BBC

**This programme contains discriminatory language** On Greece’s Mount Athos, the most holy site in Eastern Orthodox Christianity, lies a rift in the faith. For more than 20 years, a banned monastery has operated illegally and at times violently towards their sacred community. Nikos Papanikolaou visits these excommunicated monks ready to become martyrs in order to protect their ultra-orthodox way of life. The inhabitants of Esphigmenou monastery are known as Greece’s "rebel monks". Living on a remote peninsula in the north of the country, they are holed up in their fortress-like monastery, emblazoned with a banner reading "Orthodoxy or Death". This schismatic brotherhood broke away from the mainstream church decades ago, an act which has led to their excommunication and violent clashes with police after attempts to evict them from their monastery. Nikos Papanikolaou travels to Mount Athos to meet Esphigmenou’s leader, Abbot Methodios.

This episode of The Documentary, comes to you from Heart and Soul, exploring personal approaches to spirituality from around the world.

Sam Fenwick takes a look at the soaring cost of cybercrime, as attacks sweep across industries and threaten global business stability, spotlighting Japan’s Asahi Breweries, one of the latest victims.

A liquefied natural gas platform meant to bring economic prosperity in the West African nation of Senegal is at the centre of controversy.

And in Tokyo, the race to lead Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party heats up. With five contenders and the economy centre stage, we explore what’s at stake for the nation’s future.

Manchester police have named the man they say attacked a synagogue in the city as 35-year-old Jihad Al-Shamie, a British citizen of Syrian descent. The car ramming and stabbing attack left two Jewish men dead. We hear some of the shock and fear in Europe's biggest Jewish neighbourhood and ask if counter-terrorism legislation is up to date.

Also on the programme:

A former chief of staff for Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May says the pledge by new leader Kemi Badenoch to scrap the 2008 Climate Change Act if she gets into office is "bad policy and bad politics".

And 75 years since the first edition of Peanuts, with its lovable main character Charlie Brown, we speak to artist and fan Andy Holden.

The British Prime Minister Keir Starmer says Britain must defeat what he called the "rising hatred of Jewish people", after a deadly attack at a synagogue. Two Jewish people were killed and four others injured after a car was driven towards worshippers at the site in Manchester. Police declared it a terrorist incident. They shot the suspect dead.

Also in the programme: Venezuela's opposition leader tells us she welcomes America's attacks on alleged drug smugglers, saying they'll force President out. We look at protests in Morocco; and is Formula One getting too hot for the safety of its drivers?

(Photo: A member of the Jewish community holds a Torah at a police cordon in Manchester, Britain, 2 October 2025. Credit: Photo by Adam Vaughan /EPA/ Shutterstock)

Scientists detect for the first time an unknown source of GPS interference coming from space. Also, as AI begins to design more and more DNA sequences being manufactured synthetically, how can those manufacturers be sure that what their customers are asking for will not produce toxic proteins or lethal weapons? And… how camera traps in polish forests reveal that the big bad wolf is more scared of humans than anything else.

For that last few years instances of deliberate jamming and interference of GNSS signals has become an expected feature of the wars the world is suffering. Yet this disruption of the signals that all of us use to navigate and tell the time nearly always emanate from devices on the ground, or maybe in the air. But in ongoing research reported recently by Todd Humphreys of University of Texas at Austin and colleagues around the world is beginning to reveal that since 2019 an intermittent yet powerful signal has been causing GPS failures across Europe and the North Atlantic. The episodes have been thankfully brief so far, but all the signs suggest it comes not from soldiers or aeroplanes, but from a distantly orbiting satellite somewhere over the Baltic Sea. It may not be malevolent, it could be a fault, but the net of suspicion is tightening.

A team of scientists including some from Microsoft report today in a paper in the journal Science an investigation to try to strengthen the vetting of synthetic DNA requests around the world. As AI-designed sequencies increase in number and application, the factories that produce the bespoke DNA are in danger of making and supplying potentially dangerous sequences to customers with malicious intents. But how do you spot the bad proteins out of the almost infinite possible DNA recipes? Tessa Alexanian of the International Biosecurity and Biosafety Initiative for Science, and one of the authors explains some of the thinking.

Finally, Liana Zanette of Western University in Ontario and colleagues have been hanging around in Polish forests scaring wolves. Why? Because as wolf numbers rise in protected reserves, more and more human-wolf interactions occur. And a suspicion has arisen that the legal protection they enjoy has led to them losing their fear of humans in a dangerous way. Not so, says Liana’s team, blowing away the straw arguments and setting fire to the political motivation to reduce their protection status. Wolves are still terrified of Nature’s apex predator – us.

Presenter: Roland Pease

Producer: Alex Mansfield

Production Coordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth

(Image: Simulation screen showing various flights for transportation and passengers. Credit: Oundum via Getty Images).

Paul faces an emergency, and Pip struggles with canine complications.

At least two people have been killed in an attack outside a synagogue in Manchester in northern England on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. Three others are in a serious condition after the incident, in which a car was driven at people and a man was stabbed. Greater Manchester Police have confirmed the suspected assailant was shot dead by armed officers. Detectives have declared it a terrorist attack. Also: the head of Hamas’s armed wing in Gaza tells mediators he does not agree to the plan set out by US President Donald Trump to end the war with Israel. Rescue workers in Indonesia say there are no longer any signs of life under the rubble of a school which collapsed in East Java, with nearly sixty people still missing. Britain's Royal Society is marking 75 years since the mathematician and Second World War codebreaker, Alan Turing, created a test to help distinguish a machine from a human. And an ice core from Antarctica that may be more than 1.5 million years old is being melted down by scientists to unlock key information about Earth's climate.

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: [email protected]

Elon Musk has become the first person ever to reach a net worth of more than $500billion. But how did he get to this point?

French authorities have charged the captain of an oil tanker travelling from Russia with refusing to follow instructions.

In Japan, who will be the next Prime Minister?

Also in Japan, the country is days away from running out of the nation's most popular beer.

Presenter: Leanna Byrne

Producer: Niamh Mc Dermott

Editor: Justin Bones

Violent clashes, arrests and deaths during Morocco’s GenZ 212 protests

Why Senegal's fishermen are blaming a BP natural gas project for lack of fish

And Nigeria's First Lady raises $13million for national library – but why has it taken so long?

Presenter : Nyasha Michelle

Producers: Yvette Twagiramariya, Mark Wilberforce, Bella Hassan and Joseph Keen in London. Makuochi Okafor was in Lagos.

Senior Producer: Paul Bakibinga

Technical Producer: Pat Sissons

Editors: Andre Lombard and Alice Muthengi.

Two people have been killed by a car that drove into a crowd outside a British synagogue on the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur. Another man was stabbed at the site. We hear the latest news on the incident.

Also in the programme: a wide-ranging interview with the leader of the Venezuelan opposition, Maria Corina Machado, who is in hiding after being barred from last year's election; and a BBC analysis of Ukrainian drone attacks against Russian oil refineries.

We also hear about a new exhibition in Cambridge that sheds light on craftspeople in ancient Egypt.

(Photo: People gather near the scene following an incident outside a synagogue in Manchester, Credit: REUTERS/Temilade Adelaja)