Global News Podcast - Russia gives North Korea more than one million barrels of oil, report finds

Episode Date: November 22, 2024

Satellite images indicate that Russia has supplied North Korea with more than one million barrels of oil. Analysts say the oil is payment for weapons and troops North Korea has sent Moscow to fuel its war in Ukraine.

You're listening to the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. Hello, I'm Oliver Conway. We're recording this at 14h GMT on Friday the 22nd of November. Satellite images appear to show Russia has supplied North Korea with more than a million barrels of oil in breach of UN sanctions. NATO says the West will continue to support Ukraine despite Russia's use of an experimental ballistic missile. And Congo records fewer cases of M-pox after a successful vaccination programme. Also in the podcast, Donald Trump nominates Florida prosecutor Pam Bondi as US Attorney General after Matt Gaetz withdraws.

And… Singing along, no. There needs to be some level of etiquette where we don't have to hear someone singing you know somewhere south of shocking next to us as the film adaptation of the hit musical wicked opens is it acceptable to sing along in cinemas ever since Kim Il-sung was installed as North Korean leader by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, Pyongyang and Moscow have had a complicated relationship. But after ups and downs over the years, North Korea and Russia have been moving closer together,

culminating in current leader Kim Jong-un sending weapons and troops to help Vladimir Putin attack Ukraine. Now it turns out Russia has been supplying North Korea with huge amounts of oil in defiance of UN sanctions, more than a million barrels since March, according to analysis of satellite imagery. I heard the details from our correspondent in South Korea, Jean McKenzie. Researchers have been studying North Korean oil tankers for some time using satellite imagery. What they spotted back in March was one of these tankers go into an oil terminal in Russia's Far East. And ever since, they've been watching this. And so, over the past eight months,

they have spotted 43 of these journeys by these North Korean oil tankers into this oil terminal. They've then been able to track them going back to North Korea where they are unloading the oil that they have presumably collected in Russia. But they've done more than this. They've also managed to get pretty good quality high resolution images of these ships at sea. And what they show is really interesting. They show that when the ships are travelling into the port in Russia, they sit very high in the water, which suggests that they're empty. And when they leave the port in Russia, they are so, so low in the water, you know, any lower and they would sink. And what the researchers

have therefore been able to calculate is that they are leaving pretty near to capacity. And what that means is that Russia has probably provided North Korea now with over a million of barrels of oil since March. And can we assume that Russia is sending all this oil in part payment for the military help it's getting from North Korea? That's certainly what most people expect. They think that this really is now quite a straightforward trade, where you have Pyongyang sending Russia

all this artillery, which we've seen from last year, you know, millions and millions of rounds of it now. And yes, in return, it has been getting this oil, which is a lifeline for North Korea, really. North Korea is under these strict UN sanctions, which mean that countries are not allowed to sell it oil. This is all part of the plan to try and stifle North Korea's economy and get it to stop developing nuclear weapons. So the fact that Russia is now providing so much oil, it seems, is something Kim Jong-un will have wanted an awful lot. Yes, it looks like Russia is violating the sanctions.

Will any action be taken? Well, so far, nobody has been able to stop this relationship between North Korea and Russia growing ever closer. I mean, Russia is one of the permanent members of the UN Security Council. Vladimir Putin himself was responsible for bringing in these sanctions against North Korea that Russia now seems to be violating. So there is very little hope within the international community that anything can be done. And it actually appears today that Russia is going one step further. We've heard from one of South Korea's national security advisers who has come out and said

that they now believe that Russia has supplied the North with air defence systems. And particularly when we saw those troops be sent to Russia, this was seen as a game-changer, a real escalation to the situation and people started to question, well is oil going to be sufficient as a reward anymore? Surely Kim Jong-un is going to be asking for more and it seems that he might be getting it. Gene McKenzie in South Korea. Well as well as throwing North Korean troops into the fight, Russia has also fired a new kind of missile at Ukraine. The Ukrainians initially thought Russia had used an intercontinental ballistic missile

for the first time ever in war. But Vladimir Putin later said it was an experimental hypersonic weapon called Oreshnik. He also threatened to strike countries that have allowed their weapons to be used against Russian territory. But the Ukrainian defence minister, Rustam Umarov, said it was clear the aggressor was Russia. It's already the second time they escalate more within this year when they send DPRK soldiers, contingent in the now. They use the missiles. So at this stage we're working on increasing the capability, air defence capability and we're working on replying." For its part NATO said it will not be deterred from supporting Ukraine. Our diplomatic correspondent Paul Adams reports from the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro. Rarely in this war has the use of a single weapon generated such widespread anxiety and

debate. The deafening explosions that shook Dnipro continue to reverberate. With Moscow still threatening further responses to what it calls the reckless decision of Britain and America to let Ukraine fire their missiles into Russia, the Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk says the war is entering a decisive phase. The threat of a global conflict, he said, is serious and real. Meeting his Ukrainian counterpart in Stockholm, Sweden's defence minister, Paul Jonsson, said efforts to discourage the West from supporting Ukraine would not work.

While in China, which supports Russia's war effort, a foreign ministry spokesman called on all parties to stay calm and exercise restraint. Fearing further similar attacks, Ukraine is on edge. A session of parliament in Kiev was cancelled today amid fears of an attack on the city's government district. Paul Adams in Tnipro in South-East Ukraine The COP29 UN climate summit was due to have finished by now, but so far the representatives of the nearly 200 countries gathered in Azerbaijan have failed to reach an agreement.

The main issue is on how to fund the battle against global warming. In particular, richer countries are being asked to pay more to help poorer ones reduce emissions and adapt to climate change. The current offer is $250 billion a year, but that has been rejected as unacceptable by African nations. Protesters at the summit in the capital Baku carried banners with slogans including, Rich countries pay your climate debt and pay up trillions, not billions. Pay up, pay up, pay up for climate finance, pay up, pay up.

Our environment correspondent Matt McGrath is at the summit in Azerbaijan and he told me the wrangling could go on for some time. I think it will go well into the night and possibly onto tomorrow. The draft document that's been published after two weeks of negotiations here, countries are finally showing their hand on this key issue of money and as you say an offer of $250 billion a year from 2035 or up to 2035, I should say, from the richer countries to the poorer countries, made up of public and private sources of money as part of a bigger plan to raise $1.3 trillion by then as well. That's the nature of the offer at

the moment. As you said, African countries, a number of island states and others have said they don't like it at the moment, but I think the negotiations will continue on that. Yeah, even raising 250 billion dollars a year could be a stretch, some are saying. Absolutely. I think at the moment, you know, the richer world has promised to pay the poorer world 100 billion dollars a year. They made that promise back in 2009 and they finally delivered in it in 2022. And it's the make-up of the money I think is the real, one of the key issues here because at the moment the poorer countries do not want to have a whole bunch of extra

loans given to them as part of that money. They want to see public money from the ex-checkers of the richer countries given to them as grants so they don't have to pay it back. They feel that that's better, more predictable, something they can rely on. Many of the countries pointed out that in South America you have countries, so much of the climate finance is made up of loans, about 80% of it and that's really difficult for so many countries to deal with. The flip side to the money is demands for countries to reduce emissions. Is there progress there? At the moment not a great deal. The richer countries here want something more concrete than was agreed last year. Last year in Dubai the countries

agreed to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems. That text at the moment is referred to in the draft agreement but not clearly enunciated and I think the richer countries here really I suppose is a quid pro quo for the enhanced money they want to see more action on that they want to see clearer language on that. As I said there is probably a lot of negotiating to be done here and I think there is potential for a deal on both of those aspects there, greater finance and possibly greater language on cutting carbon as well. Matt McGraw at COP29 in Azerbaijan.

Medical staff battling the M-pox outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo have told the BBC they have seen a reduction in cases after vaccinations began last month. The World Health Organization's declaration of M-pox as a public health emergency of international concern is due to be reviewed today. Infections have spread to 19 African countries, though Congo is still recording more than

90% of cases and deaths. The BBC has returned to a hospital in the south-east of Congo, which in August was overwhelmed with patients. And Soye compiled this report from Nairobi. Three-year-old Atukuzu Ebunisa is in pain. His face is covered in spots and his mouth has open sores. He is lying on a hospital bed in Luiro, an hour's drive out of the city of Bukavu, in the southeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

His mother, Julienne Mwinja, says it began with an eye infection. His eyes were teary, said ministered eyedrops. Then later his tongue got small sores. After one day, the rash spread to his face and body. He looked like someone who had been scalded by hot water. She has been in hospital with her son for a week now. Fewer beds are occupied by patients in Luiro now, compared to when the BBC first visited the hospital in August. At the time,

medics like Jackson Murula were overwhelmed with long queues of patients and congested wards. Some patients were even forced to share beds. Lately, it started to slow down because at the beginning we were receiving 10 or 15 new cases a day, but now we are only receiving 2 or 3 cases a day. His colleague Emmanuel Fikiri says it's down to a joint effort between medics and community leaders. The providers were motivated and thanks to this motivation they worked hard and did everything they could to break the M-pox contamination chain. And we can now say that this has brought about a positive change because patients are no longer coming in as they used to. Today there are patients seeking treatment but many

more people come to be vaccinated like Jean-Pierre Mirindi. Imagine people to get vaccinated to give them protection from this disease. The benefit is that it protects one from the disease which just appears anytime. Experts say it's still too early to confirm what impact immunisation has had and there are also no vaccines for children yet. But whilst the cases in Lwiro are reducing, the infection is spreading elsewhere on the continent and beyond. So we're not out of the woods yet. Dr Samuel Boland is the WHO's incident manager for M-Pox in Africa.

It is unfortunately also true that in many places, also in DRC, we do see an escalation in the number of cases, much as we did in the Bukavu area back in August. So right now, while we deal with these various different pieces of outbreak and different dynamics of outbreak in different parts of DRC and also in different countries, we do need to remember that we will continue to see cases cropping up in different places that maybe haven't been affected before. And as long as there are those cases happening anywhere, we need to respond

as much as we can. Also the forefront of tackling the outbreak is the Africa CDC. Its Director General, Dr. Joan Kaseya, says the overall projections for the next few weeks are concerning. We are expecting to see increase of cases in December, in January. And with all the effort we are conducting vaccination, reinforcing the surveillance system, reinforcing the lab system,

reinforcing the case management, that one will help us maybe by mid-January, February, us maybe by mid-January, February to start to see a decrease in terms of cases and deaths. Back at Luiro Hospital, the medics are not slowing down. They've fought other outbreaks before. They know that infections could rise again, but they're hopeful they can, yet again, bring the current one under control. And so a reporting from Nairobi. And still to come on the Global News podcast. We grew up here looking at these sinkholes.

We had no idea of their values. Some scientists told me that they did not recognise those species either. The sinkholes hiding ancient forests in southern China. After riding high with his election victory just over two weeks ago, Donald Trump has suffered his first setback with the loss of his pick for US Attorney General. Matt Gaetz withdrew from consideration for the country's top legal post after facing legal problems of his own, allegations of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, which he denies.

The President-elect moved swiftly to nominate a replacement, Pam Bondi, former Attorney General of Florida. We heard more about her from our North America correspondent Peter Bose. She is an experienced prosecutor in the job for almost 20 years. The first female Attorney General of Florida, an office that she held between 2011 and 2019 and of course Florida is Donald Trump's home state. They know each other well. In fact there'd been some speculation during Mr. Trump's first term in office in the White House as her being a possible attorney general then. It didn't

happen then, but it's clearly going to, at least if the confirmation process goes well, it will happen this time around. Donald Trump, in announcing this, cited her performance as an attorney general in Florida as being very tough on violent criminals. He said she made the streets safe for Florida families. And I think it is fair to say that she is a popular figure amongst Republicans generally. She served as one of Donald Trump's lawyers during his first impeachment trial. That was over his alleged abuse of power linked to military aid for Ukraine and pressure to investigate the former vice president as he was then Joe Biden.

She also very publicly supported Donald Trump during his hush money trial in New York. She actually showed up at the court where he was eventually convicted. So she is a loyal Trump ally which I think probably played into the president-elect's decision to appoint her as the nation's top law enforcement officer. Peter Bowers on Pam Bondi. The war in Sudan has been going on for more than 19 months and has triggered the world's worst humanitarian crisis. The US has taken a prominent role in efforts to end the conflict and this week the American Special Envoy for Sudan Tom Perriello traveled there for the first time since being appointed in February. He met Abdul Fattah al-Burhan, head of the Sudanese army, which has been

battling the paramilitary rapid support forces. James Cotnell asked Mr. Perriello what he'd learned about the situation in Sudan after traveling there. I think what we saw is what we've also seen in meeting with Sudanese in refugee camps and in the diaspora community and in Zoom calls with Sudanese across the country. They want an end to this war. They want to see food and medicine reaching the millions of Sudanese who are hungry and facing cholera and atrocities. They want to see the world stop sending in weapons and start sending in more food and medicine and paying attention to the crisis.

And I think what we saw is where an area can be secure. We can see the kind of hope that the Sudanese people want. And we are glad to see that there's been some meaningful progress in recent weeks on humanitarian access in both the East and the West and the South. But so much more needs to be done. Very fragile progress as you say. You met with General Abdel Fattah al-Bahyan, the head of the Transitional Sovereign Council, the army in effect. What was your message to him?

Our number one message is that the American people stand with the Sudanese people in wanting an end to this war and end to these atrocities and the hunger. We made clear that even in times of war, international humanitarian law must be respected. We can find ways, we can work with our international and regional partners to find ways to get food and medicine even into areas like Khartoum and Ghazira state that are facing violence. We need to work work with our international and regional partners to find ways to get food and medicine even into areas like Khartoum and Ghazira state that are facing violence. We need to work on these humanitarian pauses in corridors. So we welcome some recent steps to increase the amount of aid that's flowing into key parts of Sudan, but much more needs to be done. And beyond that, we have

got to get a peace deal, bringing the parties to the table and see a process to end this war. And we hope to see continued progress in that regard. But at this point, the situation remains dire for the Sudanese people. And increasingly, it's really a threat to regional security. And I think that's why we appreciate that there's a lot of interest from our African counterparts in trying to help find a peaceful solution. that's why we appreciate that there's a lot of interest from our African counterparts in trying to help find a peaceful solution.

US envoy for Sudan Tom Perriello talking to James Cotnall. Scientists have discovered ancient forests with animals and plants they thought were extinct in sinkholes hidden deep in the mountains of southern China. The heavenly pits, as they're known in in Mandarin formed over tens of thousands of years. They only recently became visible when the land collapsed revealing steep limestone cliffs and caves. There are about 200 of them in China, the highest concentration in the world. Guangxi is home to many of the sinkholes which are being explored with the help of local mountaineers. Our China correspondent Laura Becker has been

to meet some of them. We're preparing for a journey into a lost world. I'm following brother Fei, a local villager who taught himself mountaineering skills, and he was the first to lead scientists to these sinkholes, which have been hidden deep in the mountains of Guangxi for tens of thousands of years. As we venture deeper into the cave, which forms the base of the sinkhole, a pair of eyes watch our every move.

Oh wow, I can see the eyes of the owl just nestled in the limestone cliff. When you were showing researchers here for the first time, what was that like? We grew up here looking at these sinacles. We had no idea of their values. We used to come down to explore what's underneath. Later I became a tour guide to lead the scientists down and I began to understand that the values of the Sin Coals are much more than I thought. We finally hike above the caves deep into the woods. This area is now all closed to tourists.

So these are orchids. Brother Faye tells me he used to think the sinkholes were haunted by ghosts and demons. Now he knows they're filled with environmental treasures. So these are lots of plants that he's finding that are quite rare here and it's one of the reasons why they've shut it down as a tourist site. Some scientists told me that they did not recognise those species either as it was also their first time seeing them. massive cliff in a huge circle and beneath it there's just a hidden forest these deep pits often shrouded in mist are like a time capsule where scientists can study animals and plants they thought were extinct. Southern China

has so many sinkholes because it has so much limestone. Underground rivers slowly dissolve the rock over thousands of years. We are guided to a sinkhole that does allow adventure tourism. Visitors get to abseil and travel through the caves. Rui is clipped into a harness by the guides and lowered further into the cave where a river once flowed. Torch light illuminates the many stalactites. It's very cool. It's the first time I try here this kind of thing. Maybe next time I will try to another place. It will be first time but not the last time.

Only a few tourists at a time can come through this cave. But some businesses have built large viewing platforms attracting thousands of people during peak season. But the discovery of these sinkholes has changed Brother Fei's life. This town used to be very poor. We don't have much farmland. After developing tourism, the town received higher financial income. As a tour guide, I'm also very happy. We try our best to preserve them and not to leave too many man-made traces.

These unique ecosystems could hold vital clues about how our planet has changed and how plant life can be preserved. Scientists in China hope that local people can find a balance between their research and badly needed tourist revenue. That report from Southern China by Laura Bicker. The film adaptation of the hit musical Wicked, a prequel to The Wizard of Oz, is released in the US and UK today, but it's already been generating controversy, as some fans at early screenings have ignored cinema etiquette and sung along. It's sparked angry debate online and

some theatres in the US have imposed a singing ban. Vocal coach and session singer Carrie Grant and author and Wicked superfan Sarah Cook shared their opinions. Well I think a sing-along show is a sing-along show. This is not a sing-along show and I think whether that's theatre or whether that's going to see a movie there are normally sing-along show and I think whether that's theatre or whether that's going to see a movie there are normally sing-along performances for people or a show like Mamma Mia of course people are going to sing along that's what it's meant for it's meant for the hen party but a show like this I don't want to hear someone singing out of tune I think that theatre generally needs to relax a bit but singing along no there needs to be some level of etiquette where we don't have to

hear someone singing, you know, somewhere south of Shocking next to us. You know, you've paid good money to listen to, you know, the people that are going to be the stars of those shows. If someone has spent years training to be the most amazing singer, let's hear them do their job. Yeah, I would agree if they're sing-along shows and save it for the sing-along shows. Because I've been to a couple of sing-along films.

I went to see Frozen sing-along. I've done the Rocky Horror sing-along shows and save it for the sing-along shows. I've been to a couple of sing-along films. I went to see Frozen sing-along. I've done the Rocky Horror sing-along. I've done loads of great showmen sing-along and they're great because you can do that but at a normal screening because some people may not know the music they might be coming into this brand new. So they haven't experienced the song straight away and to hear someone warble it out of tune behind it is so off-putting. Cary Grant and Sarah Cook. And that is all from us for now, but the Global News podcast will be back very soon. This edition was mixed by Riccardo McCarthy and produced by Chantal Hartle. Our editor is

Karen Martin. I'm Oliver Conway. Until next time, goodbye.