Global News Podcast - Germany promises Ukraine long-range missiles to fight Russia

Episode Date: May 28, 2025

Germany's Merz promises to help Ukraine produce long-range missiles. Also: the latest from Gaza, 20 years in jail for French paedophile, experts warn the Earth is 'profoundly ill' and a flying car takes off in England.

This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Nick Miles on At 14 Hours GMT. On Wednesday the 28th of May, these are our main stories. Germany stands behind Ukraine promising more help and long-range missiles amid warnings that Russia is amassing a new force on Ukraine's borders. A French doctor has been given 20 years in jail in France's largest child sex abuse case.

Climate experts say new data shows the earth is warming at record levels and is profoundly ill. Even with the current warming that we've seen, we're getting more frequent and intense heat waves, more extreme rainfall events, more devastating droughts. We will see all of those being exacerbated. And Israeli-backed aid operations in Gaza have largely been suspended after chaotic attempts to distribute food. Also in this podcast, is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it is a flying car over the English countryside. And... We have to change how we perceive food. When you're No, it is a flying car over the English countryside. And...

We have to change how we perceive food. When you're dealing with an addictive substance, that addictive substance, we have to come to perceive that addictive substance. Is that my friend? The doctor warning people that ozempic isn't the magic fix. The German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has announced a new military cooperation with Ukraine in which Germany will finance and build long-range missiles with Ukraine to help Kiv in the conflict with Russia. He was speaking alongside President Zelensky in Berlin. Earlier the Ukrainian president said

Russia is gathering 50,000 troops across the border from the Ukrainian city of Sumy for a summer offensive. Mr Zelensky had been hoping that Germany would give the go-ahead for Kiev to use powerful long-range Taurus missiles from Germany, which some analysts say could be a game-changer for Ukraine's army. Speaking to journalists after the talks, the German Chancellor said Germany was prepared to increase the pressure on Russia. He condemned the recent attacks on the Ukrainian capital. The massive airstrikes specifically that reached Kiev over the weekend do not speak a language of

peace. They speak a language of an aggression and of an aggressive war of aggression. It is a slap in the face against anyone who is working towards peace in Ukraine itself or in Europe or in the United States. President Zelensky appealed for more support to help Ukraine defend itself. Just to save lives in our peaceful cities, we need a lot of support and we need a lot of air defense system. They are crucial, very, very important. And that's why we are talking to Germany about air defence supply. Germany is supporting us all the time.

They are giving armour for air defence and I wanted to thank them for this. I want to underline this is the kind of support is saving us from Russian terror. Well, in the last week, Russia has launched some of its most intense strikes on Ukraine since it began its full-scale invasion three years ago. Speaking at the Moscow Security Conference, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia will announce the next round of direct talks between Russia and Ukraine in the near future. He outlined Russia's demands in any future negotiations, accusing Ukraine of targeting Russian civilians. But let's get a fuller assessment now of those talks between Mr Zelensky and Mr Mertz in Berlin. Here's our correspondent, Damian McGuinness.

I think the one word that Friedrich Mertz, Germany's new Chancellor, wanted to avoid was the word Taurus and that is the long range cruise missile you mentioned which can strike deep into Russia, 500 kilometre range and that is something that President Zelensky really wants. Ukraine says that would help them eliminate military targets and prevent attacks happening in the first place. But it's such a controversial issue here in Berlin or in Germany in general in fact and that's because there are some people here, many voters and also many politicians particularly on the left and in the centre-left social democrat government in the government party in the government who say this would spark a retaliation from Russia on German cities because it's such a powerful weapon.

And I think what we've seen today is that Friedrich Merz, who is long backed sending tourists to Ukraine, particularly when he was an opposition leader before he became chancellor, he seems to have found a solution. What he's announced today is a new military cooperation whereby Germany would finance and build together with Ukraine long range military missiles and these would presumably be something similar to Taurus, possibly using even Taurus technology. And that would, if that happens, that would kind of get Germany out of this difficulty of delivering this weapon but also not giving Ukraine what it needs. Of course, the big question is this would take a long time to get running.

But I think it is a solution in terms of the political debate here because it means on the one hand Germany is upping along with other measures it is upping military support for Ukraine while at the same time keeping German voters on side because I think that's really the issue how to keep mainstream opinion still to back Ukraine which is still very much the case here overall in Germany. And it's also been tricky for Mr Mertz politically in terms of the government coalition, hasn't it? Yeah, that's right. So he is the leader of the Conservative Party which overwhelmingly backs sending more

weapons to Ukraine and generally his governing coalition partner, the centre left SPD, they also back supporting Ukraine but within their group they do have many people who are nervous of this escalation because they have a tradition of diplomacy rather than war. So I think it's about juggling this nuance between the keeping the government together while at the same time upping support for Ukraine and that's something that Friedrich Mertz is very, very keen to do. Damian McGuinness speaking to Will Vernon. Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine back in 2022, Germany has boosted its army and defence spending by billions of dollars. Our Berlin correspondent Jess Parker followed its Chancellor on a recent trip to Lithuania to see Germany's new defence strategy in action.

A German military band marches through the streets of Vilnius, Lithuania's capital, to mark the establishment of a German brigade in this Baltic state, Germany's first permanent foreign troop deployment since World War II, a response to Russian aggression, a sign of a changing Germany. Right here in Lithuania, we are taking the defence of NATO's eastern flank into our own hands. As the rain clouds gathered, the new German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, addressed the crowd. Freedom is not for free. The Baltic states understood this long ago at a time when some in Germany still had illusions about Putin's regime. But I assure you that time is over.

Lithuania borders Belarus, Moscow's ally, and the Russian exclave Kaliningrad. Sandra and Julius, here to watch the event with their children, say the German troops are a reassuring sight. We know our neighbors from the history. We got to fight with them a lot. So it's so much safer to be in the part of something larger, in a bigger group. We're celebrating. Delegations from these units are participating

in today's ceremony. Alongside this, Chancellor Merz has plans to boost defence spending on a military that's been seen as chronically underfunded, and he's striking a far more forthright tone on support for Ukraine than his predecessor. But when you speak to people in Germany, you'll still find divided opinions. We should keep our money together, I think, and not spend so much on Ukraine anymore. It's not our business as Germans. I think our army needs to be strengthened. We need to do it carefully because of our history. But our army needs to be strong.

Stabilisation! A fly passed over Vilnius. Friedrich Merz is putting on a big show as he sets out to make Germany a more assertive power. The extent of his success or failure will impact all of Europe. Jessica Parker with that report. A French surgeon has been sentenced to 20 years in jail in the country's biggest ever paedophile trial. Joël Descaunac had already pleaded guilty to sexually abusing nearly 300 boys and girls who were under his care. Most of the children were under sedation in hospital at the time and had no idea of the attacks until informed by police. Hugh Schofield told us more from the courthouse in Varn in Brittany. The description of Joel Luskwarnik was that he was standing up dressed in a black suit and looking impassively at the judge when when the sentence was read out.

It is, of course, absolutely no surprise that he was found guilty and the verdict and the sentence is not a great surprise either given the appalling nature and longevity of his crime came back so many years on against nearly 300 children. There's an added part of the sentence which will remain to be defined but which I know a lot of victims were pushing for which is a period of what they call, um, sukhateh in French, which means that even after he comes out of prison, they want there to be a restriction on his movements, that there want to be controls on his whereabouts, even after he is let out of jail, which will be in many, many years, because they say that he, though he has expressed his regret and his intention to cure himself

and so on, they say that he will remain till the end his regret and his intention to cure himself and so on, they say that he will remain till the end of his days a dangerous figure. The fact remains though that he will be in prison until he's a very, very old man. He's already serving a 15-year term for the first offences, the trial that was caused by his initial revelation as a child offender back in 2017, and now another 20 years, which may or may not run concurrently, but either way, he will be in his 80s or 90s, I think, before he gets out. Let's not forget that from the start of all this he admitted his guilt. He entered the court with a maybe slightly more ambivalent

approach to the prosecution, but during the hearings, more and more, he opened up, and by the end, he was saying quite openly that he wanted to say that he was guilty for all of the crimes. He accepted his responsibility, indeed, in the suicide of two young men who killed themselves and whose families say killed themselves because of what they discovered that they've been going through. So there's absolutely no expectation of a not guilty verdict and there was every

expectation that he would be handed down a very stiff sentence which is what has happened. Hugh Scofield. The earth is profoundly ill, that's according to climate experts. It is predicted that global temperatures will continue at or near record levels for the next five years, which could put targets to limit global warming out of reach. That's coming from a new report by the UN's climate and weather service. Our climate editor Justin Rowlatt told us more about what the report said. What the report's saying, as he said from the WMO, it's the UN's climate and weather body.

Every year they do a forecast looking ahead five years to look at the kind of state of the world's climate. What they're saying is there is an 80% chance, so four in five, that at least one of the next five years will exceed last year, 2024, as the warmest on record. So they're saying overwhelmingly the chances are we'll see the hottest year ever in the next five years. They're also saying there's a 70% chance that the five-year average over the next five years 2025 to 29 will be more than one and a half degrees celsius above pre-industrial levels. Now you'll remember one and a half degrees is the the famous target the world agreed to try and limit global warming to at

that climate conference UN climate conference in Paris back in 2015. Scientists why one and a half degrees? Scientists have repeatedly said any warming above that will bring more severe climate change impacts, more extreme weather. Now just to put in context that prediction that there's a 70% chance that it'll exceed 1.5, the Paris agreement talks about a 20-year average, not five years, but I think what this is telling us very clearly is the direction of travel. We are, if not actually technically breaching it, we are getting very, very close to doing so. Now Justin, these not actually technically breaching it, we are getting very, very close to

doing so. Now Justin, these fractions of a percent might seem a little bit abstract to people but fractions of a percent mean a huge amount more energy around in the atmosphere and that has a huge impact doesn't it? It absolutely does. So that drives the extreme weather, we'll all have seen, perhaps experienced directly, extreme weather wherever we live and we're talking here about heat waves, we're talking about extreme storms, we're talking about droughts and we're talking about floods. So all of those extreme weather events get more likely with just even a fraction, a fractional increase in temperature. And the other thing to bear in mind is these impacts are not transient. They're not going to go away. They will last for hundreds, if not thousands of years.

And that is why the WMO is saying this year is really important to try and begin to bend the curve and reduce emissions, you know, lessening the likelihood of damaging climate change. That was Justin Rowlatt. The United States and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has said it's temporarily suspended at least some distribution of aid. That's after a chaotic attempt to hand out food on Tuesday. The United Nations says 47 people were injured, many of them by Israeli gunfire. The Foundation was already facing controversy. The UN has warned it doesn't follow humanitarian principles

and its executive director quit a few days ago, citing similar concerns. Philippe Lazzarini is the head of UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. We have seen yesterday the shocking images of hungry people pushing against fences, desperate for food. of hungry people pushing against fences, desperate for food. It was chaotic, undignified and unsafe. I believe it is a waste of resources and a distraction from atrocities. We already have an aid distribution system that is fit for purpose. The humanitarian community in Gaza, including UNRWA, is ready. We have the experience and expertise to reach people in need. The clock is ticking towards famine, so humanitarian must be allowed to do its life-saving work now.

Our Middle East correspondent Yolande Nell, who's in Jerusalem, spoke to Lucy Hawkins. We know that one of the sites, which was the one where there were these chaotic scenes a day ago, that aid supplies were suspended earlier. But what we've been hearing from a local journalist is that this second distribution site, a secure site, as the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation calls it, has been handing out food boxes to Palestinians. This is the second of the sites to come online out of an expected four. All of those controversially in the southern part of the Gaza Strip. We don't know anything about quantities,

but this is just what we've been hearing from on the ground. And this comes as we've just had a briefing as journalists with the UN's top humanitarian official just out of the Gaza Strip. He is the local head of the office. He told us that this new system was essentially engineered scarcity because these distribution points are concentrated in the south, not in the north, where most of the population of the Gaza Strip now is. They're giving out only minimal supplies. Of course, the UN has been saying consistently that this new system, which the US backs and

which Israel has been pushing for, uses armed security guards. The UN has said it goes against humanitarian principles. Your land also, in the past hour or so, we've been hearing from Kaya Callis, who's the EU's High Representative for Foreign Affairs, saying that Israeli strikes in Gaza go beyond what is necessary to fight Hamas, and then going on to say that bypassing the UN for aid deliveries undermine humanitarian principles. How is Israel responding to the increasing criticism and diplomatic pressure from right around the world? I mean, it's been pushing back at that in the past week because, of course, it's not

just been criticism from its closest allies like the EU, its biggest trading partner, like the UK, Canada as well, condemned the expansion of Israel's military offensive and this humanitarian situation which is still worsening even though we've had Israel easing the total blockade on all supplies going into Gaza that it had in place for 11 weeks. But we've also seen concrete actions being taken by some of these countries. The UK for, suspending its free trade agreement talks with Israel. We've had the EU reviewing the pact that it has with Israel that governs EU relations when it comes to governance,

when it comes to economic matters. So these are impacting. Even the Israeli public feels that it's been covered extensively in the media. But then, you know, we've had the Israeli politicians, the leadership, pushing back at that, saying that, you know, this is a matter of Israel's security. It is determined to crush Hamas in Gaza and is pushing ahead with its offensive. You'll learn now. Still to come in the podcast.

Some people pay the price with their lives. The most dangerous part was the steep hill of almost 70 to 80 degrees. I saw many people fall down. What happens next to the Chinese nationals who made such dangerous journeys to the US? Leaders of the West Africa regional grouping, ECOWAS, are meeting in Lagos, Nigeria to discuss the future of the bloc and how to prevent it from falling apart. It is 50 years since heads of state signed the Treaty of Lagosc and how to prevent it from falling apart. It is 50 years since heads of state signed the Treaty of Lagos establishing ECOWAS, the economic community

of West African states. Three countries, Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali, pulled out last year. Chris Awoko reports from Abuja. This is a momentous day. A day after the speech on May 28, 1975, 15 West African heads of state, including then Nigerian General Yakubu Gawan, signed the Treaty of Lagos, giving birth to ECOWAS. The vision was ambitious, to promote economic integration and foster the free movement of over 400 million people.

ECOWAS president Omar Aliok Touré says it's a big achievement. ECOWAS remains a model regional economic community on the continent. With an ID card, the ECOWAS biometric ID card, you can move all the way from Lagos to Dakar without visa. But for some of us who travel within our country, we know this is no mean feat. But the bloc has faced major challenges, including brutal civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone during the 1990s and the early 2000s. 1990s and the early 2000s. ECOMOG, the multilateral armed forces established by ECOWAS, intervened in the two countries, helping to restore stability. Yet one major achievement has continued to elude the bloc,

the creation of a single currency. But it's a plan that remains, and the currency is due to launch in 2027. Fifty years after its formation, and ECOWAS is now at the brink of disintegration. After recent coups in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, the countries pulled out of ECOWAS and formed a Sahel alliance. But Nigeria's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Yusuf Tuga, believes the Sahel nations will return to the bloc.

The worst thing you can do to soldiers is to give them a country to rule, because when you tell them to manage cities, to manage people, to manage water systems, sewage systems, health systems, that is systems, health systems. That is not what they're trained to do. Eko-Was president Omara Liuture concurs, insisting on a country's sovereign right to withdraw from the union. If a country decides to be part of a community

or to withdraw from a community, that is a sovereignization. And it cannot be attributed to ECOWAS having anything wrong. So there might be some difficulties, but those difficulties are not insurmountable. So as ECOWAS turns 50, it seems the Golden Jubilee is a time for nostalgia, but also a moment for a conning. Chris Sawako in Nigeria. In just over four months Donald Trump has

used his presidential powers in a way few others have before him, issuing executive orders, overhauling freedom of speech and ending diversity programs amongst many others. He's also been busy issuing pardons for a wide array of offenders. The latest is for a reality TV couple, Todd and Julie Chrisley, who were jailed for financial crimes. Their early release from prison comes after pressure from their daughter who spoke at the Republican National Convention last year. The newsroom's David Lewis is following the story. He told me a little bit more about them. Yep, from reality TV to trial to jail and

now freedom, Todd and Julie Chrisley's rise, fall and release was rapid. This is their story. The family shot to fame a decade ago. Their all access show, Chrisley Knows Best, portrayed them as real estate tycoons, a God fearing Christian family living their best life in a huge mansion in the suburbs of Atlanta. It made them millions, but not quite enough. Fast forward to 2022, the pair were found guilty of tax evasion and defrauding banks out of more

than 26 million dollars in loans. Lawyers said they submitted dodgy documents to banks, then lived the high life. According to the Justice Department, they spent their ill-gotten gains on luxury cars, designer clothes, property and travel. And when the cash ran out, no bother. Prosecutors proved they took out new fraudulent loans to pay off the old ones. Julie was sentenced to seven years in prison, Todd for 12. An open and shut case, you might think, but up stepped the couple's daughter, Savannah. Miss Christie Jr. went on Fox News programme, My View.

The host of that? The president's daughter-in-law, Lara Trump. Her guest was billed as a prison reform advocate and insisted her folks had been prosecuted for their conservative beliefs. Savannah called their case eerily similar to the criminal charges lodged against President Trump. Both prosecutors were Democrats. They have donated to Democratic candidates,

she told the programme. At trial trial we knew it was game over. Well, the message seems to have chimed. The pair have now been handed a presidential pardon from the big man himself. In a video posted online, Mr Trump was shown speaking on the phone from the White House with the Chrisley children. Take a listen. It's a terrible thing, but it's a great thing because your parents are going to be free and clean and I hope we can do it by tomorrow. Is that OK?

We'll try getting it done tomorrow. So give them, I don't know them, but give them my regards and wish them a good life. So for Mr and Mrs Chrisley, a free and clean life awaits. David Lewis. The vast majority of the hundreds of thousands of migrants who cross secretly into the United States from Mexico every year are from Latin America. But in recent years, a growing number of people from China have been amongst them. Many of them are asylum seekers fleeing persecution from the Chinese government. But with Donald Trump back in the Oval Office, a new policy allows judges to decide if someone is eligible for asylum without a hearing. Sophie Williams visited a shelter for Chinese asylum

seekers in New York. Here in Flushing, Queens you can hear people speaking Chinese, going about their day, buying groceries, treating themselves to dinner. A large number of asylum seekers have come here from China. And today I'm here to meet Ma Jun, a man who has set up his own shelter to help new arrivals. Some of these people came and were looking for help. Some people are mostly being oppressed or persecuted for their religious and ethnic identity. That's what they are running from.

And I will send troops to the southern border to repel the disastrous invasion of our country. President Trump has vowed to conduct the largest mass deportation programme in US history. He's also declared a national emergency on the southern border, the main route for Chinese seeking to reach the US. In the 2024 financial year, authorities encountered more than 38,000 Chinese people at the southern border. People are now worried, they are terrified. Trump's policies haven't impacted people here directly, but everyone's very aware

that it's just a matter of time. I brought in lawyers and experts to give people some legal knowledge. But our problem now is, does the law still work? Some have even abandoned their plans to come to the US. Some of my friends have been persecuted by the Chinese government for a long time. They've escaped China and have been hiding out in Central Asia. Now they've given up on America. I'm walking around the house and all day it's been busy with people cooking food, chatting to each other, praying.

And it's very clear that this house has a community feel. Daway, not his real name, is a current resident at the shelter. He took the southern border route to the US. He was robbed in Ecuador and was deported from Mexico three times. But the most terrifying part of his journey was traveling through the Darien Gap, a stretch of dense rainforest between Colombia and Panama. People just kept walking. Some people paid the price with their lives. The most dangerous

part was the steep hill of almost 70 to he is aware of what he has left behind. Dawei is a Muslim from Xinjiang and says many people in his hometown have been placed in detention camps. China denies any human rights violations in Xinjiang. Our lives would basically be over. We are from Xinjiang. We are an ethnic minority. My family is a Muslim academic family.

If anyone find out about us, they would definitely get us back to Xinjiang for re-education. For Dawei, the wait on his case continues. And for those who haven't yet arrived, they face the difficult decision on whether to take the risk or consider another option. Sophie Williams. In many countries, people now have the power to control their appetite for harmful food. It comes in the form of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic or Mujaro. But is there a way of tackling obesity without the drugs? The answer is yes according

to one of America's most influential scientists. Dr David Kessler was head of the US Food and Drug Administration under two presidents and was chief science officer on the White House Covid response team. He's written a book called Diet, Drugs and Dopamine. He told Justin Webb about the problem of eating ultra processed and ultra formulated foods. They cause what I call sick fat, that visceral fat in your abdomen and that's killing us. In the United States only about 15% of Americans are metabolically healthy. We have a real 15%. Only 15% but the good news is that we can reclaim our health. The problem is not weight, right? It's

not how big you are or small you are. I mean the problem is that sick fat that collects at our midsection that gets into our liver, our pancreas and our heart, but we can reverse that. Well and one way of reversing it is just to take the drugs, isn't it, the GLP-1s, and have done with it. What is wrong with that approach, which seems frankly to be the approach at the moment, isn't it? Well let me explain to you how these drugs work. They delay gastric emptying, food stays in your stomach longer, they

take you to that edge of nausea and what's strong enough to overcome that addiction. These drugs are very powerful, they're very effective but you should use them to condition your relationship with food. You can use them to change your relationship with food but it's only one tool. The reason why I wrote that book is that you need to use a combination of approaches. Well, tell us about that combination then. What do we need to do as a society, and indeed as individuals? First, there should be no stigma attached to taking these drugs, but you have to realize that in the end, the only way you can maintain a healthy weight right is by controlling what you eat but the food industry will say they are only giving you what you want we have to change how we perceive food the great

thing about us not from them it's not about regulating the industry which is an interesting point because you hear a lot about the idea here that a bit like tobacco you actually go for them you're saying no start with us. I was involved in the states in the regulation of tobacco was it laws and regulation taxes yes they work secondhand smoke restrictions yes they work but in the end when you're dealing with an addictive substance that addictive substance we have to come to perceive that addictive substance is that my friend is have to come to perceive that addictive substance. Is that my friend? Is that tobacco my friend? Is that ultra processed food something that I want? Or is that tobacco what we did, both in the States and here in the UK, is we changed how we perceive tobacco. It's no longer my friend. It's no longer something that's sexy,

adventuresome, something that I want to do. It's a deadly, disgusting, addictive habit. Same thing with these ultra-formulated foods. Dr David Kessler. For years the idea of a flying car has been the preserve of sci-fi books and films, but now an electric aircraft, which is being called a flying taxi, has completed a test flight in open air space, the first of its kind in Europe. The prototype, which can take off and land vertically, flew over the Cotswolds in central England, though without passengers. Simon Davies was the pilot who flew the craft and Stuart Simpson runs the company Vertical Aerospace, which made it. They spoke to Sarah Montagu, starting with Simon describing the craft.

Well, it's kind of a cross between an aeropl airplane and a helicopter, but it's really neither. It's got a 15-meter wingspan, then it's got eight motors attached in four pylons, with four at the front and four at the back with propellers on each. It takes off like a large drone, then the front four propellers tilt forward so it can cruise like an airplane. So it can take off vertically, land vertically and then cruise efficiently like an aeroplane as well. And what does it feel like when you're flying it? Does it feel like a helicopter or feel more like a plane?

It doesn't really feel like either. The flight control system we've got on board, for all the complexity of the aircraft, the flight controllers make the aircraft incredibly simple to fly. They take out all of the complexity of flying so the pilot just has to tell, you just tell the aircraft where you want to go and the control computers work out how to do it. So the piloting tasks are really simple, it gives you loads more capacity to look around and enjoy the view and be thinking about other things which aids to the safety as well. Okay so Stuart Simpson, what is the prospect or when will the prospect be that this could actually be a taxi that normal people could take? I mean is that the dream? That is the

dream and we hope to make it a reality pretty soon. We'll be certifying the aircraft in 2028 and launching it in immediately thereafter and the goal is mass transport. That is absolutely the goal. So not just the preserve of incredibly wealthy people? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Our customers are names you'll recognise like American Airlines, AirAsia, Japan Airlines. These have mass transport implications. Sorry, sorry, explain. What do you mean those are your customers? So we sell the aircraft to them and they will then be putting passengers on the aircraft. That's the first use case is for

example Heathrow into the centre of London or Gatwick into the centre of London. That's very likely the first use case. At what cost? Well the cost per seat per kilometre is just about the same as an Uber Black. So if you're getting in an upscale Uber, it's the same as that, around $2 per seat per kilometre. Affordable flying carts? By 2028 they say. We'll keep you posted on that. 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.bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X at BBC World Service. Use the hashtag globalnewspod. This edition was mixed by Holly Smith and the producer was Stephanie Prentice. The editor is Karen

Martin. I'm Nick Miles and until next time, goodbye.