British MP's warned of 'relentless' China spying campaign

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.

0:48I'm Janet Jalil and at 16 Hours GMT on Tuesday the 18th of November, these are our main stories. Britain's security service warns politicians that Chinese spies are carrying out a relentless this campaign to influence and interfere with their work. As anger grows in the Philippines about alleged corruption that led to inadequate flood defences, prosecutors file charges. A human rights group accuses the French oil giant Total of complicity in war crimes in Mozambique. Also in this podcast, we've seen vaccinators get onto camels to reach girls that are part of remote hurting communities. We've seen vaccinators get into boats to reach people that live on the banks of rivers and don't have roads to reach their villages.

1:37The pursuit to prevent cervical cancer and save hundreds of thousands of lives. And should there be a Spisometer, an index grading foods hotness?

1:53The so-called golden era of thriving relations between Britain and China following the handover of Hong Kong is now a fading memory. Relations have deteriorated sharply in recent years. Last month, a case against two British men accused of spying for China collapsed suddenly, sparking recriminations. There are also security concerns about plans for a new Chinese mega-embassy in London near its financial centre. Now, the Domestic Intelligence Service has warned members of the British Parliament to be aware of possible Chinese espionage. The UK security minister, Dan Jarvis, addressed MPs. This activity involves a covert and calculated attempt by a foreign power to interfere with our sovereign affairs in favour of its own interests.

2:45And this government will not tolerate it. As we record this podcast, there's been no comment from the Chinese authorities. Our UK political correspondent, Rob Watson, told me more about this latest alert. It went from the UK's Domestic Intelligence Service, that is MI5, in a form of letter to MPs and members of the House of Lords, the unelected chamber, essentially warning them and the officials and those around who work for them that China is essentially trying to interfere in Britain's democratic institutions as sort of broad and, if you like, as grave as that. And when the minister who you just heard from there was outlining it to Parliament.

3:26He said it wasn't just about the UK's politicians that others needed to be careful. And he mentioned people who worked in think tanks, economists, government officials, you know, a broad range of people who might be useful to Chinese state intelligence. And it's not the first time there's been such a warning. Relations have become pretty poor between China and Britain. Yes, I mean, this feels more like a continuation rather than a sort of seminal moment in Chinese-UK relations because the minister himself mentioned that it went back to 2021 where there were first concerns about Chinese state officials trying to interfere, trying to butter up, to influence parliamentarians or those close to parliament.

4:12So I guess one wants to see this as an ongoing threat, but I mean obviously immensely serious. There has been a statement in parliament, And while this may not be some new action, it's not suggesting that somehow China is doing something new. I think the minister used the phrase it confirmed a pattern of behaviour. But nonetheless, one that the UK government is trying to say it is taking seriously. And China is very important to Britain, clearly, because it is the world's second biggest economy. And China has issued menacing words, if you like, about this row over the planned embassy in London.

4:46So a very difficult decision there for the UK government. It is a very difficult balance. It's not just the UK government that has faced this. I mean, all over the world countries face that in their dealings with China, certainly those in the sort of Western democratic world. And it was interesting towards the end of his statement, he talks about this difficulty of you have to both engage China. He said that was very, very important to engage with them, but also to challenge them on issues like this. Rob Watson. Prosecutors in the Philippines have charged several people in connection with an ongoing corruption scandal which resulted in inadequate or non-existent flood defences.

5:22In a country which has recently experienced deadly storms, the allegations have sparked huge protests. As our global affairs reporter Paul Moss explains.

5:36Torrential rain pours down as Typhoon Kalmaegi strikes the central Philippine island of Cebu. Whole families forced to climb onto their roofs to escape the resulting flood water.

5:50More than 200 Filipinos died in this month's storms, but this is a country where bad weather has often proved devastating, so people might well have treated the latest catastrophe with resignation. However, it came amidst allegations that much flood defence work had not been carried out properly. Projects were left uncompleted or poorly completed. More than 200 flood projects were registered as finished, but in fact had never been built. A government minister then admitted that nearly three quarters of the money allocated to flood defence work had gone missing. Now, people in the Philippines are accustomed to corruption, just as they are to natural disasters.

6:31But this scandal seems to have proved too much for public tolerance.

6:41Hundreds of thousands took to the streets, and it seems their protests have now had an effect. On Tuesday, a congressman was charged in connection with the alleged scams, along with several government staffers and figures from the construction industry. and the Philippines' Ombudsman Office promised that more prosecutions would follow. Public funds were meant to protect communities, the spokesman said, not to enrich officials. Paul Moss. Now to a phenomenal achievement. Cervical cancer has the most devastating consequences for women in lower-income countries, which often lack the facilities to prevent or treat it.

7:19But the World Vaccine Alliance, Gavi, says it's prevented nearly one and a half million deaths from cervical cancer with a three-year vaccination campaign in poorer regions. It says an estimated 86 million girls have been protected against cervical cancer. The head of Gavi's HPV programme, Emily Kobayashi, told the BBC about the challenges it had to overcome. We are celebrating today the number of girls that we've reached and I think that every time a new country introduces the HPV vaccine we have seen that misinformation starts circulating right off the bat. And I also think it's natural. Parents have questions about something that is new and that is affecting their child's health.

8:02So what we've seen is that governments have mounted a really proactive response. First, understanding what questions people have, what their concerns are. Secondly, finding the trusted messengers who can reach those parents and answer their questions and address their concerns. And then equipping those messengers with the right information so that they can convey it. Sometimes it's online influencers, sometimes it's doctors who can be very compelling, and sometimes it's somebody like a religious leader or a volunteer in the community. And the fact is that once parents know that HPV vaccine is safe, it's been tested and used in many countries around the world, it's highly effective at preventing cancer, parents are ready to accept it.

8:48These campaigns are often delivered through a campaign approach that's led by the government. And in that approach, they're designing for each community in each part of the country how to reach the eligible girls who are generally age 9 to 14. So in some remote areas, we've seen vaccinators get onto camels to reach girls that are part of remote herding communities. We've seen vaccinators get into boats to reach people that live on the banks of rivers and don't have roads to reach their villages. We've seen people go to schools that have thousands of children involved and vaccinate hundreds of girls in a day.

9:23So using this wide array of strategies to reach girls where they are, that's how we're able to reach really high coverage. Emily Kobayashi, the head of Gavi's HPV program. We hear a lot about the potentially scary consequences of artificial intelligence, but there are also lots of positives. One way the technology could help us is in speeding up research into ways of stopping antimicrobial resistance. This occurs when bacteria become resistant to the drugs used to treat them, such as antibiotics, and it's feared that this could lead to the deaths of millions of people in the coming decades. Professor Aradazi is from the Fleming Initiative, which is a global project based here in London.

10:06He told Nick Robinson more about the work they're doing. AI could be transformative. I mean, in many ways, in new drug discovery, screening millions of assets for their antimicrobial properties. AI recently worked with DeepMind looking at the transfer of resistant genes between bacteria or phages, for example. A work which was done for 10 years by one of my colleagues was done in 48 hours in a lab. So that is the key, is it? It's speed? It's speed and specificity and sensitivity of what you're actually doing, the experiment itself. So that, as it were, is the work in the lab or on the computer, But this has got three dimensions to it.

10:46You want the public's engagement and involvement to. Absolutely. Nick, I'm a scientist. I wake up in the morning. That's what wakes me up in the morning. But besides the science, we have to engage the public in this debate. This is a demand-led problem. We've all done it. Feeling slightly under the weather, you go to your general practitioner and you get a prescription of antibiotics. That has to stop. That is the main driver for resistance. Bacteria are very smart, very smart bugs. The more threat you give them in antibiotics, the more they're able to develop genes that will resist that antibiotic.

11:19That is why we're running out of antibiotics. So you need better science. You need the public to stop demanding antibiotics. What do you need to see in the policy? We have to. On the policy side, the regulatory framework, the prescribing. For example, 60 % of antibiotics prescribed are without a diagnostic test. Now, tell me if there's any disease I could treat you without knowing what I'm treating. And 60 % of these, majority of these are viral illnesses, not bacterial illnesses. So you're actually driving changes in the microbiome, the gut bacteria, which are very important to your well-being.

11:52And you're developing resistance. And to be clear, that is personal. It's not that you're causing a problem for society. You are causing a problem for your own health. Absolutely. If you just think, oh, as a precaution, why don't I just take a course of antibiotics? Absolutely. And the global side as well is the misuse of antibiotics in animal health. 80 % of cattle in the US are fed on antibiotics. So we need to do something in animal health as well, because resistant bugs transfer to humans. Professor Ara Dazi. Still to come in the Global News podcast. The term actually goes back to the 1960s.

12:27And originally it wouldn't have been these digital relationships, but it would have been the types of relationships you would have had with the Beatles or the royal family or any kind of one-sided famous person. Parasocial is named as Cambridge Dictionary's Word of the Year.

12:48If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

13:26A human rights group has accused the French oil giant Total of complicity in war crimes at one of its gas sites in Mozambique. A European NGO filed a legal complaint with France's anti-terrorism prosecutor seeking to tie the company to alleged torture and abuse carried out by Mozambican soldiers who were deployed to protect the gas project in the aftermath of a deadly Islamist attack. Total has denied any wrongdoing. Our Paris correspondent Andrew Harding is following this case. So this dates back to 2021 and northern Mozambique, an area called Cabo Delgado. Two huge things are going on simultaneously.

14:09One is a massive gas investment project onshore and offshore. It's the biggest private investment project in Africa to date. Separately to that, but obviously linked, there is a terrible Islamist insurgency that is causing absolute chaos across the region, lots of beheadings. And in early 2021, the Islamists attack a nearby town close to the gas field on shore, and they kill perhaps 1 ,500 people. Soon after that, the troops, the Mozambican military who are guarding Total and other company's holdings on shore who are basically protecting the government's investment and this international consortium's investment they take about 200 civilian men they put them in containers and it's alleged they kill most of them so it's a massacre that's been well documented and this case that's being brought by this human rights group why now well they claim that they They have evidence that Total knew about what was going on, should have known more about what was going on, and should never have got involved in basically cutting a deal with Mozambique, a corrupt government with an army that was notorious, the claimants claim, for human rights abuses.

15:35And therefore, they should never have relied on Mozambique to guard this huge investment in what was a very unstable part of the world. So they are linking them in complicity to those human rights abuses, what they call war crimes. And they have filed a complaint here in France with anti-terrorist prosecutors. And how has Total responded to these very serious allegations? Well, so far today, they haven't replied to us. We've been trying to reach out to them. But in the past, to these same allegations, they have explicitly and repeatedly denied any responsibility or knowledge about what was going on at the time.

16:16And they say they can't be held responsible for what the Mozambican security forces were doing at a time when they had already basically closed down operations because of the attack on the nearby town of Parma that I mentioned. Our Paris correspondent, Andrew Harding. Cryptocurrencies have recently soared in value, especially after being heavily promoted by President Trump. But as fears grow of a tech bubble, traders have been getting nervous and more than$1 trillion has been wiped from the cryptocurrency market in the past six weeks. The world's largest digital currency, Bitcoin, is now around the$90 ,000 mark, down from its record high of$126 ,000 in early October.

17:04Our North America business correspondent Michelle Fleury looks at the reasons behind the Bitcoin slide. Talk about a crypto crush. Almost exactly one year after rising above 90 ,000 for the first time in its history, Bitcoin has crashed back to earth, wiping out its gains for this year and entering bear market territory. Only a month ago, the price of the oldest cryptocurrency hit an all-time high above 125 ,000. This was, after all, meant to be crypto's year. It had support from Wall Street to the White House, not to mention institutional cash. Remember, big money helped the price of the oldest cryptocurrency hit that record high.

17:44So what's changed? Well, there are concerns over the Fed's next move. Lower interest rates had helped boost the price of cryptocurrencies. But traders are no longer sure that the Fed will cut interest rates in December. And that makes investing in traditional markets, well, a little more exciting and less risky. Investors also appear to have lost faith in Donald Trump's attempts to position the United States as the crypto capital of the world. Plus, those professional investors, well, they've grown more cautious with cash flowing out of ETFs tied to Bitcoin and other currencies in recent weeks.

18:21And with this digital asset market faltering, so is the wealth that President Donald Trump and his family has won from cryptocurrencies. A reminder that even high-profile crypto investors aren't immune to a market meltdown. Michelle Fleury. An hour's drive northwest of Madrid, a huge cross rises on the horizon. It belongs to a monument once known as the Valley of the Fallen, built by Spain's dictator General Francisco Franco. After his death in 1975, Franco was buried there, and it became a shrine for the far right. But in 2019, his remains were exhumed and transported to a family crypt. Now, as Linda Presley reports, the government is planning a museum to explain the controversial site to visitors.

19:09The Valley of Cualegamoros has always been contentious in Spain. Built by Francisco Franco, partly with the forced labour of political prisoners, For many, it represents his nationalist victory in the civil war. And its underground crypts contain the human remains of some 33 ,000 people killed in that war. Although those are from both sides of the conflict, most Republican families weren't told the remains of their loved ones were being transported there. But others have a different connection to the valley. When I visited with a BBC's producer in Spain, Esperanza Escribano, we met a couple, Adrián and Juana.

19:46She's Romanian, but grew up in Spain, and remembers her first visit here. I thought it was a marvellous place, very beautiful. So the first time I came here, I told him, and I always tell this story, if one day we get married, it has to be here. Adrián's family have a strong connection to the valley. It wasn't only forced labour that built the monument. Adrián's grandfather arrived in the 1950s. One day he found out that they were looking for people to work in this place and he decided to come because the salary was the highest in Spain. Once the monument was completed, Adrián's grandfather settled here and would go on to run the funicular that used to take visitors up to the base of the cross.

20:36Juana wasn't put off by the stories of human remains in the crypt that Adrián told her. Yes, he told me the history of the place, but that's the past. In 2022, Juana got her wish and married Adrián in the Basilica of the Valley of Guadalajara. Given the strong feelings this place generates across the political spectrum in Spain, I wonder if there were any guests who refused to come to Juana and Adrián's wedding. No, my friends, and not too many of them, are into politics. and they all understood that they were not coming to something political, they were coming to my wedding and they wanted to be with me.

21:18So they want to build some kind of museum or some kind of structure here to tell the story of the valley? What do you think about those plans? If the plans of the government are going to improve this place, then I would agree. But if they're going to build a museum that explains what happened correctly And if for once we're going to get rid of all the political meanings of this place, I would agree with it. Adrienne wants to see some economic development in the area. Perhaps that will come with the government's plan to build a new museum. That report by Linda Presley. Now, here's a headline to stop you in your tracks.

21:59Sorting out a spice scale could unite humanity. It's in the Times of London newspaper. It's a topic column by Satnan Sanghira in which he acknowledges that the world may have bigger problems to deal with, but that we are, as he puts it, in desperate need of a standardised international system of measurement for spiciness to make the lottery of ordering food described as hot or spicy, well, a bit less of a lottery, to avoid either bland disappointment or excruciating pain, which poses a problem on live radio. This is my colleague, Sean Lay, being given an introduction to some spice by Jen Ferguson, a purveyor of hot sauces in London.

22:44This is the last one. This is a poor man's hot one. It's called the last dab, and this is a lot of sauce you're putting on that crisp there, Sean. Right. In the last half minute or so, I'm going to just try this. So it's called the last dab, and it may be the last thing we ever hear from Sean.

23:07You said there's a kind of thousand and that's two million on this scale. There's two million plus. Oh, I think this is the one. I may still be tasting this at breakfast tomorrow. Ouch. Well, Gurdeep Loyal is an award-winning food writer and the author of the book Flavour Heroes. The first thing that we need to sort of decipher, though, is the difference between spiciness and heat. And if you think about it, you know, a Christmas cake is full of spice and a cardamom bun is full of spice. It's just that the spice is cardamom. What we're talking about here really is chilly heat. And actually, interestingly, we already have that spectrum, which is the Scoville factor, which is what we were talking about in that clip just now.

23:47And I really felt that heat in my tongue as you played it. I think for me, one of the things about it, though, is that having a universal scale, and I'm not sure it's quite the right thing, because what it would do is sort of conflate every cuisine of the world into one. And there's just so much nuance that I don't think we can never necessarily get into a universal scale. Yeah. I mean, I hear what you're saying. But at the same time, I've had those conversations in restaurants and cafes where the waiter may say, are you all right with it being spicy? And to which the answer is, well, yes. But and then you sort of don't quite know whether the roof of your mouth is going to be taken off or whether it's just going to be some gentle background heat.

24:28And I understand it also reflects on the customer. But we are sort of flying a bit blind, aren't we? I think we are. But I think what this does is it sort of opens up the idea of food being much more of a dialogue. And I think one of the things that this sort of encourages consumers to do, really, is to kind of understand more about the ingredients. And if you speak to the waiters, they will always want to have a conversation about the actual ingredients and the levels of heat. So if you think about chilies, you know, a sort of Mexican ancho chili is just really earthy and almost more like paprika, whereas a sort of Thai bird's eye chilli is something that's completely different and has really, really intense sort of triggering heat in a way.

25:07And I think for me, it's much more about people having that curiosity to sort of question, what are the chillies that are going into this? What are the spices? Yeah, so knowing also about the cuisines and understanding that if it's got Scotch bonnet in, if it's from West Africa or the Caribbean, it's likely to have much more punch than if it's, I mean, dare I say it, you're an expert on Punjabi food and I mean lots of other food but that's that one thinks of that as being a slightly gentler heat it is a slightly gentler heat but you know what I never shy away from taking people on that hot adventure should they want it so for me and I think it's always that thing I'm I'm often asked you know what my solution is and I think you know have that extra hot chili sauce for people that really want it good advice that was good loyal there now do you ever feel like you know a celebrity you follow online even though you've never met them in real life.