The Fourcast

Mexicans are the biggest consumers of surgery drinks in the world. But the country’s sugar obsession is causing what health officials are calling a diabetes emergency.

In some poor towns across the country, Coca-Cola is even more available than fresh water. 

Our reporter, Guillermos Galdos went to Chiapas for Unreported World, the poorest state in Mexico, where people drink on average two litres of sugary drinks a day, and Coca-Cola is King. 

He met the families in the thick of a diabetes crisis and also encountered people who in fact use Coca-Cola to treat illnesses, believing the drink has special healing powers. 

So why are fizzy drinks so popular in this part of the world and what will happen if the sugar epidemic continues? 

 

Rishi Sunak presents his Autumn Budget today, with some of the sweeteners already released; public sector pay rises and a hike in the national living wage.

That fits in with Boris Johnson’s vision: to completely transform our economy with a revolutionary new model of high wages, high skills and high productivity.

But will this work? Or will it be made redundant with higher costs of living?

In today’s podcast we talk to our Economics Correspondent Helia Ebrahimi to explain if Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak can deliver on their new economic model and create a brighter future.

Newcastle United's Saudi Arabian backed takeover is being hailed by many fans in the city as a great moment the chance for the sleeping giant to finally reach the summit of the Premier League.

But for critics and indeed other fans, this is the last straw. The moral bankruptcy of a billionaire business that was once a simple game at the heart of the community. 

In today's podcast, we hear from our chief correspondent, Alex Thompson, who as a Newcastle fan we have allowed to drop his normal impartiality to give his thoughts on his club's new owners. And Kiran sits down with the author, Joshua Robinson, about how we got here. How a sport dominated by decaying grounds and violent fans in the 80s became a global phenomenon that has become the plaything of billionaires and autocrats, with accusations of sportswashing.

Sources: Sky Sport, BBC Sport, France 24

Georgia's surrogacy industry is booming, as prospective parents from around the world turn to clinics with modest prices to help provide their dream of a family. But does this largely self-regulating industry safeguard the thousands of women who are turning to surrogacy to make a living?

Anja Popp went to Georgia for Unreported World, and found a largely unregulated surrogacy market, where wealthy couples can have multiple babies at the same time, and where there is no shortage of vulnerable women to meet the demand.

Sir David Amess was a working class Plaistow boy made a proud Essex man, who sat in Parliament for nearly 40 years. 

A man who put the people first and who was more at home walking the streets of Southend West than Westminster.

While listening to his constituents at his weekly surgery, he was killed.

This week, MPs from all sides and from all backgrounds paid their respects to a great parliamentarian.

Political Correspondent Liz Bates talks about the past few days in UK politics, as we all come to terms with another politician killed in our democracy.

The first ever vaccine for malaria has been approved by the WHO and will now be rolled out across sub-Saharan Africa and in other regions, in a bid to save thousands of children’s lives.

A chance to change the course of a disease that in 2019 killed more than 260,000 children in Africa.

In today’s podcast, Dr Mary Hamel, who leads the WHO’s malaria vaccine implementation program, talks about the effectiveness of this vaccine and whether one day we really could see the eradication of malaria.

Sources: ITN, WHO, AP

Year after year, the NHS faces a deluge of “winter pressures”, as seasonal illnesses are passed around and beds fill up. 

But with the ongoing pandemic and a huge backlog already adding pressure, will the NHS cope this year? And what are the government’s plans to get us through it?

Today, our Health and Social Care editor Victoria Macdonald talks us through the government’s plan this winter, and asks whether the Covid Plan A, which focuses on vaccines and boosters, will be enough to stop us from resorting to Covid Plan B, and the more extreme measures that dominated our lives for most of the past 18 months and ruined Christmas last year.

For decades, there has been a delicate peace off the coast of China. In recent days, that peace has felt at its most fragile, with talk of the worst relations in 40 years and murmurs about a coming invasion, a coming war on the island of Taiwan.

And a new pact between the Americans, the British and the Australians has heightened tensions like never before.

In today’s podcast, we speak to both our international editor Lindsey Hilsum and Dr Jie Yu from Chatham House about the ongoing tensions in the region, the history behind that fragile peace in Taiwan - and whether we are on the cusp of conflict or simply the start of a truly 21st century cold war.

Sources: DW News, ABC News, France 24

Just over a year ago, Belarus, known as the last dictatorship in Europe, saw some of the biggest protests in its history. They followed yet another presidential election where Alexander Lukashenko was the apparent victor, his sixth straight win in 26 years.

But this time the opposition was led by three, inspiring women, who not just challenged the president’s authority more than ever before but made many people in Belarus feel change was possible.

Today, our correspondent Paraic O’Brien looks at the past year in Belarus, what the effect of the clampdown by Lukashenko has done to the opposition movement, and whether recent events, from the sentencing of one of the key leaders to the infamous Ryanair arrest, show that real change is still a long way off in Minsk.

It's been nearly two weeks since the results of the German election came in. And still, Angela Merkel remains in post at the Chancellery in Berlin.    With no knock-out winner in these elections, what type of government do Germans exactly want and what will they actually get?    In today's episode, our Europe editor Matt Frei explains the 2021 election results that saw the SPD emerge from the ashes of 2017 and Merkel's party record their worst result since World War Two.   And in an election framed as a climate election while the Greens doubled their votes, will their failure to not finish in the top two mean they have to dilute their radical policies to enter into government? And does that mean this is not a change election, but more a continuity one?   Sources: BBC News, The Guardian