BBC

A desktop nuclear fusion reactor that uses electrochemistry to up the ante. Also, a global survey of human wildfire exposures finds Africa burning ahead, plus tiny swarming robots and record-breaking 2024 ice melts from glaciers on Svalbard.

Presenter: Roland Pease

Producer: Alex Mansfield

Production Coordinator: Jana Holesworth

(Image: The Thunderbird Reactor at the University of British Columbia (UBC). Credit: Berlinguette Group, UBC)

Fallon makes a suggestion, and Brad tries to broker peace in the tearoom.

The European Union and the White House have confirmed a 15% deal, including European cars and pharmaceuticals, in a joint statement clarifying their tentative trade deal announced last month.

And in our Africa series this month, today we discuss the African Continental Free Trade Area, which aims to create a single market for goods and services in the continent, boosting trade and economic integration.

Plus, Microsoft's head of artificial intelligence says he's alarmed by rising cases of a phenomenon dubbed "AI psychosis"—that’s relying so heavily on chatbots and losing touch with reality.

Uganda agrees a deal with the United States to take in failed asylum seekers provided they are not minors or people with criminal records

How does Zambia plan to tackle a gold rush that turned violent?

And why are gulper sharks under threat off the coast of Somalia’s Puntland state

Presenter Audrey Brown

Producers: Yvette Twagiramariya, Stefania Okereke and Priya Sippy in London. Charles Gitonga in Nairobi.

Technical producer: Philip Bull

Senior Producer: Paul Bakibinga

Editors: Maryam Abdalla, Andre Lombard and Alice Muthengi are our editors. I'm Audrey Brown. We'll talk again next time.

President Zelensky calls on allies to put Russia under greater pressure to stop the war in Ukraine, after the latest overnight bombardment - one of the biggest of the war. The attacks caused widespread damage, including to homes, factories and Ukraine's gas infrastructure. At least one person is reported to have died in Lviv, in the west. Also: a Ukrainian man has been arrested in connection with the sabotage of Nord Stream gas pipelines three years ago, and Palestinians are fleeing parts of Gaza City after the Israeli military began the first stages of a planned ground offensive, officials in the city say. And Frank Caprio, the American man known as the world's nicest judge, has died.

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]

Israel has launched a new assault on Gaza, stepping up its bombardment of northern suburbs Gaza City. We’ll hear from a journalist in the city.

Also in the programme: A torrent of Russian drones and missiles have hit Ukraine; a warning that AI might bring on psychosis; and the impact of tourism on Antarctica.

(Photo:  Palestinian family fleeing Gaza City.  Credit: Reuters)

Nolan talks to TUV leader Jim Allister and law lecturer Dr Ciara Fitzpatrick

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Emile Zola's greatest literary success, his thirteenth novel in a series exploring the extended Rougon-Macquart family. The relative here is Etienne Lantier, already known to Zola’s readers as one of the blighted branch of the family tree and his story is set in Northern France. It opens with Etienne trudging towards a coalmine at night seeking work, and soon he is caught up in a bleak world in which starving families struggle and then strike, as they try to hold on to the last scraps of their humanity and the hope of change. With Susan Harrow Ashley Watkins Chair of French at the University of Bristol Kate Griffiths Professor in French and Translation at Cardiff University And Edmund Birch Lecturer in French Literature and Director of Studies at Churchill College & Selwyn College, University of Cambridge Producer: Simon Tillotson Reading list: David Baguley, Naturalist Fiction: The Entropic Vision (Cambridge University Press, 1990) William Burgwinkle, Nicholas Hammond and Emma Wilson (eds.), The Cambridge History of French Literature (Cambridge University Press, 2011), particularly ‘Naturalism’ by Nicholas White Kate Griffiths, Emile Zola and the Artistry of Adaptation (Legenda, 2009) Kate Griffiths and Andrew Watts, Adapting Nineteenth-Century France: Literature in Film, Theatre, Television, Radio, and Print (University of Wales Press, 2013) Anna Gural-Migdal and Robert Singer (eds.), Zola and Film: Essays in the Art of Adaptation (McFarland & Co., 2005) Susan Harrow, Zola, The Body Modern: Pressures and Prospects of Representation (Legenda, 2010) F. W. J. Hemmings, The Life and Times of Emile Zola (first published 1977; Bloomsbury, 2013) William Dean Howells, Emile Zola (The Floating Press, 2018) Lida Maxwell, Public Trials: Burke, Zola, Arendt, and the Politics of Lost Causes (Oxford University Press, 2014) Brian Nelson, Emile Zola: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2020) Brian Nelson (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Emile Zola (Cambridge University Press, 2007) Sandy Petrey, Realism and Revolution: Balzac, Stendhal, Zola, and the Performances of History (Cornell University Press, 1988) Arthur Rose, ‘Coal politics: receiving Emile Zola's Germinal’ (Modern & contemporary France, 2021, Vol.29, 2) Philip D. Walker, Emile Zola (Routledge, 1969) Emile Zola (trans. Peter Collier), Germinal (Oxford University Press, 1993) Emile Zola (trans. Roger Pearson), Germinal (Penguin Classics, 2004)

Spanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Melvyn Bragg and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.

What is going on with US science? Science Journalist Roland Pease asks whether the rounds of cuts, reorganisations and political strong-arming can be weathered, and how they will likely affect us all.

80 years after Vannevar Bush proposed what became the pact between government and universities that led to decades of global scientific dominance, is the edifice being toppled?

Bush’s report “Science, The Endless Frontier” led to the unwritten pact between university scientists and government funding that underpinned US leadership until now. “Trust us with the money, we’ll give you the global scientific advantage”.

Today, US scientists fear the Trump administration is ripping up that agreement. Mandating what and what can’t be studied, who can study it, and re-defining expertise, government funded science in the US is being withered. The specialist agencies are either being closed down or defunded to the extent that many tens of thousands of government scientists are already unemployed. Multi-year experiments are being closed down uncompleted. Top universities are besieged by mandates on who and how they hire, tied to their future funding. Data streams that benefit researchers around the globe are being switched off. Even definitions of what counts as evidence are being re-drafted.

Science is a complex, interwoven and international activity. The administration's declared aim is "Restoring Gold Standard Science", but scientific bodies fear its actions will cede global leadership to China, and that the whole world may be poorer.

Can the coming storm be weathered, even if we can no longer predict it?

Produced by Alex Mansfield

Written and Presented by Roland Pease

Israel says it has begun 'preliminary actions' of a planned ground offensive to capture and occupy all of Gaza City. It comes as sixty thousand reservists are called up to bolster the operation which is expected to last until next year. Meanwhile, the Israeli government also approves a highly contentious plan for a new settlement near Jerusalem which would cut the occupied West Bank in two. We hear an Israeli and Palestinian perspective. Also: aid agencies in Somalia have raised the alarm over a dramatic rise in diphtheria, and a new superfood for bees to help protect them from climate change.

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]