Canadian mining giant Barrick halted its operations in Mali after the government seized gold stocks worth $245 million.
What's the story behind the Nigerian words added to the Oxford English dictionary ?
And what the death of the warlord turned politician Prince Yormie Johnson means for Liberia.
Presenter: Audrey Brown
Producers: Frenny Jowi in Nairobi with Victor Sylver, Blessing Aderogba, Rob Wilson, and Nyasha Michelle in London.
Senior Producer: Paul Bakibinga
Technical Producer:Craig Kingham
Editors : Andre Lombard and Alice Muthengi
After the comic malfunctions of a self-driving car, which drove its passenger/prisoner in endless circles, Unexpected Elements rounds its attention on the humble circle.
Explore how one man calculated the circumference of the Earth 2,000 years before GPS was invented, then be spellbound by the Magic Circle and the mysterious woman who broke into it. And as we hit the five-year anniversary of the Covid pandemic, we take a look at the cycle of infection and mutation, before asking, 'why don’t we have one antiviral pill that kills them all?'
We’re joined by evolutionary psychologist Professor Robin Dunbar, who calculated Dunbar’s number; that is, the maximum number of folks you can hold onto in your circle of friends... five? 500? 5,000? Robin reveals how many REAL friends science says you can have.
Presenters: Marnie Chesterton, with Camilla Mota and Phillys Mwatee
Producers: Harrison Lewis, with Alice Lipscombe-Southwell and William Hornbrook
New types of snake-bite anti-venoms are designed by AI. Also, how much meat did human ancestors eat? How the Baltic Nord Stream gas pipeline rupture of 2022 was the biggest single release of methane ever caused by humans, and that Pluto met Charon, not with a bang, but more of a kiss.
Using a high precision technique for spotting different isotopes of Nitrogen, Tina Lüdecke of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry has concluded that a group of early hominin Australopithecus living in South Africa were predominantly vegetarian, putting the date that human ancestors started eating meat (and thence growing bigger brains) to more recently. The technique, she thinks, can enlighten prehistoric food webs and ecologies from millions of years ago.
Last year’s Nobel prizes showed the potential new techniques of AI to design synthetic proteins. Timothy P Jenkins and colleagues decided to try designing treatments for snakebite venoms, with remarkable apparent success. It could save many thousands of lives a year.
Since the September 2022 explosions at the Nord Stream gas pipeline in the Baltic sea, many different analyses of how much methane was released have provided a variety of estimates. This week, scientists at the UNEP International Methane emissions observatory – including Stephen Harris - published a study estimating it to be a little under half a million tonnes, making it by far the single biggest human caused release of this most dangerous greenhouse gas. Yet, they say, even that is a tiny fraction of what is released overall around the world every year.
And Finally, a new analysis of the original formation of the Pluto-Charon binary Dwarf Planetary system suggests they – and possibly many other Kuiper belt pairing – were born of a gentle astronomical dance and a peck on the cheek, rather than the catastrophic collision we associate with the earth-moon’s fiery first date. And it may have lasted just a matter of days, according to author Adeene Denton of the University of Arizona.
Presenter: Roland Pease
Producer: Alex Mansfield
Production Coordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth
Mozambique’s new president, Daniel Chapo, has been sworn in, after winning a violently disputed election held in October last year. Many people have been killed in clashes with the police and the opposition is still calling for protests. So what next for Mozambique under President Daniel Chapo?
How will the China-based online giant Temu, now operating in Nigeria, affect similar local companies?
Also in the podcast, we hear from the Kenyan woman who spent eight years in a Malaysian prison – more than three of them on death row – after being convicted for trafficking drugs, but was released when an appeals court accepted she was an ‘innocent carrier’.
Presenter: Audrey Brown
Producers: Yvette Twagiramariya, Stephania Okereke, and Sunita Nahar in London. Frenny Jowi was in Nairobi
Senior Producer: Patricia Whitehorne
Technical Producer: Gabriel O'Regan
Editors: Andre Lombard and Alice Muthengi
Mozambique’s new president, Daniel Chapo, has been sworn in, after winning a violently disputed election held in October last year. Many people have been killed in clashes with the police and the opposition is still calling for protests. So what next for Mozambique under President Daniel Chapo?
How will the China-based online giant Temu, now operating in Nigeria, affect similar local companies?
Also in the podcast, we hear from the Kenyan woman who spent eight years in a Malaysian prison – more than three of them on death row – after being convicted for trafficking drugs, but was released when an appeals court accepted she was an ‘innocent carrier’.
Presenter: Audrey Brown
Producers: Yvette Twagiramariya, Stephania Okereke, and Sunita Nahar in London. Frenny Jowi was in Nairobi
Senior Producer: Patricia Whitehorne
Technical Producer: Gabriel O'Regan
Editors: Andre Lombard and Alice Muthengi
Dozens of survivors and dead pulled from an abandoned South African gold mine
How Russia is expanding its partnership in Africa's nuclear sector
And ice hockey gains popularity in Kenya.
Presenter: Audrey Brown
Producers: Victor Sylver, Nyasha Michelle, Priya Sippy and Sunita Nahar
Senior Producer: Paul Bakibinga
Technical Producer: Chris Kouzaris
Editors: Andre Lombard and Alice Muthengi .
Kenya's high court has struck down a law that criminalised the act of attempting suicide. We hear from one of the petitioners who brought the challenge, on why the judge's ruling is important.
Also in the podcast, we revisit the dumpsite in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, that collapsed and killed more than 30 people last August. How is the city managing its waste problem?
And a shop owner tells us about the devastating impact of a fire at one of the biggest open air markets in Ghana, and efforts to rebuild the area.
Presenter: Audrey Brown
Producers: Yvette Twagiramariya, Bella Hassan and Sunita Nahar in London. Frenny Jowi was in Nairobi
Senior Producer: Patricia Whitehorne
Technical Producer: Gabriel O'Regan
Editors: Andre Lombard and Alice Muthengi
Medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) pulls out of the largest free hospital in Sudan’s capital Khartoum.
Fears over a cargo of explosive fertiliser in a harbour in Ivory Coast
And who are the Baye Fall muslims in Senegal?
Presenter: Audrey Brown
Producers: Amie Liebovitz and Nyasha Michelle in London and Blessing Aderogba in Lagos.
Senior Producer : Paul Bakibinga
Technical Producer: Francesca Dunne
Editors: Andre Lombard and Alice Muthengi
Donald Trump has repeated his desire to control Greenland as a matter of national security, targeting Russian and Chinese interest in the Arctic. Competition is heating up over shipping routes and stores of natural resources.
The Global Story brings you one big story every weekday, making sense of the news with our experts around the world. Insights you can trust, from the BBC World Service. For more, go to bbcworldservice.com/globalstory or search for The Global Story wherever you got this podcast.
We meet a Texas woman whose donated breastmilk helped thousands of premature babies. Also: surviving thirteen days alone in Australia's mountains; a chess playing NBA star; and appealing for friends to tackle loneliness.
