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If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed?
In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed.
Hundreds killed, but even now we still don't know for sure who did it.
It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories.
I'm Helena Merriman and in a new BBC series I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story.
What did they miss the first time?
The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs.
Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.
I'm Keith Adams and at 4 o'clock GMT on Sunday the 1st of February, these are our main stories.
A second woman has alleged she was sent to Britain by the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to have sex with Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.
He's always denied any wrongdoing.
There have been several explosions in Iran as Tehran seeks to avert US military action with talks in Ankara.
And a US federal judge denies Minnesota's request to halt immigration operations in the state.
Also in this podcast...
We used to have a lot of American humanist cinema in the 70s and 80s family stories, stories about love and existential questions, and maybe not so much anymore.
Why European films are making waves in Hollywood.
And should you dress up your Doberman?
Dogs know their own minds.
I've seen dogs where, if an owner is putting something on them that they're not comfortable in, that dog will not walk.
A second woman has alleged she was sent to the UK by Jeffrey Epstein to have sex with Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.
Her lawyer, Brad Edwards, says the former prince is aware of the woman's name, but that his lawyers stopped communicating after Andrew was stripped of his titles and honours last year.
Mr Edwards also represented Virginia Dufresne, the first woman to allege she was brought to London to have sex with Mr Mountbatten-Windsor when she was 17.
Chi-Chi Izunda has this report.
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, once a prominent member of the royal family living in disgrace.
Now a second woman alleges she was sent to him for a sexual encounter on the instruction of the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Whoever you are, nobody is above the law.
Her lawyer is Brad Edwards, who represents hundreds of Epstein's victims.
There are certain people, certain victims, that Prince Andrew hurt.
The woman is alleging she was flown to the UK by Epstein and her lawyer says it was to comply sexually with Andrew.
She says she was in her 20s and is claiming the sex occurred at Royal Lodge, the 30-bedroom Windsor home.
The former prince has been asked to leave because of his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.
This is the first time an accusation has been made involving royal residences.
We're talking about at least one woman who was sent by Jeffrey Epstein over to Prince Andrew and she even, after a night with Prince Andrew, had a tour of Buckingham Palace.
So I just want to go back a step.
We are not talking about Virginia Dufresne.
We are not talking about Virginia Dufresne.
Virginia Dufresne, who took her own life last year, accused the former Duke of York of having sex with her when she was 17.
In 2022, Dufresne and the former prince settled a civil lawsuit for an estimated 12 million.
Andrew has always denied her accusations.
BBC News has seen an email exchange between Andrew and the woman making arrangements for the meeting in 2010.
That's just weeks after Epstein's sentence ended for soliciting sex from a 14-year-old girl.
And the introduction was made because of Jeffrey Epstein.
The introduction was made by Jeffrey Epstein because of his close association and friendship with Prince Andrew.
And with the release of millions of documents, images and video footage from the US government's investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, it is clear that the pair had a close association and friendship.
BBC News has repeatedly asked Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor for comment about these new allegations, but so far he has not responded.
And at this point in time, we have no one to even communicate with on behalf of Prince Andrew.
He's seemingly been disconnected from his lawyers, which was the only way to kind of communicate with him about this.
I mean all we can do is file a civil lawsuit.
Last year, the king formally removed Andrew's styles and honours, including his title of prince.
The statement from Buckingham Palace in October said, their majesties wish to make clear that their thoughts and utmost sympathies have been and will remain with the victims and survivors of any and all forms of abuse.
Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide in 2019.
But the Epstein story is still in the news because the women he abused are still fighting for justice.
Chi Chi is under reporting.
Well, there are several challenges when it comes to checking the veracity of images released from the Epstein files.
Paul Brown is a senior journalist with BBC Verify.
He told Claire Richardson about the techniques his team have been using as they continue to comb through the documents.
This really starts with the data scientist team that we have here at Verify.
They upload all these documents to a system which turns it into a searchable database.
So we are able to search these documents by names, by organizations, by locations.
It makes it a lot easier to manage.
What they're also able to do is alert us to images and videos within the files.
And the part of the team that I am in, we specialize in kind of visual analysis.
So this is really helpful for us.
We can start analyzing those images and see what information we can glean from them.
Tell us more about how you conduct that visual analysis.
What are the techniques and tools that you have available?
Well, there are several, and each task requires a different one.
But the most basic is reverse image search.
Now, this is what we use often on every piece of verification that we do.
This is a technique to see whether it has appeared on the internet before.
Now, this is very useful.
In this case, we can identify which of the images in the latest releases are new.
But it also helps with a key question of any kind of verification task, which is where this happened. you can help with what we call geolocation identifying the location where these photographs were taken and i can give you two examples if you'll indulge me here and they both involve andrew mountbatten-winsor if you look at the live page on the website today you'll notice some work from my colleague jay corton who managed to identify this image of andrew mountbatten-winsor he's on the floor on his hands and knees and there's a woman lying on the floor it's It's a bizarre image in itself, but what we were able to identify in the background were certain interior design features which were consistent with what we've seen in other imagery of Jeffrey Epstein's New York City flat.
So we were able to make that assessment that this may well have been taken within that property.
Another example from the last release of Epstein Files, also involving Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, with him lying across the laps of what appear to be women.
We were able to look at the background again and notice that there's a fireplace in the background.
And we spotted that that was actually in Sandringham, the royal residence in Sandringham.
And that was just through reverse image search.
Google was able to identify the similarities between that image and other reference images online.
And Paul, it is increasingly difficult these days to tell what's real and what's not, and whether it's even from the appropriate time frame that it proclaims to be from.
Are there limitations to this work that you're doing, moments where you just think we can't really say one way or the other?
Where this is from.
Yes, lots.
As I mentioned, one of the key questions of verification is where, the other question is when.
And when you've got a large dump of files from a long time span and they're all coming online at the same time, it's very, very difficult to identify the when.
But we do our best at it.
For example, there are photographs of Ghislaine Maxwell with a birthday cake.
The photographs have a date stamp on it.
They've got the day, 24, but not the month or the year.
But we know her birthday is on Christmas Day.
We can also figure from the sequence of these images that they were taken on Little St James Island.
So while we can't necessarily identify the year, we can pick information out of that.
Who was there on the island at that time?
That's an informal gathering.
We can use facial recognition tools to identify individuals on that island at that time.
So it all builds the picture.
We can share that information with our colleagues in the newsroom and they can start building a picture of what these files actually reveal.
Paul Brown from BBC Verify.
Tensions are high in Iran after a series of explosions across the country.
The blasts said to have been gas.
Explosions occurred in the southern port city of Bandar Abbas, the central city of Ahwaz, and also in northern Iran, killing at least six people.
Tehran has denied reports that one of the casualties was a senior Revolutionary Guard commander.
It all comes amid the increasing threat of military action by the United States.
But the head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council said progress had been made towards negotiations with Washington.
Hashayar Junaidi from the BBC's Persian service gave us this analysis.
President Trump said that Iran wants to negotiate and we know that there's been no negotiation, no talks between Iran and the US after the 12-day war this past June.
But there has been a lot of diplomatic efforts and mediation going on.
Iranian foreign minister was in Turkey last week.
And he talked to his Turkish counterpart and the Turkish president.
Today we had the Qatari prime minister and foreign minister visit Iran for a very short trip to talk to the Iranian foreign minister and also the secretary of the Iranian National Council.
There is an understanding that he may have relayed some form of message from the Americans to the Iranians.
And we see President Trump is saying that Iran wants to talk and he's open to talks, and then he says we have to see how it goes forward.
One thing that President Trump, in his interview today with Fox News, as as before, in addition to talking about negotiations and being open to talks with the Iranians, keeps on mentioning that there's a big American armada in the region neighboring Iran, and then compares that to Venezuela.
At the same time, he refers that there was a previous round of talks that resulted in the US bombing Iranian nuclear facilities.
So it seems that in these talks there's a big stick, no carrot for Iran.
The Iranian regime knows that it's in a very difficult situation, considering that there were unrest and protests in the country last month.
So the Iranian regime is in a difficult position, but it wants to find a way out.
The Iranian foreign minister says that Iran is ready to provide guarantees that it's not seeking a nuclear weapon.
Well, this is not a new thing.
They have talked about this before.
But as President Trump says, Iran should forget about any kind of nuclear activity.
The Americans want Iran to stop enrichment.
They want Iran to hand over the highly enriched uranium that they have stockpiled somewhere.
And Iran says it's under the rubbles of the bombed facilities.
At the same time, they want Iran to stop supporting the proxy groups, proxy elements in the Middle East.
So these are high demands and it's not very easy for the Iranian regime to let go of its ballistic missile program, a demand by the Americans.
They want to limit Iran's ballistic missiles.
It's difficult for them to stop enrichment, but they're in a position that they are trying to find a way out through diplomacy.
Now these talks, including the recent today's trip by the Qatari foreign minister to Tehran, could be the final gasps of diplomacy or may manage somehow to resuscitate diplomacy and give some briefing space for diplomacy to go on.
Khashoggi from BBC Persian.
Now, grab your popcorn.
The Oscars are just weeks away and the Hollywood Awards season is gathering momentum.
But this year the movie industry is seeing European productions and non-English language cinema making historic gains.
So what's it got to do with geopolitics?
Tom Brook reports from Brussels.
At the recent European Film Awards in Berlin, the Norwegian family drama Sentimental Value picked up a slew of top prizes.
With an impressive Scandinavian cast featuring Stellan Skarsgård and the presence of a US star, Elle Fanning.
It then went on to collect nine Oscar nominations in major categories last week.
It's become one of Norway's most successful films.
Its Oscar-nominated star, Swedish acting legend Stellan Skarsgård, sees this well-crafted European film as having a topical theme the story of estranged people trying to come to terms with one another.
It's about people connecting with each other, or trying to connect with each other and failing to connect with each other, and lack of language.
Sentimental Value is not the only European success story.
A French-Spanish co-production, Sarat.
The story of a father and son in the Moroccan desert searching for a missing family member and encountering an electronic rave party has won widespread praise and nominations too.
Major figures in European cinema, including Oscar-winning actor Juliette Binoche, are pleased to see European storytelling from the continent gaining in profile.
I think we have beautiful artists that are influencing all of the cinema in the world.
This surge in recognition and respect for European cinema has some connection to the world's changing geopolitics.
In Brussels, in recent times, there's been pushback by European leaders against the United States.
And, in the movie world, European-based members of the Academy, that is the entity in Los Angeles that hands out the Oscar statues, have also been exercising their power.
Now an estimated 24 of Oscar voters live outside the US, many in Europe, and they support their regional cinema.
That's partly why European-backed productions are enjoying a moment in the sun.
And while Hollywood may be experiencing success with video game-inspired films, like a Minecraft movie, one of the top-grossing pictures of last year, there is the view that the studios have dropped the ball and stopped making movies for grown-ups, providing European filmmakers with a window of opportunity.
Joachim Trier, the Oscar-nominated director of Norway's Sentimental Value, detects less originality nowadays in US mainstream cinema.
There are still some voices in America that are allowed to express themselves very freely and do interesting stuff, but it's true.
We used to have a lot of American humanist cinema in the 70s and 80s family stories, stories about love and existential questions, and maybe not so much anymore.
So, of course, we are glad that now they're looking to us to get those kinds of stories.
And it's not just European-backed cinema which is being showcased in US and UK awards contests.
Non-English language cinema is being enthusiastically embraced too.
The Brazilian film The Secret Agent, set during the years of military dictatorship in Brazil in the 1970s, got four Oscar nominations.
And the highly emotional French-Tunisian film The Voice of Hind Rajab on the killing of a young Palestinian girl has also been getting recognition.
It could just be temporary, but this year's awards season is reflecting, more than ever before, the creative and original filmmaking that's taking place not in mainstream Hollywood, but in Europe and other regions in the world.
Tom Brook.
MUSIC
Still to come in this podcast.
We're like the Wright brothers, just gently bumping off the ground.
We're not yet flying, but the prospect of true flight is ahead of us.
The implications of AI being used to create new forms of life.
If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed?
In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed.
But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it.
It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories.
I'm Helena Merriman and in a new BBC series I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story.
What did they miss the first time?
The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs.
Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
For decades, Pakistan's Balochistan province has faced a separatist insurgency.
But this weekend has seen some of the deadliest violence there in years.
The military says it's killed dozens of ethnic rebels, who attacked a prison, government buildings and police stations.
Our global affairs reporter Ambarasan Ethirajan told me more about the rebel attacks.
Even the Pakistani security analysts have been taken by surprise.
In fact, they describe this as staggering because it's a very coordinated attack in 12 different places, including the provincial capital Quetta, and also the Gwadar port, where China is making a lot of investments in terms of building a port there.
So previously, what Baloch rebels used to do is to attack an army camp or a security site, or sometimes even government buildings.
But this time, it seems to be very coordinated and simultaneous.
At the same time, probably hundreds of rebels were involved in the attack.
But what the Pakistani military is saying is that They have successfully thwarted all these assaults and they have killed more than 90 suspected rebels from the Baloch Liberation Army.
And they also admit that 15 soldiers and 18 civilians were killed.
And we are hearing reports about attack on a quarters of laborers near Gwadar, and there were also attacks on government buildings.
A prison and several government offices also came under attack.
So this has come as a huge surprise, especially it came a day after the Pakistani security forces said they had killed dozens of Baloch rebels in various attacks in Balochistan province.
So this illustrates how powerful the group are.
It also reminds that, even though they have been taking lots of hits in the past few months the Baloch Liberation Army which claimed these attacks they want to prove a point, to show that how strong they are still and they can carry out such attacks.
But it is also a warning for Pakistan, because it's not the only insurgency they are facing at the moment.
In northwestern part of Pakistan, where they are battling Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan militant Islamist militants who have been carrying out attacks on Pakistani security forces.
Now the issues in Balochistan province.
It has been running for decades because many of the Baloch nationalists have been accusing the federal authorities of using or exploiting rich mineral resources.
Balochistan has rich deposits of various rare earth minerals.
And in fact, many American companies are planning to invest there.
And they are not getting anything in return for the local population.
And also several activists have accused Pakistani military of using very high-handed tactics by forcefully removing people, and many people have disappeared.
This has been a long-standing issue of human rights abuses.
But the Pakistani military and the government, they stoutly deny these allegations.
In the late night press conference, one of the senior Pakistani ministers.
He was accusing India of backing these militants, a charge denied by Delhi.
A federal US judge has rejected a Minnesota state request to effectively end the deployment of thousands of immigration agents in the city of Minneapolis.
Despite expressing sympathy for the claim, Judge Catherine Menendez ruled that the claimants had not proven that the surge of ICE agents in the city had been unlawful.
Our North America correspondent Peter Bowes told me about the background to the ruling.
This was an attempt by the state of Minnesota, the city of Minneapolis, to essentially stop the clampdown by the Trump administration on immigration in the city of Minneapolis.
Now the judge declined to grant this, although she did sound quite sympathetic to the reasons behind this claim, saying that the Minnesota Attorney General's office had made a strong case about immigration agents' tactics, including the shootings that we've seen, evidence of racial profiling that she said were having profound and even heartbreaking consequences on the state of Minnesota and the Twin Cities, Minneapolis and St.
Paul.
However, she said that essentially, legal precedent meant that it was likely to be overturned by an appeal court.
And she referred to another case where an appeal court had done just that.
It had denied a case that was much narrower. in its scope.
And she said if that injunction went too far, then the one at issue here, halting the entire operation, certainly would.
So in effect, what she's saying is that her hands were tied.
I think the sentiment is that if she had given the go ahead for this, essentially stopping the Trump administration operation that it would have been very likely to have been overturned by an appeal court.
And has there been any reaction to the ruling?
Yes, the mayor of Minneapolis said that he was disappointed.
This is Jacob Fry in the ruling, but he would continue to pursue the lawsuit.
He says this decision doesn't change what people here have lived through fear, disruption and harm caused by a federal operation that never belonged in Minneapolis.
A strong reaction also from the US Attorney General, Pam Bondi, who posted on X that the ruling was a huge win for the Justice Department.
She says neither sanctuary policies nor meritless litigation will stop the Trump administration from enforcing federal law in Minnesota.
And other cities, one assumes.
I mean, this has an impact right across the country.
Quite likely.
And, as we've seen by looking into the detail of the judges' reasoning, these judges often go by what the precedent is.
And this may well be setting another precedent, indeed allowing these kinds of operations to continue in other cities.
And it is fair to say that the sentiment across the country and we're seeing it right now in the protests and the demonstrations in support of Minneapolis that are happening in key cities, Texas in particular that people still feel strongly about this because they are seeing some of these immigration agents in their own cities carrying out similar activities.
Peter Bowes, We all know about the way artificial intelligence can generate text and images.
But what about AI-generated life forms?
Last year, a molecular biologist at Stanford used what's called a large genome model to create a new species, a virus, in a laboratory.
That scientist was Brian He.
He's now joined a new company whose CEO is the geneticist and tech entrepreneur, Dr Adrian Wolfson.
And Dr Wolfson has written a new book on the possibilities of AI-created life and all the ethical questions it raises.
He spoke to my colleague, James Kumarasamy.
What Brian did essentially is to build this huge database of sequences from pretty much any organism you can think of and using an AI algorithm which he called Evo, which used a very specific type of AI architecture called Stripe Tyena.
And what this enabled him to do was to basically discern patterns in in the genomes of organisms which we just don't see by eye because our brains can't deal with that degree of complexity.
And what turns out to be the case is actually that genomes have a kind of meta language which has a grammar, just like German has a grammar and English has a grammar and French has a grammar.
And what it indicates is that there is actually a potential to learn those grammatical rules.
And I have to be clear here that what Brian did was basically take a species of virus, a bacteriophage, which actually is what we would call a good virus, because they kill bacteria.
And he basically used AI to derive an alternative version of that virus and which was only 93 similar.
And that technically meets the criterion of a new species.
Now, that's not to say he could make a new type of zebra or a giraffe or a new whale.
But what it means is that we're like the Wright brothers, just gently bumping off the ground.
We're not yet flying, but the prospect of true flight is ahead of us.
Right, so many questions.
Let's just start with the experiment, first of all.
And the fact it was a virus a good virus, as you say, I mean that already raises questions about how do you avoid bad viruses being used in this kind of research, because that clearly has huge implications.
What's critical with a technology like this, to ensure that it is used for the good, is that everything's done in a wise responsible thoughtful ethical safe, equitable manner.
And in a manner that benefits society, even the simplest technologies can be used in unethical ways.
And there's not much we can do to prevent bad actors from doing that, but we can certainly do our best to prevent it by anticipating what people might do and then take the appropriate measures.
In terms of the why though, what would you say to someone who said look, we can understand why gene editing, for example, even though that, of course, has its own moral and ethical questions connected to it, why that might be preferable?
Why creating the circumstances in which people would not get certain diseases or would live a different sort of life, a better life, a healthier life?
We can see the arguments for that.
But creating a new life... the implications are you can bring back extinct species.
What is the answer to why that is a good thing, why that is progress?
The answer is as follows.
If you can understand the generative grammar of biology, obviously it gives you tremendous insights into human disease which go way beyond what gene editing is able to do.
Gene editing assumes really that the human body is component-like, built like a human-made machine where every part is separate from all the other parts.
And like in a motor car, if your clutch breaks, you can just replace it.
Sadly, most diseases are complex and therefore it's likely that we may need to eventually consider whether we believe it's reasonable to actually rewire certain parts of the genome.
And that's obviously a long way off.
Geneticist Dr. Adrian Wolfson.
And finally, when you next go to your local park, look out for dogs chasing around in puffer jackets and boots.
Retailers say a growing number of owners are buying clothes for their four-legged friends.
And while social media may have played a role, Emma Marcello, who owns a dog boutique here in the UK, says it's about more than just fashion.
It's not just for the owners, which I think a lot of people think that it's for.
For instance, dog shoes, dog boots, they can be used for dogs that have allergies.
Lots of dogs have grass allergies, sand allergies.
They may have had a claw removed and they need protection on their feet.
So they're not always about fashion.
There is a practical element to it.
Lots of dogs actually love having clothing on because they are cosy and warm.
Lots of small dogs, your Pomeranians, your Chihuahuas, they get very cold.
Sausage dogs, they're very low to the ground.
So not only do they feel the cold, but they're picking up all sorts of dirt and leaves.
Dogs know their own minds.
I've seen dogs where, if an owner is putting something on them that they're not comfortable in, that dog will not walk.
Certain breeds have to have certain size collars.
There are coats that really restrict or the dog can't breathe under the coat.
I think, the people that really are invested in keeping their dog comfortable or dry or cosy.
The sky's the limit.
You'll have dogs with wardrobes probably bigger than mine.
Emma Marcello We'll see you next time.
This edition of the Global News Podcast was mixed by Zabihullah Karush.
The producer was Nicky Verrico.
The editor is Karen Martin.
I'm Keith Adams.
Until next time, goodbye.
If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed?
In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed.
But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it.
It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories.
I'm Helena Merriman and in a new BBC series I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story.
What did they miss the first time?
The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs.
Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
