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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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The medals to mascots, ski big air to figure skating. There's a lot going on at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy. We're going to give you the lowdown of the athletes and sports to watch out for as the Games get underway. Join me, Icra, on What's in the World to hear all about it.
What in the World is a daily podcast from the BBC World Service covering news and trending topics every weekday in less than 15 minutes. Find us wherever you get your BBC podcasts. This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Celia Hatton, and at 1600 GMT on Friday, the 6th of February, a top Russian general has been shot in Moscow.
Vladimir Alekseev has played a significant role in the war on Ukraine, and Russia says Kiev's responsible for the attack on his life. Meanwhile, a Ukrainian soldier who was believed to have died in the war has returned home alive. More than 30 people have been killed in a suspected suicide bombing at a Shia mosque in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad.
Also in this podcast, it's the last day of election campaigning in Thailand. Our correspondent tells us why the country's progressive party is ahead in the polls, but that might not be enough.
They think by dissolving our parties, by banning our leaders from politics would make us smaller. In fact, we are getting bigger.
Let's begin in Moscow, where a top Russian general, Vladimir Alekseev, has been rushed to hospital after being shot several times. There have been a string of attacks on Russian military officials since Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine almost four years ago. This shooting took place in an apartment building in the city's suburbs.
Vladimir Alekseev is the top military official to be targeted so far. He's a senior figure with Russia's military intelligence agency, the GRU. Alexey has played a significant role during the war in Ukraine. Back in 2022, he took part in talks with Kiev during the Russian siege of Mariupol.
A year later, he was dispatched to negotiate with the head of the Wagner mercenary group after its soldiers triggered an unsuccessful uprising against Russia's government. Christo Grozev is head of investigations at the news website The Insider and a specialist on the Russian military and intelligence services.
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Chapter 2: What happened to the top Russian general in Moscow?
Well, Russia and Ukraine carried out a rare exchange of prisoners of war and civilians on Thursday after two days of peace talks in Abu Dhabi. In total, more than 300 individuals were exchanged. It was joyous news for the relatives of those allowed to go home, particularly for one Ukrainian family. Here's the moment one soldier's mother, who thought he had died, heard from her son on the phone.
Some emotional moments in Ukrainian.
The mother says, Nazachik, my dear son, I've been waiting for you for so long. My golden child, it's so great. I love you so much. Our Europe correspondent Sarah Rainsford has been following the story. This is an extraordinary story and a very, very rare moment of happiness and joy, I guess, in four years of all-out war here.
And it's the story of Nazar, who went to fight in 2022, but went missing in action. And his family at first thought that he'd been captured and taken to Russia. In fact, they even got a phone call from someone in Russia saying that they had... the man and that he would be OK.
But then in 2023, the family, having given DNA for testing of any soldiers remains that would be found, they got a call and they were told that there was a body that had been identified in a morgue using DNA as the body of Nazar. So Nazar's family buried Nazar in 2023. And it was Only in 2025 that they got word, in fact, that he was in prison in Russia and he was actually alive.
So after two years, after burying this man in the local village cemetery next to his father in the family plot, Actually, a released soldier let them know that they believed that they'd met Nazar in prison, that he was alive, he was OK. But there was absolutely no contact with him.
Russian prisons and the authorities in Russia do not give the Ukrainian families chance to talk to the prisoners of war. So basically, it was only when this exchange happened that the family actually got to speak to Nazar for the first time, got confirmation he was alive. And of course, that ultimate good news, the fact that he had come home alive. to Ukraine.
They still haven't been reunited in person. It was just a phone call so far. There's a lot of rehab to go through for him after four years in a Russian jail. And of course, coming to terms with the information that his family not only thought he was dead, but buried what they thought was his body. I've got to say, even the sound of that phone call gave me goosebumps.
I mean, we heard the reaction from the family. What's been the wider reaction in Ukraine? I mean, to be honest, I think they'll be sharing that joy. And it's a video that's, you know, obviously zipped around the Internet. Everybody's watching it. Everybody's commenting on it. It is so rare that there are happy moments in this war. And this is one that's just so extraordinary.
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Chapter 3: What are the implications of the shooting on the Ukraine conflict?
New Zealand's Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour, who has Maori ancestry, has been accused of trying to take back rights from the indigenous community. This is what he said in his speech. I'm always amazed by the myopic drone. that colonisation and everything that's happened in our country is all bad. The truth is that very few things are completely good or completely bad.
His comments provoked an immediate reaction. The next day, during a dawn prayer service, when he started to address the crowd, dozens of people started booing and shouting for him to stop, with one blowing into a conch shell. There will be so many joys up and down this country...
And maybe, just maybe, with respect for each person and their right to speak their mind and make the most of their time on earth, we will all get along just fine. Those silent majority up and down this country who are getting a little tired of some of these antics, thank you very much and God bless. A church leader implored the crowd to stop.
Mr Seymour dismissed the protest, saying the hecklers were muppets shouting in the dark. But the incident is a reminder that a day to commemorate a shared history can also bring divisions and grievances out into the open. Bernadette Keogh. Researchers at Oxford University say cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins, used by millions around the world, may be far safer than previously thought.
The results in the Lancet Journal come from trials involving more than 120,000 people. They suggest statins do not cause the majority of the possible side effects listed on packs, including weight gain and impotence. The lead author of the study is Professor Christina Reith. She's been speaking to Justin Webb.
What we found was that the vast majority of medical issues are listed as potential side effects and statin packaging do not actually have a causal link with statins. So this includes seeing no increase in problems like memory loss, depression. depression, sleep disturbance, erectile dysfunction, nausea, headache and many, many more.
And this is really reassuring because this really gives us confidence to see the benefits of statins and significantly reducing heart attacks and strokes, which are serious, potentially devastating conditions. But these benefits substantially outweigh any risk.
I mean, the risk, I suppose, is that someone reads that stuff. And I've been on statins for a decade more, actually. And I can remember originally thinking that I did have some of the side effects. And then actually, as time went by, thinking, you know what, I don't think I do really. I mean, aching legs were one of the things I was told about when I was first put on them.
In other words, the risk is that people read this stuff in the package and then believe that they've got these things or that these things that they have got are linked to the statins and they're not.
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