1. Commemorating: To honor the memory of someone or something, often through a ceremony or event.

2. Assassination: The act of killing someone, usually a prominent figure, intentionally and often for political reasons.

3. Corruption: Dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power, typically involving bribery or misuse of public funds.

4. Escalating: Increasing or intensifying in severity or extent.

5. Retaliate: To respond to an attack or injury with a counterattack; to seek revenge.

6. Aftershocks: Smaller earthquakes that follow the main shock of a seismic event.

7. Deterrence: The action of discouraging an action or event through instilling fear of the consequences.

8. Detrimental: Harmful or damaging.

9. Conscientious: Wishing to do what is right, especially to do one’s work or duty well and thoroughly.

10. Legitimacy: The quality or state of being legitimate, lawful, or authorized.

11. Implications: The possible effects or results of an action, decision, or event.

12. Puzzling: Confusing or difficult to understand; causing uncertainty.

13. Baffling: Perplexing or confusing, making someone unable to understand or explain.

14. Artefacts: Objects made by humans, especially those with cultural or historical significance.

15. Feasting: A large and elaborate meal, typically as a celebration or in honor of a special occasion.

16. Eclipsed: Surpassed or overshadowed, often in terms of achievement or success.

17. Greatest Hits: A compilation album featuring a musician’s most successful and popular songs.

18. Rerecorded: To record again, especially a previously released piece of music.

19. Eclipsed: Surpassed or overshadowed, often in terms of achievement or success.

20. Prominent: Well-known, widely recognized, or standing out in a particular field.

This is the global news podcast from the BBC World Service. I’m Nigel Adeli. And at 1400 gmt on Wednesday the 3 January, these are our main stories. Iranian media say explosions have killed at least 70 people at an event commemorating a top military commander. Tensions rise in Lebanon following the assassination of a deputy leader of Hamas. Japan’s government sends in 2000 soldiers to help rescue survivors of Monday’s earthquake and accusations of COVID corruption in Vietnam as a former health minister goes on trial. Also in this podcast, we have some teeth that are very worn in kind of a funny way that might indicate the use of teeth as tools, maybe for textile work, leather work, basketry. The newly found mediaeval skeletons that are bringing up as many questions as answers for scientists. We begin in Iran, where state media say at least 70 people have been killed in what the authorities are calling a terrorist attack. It happened in the city of Kerman during a ceremony marking four years since Iran’s most powerful military commander, Qassim Soleimani, was killed by a us drone strike. Parham Gabadi from BBC Persian told us more about what’s being reported. The two explosions took place and they were less than a kilometre away from Qasim Soleimani’s where he’s buried from his grave. So the footage that I was checking right now, you see a lot of people who were wounded, who were bleeding. Aid services were coming, but because it was crowded, they were saying they had difficulty reaching the people. And they have asked everyone who took part in the ceremony to evacuate the place so they would be able to help the wounded. Have we any idea who may be behind this attack? They haven’t mentioned who has made the attack yet, but they say it’s of a terrorist nature. Usually in the past, like the one that took place almost a year ago in Shiraz, and before that, the same thing happened in Ahvaz. Usually ISIS took responsibility for such attacks, but it’s not clear at this moment who’s responsible for this particular attack. And just remind us, how significant was Qasim Soleimani within the iranian military? So he was the top iranian general and the architect of Iran’s foreign military strategy. So he was behind all the strategies that Iranians made outside iranian border, not inside the border. And he was extremely close to the iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamani. So that’s why they call him the architect of Iran’s military strategy outside Iran, outside iranian borders. Parham Gobadi, the United nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon, has said it is deeply concerned about violence escalating after the killing of the senior Hamas figure Salel al Arari and five others in Beirut. It said a wider conflict would have devastating consequences for both Israel and Lebanon. Israel hasn’t claimed responsibility for the killing, but has says its military is prepared for any scenario. Protests broke out on Tuesday night not only in Lebanon, but also the west bank, where Mr. Al Arari is from. The Hamas leader, Ishmael Haniyah, has warned that death will not go unpunished. We affirm that the assassination by the zionist occupation of the great brother and national fighting leader Sheikh Salah al Arori and his brothers of the movement’s leadership and teams on the lebanese lands is a complete terrorist act, a violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty, and an expansion of Israel’s hostility against our people and nation. The occupation is responsible for its repercussions. Corinne Chaube is in Beirut and told me what the mood was like on the streets of the lebanese capital. Well, at the moment I am in the middle of the street where the attack happened. We can see clearly the apartment that was targeted. It is actually business as usual. The shops have reopened. This morning the main street was closed, but now it has been reopened and it is a crowded city, people moving by as a normal. But on everyone’s mind hangs one question. How is this going to change the rules of engagement between Israel and Hazballah? Is husband going to retaliate, and how? And everyone is looking for any glimpse of answer for this in the speech that Hassan Nasrala is expected to give this evening at 06:00 local time, and that is very highly anticipated. Is there any indication of what he might say at this stage? We know that Hasbollah issued a statement yesterday and they condemned the killing of Aruri. They said it will not go without answer. But the question is whether Hassan Australa is going to give more details about the direction that Hazballah will take in order to retaliate to what is seen here as a violation of a very important red line for Hazballah and for Lebanon. There is a lot of speculation, but everyone is waiting to hear about it from the man himself. And how dangerous a moment is this for the wider Middle east? It is quite dangerous. It is seen as a very big escalation whether this is going to be the trigger for an all out war. People in Lebanon in general, they don’t think so. They think that this is a pretty serious development. This could lead to something completely new, something different from what we’ve been seeing in the last months there have been daily confrontations between Hazballah and Israel from southern Lebanon towards northern Israel and from northern Israel towards southern Lebanon. But this has been seen as a contained struggle even if it happened on daily basis and lots of people were killed so far. But what happened yesterday is seen as something completely different that could take things to a completely different level but no one is sure how is this going to be translated on the ground? Corinne Chorbe on the streets of the lebanese capital Beirut 64 people are now known to have died in Japan following Monday’s earthquake. Tens of thousands of households remain without power and the authorities have warned the risk of landslides and heavy rain. The prime minister for Miyokashida said rescue workers were in a race against time to find survivors. We have received reports that there are still many people waiting for rescue under collapsed buildings today in addition to increasing the number of self defence force personnel from 1000 to 2000 people we will also strengthen our system by more than doubling the number of rescue dogs in the self defence forces and police Ourasia reporter Suranjana Tawari is monitoring events from Tokyo. One of the main challenges is the weather. There is heavy rain expected and potential landslides and that’s really going to hamper the efforts of the rescue workers who are working on the Noto peninsula now the other big challenge is aftershocks. Officials had warned that there was likely to be many aftershocks after the New Year’s Day earthquake and today authorities actually registered a 5.5 magnitude aftershock in the same area as has been affected. Roads are also damaged and that’s making it difficult for rescue workers to be able to reach some of the collapsed buildings and potentially the people who are trapped under those buildings as well and how much aid is managing to get through. The authorities have certainly stepped up the rescue efforts. The prime minister has announced that more army personnel will be deployed doubling the current figures to 2000. Sniffer dogs are also being sent in and aid is going to the general area. The problem is many towns where buildings have been completely flattened. In fact one town, the town of Suzu the mayor has said that there are almost no buildings that are still standing but it’s been impossible to access that.

Town, and therefore the aid, the clean water, is not able to get to the people who need it most. Now we’re getting to the point where beyond 48 hours since the first 7.6 magnitude earthquake struck on Monday, and obviously the window for rescuing people is closing, although the government has said that since yesterday, they have rescued 18 more people. Soranjana Tawari in Tokyo. The conflict in the Middle east is continuing to disrupt shipping in the Red Sea. Hootie rebels based in Yemen have launched repeated attacks on what they believe are vessels bound for Israel. Now, the head of the International Chamber of Shipping has told the BBC that one in five merchant vessels are now avoiding the Red Sea route and taking the much longer route around southern Africa, with obvious implications for global food trading. Our business reporter, Jonathan Josephs told me more. This is a really important route for global trade. About 12% of global trade goes through the Suez Canal route. What we know now about this attack last night is that it was a vessel belonging to the french shipping line, CMA CGM, which was targeted the tage. And that’s according to a statement from the houthi rebels based in Yemen, who have been targeting ships like this for the last few weeks. They said that that ship was heading to, as they put it, occupied Palestine, and that was why they targeted it. And they vowed to continue these attacks. There have now been 24 of them since the middle of November, according to the US military. And what this attack has done, again, is to highlight the risk that seafarers are facing if they try to navigate this passage. And that’s why the secretary general of the International Chamber of Shipping has been talking about this. He says that the safety of crews is the number one priority for these shipping lines, and that’s why they’re now having to go round the Cape of good hope all the way around Africa. It’s a much longer route, and that’s why so many of them are doing that. I was speaking to one shipping analyst who was saying it’s predominantly western owned ships. The big european shipping lines, Mersk and Hapag Lloyd, we know, for instance, and MSC are all avoiding the Red Sea for now, and they feel that they are too much of a target, whereas there are other ships that are still using that area. It is still busy with maritime traffic, but it’s ships that, for instance, are russian owned ships, perhaps carrying sanctioned oil from Russia to India, which perhaps feel less vulnerable. And what are the implications of all of this for global trade? Well, one thing that is clear is it’s definitely adding more cost into the system. Quite how much of an impact it ends up having on consumers is going to depend on just how long this all goes on for. We know that a journey around the Cape of good hope instead of via the swiss canal can add a million dollars to fuel costs, but there’s also added security and higher staffing costs. So we know that some companies, for instance, in the UK, are feeling the impact in terms of having to pay more to bring their goods from Asia to Europe. Ultimately, some of that will get passed on to the consumers. And at a time when the global economy is still battling inflation, that’s the last thing many people want to see. But we just don’t know how long and how deep that knock on impact will be. Jonathan Joseph’s and for more on that, our friends on another BBC podcast called the global story have done a deep dive in their episode. Who are the Houthi rebels and why are they attacking red sea ships? Which looks at who backs them and what it means for the wider region. The number of ukrainian civilians killed by the conflict with Russia has now risen to more than 10,000, according to figures recorded by the UN. President Vladimir Putin has pledged to intensify attacks. And 45 people were killed last week, according to Kiev, and some 160 wounded after a raft of drone and missile strikes. Our senior international correspondent, Ola Gurin tells the story of two talented young women, both civilians, who were killed in the city of Zafarica last summer. The voice of a promising young ukrainian singer, Christina Spietsena. Our last song will be for the people and defenders of her son. She says her friend Svitlana Samikana is alongside her on guitar as they perform outside a supermarket. It became their requiem. 20 minutes later, both were dead. I’ve come to the place where the two young women were killed. I’m at the exact spot. You can see the windows have been blown out. The young women had come to take a break. They’d finished singing and a rocket came slamming into the ground. I’m with Helena. She’s the mother of Christina who was killed here. Helene, I know you’ve had an unbelievable loss. Can you tell me, how has the loss of Christina affected you and the family? You don’t know what plans to make for tomorrow. Sometimes you are able to smile, but then you remember that she can’t smile anymore. I can’t explain it. It’s as if you have died but can still speak. Hi, Yuri. I’m with Yuri Samikan, his wife Anna, and their daughter Sasha, who’s twelve. We’re sitting in the garden under the shade of a tree. Yuri and Anna are Svetlana’s parents. I was at home, heard an explosion and got in the car. I knew they were out there somewhere in that area. I told the police I was looking for my daughter and her friend. Police brought me to the place. And I saw what I saw. Spitlana was lying on the ground in front of me. How is it possible in the 21st century to do something like this? Nichimas provoco. Completely unprovoked. I’m at Christina’s graveside now with Helena. And she’s buried side by side with Svetlana. The two graves are together. There are ukrainian flags flying. And lots of floral tributes. Flowers all around the graves. Helena, how does it feel for you to come here? You come here to see or hear something? The wind blows and you think it’s the soul of your child hugging. Happy. Frosta Shikali. Haya pamper. No shrimp. Yummy. Moy. Diana, push your easy. Olagurin reporting. When Covid-19 was spreading across the globe. Vietnam was one of the countries initially praised for taking effective measures against the disease. But the officials in charge at that time have since become embroiled in a series of legal cases. Today, the trial has begun of the former health minister and dozens of others accused of fraud involving COVID testing kits. Here’s Tu Boi from the BBC’s vietnamese service. This is one of the biggest corruption case in Vietnam. And so today, a bunch of senior officers went on a trial in Hanoi. Their alleged roles in producing and distributing overpriced COVID test kits. And among them was the farmer health minister who is accused of receiving price worth $2.2 million.

Dollars. And also a farmer handled chairman accused of taking around $200,000 as graduation. Thank you money. And this trial is expected to last 20 days with around 38 defendants. And what’s the reaction been from the public there? So the court case angers the public a lot, as it happened during the heart the time of the country, during the pandemic. And people are just pitless of the corruption and how big the money is corrupted because people expected the official, especially the health minister, are supposed to protect their life, but they can still corrupt during COVID time and through the disqualified desk kids and the public now is losing their confidence in the government. And is this part of a wider campaign of anti corruption from the government? Yeah, you are right. We can observe that the big case like this, big trial like this in the very first day of new year, is a part of anticorruption campaign licking by the general secretary of the Communist Party. And even now he is 80 years old, but he’s still determined to punish corrupt party members. And this trial in the very first day of new year blaze a deterrence to all the party members. And the communist party once warned that corruption may jeopardise its public legitimacy and determine the grip on power. So that’s why they very harsh on this case of corruption. Two boy from the BBC’s vietnamese service still to come on this podcast, why you may be more of a chicken whisperer than you think. Back in 2016, the Philippines newly elected President Rodrigo Duterte announced his controversial war on drugs. In the years that followed, more than 6000 people were killed by the police in antidrug operations, although some believed the figure to be much higher. His successor, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Who came to power last year, said his approach to tackling drugs would be less violent. But as Linda Presley reports, the killings have continued. And one case has become emblematic of the problem. In the waterside neighbourhood of Navotas in the north of Metro MANILA, people are still reeling from the daylight shooting of a 17 year old fisherman by the police in August last year. Vincent Goh is a seasoned news photographer who’s covered the bloody drug war since 2016. He arrived here after Gerode Baltazar, known as Gemboy, was gunned down and fell into the water in a fatal case of mistaken identity. That day, the police were supposed to be looking for a murder suspect. When they arrived. Then somebody pointed that the suspect is hiding in that boat. So they saw two people on the boat, it was Jemboy and his friend. And immediately they started yelling and immediately opened fire on the two of them, Jemboy and his friend. They were just cleaning the boat, right? Fishing boat, yeah. They were preparing the boat to go out to fish. So his body was left under the water. The police didn’t even see if he was still alive or tried to retrieve the body. Shockingly, it was Gemboy’s uncle who finally fished his nephew’s corpse out of the water. Gemboy’s remains were removed to the Philippine General Hospital, where Dr. Raquel Fortune, one of only two forensic pathologists in the country, was waiting in the morgue in her office with the aid of a plastic model skull, Dr. Fortune demonstrates where one of the bullets hit Jemboy’s head. So it entered here, but it did not really cause death outright. The point is, if the police had pulled Jemboy out of the water, potentially he could have survived. In the days that followed the post mortem, Dr. Fortune had two unwelcome visits from the police and from the prosecutor. They wanted her autopsy report. I said, this is enough. I’m being harassed. I’m active on Twitter. And so I posted. She told her 170,000 followers about the visits, adding, she was putting the information out there for whatever protection that might give her. In the Philippines, the assassination of public figures isn’t unheard of. So this is the Department of Justice, and we’ve got an appointment with Assistant Secretary Miko Clavano. The killing of Jemboy has become one of a tiny handful of cases where police officers in the Philippines are being held to account. Six of them have been charged with murder and are now awaiting their day in court. The assistant secretary says Gemboy’s case has hastened reform so that prosecutors will in future work more closely with the police. Visiting crime scenes, the police were left alone on the field, and that’s how all these abuses have happened. So this is our way of sort of doing a cheque and balance with the police. That may be, but drug related killings haven’t stopped. In fact, according to researchers at the University of the Philippines, more deaths were recorded in the first year of President Marcos’rule than during the last year President Duterte was in power. Linda Presley last year saw a heightening of tension between China and Taiwan. And China’s president has begun 2024 with a signal that things are not going to ease. In his new year message, Xi Jinping reiterated his claim that Taiwan would surely be unified with China. This comes ahead of Taiwan’s elections this month that will determine the island’s cross strait policy for the next four years. Meanwhile, Taiwan is extending compulsory military service to one year from four months starting this year, due to the rising threat the democratically governed island faces from its neighbour, who sees Taiwan as a breakaway province. My colleague ed butler has been to Taiwan to see how they are preparing for any potential conflict. Now, stepping inside an old taiwanese gun emplacement. It’s like a bunker, concrete bunker. You can hear the walls above my head. It’s hardly high enough for me to stand. To my right is a little shrine, a little incense burner, presumably left here by soldiers. There are walls on each side and in front of me you can see the spikes pointing out towards the sea. A deterrent to any invading force. This was built in the. There was a really hot war between here and China. Shells were flying over by the thousand each week. Since then, the heat has somewhat lessened in terms of military conflict. But the threats are ramping up once again. Regular staged military drills just like this one are meant to show that Taipei and its allies are serious about confronting any potential chinese military assault head on. Taiwanese troops fire smoke grenades. Planes take off and land tanks trundle forward with scurrying soldiers running behind. But how meaningful are exercises like this, given that just across the Taiwan Strait, Beijing’s organising its own far bigger drills, backed by a 300 billion dollar military budget and a 2 million strong army? Well, if they really want to start a war to take over Taiwan, I think just a matter of time. They will win. I think they will. I’m not rooting for them, but it’s just a fact. That’s Jason, a 30 year old it worker who, like all taiwanese men, has had to undergo compulsory military service, just four months of it, in his case. Well, Taiwan’s government itself points out that it’s increasing compulsory military service for men from four months to one year, although that number is still much less than other countries like Israel or South Korea, for example. The US is now supplementing Taiwan’s defence budget with direct grants. But even former taiwanese generals say that in military terms, the island is woefully.

Ill prepared. Of course, no one on the island wants war. The question now is, though, whether the government’s current defiant posture towards Beijing is deterring a possible conflict or, as the opposition parties claim, is adding to the risks. This is how the KMT candidate ho Yue put it when my translator Xin and I heard him speak at a recent presidential election rally on, he mentioned about cross straight tension and how it plays a crucial role in this election. And his attitude is that we want to do everything we can to avoid war and we will prepare, but not to the extent that we attract war. And he believes that he is the only candidate who has been really upfront about his attitude towards the China and Taiwan relationship, that he thinks that any politician or any presidential candidate who supported taiwanese independence will attract war. That report from Ed Butler in Taiwan do you think you could spot a chicken in distress? A new study from a university in Australia shows that humans could be fairly effective chicken whisperers. Participants were tasked with identifying how the birds were feeling just by the sound of their clucks. Researchers believe the results could improve the welfare of farmed chickens. Madeleine Drury has more. Have a guess. Is this chicken excited or displeased? This is known as a gackle call and often indicates frustration. It’s one of the four types of sound that was played by researchers at Australia’s University of Queensland to test whether humans could correctly identify the context of calls or clicking sounds made by domestic chickens, the most commonly found species in the world. They found that 69% of people got it right and could tell whether a chicken made sounds in a rewarded context, such as when they were excited about mealworms for dinner or nonrewarded context, like a disappointing empty bowl. This ability wasn’t influenced by the participants’past experience in chicken coops, so researchers say it suggests cross species call recognition may just be wired into us, and the results, as researcher Professor Henning, could make for happier hens in future. If further research can give us a better understanding of how humans interpret their calls, it could be used to teach artificial intelligence. Detection systems could help breeders monitor and improve the bird’s welfare. Professor Hennings also says this could assist conscientious consumers in making more informed decisions on their supermarket shop. Madeleine Drury reporting. Now to an unusual find in Wales, a set of graves 1500 years old, where archaeologists are finding evidence about how an early mediaeval community lived, died and were buried. But the skeletons pose some puzzling questions for the research team. Our science editor Rebecca Morell went to visit the dig in the welsh capital Cardiff. Just outside of Cardiff, archaeologists are unearthing a mediaeval mystery. And it’s the west facing section. They’ve discovered a graveyard they think is 1500 years old. The bodies, buried so long ago, are giving an insight into a period we know little about. This is your upper jaw area, so your maxilla, your top teeth. Summer courts from the University of Reading is carefully excavating one of the remarkably well preserved skeletons. As bones get cleaned, we’ll find pathologies that can tell us about health, tell us, in some cases about work. We have some teeth that are very worn in kind of a funny way that might indicate the use of teeth as tools, maybe for textile work, leather work, basketry, where they’re pulling something through their front teeth. We’ll have a really good not only life history of these people, but also a community history. Everywhere you look, there are graves carved out of the bedrock. The team have excavated 18 of them so far. Now they’re all in roughly an east west orientation. And in some of them, the skeletons are totally laid out flat on their backs with their legs outstretched. But in others, which is much more unusual, the skeletons are in a crouching position. Why this is isn’t clear. Were burial practises changing over time? Or was there something else marking out these people as different? But it’s not just the skeletons baffling the team. What’s being found alongside them is also posing a puzzle. Got something that looks like glass. That is glass. A shard of fine french glass has just been discovered. It’s a rim shard, probably the rim from a cone beaker, so, which would have looked like an ice cream cone. Very well preserved glass, most likely associated with the consumption of wine, probably was imported alongside wine in barrels from the Bordeaux region of France. A really nice find. Andy Seaman from Cardiff University is leading this excavation. There’s an array of artefacts being found from fragments of pottery, perhaps from North Africa, and a tiny carved peg. This little object is manufactured from animal bone. Could be a peg for a gaming board, like a kind of cribbage or some sort of. Yes, yeah, some mediaeval version. Yeah, something like that. Andy says the discoveries suggest people were coming to the cemetery to meet up and socialise the living and the dead existing together. We tend to think of graveyards as sort of enclosed spaces that we don’t really go to, but they probably would have been quite central to life in the past. And it’s not just a place where people are being buried, but it’s a place where communities are coming together. They are burying their dead, but they’re also undertaking other forms of activity and social practise, including eating and drinking and feasting. Andy Seaman, speaking to our science editor, Rebecca Morell. As I’m sure you’re aware, Taylor Swift was everywhere. In 2023, her era’s concert tour brought in a record breaking $1 billion in sales after only 60 shows. According to CBS, she was also the most downloaded artist globally on Spotify and here in the UK, it was no different. She was the most streamed artist of the year. Her presence helped to make it the most successful year ever for female musicians in Britain. So who else was making the grade? Here’s our music correspondent, Mark Savage. Flowers by Miley Cyrus was streamed nearly 200 million times in 2023, making it the year’s biggest single. Another six of the year’s top ten bestsellers were by female artists, including songs by Pink Pantheris Scissor and Taylor Swift. It’s me. Hi, I’m the problem with me. In the album chart, new music was eclipsed by greatest Hits collections, which accounted for half of the top ten. The canadian star the Weekend was at number one with his best off album called the Highlights. The only new release in the top ten was Taylor Swift’s 1989, and even that was a rerecorded version of an album originally issued in 2014. We never been out of style and that’s all from us for now. But there will be a new edition of the global news podcast later. If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email. The address is GlobalPodcast at BBC Co, UK. You can also find us on X, formerly known as Twitter, at Globalnewspod. This edition was mixed by Craig Kingham, the producer was Stephanie Prentice and the editor is Karen Martin. I’m Nigel. Adele. Until next time, goodbye.