Global News Podcast - Ukrainian security service say their officer shot dead

Episode Date: July 10, 2025

Ukraine's security service say one of their officers was gunned down in Kyiv after an overnight Russian bombardment. Also: Houthis destroy a ship in the Red Sea, and preventing cancer patients from losing their hair.

This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Katie Watson and at 13h GMT on Thursday the 10th of July, these are our main stories. Another ship attacked and sunk in the Red Sea. The Houthis say they did it. Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, is hit with a barrage of Russian drones and missiles. Sweeping US foreign aid cuts could lead to soaring numbers of new HIV infections we hear from affected patients and doctors.

Also in this podcast… If the authorities catch me, then I'll try again. I won't stop until I get to Great Britain. As the French president's state visit continues here in the UK, we meet the migrants desperate to make the journey across the English Channel. Police in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv are investigating the shooting of what the security service says is one of its officers at close range. It comes after another overnight bombardment by Russia. Kyiv was hit by hundreds of drones as well as missiles, killing two and injuring more than a dozen people. There was damage reported across the city forcing thousands of residents to take

shelter. President Zelensky said the attacks proved that Russia was not interested in peace. Last night they launched another massive attack on Ukraine, mainly targeting our capital, Kiev. The attack involved Russian-Iranian Shahid drones. These drones have been heavily upgraded to cause more destruction and to be harder to shoot down. Ukrainians now face attacks by hundreds of these drones every single night. And this is pure terrorism. He was speaking at a conference in Rome aimed at mobilising support and investment for Ukraine. He appealed for more defence supplies and missiles.

Our Europe regional editor, Danny Eberhard, gave me the latest on the Kyiv attacks. There is video of this targeted assassination. What it shows is a man leaving an apartment building. It was this morning. He walked to the corner of the street and then a masked assailant ran up to him and shoots him repeatedly at close range. Now the Security Service of Ukraine has confirmed that an officer of its own was killed. It hasn't named him but sources have told the Ukrainian Service of the BBC that it was Colonel Ivan Voronich. Now the presumption at this

stage is that it was a targeted assassination by Russia and there is an investigation underway at the moment. A former security service employee has told the BBC that Voronich was one of those who founded a department in the security service that, as he put it, is now creating many problems for Russians. But it's not clear precisely what specific operations targeting Russia or Russians that Veronich might have been involved in. Of course this also comes as there's intensifying strikes in Ukraine. Yeah, so we've had another night, President Zelensky said, 400 drones, 18 missiles. It's slightly less than the night before, where you saw more than 700 drones and missiles being used.

But nevertheless, these are colossal quantities. They're designed to overwhelm Ukrainian air defences. They're called combined attacks, so explosive drones, decoy drones, and also ballistic and cruise missiles. So difficult to defend against. President Zelensky has said it's an obvious escalation of terror. He has called for a greater acceleration in sanctions against Russia so that it feels the consequences of its terror, as he put it, faster investments in weapons production

in Ukraine and funding for air defences and drones. The latest figure we've had from an official in Kiev is that on top of the two killed that you mentioned, 22 people were injured in these attacks, which basically damaged or destroyed a medical centre, residential high-rises, office blocks and some industrial facilities. We know that Russia says that it targeted military industrial capabilities in Kiev as well as damaging the infrastructure of an airfield. We don't know where that airfield may have been. Other areas were attacked in Ukraine overnight so Kharkiv. Sue me these sort of areas as well. Danny Eberhard.

A cargo ship has been attacked by Yemen's Houthi militia and sunk in the Red Sea. It's the second vessel the Houthis have sunk in a week. The Liberian-flagged Eternity Sea was said to be heading to the Israeli port of Al-At. Ten of the crew members have been rescued, but the fate of the others on board remain unclear. The Houthis later released footage of alleged radio contact with the ship. How do you copy? Over. I don't copy, ground. I don't, Mr. Ryan. I got more details from our Middle East regional editor, Sebastian Asher, in Jerusalem.

We've heard from the Houthis, I mean it's for Yemen Navy, saying that they took some of those crew members but they're giving them medical treatment, looking after them, essentially taking them hostage but they haven't given numbers. So it's unclear if there are more crew members who may be in Masih. The rescue workers are saying that they're continuing to look for them and also we heard from the rescuers saying that four of those on board were killed. We haven't had that confirmed by the shipping company itself but those will be the first fatalities that they've been for a long time. There's clearly an increase in activity by the Houthis. What's behind it?

I mean it's not entirely clear. The Houthis essentially they started these attacks on shipping and the missiles that they fire at Israel. We had one just last night, which was again intercepted by the air defence here. But they began those attacks after the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel meant, of course, the subsequent Israeli offensive against Hamas. And the Houthis were saying that they were doing this in solidarity with the Palestinian people. But what has happened is that the Houthis and the US came to an agreement that they

wouldn't attack US targets anymore. But that agreement didn't include any targets the Houthis consider to have connections with Israel. It's clearly a resurgence, so it may be trying to show that proxies in the region who are connected to Iran can still show this kind of activity against Israel. It may also be connected to these ceasefire negotiations that are going on at the moment between Hamas and Israel. And on those negotiations, can you tell us about the latest? Well they don't seem to have moved forward. I mean we are hearing different reports. The Israelis

have been talking it up a bit again in the past day or so just as the Trump administration has. What we've been hearing from the Hamas side has been much more downbeat. I mean, Hamas did issue a short statement a few hours ago saying that they'd shown their flexibility by agreeing to free 10 hostages, which is part of this ceasefire proposal, but saying that, you know, there's intransigence on the Israeli side. A senior Israeli official, not named, was saying that the Israelis don't expect there to be a deal done in a day's time. It may take a week, it may take a couple of weeks. And I think also significantly saying that the ceasefire for 60 days, a temporary

ceasefire is possible. But during that time, Israel is ready to discuss a permanent end to the war, but only if Hamas agrees to disarm. That was Sebastian Ascher in Jerusalem. A new report by the United Nations says the global response to HIV and AIDS is in crisis. The warning comes after a collapse in funding, triggered by the Trump administration's cuts to US foreign aid. That decision has already led to mass closures of mother and baby clinics in Africa and severe shortages of life-saving antiretroviral medicines. The UN says the cuts could result in a surge in

infections as well as an additional four million AIDS-related deaths by the end of the decade. Our correspondent, Mayeni Jones, is in South Africa, which has the highest number of people living with HIV anywhere in the world, and has seen first-hand the impacts already being felt by patients, doctors and researchers. I'm at the Vidkoppen clinic in Northern Johannesburg in their waiting room. There's about 50 people here waiting to be seen. This is a clinic that sees over 200 people a day, most of them from lower incomes, some of them migrants, and it's been affected by the US-led cuts. And this is a clinic that is a lifeline for people that often don't have somewhere else

to go. We visited the Vidkoppen clinic shortly after the cuts were first announced and spoke to some of its patients who were anxious about their impact. So firstly when I was sick without attending the clinic my life was so bad. Daniel is a South African truck driver. Since I get the treatment from Vidkoppen clinic I'm fine, so I'm living better than the same. It's not the same life that I was living before. So it's possible that there's going to be less staff, less medication.

How does that make you feel? I don't think that my life is going to be better than the one I am now. I'm worried because I don't know how we can go and find the help. My name is Dina. I'm a hairdresser. Today I've got an appointment for my prep. What would you say to Americans who say that American taxpayers shouldn't be paying for health care in South Africa? No, no, no, no. That is not a good idea. We are all human beings. They must not see, they

must not separate. This is Africa, this is America. Although this clinic is still open, dozens of others have closed their doors. Scientists here are warning this could lead to a spike in infections. The public health system here is stretched and can't absorb all the patients who used to get their care from USAID-funded initiatives. And frontline healthcare is in the only affected area. I'm Abdullah Eli. I'm an associate professor at the Antiviral Gene Therapy Research Unit.

More recently, we've been developing vaccines for HIV. So tell me now that the US has decided to cut that funding, how has your work been affected? It basically stopped the work initially. There was nothing we could do. So when the stop order came, that meant we had to stop everything. How disruptive was that interruption? Extremely disruptive. It set us back months, probably could even be a year or so. Many of the developments in HIV prevention, which have benefited patients around the world,

were trialled here in South Africa. Now the country's researchers say they need emergency funding if this work is to continue. To the international community, we are pleading for support because of this cause. Dr Petiwe Matutu is the CEO of University of South Africa, an umbrella body that represents the country's public universities. South Africa is leading in this area and it's not leading for itself. It has an effect on the global health. So it may appear to be a South African thing. South Africa just learns itself to be the best environment where this kind of research can be done at the moment.

But the effects of HIV and AIDS are everywhere in the world. The South African government and international donors have pledged some $54 million to pluck some of the US funding cuts. But given the last year, the Americans spent $450 million on HIV funding to South Africa, this bailout won't be enough to cover the need. This could have devastating consequences for global health. My Annie Jones reporting from Johannesburg. As part of a three-day state visit to the UK, French President Emmanuel Macron has been holding talks with the British Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer. They're expected to hammer out a deal on irregular migration after both leaders said more needed

to be done to stop small boats crossing the English Channel. But why do so many people want to come over to the UK? Our reporter Sophia Betitza is in the French port city of Calais. A familiar scene in Calais. It's early morning at the beach. People are scrambling to board a small boat desperate to reach the UK. And soon this journey could become even more difficult. It's expected that for the first time French police will be allowed to intercept boats in the water after they've launched. But will it stop people from trying?

If the authorities catch me, then I'll try again. I won't stop until I get to Great Britain. Gamal is from Egypt and is 27. He's with a group of about 50 migrants listening to music and drinking tea near the city centre. Why do you want to try even if it becomes really difficult? Because the language is easy to learn and because it's a safe country. They will listen to me and give me a chance. I'm sure they will help me. In some parts of the city, makeshift tents have been

springing up along the canal, right next to holiday homes by the beach. They're here one day and gone the next. In one of them, we meet Abdelrahman. He's getting ready to try and reach the UK by boat for the fourth time. We're going to try again and again to cross to the UK. But it will become harder to cross the channel.

Yeah, we understand that. We try. You see the people going to port and try. If police coming, catch the boat, they come back, they try again and again and again. And that's why it's a game. And we're going to win. why it's a game, and we're gonna win. But it's a dangerous game,

and critics are warning that the new measures could make these journeys even more perilous. Liddy works with an NGO that helps migrants in Calais. We know already people die crossing the channel. It's physically dangerous, and so policies that make it more dangerous for people to cross the channel will ultimately mean more people die. President Macron says the UK and France together are addressing the major challenges of our time. But the reality is that the migrants here are fleeing war,

persecution and extreme poverty back home. They are willing to risk their lives to get to Britain. So any political agreement between the UK and French governments is unlikely to put them off. Sophia Petitza reporting from Calais. Still to come in this podcast. It affects their identity, their dignity, their privacy during what is quite a challenging time. So it is important for us to be able to prevent the hair loss. A new technique that scientists say will prevent cancer patients from losing their hair.

Geologists in Scotland say they've settled a century-old debate about how some of the islands in its picturesque landscape were formed. They've uncovered an ancient crack in the earth that suggests a network of erupting volcanic fissures formed the inner Hebrides on the west coast, much like how islands in Iceland and Hawaii originated. Dr Jessica Pugsley led the study and told us more. As a geologist, what's wonderful is we get to see windows into the past. We're often kind of looking at jigsaw puzzles, if you like, but we've only got 10 pieces of that jigsaw puzzle. But to actually stand on an area where we have so much evidence, so many kind of pieces of that jigsaw puzzle and to really put together

the story of how this area once formed is what's really incredible. Now, the Isle of Mull and where we looked is it's near Calgary Bay, which is a beautiful section of Mull. It's it's idyllic, but to see that it had such a dramatic past, where you've got magma and fountaining and lavas, 60 million years ago is what's incredible. Kind of getting that kind of window into the past. Now, it's been a longstanding theory that these landscapes, these are lava flow series of big stack sequences of lava flows and that they once formed by these fissures. To actually get one exposed in the cliff line that has great 3D control because there's sea stacks and everything like that can really clearly

kind of give us the evidence that we've needed in order to see. And it's actually an area that's been looked at in the past. Lots of fantastic geologists have worked on these areas and we flew a drone around the area and made 3D models and that gave us new insights and new methods to actually identify what we're looking at. That was Dr Jessica Pugsley. The technology behind your AI searches, emails and photo storage is surprisingly thirsty and as data centres grow around the world, demand for water to cool

the servers that run them is also rising. But there's local pushback growing to find better ways to run them without draining resources. The BBC's North America business correspondent Michelle Fleury has been to the US state of Georgia, America's new hotspot for data center construction to find out more. Okay, so I am going to pour this into the tank. For Beverly Morris, this has become part of her daily routine. The water won't come through the water lines to fill the toilet tank, so I have to fill it with a bucket of water. It's plugged with sediment

She bought her home in Mansfield, Georgia in 2016 drawn by the peace the trees the seclusion That changed when a massive meta data center moved in next door Now she buys all her drinking water No one should have to be afraid to drink their water. Since construction began her well has turned murky. The sediment that's from her taps and she says it wasn't there before. We contacted Meta. Facebook's parent company told us being a good neighbor is a priority but that this had nothing to do with them. They commissioned a study which found its data centre operation

did not adversely affect groundwater conditions in the area. Still, Beverley isn't reassured. My everyday life, everything has been affected. I've lived through this for eight years. The rise of AI means more data and more data centres to handle it. These digital workhorses use huge amounts of power and water to stay cool and discharge wastewater in the process. Extremely polluted water coming off of the QTS property.

Flint River keeper Gordon Rogers and his colleague George show me what's at stake. A damaged creek next to another data center, this one owned by QTS. Clean water should not be a luxury for some, Gordon tells me, but a right for all. We do not live in a society with fiefdoms where there's a lord of the manor and the lord of the manor gets to decide whose property rights are superior to others. QTS says its data centres meet high environmental standards and bring millions in local tax

revenue. But local activism threatens the US boom, with 64 billion dollars in projects delayed or blocked nationwide. Literally anything that you do today on your computer, your mobile devices, the apps you use, they're mostly powered by data centers. Professor Rajiv Garg at Georgia's Emory University specializes in cloud computing. He says data centers bring jobs and revenue, but the challenge now is making them sustainable. We can recycle a lot of the water that we get from the rain, from sewage, and we can

use those to cool these data centers. So we can optimize the resources that are being used. And while Metta disputes that it has caused the problems with Beverly's water, there's no doubt the company has worn out its welcome as her neighbour. I can't sell my home. I would prefer not to live here. This was my perfect spot before, but it isn't anymore. Michelle Fleary reporting there. President Trump has escalated his fight with Brazil,

announcing he's planning to impose a 50% tax on goods exported from the country to the US. Further increasing a political row with President Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva, he also denounced the trial of Brazil's former leader Jair Bolsonaro. Mr Bolsonaro is accused of plotting a coup after losing elections nearly three years ago. President Lula, who warned against foreign interference, said he was ready to reciprocate if the Trump administration extends tariffs. So what's going on? Thomas Shannon is the former US ambassador to Brazil. First, I thought both the remarks and the threat of tariff was a very troubling development

in the US-Brazil relationship. This is a longstanding relationship of a lot of importance for both countries for obvious reasons to great continental democracies and economies in the Western hemisphere. And for President Trump to put himself into the middle of a political and judicial dispute in Brazil is distressing for the Brazilians, but I think distressing for anybody who values the bilateral relationship and then using a threat of tariffs to try to move the Brazilians in the case of the accusations against Bolsonaro is just not going to work. And so I just don't see any happy outcome in this current situation.

President Trump has put tariffs on plenty of countries, plenty of sectors too. Is it your contention though that what is happening in Brazil is as much political, his disapproval of the court case against the former president Bolsonaro, as it is economic? BG It certainly appears to be the case. I mean, the United States has a trade surplus with Brazil and has had one for quite a long time. The charges that the president has delivered against the Brazilians first relate to the BRICS summit and stands that Brazil has taken along with the other BRICS countries.

But then most recently, the concern about how President Bolsonaro is being treated during his court case, which the president himself links to how he was treated in the United States. And so from my point of view, this is almost an entirely political move by President Trump. Does he have a case that former President Bolsonaro is being mistreated? I don't believe so. I mean, we're in the midst of a court case now in Brazil that is going to lay out the facts. It is a case that has to run its course. And Brazilian institutions will make the determination.

But it certainly appears from the evidence that is available that President Bolsonaro upon losing the election began to work with other members of his government in order to prevent a peaceful transfer of power to Ignacio Lula da Silva who won that election. And so I think that Brazil is pursuing a case that has merit. Mr. Bolsonaro obviously denies that and will wait and see what happens in court. What's going to happen now in terms of Brazil's response though? It seems like they're going to put their own tariffs on the US.

This is what President Lula indicated in a statement that he made earlier today. We'll see how they do that on what items. It would be regrettable, obviously, but the Brazilians have to respond for political reasons. Is there an argument to be made that this, in terms of domestic policy, popularity could even boost President Lula that fighting back against President Trump would be good for his own domestic standing? It could very well be. I mean, this is an interesting political moment in Brazil at this point in time. President Lula's popularity has been declining over time, and although

as has former President Bolsonaro's, but the country still has a very strong center-right political movement. And in that regard, I also think that what President Trump has done is really an effort to tip political favor in the center-right towards President Bolsonaro or someone in his family. I don't think it's going to work. But it's an effort to involve the United States in the intimacies of Brazilian politics that is not wise. The former US ambassador to Brazil, Thomas Shannon, speaking to the BBC's James Koppner. Scientists have discovered a new technique they say could stop cancer patients from losing

their hair during chemotherapy by cooling the scalp of the patients and by adding a lotion that contains antioxidants, they managed to prevent the medication from reaching and damaging their hair follicles. Dr Nick Georgiopoulos from Sheffield Hallam University is one of the researchers behind this. Dr. Nick Georgiopoulos Our study has shown that we have now a better understanding of what temperature we need to reach in order for cooling to be effective. For some patients, scalp cooling can work very well, but it doesn't work as well for others. And that's where with our research

we try to acquire a better understanding of why that is. Our research has shown that cooling can be so, so effective at protecting hair follicles, completely rescuing them from the toxicity of chemotherapy. However, it is obvious to us now that the reason why it might not work for some patients is because the scalp hasn't reached adequately low temperature for it to be effective. For some patients and for some chemotherapy treatments,

scalp cooling can be 90% effective. You can completely prevent hair loss, but for other chemotherapy treatments, it does not work as well. We believe that this could be perhaps because these chemotherapy drugs are a bit more toxic. Also because naturally the heads of some of the patients will not cool adequately enough. The device delivers the same amount of cooling, just that there is patient variability. Hair loss is visible. It is a very highly distressing and traumatic side effect of cancer treatment.

Frighteningly, some patients may even refuse chemotherapy due to the fear of hair loss. Of course, the chemotherapy is there to save the lives and that's important, but losing the hair essentially tells them as they look in the mirror, and also not just themselves, but their families and their friends that they're sick. It reminds them of that. So it affects their identity, their dignity, their privacy during what is quite a challenging time in their lives. So it is important for us to be able to prevent the hair loss and help them deal with the journey so much better with more positive spirit.

Dr Nick Georgiopoulos. And that's all from us for now, but there'll be a new edition of the Global News podcast later. If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email. The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on x at BBC World Service. Use the hashtag globalnewspod. This edition was mixed by Rozenwin, Doral and the producer was David Lewis. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Katie Watson. Until next time, goodbye.