First trip to China by a British PM in eight years

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 Valerie Sanderson and at 15.45 hours GMT on Wednesday the 28th of January, these are our main stories. For the first time in eight years, a British Prime Minister is in China. So what's the aim of Keir Starmer's visit? We are resolute about being outward-looking, about taking opportunities, building relationships, having confidence globally, and it is in our national interest to engage with China. Israel's president, speaking at the funeral of the last hostage to be returned from Gaza, says his country can begin to heal. The first female Archbishop of Canterbury, spiritual leader of 85 million Anglicans, is confirmed at his ceremony at St Paul's Cathedral in London.

1:32Also in this podcast, the snooker player who's broken records at the tender age of two.

1:42The British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has arrived in China for a three-day visit to boost trade ties. It's the first trip by a British Prime Minister since 2018, but comes amid controversy back home, where his government is facing criticism for approving a new Chinese embassy in London, despite security concerns about its size and its location. But as the plane came into land, Sir Keir sounded optimistic about the visit as he took to the aircraft's tannoy system. This is the first Prime Minister trip to China in eight years and we've got an excellent delegation on board from business, culture, arts, sports and we're going to unlock opportunities for our country.

2:25sit back, enjoy the rest of the fight. I'll be bringing the plane in. When he stepped off the plane, a young girl handed him a bunch of flowers. Welcome to China. Oh, thank you so much. Thank you. My name is Bu Yajin. Ahead of the visit, this was the message from the Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson. During the visit, China's leaders will hold talks and meetings with him to have an in-depth exchange of views on bilateral relations and issues of common concern. Prime Minister Starmer will also visit Shanghai. China stands ready to take this visit as an opportunity to enhance political mutual trust with the UK, deepen practical cooperation, jointly open a new chapter in the sound and stable development of China-UK relations.

3:08But after China and Canada agreed a deal to lower levies on certain trade, President Trump threatened Canada with 100 % tariffs. So could closer British-Chinese ties have an effect on the so-called special relationship between the UK and US. Our correspondent Laura Booker explained to Emma Barnett why this is a significant visit for Beijing as well as for Downing Street. They see London as a key financial heartland, one with prestige, one with heritage. So there will be some kind of deal, I think, to be done. China believes the UK is just far too close to the United States. They believe that London simply follows Washington when it comes to making foreign policy.

3:51So for them, this will be about trying to kind of bring a key US ally a little bit closer. You'll see them show on state media images of the British Prime Minister touring the Forbidden City, shaking hands with Xi Jinping. So for them, it's about showing the world, here we are shaking hands with the United Kingdom that has a close relationship with the United States. Here he is in Beijing, here he is doing deals while Donald Trump's continuing to threaten trade tariffs. This is Beijing really playing the long game, using trade to kind of gain influence, gain standing in the world. In terms of the play from the Prime Minister, has he got the ability to manoeuvre well, do you think?

4:37It's really interesting for me sitting here in Beijing, and watching all the debates around what's happening between China and the UK. I think when it comes to lazing a path, we heard about Mark Carney, the Canadian Prime Minister. Now, this was a country, Canada was a country with the worst relationship in the Western world with China. And now they've made a comeback. And when he was here, way before his speech in Davos, Mark Carney held a 40-minute, quite frank press conference, all questions asked. And he said there, this is because there's a new world order and we have to be part of it. So in many ways, Mark Carney has blazed the trail for the others.

5:16But I think what I would say is China correspondent and this debate between trade and security and which one and how do you guard between each one. I live this life. You know, every single time I go out, I'm watched. We know that we're surveyed. We know that security is a constant concern. We know that our phones might always not work. And then on the other side, as we travel around China, I can see what this country can do. It can build thousands of kilometres of train track in one year. It can, you know, really a renewable superpower, which is key for the United Kingdom as it tries to kind of build more renewables in the likes of solar panels and wind turbines.

5:56And also, it's keen to import electric vehicles. The real trap for secure star armour will be to ensure that where we've seen with others is that when it comes to doing trade with China, put in some hard rails, because what others have seen is when they do trade, the fear is that China then sells far too much, dumps far too much. And I think when I've spoken to business leaders here, they've said, look, it's not just about perhaps China selling us EVs, it's about making EVs in the UK. So I think those are the kind of things I'll be watching for in the next few days. And Laura Bicko joins us on our YouTube channel to tell us more about the ties between the UK and China.

6:37To find it, you can go on YouTube, search for BBC News, click on the logo, then choose podcasts and Global News Podcast. There's a news story available every weekday. In Israel, the body of Rangvili, the last remaining hostage held in Gaza, has been carried to its final rest. People lined the street along the route of a convoy of vehicles carrying the coffin.

7:05This man, who watched with his son, explained why he'd chosen to be there. We come to respect and share honour to the soldier, Rang Vili, who sacrificed his life to protect Israeli civilians. Even when he was wounded, he still fight to the last bullet. Then he was kidnapped to Gaza. Finally, he came to his country, to his family, to bury him. In his eulogy, the ceremony, President Isaac Herzog said Israel could slowly begin healing as a nation following the aftermath of the Hamas-led October 7 attack in 2023. The retrieval of Rankevili's remains marks a key point in the US-led peace plan for Gaza, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signalled that the border crossing between Gaza and Egypt could only be reopened once the return of all hostages living and dead had been completed.

8:00It's not clear when the crossing will open. It's been mostly closed since 2024, when Israeli forces took control of the Palestinian side. Our Middle East correspondent Yola Nel is in Jerusalem and gave us her assessment of what this day means. I think this is really an end of a painful chapter for Israelis. What we've seen Israeli police holding a ceremony. You could see them all saluting this fallen elite police officer, 24-year-old Ran Gavili. Then the convoy setting off from Shuram military base, which is south of Tel Aviv. Crowds of people waving Israeli flags standing out on the street. The Gavili family had invited them to stand along the route as the convoy passes to their home in southern Israel.

8:42The president, he has said that this is, you know, closing the circle for Israel, the return of this final hostage's body. And what about the opening of the Rafa crossing? What have you heard about that? Because it's a key requirement, isn't it, under President Trump's plan to end the Gaza war? That's right. We still haven't had an official announcement about opening, but lots of indications from well-informed sources that it could be as soon as today or tomorrow. But it's not exactly clear at the moment. The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who did address this when he spoke at a news conference last night.

9:18He said that this would still be a limited opening that people, not cargo, would be going through and that he said the focus, as far as Israel is concerned, as it progresses to the next phase of the peace plan, was about disarming Hamas and destroying its remaining tunnels in Gaza. He made this point once again that there would be no reconstruction in the Gaza Strip without demilitarization of Hamas, reiterated too there'd be no Turkish or Khatari forces in the international stabilization force that's expected to be set up under President Trump's peace plan but really for Palestinians they're very much looking for sort of developments hoping for improvements in the second phase of the ceasefire at the moment the weather is extremely cold people still living in tents and we've been hearing from one of the main hospitals in the south the Gaza Strip that they have seen an outbreak of the severe bacterial kind of meningitis among children.

10:12One child has died already and they're treating several more cases, we're told. Yolande Nell. Next to St Paul's Cathedral in London.

10:27Where, on an historic day for Anglicans worldwide, the first woman to be appointed Archbishop of Canterbury has been confirmed in the post. I, Sarah Elizabeth Mullally, elected Archbishop of Canterbury, do so affirm and accordingly declare my belief in the faith which is revealed in the Holy Scriptures. Dame Sarah Mullally becomes the spiritual leader of around 85 million people in the Christian community, which is spread across 160 countries. This was her reply when asked about the reaction from church communities to her appointment. I've received a lot of support across the Anglican Communion but I recognise there are those that find my appointment difficult.

11:10And the sense for me that I have always understood that people may find my appointment as a woman difficult in the church. And what I hope to do is to be able to provide a space where I can offer hospitality to people, where I can listen to what their concerns are, and in a sense find some way in which we can at least have partnership together in that way. Our religion editor Ali McBoole told us more about what her appointment means for the church and for its followers. It is a significant moment, the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury, but the first that is a woman. We heard that she had been elected in October.

11:52I mean, the established position of the Church of England since the 1990s is that women could become priests from the mid-90s. They could be ordained as priests From about 10 years ago, from 2014, the Church of England decided that women could also become bishops. But what the Church has also allowed is, I suppose, official dissent. It still allows male bishops not to ordain women. So even at home, there are those who believe that Sarah Mullally, some colleagues, bishop colleagues of hers, believe that she should never have been ordained as a priest. And then you look at the wider Anglican Communion, the sort of commonwealth of Anglican churches around the world, and there are some of those who've threatened to split from the Anglican Communion over what they had previously, in some cases, threatened to leave the Communion even when women were ordained as priests.

12:44And now certainly there are those who are very uncomfortable, to say the least, that a woman is leading the Anglican Communion. So as well as all of the problems that Archbishops of Canterbury have had in the past in holding together people of different theological viewpoints, Dame Sir and Malali will have the added layer of pressure, having the fact that there are colleagues, peers and those in churches around the world who theologically don't believe that she should be in that position at all. Ali McBool. Still to come in this podcast. We have around 90 hectares of salt marsh on and around the island.

13:21And if we did nothing and we didn't intervene and we didn't look at coastal adaptation, almost all of that would be lost over the next hundred years. Her project in England is using sunken barges to protect habitats at risk from rising sea levels.

13:41If 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.

14:21Several countries in Asia have begun tightening health surveillance and screening at airports after two cases of a highly contagious and deadly disease were confirmed in the Indian state of West Bengal. The Nipah virus mainly spreads from animals to humans, but can also be passed on through close person-to-person contact. There's currently no vaccine to treat infected people, But the authorities in West Bengal say all necessary public health measures are in place to contain the virus. Dr. Swapnil Parikh is a specialist in infectious diseases based in Mumbai. The Nipah virus occurs when bats or the secretions from bats or sometimes pigs come into contact with human beings.

15:02And it presents as a severe fever, a neurological condition and a respiratory condition. And it carries a very high fatality rate. So typically patients will have an acute onset of fever with very severe muscle pain, nausea, vomiting, a severe headache. And it can progress rapidly for them to develop seizures, loss of consciousness, and altered mental state. On the respiratory side, they can develop a severe respiratory condition known as ARDS. It can often start with a cough, breathlessness, or even just a sore throat. When it has the respiratory manifestations, it's more infectious from person to person.

15:45And those who survive, they can have a prolonged neurological sequel or sometimes even have a relapse later on. This is not the first time India has dealt with Nipah. There have been several small outbreaks and India has managed to contain them very rapidly. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in India has reported two cases, two confirmed cases, and they have gone ahead and traced over 196 contacts who they are monitoring. So I think this situation is not one that should cause undue concern or alarm to people outside of this one area in India where the outbreak has occurred. Of course, it's always useful for countries to be aware and for them to take necessary precautions when people from these areas are traveling in, like screen people who are sick.

16:33With Nipah, it's been more reassuring people that it's not something that they need to be concerned about right now if they're not travelling to those parts. We kind of have to be sympathetic that people do have this response after COVID. And, you know, honestly, as a healthcare worker who lived through COVID, I experienced this myself sometimes. So it's easy to empathise with that feeling. Dr Swapnil Parikh. On the east coast of England, three old barges, which once transported coal and other industrial materials, have been sunk to build a man-made island for threatened birds. Conservationists say the structure in an estuary should give endangered species somewhere safe to perch and to rest and to help reduce the erosion of the salt marsh habitat, which is at risk from rising sea levels.

17:18Our environmental correspondent Jonah Fisher reports. It's low tide and I'm crossing a causeway in the Blackwater estuary with Matt Wilson from the National Trust. Northean Island is off limits to visitors during the winter months, but we've been given special permission to come and take a look at a rare habitat that's under threat. So we have curlew and dunlin, but also blacktail godwit, redshank, some lapwing have gone past. We're inside a dark bird hide, looking out at the salt marsh. Wading birds love them. The cycle of flooding at high tide, followed by a drying out when the water recedes, creates a nutrient-rich feeding ground.

17:59We have around 90 hectares of salt marsh on and around the island. And if we did nothing and we didn't intervene and we didn't look at coastal adaptation, almost all of that would be lost over the next hundred years. Nor these salt marshes are being eaten away by the sea. It's not a new problem, but with climate change bringing rising sea levels, the search for solutions is becoming increasingly desperate. We have a real problem with erosion in the salt marsh here. Katie Gilchrist is the National Trust's Coastal Projects Manager for the Midlands and East England. You want to allow the tide in.

18:35These plants and this habitat needs the sea to come in every day. It needs to get that sort of salty water. So we don't want to block it off entirely, but we needed to think of a way to just slow it all down. The National Trust decided to make use of old rusty barges known as lighters. They were once a common sight, transporting coal and other goods along the River Thames. So what's happening here is that the three barges are being filled up with sediment that's been dredged from the estuary to hold them in place. The hope is that these barges will both protect Northeys Island and also create an entirely new island here for seabirds to use.

19:21the dredging and filling operation can only take place at high tide as noddy carney who's leading the operation explains once the barges are full and buried then there'll be stones put on top so one it acts as you break water and two the birds will nest in it so there are already birds yeah when the tide's out yeah yeah back in the salt marsh i put it to katie gilchrist that dumping rusty old barges in the estuary doesn't feel like a very natural solution. The whole point of the project is to work with nature to manage the impacts of climate change, but we do want to make use of the materials and resources that we have available to us.

20:01So this is really recycling on a massive scale? Absolutely, yes. It's recycling, making use of the barges, making use of that mud that needs to be dredged for navigation purposes and, yes, helping us with our habitat management. With warmer, wetter winters on the way, all of us, not just the birds, will have to learn to adapt to the realities of man-made climate change. Jonah Fisher. In France, a former senator has been sentenced to four years in jail after drugging a female lawmaker with the intention of sexually assaulting her. Our global affairs reporter, Paul Moss, told me more about the case.

20:37This concerns 68-year-old Joël Guerriot, who was a member of France's upper house, the Senate. and from the centre-right party, the Horizon Party, which is part of France's ruling alliance. Now, in November 2023, an MP, Sandrine Rosso, went to his flat. Apparently, they were going to celebrate his re-election. She says he served her champagne, which she noticed tasted strange, but she says he was very keen for her to keep drinking. She then felt nausea, suffered heart palpitations. She says she left the flat and went to a hospital where they tested her and found a high level of MDMA in her blood.

21:15That's the active ingredient in the drug, which is commonly known as ecstasy. And she told the court this week that she is certain that if she hadn't left Mr. Guerriot's flat, she's sure he was going to sexually assault her. And what is Joël Guerriot's defence? Well, he never denied that this happened and indeed has been very apologetic, but insisted it was what he called in this rather strange phrase a handling mistake. He says a friend had brought him the MDMA because he was feeling depressed. and he put it in a glass with the intention of mixing it with some liquid and drinking it, but then decided not to.

21:47He says then the next day he accidentally poured Ms Rosso's champagne into that same glass and that's how she ended up drinking it. Perhaps not surprisingly, the court did not believe that story and they found him guilty. In mitigation, his lawyer said that he never actually made a physical attempt to sexually assault Ms Rosso and also described him as a man who devoted part of his life to the functioning of French democracy. But despite that, they gave him a four-year sentence. And Paul, how is this case being seen in France? Because, I mean, it's the second high-profile case of this kind, isn't it?

22:21Indeed. I mean, it was always going to be a major scandal. I mean, it's got all the ingredients, hasn't it, with sex, drugs and two prominent politicians. But yes, it comes just a year after the infamous case of Giselle Pellico, who listeners probably remember her husband drugged her over many years and encouraged dozens of men to rape her while she was unconscious. And in fact, Sandrine Rosso, the MP in this case, the one who had her drink spiked, she's teamed up with Giselle Pelico's daughter, Caroline, to raise awareness of the issue. Now, those cases are extreme. But in fact, I think this is a country, France, where attitudes in general are changing.

22:57I mean, we've seen a series of prosecutions of various famous figures, particularly from the French film industry, most notably Gérard Depardieu, who was found guilty last year of two counts of assaulting women on a film set. There was a feeling that in the past women may not have felt confident about coming forward, but that the mood is changing, the prosecutions will take place, and as has happened this week, men will be found guilty. Paul Moss. And finally, a two-year-old has become the holder of two Guinness World Records by becoming the youngest person to perform a pair of trick shots in snooker.

23:32This is how he was introduced at one of the games last year. His bedtime is 6.15. He's a huge Man United fan. Remember the name. Remember the face. Here he comes. At the tender age of two, it's Jude Owens.

23:54Well, Jude Owens successfully performed what's called a snooker double pot and a few weeks later a pool bank shot, making him officially the youngest person ever to perform both. I got more about this remarkable feat from someone who knows a lot more about it than I do. Not difficult, I have to say. The newsroom's resident snooker expert, Pete Ross. I might know much more about snooker, but I don't think I could perform them with the aplomb that young Jude Owens from Manchester in the north of England has performed these tricks. When he successfully completed the second of them, it was in October last year, We're learning about it today because, like any record, regardless of your age, it takes some time to assess them.

24:35But when he completed them, he was just two years and 302 days old. Now, I don't know about you, Val, but at that age, my hand-eye coordination, I mean, I could barely throw and catch a ball, let alone clamber atop a massive table several times my size to perform these, you know, what I would say are very tricky shots. whether you and I could even perform them now, had we a snooker table in the studio with us, I think we'd find them quite difficult. Absolutely. And we can see photographs of him actually doing that, can't we, on our website at bbcnews.com. It is quite extraordinary. I mean, he's two.

25:07He's two. I mean, to give you a sort of sense before you rush to the website, I mean, the size of the snooker table, it's over three metres long. This is a two-year-old child clambering onto a stool and then almost lying down on the table. again as I said to perform these shots which we ourselves would find very difficult now you mentioned them double pot and a pool bank shot, essentially what that is instead of just shooting the ball directly into the pocket, you're hitting the ball off a cushion, the side of the table and then into a pocket it's not an easy thing to do. We should say though he's a prodigious talent on the snooker table but he's not alone in achieving a world record at such a tender age.