Global News Podcast - Happy News Review 2023

Episode Date: December 25, 2023

Our annual review of the happiest stories in the world. We look back on the successful rescue mission from a dangling cable car in Pakistan. Also: the children who survived forty days lost in the Colombian jungle. And a round-up of our favourite animal stories from around the world.

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 Happy News Review 2023 from the BBC World Service. I'm Jackie Leonard and in this edition,

uploaded on Monday, December the 25th, we'll be reminding you of some of the more positive stories that made headlines around the world this year. So, any of these ring a bell? Airlifted to safety from the jungle after a story of survival against the odds. The rescuers were met with cheers and clapping from the men that were inside.

It will help many children, not just mine. It's gold for Simone Biles! She takes the all-around title in the style of the champion that she is. So we have extraordinary rescues, an excellent solution to an ongoing injustice, medical brilliance, some very fortunate macaques, some good news on blue whales and this year's favoured unit of measurement. Also in this podcast, we celebrate musical records broken, the adrenaline rush of some magnificent sport and an Italian man who just popped out to buy bread and made a life-saving catch. And we begin with a rescue that had people around the world absolutely gripped. Back in August,

a cable car in Pakistan's mountainous northern region was left dangling hundreds of metres above the ground when two wires snapped. On board were seven school pupils and a teacher. It took military helicopters, locals using floodlights and zip wires and some steely nerve to rescue them all. Here's our Pakistan correspondent, Caroline Davis. Through the darkness and forest, the sight the crowds had been hoping, waiting and praying for. Strapped to the cable, the final rescue. Waiting arms and shouts of God is great.

Fifteen hours earlier, the children were taking the cable car to school when a cable snapped. Makeshift cable cars are common in the rural mountains of Pakistan, taking minutes over ravines while roads take hours. At first, army helicopters couldn't rescue them. Buffeted by winds, scared the downwash from the blades could make the situation worse. Local TV managed to speak to one man inside the cable car, rising panic, before his phone died. I don't know how to make a request, but it's a matter of human lives. As you can imagine, the authorities should rescue all of us as soon as possible. Officials tried to reassure the growing crowds.

Now a special unit is coming. The local rescue team are already on standby. Officials tried to reassure the growing crowds. Now a special unit is coming. The local rescue team are already on standby. We are trying, but really don't want to take any chances here. As the light went, the helicopters left. Instead, locals and rescue officials used pulleys and zip lines, dragging themselves along wires as the night set in. Dark, strong winds, hundreds of feet in the air, but determined to reach those stranded, slowly and steadily, saving all of them. Some appeared stunned, landing in the crowd,

a journey to school near tragedy now followed by people around the world and relief at their safe return. Caroline Davis. That sound isn't just any old programme sig tune. That is the sound of optimism and opportunity and an excellent solution to a very serious problem. It's also a chance for us to salute our colleagues from the BBC Afghan service,

because when the new school year started in Afghanistan and for the second year running, teenage girls were excluded after a ruling from the Taliban. They decided they would get school to children who couldn't go in person. And they launched a programme called DARS, which means Lesson in Dari and Pashto, and it's hosted by BBC Afghan journalists who were evacuated from Kabul during the 2021 Taliban takeover. Let's hear from producer Mariam Amam and presenter Alia Fazon. Oh, it's going wonderful. And we are so happy to be part of this whole project, which we find

noble, exciting, you name it, all the good feelings of the world comes with this project. And the reception has been great. We are overwhelmed with the amount of positive feedbacks we are getting. I'm trying my best to make students learn something. And the DARS programme has helped me a lot. My students watch this show with interest and passion. Their hopes have been raised. And they are still dreaming for the future. DARS gives me hope. I was wondering if there are people out there that care about me. Now I know.

I hope one day I will be able to go back to school. But until then, Dars can help me to feel connected with my classroom. Recently, the UN called this program a lifeline for the girls of Afghanistan, which was quite a proud moment. And Aliyah, you're one of the presenters. Tell us a little bit more about what it means for its audience. I have been in the country after our first season was over. And whenever I went, they had their TVs on, they were watching it. And I saw that some kids were pretending to be one of the presenters or one of the teachers. Yeah. And it was wonderful that I saw that we were doing great. And I kind of saw the result of the patience and the hard work that we did in the past few months,

and it was promising. It gives me hope and it gives me the power and the ability to work even harder and harder. And just give us a little outline about what subjects you're actually teaching, because it's a relatively wide age range that you're aiming for as well, isn't it? We have really strong English, we have a constant maths, and then a third subject would be different every other week that will be history, biology, chemistry, and a lot of animation for our audiences who can access TV, but different treatment for the audiences who are able to listen to us on radio, which is quite prominent in Afghanistan. And tell us a little bit about what you had to do to get it going. We worked with Bite Size and Learn English from part of the World Service. We took their content

and we adapted it into Farsi and Pashto, the two main languages of Afghanistan. We also paid a lot of attention to cultural sensitivities and cultural relevancy. So we changed the names from, I don't know, Philip to something called Farid or things that Afghans would find it more at home. And Alia, you've already seen for yourself, little girls want to be you. They are acting like you. What does it mean when you see something like that, to be part of something like this? Being part of a team that's working for the Afghan children who are banned from different kinds of education, such as girls are banned from going to school and also boys are banned from seeking education

just because of the economical situation and also in some part of the country because of the security situation. So being part of this project is a very big responsibility as well as being a very positive and fun project. I think that we have to work more and more that we can satisfy those people, especially the parents who are relying on us. And they say that DARS is giving their children hope. So it's very strong and also positive and promising. That was presenter Alia Farzan and producer Mariam Amon. Now there have been some big positive medical stories this year. We'll start with good news

on malaria. The WHO, the World Health Organization, recommending only the second malaria vaccine, one that can be produced on a massive scale. Malaria kills mostly babies and infants. And that's why this mum, Mozani Saif in Tanzania, enrolled her little girl in the trial of the new vaccine. I lost my nephew. We buried him. He was only four when he died from malaria. That's why when I heard that there was a malaria vaccine trial, I said I wanted to participate. It will help many children, not just mine. So that's where we'll start on the year's good medical stories with the BBC's medical editor Fergus Walsh. The second malaria vaccine, R21, developed at Oxford. The big difference, the big advantage of the Oxford vaccine compared to the GSK one, because they seem to be roughly similarly effective, is scale. Oxford have partnered with the world's biggest vaccine manufacturer, the Serum Institute in India,

and the Oxford vaccine will be about half the price. So scale and cost, it just means that more children will be protected from this really awful disease. And tell us about this new gene therapy that's just been given approval that could cure two blood disorders. It's to treat a condition and there's sickle cell disease. In the UK, it's also been approved to treat another blood disorder called beta thalassemia. Both are inherited blood disorders. They cause serious problems. They can be life limiting.

With sickle cell, people can end up having these excruciatingly painful episodes ending up in hospital. And with beta thalassemia, they may need blood transfusions every few weeks of their lives. So this is a really big deal. And now we have a treatment, a one-off treatment, of these gene-edited cells, which so far in trials looked like they were curative, what you would call a functional cure. The actual research is a technique known as CRISPR, which stands for Clusters of Regularly Interspaced Short Palindomic Repeats. It's a technique which was discovered just over a decade ago in trials. More than nine out of ten people in the trials either no longer had painful episodes in sickle cell

and for beta thalassemia, which is the treatment approved also in the UK, they no longer needed blood transfusions. So it's a one-off, potentially curative treatment. So a big deal, but it's really expensive. Now, one other positive story that caught my eye, not least because my own family has been touched by Alzheimer's, is a potentially very positive development in treating Alzheimer's disease. Yes, I mean, I've been covering Alzheimer's, which is the most common form of dementia, for many, many years. And now we have two drugs, licanumab, which is approved in the US, and donanumab. Both of them seem to slow the rate of decline of early Alzheimer's by about a third. Now, what that means in practical terms is they seem to

give patients who take the drugs around six months extra of time where they are, if you might put it themselves, they are able to be independent before their condition develops. So it's not a cure. But it is a sign that there are positive ways forward. Yes, I really think it's a very positive moment. I've never seen Alzheimer's researchers so positive because we now have a chink in the armour of this terrible disease. That is something to be celebrated. And just finally, you are our medical editor, you spend your days wading through journals and papers and all sorts of things. When you see something that looks like it might be incredibly positive, talk us through your

thought process. Do you get excited about it? Do you start trying to pull it apart? How does it work? Well, it's a bit of a mix of both of those. I mean, extraordinary claims need extraordinary proof. So first of all, show me the evidence from trials. Because people do send me stuff saying, well, you know, we've got this, this seems to work. And I've got patients who say their life's been turned around by this compound. And I say, okay, show me the actual proof from the trials. But we do get breakthroughs. Most of them are incremental and therefore don't make the news. But when you get these step changes, as we did with gene editing and gene therapy, it does make you sit back and think, wow. I mean, it's a fantastic field to be part of, because although I also report on global disease threats, the thing I enjoy most is reporting on medical advances that will help patients lead healthier, longer lives. That's really what it's all about.

That was our medical editor, Fergus Walsh. Now to Turin in Italy and the heroic Mattia Aguzzi, who back in September made an amazing catch after hearing desperate cries from high above the street. Looking up, we saw a little girl at the fifth floor. She was angry just with her small hands to the balcony. In that moment, I was following her movements. I opened my arms, I closed the eyes and hoped to catch her.

I don't know how, but I did it. She fell on my chest, in my arms. It has been a strong impact. Both of us fell on the street. I couldn't breathe for a few moments. Then, after a while, she started crying. The worst was over. She was alive. It was a long fall, a huge catch. You did fall to the ground. Are you okay? Yes, yes, I'm okay. The strong impact has been under an emotional point of view.

The following night, I could sleep just a few hours. I started thinking more and more about what happened, or maybe more about what fortunately didn't happen. The little girl, is she okay? Yes, also the baby's fine. This is the most important thing for me. What's it like to be a hero? No, no, I don't feel like a hero. I follow with my instinct. I hope that anybody else would have done the same. For me, in that fragment of Sikon, it was the only right thing to do. Mattia Aguzzi. And yes, we're going with hero. Now, let's go to Colombia for another astonishing story of survival against the odds. Four children who spent 40 days lost in the Colombian jungle after the plane crash that killed their mum and two pilots.

They were rescued in June and this was how Simon Jones reported their story. Airlifted to safety from the jungle after a story of survival against the odds. Pictures released by the Colombian president were the first confirmation that the four rescued children wrapped in foil blankets were alive. They were found by the military after a huge and long search. The children forced to fend for themselves for more than five weeks. Hundreds of soldiers had been involved in the desperate hunt for the children, aged 13, 9, 4 and 1.

A recorded message was played from the air, instructing them, if they heard it, to stay still and wait for help. They had been missing since the start of May when the plane they were in crashed. The bodies of the children's mother, the pilot and the co-pilot were found but there was hope the children were still alive after items left behind by them including a drinking bottle and half-eaten fruit were found. The children belong to the Wetoto indigenous group. It's thought their knowledge of fruits and jungle survival skills helped keep them safe. Their family can scarcely believe this moment has come.

We are happy because until now we couldn't sleep, couldn't be happy, couldn't talk. For us, the situation was like being in the dark, living for the sake of living, because the hope of finding them kept us alive. When we found the children, we felt joy. We don't know what to do, but we are grateful to God. The children have been flown to the capital, Bogota, for a full medical assessment.

They are weak, they are tired, but their rescuers are calling this a magical day. And that was Simon Jones. Still to come in this podcast. There's just no stopping her at the minute. She is at the real crest of a wave in a career that has had its ups and downs. If I tell you that's our music correspondent, you might guess who he's talking about. We'll have more later. 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. Now, what about this good news from India in November? The sound as 41 construction workers emerged from a collapsed tunnel in the Himalayas after being trapped for 17 days, their rescue operation beset with problems

and multiple setbacks. Our South Asia correspondent Samira Hussain told us about the difficulties of the rescue. When the drilling machine finally broke down and they decided that they were going to abandon it altogether because it was the focus of so many technical difficulties. So what they did is they were installing a pipe. So what they did instead of trying to drill a hole and then push it through, they just pushed the pipe through and then they would manually remove the debris until they finally breached the last of the rubble. And the rescuers were met with cheers and clapping from the men that were inside. Samir Hussain, now let's have a quick run through of some of the year's other positive stories that you might remember. In June, there were the 11 women sanitation workers in the southern Indian

state of Kerala who pooled their money to buy a lottery ticket and won the jackpot worth over a million dollars. Then there was Tim Shaddock, the Australian sailor, and his dog Bella, who survived two months in the Pacific Ocean by eating raw fish and drinking rainwater. This was Tim after they were rescued by a trawler. I didn't think I'd make it through the storm, but now I'm really doing good. She's amazing. That dog is something else. She's a lot braver than I am, that's for sure. Congratulations to Norwegian mountaineer Kristin Harrela and Nepalese climber Tenjin Sherpa Lama, who in July set a new record, climbing the 14 super peaks in just over three months.

And what about the unflappable calm of Rudolf Erasmus, the pilot who was flying four passengers from South Africa's Western Cape, when at 3,000 metres he realised he had company in the form of a venomous Cape Cobra snake. I honestly thought initially it was my water bottle leaking. When I looked back down, I saw the head of the snake receding underneath the seat, but I could see its tongue flickering about as it went down underneath. So I informed the passengers that, listen, we've got a bit of a situation on board. The snake is underneath my seat. So we're going to have to try and get the aircraft back on the ground as soon as we can.

Luckily, I must say all of the passengers were quite calm as well. Luckily, no one was panicking with fear. To be truly honest, I really can't remember the amount of time it took. It felt like an eternity, but it was probably something like 10 minutes or 15 minutes at most. That's a very long 15 minutes, right? 100%. That was Rudolf Erasmus. I'm pretty sure somebody made a film about that. Now let's talk about some of the scientific brilliance that happened in 2023. We told the BBC science correspondent Jonathan Amos he had to pick his favourite stories this year. He began with the asteroid Bennu and the operation to bring back samples to Earth. It's a fascinating lump of rock and NASA sent a spacecraft out there

and they scooped up some material and they brought it back. A parachute came out and it landed in the west desert of Utah, which is just the most glorious landscape. This thing comes down, the capsule, and then they pick it up and they open it up, and inside is this glorious black dust. I mean, just magic. The elements that were in this material

were around 4.6 billion years ago, so just as the planets were about to form. And that's kind of really what the scientists wanted to go get this stuff for, was because they expect chemistry in this material to reveal secrets of how it all got going 4.6 billion years ago. Isn't that amazing? Isn't that incredible? It is amazing. And as I recall, when you were covering the recovery of this stuff from Bennu, you did also give us a new unit of measurement, which was the size of an adult hamster. And I would like to thank you for that. I must tell you about the hamster. So they thought that they would get about 250 grams. Now, I don't go around measuring hamsters, OK?

But adult hamsters, I am told, are of that kind of mass. So 250 grams. Now, the issue was they would weigh all the material when they got it out. Whisper this quietly, Jackie, but they haven't been able to get it all out of the capsule yet. Oh, my goodness. They've managed to get out about 70 grams, which is more than

on their sort of basic requirements to go get, right? So they're perfectly happy. But then there could be 200 more grams of the hamster still inside the capsule. Now, the problem comes down to a couple of fasteners. Can you believe this? They haven't got the tools to open. This is NASA now. They haven't got the tools to open these last two fasteners. So they've had to go away, design some new tools, and then they'll try and get the rest of the hamster out. You were also very excited in the summertime, June, July time, about new discoveries that were made about Pompeii, a town city that was covered by volcanic ash in 79 AD or Common Era,

and we're still learning about it. Yeah, it's one of those occasions where your jaw literally touches the floor. And I had the privilege of going into a new dig at Pompeii. And they decided to open up a, I guess you might call it a city block. And they'd found this amazing villa with glorious designs, geometric designs on the walls, all still visible, right? I mean, we're talking almost 2,000 years ago. And the colors were as vibrant as the day that they were put up.

It was just amazing. And this is the place where they found a mural of what looks like a pizza. So one of the archaeologists there said, come here, come here, come and have a look. And he lifted up the tarpaulin, and there on the wall was this extraordinary painting of a meal. And he lifted up the tarpaulin. And there on the wall was this extraordinary painting of a meal. And it looked for the world like it was a pizza. Now, it couldn't have been

a pizza, right? But get technical for a minute here. Because the sort of pizza that we know was not invented by this time. For one thing, there were no tomatoes, and tomatoes are a key ingredient of pizza. There is that. So tomatoes came later. But it's a sort of flatbread. I think the thing that really struck me was the intricate, the exquisite style of paintings and murals that I saw on the walls.

I'll remember that for a long time. That was Jonathan Amos. Now, sports news is often big on drama, and 2023 was no exception. Nigel Adderley has been limbering up and gathered together some of the highlights for us. Come back to something which sports fans always love to see, and few have been more glorious than Simone Biles. It seemed we'd seen the last of one of the greatest gymnasts ever, when the American departed the Tokyo Olympics mid-competition two years ago, saying she needed to take time out to prioritise her mental health. But she was back at this year's World Championships in Antwerp, and charmed and amazed both fans and teammates

with a stunning return to form. What a fabulous routine! We all didn't expect that. What a return to competition. With four gold medals and two silvers to cement her position as the sport's undisputed best ever. It's gold for Simone Biles! She takes the all-around title in the style of the champion that she is.

Simone Biles is... Spain lifted the Women's World Cup for the first time after a thrilling tournament in Australia and New Zealand, with record crowds and the realisation of dreams for so many. We have conquered Spain against all the odds to become champions of the world. And that included the performance of the African teams. South Africa's dramatic last-minute winner over Italy

sent them into the knockout phase. Nigeria beat the might of Australia on the way to qualifying and only lost to England on penalties to end their run. And Morocco helped to knock out Germany. There was also a group stage win for Zambia over Costa Rica on their World Cup debut. These were all performances which demanded respect and will inspire new generations of young players. Played nine, lost nine was Afghanistan's sorry record at the Cricket World Cup four years ago. But this time was a different story.

Their astonishing progress was highlighted by shock victories over reigning champions England and Pakistan. 21-year-old Ibrahim Zadram became the first Afghan to score a century at a World Cup and their youthful team were only denied a place in the semi-finals by a miracle comeback from Australia when it seemed another major upset was about to happen. The squad returned home as heroes and are now role models in a country where cricket has become an obsession. Nigel Adderley. History was made in music this year

when Beyoncé became the Grammy's most successful artist of all time. The four Grammy Awards her Renaissance album received at this year's ceremony back in February took her to a career total, so far, of 32. Mark Savage is our music correspondent. It's a really big deal because Beyonce has quite famously been sidelined by the Grammys in a lot of ways, although she's won this huge haul of award. She's only ever won one in what they call the big four, the main prizes that are given out on the night. So that's Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Album of the Year and Best New Artist. But she's kind of been quietly collecting them up in the R&B categories, in the music video categories.

And eventually that's given her enough head of steam to overtake everyone as the most award-winning artist of all time. The question that that raises is, will it be enough for her to one day win album of the year or get one of those prizes that really cements you as the defining artist of your era does she really need one of what you describe as the big four she doesn't need them i don't think anybody needs an award let's face it i don't know i mean i wouldn't turn one down but for Beyonce I think the real power of her entire career is the cultural impact she's had things that she talks about about black civil rights about feminine power she is a self-made woman in terms of the creativity that she displays, the visuals that she creates.

So a big year for Beyonce. Taylor Swift's had a pretty big year too. Taylor Swift really has dominated the musical conversation this year. It all kind of began with this eras tour that hit the ground running earlier this year. It's a retrospective of her career and an absolutely mammoth undertaking.

She plays for nearly four hours a night. And the demand for that tour was so high that it made Ticketmaster crash, which just shows you how much power Taylor Swift has. And then the tour itself, it broke all box office records. She's thought to have made more than $200 million just from the first leg of the tour. So there's just no stopping her at the minute. She is at the real crest of a wave in a career that has had its ups and downs. And her cat too. And her cat too appeared on Time magazine when she was awarded Time Person of the Year. That's the title. Yes. And yes, she insisted that her cat Benjamin Button be draped around her shoulders on the cover of the magazine. And I think that's one of the great things about Taylor Swift. You know, a lot of pop stars are inaccessible

and unrelatable. If you watch the tour film, when the camera is up close on her, she kind of almost has this all shucks appearance, you know, I can't believe that I'm here. There's something about Taylor Swift where she really does gather people around her in a way that a lot of pop stars don't. And Mark, I have to ask you this because you're our music correspondent. Your song of the year, please. My song of the year is called A&W and it's by Lana Del Rey. And it is an absolutely stunning piece of work. It's seven minutes long and it is a sublime song. I love it to bits.

Lana Del Rey and Mark Savage, our music correspondent. Now, a lot of journalists, not just me, love a good animal story. And this year, the headlines have been graced by whales, bears and a magnificent African tortoise, among others. Harry Bly corralled them for us. See what I did there? In June, 100,000 toque macaque monkeys in Sri Lanka were saved from being exported to China after conservation organisations went to court, forcing the government to scrap the plans. Dr Lisa Jones-Engle from the animal rights group PETA says these endangered monkeys with their orange and golden coat and fabulous plume hairstyle aren't always popular with their human neighbours. Yeah, some people say, oh, they're pests. They raid my crops. I'm sorry, these macaques are

just doing what any good macaque does, which is to be part of the environment, to live commensally together with humans. And they've done that for millennia. PETA and other animal rights groups had warned that the monkeys could be headed to labs instead of zoos as promised. The decision was reversed by Sri Lanka's Court of Appeal. In the South American Andes region, there was another conflict, this time between farmers and the local bear population. Andean bears, also known as spectacled bears, are the species which inspired the children's book character Paddington. As their habitat was taken over by farmland, bears would on occasion

attack cattle and eat farmers' crops. This led to farmers slaughtering bears in retaliation. The Colombian Wildlife Conservation Society helped broker a truce between the two, helping farmers build bear-proof fencing in exchange for protecting the bears. And the scheme has helped boost other species in the region. Here's biologist Mauricio Velavargas. We had the records of the presence of cougars and deers and young bears inside of the farms. And the people, it's happy to know that they are maintaining and helping to conserve different species of mammals. And then in the Seychelles, the world's largest animals, blue whales, were found to have made a return to the surrounding ocean,

decades after being wiped out by poaching. Scientists spent a year recording sounds from the ocean using underwater microphones, which picked up the low frequencies that blue whales use to communicate over hundreds of kilometres. One of the lead researchers was Dr Kate Stafford from Oregon State University. We listened for over a year and we heard them in many months of the year. That suggests that the safe shells is really important for blue whales. And so understanding when and where blue whales may have recovered and are coming back, it's a conservation win. Analysis found that blue whales had been spending months in this

region of the Indian Ocean and could even have resumed breeding there. That was Harry Bly. And there we end this review of some of the better stories of 2023. Let's see what 2024 brings. Normal Global News Pod service will be resumed shortly. If you would like to comment on anything that you've heard, the address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. We're also on X, better known as Twitter, at Global News Pod. This edition was mixed by Pat Sissons. The producer was Anna Murphy. Our editor is Karen Martin. I'm Jackie Leonard. And from all of us, we wish you peace and joy for the year ahead. 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 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.