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Isn't it curious that every member of your family has a different voice, that a baby can recognize their mother's voice from inside the womb, that identical twins have the exact same vocal chords but usually don't sound similar, and teenagers can sense the tone of their dad's voice when he says, I'll think about it even over WhatsApp, I'll think about it.

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This is the global news podcast from the BBC World Service, London Angelil, and in the early hours of Wednesday, the 26th of August, these are our main stories. Health experts declare Africa free from the wild transmission of polio, a major success in efforts to eradicate the disease. The family of an unarmed black man shot by police in the US state of Wisconsin say he's paralyzed from the waist down. And the captain of the Manchester United Football Club, Harry Maguire, is found guilty of assault and attempting to bribe a Greek police officer.

Also in this podcast, society success is mainly linked to money. And if we stop to work so much, maybe we then will have another definition of what success is or what a useful and meaningful life is.

We hear from the university that wants to pay people to slow down and do nothing. In a year where more than 800000 people have been killed by the coronavirus, there's huge demand for some good news and a scientific breakthrough.

Well, now there's cause for celebration in Africa, but it involves a different virus that's paralyzed or killed thousands of people.

Wild polio, an independent commission has declared the continent free from the virus. Here's the director general of the World Health Organization, Dr Tedros Adhanom.

Gabfests today is a day of celebration and they offer hope. Today, we come together to rejoice over an historic public health success, the certification of wild polio virus eradication in the African region. I congratulate the people and governments of Africa for their leadership and determination. Your success is the success of the world.

The announcement is a symbolic moment because 15 years ago, health workers embarked on one of the continent's largest immunization programs.

Our correspondent Schicchi is Hindu, sent this report from Nigeria.

This is the life of Miss Bahaullah 22. SAT on a skateboard, he and his friends played Paris soccer football with their hands, a game he invented over 30 years ago, he and the rest of the players are paralyzed because of polio.

I want to believe that our contribution helped a lot more.

Peru is the president of the Polio Survivors Association. He and others who have had the virus have been travelling around Nigeria trying to get parents to understand the importance of having their children vaccinated.

We ask anybody that, OK, you have seen you have seen how difficult we have put you. Don't you think it's important for you to protect your child, not be like us, because we know what our family in contact. Many people rejected polio vaccine, but by the time we approached them for advocation, they see how much we struggle for us to get there. They see how much we've grown, how much we have devoted our time just to help people to have health, their family.

While polio is a highly infectious virus normally picked up by contaminated water. It affects children under the age of five and it weakens muscles and can cause paralysis. There's no cure, but there are vaccinations.

Ebola is also part of getting people vaccinated in Nigeria has been a logistical challenge.

And not just for Miss Bahu and his colleagues conflict in Nigeria's Lake Chad area and deep suspicion over the vaccine has made it difficult for health care workers.

We know that some health care workers have made the ultimate sacrifice and lost their lives in the process of providing polio vaccine to children.

Dr. Machida Sumathi is the Africa regional director for the World Health Organization. In 2013, nine female health care workers was shot in the northern city of Kano as rumors circulated that the vaccine was the western plot. It took the combined efforts of religious and traditional leaders, the government and community workers to work together to convince parents to change.

And yeah, I'd like to pause and really pay homage to and salute these health care workers for their bravery and their commitment.

That commitment has been a decade long endeavor, according to the World Health Organization, since 1996, more than nine billion oral vaccinations have been provided across Africa. More and more countries have been declared wild polio free, meaning an estimated one point eight million children have managed to avert being affected by the virus.

We don't want polio. Less than 10 years ago, Nigeria accounted for more than half of all global cases of polio. But today, the country will be the last in Africa to be declared free from the virus.

You know, I have Dr. Shuaib is from Nigeria's National Primary Health Care Development Agency.

It's really not only a massive moment for Nigerians, but the whole of humanity. And I know that all Africans everywhere are jubilating that we've been able to to do this.

Finally, that report from Chiki is Do Professor Rose Lekki leads the World Health Organization unit that verifies claims of virus eradication.

She spoke to my colleague James Coomaraswamy for Africa.

It means we have less paralyzed children that we used to have before. It means that all the infrastructure that was put in to fight polio, we can use it now also for other diseases. It also means that we continue surveillance in Africa and keeping operating population immunity.

I don't want to put any damper on this announcement, but as you say, the naturally occurring wild polio virus is now gone. There is still this vaccine acquired polio, isn't there?

Just just explain that the vaccine virus can go on and mutate and go in the population that is not immunized.

And then, of course, the vaccine derived polio virus cases that we're seeing. The outbreak is because of low population immunity. So what we have to do is fight the outbreaks and then increase population immunity doesn't stop us from announcing that the wild virus is gone.

Professor Rose Lekki, the family of an unarmed black man who was shot by U.S. police in Wisconsin, say he has been paralyzed and they intend to pursue a civil lawsuit to hold those responsible to account. Jacob's father, Jacob Blake Senior, struggled to contain his distress as he spoke to journalists.

They shot my son. Time. Likely didn't matter, but my son matters. He's a human being and he matters.

It's not known whether Jacob Blake Junior's injuries are permanent, but his lawyer, Ben Crump, says he'll need a miracle to recover fully.

The medical diagnosis right now is that he is paralyzed. And because those bullets severed his spinal cord and shattered some vertebrae, it is going to take a miracle for Jacob Blake Junior to ever walk again.

The shooting on Sunday evening has led to demonstrations and violent clashes on the streets of the city of Kenosha. The National Guard has been deployed, but a curfew has been ignored.

There have been protests elsewhere in the U.S. as well.

Jacob Blake's mother, Julia Jackson, has called for calm on the streets.

If Jacob knew what was going on. As far as that goes, the violence in the destruction, he would be very unpleased. So I'm really asking and encouraging everyone in West. And abroad, to take a moment and examine your heart. Our correspondent Ali Mabu was at that press conference in Tunisia. He told me about it a short time ago.

Heartbreaking in many ways. That news conference, particularly hearing from Jacob Blake's mother, who, in spite of it all, in spite of the fact that her son is currently in surgery, hearing that it will take a miracle for him to walk again. She was extremely graceful, talking about peace, talking about healing, but still talking about America, really having to examine this conference. And also, she talked about protesters here honoring her son by remaining peaceful.

That's not been the case for the last couple of nights. A lot of young people that we met through the night last night talking about the fact that they felt the violence was the only way that their cause would be covered by the media and their voice would be heard.

That is the issue, isn't it? Because while Jacob's mother wants the violence to end, many people are so angered by this shooting and previous shootings and previous death of unarmed black men at the hands of the police, that they feel that they have no choice but to carry on.

Yes, and a lot of those people who are coming out have been telling me that they also, of course, they feel intimidated by the police. They've been beaten up by the police, young black men, and nobody listens to them. That's what they were say. But when you look at what happened through the night, it started with a confrontation with the security forces. But a lot of vehicles were burned, a lot of buildings were burned, those government buildings, but also a lot of private businesses, some of whom will not get insurance payouts because it's considered a terrorist act that the building was destroyed during a riot.

So a lot of people in this area had a feeling that perhaps some of the violence is counterproductive. But as you say, there's so much anger with people who are not just seeing all these shootings, but also living this situation that the anger boils over and they will boil over again to Ally McBeal as we record this podcast.

The final preparations are being made for the second night of the Republican National Convention in the United States. Already, President Trump has warned fellow Republicans that Democrats may try to use the coronavirus pandemic to, in his words, steal the November election. And so far, the convention has been marked by speeches seeking to energize and widen the president's loyal supporter base.

One of those speakers was Charlie Cook, the founder of the conservative think tank Turning Point.

We may not have realized it at the time, but Trump is the bodyguard of Western civilization. Trump was elected to protect our families from the vengeful mob that seeks to destroy our way of life, our neighborhoods, schools, churches and values. President Trump was elected to defend the American way of life.

Just one Republican who doesn't share Mr. Kirk's optimism and faith in the president is Anthony Scaramucci, who served briefly as White House director of communications in July 2017 but was dismissed after only 10 days in the job. My colleague Carolyn Quinn asked for his thoughts on the convention so far.

I try to be objective in observing what the president's doing and what his accolades are doing, and I think it was a successful night for the president because he's telling extreme lies. He's triggering racism. He's stoking fear in what I would call white America and his play. And it's really is only play left on the van diagram is to get as many low educated white voters to the polls that believe the sort of demagogic nonsense that they're spewing at that convention. So unfortunately, a lot of these people believe what they're saying, even though many of the things that these people said last night were abject lies.

But there were black supporters out for Donald Trump last night. One of the speakers said this election is about who can preserve the values, the principles and institutions that make America great, employing the strategy of painting Donald Trump as upholding law and order while Biden would allow protesters to allow anarchy and chaos. Isn't that kind of a question of values going to chime for many Americans? I believe it will.

I mean, there's great irony in that because the lawlessness and what's going on in these cities is a direct result of the president's policies and his mishandling of the pandemic. And so the great irony here is that he's trying to portray this as Joe Biden's America. But it's happening in Donald Trump's America that, you know, with all of the. Nonsense that's going on, let's just take a stop and look at the analytical data the president won the last election by roughly one hundred and ten thousand votes in six swing states as a very, very narrow victory for the president.

And since then, he has not expanded his base. And if anything, many Republicans, including myself, have disaffected from him. And we have built a very formidable coalition of Republicans that have done just that.

Do you think it is game over, though? I mean, do you think you can write him off now? Because, I mean, he was in the same sort of pole position coming up to the last election was very different, though.

He's running against Joe Biden versus Hillary Clinton, 31 million people out of work. One hundred and seventy eight thousand people dead from covid-19. Two hundred and fifty thousand people will be dead by November 3rd. He's mishandled the economy. He's mishandled the health care crisis. And when you step back and ask the Ronald Reagan question, are people better off than they were four years ago? Corporate fat cats can say yes, but the average American will say no. And so it'll be a close election like the Reagan Carter election of 1980.

But in that last week, I do believe it's going to break very hard for Vice President Biden.

Anthony Scaramucci, Russia has dismissed claims by German doctors that the prominent Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, who has taken ill last week, was probably poisoned. A spokesman accused the team treating Mr. Navalny of rushing to a conclusion, insisting that they had not identified a specific substance as being responsible for his condition. The United States has joined France and Germany in calling for an immediate investigation.

Here's our Moscow correspondent Sarah Rainsford.

The Kremlin sees no need for any investigation into Alexei Navalny this sudden illness, despite increasing calls for that from overseas. And an extended call with journalists today, Dimitry Peskov underlined repeatedly that no one has yet identified any substance causing the opposition activist condition. So there was nothing to investigate. Well, we know, the spokesman said, is that he's in a coma, but the Kremlin is clearly paying close attention. Mr. Peskov personally called the Russian doctors who first treated Mr.

Navalny and says they've suggested multiple other possible causes for his symptoms. So he questioned why German medics had rushed to conclude, as he put it, that the patient had been poisoned. Mr. Navalny, his friends and supporters, though, remain convinced he was targeted deliberately as the biggest political threat to the Kremlin. One allegation has even called for a criminal investigation to examine whether President Putin himself was involved. Dmitry Peskov called the very suggestion absolutely untrue and empty noise that the Kremlin would not be taking seriously.

Sarah Rainsford. The coronavirus has forced many of us to rethink our priorities. Have we been too busy? Are we traveling too much or working too hard? Well, university in Germany wants to pay people to not do things. The idea is to make us rethink our daily habits, some of which may no longer make us happy or could be bad for the planet.

The BBC's Paul Moss has been finding out more.

For me, everything was traveling constantly up and down to London every other week, over to Ireland, every other week, travelling to events in Europe or Middle East, etc. But I suppose I'd never really factored in how exhausting that was or how much time that took up where I could be, you know, sitting at home talking to my wife for spending time with my kids. Peter Shirlow has certainly led an interesting life. He teaches, he writes, he does address conferences all over the world, but the experience of the coronavirus lockdown, the time it gave him to sit and reflect has made him decide that it's time for change.

I want to spend more time relaxing with people I care about. I'm not going to go back to that world of jumping on planes and trains is just not going to happen for anyone who thinks they too might want to stop doing something.

A university grant is now available. The Hamburg Academy of Arts in Germany has a new project where they will pay people the equivalent of about one and a half thousand pounds to pursue what they call active inactivity to apply for the grant. All you need to do is come up with good answers to the following four questions.

What do you not want to do? For how long do you not want to do it? Why is it important not to do this thing in particular? Why are you the right person not to do it?

We're very curious what people think they should stop to do in their everyday life. So it's about active inactivity.

That's Friedrich von Borias, professor of design theory at the Hamburg Academy of Arts and the man behind the new grant. It's certainly not about encouraging idleness, he insists, rather a recognition that many of the things we strive so hard to do, the success we hope to achieve in life, these do not in the end make us terribly happy in our society.

Success is mainly linked to money, and if we stop to work so much, maybe we then will have another definition of what success is or what a youthful and meaningful life is. Casting doubt on the nature of success is not exactly new, the singer Iggy Pop pulled sarcastic scorn on the very idea.

Or you can go back a little further and find Jesus warning people that there wasn't much point gaining the world if it lost you your soul. For those who are rethinking what they value in life, want to stop doing something and want to be paid for it. Those grants from the Hamburg Academy are open to people around the world to apply for until September 15th. The suggestions they make about what precisely it is they are going to stop will then form part of an exhibition entitled The School of Inconsequentiality towards a Better Life.

Elizabeth Palmos.

Still to come in this podcast, I told my mom first took her about a week to come to terms with it, which is short for a Nigerian mother.

Every day she asked me so many questions, the Nigerian film about a lesbian relationship that's causing controversy even before its release. And we hear from a survivor of the building collapse in India has killed at least 13 people. The captain of one of the biggest football clubs in the world, Manchester United, has been found guilty of assaulting a public employee, insult and attempted bribery while on holiday in Greece. Harry McGuire was given a suspended sentence after being convicted of all the charges against him by a court on a Greek island just hours before he was convicted.

The England manager, Gareth Southgate, had included McGuire in the squad for next month, offering his support to the player.

I have a fantastic relationship with the boy. Harry is an outstanding character for us. I have no reason to doubt what he's telling me. Harry regrets the fact that he's brought that sort of focus and attention on on the team and he apologised for that.

But he also has his own side of the story that I think will come out in time.

But after the guilty verdict, it was announced that Maguire would now be dropped from the England squad. Our sports editor, Dan Ronan, has this analysis on what this means for the player.

The real damage is to his reputation. This will be embarrassing for England's manager, Gareth Southgate, as well, having backed him to the hilt. And I think it will raise questions over Maguire's judgement in putting himself in that position in the first place, given his status in the game, his status as a role model. And of course, let's not forget, he is the most expensive England player of all time, Dan Rowan.

Harry McGuire says he's innocent and plans to appeal. The US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, has made an extremely rare visit to Sudan. America's top diplomat is keen to press the Sudanese authorities to normalize relations with Israel. But the Sudanese transitional government, which came in after President Omar al-Bashir was overthrown last year, has a very different agenda.

James Copnall, who used to be based in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum for the BBC, has this report.

Sudan is desperate to be removed from America's list of state sponsors of terrorism. The designation makes it almost impossible for the African country to get debt relief or access lending from international financial institutions, both vital as the economy is crumbling. The legislation was brought in at a time when Osama bin Laden was living in Sudan in the 1990s. The new civilian prime minister, Abdullah Hamdullah, has repeatedly made the case to American officials that his country is a very different place now, particularly since Omar al-Bashir was deposed.

He made the point again to Secretary of State Pompeo in Khartoum. In private, many American officials agree, but Mr Pompeii's priority is very different. While the Sudanese account of Tuesday's meeting focused on the state sponsors of terrorism list and bilateral relations between Sudan and the US, the American diplomat clearly had another country in mind. The State Department said Mr Pompeya and Mr Abdullah had discussed positive developments in the Sudan. Israel relationship are not so coded. Reminder that the US wants Sudan to follow the United Arab Emirates lead and normalize ties with Israel.

The suggestion caused an outcry in Sudan. The Sudanese authorities have found a rather clever way of deflecting the issue. They say that as a transitional government rather than an elected administration, they don't have the right to take a decision on normalizing relations. The fear in Khartoum, though, is that the US may simply say make friends with Israel or keep that damaging state sponsor of terrorism designation in place.

James Copnall. Emergency teams in the Indian state of Maharashtra are still searching through the rubble of a five storey residential building that collapsed on Monday. The authorities say seven bodies have now been recovered from the scene, but at least a dozen people are still missing. One of the building's residents, Irfan, described his remarkably lucky escape.

A little bit later, though, I live on the fifth floor. When I went to my home, I was hardly there for 10 minutes when my daughter went inside the bedroom and she said, Daddy, the building is shaking. After that, I, along with my children, called my neighbors from the flat. And then I came downstairs and woke up the people living on the fourth floor. All this happened in around three minutes and I saw the building collapse in front of me.

Satya Pradhan is the director general of India's National Disaster Response Force in Delhi.

We have retrieved seven dead bodies out of possible 18 or 19 missing and one naked four year old boy has been rescued alive. He's doing OK. He's in the hospital. There are right now three teams of National Disaster Response Force, and they are doing the canine search also and using the help structure rescue equipment to look for survivors as Pratten.

Russia has ruled out suggestions that. Foreign mediation could help resolve the crisis in Belarus following this month's disputed presidential election. On Tuesday, two prominent opposition activists in Belarus were jailed for 10 days.

Both of them are part of the coordination council. The exiled opposition figurehead Svetlana Tigon of Skya has set up to try to bring about a peaceful transition. Here's our Europe regional editor Mike Saunders in the context of the current power struggle in Belarus.

The two activists might count themselves lucky they've been sentenced under administrative law. The disputed president, Alexander Lukashenko, has initiated a criminal investigation into the Coordination Council, accusing it of trying to seize power that could lead to a far harsher punishment. The council's nominal head, the Nobel literature laureate Svetlana Alexievich, will be questioned on Wednesday. Svetlana Technosphere says the opposition will not be intimidated and will never relent. In a video address in English, she told the European Parliament Belarus had woken up and Mr Lukashenko has opponents with a majority.

Now, Mike Saunders, a movie that's not even been released yet, is causing controversy in conservative Nigeria. The film is called Effi, and it portrays a love relationship between two women, as is that Olla Alua reports from Lagos.

I told my mom first took her about a week to come to terms with it, which is short for a Nigerian mother. Every day she asked me so many questions and said she wanted to know what that meant. I'd have kids. At the end of each day, she told me. She little boys in my class, anyone who did, but she protected me.

That's the trailer from FEMA, the first entirely lesbian themed Nigerian movie. If it tells the story of two young women who fall in love and struggle because of the difficulties of being in a same sex relationship in conservative Nigerian society, we are do. Ettin, who made her directorial debut with her, says she took on the project for the sake of those who feel unaccepted in their own country.

What we're doing with this film is renormalize in the queer experience. When normalizing LGBT romance, it will begin to erase that shame that LGBTQ women feel.

But Nigerians are divided on the movie and online reactions have been mixed. Since the release of the trailer, culturally gay relationships are frowned upon in Nigeria, and a same Sex Marriage Prohibition Act of 2014 sets 14 years imprisonment for anyone who marries from the same gender. And representing this law is Aditya Thomás, the executive director of Nigeria's film and video Census Board, who is threatening to arrest the filmmakers if the movie gets released. But film producer Pamela Agere isn't worried about the threat.

They make it seem so dramatic, you know, like complex, like like we've done something wrong or, you know, like like we're hiding. Obviously, we're not. So we don't really plan to seek their permission.

Pamela says there is no plan to screen it in cinemas or sell movie copies. It won't be available online on demand.

Release date is yet to be announced, but it will be in October. I'm ask you to choose between the happiness fund system in the same. That report by Azeez at all. That's all from us for now, but there will be an updated version of the Global News podcast later. If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email. The address is Global Podcast at BBC Doko UK. I'm Genack Jahlil until next time.

Goodbye.

Isn't it curious that every member of your family has a different voice, that a baby can recognize their mother's voice from inside the womb, that identical twins have the exact same vocal chords but usually don't sound similar, and teenagers can sense the tone of their dad's voice when he says, I'll think about it even over WhatsApp, I'll think about it.

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