Global News Podcast - Former UN rights chief Navi Pillay wins Nobel Peace Prize

Episode Date: October 9, 2026

This year's Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Navi Pillay, the South African former UN human rights chief. The Nobel committee said Ms Pillay had shown that legal measures could help prevent acts of war and violence. At a news conference after being awarded the prize, she warned against growing political attacks on international law.Also: More airlines are suspending flights to Saudi Arabia after three people were killed in two Houthi attacks on Riyadh's international airport. The US Defense Department is facing criticism over plans to livestream the execution of a man who killed 13 people at an army base. Demonstrations are taking place in New York after ICE agents shot and wounded a man with his child inside his car. The BBC speaks to Ukrainians rushing to leave Kyiv before winter. Malaysia shuts schools as haze from Indonesian fires chokes South East Asia. How technology which can track the division of cells in a mouse could help scientists understand how diseases take hold in humans. And the artist behind a statue that depicted President Donald Trump naked and sitting on a man explains the artistic vision behind the work.The Global News Podcast brings you the breaking news you need to hear, as it happens. Listen for the latest headlines and current affairs from around the world. Politics, economics, climate, business, technology, health – we cover it all with expert analysis and insight.Get the news that matters, delivered twice a day on weekdays and daily at weekends, plus special bonus episodes reacting to urgent breaking stories. Follow or subscribe now and never miss a moment.Get in touch: [e-mail]: South African lawyer Navi Pillay at a news conference in Nuremberg, Germany after winning the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize Credit: EPA/Shutterstock

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The Signal Awards just announced finalists for the best podcasts of 2026. Now it's your turn. From September 29th to October 15th, you decide your favorite shows, hosts, and more in the listeners' choice awards. Visit vote.cignellaward.com to see finalists in categories like most innovative audio experience. Make your picks at vote.com and tell a friend. Don't wait. This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Charlotte Gallagher and 1300 hours GMT on 4.4.000 hours GMT on 4th. Friday, the 9th of October. These are our main stories. The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to

Navi Pillay, a South African judge who's been at the forefront of global efforts to defend human rights. Saudi officials say three people have been killed at Riyadh airport in the latest huthier attacks. We look at the condemnation of a Pentagon plan to live stream an execution. And an investigation is underway in New York into why ICE agents shot a man. who was in a car with his young child. Also in this podcast. I decided that the better option will be a little village without any factories, any storages and any railway stations.

Everything that can be Russian's target. We speak to the people forced to flee Kiev after hanging on for four years as Russia's bombardment intensifies and winter looms. We begin with the announcement of the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2026 to Navathenam Navi for her efforts to promote peace and international law.

Navi Pilai's commitment to universal legal principles and her firm moral compass are constants in a long career. That was the chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Jirgen Vatner Freundness, awarding the prize to the former UN Human Rights Chief Navi Pillay. The committee also said she'd been instrumental in ensuring war crimes were prosecuted. Navi Pillay, a South African lawyer of Indian origin, joins the likes of Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr, and Mother Teresa, who have previously won the award.

Speaking in the Nuremberg courtroom, where Nazi leaders were prosecuted after the Second World War, she gave her reaction to the win. This award strengthens my conviction that we must stand together in defence of the rule of law and an international legal order based on principle rather than selectivity. We are living through an era when international law and human rights are under significant political attack. Earlier, I spoke to our reporter Charles Haverland, who was interviewed and Abbey Palais. He began by telling me about the work she's done. Recently, she oversaw the publishing of a report by the UN Commission of Inquiry,

which concluded that Israel has been committing genocide in Gaza. This is a conclusion that Israel has rejected. But of course, you mentioned South Africa. She is a South African. She was part of what the apartheid regime in South Africa all those years ago labeled the Indian community. So one of these stratified racial groups. She set up her own law firm in South Africa a full 27 years before the ending of apartheid. So she was active in mobilising and taking legal cases against apartheid. After that, she served, among many other things, on the tribunal on the Rwandan genocide of the 1990s. And then she served six years, starting in 2008, as the UN Human Rights Chief, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

And I know that you interviewed her. What was your impression of her? Yes, I interviewed her during that tenure when I was based in Nepal as the correspondent there, and she visited Nepal, which was just coming out of a very bitter civil war. I would say that what I remember is that she was entirely straightforward. She was also at pains to be even-handed. There were mass killings that had taken place. There were disappearances still unsolved to this day, perpetrated both by the regime of the former royalists and the Maoists

who were then entering government. and the point is that she wanted to look at the facts on the ground rather than putting any ideological hat on. And in the years that followed, you can see that, for instance, back in 2014 she was also accusing Israel of possible war crimes in its then offensive in the occupied Palestinian territories. She was also accusing Hamas of similar possible crimes and a couple of years before that

she had been in Syria under the former U.S. Assad regime and denounced what she sought as their violations, their killings of children up to that time. So I think that her straightforward application of human rights dictums is what's been quite notable in her career. And has there been any reaction? I know it didn't happen that long ago, but what have people been saying? There's been a very positive reaction from the UN Human Rights Office, the OHCHR. Its spokesperson described as amazing news saying we need more dedication and commitment to human rights and saying we hope it'll encourage

and continue to encourage and inspire others to speak out in protection and promotion of the human rights of all people. Charles Haverland. More airlines are suspending flights to Saudi Arabia after two hootie attacks on Riyadh airport on Thursday. Three people were killed, including a pilot for the national carrier, Saudi.

The strikes are part of an escalating conflict with the Iran-backed group threatening to shuff. down Saudi airspace. Saudi Arabia has responded with airstrikes on Houthi targets in Yemen. So how serious is the latest attack? I asked our Middle East expert, Sebastian Usher. It shows the continuing vulnerability of the Saudis to Houthi attacks. I mean, we had the Saudi-led coalition, which has been fighting against the Houthis in Yemen for years, saying they had intercepted two ballistic missiles from Houthis yesterday. But the video that

had been circulating from the airport showing a plane with plumes of smoke rising for a minute on fire, suggested that may not have happened, but it wouldn't have just been debris. The fact that a pilot was killed, originally the reports were that the plane was empty in King Khalid International Airport, Riyadh, a major regional hub now in one of the key cities in the Gulf, obviously Riyadh, is something that will be causing a lot of concern for Saudi citizens. for the huge amount of expats there, for business people planning to go, as you say, airlines, a number of them have been suspending.

Their flights of foreign office here has advised against any but essential travel to the Riyadh region. This is extraordinary. So it shows the price that the Saudis can be made to pay with very little expenditure really by the Houthis. And that follows up, you know, from a green light that they gave to the forces they back in Yemen to have launched all-out war against the Houthis. Houthis just earlier this week. So they would see this as a huge success, the Houthis, that they've

taken this right to the heart of Saudi Arabia? Absolutely. I mean, they would like to close down Saudi airspace to cause maximum damage to the Saudis reputational, but also economically. And they've targeted the oil facilities, the economic lifeblood, not just of the Saudis, but of the world. So as I say, they are able to inflict serious damage on the Saudis. It does raise big questions over Saudi Arabia's defense capabilities. Meanwhile, in Yemen, the battle there is continuing, it's raging, the Houthi's launch this lightning offensive to take much of the area near the Baburmand straight through which Saudis have been sending oil. They've been pushed back to some extent. We don't have independent reporting there, so we're not entirely sure what's going on.

But it doesn't look as if this new offensive by pro-government forces backed by Saudi planes in the air has inflicted real damage on the gains. have made there. And you mentioned the world, the Houthis also threatening shipping lanes that will affect global production and global shipping. The Houthis have actually limited what they say will attack just to Saudi vessels. I mean, that's enough in itself, but they say in the Babamandib Strait, which is the alternative to the Strait of Hormuz, and they've been doing that. So, I mean, we'll have to see whether their grip on the Babamandib can be loosened. That was Sebastian Asher. The Trump administration is facing criticism after the US Defence

Secretary Pete Hegzith announced the public would be able to watch an execution by firing squad. The death of Nadal Hassan, who murdered 13 people on an army base in 2009, is set to be live-streamed. The UN said it would amount to torture. Hassan is in a wheelchair after he was shot by soldiers responding to his attack. Our reporter Aruna Ayanga has more on what Nadal Hassan did. He was a former army psychiatrist and in 2009 he killed 30. soldiers in the Fort Hood military base in Texas. The killing took place in a medical building where soldiers were waiting to get vaccines and get checkups. During his court martial in 2013,

Hassan said he believed he was protecting Muslims and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Pete Higsef, the US Defence Secretary, saying that his execution, which is due to take place on December 3rd, would be a public event. He said that he wants to make sure that people are. are able to watch it and that it's public. It's also the first military execution in around 60 years. It's not really known at this stage what the details of the live stream would be, on what platform it would be, how it would be viewed, what safeguards there would be for children, for example, what safeguards would be put in place. Those details are yet to be announced. The decision has prompted criticism from many who say the US shouldn't be joining the list of countries

that still carry out public executions. Eugene Arfidel is a visiting professor at Yale Law School. North Korea and Iran, those are countries that have public executions in this era. It's terrible company for the United States to be in. And it also violates the international covenant on civil and political rights, the UN document to which the US is a party, although we haven't passed the legislation necessary to bring it down to Earth here in the United States. This is a really, really unfortunate decision by Secretary Hegsef and the

administration. This is supposed to be a dignified, important event, and to live stream an execution is just so out of the Middle Ages. And, you know, we're so past that as a society. At least I thought so. Sergeant Alonzo Lunsford was shot seven times by Nadal Hassan in the Fort Hood attack but survived. He believes he should be executed but isn't sure his death should be live streamed. Me myself, would I look at it over and over again? Probably not. And then again, probably so. I can't say it all depends on how I feel.

But my biggest thing is the effect as far as looking at it for the general public for our young future leaders. What kind of message would it send to them? Now, it has been stated that we just won't put it with such activity. Okay, I'm with that 100%. But I don't think that kids should look at it. And as far as the families of the fallen and the families of the survivors and the survivors themselves, yes, I think we should be able to look at it uncensored because I'm going to be there. And before they pull the trigger, I want him to look at me in my eyes and I look at

him in his eyes and I want him to know, dude, you failed. I'm still here. That was Sergeant Alonzo Lunsford. Staying in the U.S. We want eyes off my streets. We want ice off our street. Protesters marching towards a hospital in New York City after U.S. immigration enforcement officers, known as ICE, shot a man who was inside his car with his child. New York's mayor, Zoramam Darni, spoke to press near the scene. There is no explanation for federal officers firing this many rounds into a car that has a five-year-old in the car. And the pretext of ICE is, in their words, to keep this country safe. How is it keeping anyone safe to have individuals wearing construction vests in masks with long guns?

Residents have no idea if these are law enforcement agents or if they are simply attacking someone on the street. Our reporter, Stephanie Prentice, has been following this and told me the latest. Well, Charlotte, as we recall this, it's still quite early in New York, so we're still waiting to get an update on the condition of the man who was shot. We know that he was from Dominican Republic. He was with his young child in a car. And they were in a northern part of Manhattan when several rounds were fired at that vehicle by ICE agents during an attempted arrest operation.

Now, we heard those protesters there. There's been a lot of outrage over this. particularly in that local area. Protests there outside the hospital. They did end in clashes with police, so we may see more of that going into Friday. And the focus from officials, really, is an investigation into how this happened,

why this happened, and why so many shots were fired in this really busy urban area. Now, we can listen to one resident who said she was near a subway station and she saw the aftermath of the shooting. When I came off the train from Metro North, I walked up and we just saw,

ice literally in like their militia gears their guns AK-47s and they're all marauding down there and then they're like they're walking in and out and they're dapping each other up after somebody just got shot you think it's okay to dapped somebody up after somebody just got shot like you did a good job so that term she's using there would describe a celebration of sorts now the US Department of Homeland Security that's defended what it's called the targeted arrest it said the man had criminal history, but there hasn't been any explanation of what prompted those shots to be fired. It did say the agents gave the man medical assistance at the scene. Zohra Mandani, he's called ice rotten at its core, said it causes chaos. And along with other New York City leaders,

he's calling for all agents to lead the city altogether. But does he have any power, or does New York have any power to force the agents to leave? Well, ICE, as we know, is a federal authority. The US itself is a bit of a patchwork of state laws, local laws, and they all intersect in different ways. So New York is among a few states that have more protections in place when it comes to limiting interaction with ICE from their agents themselves. Earlier this year, it did strengthen what's known as sanctuary protection. So, for example, ICE agents can't freely access any part of a school. They can't go into any part of a hospital. New York police officers don't have to assist them with these immigration operations. But New York doesn't have the

power to ask ICE to leave completely, particularly not as things stand now. What New York does seem to have is an appetite for mobilisation on the ground. We've seen a growing number of videos posted online, where groups of neighbours essentially banned together and they drive ICE agents out of their neighbourhoods by themselves. That was Stephanie Prentice. Still to come in this podcast. Art could make mirror and making the people's mind a little bit and making a lot of laughing. And when you laugh of the dictators, then you break the dictator's power in a way. Why a statue of Donald Trump has caused controversy at the European Parliament. Your sales order says one thing. Your inventory says another.

Your spreadsheet says, good luck. Odu brings your business together on a single platform, from sales and accounting to inventory and marketing. Visit Odo.com to book a demo. It's O'DO.O.com. The Signal Awards just announced finalists for the best podcasts of 2026. Now it's your turn. From September 29th to October 15th, you decide your favorite shows, hosts, and more in the Listeners' Choice Awards. Visit vote.org.com to see finalists in categories like most innovative audio experience.

Make your picks at vote. com and tell a friend. Don't wait. Growing businesses deal with the same problem. Too many tools, too much back and forth, and not enough time. Odu helps bring it all together. It's an all-in-one business management platform, fully integrated from sales and accounting to inventory and marketing,

so your team can spend less time chasing information and focus on growth. Whether you're in retail, manufacturing or service, Odo gives you one place to manage your business. Visit Odo.com to book a demo. It's OD00.com. Part of why I blew the whistle was I didn't want to lay in bed in 20 years. Having seen another million people die, and know that I could have done something when, when I had a chance.

This week on the interface, we're talking to Frances Howigan. The Facebook whistleblower who leaked the documents that changed how the world saw social media. And now she is the subject of Aaron Sorkin's latest movie, The Social Reckoning. So join me, Thomas Germain. And me, Jess Maddox, for the interface. Listen on BBC.com or we're at. wherever you get your podcasts. This is the global news podcast.

As Russia steps up attacks on Ukrainian cities, hitting power plants, bridges, schools and warehouses in Kiev, life in the capital is getting even more dangerous. And with winter approaching, some are getting out of harm's way, either by moving to the countryside or in some cases abroad. Paul Adams has been to meet two Ukrainian women who've decided it's safer to leave the capital. Kyiv is more dangerous than at any moment since the early days of Russia's full-scale invasion. Alerts, sirens and explosions are happening all day, every day.

Not only that, but winter is coming, and Russia is already attacking the power grid. More and more people are thinking about getting themselves out of harm's way of leaving the city. We've driven a couple of hours south from Kiev deep into the Ukrainian countryside to a tiny little village, frankly in the middle of no one. I'm standing in the garden surrounded by fruit trees. There's a little cottage over there and just in front of me a barn full of wood chopped for the winter. I have plenty of sea. It is a fireplace. This is where Elena, who lives in Kiev, is planning to spend the winter.

She's getting the house ready, making sure that it'll be warm enough. But what she's most looking forward to is that. the peace and the security. I realized that I couldn't spend the winter in Kiev if the situation will be worse. If I have several sleepless nights, I feel bad. I decided that the better option will be a little village without any factories, any storages and any railway stations. Everything that can be the Russian target.

nights here when I can sleep, just sleep without any explosions, without any sirens. I feel good. Back in Kiev, Maria Shostak is packing her bags, getting ready to leave the country altogether. Maria's two children, Artur and Kira, were both born after Russia's full-scale invasion. They've known nothing but war. I thought that I would be the last person who left Ukraine. Because why? How? What is the reason?

As it turns out, life in Kiev in the past year has given Maria plenty of reasons. It was a very difficult winter last year in Kiev. Those attacks and the damage on the energy system and heating made life unbearable. In these conditions, we couldn't survive. wife. So back then I started thinking I'm not going through another winter like this. Originally, Maria planned to wait for winter before leaving. Not anymore. Everything changed in late August when Kiev started being attacked around the clock. And if earlier the drones or missiles were intercepted somewhere on the outskirts,

now it was happening in the center right above our heads. during the day. Missiles, drones, power cuts and winter, it's enough to drive anyone from Kiev. A recent poll found that across Ukraine, lots of people are thinking about leaving their cities. Evgenia Bliznyuk is a sociologist and founder of the Grados Research Center.

40% of our respondents considering they should have plan B for extraordinary hard conditions of living. But on the other hand, people are not. not ready just to run away. So they will try to go through this winter in their own homes. So this decision to leave the city or the country will be the last one. But Maria's mind is made up. She's at Kiev railway station with the children, waiting for the train to Vienna. She's taking the kids to Egypt, much cheaper than Europe, she says, and much warmer too. After the winter, she's not sure what the future holds.

Her husband, Yuri, has come to see them off. They both know it could be a lengthy separation. Artur and Kira seem to know it too. Mahai, Tartu. Mahai. Mahai. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Bye, bye. Paul Adams. To Malaysia next, where schools in several states were closed on Friday, after toxic smog pushed air quality to unhealthy levels across the country. It comes as wildfires have been burning throughout parts of neighboring Indonesia. for weeks. Our global affairs reporter, Joanna Keen, has been following the situation in Malaysia. We've had families reporting things like coughs, fever, sore throats and eyes, and then more serious

breathing difficulties. And some schools had already been saying, look, let's take learning online. But now the government said, look, in the areas where this air quality poses a hazard to health, let's close those schools for now and do it solely online. We've also seen impacts in Indonesia. I mean, animals there. Not only is their natural habitat being destroyed, but the orangutans in Sumatra and Borneo, experts are saying they're being left without food and water. And we can actually see the impacts for ourselves online.

So, you know, look at the landmarks, Singapore, the skyscrapers in the business district, in the shopping district. They're sort of disappearing in this haze. Kuala Lumpur, same happening to the Petronas Towers. Singapore, Grand Prix is taking place this weekend. that attracts thousands of visitors. F1 organisers insist this is going to go ahead, there is no problem, but maybe we can expect quite a few masks as well this weekend.

And you mentioned Indonesia as well and the destruction of wildlife habitats. Is that just because the wildfires or other things going on as well? Yeah, I mean, there's wildfire. They're saying it's one of the worst seasons. We're looking at more than a decade. We're talking about 400 fire spots were recorded in 24 hours. Now what's happening is in peatlands, we've got some of these burning underground. You've got thousands of firefighters, they put them out, but then these hot spots spring up again, and they're just really easily reignited.

But also we have to remember Indonesia is the largest producer of palm oil. So we've had farmers' companies using a cheap, but an illegal method of slashing burning to clear this vegetation for plantations, basically. And also experts are saying, look, we've got really dry conditions because of the ongoing El Nino, so quite a few factors at play here. That was Janice. How does a single fertilised cell produce all the cells in a body? The question has been asked by scientists for decades

and it's critical in understanding how diseases take hold and spread throughout the body. And now new research has moved us closer to an answer. Scientists have mapped out the largest cellular family tree in a mammal ever, tracking one single cell as it branches out into a massive number, network of nearly 1.3 million descendants. Dr. J. Shenjore is one of the authors of the study and a developer of the DNA typewriter technology it employed.

He's been speaking to my colleague James Copnell. Every human, really every animal on this planet, started out as a fertilized egg. That cell divided to two cells, four cells, eight cells, so on and so forth. You know, for humans giving rise ultimately to a body of tens of trillions of cells, And basically the process by which nine months after fertilization you get a baby, right, that's still very much a mystery. And it's not something that we can see. We can't put it under a microscope. And so to access it, we built something called a DNA typewriter to essentially allow us to track that pattern of cell divisions and build a family tree of cells.

That sounds so simple. I imagine it was all but that. Yes. You know, this has been well over 10 years in the making. Sir John Solstyn very famously at the University of Cambridge. sat down in a microscope, you know, for two years and just watched a worm developing. A pen and paper, he basically mapped the blueprint of that entire organism. But it was only a thousand cells. But, you know, almost 50 years onwards, we don't have anything like that for really any other animal, you know, let alone something as large as a mouse or a human.

And so you worked on a mouse embryo. Why is having a cell's history so much better than simply taking a snapshot at the end? Biology is not a static process. Biology unfolds over time. When we develop a disease, it's the manifestation of something that started long ago. And for many or most diseases, we have limited insights into pinpointing the where and the when and the precise events that initiated, you know, let's say the development of Alzheimer's or cancer or what have you. And so we really wanted to be to develop a general technology that was applicable to models of all diseases to try and understand how they emerge over time. And that's the key, is it, that this technology could help

us fight diseases? That is the hope. Understand disease in order to be able to develop therapies for disease, absolutely. This was a big leap going from cells in a dish to a mouse. So I think we're at the next phase of a very exciting adventure to map the entire development of a mammal, which is the main model organism that we used to study human biology. That was Dr. Jay Schendjor. Finally, a new statue depicting the US President Donald Trump was on display this week in the European Parliament in Strasbourg in France as part of a temporary exhibition.

But it is unlikely to feature in any official White House profile. The two-and-a-half-meter gold statue is called the Orange Plague and depicts the American leader naked, holding a long golf club, and sitting on the shoulders of a smaller man. Critics demanded its removal. The Slovak Prime Minister, Robert Fizzo, called it a sign of the decline of the entire European Union. But others supported it, calling it legitimate political satire.

The statue's creator, the Danish artist Jens Galschutz, has been talking to the BBC. Is he surprised it was placed there? I was quite surprised they take it. But I think in the parliament, they're really, oh, they're so tired of him. Because every time they make an agreement, then Trump breaks the agreement. Every time they make a rule, then Trump break a rule. Maybe the time they want to stop a war, Trump's beginning a war, like that.

And I think this is influenced the whole area of Europe. And this is the reason I think they have given me permission to put it there. And of course, this is not normal to do that. But I think he should not decide who sculptural we want to have in the European Parliament. And if you hear the chairman for the parliament, has just go out and say, this is okay, we are standing back this art work. When you're making art, you're making mirror about the world. So this is my point of view. This is a kind of cation.

So this is a kind of theater you're making when you make art like I do. Like Voltaire making art about the France Revolution or whatever. I'm not really saying art could change the lot, but I think art could make mirror and making the people's minds. a little bit and making a lot of laughing. And when you laugh of a dictator, then you break the dictator's power in a way. So it's because this is quite funny sculpture now. That was the artist, Jens, Gullschutz.

Before we go. Hi, I'm Celia Hatton, one of the presenters of the Global News podcast. The US midterm elections are coming up soon, and so we're joining forces next week for a special joint edition with AmeriCast. We're pretty sure that leading up to that vote, we'll be hearing a lot of terms and phrases. that are used by American election officials and analysts, words like gerrymandering and battleground state.

And so we're hoping to tackle some of the vocabulary to understand what it means and some of the fascinating background to some of those terms. And we're hoping you can get involved. If you have a suggestion for a word or phrase you'd like us to include, please send us an email or a voice message. It's the usual address, global podcast at bbc.co.uk. So if you want to get in touch, please email us with any questions.

And that's all from us for now. If you want to get in touch, you can email us at globalpodcast at BBC.co.com. You can also watch our episodes in full. Just search for the Global News Podcast on YouTube. This edition was mixed by Velodomir Maziske and the producer was Stephen Jensen. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Charlotte Gallagher. Until next time.

Goodbye. The Signal Awards just announced finalists for the best podcasts of 2026. Now it's your turn. From September 29th to October 15th, you decide your favorite shows, hosts, and more in the Listeners Choice Awards. Visit vote.com to see finalists in categories like most innovative audio experience. Make your picks at vote. orgnaward.com and tell a friend. Don't wait.