Chapter 1: What is the current state of the drug cartel violence in Mexico?
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This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.
I'm Will Chalk and this edition is being recorded in the early hours of Thursday the 26th of February. Coming up, we've got a special report from a Mexican city which has been turned into a war zone by drug cartel violence. Cuba says it's killed four people travelling in an American-registered speedboat and a new daily single tablet that could help long-term survivors of HIV.
Also in this podcast, the BBC investigates last year's deadly crackdown on Nepal's Gen Z protests. And what would your last words be?
It is an opportunity to shape your legacy the way you want to, as opposed to just being defined by the obituaries.
We hear from the creator of a Netflix series where celebrities record messages to be played after they die.
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Chapter 2: How has the death of El Mencho affected the drug trade in Sinaloa?
We're starting with a special report from Mexico following the death this week of one of the country's most wanted drug lords known as El Mencho. He was killed on Sunday in an operation to arrest him and his death has led to violence across the country. We've had standoffs between the drug gangs and the Mexican army.
Businesses have been torched and roads blockaded with the government coming under increasing pressure from Donald Trump to do more to control the cartels. There are also the constant battles within the drug gangs themselves for control. Our correspondent Quentin Somerville recently returned from the state of Sinaloa and its capital, Culiacan, which is dominated by the drug wars.
A warning, his report features graphic descriptions of violence from the start. We're just tearing through central Kuliakalma, the paramedics are driving at speed and we're heading towards the scene of a shooting. Just arrived at the scene. We're actually inside the cordon now. It's a garage. A relative has just arrived. One murder, six shots in all body.
So, Hector, as paramedics, there's nothing you can do. You mainly see bodies, the dead.
Chapter 3: What are the implications of the U.S. response to cartel violence?
Yeah, it's hard, hard job, hard job.
There was, in fact, one person that was killed. The owner of the garage was found dead in his office. I can see a photograph of him now, covered in a blanket, just his feet showing.
And somewhat awfully typical for these men that, as paramedics, there's no help that they can provide, really, because they're dealing with execution-style killings and murders, and it's only dead bodies time after time. It's just before eight in the morning here in central Coolio Can, just outside one of the main shopping malls and another body on the pavement. This one is very grisly.
It's a man who's been tortured. There's a message taped to his body. It seems to have photographs and some writing. But clearly a message has been sent. It gives you an idea of the extent, the brutality, the viciousness of the infighting within the Sinaloa cartel at the moment.
Meeting with the cartels is difficult at the best of times, but now even more so because they're right in the crosshairs of the United States and President Trump. He's labelled them terrorist groups, he says their product, fentanyl and other drugs, are a weapon of mass destruction and he's promised that... As well as bombing the cartels at sea, he's going to tackle them on land.
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Chapter 4: What recent events have occurred involving Cuba's coastguard?
So they're feeling under threat like never before. I'm about to go and meet with a group. I'm going to have to leave my phone behind. These men are vicious criminals fighting for an illegal drugs business worth billions. They've gone to war after the son of one of their leaders betrayed another. This power struggle is a fight to the death and they show little remorse.
They insisted we disguise their voices. The civil war in the cartel has created a bloodbath in Culiacan. Women are being killed. Kids are being killed. Do you feel guilty about that? Yes, a lot of times innocent people die, children die. There is a lot of death of innocent people. A lot of people will keep dying because the cartel is still fighting and it's going to keep getting worse.
This war will continue.
Chapter 5: How effective is the new HIV treatment tablet from the British clinical trial?
Nothing will come down until there is only one faction left. There's a small protest taking place outside the main cathedral on this beautiful sunny day in Kulia Khan. Lots of relatives of the victims of the cartel violence are here. They're wearing white. Some are carrying pictures of their loved ones. They're all sexes, ages. It gives you a sense of how all-encompassing the violence is here.
The chant here is, they took them away alive, we want them back alive. It's seven hours since the peace march, and the sun is setting here in Kuliakan, and they almost made it through the day without a killing, but just in front of me is a young man who's just been gunned down. He's 16 years old. He was on his bike. He's wearing blue jeans, and he's got a light blue T-shirt on.
He's still tangled up in his bike. He's lying dead there on the pavement. Oh!
Chapter 6: What were the key findings from the investigation into Nepal's Gen Z protests?
The family are here. They're on the other side of the police tape. I could hear the screams and wails from here. It seems that the kid was shot 10 or 12 times. The cartel is strong in this neighbourhood and uses young men as spotters. Its spies are ever-present and no-one was willing to answer our questions. You can follow me. In a cartel-owned basement, we meet a fentanyl smuggler.
He has six kilos of the powder in tightly pressed bundles, each worth at least $20,000. What we have here is fentanyl. This product is ready to be sent to the United States and pressed into pills. The drug that he's holding and the battle to control it has cost the lives of tens of thousands here and in the United States. He doesn't take any responsibility. There is no shame for what he does.
Even though President Donald Trump refers to us as terrorists, I would just remind him that as long as there are consumers, we're going to keep doing this.
Chapter 7: How are mothers in Mexico fighting back against cartel violence?
But that doesn't necessarily make us terrorists. No one forced them to start using this stuff. Even though the government has intensified their search, when it comes to production, we've never stopped. Sometimes we do scale back because the government gets too close. So we lay low for a few days. But once that problem passes, we either continue or move to other areas.
I'm with a group of women, madres en lucha, mothers fighting back. They're here, we're about half an hour outside of Culiacán, in the grounds of a half-built church. They're looking for lost sons, lost brothers, who are victims of cartel violence. Now the women are heading into some rough ground and fields beyond. They have shovels, they have pickaxes, they have machetes.
The woman leading the search here today is Rinalda Garrido.
Her son disappeared back in 2019 and she won't stop searching for him.
I wake up every day and I ask God, tell me why I'm here. And what gives me strength is realising that no one else is going to look for them.
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Chapter 8: What are the advancements in robotics showcased by Denmark's National Symphony Orchestra?
I realise it because no one is moving to search for the disappeared in Sinaloa. And a mother will always look for her child.
No matter if it's to the ends of the earth, she will look.
We responded to two people injured.
They were asking for help at the incident. Paramedics Julio and Hector have been called to another cartel shooting, but this one is different. We've been following these paramedics for a week. We've been to multiple call-outs with them. This is the first time they've arrived at the scene and the person has still been alive.
Decapitating the Sinaloa cartel's leadership may yet destroy it, but for now, there is only violence. That was Quentin Somerville reporting from Mexico. Well, we're going to stay in the region for the next story because relations between Cuba and the US were already frosty, to say the least.
Now, Cuba says it's killed four people who were travelling in an American-registered speedboat off the Cuban coast. The Interior Ministry said it was determined to protect Cuban territorial waters. Our North America reporter, Simi Jolaosho, told my colleague Anne Soy what more we know.
All the information we know and have received has come from the Cuban government. They said that their border guard troops detected a boat inside Cuban territorial waters. When they approached the boat for identification, those on board opened fire, injuring one of their commanders, and so they fired back.
killing four people and injuring six others, who were then evacuated for medical treatment. They've released more details to say that all those on board were Cubans living in the US. Some of them had a known history of criminal and violent activity. They have since detained some of them. And when questioned, those detained said that they were trying to infiltrate the island and unleash terrorism.
This is very unusual, isn't it?
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