Hello, this is the global news podcast from the BBC World Service with reports and analysis from across the world. The latest news, seven days a week. BBC World Service podcasts are supported by advertising.

This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. Hello, I'm Emilio Sampedro. And in the early hours of Thursday, the 8th of October, these are our main stories to members of the Islamic State group have been charged in the United States over the killing of Western hostages in Syria. The former US police officer charged with the murder of George Floyd in May has been released from prison on bail and in Nagorno Karabakh, days of fighting between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces is now said to have displaced half of the civilian population.

Also in this podcast, we'll go to Kenya, where a court has convicted two men for their role in the attack on the Westgate Mall in the capital, Nairobi, in 2013, in which 67 people were killed. And it seems there are some winners amidst the global pandemic billionaires.

This is startling because that combined wealth happiness has now reached ten point two dollars trillion. Nobody should be making money during a recession. Take it to me by surprise.

A new report says the world's richest people have seen their fortunes climb by 27 percent. Two British members of the Islamic State group have arrived in the United States to face charges related to the murder of Western hostages. The man, Alexander Cotey and El Shafie al-Sheikh, are allegedly part of a group of four British men who are accused of carrying out sadistic and gruesome punishments on their captives in Iraq and Syria from 2012 to 2015, recordings of beheadings used as propaganda showed prisoners in orange jumpsuits on their knees beside a captor dressed in black coats and al-Sheik have previously denied the charges.

The journalist James Foley was the first American hostage beheaded by the group in 2014. His mother, Diane Foley, spoke to the BBC. What does she hope to learn from the prosecution?

Really hope that they will give us information about not only our children, but of some of the other crimes done by ISIS, as well as implicating others. These two were not the only ones. And I fear that there's others still in refugee camps hiding in our midst. So I think it's really a national security issue for all of us.

Diane has been almost eight years. You're going to have to go through the trial and listen to a lot about Jim, a lot about what happened to him. Are you prepared for what you might hear during the trial? Oh, yes, I do feel I've heard most of it, and I feel that it's essential that these crimes are made public. I think people need to know the depth of the hatred of this group and others who seek to destroy our way of life.

I think too much of the world is just naive and unaware of the threats of international hostage taking.

For one, Diane Foley, the mother of James Foley, talking there to the BBC's KATIK.

Our correspondent Barbara Ussher spoke to me from outside the court in Alexandria, Virginia. She told me more about the role that Diane Foley and the other victims families had played.

She and the other family, so there were four American victims, have really been working together to try to get to this point. They have been pressing the government to have a trial in America, and they felt that that would be the best way to honor their children, but also to bring to light the truth of what happened to them and to hold accountable those responsible. And interestingly, they were among those who pressed the US government to drop this as a capital punishment case, because that is what was holding up the transfer of some crucial information from the U.K., which, of course, does not have the death penalty.

The families said quite clearly, we don't need the death penalty. What we need is all the information we can get to make this the strongest case possible. And they were also afraid, you know, that they might lose this opportunity because the US has been pulling back from the Middle East there. Turbulence in northern Syria last year where these two were held for a while. They were just afraid that the opportunity would pass and justice would never be served.

And so they have had they have been very out front on this.

How far up the chain of command were these two men in Islamic State and how big a deal is it to bring them to senior members of Islamic State like them to justice?

Well, it's alleged that they were part of a cell of British Islamists who were who were members of Islamic State group and that their role was to serve as guards at the detention place where the Western hostages were being held. So they were not top Islamic State officials, but they had direct contact with these Western hostages. The indictment accuses them of prolonged physical and psychological violence. And the charge is that they took part in a hostage taking that led to death.

So they will be looked at as part of the process. And the Americans do feel that they have quite a strong case. And it is significant in the sense that this is the sort of most important point of efforts that the U.S. has made to bring to justice Islamic State members who were involved allegedly with these killings of Western hostages.

Barbara ushe reporting from the courthouse in Virginia. The former police officer charged with murder in the death of George Floyd has been released from prison. Derek Shervin, who faces murder and manslaughter charges, posted a million dollars bail in Minnesota in May. He was captured on a video with his knees pressed against Mr. Floyd's neck for nine minutes. The incident led to global protests, calls for police reform and a period of racial reckoning in the United States. Gnomeo Iqbal reports from Washington.

Jail records show Derrick Shervin is no longer in custody at the facility he's been in since May. It's not clear where he got the money needed to pay the bond for his release. An online fundraiser apparently set up by his family fizzled out after 4000 dollars. And the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association, which has a legal defense fund, says it did not provide the money. The bail has some conditions. He has to attend all court appearances. He can't work in law enforcement or security and is not allowed to own any guns or ammunition.

Derrick, Shervin and three other police officers were fired after the death of George Floyd. And currently all men are scheduled to face trial together in March next year.

Let's stay in the U.S., where President Trump has thrown the prospects of a covid-19 stimulus package into chaos. First, he said he would stop negotiating with the Democrats on a bill until after the election. But now, confusingly, in a flurry of tweets, he said he would help the airlines and send Americans checks. But how much progress was being made on a coronavirus relief package before President Trump got involved? And where does it stand now to make sense of it all?

I spoke to our correspondent in Washington, Gary O'Donahue. Yeah, I'm not quite sure how much progress is being made in the sense that Steve Manoogian, the Treasury secretary, was talking to Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House. There were quite a lot of areas they didn't agree on, particularly on things like health. Small businesses, how much aid individual states and local authorities should get, but the president does seem to last night have pulled the plug on those negotiations, although later on sort of walking it back partway and saying he wants to sign the part of the bill that would have sent these 100 dollar checks to tens of millions of Americans, as they did earlier on in the pandemic.

The difficulty for him is when you walk out the room like that, you don't really know how public opinion is going to judge you in terms of who's to blame for the breakdown. And President Trump could definitely do with some kind of political help at the moment with less than four weeks to the election because he's he's floundering underwater in the polls and it's getting worse now. This all comes as he himself is is convalescing from an infection of covid-19. What do we know about his medical condition now?

Well, there's been another bulletin today from his physician who says everything is okay. A lot of the measurements are OK, that he's been clear of fever for several days now and reporting no symptoms. So that is the picture we're getting from the physician. It's worth saying, of course, that it's the same physician who really issued some misleading statements on Saturday after President Trump had been admitted to the Walter Reed Medical Center, obfuscating, suggesting he hadn't had any oxygen.

When we discovered later, he had said some people see these things and take them with a slight pinch of salt. Having said all that, of course, you know, he's still back at the White House, at the residence, working, as we understand it, not having to go back to hospital at the moment, any case. And they said when he came home from hospital on Monday that he wasn't out of the woods yet. Now, they haven't said he is out of the woods.

So. Well, I think they're thinking this period of time is pretty crucial to see whether it's going to be a downturn or whether he's going to pull through.

Gary O'Donahue. And as we're recording this podcast, Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Vice President Mike Pence are preparing to face off in a televised vice presidential candidates debate in Salt Lake City, Utah. We'll have more on this in the next edition of the podcast. Human rights officials in the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh say days of fighting between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces have now displaced half of the civilian population. President Putin of Russia has described the conflict there as a huge tragedy and called for peace.

The enclave is officially part of Azerbaijan but is populated and run by ethnic Armenians. Our correspondent Orla Guerin has been to the Azeri city of TARTA to see the impact of the fighting.

Well, we've just arrived in Tushar, which is on the border with Nagorno Karabakh, and it's really like a ghost town. The streets are deserted. Very few cars on the move, some troops just past us. This is an area that's been heavily shelled, so much so that very few people remain under attack many years.

We met Ibanez is in a rough shelter below ground with her seven month old grandson, Faraz, in her arms.

Despite the danger of incoming fire from the Armenian side, she refuses to go.

The. We have been waiting for this for 28 years. My son and daughter are fighting on the front line.

I've promised to sacrifice a sheep when they drive the Armenians out and I hear them cheering for them.

Ibanez sings a lullaby to soothe her grandson to sleep. But grandmothers like her are also in hiding in shelters on the other side of the front line as Nagorno Karabakh is shelled by Azerbaijan. For now, Azeri forces are advancing.

Many here believe that a victory is coming. Perhaps, but the seeds of new hatred are being planted in both nations. Orla Guerin.

Hurricane Delta has lashed the Mexican state of Quintana Roo with rain and high winds, causing some damage to infrastructure and tourism businesses. Civil emergency authorities in the region remain on high alert as the storm moves north along the Mexican coast and into the Gulf of Mexico. It's expected to hit the U.S. state of Louisiana later this week. Our Mexico correspondent will grant reports.

As Hurricane Deltour made landfall near the Mexican coastal resort of Puerto Morelos, it's 195 kilometer per hour winds brought down trees and power lines across the municipality. There has been some damage to homes and businesses all along the coast of the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, including in the important tourist destination of Cancun. However, at this stage, the civil emergency authorities are mainly relieved that there has been no sign of a storm surge or the extensive flooding which was feared.

Hundreds of people have been evacuated from their homes and spent the night in hurricane shelters further inland. Now, however, the rest of the states along Mexico's southeastern coast and the US state of Louisiana are watching Hurricane Delta closely to see if it strengthens further as it makes its way north through the Gulf of Mexico will grant you listening to the global news podcast.

Still to come, Dubai.

A lot of families come and go, but they normally leave because they want to live. In this time, they were forced to leave their homes. They are being forced out of the country in a way, as the Middle East witnesses one of its worst recessions ever.

We hear about the impact on tens of thousands of foreign workers in the UAE. But first, let's go to Kenya, the siege at the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi seven years ago left 67 people dead. Now a court in the Kenyan capital has convicted two defendants, Mohamed Ahmed Abdi and Hassan Hussein Mustafa, for their roles in the attack carried out by gunmen from the Somali Islamist group al-Shabab. A third accused was acquitted. The verdict was delivered by the chief magistrate, Francis.

And I'm satisfied that the prosecution approved these charges against the first and the fourth accused person. I find him guilty and I convict him accordingly. I find that the prosecution has not proved its case against the second accused person on all the charges that were facing him. And consequently, he's acquitted under Section 215 of the criminal procedure code.

I heard more from our correspondent in Nairobi, Ferdinand Omondi.

First of all, the attackers all died according to the state. But in this case, the chief magistrate was satisfied that they were guilty of the offences of conspiracy to commit a terrorist act and giving support to a terrorist group. The evidence that was given was a strong link between them and the attackers in that the first accused was a good friend of one of the attackers. The magistrate concluded that there was evidence that they spoke a lot. The phone lines race their names with which they communicate them.

And according to the chief magistrate, this was proof of links to them. And indeed, according to him, this was proof that they really did give support by communicating to them and that in the case of conspiracy, they did not have to prove that a conspiracy did take place. But in this case, the Westgate attack did happen.

And so they were guilty by association and the trial started in 2014. Why has it taken so long?

Well, the history of Kenyan cases, especially with terror related cases, are very hard to prove even today, those who are convicted. There was no case to answer on the charge of belonging to a terrorist group. It started with 12 counts and four suspects. And this was Wiltern, down to three suspects and two convictions. There have been lots of complaints across the board about the slow pace of prosecution of these cases. The Kenyan judiciary is overwhelmed. The chief justice has complained a lot.

And even in recent times, there have been complaints that the president has refused to swear in about 40 judges who are supposed to help reduce the wait. So there's a huge backlog of cases in the Kenyan judicial system. And so in the eyes of the prosecution, this is actually a window they managed to get through with a case and now they have a conviction.

And will this help the families of the victims have a sense of closure? In a way, I would say yes, although I did try to speak to at least five of the survivors and all of them did not really want to go back to the past. So the trauma of having dealt with the terrorist attack in six or seven people died is still very heavy on those who survived it. So this will be a bit of a win in terms of getting convictions for those who are seen to be supporting terrorist attacks.

But I think the biggest challenge to Kenya is preventing those attacks from taking place in the first place.

Ferdinand Omondi and the two men are due to be sentenced on the 22nd of October. It goes without saying that the coronavirus has done so much damage in so many countries and continues to pose profound challenges for politicians and society at large. But amidst the pain of loss of life and livelihoods, a new report suggests that there are some winners. One elite group has done really rather well during the pandemic. Billionaires Razia Iqbal has been speaking to Olly Williams from Forbes magazine about the findings in the report by the Swiss bank UBS.

This is startling because the combined wealth of billionaires has now reached ten point two dollars trillion.

How they did it, it's mostly down to financial markets. So if you cast your mind back to March, financial markets hit rock bottom. Since then, there's been a whole wave of government stimulus packages across the world from governments bringing out different packages to support markets.

And because most of the stocks of shares are held by the world's richest families, they have benefited the most from those gains.

And were you surprised by this finding?

It totally took me by surprise. I mean, back in back in March, we were facing a national recession, which has now come into most developed markets.

Nobody should be making money during a recession. Tell it to me by surprise.

And the shifts that have taken place in society, the fact that we're so dependent on technology, the investment in that area presumably is one of the the places where they were able to make much more money.

Yes, you're right. This is part of a broader shift into technology. So, you know, at the top of this list. As is Jeff Bezos, who's well past 200 billion back in August, he's just another American male in technology who's at the top of that list. Mean, before that, we had Bill Gates at the top of that list for many years. But, yeah, you're right, during the pandemic, there has been a shift towards technology and those people have benefited because the Zuman entrepreneurs who have become billionaires, you noticed the shift towards homeworking has created a lot of wealth.

And then the knock on effect behind the scenes, you have this huge growth in cyber tech companies worried about the effects of working from home on their business security. And so you have the cybersecurity firms which are doing very, very well from that. There has been a huge shift towards technology.

You mentioned Jeff Bezos and I was reminded of an Oxfam report which looked at those people who profited from the pandemic. And they pointed out that even if Jeff Bezos gave his 876 thousand employees a one time bonus of just over 100000 dollars, he would still be as rich as he was before the pandemic. I mean, this is eye watering sums that we're talking about.

This comes on to another point which has been raised recently in several research papers, is that there's tentative signals that billionaires are giving more of their wealth to charity. But from the research out today, it doesn't look like that really here to stay. We haven't seen a massive splurge in philanthropy, which we would expect from a pandemic like this. You would have expected that a global pandemic of this magnitude has been a really step out and mark and make her name in making solutions to wars.

And several have several have. I mean, he's given an opinion. Bill Gates has given a huge amount towards vaccines and so on, but they are a tiny proportion.

Ollie Williams of Forbes magazine talking there to Razia Iqbal. The Middle East is witnessing one of its worst recessions ever due to the twin shock of the pandemic and low oil prices. The region's business hub, the United Arab Emirates, the UAE has been severely affected due to the downturn. Tens of thousands of foreign residents have lost jobs, forcing families that have spent years in the country to pack up and leave. One report estimates that the country lost 900000 jobs.

That would lead to 10 percent of its foreign residents leaving the country. The BBC's Middle East business correspondent Samir Hashmi reports from Dubai. Right, if you guys could to walk in my direction, please. Photographer Bollani is taking pictures of a family that are about to leave the by mail, capturing memories near Boudjellal Arab, one of the most iconic landmarks of the city.

A kiss on the forehead, please.

Since June, she has done more than 100 free for two sessions for foreign residents that are leaving the UAE. The economic fallout of the pandemic has led to massive job cuts across the country.

Normally, I'm used to photograph happy families in a majority of the time you photograph it's for happy situations and in this case you were sad. They are sad about living, so it was harder for sure to make them smiling for the photos. Dubai A lot of families come and go, but they normally leave because they want to live. In this time they were forced to leave the service. They are being forced out of the country in a way.

Lygia and rawboned were also part of one of those photo sessions after spending 10 years in the city where they met, fell in love and started a family.

They're now packing up and getting ready to say goodbye to Dubai.

They used to work in the travel industry, but both of them lost their jobs six months back.

Despite their best efforts, they couldn't find any new employment opportunities with no option left. They will now head back to their home country, Brazil.

It's not easy. You can put your 10 year life into boxes, fill boxes. Our friends are here and they became our family. And all our life was sorted. We were financially secure and all this. And suddenly we need to go back home.

Dubai's economy is heavily dependent on the travel and tourism industry. To attract tourists to buy tourism has launched a mega marketing campaign by releasing videos showcasing the help and safety measures put in place across the city. And rawboned and thousands of others.

It's not enough. Foreigners constitute nearly 90 percent of the U.S. population, but the country does not give citizenship or permanent residency to foreign residents, nor does it offer any social welfare benefits, making it very difficult for expatriates to continue living here without any income. The government has introduced policies to help local businesses, but Middle East expert Karen Young believes that the economic climate won't change anytime soon.

Most business owners who are surveyed say they're not hiring at all. In fact, employment is very sharply down from the kind of baseline. So certainly we're going to see sharp declines in some of the expatriate community over the course of the next year as businesses have retrenchment.

It's the sunset time, and usually around this hour, this beach where I'm walking is packed with foreign nationals, mostly families. They come here to take a dip in the Arabian Sea, while some of them just prefer to lie down and soak the evening sunlight. There's a party going on in one of the luxury hotels, which is not too far away from here. And I can also see some people jet ski. This place is very popular for water spots.

Usually beaches across the UAE started getting crowded during the autumn season, but this year I can roughly see half the number of people that I would have seen during the same period last year. And with the pandemic showing no signs of slowing down, the economic recovery could take a while.

Some of your Hachemi in Dubai, one of the greatest challenges for scientists studying covid-19 has been to measure how infectious the virus is when it's airborne. Experts at the University of Bristol have developed groundbreaking technology to examine the smallest droplets and see how factors such as air conditioning and central heating affect them.

Our correspondent John Kaye has had a first glimpse of life in a sales laboratory at a secret location. Groundbreaking work is underway in the past. Scientists would have sprayed a virus from a rotating drum and then examined the droplets that fell to the floor. But here, scientists from the University of Bristol are trying something different. They are suspending microscopic particles of covid-19 in the air using an electric field, levitating them between two metal rings for minutes, even hours at a time.

Dr Alan Harrell is one of the senior researchers who were trying to directly mimic the type of particles that are produced by people when they're coughing, breathing these of things, and then see how long the virus remains infectious in the aerosol phase. While the tiny droplets are suspended, scientists are able to adjust the temperature, humidity and light so they can find out what impact those conditions might have on the infectiousness of the airborne virus. Professor Jonathan Reid says the research could be especially useful in understanding how the virus is transmitted indoors and how it's affected by air conditioning or central heating.

We're particularly concerned in terms of airborne transmission in poorly ventilated spaces, spaces where people might be talking very loud. They might even be singing whether generating a lot of these very small inhalable aerosol particles. This research is set to last for a year with the first results before Christmas.

John K and we end this podcast in France, which has become the first country to give child social media influencers the same legal protections as child actors and models. The legislation will control the hours they can work and what happens to their earnings. Hugh Schofield reports from Paris.

In France, as in so many countries, there are now Internet video channels dedicated to children with a small number of child stars, attracting millions of viewers for films, showing them unboxing presents or trying out new clothes. Till now, this activity has been without legal oversight in France. But with this law come new protections and new constraints. Parents will have to register their child influences with the authorities, who require limits to the number of hours worked. Children's earnings will be put in a special account until they're of age to stop parental plundering.

And they'll also be a so-called right to be forgotten, meaning that a child who in later years regrets his or her Internet past can demand that content be removed.

Hugh Schofield And that's all from us for now. But there'll be an updated version of the Global News podcast later. And 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 BBC Dutko UK. I'm Amelio Sampedro. It's great to be back with you on the podcast. Finally, after spending several months away working nightshift presenting the NEWSROOM program, the studio manager was Russell Newlove, the producer Shavon Lihe, and the editor is Karen Martin.

Until next time. Goodbye.