Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Listen now wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Hello, I'm Oliver Conway. We're recording this at 16 Hours GMT on Monday 8th December. Syria marks the first anniversary of the end of the Assad regime. The Nigerian government secures the release of 100 children kidnapped from a Catholic school last month. And Ukraine's President Zelensky meets key European allies in London.
Also in the podcast... If we offer single portion sizes which are really to fulfil the requirements of average men, We're nudging more and more people to eat more than they need. Could cutting down portion sizes help tackle obesity? But first, it is a year since a lightning offensive by Islamist-led rebels in Syria ended five decades of brutal rule by the Assad family.
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Chapter 2: What significant events marked the anniversary of the Assad regime's fall in Syria?
In my work, I meet many people who care for refugees, for displaced people, but also for unaccompanied children or people that are hungry. I meet many people who care. Their voice, however, in today's world is less strong than it used to be because the voice of those that say it's not important to care, let's focus on ourselves, our country first, those voices have become
a bit overwhelming and sideline the others that are still strong numerically, but seem to have difficulty getting their message across. So I think that we need to invest in people that believe in solidarity, to bring them along, to give them space and dignity and recognition so that their voice can become again an important factor in moving their governments towards international aid.
Filippo Grande talking to Lise Doucette and you can hear more on that story on YouTube from our correspondent Lina Sinjab in the Syrian city of Aleppo. Search for the BBC News channel on YouTube, select podcasts and then the Global News podcast and we do a new one every weekday. Last month, gunmen stormed a Catholic school in Nigeria and abducted more than 300 pupils and members of staff.
50 managed to escape, leaving 265 still in captivity. Now, 100 of the remaining children have been rescued or released. I heard more from our global affairs reporter, Richard Kugoy.
Details are still emerging. What we do know so far is that 100 students have been released. That's the information that we have from the proprietor of the school, who also happens to chair the Christian Association of Nigeria in Niger State. So the details in terms of how they were rescued or how the release took place is still not known.
Not known, but is it likely that ransom money was paid?
Well, that's quite difficult to tell because you don't know whether there were any negotiations or maybe this was done by force, by security agents, because a major operation has been underway since this incident was reported. And this has really been sanctioned from the highest office in Nigeria. So you should know that payment of ransom in Nigeria is illegal. It's outlawed.
Yeah, but, you know, there are all these indications that possibly in some instances people ransom could be paid. But for this one, we don't know yet. And perhaps even attempts to get a comment from the authorities regarding the circumstances has not been forthcoming.
And the remaining children and members of staff, are new negotiations going on to try to get those released as well?
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Chapter 3: What challenges does Syria face one year after the regime change?
And he is really one of the most well-beloved figure here, despite this single scandal. Jake Kwan in South Korea. Could offering smaller, cheaper portion sizes in restaurants help tackle obesity? That's the recommendation from the head of the British government's obesity programme, Professor Navid Sattar.
Women, on average, need fewer calories than men, and Professor Sattar says they and others could benefit from the availability of alternative options. Not just women, anybody who wants a smaller portion. So that could be smaller men. It could be, for example, if you go out with a family, children.
But it was prompted by the fact that actually obesity levels are higher in women in nearly every part of the world now or many of the super regions of the world. They're also higher in more people who are from deprived communities who tend to be shorter. So people who are smaller, generally women more than men, people from less affluent versus more affluent are shorter.
Therefore, they need less energy for their body's requirements. And if we offer single portion sizes, which are really to fulfill the requirements of average men, we're nudging gradually and progressively nudging more and more people to eat more than they need. And that is contributing to widening obesity disparities. Clearly, costs should be proportioned to the volume of food.
I mean, if you're getting 75%, I suppose the cost should be 75% of the 100% cost. So the issue, of course, then means that places that make food or make various products, probably their profit margin might be somewhat less. But actually, the reality is there's far too much food all over the place. Food companies, drinks companies are making huge amounts of profit.
Perhaps they need to make slightly less profit to make healthier versions, both by portion or by composition. And that's the direction of travel we need to go in if we're going to seriously tackle the obesity pandemic. I mean, I'm not saying that's the only solutions. Clearly, the sugar tax is helping, but certainly portion sizes.
You know, when I was sitting with my wife and she got a huge portion of breakfast cereal porridge, actually, and she felt guilty not being able to eat even half of it and over-consumed. so that the plate didn't look as full, so she wasn't wasting food. So there's multiple issues with high food portion sizes and actually having a variety will definitely help many people.
I think that would be a great additional attribute within various restaurants and even many supermarkets. They have a vast range of ready-to-eat options and they're usually single portion sizes and that needs to change as well. Professor Navid Sattar of Glasgow University in Scotland. And still to come on the Global News Podcast.
If doctors can use motion capture data, such as walking patterns or posture, they can intervene earlier. Using tech to combat dementia in Japan.
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Chapter 4: How has the new Syrian leadership been received internationally?
President Zelensky is meeting key European allies in London today as well as NATO and EU officials in Brussels. Late on Sunday, President Trump said he was disappointed in his Ukrainian counterpart and accused him of not reading the US proposal. Russia... I guess we'd rather have the whole country, wouldn't you think of it? But Russia is, I believe, fine with it.
But I'm not sure that Zelensky is fine with it. His people love it. But he hasn't read it. The latest meetings come after three days of talks in Florida, where Ukraine's chief negotiator pushed for changes to the White House plan, which is widely thought to favour Russia. I heard more about President Zelensky's diplomatic offensive from our World Affairs correspondent, Joe Inwood.
He has just arrived at Downing Street. We've seen him turn up and get a warm embrace from Sakhir Starmer. He's there to meet as well as the British Prime Minister. He's meeting Friedrich Merz of Germany and Emmanuel Macron of France. These are the three biggest European backers of Ukraine.
And this is Europe putting a sort of metaphorical arm around Ukraine's president and its people and saying that whatever their diplomatic travails with Washington, that Ukraine still has European backing. Yeah, tell us about that pressure on Ukraine from the US.
For weeks now, there have been this sort of back-and-forth sets of negotiations taking place between the US and Moscow and the US and Kiev, coming up with various forms of a peace plan, some sort of deal that will bring the war to an end. Now, the first version of that, people have referred to many times as 28-point plan, was seen as being heavily weighted in Moscow's favour.
Some people said it was even written by the Russians. There has been a back and forth since then, but really there's intensifying pressure from Washington on Kiev to accept some sort of peace deal. Now, the latest form that's taken is these three-day talks in Miami. We've seen high-level Ukrainian and U.S. delegations trying to hammer out some form of new plan. Now, we don't know.
Unlike in previous iterations, we don't know what the details of that are. But we did get a sense from President Zelensky over the weekend when he said... The conversations were constructive, but obviously very difficult. And then there was that clip of President Trump that we heard just a few moments ago, in which he was pretty critical of President Zelensky.
We're seeing him returning to his quite often position of being, frankly, relatively hostile to the Ukrainian leader, saying he'd not even read the latest proposals. Now, we understand that those proposals have been put to him in person today. And that what we assume that they will be discussed with the European leaders.
But as you say, there is a sort of a building pressure from the Americans to try and force Ukraine into some sort of concession. And that will take many forms, but most notably, I think, limits on the size of their armed forces and the idea of ceding territory in the east of Ukraine to Russia in order to get some sort of peace deal.
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