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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Nick Miles, and at 14 hours GMT on Wednesday the 24th of June, these are our main stories. Ukraine steps up its campaign on Russian-occupied Crimea as energy facilities are hit.
Chapter 2: What recent events have occurred in Russian-occupied Crimea?
Red alerts are in place across a number of countries as temperatures continue to soar across parts of Western Europe. The US Senate has approved a measure demanding that President Donald Trump halt the war in Iran or seek congressional approval before continuing military action. Also in this podcast, do you ever find yourself fading throughout the day?
The study basically showed that a break every hour showed a good improvement in productivity, reduced fatigability through the day and also an improvement in workers' mental health. How movement snacking may help. Ukraine has long been outgunned and outmanned in its conflict with Russia.
Chapter 3: How are Ukrainian strikes affecting energy facilities in Crimea?
But overnight into Wednesday, we got another clear sign about where Kyiv excels, drone warfare. The latest Ukrainian strikes on the biggest city in Russian-occupied Crimea, Sevastopol, have left it completely without electricity. The authorities have been forced to suspend fuel sales to the public. These people in Crimea have told the BBC how they're coping.
Things have got worse since the start of the month. I ordered a generator yesterday, and I'm going to pick it up today. The funny thing is that now fuel sales have been suspended. There's nothing to power it with. Since yesterday, the petrol stations have been sitting empty. The fuel is there, but they're not selling it.
Deliveries arrived overnight, and normally sales would start during the day, but after Crimean Governor Aksyonov's decree, everything was shut down. I managed to fill up my tank recently. So now I'm trying to save fuel and avoid using the car unless I really have to.
Ukraine has been stepping up attacks on energy infrastructure in areas illegally held by Russia to damage Moscow's oil revenues. I heard more about that strategy from our Europe correspondent Nick Beek, who's in Kiev.
Sevastopol is important for the Russians strategically logistically also symbolically because it is the biggest city in Crimea and the authorities there the Moscow installed authorities are saying yes there is this power outage they've talked about suspending electric transport there they've told people not to panic and they say that their engineers are trying to
get things back to normal as soon as possible. But clearly this Ukrainian tactic, this strategy of drones is working. We've heard from the drone unit, as it were. They said that this operation overnight was highly successful. And it is part of this wider theme, the Ukrainians trying to hit Russia itself as well as Russian occupied land.
And specifically the significance of Crimea for Russia and Ukraine. It has a special place for both countries, doesn't it? Yeah, absolutely. Crimea illegally annexed by the Russians back in 2014.
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Chapter 4: What impact is the heatwave having across Europe?
Also for President Putin, it's hugely important to him. And we've seen the Ukrainians hit particularly the Kerch Bridge, which, again, holds a special place, you could say, in President Putin's heart, this land bridge that he was there for the inauguration of it when it was opened. And it serves not just as a symbolic value, but also it brings in supplies from Russia itself.
And it really is a key artery for the Russian war effort. So the Ukrainians are really pounding this particular part of the world. And it does seem to be having an effect. You've got Vladimir Putin talking about this being a Ukrainian effort to destabilize the population. And in recent days, we've seen suggestions that there could be a ban on the export of diesel from Russia itself.
and some Russian newspapers talking about them having to import fuel. So really, this would be a huge change if the Russians are having to recalibrate the whole way they deal with fuel. There is no suggestion that Ukraine might attempt to retake Crimea. That would be extremely difficult, I imagine. But to what extent is what we're seeing now?
Ukraine trying to perhaps gain leverage for some kind of negotiation later on down the line? Yes, I think that is really the case in terms of incrementally or suddenly taking back land. That's just not on the table at the moment. But I think it's kind of threefold, really, what the Ukrainians are trying to do. There's an immediate destabilization.
And so for people living in those areas, they're clearly going to be unhappy with what's happening in their daily lives with a lack of power. also hitting Moscow's war chest, that oil revenues are down, but also this pressure on Vladimir Putin as well. This idea the Ukrainians want to put forward of sowing the seeds of discontent so that it creates a perfect storm, really, of pressure.
on Vladimir Putin so that he's in a position to come to the negotiating table. The problem is, Nick, at the moment, there is no sign that Vladimir Putin is willing to talk and to stop the missiles, which, of course, are going towards Ukraine as well. Night after night in different parts of Ukraine, there are these drones and missile attacks. Nick Beek in Kiev.
If you take a look at a weather map of Western Europe at the moment, you will see it is coloured the darkest shade of red. If you're here, you will feel what the record temperatures into the low 40s actually feel like, and it is not pleasant. In fact, heat alert warnings of a risk to life have been issued in Britain, Italy, Spain and France.
And that's where we're going to focus our attention over the next few minutes. All this has had a big impact on everyday life. Thousands of schools have been closed, rail lines have buckled and electricity substations have stopped working.
There are very few freely accessible, easy or free ways to cool down. And that's a concern for us. The heat is exhausting.
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Chapter 5: How is the US Senate addressing military action against Iran?
And as time goes on, these episodes are only likely to become more frequent with temperatures continuing to rise.
I live in a rooftop flat, so during a heat wave, it's almost impossible to cope with the heat.
It definitely changes my routine. I try to leave home as early as possible and come back as late as I can to avoid being stuck in the unbearable heat of the flat. Our reporter Pierre-Antoine Denis is in Nice in southern France. It feels surprisingly very, very hot, especially for this time of year. I'm in my hometown. I'm with my family. And that's where I grew up.
And to be honest with you, temperatures like this, especially the early in the morning or the nights, I haven't seen that in June in my life.
Chapter 6: What are the benefits of taking movement breaks at work?
I was... actually strolling by my high school yesterday where I used to pass this exam in this end of years and I could see the people there, the kids there, absolutely sweltering, completely sweaty. And I was like, have I experienced that? I'm not entirely sure. And it really feels very, very odd. And this is
why when the announcement came that this was the hottest day on record in terms of average temperatures all across France on Tuesday, it didn't surprise me.
And spending the day in Nice on Tuesday and what I'm going to do again on Wednesday, it really goes to show that both the owners of the shops, shop owners and people in the streets, everyone is really trying to cope with this heat that is historic at all levels. You said it's incredibly uncomfortable, but it's also dangerous. It's deadly potentially, isn't it?
Chapter 7: How does 'movement snacking' improve productivity?
Yeah, it has been deadly already. 40 people have drowned since this heatwave began. That's according to the Prime Minister. We've heard of also two kids dying as a result of being left alone in a car.
this really is a very deadly heat wave already and i think this has been a moment of reckoning in the last few days here in france of people realizing that this is genuinely dangerous it feels like yes we're back into this memory of 2003 when a 19 days heat wave claimed 15 000 lives in france The messaging wasn't there back then. Hospitals were overflowing with patients.
So there is already a deadly heat wave here. But there is a fear that if this goes on into the hottest month of the summer, which are usually July and early August, we may be in for another year like 2003. Now, have preparations improved since 2003? People's responsibilities, personal responsibilities, and also at a national governmental level? That's what the government will claim.
That's for sure. I spoke to a few care home owners and hospital directors on Tuesday. They all told me that we did learn lessons as a nation from 2003 in terms of what the priorities should be in terms of
getting the most elderly and vulnerable people into the hospital, expanding our resources, bringing more and more people into the hospitals over the summer to try and make sure to cope with the demand. And also, that's very important, trying to tell people that, yes, to stay cool, but also
to call the different numbers whenever people feel dizzy or feel they're about to faint or need to be taken care of, not necessarily rushing to A&E because there are things that can be done over the phone or at least by visiting the person. And that allows to reduce the stress on the A&E wards.
And this probably is one of the key messaging here that has been hammered in the news channels in the last couple few hours and days here in France. Pierre-Antoine Denis. Let's take a broader look now at the heat wave across Europe. I spoke to our climate reporter, Mark Pointing, and asked him what was so unusual about what many people on the continent are experiencing.
I think there are a couple of things that really stand out. The first is kind of just the sheer temperatures this early in the summer. Temperatures around Europe don't usually peak until July, yet we're getting temperatures of 40 degrees or even higher in much of Western and Central Europe. So that's really quite extraordinary. But also the humidity in many places around Europe is
is really quite high, and that makes it feel much hotter, and so the risks to health are much higher as well. Now, this heatwave will be moving on in a few days to other countries. Is it too late for those countries to prepare now? What kind of policies can they put in place to mitigate things in the short term?
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Chapter 8: What are the implications of the ongoing conflict for Crimea?
This is a really interesting study and it's kind of this concept of what they call movement snacking, which is a bit of a misnomer because you don't actually snack while you're moving. That would be my problem. That's the trap that most of us fall into. So the idea of movement snacking is that
in short periods of time over the course of a day you take a small break and you start to move so instead of taking an actual snack similar to what you would do if you were snacking and having it in small intervals you're actually moving and exercising in small intervals so this has kind of been a concept that's been balanced but kind of bandied around for a while now um
But this study is quite important because it's a really big study. It's got 11,000 participants across the US, across different sectors, but all of them in office-style jobs. Some of them work from home, some of them in the office. They all self-selected times where there were intervals where they would be movement snacking, having breaks to move.
And that was 30 minutes an hour and every two hours. And the study basically showed that a break every hour showed a good improvement in productivity, reduced fatigability through the day, and also an improvement in workers' mental health.
So actually, this idea of moving around has been shown by this study to be feasible within the working sector, and actually probably quite a good thing for workers who are sitting still. And that's the sweet spot. It's the hour. You don't take too long in between, but you don't pop out every 20 minutes.
Yeah, so the issue with the 30 minutes was that people were going out far too often, so therefore weren't actually getting anything done. With the two hours, it was better than doing nothing. However, it didn't have the overall benefits that the regular breaks did. In simple terms, what's the science behind this? How does it work, having that little stroll around the corner?
So there's a few different aspects. There's part of it psychological. So that's the idea that you're breaking up your day, you're getting away from a screen and you're kind of keeping yourself moving, having a little bit of a break from your brain, from the intense work that you may or may not be doing. There's obviously the physical aspect of it. So you're getting up and actually moving.
And that's in short breaks. actually adds up over the course of a day. So, you know, we often recommend to people they should be doing 30 minutes or to an hour of exercise every day or at least three or four times a week. But if you've got a busy job, that's not something that's necessarily feasible, especially if you're working long hours.
So breaking up through the day actually cumulatively does add up. And also that change in posture. So it's quite good for a reduction in terms of long term diseases, things like high blood pressure, diabetes or just putting on weight, obesity. So trying to get away from that just by having regular movement is really important.
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