Global News Podcast - Rupert Murdoch newspaper group offers full apology for intrusion into Prince Harry's private life

Episode Date: January 22, 2025

Rupert Murdoch’s newspaper group offers full apology for intrusion into Prince Harry's private life – and agrees to pay substantial damages. The move, by the owners of The Sun tabloid, ends a long-running legal battle.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Discover how to lead a better life in our age of confusion. Enjoy this BBC audiobook collection, written and presented by bestselling author Oliver Berkman, containing four useful guides to tackling some central ills of modernity. Busyness, anger, the insistence on positivity and the decline of nuance. Our lives today can feel like miniature versions of this relentless churn of activity. We find we're rushing around more crazily than ever.

Somewhere, when we weren't looking, it's like busyness became a way of life. Start listening to Oliver Berkman, Epidemics of Modern Life, available to purchase wherever you get your audio books. This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Valerie Sanderson and at 1400 Hours GMT on Wednesday, January 22nd, these are our main stories. Rupert Murdoch's newsgroup newspapers apologises to Prince Harry and agrees to pay

substantial damages for intruding into his private life. Palestinian officials say at least 10 people have been killed as Israeli troops continue a major military operation in Jenin in the occupied West Bank. In a landmark ruling a court in the Netherlands orders the government to slash harmful nitrogen pollution caused by farming and burning fossil fuels. Also in this podcast we hear from the Mexican border on the mood among would-be migrants following Donald Trump's return to the White House. The extraordinary casualty rate reportedly among North Korean troops fighting for Vladimir Putin in Western Russia and... it across to the right, to Tozlin, Tozlin holds it, centers backwards, comes onto, oh

tarot dear Marshall, taking a flying last despairing crash on the run. The BBC's first football commentary complete with handy hints for listeners to help visualize what's happening on the pitch. Prince Harry has had a long and very troubled relationship with tabloid newspapers. He's accused them of hacking into his phone and intruding unlawfully into his private life and said their behaviour towards him is partly why he left the UK. Now he's received a full and unequivocal apology from the owner of the newsgroup newspapers which publishes The Sun. In an out-of-court settlement they agreed to pay him substantial undisclosed damages.

Outside the High Court in London, Prince Harry's lawyer David Sherbourne read out a statement on his behalf. In a monumental victory today, News UK have admitted that The Sun, the flagship title for Rupert Murdoch's UK media empire, has indeed engaged in illegal practices. This represents a vindication for the hundreds of other claimants who were strong-armed into settling without being able to get to the truth of what was done to them. After endless resistance, denials and legal battles by newsgroup newspapers, including spending more than a billion pounds in payouts and in legal costs,

as well as paying off those in the know, in order to prevent the full picture from coming out, News UK is finally held to account for its illegal actions and its blatant disregard for the law. The former Labour Party deputy leader Tom Watson, now Lord Watson, also received an apology for unwarranted intrusion from the newspaper group which is owned by Rupert Murdoch. He's calling on the police and the British Parliament to investigate further. I spoke to our London correspondent Rob Watson. I put it to him that Prince Harry had taken a big gamble in pursuing the case.

He did take a big risk and I think for three reasons really, Val. Firstly, that there was always the danger that he'd be seen as a moaner. He couldn't stand the sort of scrutiny that goes with being a royal, being in the public limelight. Second, that actually just by complaining and trying to take the papers to court, it would just encourage more tabloid coverage. And I guess thirdly, the most obvious one is, you know, just massively expensive. I mean, taking big corporations, including newspapers like newspaper groups like NGN owned by Rupert Murdoch is a fabulously expensive enterprise, Val. Now, as well as

Prince Harry, Lord Watson, Tom Watson, the former politician, or former politician now, is calling for more investigations by the police and Parliament, isn't he? So this isn't going to stop here, is it? Not necessarily, no. I mean, I guess we'll have to wait and see what Parliament and the police do but it but it's clear what Prince Harry and Lord Watson wants I mean they say that yes NGN, the Sun newspaper, has admitted it hasn't admitted everything it's admitted that some of its private investigators carried out what they called unlawful activities but in its statement settling this case it says that it acknowledges, and I'm reading

here Val, without any admission of illegality that the newspaper group's response to the original arrest of its royal reporter Clive Goodman in 2006 on all the hacking inquiry. So it's not, for example, it's not admitting to, if you like, one of the main charges that was going to come up in this case had it gone to trial. And that is essentially that senior executives, presumably all the way up to Rupert Murdoch, they knew what was going on, that they knew that there was massive amounts of illegal activity and that senior executives perjured themselves both in front of the, if you remember, at the Leveson inquiry and in court when they denied any such thing had happened.

Now whether the police and parliament will take that up, we simply don't know. Of course Rob, a previous tabloid newspaper, the News of the World, it shut down, didn't it, after its phone hacking scandal. Is there a similar risk, do you think, for the Sun? I think again that depends really on whether there is a police investigation and subsequent trial and whether parliament gets involved again. I mean were that to happen? I mean were senior people at the paper or previously at the paper or its owners to be found guilty of the kind of things that we've heard alleged today on the kind of on the

door on the footsteps of that court as it were. I mean that would present an extremely serious challenge to the newspaper, popular as it were, I mean that would present an extremely serious challenge to the newspaper, popular as it remains. Rob Watson. A Dutch court has ordered the government to make big cuts to nitrogen emissions by 2030. The case was brought by Greenpeace and the ruling could have a major impact on the construction industry and put pressure on farmers to reduce the number of livestock they keep. Leanna Byrne spoke to our correspondent in The Hague, Anna Hologan, after the verdict. The judge indirectly actually condemned the fact that the relatively new cabinet has swept

various measures off the table. The previous government had allocated more than 24 billion euros to achieve these types of goals in reducing dangerous nitrogen dioxide and ammonia emissions which mostly come from transportation and the farming industry but the current government slashed that right down to five billion. Judges said no new policy is being created to achieve the 2030 targets and it's up to politicians to determine how those climate goals are achieved. Important to say at this point, both sides can appeal against the ruling. The judge though has warned that the government should already be taking steps to implement this verdict. So no time to lose,

essentially is the message here in The Hague. Significant victory of course for Greenpeace. I spoke to Hilda Anna de Vries, campaigner for Greenpeace just after the verdict, and she told me what was at risk here. The case itself is focusing on specific types of habitats which are nature types. Think about heaths, old oak trees, dunes etc. Currently almost 90% of all these nature types in the Netherlands are in a poor to bad state

and nitrogen is the biggest pressing factor. So yes, if the government does not take drastic measures, then yeah, we are at risk of losing specific plant and animal species. The numbers have already been falling rapidly over the past few years. So Anna, any reaction from the government on this? Well, the reaction we can expect certainly from the hard right parties, including the farmer citizen movement. So this is a farmer's party, often referred to as, and it came to power on a promise to protect farmers.

And this is exactly the industry which is facing the biggest cuts. So inevitably it's going to have a political impact. One of those parties sits within the newly formed coalition and they'll try to push back on any proposed changes that will impact upon the agriculture industry but the cabinet as a whole now is under pressure from this court. A 10 million euro fine is at stake if they fail to meet those targets. Greenpeace had warned that the Netherlands entire ecosystem is at risk of extinction if those high inflame emissions aren't cut. The government had said, you know, this is unrealistic, we can't achieve those targets. What the court said, you know, this is unrealistic, we can't achieve those targets.

What the court said today was, well, actually, you are obliged to make this happen. Anna Hulligan. One of Donald Trump's most contentious acts on returning to the White House on Monday was the executive order he signed, granting a mass pardon to more than 1500 people charged with storming the Capitol on January 6th 2021. President Trump has defended his actions and also signed an order directing the Department of Justice to drop all pending cases against January 6th suspects. Pam Hemple was one of those who took part in the attack on the Capitol. She was nicknamed the Magga Granny on social media and was sentenced to 60 days in jail for her role. She too has

been pardoned but unlike most others she isn't happy about it and is calling for her pardon to be revoked. Pam spoke to Victoria Awankunda from her home in Boise Idaho about her role on January the 6th and her reaction to Donald Trump's pardons. Oh it's been very difficult trying to wrap this around my mind, you know, that the most dangerous and convicted villains are out, you know, the ones that actually attacked police officers. I'm just trying to wrap it around my mind. It's unbelievable.

And I've been angry, you know. Of course, I know why this is happening. You know, this is Trump's message that the DOJ is weaponized against him and the J6ers, and it's not true. You are angry. It's been difficult couple of days for you. But yet you are one of the J6, you know, the people who are at the Capitol Hill on January 6th, four years ago. You have refused a pardon from President Donald Trump. Why have you, Pam?

Accepting a pardon would only insult the Capitol police officers, the rule of law, and of course our nation. I pleaded guilty because I was guilty, you know, and accepting a pardon also, it would serve to contribute to their gaslining, their false narrative. I don't want to be a part of what they're trying to do is rewrite history. And I don't want to be a part of that. We were wrong that day. We broke the law. There should be no pardons. So on Tuesday we saw Stuart Rhodes, who was the oath keepers founder. We saw former proud boys leader Enrique Tarrio. They were released. What is your reaction to their release, their

freedom, their being out there now? I believe feeling that now we are above the law. And Trump mentioned, because somebody asked him, if they would be included in any discussions. And he's considering that. But the reason, see, he needs his little army to go out there now when there's peaceful protesting going on and start fights, because that's all they do. And now though when people are protesting against Trump he's got people to send out there like little militias you know and he will he will use them.

Pam Hemphill talking to Victoria Oenkunda. The January the 6th pardon was just one of a raft of executive orders signed by President Trump on his first day back in office. Others are aimed at cutting migration and changing how the US determines who's allowed to live there. Among them, he's ended birthright citizenship in the US, under which anyone born in the country is automatically entitled to citizenship. He also designated Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organisations. Some of the changes are expected to be challenged in the courts, while others, particularly those restricting asylum and legal entry, are already affecting migrants waiting on the Mexican side of the border.

A Latin America correspondent will grant reports now from the Mexican border city of Tijuana. This shelter, which is just walking distance from the US border, is made up of around 40 cheap nylon tents set up under a corrugated iron roof. But it protects these families from the elements and gives them a place to wash their clothes and get a hot meal as they wait to request asylum in front of the American authorities. At first, I felt very nervous. Oralia and her two children, one of whom has epilepsy, have been living in one of those tents for the past seven months.

Unable to secure an appointment for asylum, President Trump's raft of executive actions immediately shut down her best legal option of entering the United States. It's very unjust that they won't let us cross the border to make our cases, she said through the tears. They don't know what's happening to us here in Mexico. In Oralia's case, she's fleeing a death threat in her home state of Michoacán. However, 17-year-old Marcos, not his real name, is fleeing a cartel itself.

Forcibly recruited to a cartel a year ago, when he managed to escape, he and his entire family immediately travelled to the border. He's confident that he can show what the US immigration courts call credible fear, but only, he says, if he can get the opportunity to make his case. I hope they look at the circumstances of every person and take each case on its merit and that Mr Trump's heart softens to help those who truly need it, because often they support those who don't need it in life and leave people like us behind. I will declare a national emergency at our southern border.

Across the border, Donald Trump's supporters in what is a strengthened and invigorated Republican Party in California gathered in San Diego to watch his inaugural speech. Any other place you go in the world, they control their borders, so we need to be given the opportunity to control our border. The local party chairwoman, Paula Witzel, says she welcomes the president's plans to launch what he calls the biggest deportation in American history. Our system here in San Diego County is very burdened by this heavy weight of all these

people coming in and we're just not built for it. The county is not made to be able to sustain this. I mean that's presumably Tijuana right there. That's correct, yeah. So this area between the border walls is known as... At one end of the border wall, a humanitarian group called American Friends Service Committee has set up a tent where migrants can find water, a blanket and maybe some food while they wait for border patrol

to pick them up. Its director, Pedro Rios, says the Trump administration will depict migrants as criminals for political ends. It's about creating a bogeyman for people to fear. And that then justifies the passage of policies and measures that completely eviscerate the asylum process and allow for human rights abuses to be committed without accountability or oversight mechanisms. Meanwhile, migrants continue to arrive

at the Chaparral border crossing in Tijuana, mobile phone in hand, requesting interviews via a system Meanwhile, migrants continue to arrive at the Chaparral border crossing in Tijuana. Mobile phone in hand, requesting interviews via a system that President Trump has already shut down. Will Grant reporting and we'll have more on Trump too later in this podcast. Israeli troops are continuing their operations in the city of Jenin in the occupied West Bank. The Palestinian Ministry of Health says 10 people have been killed since the Israelis began their attack on Tuesday on what they're calling terrorist targets. Dozens of people have been injured.

A couple of hours before we recorded this podcast, our correspondent Yulana Nel went to a news briefing by the Israeli Defence Forces. The Israeli military says that this is a counter-terrorism operation, as we have been hearing repeatedly, and they say a central strategy of those they call terrorists, so they've been targeting in Janine, has been using improvised explosive devices, and they're saying that this is really their justification for this heavy use of armoured bulldozers that we've been hearing about from Palestinians in the city. I was just speaking to a journalist working for the BBC who's there and he was telling me about how entrances have been blocked and destroyed around the Jenin Governmental Hospital.

No ambulance is now able to get in or out and dozens of patients and staff, people who've been tracked there, some cases since yesterday, are being lined up. It's not quite clear exactly what's happening yet. The real focus, he was saying, of the Israeli operation is on the Jenin, the historic refugee camp there, and he's saying that there are many snipers that are based around the camp, making it very difficult to kind of gain access and see exactly what's going on. But one of the entrances to the camp families have been seen starting to leave from there with many being arrested as they're checked by Israeli security forces. All the indications local people say are that this is something that is going to go on for days longer. They said that at dawn this morning they could see that

there were reinforcements of the Israeli military that were arriving. And just quickly Yolande, could this offensive in the West Bank have any impact on the ceasefire in Gaza? I mean that is really a fear that this could reignite tensions just as a ceasefire in Gaza takes hold and we have had Hamas and Islamic Jihad because Janine is really historically seen as a stronghold of Palestinian armed groups and they have been calling on Palestinians in the West Bank really to carry out more attacks against Israeli forces there. Palestinian officials accusing Israel of appeasing the Israeli far-right because of their opposition to the Gaza deal by carrying out this big operation in Janine

right now and Israel of course says it's worried about political unrest, terrorism that it says is emanating from cities like Jenin in the West Bank and it's saying that they're especially worried going into the large Palestinian prisoner release a part of the Gaza ceasefire deal. Yola Nel speaking to Leanna Byrne. It was 98 years ago today on January the, 1927, that the BBC broadcast a football match for the very first time. It was a Division One fixture.

Back then that was the top league between Arsenal and Sheffield United at Highbury in London. But there was concern that radio listeners might not be able to follow the action. Let's have a listen to the commentary by Teddy Wakeland. On to MacMullan. MacMullan listen to the commentary by Teddy Wakeland. The dentist backwards comes on to... Oh, terror, dear Marshal, taking a flying, last-dispairing crash on the run. You may have noticed that numbers were being called out at certain points, and BBC sports commentator John Murray explains why. To help people understand where the ball was on the pitch,

they would print in the Radio Times a grid which had eight squares on it, which represented eight different areas on the page and then the second voice Arthur Lewis that you hear and wherever the ball was on the page he would call out the number which corresponded to where the the ball was at any given time. I know at Arsenal football club on the wall there in the media room there is the reprinted the page from the radio times which has the grid on it. John Murray.

Still to come, Stargate rising, Donald Trump's multi-billion dollar plan to boost AI in the USA. And out of the mouths of babes, Britain's kids choose their word of the year. of the year. Discover how to lead a better life in our age of confusion. Enjoy this BBC audiobook collection written and presented by bestselling author Oliver Berkman, containing four useful guides to tackling some central ills of modernity. Busyness, anger, the insistence on positivity and the decline of nuance. Our lives today can feel like miniature versions of this relentless churn of activity. We find we're rushing around more crazily than ever.

Somewhere, when we weren't looking, it's like busyness became a way of life. Start listening to Oliver Berkman, Epidemics of Modern Life, available to purchase wherever you get your audiobooks. Available to purchase wherever you get your audio books. Western officials have told the BBC that North Korean troops have suffered enormous casualties in the fighting in the Kursk region of Russia bordering Ukraine. They say that nearly 40% of the 11,000 soldiers sent by Pyongyang to support Moscow in its war with Ukraine have been either killed, wounded or captured. Our security correspondent Frank Gardner is following the story. The figure I think that we were told before, the estimate was that around 400 had died,

had been killed. But I'm now being told it's a thousand. And the Western officials, who I'm not allowed to name, were very adamant that this was an accurate figure, that 4,000 casualties in all, that includes killed, wounded, captured and missing. What they don't know, wasn't clear, was where they're being treated, the wounded, you know, are they being treated in Russia. But it's very clear that they are floundering, I think, to some extent. I mean, the Ukrainians are also in trouble in Kursk.

But these are some of the 11,000 roughly North Korean troops known as DPRK. That's the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The North Korean troops that have been sent by Kim Jong-un of North Korea to help his ally, President Putin, should try to expel the Ukrainians from this Kursk salient that they have invaded, that the Ukrainians have invaded in August. But they are suffering these incredibly heavy casualties, probably because they're simply not used to modern warfare,

to drones, the South Korean intelligence says that they've been seen flailing around, unknown, just not knowing what to do about drone attacks. Ukraine has lost ground. They've been there since August. They initially had, I think, about a thousand square kilometers. They did a lightning move that was a surprise attack. It completely caught the Russians off guard.

But I remember, you know, a lot of us reported at the time that President Putin was going to throw everything at that to squeeze the Ukrainians out of Russian territory, because they don't want Zelensky, Ukraine's president, to have that bargaining chip when it comes down to peace negotiations or ceasefire deal. I think the two sides are still very far apart. I mean, although there's lots of talk about President Trump imposing some kind of a deal on the two sides, their terms are so far apart that it's going to be very hard for that because they're just going to be unacceptable.

You know, Ukraine's not prepared to give up all that territory and give up its hopes of joining NATO, the EU, stationing troops there. You know, it doesn't want to live in permanent fear of its neighbour. Frank Gardner. The war in Ukraine is putting the country's health system under unprecedented pressure. Hospitals are over-cried and under-staffed, making it extremely hard to contain the spread of one of the main global health threats, resistance to antibiotics. It means patients die

because the drugs simply don't work. The BBC's Abdujalil Abdurrasulof has visited hospitals in Kyiv and Dnipro to see for himself how medical facilities are coping with these challenges. In a spacious hall two women wearing a wreath of flowers play the Ukrainian national instrument, the bandura. This is an initiation ceremony for young medics who recently joined the Mechnikov hospital in Dnipro. To get new staff is a big relief for the hospital's administration. This facility, like most others across Ukraine, needs more people to deal with the biggest

influx of patients since World War II. Dr. Volodymyr Dubyna, the head of the intensive care unit at the Mechnikov Hospital, explains the threats they face. When there is a massive influx, we will have a contamination with pathogens. When we have a contamination, it means we get hospital-acquired infections. Dr. Dubina talks about antimicrobial resistance. That's when antibiotics and other medicine don't work. It's a global problem,

but the war in Ukraine makes it much more challenging to contain its spread. Since the start of the Russian invasion, the number of beds in just one intensive care unit of the Meshnikov hospital has tripled, while the number of staff has decreased. So maintaining sterile conditions has become much harder. And since evacuation of wounded soldiers involves several hospitals, dangerous pathogens spread even further. Today, more than 80% of patients admitted to a Feofani hospital in Kiev have resistance

to antibiotics. This is a recording of a surgery doctors did on one such patient, private Alexander Bezvorknyi, who was wounded a year ago. It's too shocking to describe his wounds, but treating his flesh ripped off by shrapnel would have been much easier had he not been infected with bacteria resistant to drugs. Because of this, private Bezverhny had sepsis five times. It's been so painful, I constantly call doctors at night, he says. Dr. Strokan, deputy chief physician at Feofani hospital, says Alexander had more chances to die than live.

We've carried out more than 100 surgeries on him. And even at those stages he got new infections. So what did we do? We did whatever a clinic should do. We on him. And even at those stages, he got new infections. So what did we do? We did whatever a clinic should do. We isolated him. But the Ukrainian hospitals seldom keep their critical patients in separate wards.

Too many wounded and too little space. Patients mix and contaminate each other. To treat infections resistant to drugs, doctors prescribe antibiotics from what they call a reserve list. But the more they use them, the quicker the bacteria will adapt to those antibiotics. And when it happens, the reserved medication will become ineffective too. Abdujalil Abdurrasulof. Let's return again to Donald Trump and the immediate impact of his return to the White

House. One of his most ambitious announcements made shortly after his inauguration was a $500 billion of investment in AI infrastructure. Mr Trump said the privately funded venture would be called Stargate and would create 100,000 jobs. Charles Rowley, a senior reporter at TechCrunch based in California, gave us his view. These huge AI companies have already been planning to spend tens of billions of dollars on AI data centers. Like, for example, Microsoft has said it's going to spend 80 billion in 2025 alone on data

centers, half of that in the US. So this kind of spending has already been in the works, but it is true that under Trump, there is like a renewed initiative. On one side, you have AI leaders saying, AI is going to replace people's jobs, but on the other that these data centers are gonna power hundreds of thousands of jobs. Every time you ask CHAPTPT a question,

it's using those chips in those data centers. And with the boom in AI, these are critical to maintaining AI in the US AI system and compete directly against China. And even though the US remains a leader, they very much want to stay on top and beat China. Charles Rowley. Well, President Trump has also made clear his belief in the benefits that tariffs on foreign-made goods could bring to the US economy. He's already said he's considering imposing a 10% tariff on imports of Chinese-made goods, this on top of threats to slap about 25% on all imports from Mexico and Canada, possibly as soon as February. For a Canadian reaction, we've been hearing from the country's Minister of Energy and Natural Resources,

Jonathan Wilkinson, who's been talking to James Copnell. We are trying to ensure that we are explaining the negative impacts on American consumers and businesses, if in fact they were to follow through with tariffs on Canada, and trying to engage them in a more productive conversation about how we can actually work together rather than hurt each other. It's not a great situation for, you know, great trading partners, fought together in world wars. And so we are making the case in Washington, and I was there last week to do that, exactly that. When you say make the case, what exactly are you saying? That in putting in place tariffs, should the president choose to do that, the net effect of

that would be to raise consumer prices in the United States. For example, the Americans use crude oil from Canada. Our estimate is that gasoline prices in the Midwest could increase by up to 75 cents a gallon. But the same thing is true with food. We sell the most of the potash that's used as fertilizer to grow food. Same thing is true with uranium, which is used to produce electricity. So what we're saying is the tariffs are actually going to drive up prices and probably inflation in the United States. And there are so many other ways that we could collaborate to meet some of the objectives President Trump has outlined, including helping them to close energy security gaps with things like

critical minerals that they presently get from China. If tariffs do come into effect effect what sort of economic impacts are you preparing for in Canada? Well again it depends a little bit on the size of the tariffs and whether it is across the board or sectoral but we do expect that there would be very significant impacts in Canada. I mean our economy is very strongly tied to the Americans. I think close to 75% of our trade is with the United States. Now no government of a sovereign nation could have that kind of an aggressive move against it without putting in place measures that would respond to try to create some pressure

in the United States. But it would also cause significant pain in the United States. And that's something that I think is not something that all legislators in the US are fully aware of. In terms of a possible Canadian response, is cutting off energy supplies to the US one of the tools at your disposal? Well, I would say everything is on the table. We're not going to take tools off the table before we've even started a negotiation with the American president. I think we would begin with trying to find areas where American exports to Canada are things that we would look at tariffing and particularly where there are alternatives available and it may be that we need to escalate that pressure including perhaps looking at energy but there are a range of ways in which to do that even if we get to that point and it doesn't necessarily mean cutting off supply.

Jonathan Wilkinson. Donald Trump has hit the ground running after being sworn in on Monday. Next week we're going to take stock on how much has changed with a Q&A, that's a question and answer special, on his first seven days as the 47th president. So if there's anything you'd like to ask our US experts, please email globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. And if possible, please record your question as a voice note. Finally, and briefly, thousands of children here in the UK have been asked for their Word of the Year. The word, slay, was popular, as in, well, I'm sure you know, you greatly impress or amuse me, you slay me. Other top words included sigma, meaning cool, and skibbidi, which comes from a YouTube series and can mean either cool, bad, or dumb, depending on the context.

AI was popular too, although is that even a word? But most popular of all was the simple one, kindness. Maybe some people, not in this school, but maybe some people around aren't being that nice to each other or something. People have to be kind otherwise one will get hurt. Two children there giving their views on the importance of kindness. There is hope in the world. And that's it from us for now but there'll be a new edition of the Global News podcast later. If you want There is hope in the world. For example, Daniel Fox, the producer, was Mark Duff, the editor, is Karen Martin. I'm Valerie Sanderson. Until next time, bye-bye. Yoga is more than just exercise. It's the spiritual practice that millions swear by.

And in 2017, Miranda, a university tutor from London, joins a yoga school that promises profound transformation. It felt a really safe and welcoming space. After the yoga classes, I felt amazing. But soon, that calm, welcoming atmosphere leads to something far darker, a journey that leads to allegations of grooming, trafficking and exploitation across international borders.

I don't have my passport, I don't have my phone, I don't have my bank cards, I have nothing. The passport being taken, the being in a house and not feeling like they can leave. World of Secrets is where untold stories are unveiled and hidden realities are exposed. In this new series we're confronting the dark side of the wellness industry, where the hope of a spiritual breakthrough gives way to disturbing accusations. You just get sucked in so gradually and it's done so skillfully that you don't realize.

And it's like this, the secret that's there. I wanted to believe that, you know, that whatever they were doing, even if it seemed gross to me, was for some spiritual reason that I couldn't yet understand. Revealing the hidden secrets of a global yoga network. I feel that I have no other choice. The only thing I can do is to speak about this and to put my reputation and everything else on the line. I want truth and justice.

else on the line. I want truth and justice and for other people to not be hurt, for things to be different in the future. To bring it into the light and almost alchemize some of that evil stuff that went on and take back the power. World of Secrets Season 6 The Bad Guru. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.