Global News Podcast - China to end foreign adoptions

Episode Date: September 6, 2024

China says it's ending overseas adoptions, creating uncertainty for those mid process. The growing cyber crime of sextortion. The US child deaths linked to declining bat population and the perils of sneezing.

Hello, this is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service, with reports and analysis from across the world. The latest news seven days a week. BBC World Service podcasts are supported by advertising. If you're hearing this, you're probably already listening to BBC's award-winning news podcasts. But did you know that you can listen to them without ads? Get current affairs podcasts like Thank you. Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC Podcasts. This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Nick Miles and at 13 Hours GMT on Friday the 6th of September, these are our main stories.

China is ending the practice of allowing children to be adopted abroad. We'll ask why. We're in Kenya at the site of a primary school fire in which 17 boys were killed. We look at the link between America's declining bat population and the increase in child mortality. Also in the podcast. Who knew it's one of the more bizarre injuries

we've come across in recent seasons. There are risks that are associated with this bodily function. So what simple act was it that put a professional footballer in the sickbay? Many people have adopted children from China over the decades, visiting the country to pick them up and then taking them to a new home overseas. At least 150,000 children have gone abroad in the last three decades. But now the Chinese government has had a rethink. That's Mao Ning, a foreign

ministry spokesperson, saying the practice of allowing children to be adopted overseas is coming to an end. She says this followed what she called the spirit of relevant international conventions and she went on to express gratitude to foreign governments and families who'd wished to adopt Chinese children. I got more from our Asia-Pacific editor, Mickey Bristow. It's understandable to see this change because there has been a real shift in the attitude towards a number of children in China by the Chinese government. Over about a decade ago, China ended the one child policy, which had been in place for a couple of decades itself. And that policy led to, if I can put it

insensitively, an excess of children. Parents were punished if they had more than one child. And so a lot of families were simply forced to kind of put their children up for adoption or put them into orphanages. So that kind of created a supply, a market, if you will, for overseas adoption. And the Chinese government allowed it simply as a way to allow these excess children to kind of find loving families. So up until now, has this been a successful policy? Yeah, it depends on which point of view you're looking at it from. I remember in 1990, I was in the city of Guangzhou in southern China, where a lot of the adoptions were carried out. And I was staying near a hotel called the White Swan.

And a lot of the parents adopting children would stay there and around the streets the streets around the hotel you could see really joyous and happy parents pushing their new newly adopted children around in brand new buggies and push chairs and so from that point of view it was a real success because parents without children were able to adopt children. I also saw the other side of the story though. I remember in the year 2000, I went to an orphanage just outside Beijing, a small orphanage run by an American couple. It had just a kind of about a dozen children in there, all of them girls, all of them abandoned by their parents because there is a favouritism towards boys in China

and parents simply couldn't have more than one child. So for those children, it was a real tragedy because they were separated from their families. So it just really depends on how you're looking at this story, whether you characterise it as successful or not. Indeed. What about this latest decision, though? Do we know what it'll mean for pending applications? Well, there is one small exception to the overall blanket ban on adoptions overseas, and that's siblings or stepchildren of children who have already been adopted can still be adopted. But

it seems that there will be no more, apart from that, no more adoptions. So, for example, in America at the moment, you've got several hundred couples waiting to adopt children in China. They're probably not going to get their children. Mickey Bristow. Both sides in Sudan's civil war have committed abuses on a large scale, which may amount to war crimes or crimes against humanity. That is the finding of a UN-led investigation. It recommends an arms embargo and a peacekeeping force to protect civilians. It can't come soon enough for the millions of people who've been displaced by the conflict.

Our correspondent Nawal al-Meghafi has gained rare access to the city of Port Sudan and a key border area in neighbouring Chad, where refugees are still flowing out as aid agencies desperately try to get in. The sound of children collecting something that should be one of their most basic rights. But here it's a luxury. We're in a camp in Sudan where a long line of children are queuing for water. Civil war has torn the country apart and created the world's biggest displacement crisis. Nearby, in a simple tent which is crammed with beds, sits Safar Suleiman.

She says she fled with her children from one city to another, trying to escape the war before arriving here in Port Sudan. The fighting near us was so intense. Within the first two days, two members of my family were killed. Then I watched as two of my neighbours were cut in two. The scale of suffering here in Sudan is unimaginable. 16 months of war have had a devastating impact on people's lives here. Over 10 million people have had to flee their homes. We're about to arrive by helicopter at one of the sites that's key to getting more food to those in need in Sudan.

We're landing in Adre, in neighboring Chad. It's a critical crossing point for aid. Aid trucks are lined up and ready. But across the border, in Sudan, is territory held by a group called the Rapid Support Forces, who are fighting the Sudanese armed forces. For months, SAF have blocked supplies from getting in, citing concerns that aid is being stolen by the RSF and that weapons are being smuggled in too.

Both sides in the conflict have denied impeding the delivery of humanitarian relief. As aid prepares to go in through this border, families are crossing the other way to escape the war. Buthaina is one of the group of refugees who arrived five days ago from the besieged city of Al-Fashir. Darfur has seen some of the worst of the fighting, claims of war crimes and horrific sexual violence. But it was hunger that drove them to make this treacherous journey to Chad. It's very hard, so dangerous to come here, but all the shops are closed. There was no food anymore, nothing to drink, nothing to feed my children. There is nothing to eat, there is nowhere to hide.

There were no aid agencies, she says. Her family received no help. Aid agencies are relieved to see truckloads making their way in today, but they say a constant flow of aid is needed to deal with the horrific situation in Sudan, where already one location has been declared a famine and 13 others are at risk of famine. Amina Mohammed, the UN's Deputy Secretary General, is here in Adre watching some of the aid make its way into Sudan. She warns that if the flow of food and supplies isn't increased,

the consequences could be dire. These are mothers, daughters, kids. People are going to die. Simple as that. More gender-based violence, and some of that they will not recover from. This is the ultimate suffering. By repeatedly spurning peace talks and impeding aid, the two warring sides are effectively putting millions of people at risk of starvation. Many of those we spoke to are hoping the world will take notice and action before it's too late.

Nawal Al-Meghafi with that report. It is difficult but clearly not impossible to report from at least some of the parts of Sudan affected by the war. But in Gaza, journalists have been far less successful at reporting what's going on. That's because they've repeatedly been denied access by Israel's government for 11 months. Michel Hussain has been speaking to CNN's chief international presenter, Christiane Amanpour, who's currently reporting from Ukraine. In my experience, it's not just unusual, it's unprecedented for a country that calls itself the leading democracy in that region. Here in Dnipro and in Kyiv and in Kharkiv and all the

places that I've been over this last week, we have a lot more access. And this country has been a democracy for far longer than Israel has. And it's very interesting to be able to see the difference in what we're able to tell because of the access that we're able to get. We have tried so many times, as you know, many of us, Michelle, many in the international press have signed letters and have tried to, you know, put our case forward to the Israeli government. And that's not to say that we are not enormously grateful to the exceptional Gaza journalists who are risking their lives, not just being there, but sending out the information for then many of us to be able to take their work, hopefully crediting them as they are due and sending it out to the public. That information, it is easier, though, isn't it, for the Israeli government to attack it because it comes out of an area that Hamas has governed for a long time.

When I asked a spokesman for the Israeli government not long ago about these restrictions, he said this is a war zone, we're trying to get our hostages out and we will do nothing whatsoever to jeopardise the safety of our hostages. If journalists are there, that makes the situation even more complicated. Well, I'm not sure what he's talking about, frankly. Ever since time immemorial, journalists have been covering wars. We understand what it takes. We understand various rules of engagement and we understand how to operate in these areas. To your point about Gaza journalists, that is the absolute tragedy, that because they are journalists inside Gaza, because they are, for the most part,

Gazans, Palestinians, then Israel and its allies have been able to cast aspersions on what they report. And that is incredibly unfair, incredibly wrong. It is not a solution. We are journalists who represent democracies around the world, not least journalists who represent key allies of Israel, without whom it would not have the economic or military might that it has. And at the very least, we should be able to represent our constituents around the world in our own countries by telling them what is going on and how an ally is conducting itself in a war zone. There's no excuse for this whatsoever. I mean, here we are in Ukraine, there are ballistic missiles being thrown around here at random and at will. We're still covering it. There are cruise missiles. There's

F-16s bombing us. I mean, hello? That's Christiane Amanpour. Our next item is an extraordinary story linking the deaths of children in the United States to the bat population. It's because a particular ecosystem was thrown out of balance, as Anna Aslam reports. Research from the United States shows a decline in the bat population led to a surge in infant mortality rates. It sounds random, but it's the result of a series of common sense connections. A fungal disease called white nose syndrome spread across the US in 2006, killing off millions of bats. The animals eat bugs, so with natural pest control gone, there was a 31% increase in the use of insecticide. The chemicals then polluted water and air, leading to a nearly

8% rise in infant mortality, a standard measure for studying the health impacts of environmental pollution. Dr. Eyal Frank from the University of Chicago estimates there were around 1,300 infant deaths between 2006 and 2017 linked to the destruction of the bat population. This is the latest study to suggest biodiversity loss across the world is having severe consequences for humans. In Central America, scientists say fewer amphibians and snakes have caused spikes in malaria cases. Ecosystems are complicated things, interwoven with connections that scientists only partially understand. Dr Frank warns that we pay attention when species become extinct, but that's often too late.

Anna Aslam. Most athletes who take up racing at elite level focus either on sprinting or long-distance running. Very few decide to do both, but that's exactly what one Paralympian has done. Wheelchair racer Noémie Alphonse is competing for Mauritius in Paris. She came fourth in the 100 metres final on Wednesday, and on Sunday she'll be competing in the marathon. It's no surprise then that she has a picture of the comic book icon Wonder Woman on her prosthetic leg and a matching tattoo on her arm. BBC Sport Africa's Rob Stephens went to meet her. Everyone when they see my leg they are like oh you are a Wonder Woman fan you like movies but I'm not really a movie fan. She may not be a fan of films but for Noemi

Alphonse her life reads like a movie script. Born with a limb deficiency, she was fitted with a prosthetic leg when she was just eight months old. Now, aged 28, she's a global wheelchair racing star. I really like Wonder Woman because it shows the power that we as women we have and what we have to overcome every time. So this is why I have Wonder Woman and my tattoo also. I the logo but I don't see me as a Wonder Woman. I want to be a Wonder Woman not a superhero but the one who is able to overcome everything so this is why I like Wonder Woman. Alphonse comes to these games having competed in Tokyo three years ago but since then she's become world champion in the women's T54 100 meters winning gold in Kobe Japan in May. It was a hugely

emotional moment for her. It was a dream come true. When I scream at the end, everyone knows I'm a nice person. I don't really shout. I was overwhelmed just realising what I was able to do. During the medal ceremony, I cried. It was really a nice time for me. Alphonse is one of six competitors from Mauritius taking part in the Paris Paralympics, an encouraging number considering that ten African nations have not been able to send anyone to France and nine others only have one representative. Alphonse credits the government sports ministry for their support, but she says that as a world champion, she's well aware of the pressure on her shoulders now to bring back a medal. I know now the title that I have coming to Paris is heavy because we have media pressure in Mauritius.

Everyone, when they see me, it's like, yeah, we will win the gold medal. But all I said, I am a world champion now. That doesn't mean I will be a Paralympic champion. So we are six athletes here. We have to be equal with everyone. No favourite athlete, Mauritius has won. Coming up... It's a relief that someone is being held accountable,

but at the end of the day, it doesn't change that Jordan's not here. A landmark case in the growing crime of sextortion. If you're hearing this, you're probably already listening to BBC's award-winning news podcasts. But did you know that you can listen to them without ads? Get current affairs podcasts like Global News, AmeriCast and The Global Story, plus other great BBC podcasts from history to comedy to true crime, all ad-free. Simply subscribe to BBC Podcast Premium on Apple Podcasts or listen to Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC Podcasts. A fire that broke out at a primary school dormitory in Kenya has killed 17 boys. Over 100 other children were forced to shelter under their beds as the flames spread.

Some of them were badly burned. President William Ruto has called the incident horrific and devastating. I spoke to our Africa correspondent, Barbara Pletarsha, who's at the hospital in the county of Nyeri. This is the hospital where the trauma victims are going to be brought. There were 14 children who were quite severely burned who have also been brought to hospital. So you get a sense there of what sort of recovery is going to be needed, not just from the burns, but also from the psychological terror of these children who were caught in the fire overnight,

which started around 11 p.m., between 11 and midnight, in the boys' dormitory. 156 boys were sleeping there between the ages of 9 and 13. Engulfed by flames, some of them tried to escape the fire by crawling underneath the beds, and it took a while to put it out. The firefighters were delayed because of a muddy road, but neighbours came on the scene, people around as well as officials. And there were quite a few people in the end who were working to put out the fire and trying to rescue the boys, most of whom were

rescued, but tragically, a good number were killed, burnt beyond recognition, and some severely burned. So obviously an investigation is going to get underway into what caused this. Are there any theories yet? There are no theories about this particular school burning yet, no. That's still under investigation. But it has to be said that the burning of boarding schools or fires at boarding schools in Kenya is actually rather common, usually put down to arson. Somebody starts the fire and often it has turned out to be the students themselves,

sometimes protesting heavy workloads or poor living conditions or for other reasons. So it has happened before and we've had casualties before. We don't know if that's the reason this fire started. The president has said there must be a thorough investigation and that those responsible must be held to account. An investigative team has already started doing its work. But for the parents, the most immediate concern and gruesome concern is just to find children, some of them still not sure what happened to their child, which hospital exactly they've been taken to, and also the remains haven't all been identified. So for them, the issue is very immediate, very tragic, and very much about possibly having lost somebody they love very much.

Barbara Pletasha in Kenya. People are bracing themselves in southern China and Vietnam for super typhoon Yagi. It's hitting the island of Hainan as we record this podcast, and it looks set to be the strongest storm there in over a decade. At least 13 people were killed in flooding and landslides as Yagi swept through the Philippines. Laura Bicker is our correspondent in Beijing. It's doubled in strength after it wreaked havoc in the northern Philippines. Meteorologists are telling us it's got winds of up to around 240 kilometres an hour,

but I think what we're looking at is the island of Hainan now this is like a popular tourist spot in China it's got beautiful sandy beaches lovely coastlines but obviously that would make it quite vulnerable to typhoons the sweeping round of the eye the winds that are sweeping round the eye, are also scheduled to hit Guangdong. Now, the important thing about Guangdong is it once was known as the factory of the world. It's China's manufacturing hub, and it's already suffered from a number of floods this year. China has dispatched a task force right across southern China to prepare for floods and to prepare for any potential typhoon-related

damage. An extraordinary coincidence today. We've heard from China's weather service that last month was the country's hottest August in more than six decades. The EU is saying that the past three months, the hottest June and August ever recorded. These changes in weather patterns mean that China particularly and those other countries in that area are going to have to think long and hard about where to build things in the future, aren't they? Are there plans for relocating things, do you think? China is one of the most climate vulnerable countries in the world. It suffers from a real water crisis. First of all, during the monsoon season, it has too much water and it all falls in the same place and at the same time. And then, of course, it has huge dry seasons, massive droughts.

So it has this problem between drought and between flood. Meanwhile, it has a country that is thirsty for water. It doesn't have enough water long term to supply most of its population. And this is something that it's having to grapple with. And not only that, you've just heard the figures there. The annual kind of climate blue book that you're referring to is released by the China Meteorological Administration. It's warning that temperatures across the country could rise by 1.7 to 2.8 degrees Celsius within the next 30 years. And it's eastern China, so it's those coastal areas and that northwest region of Xinjiang,

which suffers from drought, will suffer the most. Laura Bicker. Sextortion is a rapidly growing cybercrime. People are targeted by scammers pretending to be someone else who's romantically interested in them. Then they try to get the victim to send explicit images of themselves and if they do they extort money from them. Now the US has just had its first successful prosecution of two men from Nigeria where the crime is particularly prevalent.

The brothers have been sentenced to 17 and a half years in prison for a scam that led an American teenager, Jordan DeMay, to kill himself. Our cyber correspondent Joe Tidy told Catherine Biarahanga what happened. He was befriended on Instagram by an attractive girl his age, he thought, called Dani. And they started talking and she was flirting with him. And then she sort of sent some sexual images and coaxed him into sending some intimate pictures of himself. And then that's when the two brothers came clean and said, actually, we are not who you think we are. We are scammers from Nigeria and we want you to pay us. And over the course of the next few hours, they managed to get Jordan to send them hundreds of dollars. It's all he had.

He worked in McDonald's and that was sort of all his savings. And then when he said, I can't send you any more, please don't share the pictures with anybody. Don't send them around to my friends and family like they were threatening. He said, if you do this, I will kill myself. And then the message records show that the Nigerian said, good, do that or we'll make you do it. And then, of course, we know that he did take his life that night and it was in 2022. And it's taken a long time for the police and obviously the family who've been going through this whole thing to see justice. And Jo, let's play listeners a bit of this interview. This is what Jordan Demay's mother

had to say about the outcome of this legal case. It's a relief that someone is being held accountable, but at the end of the day, it doesn't change that Jordan's not here. It's really a struggle because there's no good that is coming out of this situation for my family or for the individual's responsible's family. The best thing that can come of this is that it's setting an example for the people who are doing this to other individuals that you can be caught. It's not a nameless crime, and hopefully that deters them from continuing to go after our children. And it's also creating awareness for kids that this is what's going on,

it's continuing to rise and they need to be aware of who they are talking to on social media. Yes, Jordan Demay's mother there. And Joe, how significant has this legal trial been? It's been hugely significant because, of course, the Jordan Dume story, partly thanks to the woman you heard there, Jen Booter, his mother, has been very, very high profile. She has become something of a campaigner on TikTok, for example, telling people, telling young people about what happened to her son.

She's done every single news outlet in the US and been trying to push the awareness of sexortion because it is the fastest growing crime, cybercrime against young people. There have been something like 27 suicides in the last two years. And that's in the US alone. We know, of course, there's two others in the UK recently as well. And the case has been watched by people all over the world. And particularly, of course, people in Nigeria.

They've been trying to make sure that the Nigerian Yahoo Boys, as they call them, this sort of culture of people using cybercrime to earn a living, they've been trying to get the story out that this can happen. People are killing themselves because of this, because of your activity and your actions. Joe Tidy speaking to Catherine Bjorohanga. Now, let's end this podcast with sneezes.

They can be loud, they often come in threes, and sometimes they can be bad for your health, as one professional footballer can attest to. Nigerian Victor Adeboyejo, who plays for the English team Bolton Wanderers, missed a game midweek after suffering an unusual injury caused by what's been described as a hefty sneeze. Club manager Ian Everett says they're waiting for scan results after he felt a crack in between his ribs. He told reporters Victor is powerful, even his sneezes are powerful. So how dangerous can they

be? Rick Edwards has been speaking to Adam Taylor, who's a professor of anatomy. Who knew it's one of the more bizarre injuries we've come across in recent seasons. You know, as everybody knows, sneezing is just one of those things that happens every day. But there are risks that are associated with this bodily function. So is it more risky, the sort of more powerful you are, as his manager sort of suggests there? It's entirely possible. I mean, we don't typically see sneezing related injuries in young, young athletes. You know, the demographic of people we typically see with these kind of injuries are usually elderly because they've got weaker or lower bone mass. And, you know, 8% of injuries do occur in men in and around their 40s.

But typically the most severe injuries, as broken ribs are seen in elderly people and so you know there is that element as his manager describes of victor being a very strong very strong guy and that's you know we have to think about that that his muscle force and power that he's generating even from those small muscles in and around your ribs and your chest are probably far greater than you know yours or mine are and so there is that risk you know in people with lean body mass high muscle percentage that they're exerting a force that's far greater than yours or mine are. So there is that risk in people with lean body mass, high muscle percentage, that they're exerting a force that's far greater

on their bony architecture than you or I could ever dream of doing. But it is better to sneeze than not sneeze, isn't it? You want to get the stuff out. That's the point of sneezes. Yeah, absolutely. You're right. The body sneezes to clear potentially dangerous material, dust particles, viruses, bacteria,

out of our airways and out of our passages to protect our delicate lung tissues. And, you know, there are, as we've discussed, there are risks with sneezing, but there's also probably bigger risks with holding sneezes in. Yeah. Just very quickly, yes or no, is it true that if you sneeze with your eyes open, your eyes can pop out?

That's fake. That one's sorted then. Adam Taylor speaking to Rick Edwards. 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 at Global News Pod. This edition was mixed

by Volodymyr Muzhechka and the producer was Vanessa Heaney. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Nick Miles and until next time, goodbye. If you're hearing this, you're probably already listening to BBC's award-winning news podcasts. But did you know that you can listen to them without ads? Get current affairs podcasts like Global News, AmeriCast and The Global Story, plus other great BBC podcasts from history to comedy to true crime, all ad-free. Simply subscribe to BBC Podcast Premium on Apple Podcasts or listen to Amazon Music with a Prime membership.

Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC Podcasts.