Take a walk in somebody else’s shoes. With podcasts from the BBC World Service, unmissable stories from around the globe. Search for the documentary lives less ordinary and amazing sports stories. Wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Are you ready for some magic? This is the global news podcast from the BBC World Service. I’m Nick Miles, and in the early hours of Thursday the 4 January, these are our main stories. Explosions have killed 95 people in Iran at an event marking four years since a top general, Hasem Solomoni, was killed by a us drone. The leader of the lebanese armed group Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrala, has warned Israel that there will be a decisive response to the assassination in Beirut of a deputy leader of Hamas. Russia and Ukraine have agreed their biggest prisoner swap yet, involving hundreds of captured soldiers. Also in this podcast we report from Paris, he said, listen, you are adorable, charming, young. Would you like to kiss one another again in front of my camera? The woman from perhaps the most romantic photo of all time has died. We hear her story. We begin in the southern iranian city of Kherman. Hundreds of people had gathered on Wednesday for a memorial event for a top military commander killed in 2020 by a us drone attack. And then there were two explosions in quick succession. Officials say two bags containing explosives were detonated remotely at the entrance to a cemetery. As we record this podcast, at least 95 people are now known to have been killed near the Sahab al Zaman mosque. The victims were in a procession to the tomb of the iranian general Hasem Solomoni on the fourth anniversary of his death. Paham Gobadi from BBC Persian told me more about the blasts. This is known to be the deadliest attack that has ever happened in Iran. After the explosions, iranian interior minister said that the first explosion happened at 03:00 p.m. Local time after when medics and people rushed to the scene, the second explosion took place. According to him, most of the casualties were from the second explosion. This is not the first time that people are killed in a ceremony regarding Rasam Soleimani during his funeral. In the same city of Karman four years ago, 56 people were killed in a stampede crush during the funeral ceremony. So it’s still unclear that all of these people were killed as a result of the explosion and the fact that this took place at this very sacred moment for many Iranians on the fourth anniversary of the death of this general. Obviously that’s deeply significant as well. It is because iranian authorities consider him as a national hero. But in Iran, Soleimani is an extremely controversial figure. Some consider him as a national hero, but many do consider him as a war criminal who’s behind killing people across the region. So he’s a very controversial figure inside Iran. So what are we hearing from Tehran about who may have been responsible for the attack? They haven’t pointed a finger at any groups yet. We still don’t know, and no groups have yet claimed responsibility for that. But Islamic State has carried out an attack in August 2023, gunmen in Shiraz in southern city of Shiraz. One at least, was killed back in 2018, again, there was a military parade that Islamic State militants attacked that place. It was a mass shooting and 25 people at least were killed in that attack. But no indication as to who have made. No group has yet claimed responsibility for this. That was Parham Gobadi from BBC Persian. The leader of the lebanese armed group Hezbollah, Hassan Nasralah, has warned Israel that there will be a decisive response to the killing of the Hamas deputy leader, Salah al Auri. Hassan Nasrala described it as a massive and serious crime that could not go unpunished. Salah al Arori was killed along with six other people in an explosion on Tuesday in Beirut, reported to have been an israeli drone attack. Israel, which has neither confirmed nor denied involvement, has strengthened air defences on its border with Lembadon. I spoke to our Beirut correspondent, Hugo Pashega, and asked him, what more did Hassan Nasrala say? He described this killing as a dangerous crime that wouldn’t go unpunished. He said this was a flagrant israeli aggression. And obviously this killing happened in an area of Beirut that is a Hezbollah stronghold here in the capital of Lebanon. So a blow to Hamaz, but also very symbolic in terms of where it happened, right at the heart of where Hezbollah is located. So perhaps a message to Hezbollah as well. And Hassan Azrala also said, we’re not afraid of war. And in a message to Israel, he said, if you are considering a war with us, you’re going to regret it. A war with us will have a heavy cost, which is essentially the same message that Israel has been giving Hezbollah. If there is a war, it will be devastating for not only Hezbollah, but also for Lebanon. And I think this is key to understand the position that Hezbollah finds itself in, because it wants to show that it is doing something to support Hamamaz in Gaza, to support the palestinian population. Again, Nazrala said that those cross border attacks that have been happening every day are keeping israeli troops busy in the north, but at the same know, he knows that any kind of miscalculation could spark a devastating israeli response. Hugo, the BBC has spoken to Dalla, that’s the sister of Salah al Aruri, about the impact that his death is going to have. He will be the trigger not only in the West bank, but in the whole world. It will be regional due to the assassination of Sheikh Saleh. He is not a normal character. They brought catastrophe upon themselves from all sides. Hugo, given the history of conflict in the past between Lebanon and Israel, how concerned are people there about the situation getting out of hand? Yeah, I think there’s no appetite here in this country for any kind of military confrontation. And I think that’s why every time there is an incident like this, an attack in the country, lots of people get concerned about the possibility of a war. Lebanon is going through a massive economic crisis, and lots of people here still remember the devastation caused by the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel. So they know that any israeli offensive could be catastrophic for Lebanon. And I think Hassan Azrala knows it as well. Hugo Bashega in Lebanon. So Hezbollah may have the means to escalate the situation in the region militarily, but does it have the design? That’s the question I put to our security correspondent, Frank Gardner. No, I don’t think it does. I think it suits Hezbollah and their sponsors in Iran to keep up just enough pressure on Israel to show that they are supportive of the so called axis of resistance, which is Iran’s word for its proxies, proxy militias that are putting pressure on Israel. So Hamas, the Houthis and Hazballah, the three H’s. But they don’t want to go to a full scale war because the 2006 war was devastating, particularly for Lebanon. But Israel didn’t come out of it particularly well either. Hazbullah has a much more powerful missile force than Hamas does, a much more powerful arsenal. It’s got an estimated roughly 150,000 rockets and missiles ranging from short range ones that would do damage just across the border to some really powerful ones that Israel would probably want to take out very quickly in a full scale war, but ones big enough to cause serious damage in Tel Aviv or Haifa. And if they launched enough of them at the same time, they could probably overwhelm some of Israel’s defences. Israel’s response would be cataclysmic, and Lebanon knows this, which is why lebanese politicians have been urging Hezbollah not to respond, not to retaliate, not to provoke another war with Israel. So it’s not in anybody’s interests for that to happen. I think of the four kind of hotspots right now in the Middle east that we’re seeing. So Beirut Kerman that you mentioned there, these mysterious explosions, Yemen, the southern Red Sea, and of course, Gaza, stroke West Bank. I think of the four, the most likely one to get a bit hotter is probably going to be Yemen and the hu, the attacks on shipping, because in the last few minutes, there’s been a joint statement issued by the US and eleven other countries, including Japan, Australia, New Zealand and various european countries, basically giving the Houthis the last warning to stop attacking shipping. Shipping or, in their words, bear the consequences. And by that, that means almost certainly, although they’re not explicit, that means taking out those houthi missile sites on land. And the Houthis are going to have to consider if that’s worth it. And again, Iran holds the key to potentially stopping that. Definitely. I mean, Iran doesn’t control the Houthis. They are a tribal militia that took over Yemen, most of Yemen illegally in September 2014, teamed up with the Republican Guard of the ousted president, but with iranian support, Frank Gardner, next to Argentina and the authorities in the country have arrested three people from Syria and Lebanon who were suspected of planning what the government said was a terrorist act on argentine soil. I heard more from our reporter in Buenazares, Veronica Smink, and asked her what else the authorities were saying. Well, they say that they received intelligence information from the US, Israel and Colombia regarding three men who they knew were going to get into the country from different airports at different times. And two of the things that Security Minister Patricia Bulrich said worried them was, first that the three men were going to stay at a hotel two blocks away from the israeli embassy. And the second is that they were awaiting a package from Yemen they knew was going to weigh around 35 kilos and is actually in their possession now and being analysed by investigators. And, Veronica, this comes at a time of increased security anyway because of a big sporting event going on there, the Pan American McAvie Games. These are sometimes known as the Jewish Olympics. This is a regional version. It evolved 4200 jewish athletes from 22 countries. So there was heightened alert about this, plus the tension due to the war in the Middle east between Israel and Hamas. But Argentina is always on heightened alert when it comes to possible attacks because 30 years ago it suffered not one, but two massive attacks against jewish objectives. Now, those two bombings cost over 100 lives at the time. And yet still there are tensions. There’s a very large jewish population in Argentina and a large population from the Middle east as well. Yes, that’s right. I wouldn’t say there is actual tension on the ground. Communities here, Argentina is formed of people from many different communities. And in general speaking, they get along very well. But of course, with this history that happened in 1992 when the israeli embassy was bombed and two years later when the jewish community centre Amia was bombed, the security services are always very, very vigilant about relations between, especially, as you say, the communities from the muslim arab countries and the jewish communities. That was Veronica Smink in Argentina. Now to the extraordinary story of one man last month in the US state of Oklahoma, a judge declared Glenn Simmons an innocent man after he spent 48 years, five months and 13 days in prison for a murder he did not commit. He served the longest wrongful incarceration of anybody exonerated in the United States. Glenn Simmons was sentenced to the death penalty and that was commuted to a life sentence. When he did make it out of prison in July of last year, he was left destitute and also had been diagnosed with stage four cancer. Newler McGovern spoke to Glenn about what it meant to him to be exonerated. He wanted to clarify he was more than exonerated. He’s innocent, so what’s the difference? Well, to me, exonerated is like, we can’t find you guilty, but we going to let you slide. Actual innocence is mean. I didn’t do it. You’re not letting me slide. I actually didn’t do it. But this comes after nearly 50 years and I’m wondering how you get your head around that. I think it’s very difficult to imagine that much of your life that was in prison. Yeah, I’m still working on it. I guess I’ll be working on it for the rest of my life. Getting my head around it, taking it all one day at a time. Very thankful, very grateful. I’m going to go back to 1975. A jury convicted you and another man of a murder that took place in a liquor store in Oklahoma that previous year. You weren’t in the state at the time. What did you think when you were convicted? I think it was actually you were sentenced to the death penalty to begin with, even life imprisonment. Did you think it would be rectified? Did you realise what was ahead of you? I didn’t do the crime. Being innocent, I’ve always believed that I would be released, even when I was sentenced to the death penalty. It helps you keep your faith, maintain your faith and revive your faith once it’s knocked down and stuff like that. And so that’s it, because we’re talking about going over decades, Glenn, and you didn’t lose your faith in the system? I would be lying if I say I didn’t lose my faith. I lost hope, lost faith a bunch of times, lost my mind a couple of times, but it’s like a rubber band. You expand and you return back to where it was. I didn’t seen guys go totally crazy, never revive, never come back because of the pressure and stuff. I think it was my innocence that maintained, that kept me bouncing back, kept me fighting. You were cleared. There are lots of legal details. There was problems with evidence in the original trial. The state of Oklahoma did not elect to retry the case. But as you’ve talked about, you were adamant not only for an exoneration, but also to be recognised as an innocent man. Now that that has happened and you’ve been outside, what was that like to leave the prison? I believe it was in July that you were out on bond. I believe in the manifestation of what the messiah was talking about when he said, why marvel at the things I do when you can do even greater? I kind of found out how to decipher that, what the process was, and it worked. One day I was in cell 112, and the next day I was sitting in Pearl’s restaurant eating poor boy sandwich. It was overwhelming. Also, I believe when you left prison, somebody had to bring you clothes, money, that nothing. 48 years, five months and 13 days of incarceration. Just like that. I was free the next day, didn’t have a thing. I had some relatives who brought me clothes and stuff, didn’t have nothing to wear. Because you’re meant to, and people might be shocked by this. You’re eligible, under state law to a maximum of $175,000. That would be $3,000 a year. And that is different to other states in the United States. This is Oklahoma we’re talking about. But you haven’t seen that money. Not at all. They wouldn’t even give it 175 on the exoneration. Had to be declared actual innocence in order to get that. Still haven’t got it, still contested it. And I bring this up for the very practical reasons about how you’re going to live week to week, month to month. But also I’ve been relying on the generous donation of supporters and families and friends. And strangers. And strangers. Exactly. Because I was looking. I know you have a fundraising page, and a lot of the people that have donated, they’re anonymous. Even sometimes people to the tune of $30,000 anonymous. Yeah. What do you think when you see it? I believe in the goodness of people. And all I want is an opportunity to say thank you, to express my gratitude to whoever this was. And if they’re listening, I want to tell them now, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Really appreciate it. Really needed it. That was Glenn Simmons. Still to come, we meet the micro doses. It helps me get into this calm state of flow. So if you could do 5 hours worth of work in 1 hour, that’s huge. So can illegal hallucinogens really do that? Who would kick off 14 of their best players to defend his racist dignity. Unmissable stories from around the globe. I get a call from the moral police. They told me the general wants to talk to you. The army asked us to leave the house immediately because it was going to be pumped. Podcasts from the BBC World Service search for amazing sports stories, lives less ordinary, and the documentary wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Welcome back to the global news podcast. The japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kashida says a sea corridor has been opened to ship relief supplies to the area hit by an earthquake on Monday. Mr. Kashida said it was a battle against time to help people affected by the quake on the Noto peninsula in September. Central Japan. At least 73 people are now known to have died. Rescue teams are struggling with heavy rain, aftershocks and blocked roads. Our correspondent, Gene Mackenzie, has been travelling towards the epicentre and sent us this report from the city of Wajima, which has the highest confirmed death toll so far. We’ve been travelling for two days now to try and reach the epicentre and the towns we know have been really badly hit, where we think people are still trapped under the rubble. But I’ve lost count of how many times we’ve been forced to turn back because the roads have been totally severed. There are huge cracks we just can’t cross. And these are the same delays the rescue teams are facing, so they are losing precious time to save people. We have now arrived in Wajima, which is the worst affected town that we know of. At least two dozen people have died here and the destruction is far greater than anything we’ve seen along the way. I’m at the site of the town’s marketplace, which has completely burnt to the ground. A fire broke out here during the earthquake and the marketplace was filled with old wooden stalls that immediately caught a light and the flames spread. An area the size of around two football pitches has been entirely reduced to ash. People are returning here to look for their relatives, who they think might still be trapped under the rubble. A resident comes to tell the rescuers she thinks her husband’s aunt is inside. She’s 95 and he can’t move much. We’ve looked in all the evacuation centre, but can’t find her. We’re following a rescue team with search dogs, but they only arrived here this morning. There has been a huge delay in searching for survivors. They are now going to each of the collapsed small wooden homes in the town to search them one by one. They told us that their searches aren’t based on any information, so this is an incredibly slow process. In another part of town, cars have been crushed by buildings and their alarms blare continuously. The peak of the destruction here is a seven story concrete building that’s now lying on its side, with its contents spewed and splintered on the floor. Fire teams have been searching the building since this morning. There is a woman inside, we’re told, but they don’t know if she’s dead or alive, so they are calling out to her, but she hasn’t responded. That report was by Jean Mackenzie. In Japan, Russia and Ukraine have agreed to exchange hundreds of prisoners of war after what Moscow described as complex negotiations. From Kiev, here’s James Borderhouse. It’s the first time since August that an exchange has been agreed with Moscow previously being accused of trying to weaponize its prisoners of war. Our people, our home, posted President Zelensky some of his returning ukrainian soldiers were captured while defending the Chernobyl nuclear power plant snake island in the Black Sea and the southern city of Mariupol in the early stages of the full scale invasion. The involvement of the United Arab Emirates follows a rare visit there by Vladimir Putin a month ago. It’s still a rare area of cooperation between Ukraine and Russia. James Waterhouse in Ukraine there, the former president of Sierra Leone, earnest by Coroma, has been charged with four counts of treason over an alleged coup plot in November. On Tuesday, a member of Mr. Kroma’s security team was also charged with treason by the court in Freetown alongside eleven other suspects. Thomas Nadi reports ex president NS Barakuroma had already been invited for questioning following the alleged coup attempt. Ekoa sent a delegation led by President of Ghana and Senegal to Freetown to assess the security situation in the country. In a leaked letter, the regional body offered to host ex President Kuroma temporary in Abuja, while urging President Bu of Sierra Leone to drop all charges against him. In November last year, armed men broke into an armoury and prisons, freeing over 2000 inmates. The attacks also resulted in the deaths of more than 20 people. That was Thomas Nadi. Now, could psychedelic drugs be the key to unlocking workplace productivity? Well, there are some people who think so. The concept is known as micro dosing. It’s when you take a tiny amount of lsd, or so called magic mushrooms as part of your ordinary day to help you work better. Now, of course, these drugs are illegal in most parts of the world, and there’s insufficient medical evidence about what the long term harm could be. Our North America correspondent Michelle Flurry has been meeting some of the people involved. In the 60s, psychedelic drugs such as LSD or magic mushrooms were associated with long mind bending trips, hallucinations and hippies. Exploration and transformation. Today in America, some are taking such schedule one drugs in tiny doses in an attempt to improve focus, productivity and creativity. This is called microdosing. I would sometimes take it a few days in a row and then kind of not do it a few days in a row. Curiosity? Wonder. Donald, whose name I’ve changed, microdoses on a regular basis. He says it helps him work. It helps me get into this calm state of flow, right? So if you could do 5 hours worth of work in 1 hour, that’s huge. And not only are you doing that work, but you’re more curious, you’re more engaged. Sometimes there’s like maybe a problem I want to solve or something I want to learn about. And this kind of gives me a way to think outside of the box a little bit. Hallucinogenic drug use has increased among those aged 26 and older, with over 5.5 million people using psychedelics in 2019. As attitudes change and more people microdose in the workplace, some employers are embracing it too. You’re taking a stance that is polarising at times. Shane Heath is the founder and CEO of Coffee Alternative mud Water. Not only does he support employees who want to microdose at work, Mudwater donates a portion of its profits to psychedelic research and education. Somebody chooses microdosing as something that’s helpful for them, they’re free to do that. We don’t have a policy that encourages or supports the use of psychedelics, but we don’t have a policy that polices it either. Right. From my personal experience, the things that I’ve went through and the experiences that I’ve had with these substances, it was just a personal choice to be an advocate. There isn’t enough evidence yet to say if microdosing is beneficial in the workplace or even safe, and the drugs being used are illegal at the federal level. Still, that hasn’t stopped business leaders from indulging microdosing in the workplace. It sounds like you think it has a role to play. 100%. Deleep and Siva coaches startup founders 100%. Yeah. Most clients, I would say, in this day and age, are not concerned around the legal pieces, although they do respect the laws. That’s a sea change from, say, five plus years ago, right? I think there’s a lot of advancement right now around the research, and then we’re starting to see the regulation change at different levels, local, state and national. Over time. There are risks. The unsupervised use of recreational drugs could be psychologically damaging to those with certain mental conditions. But with renewed interest in psychedelics, advocates hope it will help gain mainstream acceptance. Michelle Flurry, the woman who appeared in one of the most famous romantic photographs of all time, the kiss by the Hotel de Ville in Paris, has died at the age of 93. Francois Borne was one half of the young couple seen embracing on the street in a black and white photo from 1950. Taken by the photographer Robert Juanor. The photograph became a huge commercial success in the 1980s, sparking a legal rout about. Copyright Hugh Schofield reports from Paris. Everyone assumed that the world famous photograph of a passionate young couple kissing each other on the mouth as they walked down the street in central Paris. Must have been spontaneous, beautifully framed against a backdrop of the hotel, the veal. It was a superlative shot, capturing perfectly the permanent romance of the city, even in those drab postwar years. In fact, the photo was staged. So much was apparent after the picture became a massive commercial hit in the 80s. S appearing on posters that adorned young people’s bedrooms the world over. Such was the fame of the picture that more than one couple, now in their 50s, came forward, claiming to be the ones in the shot and claiming also some recompense for the use of their image. That prompted Francois borne to herself, step forward and set the story straight. She and her boyfriend, both drama students, had been approached by Robert Duano after he saw them kissing. He said he loved it and could they do it again. Francois Borne recounted the story many times. Here she is in 2005, he said, listen, you are adorable, charming, young. Would you like to kiss one another again in front of my camera? Of course. We said yes right away. So three or four days later, we went to the town hall and Duano told us to do what we wanted, to kiss one another without taking care of the camera. He said, be natural as you are in the normal life. We didn’t need any persuasion and we kissed one another. And that is how this photograph became as famous. To prove that her story was true, she produced an original copy of the photo signed by Duano himself. He’d been taking pictures to illustrate an article in Life magazine about love in Paris. The shot languished in the archives until it was spotted by a sharp eyed commercial agent in the early 80s. Francois Borne went on to have a career in film and lived a long life. And the boyfriend? Well, it didn’t last for all the passion of the kiss. They split up a short time later, Hugh Schofield in France. And that’s all from us for now. But there will be a new edition of the global news podcast later on. 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 Global Newspod. This edition was mixed by Lee Wilson. The producer was Liam McSheffrey. The editor is Karen Martin. I’m Nick Miles. And until next time, goodbye.