First funerals take place for Australia shooting victims

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.

0:47I'm Alex Ritson and at 16 hours GMT on Wednesday 17th December, these are our main stories. Australian police have charged the surviving suspect in the Bondi Beach mass shooting with murder and terrorism offences. More than 70 health workers are detained in Sudan's troubled Darfur region. The entertainment giant Warner Brothers has told shareholders to reject a hostile takeover bid by its rival Paramount worth more than$108 billion. Also in this podcast... The Italians call me the crazy Englishman. They think the project is a bit daft, but they've all been willing to share their knowledge, share their passion.

1:29Climate change makes commercial olive growing possible thousands of kilometres from its traditional Mediterranean home.

1:40Funerals have been held for two of the 15 victims of Sunday's mass shootings at a Jewish festival on Sydney's famous Bondi Beach in Australia. Both of them were rabbis. Relatives and friends expressed their grief, shock and anger over the deaths, while others have spoken of the need for reconciliation. Katie Watson is in Bondi. There's a very heavy police presence here at the funeral of Ellie Schlanger, a British-born rabbi. There are bags being checked. The roads are shut off. Just a short while ago, a hearse pulled up and a coffin was removed. They laid over a black velvet shroud with the Star of David on it, and the coffin was taken inside.

2:24There were mourners weeping as it entered the synagogue. More mourners now are coming down and the ceremony is about to begin. We have all been hoping over the last three days that we would wake up and somehow realise that this was all a terrible dream. We can't wish that anymore. we are here, raw and devastated, crying in unbearable pain, along with the entire Jewish people and all good people across Australia and the world over. That was Rabbi Aaron Moss speaking. Elie Schlanger's father-in-law, Rabbi Ullman, was also one of those who gave an emotional address. And you became everything to me.

3:19My hands, my feet. Eli was the best husband.

3:29The best father. The best son. We all lost a son.

3:47Hundreds of mourners are now on the steps of the synagogue as the service ends. The coffin's being put into a hearse. Now it's the chance for the public to pay their respects to Rabbi Eli Schlanger as the funeral procession goes through Bondi.

4:06Katie Watson reporting. Police have now charged the surviving suspect, Naveed Akram, with 15 murders as well as terrorism offences. His father, Sajid Akram, was shot dead by police during the attack. The Premier of New South Wales, Chris Minns, is recalling the state parliament to press for stronger gun control laws. I heard more about the investigation from Phil Mercer, who's in Sydney. Naveed Akram is in hospital, charged with 59 defences overall, including 15 counts of murder. This was a man who the police say was one of the perpetrators here at Bondi Beach on Sunday. He was in a coma. The police were waiting for him to wake up.

4:52He did so on Tuesday. Charges were laid today. And we also understand that this man did appear in court via a video link. So the legal process is underway and there is the speculation that the real meat of the court process will begin perhaps in April of next year. So it certainly won't be a quick process. But so far, 59 offences, this man is facing 15 counts of murder. A gun control law is going to be tightened as a result of all of this. I think what we're seeing is an intensification of the political fallout from this atrocity at Bondi Beach. We have the federal government and the state governments of New South Wales promising to reform Australia's gun laws to try to make it harder for individuals to hold multiple firearms.

5:45There could also be restrictions on the types of weapons people can hold and a revamp of the licensing system. So the governments, federal and state, want to toughen those laws. But the critics of the federal government say that this is all a ploy to divert attention away from what they say is the prime minister's failure to address a rising tide of anti-Semitism. So on the one hand, you have the grief that follows an attack like this and the funerals and the impact on society. But also you've got an intensifying political situation as a consequence of this attack as well. Bill Mercer. More than 70 health workers have been detained in Sudan's war ravaged region of Darfur.

6:32They're among 5 ,000 people who are being held in the city of Niala, the capital of South Dufour, by the paramilitary rapid support forces. Now the World Health Organization has called for the medical staff to be released. I heard more from our correspondent Chingai Nioka, who's covering the story from Harare. I spoke to the spokesperson for the Sudan Doctors Network a while ago, and he says that they are part of a group that were detained. And these are prisoners that have come from Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, as well as from Al-Fasha, which fell to the rapid support forces about two months ago.

7:12What he says is that according to local sources in Nyala, which is the headquarters for the RSF and where these people are being held, about 19 ,000 people in total are being held in two prisons. And as you can imagine, the conditions they say are deplorable. Those 19 ,000, many of them are former police officers, security forces, but then their concern is about the civilians who are being held, about 5 ,000 in total, of which 73 are doctors. According to the Sudan Doctors Network, which issued a report about a week ago, they say that the conditions are deteriorating in these prisons. They're overcrowded.

7:58There's a lack of medicines, a lack of medical care, that there's a disease outbreak. There's not enough food, not enough safe drinking water and poor sanitation. And they say that there's also an outbreak of cholera, which has caused deaths within these prisons. And the World Health Organization, I think that's why they've stepped in. They say that they are trying to verify that information about the detentions and about their conditions, but they have described this as deeply concerning, that there are doctors and civilians that are being held. And briefly, no sign that the conflict is coming to an end despite various peace initiatives?

8:37Absolutely not, and I think that's why there's such concern. This has been described as the worst humanitarian disaster in the world. The Sudan Force Army and the RSF have been fighting for close to three years now, and tens of thousands of people have been killed and millions of people displaced. Shingai Nioka. Aid workers say heavy rain has created widespread hardship in Gaza, washing away thousands of tents and further damaging buildings already affected by Israel's two-year offensive. They say Palestinians who've been displaced by the conflict have been living in a continual state of emergency, battling against the elements to stay warm and dry.

9:20Jonathan Cricks is the head of communications for UNICEF Palestine. Last night was really horrendous for the families. I mean, the heavy rains were so intense that we could see 10, 15 centimetres of water and the winds were so strong. And when I drove this morning, I could see many, many people were trying with buckets to remove some of the water. Most of the people who are living in tents in Gaza, they have been displaced multiple times. And when you're displaced during those two years of war, you're just moving with what you have on your back. You don't have the time to pack a lot of clothes.

9:57So most of the children that I'm seeing, you know, they don't have change of clothes or very little change of clothes. When I was seeing them this morning, their clothes were damped. I could see parents trying to dry some of the blankets they had. But, you know, it's been raining almost all the time in the past four or five days. So it's extremely difficult to keep the children dry. And with temperature about 7 degrees, 8 degrees Celsius at night, we are extremely concerned about children getting sick or even worse, dying from hypothermia. These tents are not really high-quality tents at all. They are tents which are makeshift tents made with a piece of tarpaulins, a piece of plastic, nailed to a fragile wood structure.

10:41So the day before yesterday, I was on the road moving from Gaza City to the south of Gaza. And I could see like the heavy winds and families trying just to keep the tent in place because it was simply blown away by the strong winds. And we're not talking about a few people here. We're talking about three quarter or one million people who are living in tents. I don't have the exact figure, but we're talking about large numbers. So the situation after those days of rains is extremely concerning. In terms of what aid is being provided and what help can help, what can you say of that? We have been able, especially since the ceasefire, a ceasefire which is very fragile and very unstable, but still we have been able since the beginning of the ceasefire to bring in more aid.

11:25Just a few figures, we brought like a quarter of a million warm clothes kits for children. So it's 250 ,000, but the needs are huge. we need to be able to cover 1 million children. So we are definitely not there. We've been able to bring in blankets, 600 ,000 blankets. We've been able to bring quite a lot of tents, but not enough, 7 ,000 tents. If efforts are really going on and we're working relentlessly to bring that aid and to distribute it, but the scale of the needs is so immense that we still have like thousands of people who are really, and children who are really suffering every night.

12:00Jonathan Cricks from UN Children's Agency UNICEF talking to Emma Barnett. The UK government has announced its intention to rejoin the Erasmus study scheme six years after Britain pulled out following Brexit when it left the EU. It means that from 2027 people from the UK will be able to spend a year studying at European universities as part of their degree courses without paying extra fees while allowing European students the same benefits. These students from Leeds in the north of England reacted to the news. It would have been really useful, I think. Being able to do an international section of my degree would have been a really good thing to do.

12:40I understand why it could be difficult if there's a lot of demand for it, but it would have been really useful, I think. I think that it probably would have just opened up a lot more opportunities. You know, studying in the UK, it's great, but could that have taken me to jobs abroad where there's a better job market potentially? I think definitely languages are such an important thing to learn, I was able to be able to go abroad and potentially learn that alongside my degree, again, opening up opportunities for jobs, moving countries in the future. Our education correspondent is Vanessa Clarke.

13:10The UK has to pay a membership fee to take part, so the negotiations to rejoin would have been looking at how much that would be. Before it ended, more European students were coming to Britain than UK students going abroad, for example, so this will all have been looked at as part of that. already we're seeing reaction from students in universities who are very keen on Erasmus restarting you know it means students will have a wider pool of placements to choose from across the European Union and then we'll have also students come in here who won't have to pay those international fees I think this is all about actually you know expanding relationships with the EU you know many would like to see the youth mobility scheme which allows UK young adults to go the EU to live, work and study, restart.

13:55So this looks for some people like a re-step towards that kind of thing. Our education correspondent Vanessa Clarke. When you think of olives you might be forgiven for assuming they've been grown in countries like Spain or Italy but just under 2 ,000 kilometres away from the warm climate of Sicily the small oval fruit is now being produced in the English countryside. Due to the warming effects of climate change, olive oil is now being made in Lincolnshire. The BBC's Paul Murphy has taken a trip to the farm in eastern England. The windswept Lincolnshire fens have little in common with the sun-kissed villages of Tuscany.

14:35But you know what? The olives don't seem to mind. David Hoyles mostly grows conventional crops like spuds and wheat. So this is actually one of our early maturing varieties. But rising temperatures have brought new possibilities. We're farmers, we're growers at heart, so we really like that challenge of trying to produce good quality food. We were seeing climate change coming in and making it more of a struggle to grow our conventional crops. So then I was thinking what crops would work well with higher temperatures. Grapes didn't suit our soil type, so olives was a bit of an extreme choice, but one we've gone for.

15:13There's many, many challenges with it, but we're trying to use different techniques, precision farming and things I've picked up from overseas growers. Walking through these olive groves feels like a bit of a surreal experience. These are trees that you normally see when you're on holiday in Spain or France or Italy under the baking sun. But here in the Lincolnshire fens, well, they appear to be doing OK. Specialised machinery is used to crush the olives and extract the oil so it can be bottled and sold.

15:49There's even a technique for tasting it. Wow. And that's the polyphenols. Now that's what the experts want. Sampling his own olive oil is a labour of love for David. He spent six years researching the crop before getting to this point. Some peppery aftertones at the back of the throat. Quite a mild, mellow flavour. A bit grassy, a bit piney, something along those lines. David's made several trips to Italy to take advice from olive farming experts. The Italians call me the crazy Englishman. They think the project is a bit daft. But they've all been willing to share their knowledge, share their passion, their enthusiasm.

16:33They've been over here. I've been over there numerous times, learning. It is one of the world's most northerly olive groves and a huge farming challenge. But so far, so good. Paul Murphy. Still to come, is biodiversity being damaged because of the need to get that perfect shot? I think we should try to don't touch and to don't interact with any animal at all. That's the general rule we should always follow. So if we won't put the limit, we will always do something more because we need that picture.

17:15If 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.

17:54Warner Brothers has rejected Paramount's hostile bid for the entirety of its business. In a letter to shareholders, the board said the bid lacked adequate financing assurances. It's the latest twist in the battle between Paramount and streaming giant Netflix to buy the historic Hollywood studio. Earlier this month, Netflix agreed to buy the film and streaming businesses for£72 billion, before Paramount swooped in with a bid of$108 billion to buy the whole business. At the same time, a key backer of Paramount's attempt to buy Warner Brothers, Affinity Partners, has reportedly pulled out of the bid, citing the involvement of two strong competitors.

18:34Affinity was founded by US businessman and President Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner. I spoke to our business correspondent, Nick Marsh, and began by asking him what Paramount might do next. The understanding is that Paramount will probably come back with a bigger and better offer. Then we'll see where the next chapter of this tale takes us. Can Paramount afford it now, though, because affinity partners have disappeared from the bid? There's actually not that many details as to why they've pulled out. It doesn't seem to have affected the ability of Paramount to raise money, because it's understood that Paramount are still very much interested.

19:14It could be more of a reflection of the political controversy that this would have brought, and maybe Jared Kushner was weighing up whether this would be an advantage to him, obviously being son-in-law of the president, or whether this would be a hindrance given all the opposition that would raise from various quarters. There's a lot at stake for whoever wins this. What's it going to do to the streaming market, the movie industry? It would completely change the landscape of American entertainment and global entertainment. Warner Brothers Discovery, they have HBO Max, so Game of Thrones, Succession, The Wire.

19:47In terms of the films, we've got Batman, Harry Potter franchises, really huge names. Say Netflix bought that, all of these massive shows would be all under one umbrella. That's going to pose big regulatory problems because the market share, put quite simply, would be too big. That's going to pose anti-trust issues, anti-monopoly issues, as it's known, in the rest of the world. If Paramount were successful, they would still have a huge conglomerate there. It just wouldn't be quite as big a market share. so no matter what happens there will be regulatory hurdles to overcome not just in the united states by the way because these are distributed all around the world either way it's going to be an issue and there are people in hollywood who are a bit afraid of this mega merger because they think well does that mean that wages will be driven down does that mean that corners will be cut that the workforce will be reduced and if you're a consumer sitting at home it might be great everything's under one subscription you don't have to take out an hbo max subscription a netflix subscription, Paramount and so on and so forth might be good in the short term.

20:48But who's to say in the long term, you don't have that choice that the prices might not go up in terms of the subscriptions and you have nowhere else to look. So it does look like a deal is going to happen. It could take as long as a year for this all to get over the line, or it might not happen at all. If it does happen, it would be really, really big. Nick Marsh. The authorities in the Indian capital Delhi have rolled out strict measures to curb air pollution that has been in the severe category for the past few days. Pollution is an annual winter problem in Delhi and its suburbs. Global affairs reporter Anbarasan Etirajan describes what it's like living in Delhi when it's in the grip of severe pollution.

21:28When you wake up early in the morning, if you want to go for a walk, you breathe in the smoke-filled air and that irritation goes down your throat and then you feel it. And after five minutes, some people might start coughing. And especially for children, it is really, really bad because if you talk to many hospitals, what they say, the number of people, the number of children will come in because they have the immunity slowly building up for them. And when they breathe this air and their respiratory organs, they have, especially those with asthma and other conditions, they really suffer. And that's why the percentage age of children getting admitted to hospital goes up during the winter time.

22:10That's why the government, the local government, has now introduced the highest level of response, grade four, by banning older vehicles like diesel vehicles coming into the city, number one. Number two, now they're asking or ordering government and private offices to limit the number of staff coming to work so that 50 percent can work from home so that they don't have to bring their own cars or other means of transport to come into the city. And the construction activities have already been suspended in and around the city. And also classes for school children move to online partially like a hybrid example.

22:50But this is not going to reduce the pollution problem because this is winter, this is an annual problem, but the dense air traps all the pollutants. And also there is a change in wind direction and also the humidity level. That is trapping these pollutants and that is why you see a surge in terms of pollution level in the past week, really worrying many residents of Delhi. Even many people leave Delhi and go to places like Goa or to the south to escape this period because the children are really suffering. The tiny mountain kingdom of Bhutan has a population of less than a million and its capital city, Thimbu, just over 100 ,000.

23:35So you might think it's surprising that Bhutan is planning to build a whole new city, one which it hopes will become a regional tech hub. Wednesday saw the Bhutanese king announce that it will invest around a billion dollars in building the city to be known as Ghelefu. But more than that, it says this will be a city of mindfulness, balancing innovation with traditional Buddhist values. I heard more from our global affairs reporter, Paul Moss. It's called Galefu and it's going to be right on the border with India. I can read you a description from the official Bhutan website, but I've got to say it looks less like the prospectus for an industrial development, more like an advert for a yoga retreat.

24:17I mean, the website says that Galefa will be an oasis of mindfulness and prosperity, offering the world a different path of development, combining traditional Bhutanese values of spirituality with economic vibrancy. Now, the thing is, economic vibrancy is needed in Bhutan. I mean, it may give an image of happy peasants tending their flocks. In fact, Bhutan famously decided to measure its gross national happiness as well as GDP. In fact, there's very serious unemployment problems in Bhutan. And lots of the population have to go abroad for work. It does have some sources of money. It sells hydroelectric power to neighbouring India and also has tourism.

24:55But that's very limited. So the idea is to create this new tech city. One interesting thing, the billion dollars you mentioned that's going to be invested, it currently holds that money in cryptocurrency. Bhutan started buying cryptocurrency in 2019, may have made some money out of that. But the amount it's made is actually a state secret. Sounds interesting. But is it going to work? I don't know. I mean, it says it's very hard to work out what this new spiritual city is going to actually do. It seems that financial services will be at the centre of the plans. It does have a very educated workforce, but it's a very small workforce.

25:29So I don't think any major banks are going to open themselves there, nor can it be a major high tech manufacturing hub. However, Bhutan sits at a very strategically interesting spot between India and China. India is very keen to keep up its own influence there and to keep China out. So I do think there's a chance that you'll see India prepared to invest a lot of money in Galefu. But that would be for reasons less to do with, you know, karma and mindfulness. Be more about hard-nosed geopolitics. Paul Moss. Wildlife photographers play an invaluable role in capturing the astonishing diversity of the natural world but sometimes it seems in their search for the perfect shot these photographers may also be hastening the demise of the very creatures they're trying to preserve on film Take the tiny galaxy frog native to the rainforest of Kerala in southern India They get their name because their black spotted skin with flashes of orange looks like the night sky They're extraordinarily rare and now even rarer, after a researcher from the Zoological Society of London found that one group had disappeared after photographers found them and moved them to get a better shot.