die from heat.
--:-- Alex Ritson: But that is actually the consequence of indecision and inaction. There should be no politics in that. It should be much more straightforward. So to any politician, I would say, endeavour to take the politics out because that is only holding us back.
--:-- Alex Ritson: The Pacific island nation of Palau is one of those smaller countries that would be adversely affected. It's made up of 340 low-lying coral and volcanic islands and is home to just 17,000 people.
--:-- Alex Ritson: Celia Hatton has been speaking with Palau's president, Sir Angle Whips, who's in Brazil, and asked him to explain what's at stake for his country.
--:-- Sir Angle Whips: Well, we have islands that will disappear. We have food resources, which are our taro swamps, will be inundated with seawater and people living along the coast of our main islands will be deeply impacted.
--:-- Sir Angle Whips: We have loss of life when it comes to fish and corals and jellyfish all important to our biodiversity and important to the tourism industry that we have.
--:-- Sir Angle Whips: The reality is the increasing number of storms, drought, and extreme heat. This is just what we are already facing and we just continue to face even more frequently.
--:-- Sir Angle Whips: So what are you hoping to get out of this COP summit? Some small island states say they're not attending because of the expense, but you've obviously decided it's worth it to a certain degree. What are you hoping to achieve?
--:-- Sir Angle Whips: Well, we need to see tangible results, and that includes a credible pathway to limit warming to 1.5. We need all countries submitting and implementing highly ambitious national commitments.
--:-- Sir Angle Whips: Right now, only one-third have submitted. We need more. We also need climate finance that delivers and an adequately funded loss and damage facility.
--:-- Sir Angle Whips: There needs to be multi-year flows that enable us to plan for resilience, adaptation, and manage relocation where necessary. And all this must be done with urgency and integrity.
--:-- Sir Angle Whips: You know, at COP30, the world must show that it does recognize our special circumstances and is ready to honor the decades of promises.
--:-- Sir Angle Whips: You know, that's what it's been. You know, this year, it's 10 years since we all committed to 1.5. And really anything less would be a betrayal on the most vulnerable.
--:-- Sir Angle Whips: You're strategically quite an important country, aren't you? You're geographically closer to China than any other Pacific Island nation. You also have a really good relationship with the United States.
--:-- Sir Angle Whips: But you differ when it comes to the Trump administration and their position, their lack of faith in the Paris Agreement. How do you handle that divergence?
--:-- Sir Angle Whips: Well, you know, and that's the beauty of the world that we live in. I mean, we're democracies. We're free to have differing opinions. But in this case, that difference of opinion really threatens your country.
--:-- Sir Angle Whips: I mean, if they don't support this massive emitter of greenhouse gases doesn't fall in line to support any change. And that just means that we have to work even harder.
--:-- Sir Angle Whips: And, you know, one of the things that we're working hard on is to ensure that next year we have a COP in the Pacific, a COP in Australia, to bring the focus to the Pacific. Because for so long, the focus doesn't go to those that are most vulnerable.
--:-- Sir Angle Whips: And having an Australian COP, a Pacific COP, brings that focus there. I'd like to bring leaders to the Pacific that have those doubts. Because I think seeing is believing. And that's what we need to do. We need to work harder.
--:-- Alex Ritson: Lose weight or lose your job. That's the new warning for thousands of North Sea oil workers after a new safety policy ruled that the maximum weight workers being flown to oil rigs would be 124.7 kilograms, 19.5 stone.
--:-- Alex Ritson: That is so offshore workers can be winched to safety in case of emergencies. So how will this policy be implemented? And who will be affected? Ira Khan reports.
--:-- Ira Khan: There are dozens of oil rigs across the North Sea, where the sound of drills and cranes echo across the waters. On these isolated structures, offshore workers battle strong winds and waves for long hours.
--:-- Ira Khan: They operate heavy machinery while living on the platform for extended periods of time. And while for some industries maintaining a certain physique is important, the North Sea oil workers may not necessarily come to mind.
--:-- Ira Khan: But that is about to change. Offshore Energies UK, the leading body for the UK's offshore energy sector, has issued a maximum weight requirement of 124.7 kilos for its workers.
--:-- Ira Khan: This is to ensure offshore safety procedures, so workers can be taken via helicopter in case of illness or emergency. The rescue helicopter winch load can simply not lift anyone heavier.
--:-- Ira Khan: The company says more than 2,200 workers are currently above the weight limit and 2,500 are just under, meaning that the policy could affect almost 5,000 workers.
--:-- Ira Khan: Graham Skinner, the health and safety manager at OE UK, did not rule out that jobs could be lost if workers did not meet the requirement.
--:-- Graham Skinner: Employers will have a duty to support their workers through this and try and find reasonable solutions for it. But in the very worst cases, that would be the case for some people.
--:-- Ira Khan: We've Chosen to take a year to bring in this policy and to give everyone a really reasonable chance at losing all of that weight.
--:-- Ira Khan: Phil Perry is an offshore worker from Aberdeen who was 129 kilos at one stage, which would have been over the new limit.
--:-- Phil Perry: I think you can be healthy, but I think people just choose not to be. People come off shift after 12 hours, they go and get their snacks and they go to their bed.
--:-- Phil Perry: When you go offshore, there is gyms, you know you can go for a walk around the helideck and stuff like that, you know there's treadmills so they do give you the opportunity to you know you can be fit there.
--:-- Ira Khan: His colleagues now have a year to make sure they're under the limit because when the new rules come into effect, they will be weighed at the helipad and if they're too heavy, they will not be allowed to board the helicopters heading to the oil rigs.
--:-- Alex Ritson: Ira Khan, to end this podcast, a fresh look at one of the marvels of the ancient world, the amazing network of Roman roads.
--:-- Alex Ritson: As the proverb tells us, all roads lead to Rome, and at that time, they all did. Perhaps surprisingly, those who studied this ancient network didn't really know where many of them were located.
--:-- Alex Ritson: But now researchers have released an interactive map that reveals 300,000 kilometres of roads stretching from Britain to North Africa to the Middle East.
--:-- Alex Ritson: This report by our science correspondent, Helen Briggs.
--:-- Helen Briggs: It's been dubbed the Google Maps of Roman Roads, a high-resolution digital map of routes across the Roman Empire that's available for anyone to explore online.
--:-- Helen Briggs: The project, called Itinerary, charts about 185,000 miles of roads, pieced together using ancient atlases, military charts, and satellite images.
--:-- Helen Briggs: Dr Joseph Lewis from the University of Cambridge says it dispels the myth that all Roman roads were straight.
--:-- Dr Joseph Lewis: If the land is flat, it makes sense to build a straight road. But we do see particular locations where the road is more sinuous and follows the landscape and the terrain.
--:-- Helen Briggs: Because it's at a higher resolution than previous data sets, we can really start to understand how the road moves across the landscape.
--:-- Helen Briggs: The map shows a dense web of roads stretching from Britain to North Africa. Major routes linked cities, while thousands of smaller routes connected farms, villages, and forts.
--:-- Helen Briggs: The researchers hope the map will help historians understand the movement of people, goods, and even infectious diseases across the Roman Empire and allow anyone living today to find out if they're travelling on or near one of these ancient roads.
--:-- Alex Ritson: And that's all from us for now, but there'll be a new edition of the Global News Podcast later. If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email. The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk.
--:-- Alex Ritson: You can also find us on X at BBC World Service. Use the hashtag Global News Pod. This edition was mixed by Zabihullah Karouche and the editor is Karen Martin.
--:-- Alex Ritson: I'm Alex Ritson. Until next time, goodbye.
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