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available now on the documentary from the BBC World Service. The 12th Century Temple of Angkor Wat is one of Cambodia's top tourist attractions, but moves to protect it are causing conflict with local villagers. They accuse the authorities of trying to force them off their land. Join me, Jill McGivering, in Cambodia's Angkor Park. Listen now by searching for the documentary, wherever you get your BBC podcasts.
This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.
I'm Nick Miles, and in the early hours of Saturday, the 28th of December, these are our main stories. The Mexican government has unveiled an emergency measure to protect migrants in the United States who might face deportation once Donald Trump takes office. The White House says North Korean troops are experiencing mass casualties in what it calls hopeless assaults against Ukrainian positions in Russia's Kursk region.
A senior Houthi official in Yemen has told the BBC the movement will continue attacking Israel despite intensified Israeli airstrikes. Also in this podcast we meet the baboon expert on what they reveal about us. They've got nine hours of free time every day and they spent all of it devoted to generating psychological stress for each other.
Mexico's government has announced an emergency strategy to protect migrants in the United States, ahead of the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump next month. Mr Trump has threatened to deport millions of illegal migrants.
Now one of the measures involves mobile phones and the Mexican foreign minister Juan Ramón de La Fuente explained how it could work. It's an information and assistance centre for Mexican people, a call centre that's already operating 24-7 and soon it will also be active through a very simple procedure.
An alert button that's already been implemented on a small scale in some places and appears to be working very well. You push the alert button and that sends a signal to the nearest consulate and to the relatives whose contact details you've saved on the app.
What the Mexican government is expecting is the worst for millions of Mexicans and estimated 4.8 million Mexicans who live without a working visa in the US. So what they think might happen is people will be at home or they'll be stopped in traffic or they might be on some government lift and immigration officers will just come to their door to their work and just take them to a detention center.
Before they're taken there or before they can ask for a lawyer or anything, this panic button, let's call it that way. We alert one of the 53 Mexican consulates in the US or their families or a call center that's already working 24 hours a day to say, look, such person has been taken by the immigration authorities. Then they will get in touch
with hundreds of lawyers. They've just hired more than 300 other lawyers and there are many who have volunteered to basically start the legal process to assist them and if necessary stop this deportation process. Because once that gets going, if the person doesn't know their rights in the US, especially migrants who are there who don't speak proper English, they might just be taken to a center on the border or taken abroad and that might be too late for them.
I mean, these measures from the Mexican government are likely to anger Donald Trump and his supporters because they could be seen as a way of scaporing what Donald Trump wants to do, which is get rid of certain numbers of illegal migrants. And the Mexican government has got to try to fine line here, hasn't he? Because there are also threats from Donald Trump to put tariffs on Mexican goods.
I find the beginning of this left-wing government of cloud ashin bound taking over from President Lopez Obrador. I find it much more difficult than Lopez Obrador faced in the first administration with Donald Trump because I think Donald Trump is much more outspoken
He threatened to impose tariffs of 25% if they don't control the influx of fentanyl, which is this synthetic opioid that's causing thousands of deaths in the US. But it's something very difficult to do to control the influx of drugs. So I think the language is very inflammatory. I think the Mexican government is feeling that they will have a very difficult time because it involves migration, involved tariffs. And I haven't seen much in terms of building bridges or anything at this stage.
Three weeks from the inauguration of Donald Trump, the Mexican government is preparing a strategy to help millions of Mexicans abroad. It's likely that we'll anger the American government. Something we'll have to do to build those relations, which are essential for both sides of the border. Leonardo Russia.
The White House says North Korean troops are suffering mass casualties in what it calls hopeless human wave attacks against Ukrainian forces. According to a national security spokesman, John Kirby, a thousand North Koreans have been killed or wounded in Russia's Kursk region. Here's our State Department correspondent, Tom Bateman.
John Kirby said that North Korean troops were highly indoctrinated, pushing attacks even when it was clear they were futile, with the generals seeing the troops as expendable. He said there were reports of some soldiers even taking their own lives rather than surrendering, likely out of fear of reprisal against their families in North Korea in the event that they were captured.
The BBC is not able to independently verify the claims. The US believes up to 12,000 North Korean troops have been sent to Russia with the two countries this month putting into effect a landmark defence pact.
where tens of thousands of people have been chanting and holding rifles above their heads as they listen to anti-Israeli speeches. It came a day after a series of Israeli airstrikes on sites across the country, including Sonar's International Airport. A UN humanitarian team was there at the time. The BBC spoke to Mohamed al-Bukhaiti, a member of the Houthis Political Bureau, about how they would respond to the Israeli attacks.
We are committed to continuing our military operation in support of Gaza and we will not stop until the genocide crimes and the siege on Gaza stop. We are going to escalate our military targeting of Israel.
The aggression in Yemen started in 2015 and this aggression has destroyed the infrastructure and caused a lot of suffering for the Yemeni people. This aggression was an American British Zionist aggression but done through tools of these three countries.
in the region and inside Yemen. What's now happening is that the Yemenis are moving to a direct confrontation. This will only unify the Yemeni people and create more sympathy for the Yemeni cause in the region. Shima Khalil is following developments from Jerusalem. She told us more about the Yemeni reaction.
It is difficult to get a handle on exactly how big their firepower is or the capacity, but what we've seen on the ground is a significant rise in the number of attacks that are being launched from Yemen into Israeli territory. This week alone, for example, we'd seen at least four missile attacks. Some of those
were not intercepted. In fact, on Saturday, for example, the Israeli military said that they had failed to intercept a missile coming from Yemen. It fell into Israeli territory. It fell on a public park in Tel Aviv and injured more than a dozen people, albeit light injuries from shrapnel and flying glass. But it is as far as the Israeli government is concerned, this is an escalation. It's an escalation of
Houthi aggression as they see it on Israeli territory. And so this defines that we're seeing from the Houthi movement from their leaders is also backed by the fact that we've seen the sharp rise in their attacks. And if you look at the early months of the war, for example, the Houthis have started their military activities very early on.
after the beginning of the war. For example, they targeted international shipping, if you remember, and that caused a crisis of its own in the beginning. And you're seeing them now with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, having suffered these devastating losses. They're trying to regroup on the ground. There is a ceasefire in Lebanon now between Israel and Hezbollah, albeit fragile. Israel continues with its military campaign against Hamas in northern Gaza.
What you're saying is how these coming to the fore, if you will, in saying we're going to intensify, we're going to escalate, and we're going to keep doing that until the war in Gaza ends. And, Shimer, to what extent does their political legitimacy within Yemen stem from these acts of military defiance?
I think it's important to remind our listeners that Yemen is a very divided country. The Houthis do not speak for the whole of the country. The Houthis are an Iran-backed movement that has taken over the capital Sana'a from the Yemeni government that control the northwest of Yemen. But remember, there's the Yemeni government in parts of Yemen, but also there's the Southern Transitional Council.
in the country's south, in terms of firepower, in terms of engagement in the regional conflict, in terms of being part of an Iran-led access of resistance against Israel and the United States. The Houthis in Yemen have been quite visible, they've been quite vocal, and if you will, they've made a military mark on the ground with these attacks.
I think what's worrying about the United Nations, for example, and other aid agencies, is that the humanitarian situation in Yemen is quite dire, and it's been quite dire for many, many years since this conflict that started in 2015. Oh, Shaimik Alil. So what exactly is the US stance on what is currently happening in Yemen?
There's an internal standoff between the Iranian-backed Houthis and the internationally recognised Germany government. The Houthis have been disrupting shipping moving towards the Suez Canal, and the US, UK and Israel have been attacking targets in Yemen with airstrikes. Regarding the Israeli attack on the airport in Sana'a, Julian Hanes, the UN coordinator in Yemen, said the complex had a crucial function for the people of Yemen.
It is the location whereby all of the international humanitarian aid workers who work in the north of the country come in and leave by. So if that airport is disabled, it will paralyze the humanitarian operations.
It's also the airport by which thousands of Yemenis who are unable to get decent advanced healthcare in the country leave to go either to Jordan or to Cairo or eventually to Mumbai to get advanced healthcare. Tim Lenderking was appointed US envoy to Yemen in 2021. He gave Owen Bennett Jones his assessment on the current tensions with Israel.
But the context here is that the Houthis have been attacking Israel mostly without a response from the Israelis over months and months and months. And I think Israeli patience is clearly wearing thin. And that's why they've chosen to strike back. So you're concerned about that, Bob, I mean, do you think they shouldn't do it?
Well, I do think there's a distinction between military targets and civilian targets. I mean, if you look at the strikes that this coalition is doing led by the United States involving the UK and other countries, these are specifically targeted on military targets, those assets that the Houthis use to attack ships in the Red Sea. And we've been very precise about hitting those targets and not other targets outside of that framework with minimal loss of civilian life. So does that mean you're asking Israel not to do this?
You know, I think we have to be clear about what is being targeted, why it's being targeted. In this particular instance, obviously, it was extremely awkward that the Director General of the WHO was at the airport at the time. My understanding is that the Israelis were not aware of that. I don't think there was any intention to
strike near him, had they known that he was there, but we don't have all of the details yet. But I think as Mr. Harness said earlier, the ports of the airport are vital arteries to move humanitarian and commercial supplies in the Yemen. So if you take those out or damage them, it is putting, spreading a lot of hurt on the Yemeni people writ large, not just the Houthis. Sorry to pressure on this, but you say what, you don't think that should happen?
We think that there should not be a tax on civilian targets. There's something that we need to know about those targets, then we should know that.
What can humans learn from baboons? Well, quite a lot it seems, if you're as observant as the renowned American primatologist Robert Sapolsky. He's become an internet sensation thanks to his groundbreaking undergraduate lecture series at Stanford University on human behaviour, which draws heavily on his baboon research at a national park in East Africa.
Evan Davis spoke to him and began by asking whether the baboons know who he is.
pummeled by some high ranking guy, you look around and you give this facial expression to see if anybody else is willing to come to your defense. And this poor kid was just about to get it and was looking this way and that way and was having no luck at all.
And then he looked at me and he did the facial expression that they, I found at most a meaning that clearly I was the last choice on his team. But boons, humans, we're not the same thing, but you must obviously find yourself drawing comparisons between the two of us.
They're actually perfect for what I study because of their human nature. I study what stress does to the brain. So studying stress out in the wild animal, oh my God, all they're gonna be doing is like worrying about predators, baboons are different. They live in these big troops, 50 to 100 animals. Predators don't mess with them very often and they can get their days food from about three hours of foraging and there's a critical implication to that.
which is they've got nine hours of free time every day and they spent all of the devoted to generating psychological stress for each other. Models for westernized stress. You've sort of implied they're great to look at but you don't necessarily admire the social norms. Do you like human beings?
If I'm in a movie theater and somebody's walking down the aisle and I'm kind of looking at their butt and trying to figure out how much anesthetic I would need to dart them. At a time like that, you know, humans seem like a perfectly appealing primate to study. Humans have their good properties.
Yeah, we actually are capable of achieving great things and collaborating and collaborating with each other and great generosity and indeed, I think all the evidence is that we get a pleasure out of giving to others to be appreciated that way. Yes, because we do something no other organism can do.
we can have an internal image as to how we think of ourselves. And we could decide, that's not who I am. I'm a better person than that. That's what makes us a very strange species. We're particularly peculiar in that we're simultaneously the most aggressive and competitive and violent and we're the most altruistic and cooperative.
empathic and often it's the same person who could generate those two extremes and often it's the same behavior in which extreme it counts as is in the eye of the beholder. We're a very peculiar primate. We are just emergent biological organisms that are the end product of all the hiccups that came before. Robert Sapolsky. Still to come.
The Netflix blaze craze that's outperforming its top shows at this time of year. Delve into a world of secrets. The BBC's Global Investigations podcast, breaking major news stories around the world. A BBC investigation finds that Muhammad al-Fayed former owner of Harrods was accused of raping five members of staff.
Muhammad al-Fayed was like an apex predator. From the top of British society to the heart of global fashion brands, the former boss of clothing brand Abercrombie and Fitch is accused of exploiting young men for sex, that world has enough and spit out a lot of young and attractive guys, gripping investigations available to listen to now with more coming soon. Search the world of secrets wherever you get your BBC podcasts and click follow or subscribe so you never miss an episode.
Now to Kazakhstan and investigations continue into what caused the crash of an Azerbaijani passenger plane in the country on Christmas Day. Representatives of Azerbaijan Airlines speak of external, physical and technical interference, but let's say what that could have been.
38 people died in that crash, but there were some survivors. The plane had originally tried to land at Grozny Airport in southern Russia, but was denied permission and diverted to Kazakhstan, where it crashed near the airport at Aktau. The head of Russia's aviation watchdog, Dmitry Yadrov, said the diversion was necessary because of a difficult situation around Grozny Airport.
I should note that the situation in the area of Grozny airport that day during those hours was quite difficult. Ukrainian combat drones were mounting terrorist attacks on civilian infrastructure in the cities of Grozny and Vladikov-Kass. Because of this, all aircraft had relieved the indicated airspace immediately. Our Europe regional editor Paul Moss told me more.
It's very interesting, isn't it, to hear that a senior Russian aviation official acknowledged that at the time that plane was supposed to be landing in Grozhny, the city was under attack from Ukrainian drones. I mean, first of all, I have to say it makes you wonder why a civilian airline has been regularly flying passengers into what is effectively a war zone. And in fact, Friday has seen several airlines suspend their flights to a lot of southern Russia, fly Dubai, El Al and Khazakhir.
But more importantly, if drones were attacking Grozny, it seems very likely that the military there would be firing missiles into the sky to stop them. Now, that doesn't provide proof. But it does add weight to the theory that a Russian missile might have accidentally hit the Azerbaijani aircraft. That would explain why it flew away in such a strange fashion. People who've studied its flight path say it looks like a plane flown by a pilot unable to control it.
But then we also have the reports from passengers on board, who say they heard one or more explosions when the plane was near Grosni. Subon Kolrachimov was one of them. He's now given an interview and you can hear him mention right at the start, a bang which he heard.
When the first buying happened, I looked around, quickly assessed the situation, and I thought that the plane was going to fall apart. I thought that I should start praying. I started saying words. I started to remember the Almighty God. I thought that those were probably my last words. Meanwhile, Paul, the investigation is ongoing. What do we know?
Well, it seems to be moving rather quickly. Azerbaijan's transport minister has already said that the plane seems to have suffered external interference. Now, that covers a multitude of possibilities. It could refer to hitting a flock of birds. That's what the Russian authorities claimed right away had happened.
But we are also hearing about leaks from the team carrying out the investigation. Various people, quoting unnamed sources, saying they've already decided that the plane was hit by a Russian missile. Now, bear in mind, this is a very sensitive issue for the Azerbaijan government. Azerbaijan is an ally of Russia.
really doesn't want trouble with its very large and powerful neighbor. But the media in Azerbaijan is not totally controlled. Everyone there has been able to read these claims about Russia shooting the plane down. The government there will not be able to ignore what's likely to be a lot of public anger. I'm also struck that Russia seems to have gone relatively quiet on this subject. I mean often when Russia is accused of doing wrong, you get politicians and preface officers quickly mobilized to issue these stringent denials.
Even when it looks like Russia has been caught red-handed doing something, though it hasn't been like that this time. It is possible that they are preparing the ground for one big mayor culper. This could be one of the few times when Russia is forced to admit that it's made a fatal mistake, but that is far from certain. We'll have to wait and see.
He is accused of having set a woman on fire on a subway train in New York six days ago. And on Friday, Sebastian Zapetta was charged with murder. He was not present at the hearing. Lucy Hockings spoke to the BBC's North America correspondent, Rowan Bridge, and asked him for the background to the incident.
This was about 7.30 in the morning when police say this woman was apparently asleep on a subway train when, as you say, a person went over to her with a lighter and such a light. They say she was engulfed in flames within a matter of seconds in part because those flames were fanned by the person holding a shirt. Police became aware of what was happening and rushed to the scene. They used a fire extinguisher to try and put out the flames, but sadly,
the woman died at the scene. At the moment, she hasn't been identified. It's thought she may have been a homeless person, but they are now trying to use DNA and fingerprint, advanced fingerprint techniques to identify who she might be. Sebastian Zapata was arrested soon afterwards because he was caught on surveillance cameras and police body-worn camera footage.
and was recognised by some school children who alerted the authorities. He was arrested soon afterwards. And there was a court hearing where he was charged with a number of offences, including murder one, which is the most serious murder offence you can face that carries in the state of New York a sentence of life without parole if convicted. He's also faces an arson charge and a number of other murder charges. He is due to appear in court again at the start of the New Year.
Do we know any more details about home road, about Sebastian Zapetta? Yes, so he was illegally in the country and had been deported. He was from Central America. He had been deported and had then returned to the country at some point illegally, but it's not clear how exactly he came to be back in the country. And at the moment, the police don't believe he had any relationship with the person that he set a light. But at the moment, the circumstances to exactly what happened and what the motive was behind this attack still remain uncertain.
And has this caused further conversations to be heard about things like safety on the subway system at the moment? Yeah, I mean, I think it's something that New Yorkers are aware of because millions of them travel on the New York subway system every day. There has been an increase this year in murders on the New York subway trains compared to last year from five to nine. But obviously millions of people ride the subway system.
every day and murders, thankfully, and deaths of this kind on the subway system are thankfully very rare. Rowan Bridge. Homelessness is a growing problem worldwide that many cities are struggling to deal with. But what Canadian city is trying a different approach? Instead of banning tent encampments, the authorities in Halifax are regulating them. But as Nadine Youssef reports, not everyone is happy about it.
surviving, you know, wake up and survive. This is Andrew Goodsell, a homeless man in Halifax, a city on Canada's Atlantic coast. He lives in a small orange tent on a grassy patch downtown, nestled between apartment buildings, a hospital and a university. I wake up in an area I don't want to be. I'd much rather wake up in a spot where I could take a shower and maybe make myself something to eat.
His tent is part of an encampment that was chosen by the city as a place where people without housing can lawfully camp outside. The sites were approved this summer as a temporary, but some argue necessary, solution as indoor shelters are constantly full. It is a departure from policies of the past, where encampments were instead forcibly removed in so-called street sweeps, and potentially, a new solution to address persisting homelessness in Canadian cities.
One of the largest groups of homelessness we see growing is simply people who don't have enough money to pay rent.
Max Chauvin, Halifax's director of housing and homelessness, says that the number of homeless people in his city has grown more than tenfold since 2018. It became especially visible after the COVID-19 pandemic. He says it is mostly due to how expensive rent has become. What used to be a $700 a month apartment in the city can now run people up to $2,000.
Among the city's homeless, he says, are students, senior citizens, and even entire families. There are now five designated encampments in the city's public parks where people can shelter outside Intense. All are equipped with portable toilets by the city.
and outreach workers come by weekly to drop off bottled water and check in on residents. The new scheme is designed to buy time for the government while it tries to ramp up housing and shelter construction. But most encampments are already over capacity. But Halifax's approach to designate encampments is not without its critics. This used to be a fun field where the kids could come out and play. We played baseball, kickball. No, we can't even do that. Because we're too worried about stepping on a needle, stepping on a pipe.
Clarissa is a mother of three who lives right next to one of Halifax's designated encampment sites. She tells the BBC that she and her neighbours were not consulted prior to the site being set up next to them, and that it has since brought crime and litter to her neighbourhood. When I spoke to people who lived in those tents, they told me that they are desperate for city officials to come up with a long-term solution, one that includes permanent and dignified affordable housing.
Despite the opposition, the lawful encampments are here to stay. For now. Nadine Youssef reporting. In the days between Christmas and New Year, many people have found around their television sets, and in between the new shows and nostalgic films, there might be little to worry about other than what to watch. But this year on Netflix, something has attracted a surprising amount of attention. Alfie Habershan has been investigating.
Christmas isn't really a big deal in South Korea, but the creators of Squid Game knew what they were doing when they released the second series on Boxing Day, when the long family lunches are probably over but a return to working life has not yet begun.
The series one is the most watched show ever on Netflix, but it seems the dystopian thriller isn't quite matching the Christmas mood. As this year in the US and the UK, something else was more popular. But it wasn't any of the Christmas classics either. How the Grinch style Christmas, Santa Claus and the holiday, were all beaten by something more appealing and more captivating.
an hour-long video of a crackling fire, or as Netflix calls it, birch logs that set the mood with glowing embers and dancing flames. It may be in demand because it eases Christmas tension when families spend more time together than they might be used to. In fact, the University of Alabama says watching a fire on a screen actually lowers your blood pressure, and after spending tens of millions on Squid Game 2, Netflix might also be feeling more relaxed after drawing people in with something a little cheaper.
Alfie Abishan. 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, all the topics covered in it, you can send us an email. The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. This edition was mixed by Mohamed Masoud Ibrahim-Kyle, the producer was Lear McChefry. The editor is Karen Martin, I'm Nick Miles, and until next time, goodbye.
For just as long as Hollywood has been Tinseltown, there have been suspicions about what lurks behind the glitz and glamour. Concerns about radical propaganda in the motion pictures. And for a while, those suspicions grew into something much bigger and much darker. Are you a member of the Communist Party? Or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?
I'm Una Chaplain, and this is Hollywood Exiles. It's about a battle for the political soul of America and the battlefield was Hollywood. All episodes of Hollywood Exiles from the BBC World Service and CBC are available now. Search for Hollywood Exiles wherever you get your podcasts.
