Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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A scam exploiting vulnerable families with sick children. I would have done anything to get the medicine for Khalil.
The child is directed on camera to plead for help.
I want to be a normal kid. I want to go to school. They were going to upload it to social media. Millions of dollars pour in, but the families never receive the money. He told us it wasn't successful. As I understood it, the video just didn't make any money.
They used to raise funds for their own benefit.
World of Secrets, the child cancer scam, from the BBC World Service. Listen now, wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Hello, I'm Oliver Conway. We're recording this at 16 hours GMT on Thursday 11th December. The Venezuelan opposition leader, Maria Corina Machado, says the Maduro regime is weaker than ever.
Survivors of a typhoon in the Philippines are suing oil giant Shell, saying carbon emissions made the storm worse. And we report on the children caught up in drug wars in Marseille. Also in the podcast... so 200 us dollars for kilo investigating the trade in endangered species on facebook
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Chapter 2: What did María Corina Machado say about the Maduro regime?
It's chaos. I'm heading now to meet a local lawyer, somebody who's been active for years supporting the victims of gangland killings. But in the last week or so, she's become so afraid for her own safety that she's taken a step back. And she's going to talk to us now, but only if we hide her name.
We are all afraid here now. It's clear that the drugs gangs are in control. I have to protect my family.
We're seeing increasingly youngsters, teenagers involved in the gangs now.
Yes, so many youngsters are forced into it. They're forced into debt, locked up, made to work, beaten.
It's a form of slavery.
In a big convoy, French police drive towards the outskirts of Marseille to an area where the drug gangs are dominant. The aim is to disrupt their trade.
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Chapter 3: What challenges are children facing in drug wars in Marseille?
OK, we're just running with the French police here around an apartment block. They're trying to seal off to make sure that there are no drug dealers here. We're in a stairwell now. There are maybe six, seven policemen. They've surrounded one young man. They've got him up against the wall. They're searching him. We understand he's 18 years old.
The youngster then begs the police to arrest him so he can escape the gang. They take him away. The French police are making hundreds of arrests like this, but despite the crackdown, they are, it seems, losing the war against a network of chaotic gangs that are starved to some extent by a growing army of brutalized children. We've come down into the cellar now.
Police searching for places where drugs might have been hidden. They find cocaine, hashish, traces of a drug industry now worth up to 7 billion euros across France. A far-right MP, Frank Alicio, talks of the need for a state of emergency. And he blames uncontrolled immigration. It's the number that's the problem, he says. We're no longer able to integrate, to assimilate.
But Marseille on the Mediterranean has always been a diverse city, a city of immigrants. The prevailing view here is that they should not be scapegoated, that teenagers running riot here and in other cities are still children, that they need, above all, rescuing from a violent industry, bringing terror to their streets. Andrew Harding reporting from Marseille.
Four years ago, Typhoon Rai battered the Philippines, killing around 400 people and destroying hundreds of thousands of homes. At the time, it was the most powerful storm to ever hit the archipelago. Now victims of the disaster are suing the oil and gas company Shell, accusing it of contributing to climate change and therefore making such weather events more severe.
I know that we can do something about this. I know that this will be a long journey for us. This will be a tough journey, but we are here ready to wait and ready to fight.
I call on Shell to pay.
It seems like you want to be the only ones to survive, leaving the poor to be poorer.
I heard more about the case from our business correspondent, Nick Marsh. This is a group of 67 victims of Typhoon Rai, known as Super Typhoon Adet locally in the Philippines. We're talking exactly four years ago actually is when this typhoon formed and caused all the devastation that you mentioned. Their argument is that the science shows that this particular storm would not have been as powerful
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Chapter 4: How did US actions influence the situation in Venezuela?
And who has contributed to that? Well, the fossil fuel companies, of course. And they have decided to single out Shell and sue them in the United Kingdom, where the company's headquartered, with the aim of getting a significant amount of compensation.
And ultimately, if you listen to the environmental groups who are backing these claimants, kick off a series of similar lawsuits against other companies in the future. And what does Shell have to say about this? Shell's called the claim baseless. It's pretty clear they're going to be fighting this quite hard in the court.
Their argument, essentially, is that their production of oil and gas didn't contribute to this individual typhoon. I mean, the Philippines does get a lot of powerful typhoons. And that ultimately, Olly, is what the court will need to be convinced of.
Another important claim in this lawsuit is that Shell has known for decades, so since the 1960s in fact, that burning fossil fuels is the primary driver of human-led climate change, but instead, for a long time, chose to hide this information and misinform the public and the wider industry.
Now again, Shell says that's simply not true, that it had any kind of unique knowledge about climate change. It doesn't dispute the fact that burning fossil fuels contributes... to climate change. I think that's not up for debate at all. But Shell says that everyone's known this for a long time and the debate has been how to tackle it.
And that's been a public one that's been going on for many years, decades even. It's going to be interesting to see, you know, which way the court may be convinced on this or not. Yeah, scientists say it's difficult to link cause and effect to particular storms in regards to climate change. But what could be the impact of this case?
Environmental groups, including Greenpeace, they're one of them backing this claim. They're hoping that if it's successful, then they can basically sue other big fossil fuel companies. And you do see these sort of test cases popping up now and again.
There is clearly, though, an appetite for a kind of reckoning, you know, when it comes to the oil and gas companies and when it comes to climate change. But, you know, with these very highly legal issues... The devil's in the detail of the specific case and of the specific interpretation of the science. Our Asia business correspondent, Nick Marsh.
The illegal trade in wildlife is estimated to be worth up to $20 billion a year. An investigation by BBC News has found body parts of endangered species, including tigers and sharks, being offered for sale on Facebook. The site's owner, Meta, says it doesn't allow the selling of endangered species and removes such content.
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