Global News Podcast - Shell accused of ignoring pollution evidence in Nigeria

Episode Date: June 3, 2026

British oil giant Shell continued to operate major pipeline in Nigeria even though bosses knew it was causing widespread pollution, according to secret documents obtained by BBC. Shell has always rejected the accusations, blaming the theft and illegal refining of oil taken from the pipeline. Also: the Trump administration drops plans for a fund to compensate people claiming to be victims of politicised prosecution after a backlash from Republicans; Microsoft announces a new quantum chip that it says is 1,000 times more reliable than its predecessor; promising results for new cancer pill which caused tumours to shrink by at least 30%; anger in the UK following the case of a student who was murdered and falsely accused of racially abusing his attacker; and could microbes still be living in a body frozen in ice for 5,000 years? The Global News Podcast brings you the breaking news you need to hear, as it happens. Listen for the latest headlines and current affairs from around the world. Politics, economics, climate, business, technology, health – we cover it all with expert analysis and insight. Get the news that matters, delivered twice a day on weekdays and daily at weekends, plus special bonus episodes reacting to urgent breaking stories. Follow or subscribe now and never miss a moment. Get in touch: [e-mail] Photo: Shell sign for pipeline in Bille, southern Nigeria, that's been causing widespread pollution for years. Credit: BBC

You're listening to the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. Hello, I'm Oliver Conway. This edition is published in the early hours of Wednesday, the 3rd of June. BBC News finds that Shell pumped oil for years, despite knowing it was causing widespread pollution. The Trump administration scraps plans for a $1.8 billion fund that critics said could give payouts to rioters who attack the US capital. And Microsoft says its new quantum computing chip is a thousand-time. more reliable than its predecessor. Also in the podcast. This new drug actually switches up proteins on the cancer surface

so that the immune system can now see the cancer and can then destroy the cancer cell. The pill, which has been shown to shrink tumours in six types of cancer. But first, the British oil giant shell continued to operate a major pipeline in Nigeria, even though bosses knew it was causing. widespread pollution, according to secret internal documents obtained by the BBC. Exchanges between senior executives disclosed during a legal case

showed they understood the risks posed by one of the firm's main pipelines to both the local people and the environment, yet chose not to shut it down. Shell has always argued that pollution in the Niger Delta was caused by the theft and illegal refining of oil taken from the pipeline. Our Africa correspondent, Simi Jolla, Oshar, reports from Billy. Decaying and dead mangroves along the banks of creeks are among the most visible signs of the legacy of oil giant shell here in Billy, where family survived on fishing for generations,

like 64-year-old Bala Farmer Bruce, who says oil spills over the last decade have made it increasingly difficult. Before 211, here is a beautiful area. People play here, go to the river here. The pollution has caused me that, have stopped my restaurant business. Because of that, I become poor. So what do you do now?

I eat from hand to mouth. Shell's pipeline that runs near Bile pumped up to 150,000 barrels a day. It's a part of the country blighted by attacks and organized a theft of oil, including hundreds of illegal refineries, many of which caused pollution. The way Shell handled their operation is under the spotlight,

and now documents obtained by the BBC, show the company kept pumping, despite knowing it was causing widespread pollution. One internal document from 2012 shows how Shell executives signed off to keep a Nigeria pipeline pumping for another two years, even though it didn't meet its usual technical standards. They are not concerned about what happened to you. Their concern is continuous to make profit. That's Chief Bomadapa, the spokesperson for the Bilay Kingdom Chiefs Council. All that has happened in this environment is as a result of negligence.

They don't care. A 2013 email chain reveals Shell's then general manager for unsure assets, warned colleagues an audit of Shell's operations in the country would fail. The following month, Shell executives launched a confidential working group, codenamed Project Madrid. It unmasked the scale of the oil leaks, 100 illegal refineries polluting 9,000 hectares of water and 9,000 hectares of land. Shell says its decisions were based on complex factors like security and the environment

and that it cleaned up spills regardless of the cause. Shell has blamed oil spills here on theft from its pipelines, but the Project Madrid file showed that bosses were considering carrying on pumping from its pipeline like the one that runs through here, even though they knew it would cause more pollution. One slide in the project posed a stark question. Are we comfortable to continue production knowing that further environmental damage will occur? A spokesperson for Shell told the BBC,

the documents selected are presented without the critical context of the operating environment in the Niger Delta at the time. He said, in isolation, they do not reflect the chance. challenges of working against the backdrop of widespread organized criminality. River is our farm, but now there is no way for us again. Periwinkle Harvester, 49-year-old Tammy Nobiten, Philip, says pollution has transformed the creeks where she once worked. Because when you go to the bush, you will not see premencule again.

And the odor is like crude. Some places when you go, you will perceive gas. They are collecting our oil. Every blessed day, but without benefits. Her sentiments are echoed by Chief Bumadapal. We might not even know the damage it has caused us in terms of health. We don't have farmland. We are surrendered by river.

Our people means of livelihood is gone. I'm back in Lagos, Nigeria's commercial hub. For decades, oil has driven this country's economy, bringing in billions for both Nigeria, and the international companies operating here. Shell has repeatedly said pollution in the Niger Delta is largely driven by oil theft, a major issue in the region,

with experts once estimating around 100,000 barrels a day were being stolen. The company is defending its position. But for the people I met, the impact of spills is visible in their daily lives, in the water, the land, and their livelihoods. Now, they're hoping this case brings answers and accountability. That report from Nigeria by Simi Jolaosha.

After facing limited pushback in the first year of his second presidency, Donald Trump has suffered a string of defeats in recent months over his tariffs, his planned White House ballroom and his attempt to add his name to the Kennedy Centre. Through it all, he's been able to count on the support of Republicans in Congress. Now, however, senators from his party have forced President Trump to back down over his $1.8 billion so-called anti-weaponization fund, which critics said was a slush fund aimed at giving money to his allies and supporters, including rioters who attacked the Capitol on January 6th. The climb down was announced by acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche

at a congressional hearing. The reasons for the fund is something that President Trump talked about for a long time, which is the fact that there were a lot of people in this country who had their government weaponized against them. The reasons for the fund, I think, remain as important as they were before, but we are not moving forward with the fund. Our North America correspondent Peter Bowes told me more. The fund was part of a legal settlement linked to Donald Trump's claims that government agencies had mishandled his confidential tax records. Now, During negotiations to resolve that dispute, the administration proposed creating a fund worth, as you said, nearly $1.8 billion. The idea was that people who believed that they had been unfairly investigated, prosecutors or otherwise targeted by the federal government could apply for compensation.

Supporters of this move described it as a way to compensate victims of what they described as government weaponisation. Okay, supporters, but there was quite a lot of. lot of criticism and even normally loyal Republicans joined in. What was it that they couldn't stomach about this? Yes, opposition from both Republicans and Democrats. Republican senators argued that the fund was too broad and that it was unclear who would qualify for compensation. And a particular concern was that people prosecuted over the January 6th Capitol riot could seek payouts by claiming that they had been unfairly targeted. Democrats were even more critical. They described this proposal as a political slush fund. They argue that taxpayer money could

end up benefiting President Trump, his allies, or again people convicted in connection with January the 6th. Several Democratic senators, in fact, had introduced legislation to try to block the fund. So faced with bipartisan criticism, the administration has now decided not to go forward with it. However, a separate provision shielding Donald Trump and his family from future scrutiny over their tax affairs will remain in place. Well, with Trump bogged down in Iran on the international front and at home is polling figures continuing to fall, is there a sense that something has changed after that first year where he seemed invincible? Well, this is certainly a political setback for Donald Trump because it forced him to abandon a high-profile initiative after opposition from many. of his own party, but make no mistake, Donald Trump still has a firm grip on the Republican

party across the country. But some in Congress are becoming, I think, more willing to push back when they believe that a policy is politically damaging. This is an election year. The president won't be on the ballot in November himself, but some of the senators who have opposed this will be, and for many of them, I think they're looking at life beyond Donald Trump and the political reality of what it will take for them to stay in office. Peter Bowes in Los Angeles. Microsoft has announced a new quantum chip that it says is a thousand times more reliable than its predecessor.

The firm hopes that Mayerana 2 will give it an edge over its competitors when it's released in 2029, as our technology editor Zoe Kleinman explains. The computing power in a quantum machine comes from tiny delicate units called qubits. They operate in a very fragile state and usually last just a few milliseconds. But Microsoft claims the qubits on its new Mayerana 2 chip can survive for 20 seconds, giving them a lot more time to process complex calculations. This has been made possible by substituting aluminium on the chip for lead. Microsoft's using AI in this project but says the idea came from its human scientists.

The aim is that one day quantum computers will help solve big problems such as how to get rid of microplastics and come up with formulas for new fertilisers to help farmers grow more food. Microsoft says Mayerana 2 brings it closer to having a scalable working machine in 2029. This would currently make the tech giant a world leader in the quantum space unless another company beats them to it. Zoe Kleinman. It might not have a name yet, but a new cancer drug is already showing promising results. Scientists say the pill, known as GRWD4. 5769 caused tumours to shrink by at least 30% across six different cancers, including cervical,

bladder and specific types of lung and bowel cancer. The findings have been presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology. Among those testing the treatment was Professor Fiona Thistlethwaite from the Christy Cancer Research Centre here in the UK. She told Evan Davis how it works. We know that our normal healthy cells and the immune cells talk to each other all the time. One of the ways they do this is the normal cells have proteins on their cell surface that send out signals to the immune system saying, I'm normal, leave me alone. And when a cell becomes cancerous, those proteins change. And what should happen is that the immune cells come along, see this abnormal proteins,

and kill that cell. So when someone develops cancer, something's gone wrong with that. The immune cells don't see the cancer. So this new drug actually switches up those proteins. on the cancer surface so that the immune system can now see the cancer and can then destroy the cancer cell. So for this trial, what we've done is we've combined that increasing the visibility of the cancer with another drug, a standard immunotherapy drug, that boosts up the immune system.

So we've got that kind of two-pronged attack, boost the immune system, let it see the cancer more easily. And this is particularly exciting, as this therapy seemed to work in some patients we should stress, not all by any means. but on a wide variety of different cancers? Yeah, the drug is given. It's a tablet three weeks on, three weeks off. And that's switching the immune system on and off

seems to be quite effective because you avoid the cells becoming exhausted. You give them a kind of burst of activity and then they can rest for a bit and then a new burst of activity. So that's the kind of principle behind what we've been doing with this trial. But actually one of the really good things about this drug is it seems to be really well tolerated.

So there aren't very many side effects. And I think for the future, that's something that's quite exciting because it means you can start to potentially think about could you combine it with different drugs that overcome some of those other mechanisms of resistance. Now, the drug was developed in Oxford. It's been tested at the Christie Centre in Manchester. What stage would you describe it as at? When does it become available?

So this is still the phase one trial. We're seeing really interesting results, but we need to move on to the second phase and then later on to third phase, where you start to treat perhaps hundreds or even thousands of patients. It'll be several years before it becomes hopefully available more widely. So there's still a lot of work to be done. But to have a drug that's showing this much promise this early is really good.

Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. It feels as though this year there's been more going on than perhaps usual. Yeah, I think there's been some really exciting data presented this year. We're starting to really unpick what's happening in cancer, so there's still a long way to go. but we're understanding the biology of what goes wrong and how we can then intervene. So some of the targeted agents are actually attacking cancers where things have gone wrong, where we've really struggled to nail that previously, particularly for things like pancreatic cancer

that has been traditionally thought of as a really difficult tumour type to treat. I think that comes down to understanding the biology of what's going wrong when cancer develops. Professor Fiona Thistlethwaite. And still to come in this podcast, We still find bacteria the iceman had during his lifetime in his gut, which is very important to compare this maybe to modern gut microbiome. The microbes that have survived inside a body frozen in ice for 5,000 years. You're listening to the Global News podcast. As artificial intelligence gets into more corners of society, the question of who will regulate it is becoming increasingly pressing.

The US president, who generally favours a hands-off approach, has now signed an executive order to try to mitigate AI security threats. Under the scheme, firms will be asked to submit their most powerful models for government testing 30 days before they're released to the public. But it's voluntary, and the testing window is less than the 90 days originally planned. So what does business make of it? Here's George Convoy of Brighton Securities in New York. And first, California tech investor, Christy Pitts. I do think that the tech companies are receiving this new executive order favorably. Primarily, that's because it is voluntary, and the time frame for review is 30 days.

So that is much shorter than what was previously put forth. The voluntary aspect of the exec order seems not to bother anybody. It's not going to change the thing. I think the tech industry is likely to comply just to play nice, because they're not being compelled. Nobody's got a gun to their head. Sure, we'll play nice with you. There's no reason not to. Our North America technology correspondent Lili Jemali is in San Francisco.

She told me how the new order follows concerns raised by the release of Anthropics model Mythos. The relationship between the Trump administration and Anthropic, which makes Claude, was on the rocks up until Methos was released a couple of weeks ago. So Mythos is billed as this very powerful AI model. It's really good at finding bugs in software, among other things. So that can be a very powerful thing in the hands of people fighting to protect us from bad cybersecurity actors. It can also be very helpful to those who are hacking and trying to get into these systems.

So Anthropic decided to release it only to a certain group of organizations, not to the public. And I think that's where a lot of this regulation is going to rest with the companies, even after this executive order. You know, they have been, this Trump administration has been on a sort of anything goes, regulatory path. And Methos sort of made them reassess that. But this executive order seems pretty symbolic. It's a lot less interventionist than this other executive order that was expected to be signed up until just a few weeks ago before it was scuttled. And what are the advantages of the government having these 30 days to test this stuff? It gives them the chance to

touch and feel these tools. I think when you look at an AI model like Mythos, real organizations, real corporations are actually using it to find bugs in their own software, bugs that have been, in some cases, latent sitting there for decades in a couple of cases that I've read about. And I think they want to have major agencies in the federal government, like the Department of Defense and the Department of Treasury, to be able to experience these models. But again, I think most of the real work is going to be done. done by the AI developers themselves because they're a lot more familiar with how these models work than somebody who works in the Treasury Department, for example. So I have to think that

there's going to be quite a bit of partnership more than sort of a confrontational relationship between the so-called regulators in this case and the companies that they are overseeing. And what does this say about the administration's approach to AI? President Trump Lowe, to curb America's ambitions, but many Americans are skeptical about it. They really are. And we saw it at these graduation ceremonies where students coming out of college were booing speakers who talked about AI in ways that were favorable, in ways that were almost like, you know, you're going to have to contend with this when you get out into the workforce. Graduates did not like that very much. And there's also a lot of communities where they're

seeing these data centers being built. Many people just don't. want them in their neighborhoods, in their communities. This administration has really bought the AI industry line about how important it is for the American industry to compete with China. And I think that's why there really was such a hands-off approach up until very recently. The fact that they're doing this at all shows that mythos has sparked a bit of a shift. That really was an inflection point. Lily Jamali in San Francisco. Israel and the Lebanese militia has belonged. have continued to exchange fire, forcing people in South Lebanon to flee or seek shelter. The Lebanese Health Ministry says at least five people were killed in strikes on Tuesday,

including medical staff at a hospital. Israel says it's acting in response to Hezbollah's violations of the ceasefire that was brokered by President Trump in mid-April. And despite the fighting, Lebanese and Israeli envoys have met in Washington for direct talks. Our correspondent, Wira Davis, has been to Israel's northern border. border with the Lebanon, an area targeted by Hezbollah rockets. In more peaceful times, this is one of the most beautiful parts of Israel, arguably the entire Middle East. This is the top end of the Hula Valley. You can look across at the mountains of the

Galan Heights. To my left is Lebanon, and I'm in the Kibbutz of Misgav Am. This place has been hit repeatedly by Hezbollah drones and rockets. over the last few years. And even though there's meant to be a ceasefire, that hasn't brought much peace to places like this. But for residents like Alicia Mordogh, she's skeptical about the hopes of another ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. The term doesn't really mean anything to me because I've been living through a ceasefire for the past two months and it hasn't changed anything. You can hear the drone ahead. We hear the jets this morning. You said even though this is relatively calm,

still sirens every night. What is it like living here with young kids, especially at night under this constant threat of attack? I have a child who wakes up to night terrors. The second you wake up, one of us is sprinting over to my three-year-old's room to make sure he doesn't wake up alone to the sound of a siren. It's a lot of actions and mannerisms that you don't even realize that you're picking up. To say when you go sit on the sofa after a long day,

when the kids are asleep, you're putting your slippers in a specific position so that you can slide them on your feet as you're running to your kids. It's things that in my day-to-day, I don't even think I realize how much I've changed my life, but it's completely all-consuming. We've now come down to the village of Metula, which is even closer to the Lebanese border. Israel Lyshanski's great-grandparents established a hotel here 90 years ago. They were some of the first Jewish pioneers,

even before the creation of the state. and his family has witnessed many wars here. If there is a real plan, if there is like a cooperation between Lebanon and Israel against Hezbollah, if there is going to be an agreement that Lebanon and Israel can deal with it, then it might work.

But to continue this situation, nothing really will change. It is quite something standing here looking across the Lebanese border, only 300 yards away, looking at those destroyed Lebanese towns of Khafakila and Adaisi. In the distance, I can also see the captured crusader fort of Beaufort

and what appears to be an Israeli flag flying above it. Israel says it still has military operations to conclude in. southern Lebanon. And that is why, despite Donald Trump's declaration of this temporary ceasefire, many people here believe it will not hold. Because as long as Israeli troops continue to occupy and operate inside Lebanon, Hezbollah says it will have a reason and a right to attack Israel. What everybody here says is needed is a long-term negotiated truce between Israel, Lebanon, and Hezbollah.

Weir-Davis, reporting from northern Israel. There's been an angry reaction in the UK after police footage was released of a student being put in handcuffs as he lay dying. Henry Novak was falsely accused of racially abusing the man who stabbed him, a British Sikh, Vikram Digwa. He has been jailed for a minimum of 21 years. Protests have taken place in the city of Southampton

where the murder happened. In the police footage, Henry Novak, can be seen saying, I can't breathe, but police refused to believe he was the victim. His family said his treatment was inhumane and degrading, but added they didn't want his death to cause division. The British Prime Minister Kirstama said there were searching questions for the police to answer. Our UK correspondent Rob Watson spoke to Charlotte Gallagher. This is an immensely serious story, and perhaps some people listening will have looked at some of the footage, or maybe they would choose to look at it after hearing us speak.

And I should say before they do that, it is pretty grim stuff. This happened at the end of last year, December, where a British Sikh man of 23 years, his family had called to say he had been the victim of a racial attack. It was completely the opposite way around. He had murdered an 18-year-old white man called Henry Novak, and essentially what has emerged after a court case, in which Vikram Digwar was sentenced to life in prison,

there's this horrendous footage from the police as a body camera showing that the guy was dying of knife wounds. He said he'd been stabbed and that he couldn't breathe, but they handcuffed him. And basically he died as they were handcuffing him. And exactly the row that's erupted is really where the British policing has swung from being, I'm putting this all very crudely, Charlotte, from being essentially over the years, you know, a bit racist, that you wouldn't get the same kind of justice if you weren't white as if you were white, to going completely the other way, and that is that the biggest concern the police had in this case, and in other case, the argument goes is, oh, my goodness, we don't want to be accused of being racist.

And all the politicians have piled in. So you've got the Prime Minister, Kirstama, saying it's incredibly important that this should be reviewed properly. You've got the senior interior minister, Shabana Mahmoud, who is of Pakistani heritage, saying we mustn't allow this to have, you know, white British people pitied against non-white British people. And then you've got the leader of the populist right of centre reform party, Nigel Farrow, saying that this is clear evidence of two-tier policing and that essentially white people are the victims here. And he urged people to have pure cold rage. Do you think this is one of those stories that's going to have knock-on consequences? I think it's bound to, in the sense that there's going to be an independent review into this incident.

but I think it has sparked a debate about policing in this country and how to avoid having either a form of policing that discriminates against non-white people or discriminates against white people. So I do think there's going to be an awful lot of soul searching amongst the police and the politicians. I mean, the question, it seems to me, Charlotte, is can you do this without having a horrible political row

and making things worse, which is what the government fears? And that was Rob Watson. talking to Charlotte Gallagher. Finally, scientists studying the body of Ertsey, the Iceman, who lived more than 5,000 years ago, have obtained a detailed picture of the ancient bugs living on and inside his body. And they think some of the microbes may still be alive. The details from Helen Briggs.

In 1991, two German hikers discovered a body in the snowy Alps on the border between Austria and Italy, The perfectly preserved 5,000-year-old mummy named Uzi has been kept frozen in a museum ever since. And scientists from the Research Institute, Urak, in Bolsano in Italy, are slowly unraveling his secrets. Now, a new analysis of tissue and skin samples shows it's not just a frozen relic, his body hosts a complicated mixture of microbes,

some of which might still be alive. Dr. Frank Mikesner told me how this will help us understand how so-called friendly bacteria important for optimal health have evolved. First of all, we see that we still find bacteria the Iceman had during his lifetime in his gut, for example. So this is still present this information, which is very important to compare this maybe to modern gut microbiome, for example. So we see this presence by analysing their DNA. We have, however, also here still microbes, in this case, fun. the geist which we could cultivate.

The scientists say these resilient, cold-loving microorganisms which have survived for so long might have future applications in science and industry. And it's important to keep monitoring them carefully to make sure Uttz's body remains well-preserved and is available for future generations to study. Our science correspondent Helen Briggs. And that is all from us for now,

but the Global News Podcast will be. back very soon. This edition was mixed by Martin Baker and produced by Paul Day and Stephanie Zacherson. Our editor is Karen Martin. I'm Oliver Conway. Until next time, goodbye.