The first group of South African soldiers deployed to the Democratic Republic of Congo, arrive back in the country today. South Africa sent around one thousand five hundred troops to the DRC as part of a wider peacekeeping mission. In February, at least fourteen soldiers were killed during heavy clashes with the M23, a group fighting against the national government led by President Felix Tishekedi. At home in South Africa there has been public debate about the need for this deployment. Richard discusses the delayed end of mission amid reports of low morale and poor conditions in DRC with the BBC’s reporter, Nomsa Maseko.
Also, Ghana makes significant progress in reducing child labour
And does FIFA's expanded Club World Cup offer fresh opportunities to Africa's football clubs or not?
Presenter: Richard Kagoe
Producers: Bella Hassan and Yvette Twagiramariya in London and Charles Gitonga in Nairobi.
Technical Producer: Pat Sissons
Senior Journalist: Karnie Sharp
Editors: Alice Muthengi and Andre Lombard
Israel's military says Iran fired about 100 drones towards its territory, many of which were intercepted, in retaliation to Israeli air strikes overnight. Also: an update from the scene of crashed Air India flight AI17.
Israel has attacked Iran with military strikes that it says are targeting Tehran's nuclear programme. Iran says the head of its armed forces and the top commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard have been killed.
World War II bombs were defused in Cologne, Germany, which has inspired us to explore the science of diffusion and defusing!
First, we hear how new, artificially intelligent video generators are modelled on diffusion. We also hear about the health impacts of home aroma diffusers and candles.
We’re joined by conflict-mediator Gabrielle Rifkind of the Oxford Process, to discuss the psychological stakes behind defusing conflict in wars and at home.
We also taste-test the difference between raw and cooked broccoli, learn about in-insect synthesis, and explore an anechoic chamber.
All that, plus many more Unexpected Elements.
Presenter: Caroline Steel, with Tristan Ahtone and Edd Gent
Producer: Imaan Moin, with Alice Lipscombe-Southwell, Minnie Harrop and Debbie Kilbride
An investigation is underway into the crash of Air India flight AI-171, which went down shortly after take-off from Ahmedabad. Also: scientists discover a previously unknown species of dinosaur in Mongolia.
Air India has confirmed that only one of the 242 people on board its flight that crashed into a doctors' hostel in Ahmedabad has survived.
Also in the programme: Donald Trump has urged Israel not to launch an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities - we hear from a former US ambassador to Israel; and scientists have discovered a previously unknown species of dinosaur hidden in plain sight in a Mongolian museum's fossil collection.
(Photo: Air India plane with over 240 on board crashes after take-off in Ahmedabad - 12 June 2025. Credit: Siddharaj Solanki/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
ESA’s Solar Orbiter camera probe begins raising its orbit towards the sun’s poles, whilst Betelgeuse’s elusive buddy continues to sneak past our best telescopes.
Earlier this year, Solar Orbiter started to stretch its orbit over greater latitudes – effectively standing on cosmic tiptoes to catch a glimpse of the Sun’s poles. This week, we have seen the first ever pictures of them, and as solar scientist Steph Yardley tells us, the views will only get better.
Meanwhile, Andrea Dupree of the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and colleagues have had time to study new Hubble and Chandra telescope observations of the iconic star Betelgeuse searching for signs of its hypothesised binary companion – dubbed “Betelbuddy”. The papers that appeared on the Arxiv pre-print server have not yet been fully peer-reviewed, but it seems astronomers will have to keep looking.
Humans use machines to read gene sequences as best they can, but it takes time and is not perfect because we do not know what all of it means. Of course nature has its own genome reader – the ribosome. It is this that interprets the genetic instructions contained in our DNA and translates them into actual proteins. Viruses, of course, use it too when a cell gets infected. Shira Weingarten-Gabbay has this week demonstrated how scientists can make use of ribosomes too. Working somewhat in reverse, her team have identified many thousands of proteins previously unknown, that could for example provide targets for future vaccines or antivirals should the need arise.
Finally, Nanshu Lu and team in the University of Texas at Austin have been working for some years on two-dimensional wearable electronic “E-Tattoos” to monitor health non-invasively through our skin. Their latest work, describes “A wireless forehead e-tattoo for mental workload estimation”.
Presenter: Roland Pease
Producer: Alex Mansfield
Production co-ordinator: Jasmine Cerys George
Photo Credit: ESA & NASA/Solar Orbiter/SPICE Team, M. Janvier (ESA) & J. Plowman (SwRI)
The local police chief tells the BBC that 204 bodies have been recovered - it's not known how many of those victims were on the plane, or were on the ground when the plane crashed. One passenger has survived, a local police chief says, with Indian media reporting he is British. The plane crashed into accommodation used by doctors. We speak to a British MP in touch with the family members of some on board.
Also on the programme: Rioting – described by the police as “racist thuggery” – in Northern Ireland. And the new images from space that are helping explain the science of the sun.
(Photo: A tail of an Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner plane that crashed is seen stuck on a building after the incident in Ahmedabad, India. CREDIT: REUTERS/Amit Dave)
More than 240 people killed in a plane crash in Ahmedabad. The Air India flight crashed into a residential area shortly after take-off. Also, Iran accused of failing to meet nuclear safeguard obligations.
Hospital services in Ghana grind to a halt after a nurses' strike escalates
What are the implications of Afreximbank's credit rating being lowered to one notch above junk
And will Ecowas ever realise its dream of a borderless region?
Presenter: Richard Kagoe
Producers: Nyasha Michelle, Patricia Whitehorne and Tom Kavanagh in London. Blessing Aderogba in Lagos.
Technical Producer: Philip Bull
Senior Producer: Paul Bakibinga
Editors: Andre Lombard and Alice Muthengi.
