Russia gives North Korea more than one million barrels of oil, report finds
26:06 Share

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. A search for the truth behind an international drug smuggling plot. How are we going to unravel this all? From the BBC World Service, this is World of Secrets, Season 5, Finding Mr Fox. Search for World of Secrets wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

You're listening to the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. Hello, I'm Oliver Conway. We're recording this at 14 hours 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 mpox 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? MUSIC

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, Gene 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 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, 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. Yeah, so it looks like Russia is violating these 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 advisors who has come out and said that they now believe that Russia has supplied the North with air defense systems. And

particularly when we saw those troops be sent to Russia, this was seen as a game changer, a real escalation of 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. Jean 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, Rustem Umerov, said it was clear the aggressor was Russia. It's already a second time they escalate more within this year when they send the DPRK soldiers contingent. 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

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 Dnipro in southeast 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. 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 on to tomorrow.

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. And that's the nature of the offer at the moment. And 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 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 a year. They made that promise back in 2009 and they finally delivered on it in 2022. And it's the make-up of the money, I think, is 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 exchequers 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 actually in South America you have countries, so much of the climate finance is

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's probably a lot of negotiating to be done here and I think there's potential for a deal on both of those aspects there, greater finance and possibly greater language on cutting carbon as well. Matt McGrath at COP29 in Azerbaijan.

Medical staff battling the MPOX 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 MPOX 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 southeast of Congo, which in August was overwhelmed with patients. Anne Soy compiled this report from Nairobi. Three-year-old Atukuzwe Banisa is in pain. His face is covered in spots and his mouth has open sores.

He's 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. He administered eye drops. Then later his tongue got small sores. After one day, the rashes 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're only receiving two or three 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 Mpox 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 any time.

Experts say it's still too early to confirm what impact immunization has had, and there are also no vaccines for children yet. But whilst the cases in Luiro 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 MPOCs 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 at the forefront of tackling the outbreak is the Africa CDC. Its Director General, Dr. Jean Kassir, says the overall projections for the next few weeks are concerning. We are expecting to see increase of cases in December and January.

And with all 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, to start to see a decrease in terms of cases and deaths.

Back at Lwiro 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 Soy 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. SINKHOLES

A search for the truth behind an international drug smuggling plot. There's something on this boat. A tin of cocaine. There was a lot of adrenaline. I couldn't believe what was happening. And the man Brazilian police believe to be at its centre. Fox. Fox. Fox got the shots. From the BBC World Service, this is World of Secrets. Season 5, Finding Mr Fox. Search for World of Secrets wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

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 Bowes. 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 interview

Thank you very much.

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, travelled there for the first time since being appointed in February. He met Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, head of the Sudanese army, which has been battling the paramilitary rapid support forces. Jane.

James Cocknell asked Mr Perriello what he'd learnt about the situation in Sudan after travelling 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, you know, 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 has 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-Bahen, 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 Geziro State that are facing violence. We need to

work on these humanitarian pauses and corridors. So we welcomed 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. U.S. envoy for Sudan, Tom Perriello, talking to James Copnell.

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 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 Bicker has been to meet some of them. We're preparing for the 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 ventured 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 sinkholes. 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 sinkholes 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 Fei 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 recognize 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. Torchlight illuminates the many stalactites. And 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 Fay's life.

This town used to be very poor. We don't have much farmland. After developing tourism, the town received a 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 sparked angry debate online and some theatres in the US have imposed a singing ban. Vocal coach and session singer Cary 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 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...

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 somewhere south of Shocking next to us. You've paid good money to listen to 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 agree. If they're sing-along shows, then 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. 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. Gary 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 Ricardo McCarthy and produced by Chantal Hartle. Our editor is Karen Martin. I'm Oliver Conway. Until next time, goodbye.

Hello, I'm Simon Jack. And I'm Sing Sing. And together we host Good Bad Billionaire, the podcast exploring the minds, the motives and the money of some of the world's richest individuals. Every episode we pick a billionaire and we find out how they made their money. And then we judge them. Are they good, bad or just another billionaire? Good Bad Billionaire from the BBC World Service. Listen now wherever you get your BBC podcasts.