Violent protests in France for the third weekend in a row

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Available now on the documentary from the BBC World Service. In 2024, Jan and Els, a couple in their 70s, died together in the Netherlands in what's called a duo euthanasia. I'm Linda Pressley, and in the second of a two-part series, I meet their son. What's it like when your parents choose to die? Listen, though, by searching for the documentary, wherever you get to your BBC podcasts. Listen to the haunted library, wherever you get your podcasts, or find us on YouTube. It's a really peaceful demonstration about the cost of living and public services. Mask protesters throw fire bombs and paving stones at police in the Albanian capital, Tirana. After a deadly measles outbreak, Bangladesh faces another health care crisis. This time, dengue fever. Also, in this podcast, the UN demands an investigation into the death of one of its employees being held by the Houthis in Yemen and. Ladies and gentlemen, you're in distinguished company. Moreover, you're in dangerous company. A new exhibition in London dedicated to the Queen of Crime, Agatha Christie. We start in France, where protests have turned violent for the third weekend in a row. The Interior Ministry said that more than 500 people were arrested. Police use tear gas and water cannon to try to disperse rioters who threw paving stones and petrol bombs at officers. Some demonstrators wore Halloween costumes. A curfew is in place in parts of Paris, from where James Waterhouse reports. A now familiar crescendo to demonstrations, the authorities were especially hoping to avoid. It ended, as ever, with a confrontation that police eventually would. They've already deployed tear gas, which burns the nostrils and stings the eyes straight away and it's effectively forcing people back. Over fears, there'd be a repeat of widespread riots. Those protesting in Paris about their country's direction were forced into an area away from the centre. I think it's important to protest argues T-2. The state is becoming more authoritarian. As the fact we are protesting here on the outskirts, they are keeping us away, he says. Month and a half into these rallies, the numbers of those taken to the streets might be waning, but they are still significant, and the costumes aren't the only theme. This is a political alienation felt by most young activists. What used to be student protests over the state of colleges has spread. Infation is going up, salaries are not going up, the world is burning, basically. On the student point, this week the government hasn't made small concessions. Millions of euros for schools, smaller classrooms, a reform of the French equivalent of the admission system. That's something. Yes, that's something, but I think it's coming too late. I mean, the people are already too mad. The problem for ministers is that this movement has snowballed this. It's almost no longer about specifics, but a political overhaul. And the direction of that change, well, that is what, tens of thousands of people are trying to influence. Because in six months time, there is a presidential election, and rivals are either looking to capitalise on the crowds or the disorder. James Waterhouse, there were similar protests in other European countries on Saturday, which were led by young people. Some of them clashed with police in Germany, where shops were looted in the city of Frankfurt. Organizers of a youth movement said that more than 100,000 people took part in peaceful protests in 34 cities, calling for better education, lower living costs, and no compulsory military service. The lack of opportunities for young people has also been a growing concern in Albania. And in the latest anti-government demonstrations in the capital, Tirana, masked protesters through fire bombs and paving stones at police. Saturday's protests began peacefully outside the education ministry, but the situation turned violent after dozens of youths attacked security forces and set fire to rubbish bins. Police responded with Watercannon, journalist Alice Taylor told the BBC what prompted these protests. It was the proposal, rather than the beginning of works on a project by a link to Trump's son-in-law, Derek Kushner, in the south of the country, the development of a large mega-luxury resort on an island and part of the coast, which people objected to. But this mushroomed into a much wider movement, a call for not just the resignation of the Prime Minister, but the entire political class, from the two main ruling parties, sweeping changes to electoral laws, to various laws regarding foreign investment, protection of national areas, and a transitional government followed by fresh elections in six months' time. The youth have joined this in recent weeks. They want changes to the education system and they want to be heard, they want to be listened to, but they also want a political reset. They want to see themselves represented in parliament, not the same two parties that have been there. The Prime Minister has been adamant that, you know, he wants to have dialogue with the people, but he's not prepared to resign. Alice Taylor in Tirana. Emotional reunions took place on Saturday in northern Ukraine, where evacuees from the Russian-occupied town of Alekshky greeted by friends and family, hundreds of people arrived in buses and ambulances from Belarus, having traveled via Crimea and Russia since leaving the Ukrainian town. Ukraine's President Zelensky has thanked the U.S. First Lady Melania Trump for her role in brokering the local ceasefire that allowed the evacuations. Our correspondent Dan Johnson sent this report. Those are the screams of teenage sisters Dasha and Anya, reunited with their father after three years apart. Mikhailo was stuck in Alekshky under Russian occupation, and they feared they'd never see him again. Demodazana, clasps his face, stroking his forehead again and again. Can you just tell me how it feels to have your dad back? I don't have any words to say. What do we feel? What do you like to see him? Very good. Mikhailo told me the Russians are monsters and conditions got worse every day. Olga and Vacheslav stayed together and stayed in Alekshky, surviving by cooking plants. "In a word, it was horror," she says. "We came back from hell, Vacheslav adds. That's a short word," says Olga. "But it contains all the horror, everything." This entire initiative has been extraordinary. A ceasefire negotiated by Melania Trump that came as a surprise, but has been respected and has delivered these people finally to safety. It's given hope that maybe it can be repeated. It may even help bring wider peace. But there is also concern about the way Russia will try to climb credit for all this. Russian forces surrounded Alekshky, ruling its skies with drones and blocking its roads with mines. The terrified population went without water and power and with food running out. The man who eventually led them to safety told me he hopes to save more lives like this. It was a historical, new format. Was it difficult to go? - It was difficult, absolutely. You can imagine my own feeling, how you can trust like 100%. - Can this happen again? - We will see. This most unlikely truce has made a real impact, but by Monday, the fighting will restart. And despite the relief of reaching the freedom of Ukraine, they haven't escaped Russia's war. Dan Johnson in Ukraine. Andy Burnham has gone further than any previous British Prime Minister by saying he is open to cause for the state to formally apologize for its role in the transatlantic slave trade. It comes as King Charles is in Antigua on the latest leg of his Caribbean tour and to open the 2026 Commonwealth heads of government meeting. A month ago, officials were saying that there would be no apology. This latest U-turn reopens an issue that Bucky and Palace had taken a lot of care to step very carefully around. But Samuel's is the Deputy Chair of the Jamaican National Reparations Commission. He spoke to the BBC about the upcoming summit and the King's Caribbean trip. He's walking in a crime scene. So at this Commonwealth conference, there is no common wealth. There's no wealth, and that is common amongst us. It's an abject poverty. And these are issues that we want to be resolved. And a simple, we regret what happened is not sufficient. King Charles cannot walk into the Caribbean and think that he'll be greeted by young children waving flags. We have nothing to celebrate. We have a lot to mourn for what has happened to our country and our people. But some eels. The head of the summit, Andy Burnham, said he wanted to offer a structured dialogue with those affected, but ruled out considering financial reparations. Here's our political correspondent, Billy Kenber. The UK's longstanding position has been that it won't apologise or pay reparations for what the King has called the darkest days of colonial era slavery. But Andy Burnham has now opened the possibility of going further than his predecessors and offering a formal apology for Britain's historical role in slavery. The Chancellor John Healey told the BBC that this won't mean agreeing to demands for financial compensation. We are open to a discussion about an apology. He feels that's the right thing, but he doesn't believe that reparations are the right approach. And considering a formal apology doesn't mean accepting that British people now should accept the financial liability for any party in things that happened hundreds of years ago, in which they had no role. Britain, like some other European nations, has faced pressure to make amends for its central role in the Transatlantic Slave Trade. The Labour MP, Bel Rabiro Adi, who chairs the all-party parliamentary group for African reparations, said Reparatory Justice wasn't just about financial reparations, but should include a broader range of measures, such as education programmes and debt relief. The fact that we talk about it in financial terms is actually just to stop the debate, because you can refuse a check, but you can't essentially refuse the truth, and you can't essentially refuse the idea that we have to go about fixing these things that we got wrong. My worry is the focus on financial reparations, and I think that's deeply problematic and has not quite listened to what people have said. Mr Burnham will be hoping that setting out his position on this contentious issue might ensure he's given a more welcoming reception at the Commonwealth Leaders Summit than Sir Keir Starmer received two years ago. "It'll be Trisha Engobani is an award-winning Nigerian novelist and journalist based in London. She was aware from childhood that she had slave traders in her family history, and she says she is not ashamed of that. She's just had an article published in The Times and spoke to Owen Bennett Jones about this latest announcement by the British Prime Minister." "I'm highlighting an aspect of the conversation that is missing. People seem to forget that Britain today is not made up entirely of the white people of 1751. Britain today includes people from those countries that were historical victims of Britain's crimes. It includes Nigerians, Ghanaians, people from the Caribbean who all carry British passport today. So Britain is apologizing. All these people are apologizing to themselves whether it's African supplies of slaves or Africans who are part of Britain today and who are partakers of the good things Britain has to offer and therefore the crimes that Britain committed in the past as well. That acknowledgement is missing. The same way the acknowledgement of the African role in the slavery is missing in the conversations and I'm just saying can we have a fuller conversation otherwise everything else sounds disingenious. You have this extraordinary history where you know your great-grandfather was a slave. It was a form of BBC correspondent actually who also discovered she had slavers in her history and she and some relatives got together and made personal reparations. Can you reflect on how that BBC correspondent reflected on this and you do? "Even by the customs of my people, the evil people, I have no right to apologize on behalf of my family. My culture doesn't give me that right. And then in my Times article I referred to a New Yorker article I had written in 2018 which was the first time I went public with my family's story. I described how my family had had some sort of entornment ceremony. My father felt that we had offended the God because at the time these things were happening our culture sanctioned slavery. They were not committing any crimes. The view all men are critical and slavery is bad. Came with Christianity. The fact that I can attorn for something my great-grandfather did, it's arrogant." "When you say how far should you go? I mean, there are leaders in the Caribbean who are saying several billion pounds." "Britain is going to pay those trillions. This check will now come from beneath King Charles's mattress. African taxpayers in the UK, the bus drivers will pay. The Caribbean teachers will pay." He said, "How much can you pay to our tone?" "So it's Britain pays the trillions. But we suddenly draw a line under the composition about slavery and not refer to it again. Nobody points fingers. Nobody says anybody should be ashamed. Is that the guarantee we have when a number is put on it?" "A Dolby Trisha Engobani speaking to Owen Bennett Jones." "When it comes to Halloween costumes, vampires, zombies, and witches are familiar sites. Medieval nights, less so. And rare are still a nights who hire electric bikes and challenge each other to a joust in a public park. Hundreds of people in East London watched two men do just that, after footage of their first showdown attracted millions of views online. Ella Bicknell picks up the story. An ancient tradition with a modern twist. An estimated 5,000 people descended on London fields to watch Jack Carden and Cameron Carnegie Brown duel on their electric steeds. The accidental social media success of their first joust inspired the pair to stage a charity rematch. Both were dressed in full suits of armour, helmets, chainmail and capes. They even decorated their bikes in heraldic colours to match their lances. Cameron, a cosplayer who goes by the name Cam Tholamieu the first won the contest, but he says that's not what matters. Despite safety warnings from the e-bike operator Lyme, the pair secured police approval for the gathering, but they hadn't anticipated quite so many people turning up. And the event has won approval from the professionals too. Andy Dean of Britain's Role Armory's team says cycling jousting is a legitimate sport, an ideal for anyone who can't afford a horse. Ella Bicknell. Still to come in this podcast. When the queen died, in this case I actually mean Dolly Parton, we got millions of people who came because they really wanted to read the whole story and history and all of that. And you're not going to get that from a quick question and answer session with an AI model. Wikipedia celebrates its 25th birthday. I'm Linda Presley and in the second of a two-part series, I meet their son. Listen now by searching for the documentary wherever you get to your BBC podcasts. Welcome to the haunted library. Join me, Colin Morgan, as I read Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, a story of science and ambition, loneliness and longing and what it truly means to be human. Listen to the haunted library wherever you get your podcasts or find us on YouTube. It felt like everything I believed in was suddenly collapsing. This is the story of an Islamic boarding school in Indonesia with a dark secret of the school's head teacher. This was someone I respected above anyone else and the investigation led by students he's trying to silence. This is World of Secrets, catching my teacher. All episodes are available now wherever you get your BBC podcasts. A question of science is back with a brand new series. Join me, Professor Brian Cox and a studio audience as we discuss and debate the most pressing scientific questions of the day. Questions such as how is AI transforming medicine? Can we cure addiction? How can we save our oceans? Can we beat superbooks? Every episode is driven by your curiosity and said this is the most important bit by a panel of people who know what they are talking about. Listen to series two of a question of science now wherever you get your podcasts. This is the global news podcast to Bangladesh where experts are sounding alarm bells. over an unusually bad outbreak of dengue fever. Recorded infections have reached the highest monthly total this year, with 173 people dying from the disease in October alone. It couldn't come at a worst time. Bangladesh is also battling the world's worst measles outbreak. Anchor Desai spoke to our South Asia expert and barrison at a russian. The Bangladesh health system is struggling to cope with these two outbreaks. First, let us look at the dengue one. And what the doctors are saying that in many hospitals, people are coming in large numbers and they're not able to manage. They can't find beds. People are staying in Varanadas and in the side corridors because of lack of space. Now, the reason why it is spreading? First of all, people get it through 80s mosquitoes. And many people come to the hospital very late. They people think they get the fever. Maybe it is a normal flu like symptoms so they can hold on for a few days instead of going to the hospital, but then it gets worse. So what the doctors are saying is that if you get fever, come as soon as possible. The second thing is repeat infections. People who get it like two years or three years ago or even six months ago, they get it again. So that makes the situation worse because they are very susceptible. If you already had a dengue, it is likely that you can get it. And that's when it becomes very deadly, that's why people are struggling. And people are also talking about, you know, this is the monsoon season. They have to remove all the puddles, water puddles, where the mosquitoes breed. And they have to go for this anti-masquito activities like, you know, using smoke and then various medicines where you can spray all over the place. And then also the monsoon pattern has changed a bit. That is also giving a reason for, you know, high breeding of mosquitoes. And then there's also been a contribution of added measles. So in terms of the pressure on the strains on the resources of the authorities, tell me a bit about that. The hospital system is already facing problem with the ting. And then the measles. The measles could have been avoided because it is normally transmitted through human to human when I talk, when you sneeze. But what happened was in 24/25, when the government was going through, Galtry was going through a political turmoil, then they missed out on the number of people who could be vaccinated, basically babies. So the children were not vaccinated up to the numbers, and that's why you have the resurgence of measles. Now more than 1,200 people have died, most of them children under the age of five. But now they have vaccinated 20 million children and UNICEF and other international agencies. They are working to provide more vaccine, and the government hopes that at least by the end of this year, they can bring the situation under control. Anne Barassan at Erosion. The United Nations has condemned the death of one of its employees who was being held by the Hoothers in Yemen and has demanded an independent investigation. It said Mohamed Al-Shami had been arbitrarily held by the Iran-backed group since June 2024. Our Global Affairs reporter Mimi Swaby has more details. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volkoturk, said no explanation had been given for he called a heartbreaking loss. Mr. Al-Shami worked for the UN Human Rights Office in Yemen. His family says he died more than a month ago, but relatives had only recently been informed. Yemen's Information Minister has also condemned his death, citing the mysterious circumstances surrounding it. There are currently at least 70 UN personnel being held by the Hoothers. Mr. Turk has expressed serious concern over their safety and wellbeing and called for their release. He said the detention of employees significantly undermines the organization's ability to help Yemen's population amid its severe humanitarian and human rights crisis. Roughly 80% of Yemen's population are in need of humanitarian aid and protection. The UN has a substantial presence in the country. It's represented by 21 agencies, funds and specialized programs. Yemen slid back into war this summer after four years of relative calm. The Iran-backed Hoothees are fighting the Yemeni government, which is backed by a Saudi-led coalition. "Need me Swaby." Wikipedia is celebrating 25 years since it was founded. The free online encyclopedia is written and edited by a vast army of interested volunteers. Anyone can contribute to its content, including you or me. It's been hugely successful, but is AI encroaching on Wikipedia and can it continue in its current form? Johnny Diamond asked Wikipedia's co-founder, Jimmy Wales. We're seeing some decline in traffic. We think it's mainly the short answers, so people ask a quick answer from Google and that's actually what's eating into Google's advertising revenue from what I read today, with that thought that was kind of interesting. But the long-read stuff, people really still come to Wikipedia when they really want to learn about something. I give you an example, when the queen died, in this case, I actually mean Dolly Parton. We got millions of people who came because they really wanted to read the whole story and the history and all of that, and you're not going to get that from a quick question and answer session with an AI model. Can you see a world where AI severely disrupts the model that you have at the moment? You see the undermining of all kinds of different industries through AI. Yours may well not be immune. Certainly, it's not hard to imagine that as AI improves and gets better, that it could do a better job of not hallucinating and so on and so forth, and that will be a competitor in some sense. What's funny about us is we are a community of nerds and we write an encyclopedia as our hobby, and we just enjoy doing it, and then we look around the world and we're like, "Oh wow, look, people seem to like what we're doing. That's great, but that's not why we do it in the first place." And certainly we are talking to a lot of the AI companies to say, "Look, the only reason your AI is pretty good is because it's read all of Wikipedia." And so you want to be really careful not to undermine us because without that human layer of judgment and taste and thoughtfulness, the AI's are just going to be forced to train on, I don't know, X, and it's going to be pretty angry and stupid if that's what it's training on. And so we really do think preserving quality, human knowledge, and that includes, by the way, quality journalism, academic work, books, novels, all this kind of stuff is really, really important, and it's important as well for the AI companies. If they undermine the very thing that they're feeding on, that's going to be a big problem. Do you get the sense that the AI companies that you speak to are listening? Yeah, some more than others. But certainly I think people are aware, I mean, there's a lot of talk in the industry about what they call model collapse, where if AI only trains on the output of AI, it can quite easily spiral into nonsense. And you know, you really do need something somewhere, a human's pretty good, that can actually look at the facts of reality and say, "No, actually we need to ground this in some ground truth." You know, a journalist who was there on the scene and saw the thing, a Wikipedia who read all the papers and made a judgment, that kind of thing is still very, very important. Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales talking to Johnny Diamond. Who? Why? When? How? Where? And which? Those are the building blocks of the classic crime novel, as itemized in one of Agatha Christie's notebooks. It's on show at the British Library's New Exhibition about the Queen of Crime, which is just opened in London. It was a formula that undoubtedly worked her murder mystery books, featuring Ms. Marple and the Belgian detective, Accual Poirot, have sold over two billion copies. Jonathan Fenton Fisher went to the British Library to take a look at the show. Ladies and gentlemen, you're in Distinguished Company, moreover, you're in Dangerous Company. People often ask me, "What made me take up writing?" You see, I put it all down to the fact that I never had any education. No education and writing at a time when being a female author was as hard as ever, yet, Agatha Christie defied the odds. She went on to become the best-selling novelist of all time. This major New Exhibition at the British Library looks back on an extraordinary life and legacy. It recreates scenes from her life and those books, including an archaeological dig from the time she spent in Iraq, and it's there where I meet my first victim. "The murderer is with us, and every one of you is a suspect." "And who are you?" "I'm Sophie De France. I'm creator of a Roman's collections here at the British Library. And I was also project creator on this exhibition on Agatha Christie." "Here we are in a section that we call the dig. People tend to imagine her in England writing from her cottage, but she actually spent a good part of her life in the Middle East working on this archaeological dig. So she used that in many of her novels, for instance "Murder in Mesopotamia", where you can find an object that you can see in the exhibition, which is a wonderful dagger. She used it in her novel and she did that a lot with the object that surrounded her." Another of the exhibition's recreated locations, train carriages from probably Christie's most famous book "Murder on the Orient Express". "We have a wonderful letter that she wrote to her husband at the beginning of the 1930s when she was traveling on her own on the Orient Express, and she actually got stuck on the Orient Express. There were flooding, then turned into a snow storm, and she started observing the people around her in the dining car." "Some are conspicuous by a choice. Some are insignificant by nature. Others are incognito by right. On the Orient Express, however. " She wrote that wonderful letter to her husband, starting with the words "Oh, my darling, what a journey". And she describes the people who were actually the characters. that you then discover in our novel "Murder on the Orient Express". So it's wonderful how she used what she observed to fatigue in our novels. And there is someone else at this exhibition with a rather special family connection. I am James Pritchard, Agatha Christie's great-grandson. She was self-educated. I'm not quite sure why her siblings were deemed worthy of an education, including her sister. And she taught herself everything and didn't do too bad. He did it. Will you please raise your glasses? And the toast is to Mrs Agatha Christie, Commander of the Corps of the Polish Empire. By 1962, Agatha Christie's fame was already set in stone. Her novels had sold in their millions, translated into dozens of languages. Her West End Play, the mouse trap, had been on stage at that point for 10 years. Today, with over 30,000 performances, it is the world's longest running play. That report from Jonathan Fenton Fisher and the exhibition Agatha Christie. A world of mystery continues at the British Library here in London. Until next June. And that's all from us for now. If you want to get in touch, you can email us at [email protected]. This edition of the Global News Podcast was mixed by Pat Sissons and the producer was Emma Joseph. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Alex Ritson until next time. Goodbye. In 2024, Jan and Els, a couple in their 70s, died together in the Netherlands in what's called a duo, Euthanasia. Listen, though, by searching for the documentary, wherever you get to your BBC podcasts.