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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.

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This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Jacki Lyden. In the early hours of Saturday, the 27th of February, these are our main stories. The Biden administration has published a report concluding that Saudi Arabia's crown prince personally approved the operation that killed the journalist. Jamal Khashoggi, Myanmar's ambassador to the U.N. has condemned the military coup and has sided strongly with mass protests. And a worldwide assessment of plans to cut carbon emissions has found that there won't be enough to stop dangerous levels of global warming.

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Also in this podcast is your your mustache modernising?

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Mr. Potato, head of the United States, has released the long awaited report into the murder of the Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018. It concludes that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved the operation to capture or kill Mr. Hachioji. Saudi Arabia's foreign ministry has issued a statement saying it completely rejects the report, which it describes as false, negative and unacceptable. But the U.S. Secretary of State, Tony Blinken, took a rather different line.

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What we've done by the actions that we've taken is really not to rupture the relationship, but to recalibrate it to be more in line with our interests and our values.

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Our Washington correspondent Barbara Starr has been following developments.

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The report did not cite direct evidence that the crown prince had approved of the operation. Rather, it's talked about a number of other things. For example, Mohammed bin Salman's control of decision making in the kingdom. It said he had absolute control of the security and intelligence apparatus, also the participation of key aides in the killing and also the crown prince's support for using violent measures to silence dissidents abroad, all of which they said basically painted a picture of the crown prince.

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There's no way the crown prince would not have known about what was happening and also that it wouldn't have happened without his approval.

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So what is the U.S. going to do about it? Well, the the government has announced several measures. The State Department, for example, has announced visa restrictions on 76 Saudi individuals involved in threatening dissidents abroad. It's calling this hashtag Shiban to ban from the country, from the U.S. any anybody acting on behalf of a foreign government that is either threatening or harming dissidents. The Treasury Department has announced sanctions against a senior former intelligence official who was implicated in the killing, as well as the crown prince's personal protective detail, the rapid intervention force, which the report also said was involved in the killing.

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It has not, I should say, announced sanctions against Mohammed bin Salman himself.

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And what should we make of Saudi Arabia's reaction? Well, you had this reaction from commentators that there was no smoking gun, which they were flogging. And that is true. It doesn't have a smoking gun. There is this conclusion based on the power structure in the country and on the people involved and the officially the the government the kingdom has rejected the results, saying that they are negative and they're false and unacceptable and that they have done everything they can to bring the perpetrators to justice.

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The kingdom has all along said this was a rogue operation and they had taken steps to make sure it wouldn't happen again. So they are basically not changing their the response that they've had all along.

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And so what does this mean for the future of relations between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia?

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I think it will be a rough patch for a while. Certainly, it's it's you know, it's not a surprise because the Saudis knew it was coming. The Americans knew it was coming. So they've been expecting it. It is quite an extraordinary thing to publicly name the crown prince in a U.S. government document like this. So, as I said, I think there will be a bit of a rough patch for a while. It is Joe Biden's desire or promise to show that he's being tougher on human rights issues with Saudi Arabia.

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And this is part of that. But he's also equally expressed quite a strong desire to continue working with the kingdom on issues that matter to both of them. And I think it's important for the Saudis also to have this relationship. So we'll see how things play out. But by not sanctioning the prince himself, I think the Americans are sending the signal that they do want to preserve this relationship and perhaps there will be an ability to sort of. Redefine how it works going forward once the dust has settled.

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Barbara Platt, ushe a red alert for our planet is how the UN secretary general, Antonio Guterres, has described it as a study by the UN framework on climate change has found the internationally agreed threshold to limit global warming to one point five degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels won't be reached unless nations produce tougher policies on climate change. Governments are supposed to achieve that target by collectively halving their carbon emissions by 2030. Environment analyst Roger Carabine told us more.

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The scientists say that by 2030 we should have halved emissions of the gases that are overheating the climate. But at the moment, with the current proposals on the table, we will have only just stabilised those emissions. So there is an absolute mountain to climb. Some nations we're talking about, probably Australia, Brazil, Mexico, have offered no substantial improvement on any of their previous proposals. So really, that's very disappointing. Some countries haven't submitted at all. For instance, China hasn't put in a formal submission and the US hasn't either because of the election period, although one is promised.

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But there are some signs that some countries are taking it seriously. The EU, for instance, has been praised. It's made a jump from a target of a 40 per cent cut to a 55 percent cut that's based on 1990 levels. And also the UK is offering a 68 percent cut by the target date based again on 1990 levels. But as a whole, the global community doing very poorly.

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Just sketch it out for us because we talk about numbers and percentages and politics and so on. But why does it matter? What does it mean?

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It matters because all the CO2 and other greenhouse gases are accumulating in the atmosphere. So whatever is added each year is added on to what is already in the atmosphere. So we need to move very, very swiftly to cut emissions because already we are running far too high in terms of what we've already emitted. And so a number of countries are taking a long term target 2050 target of getting down to virtually zero emissions. And that has heartened some of the climate negotiators.

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You know, at least that ambition appears to be out there. But the problem is, if we accumulate too much in the short term, in other words, before 2030, we're just never going to be able to achieve that 2050 target.

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And what would it actually take then to achieve what needs to be achieved? What do developed nations need to give up or do?

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More of well developed nations just need to move more quickly away from fossil fuels. And that's easier said than done. You know, this is business as usual since we started burning coal. And we're basically trying to force our way out of that economic process that we've been in ever since that time. So I don't want to underestimate the scale of the challenge here. The scale of the challenge is absolutely enormous. But the scientists are saying that the planet is already showing signs of stress in the form of particularly of heat waves and melting in the Arctic and the Antarctic.

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And we really, really should have started it more properly decades ago.

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Roger Harrisville with a wavering voice and a three fingered salute. The UN ambassador for Myanmar gave his backing to the protesters who oppose the military coup in his country. And speaking to the United Nations General Assembly, Joel Morton called on the world to take action. He said no one should cooperate with the Burmese army until it handed back power to the democratically elected government. Our diplomatic correspondent Paul Adams reports.

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This was a remarkable show of defiance by Myanmar's UN ambassador Chas Morton urged the entire world to stop the military coup.

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The UN, he said, should use any means necessary to support the people of Myanmar, people who he said had shown their eagerness and attachment to democracy in addition to the existing support we need for the strongest possible action from the international community to immediately and a military coup to stop oppressing the innocent people, to return the state power to the people and to restore the democracy.

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The ambassador said he represented Aung San Suu Kyi civilian led government and at one point held up three fingers, a gesture adopted by antico protesters. As he finished, applause echoed across the General Assembly, Britain's Ambassador Barbara Woodward congratulated him on what she called his courageous and powerful statement in Myanmar. Meanwhile, the military's crackdown continues, with riot police in Yangon firing rubber bullets and stun grenades at demonstrators. And there's fresh uncertainty about Aung San Suu Kyi whereabouts. Officials from her party, the National League for Democracy, say she's been moved from house arrest to an undisclosed location.

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Paul Adams. The human rights watchdog Amnesty International has released details of an investigation, it's stunned into the alleged killing of hundreds of civilians in the holy city of Axum in northern Tigre. The violence is said to have taken place in November and was allegedly perpetrated by Eritrean troops fighting the TPF in Ethiopia. Jean-Baptiste Galloper is the report's author.

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The massacre was a retaliation for an attack by a small group of Protei PLF militiamen supported by local residents on the morning of the 28 Eritrean forces called Reinforcement and then shot went on yet at residents on the streets and then carry out house to house searches looking for adult and teenage men to kill in the aftermath of the massacre. Eritrean forces prevented residents from collecting and burying the bodies for about a day until people were finally allowed to to collect the bodies and realized that hundreds of people had been killed.

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The BBC has also been trying to speak to eyewitnesses to corroborate the report. Let's hear from the BBC's reporter in Ethiopia, Kalkadoon BATTAL.

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Extrajudicial killings, indiscriminate shelling and widespread looting. These are just some of the violations. Amnesty International has accused Eritrean forces of committing inaction after helping Ethiopian forces retake the city. The new report documents violence and alleged crimes committed between November the 19th and the twenty ninth as Ethiopian in the Eritrean forces fought to control action. The group collected testimony from survivors and witnesses both inside Tigray and in refugee camps in Sudan. Amnesty also used satellite imagery, which they say shows mass grave sites around the city, according to the report.

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The violence peaked between November the twenty eighth and the twenty ninth when Eritrean troops allegedly carried out house to house searches, executing men and boys and deliberately shooting civilians. Oxfam is the second largest integrated at the centre of recent conflict between Ethiopian government and members of the Grand People's Liberation Front. Communications blackouts and restrictions on movement made it difficult to independently verify claims about the conflict. But as the fighting integrase slowly, Winstone reports of atrocities and human rights violations are emerging.

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The Ethiopian federal government is slowly acknowledging some of these allegations, including systemic rape, in its report. Amnesty has called for a UN investigation of the fighting in Axum, as well as an independent Humanitarian Access Kalkadoon bolthole in Addis Ababa.

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Fish have been dying in large numbers in Lake Victoria, something that has stunned fishermen and is threatening a multimillion dollar industry. The decaying fish were first spotted floating on Ugandan waters last December and have now spread to the Kenyan side of Africa's largest freshwater lake, which also feeds Tanzania. Scientists say the Nile perch species are commonly eaten. Fish in Kenya is choking to death due to low oxygen levels in the lake, which have been worsened by recent storms in the region.

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The BBC's Ferdinando Mondy reports from Kisumu.

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The early morning sun is smiling on the rugged landscape surrounding Singa beach on Lake Victoria. When we arrived, but I noticed the fishermen here are wearing rather long faces as they retrieve their widely castanets offshore.

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In recent years, their daily cuttlefish has been shrinking due to overfishing, and they will be getting together to end in January.

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Scores of Milpark turned up dead on their shores, making a bad situation worse. I watch as the bare chested man tug and pull.

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James Lisagor, a wrinkled fisherman with torn charts and wary spirits, tells me they are losing hope every day. They catch almost nothing. Oh, you, Juanito Crytek.

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Our job is really tough. Now this is what we depend on. The owner of the Net is in trouble. These are 10 workers and they are others, all who are depending on the day's catch for their pay. If this goes on for a month, the boats won't even go out to sea because it's very expensive apart.

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But I get Berardino to give me all the money and we sail out of using a beach 100 kilometres west of Kenya's lakeside city of Kisumu.

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After half an hour of searching, feasting, but directors' towards an annual phenomenon gone wrong. Piles of dead fish floating on Lake Victoria choked to death for lack of oxygen. This happens when deep waters with no oxygen suddenly makes the upper oxygen rich layers, lowering oxygen levels to the point of killing fish. It's normal during the cold season of June and July, but this time the death started in December and persisted through January.

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Fish die because they suffocate. Why do they suffocate Xman somewhere?

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A scientist at the Kenyan Marine and Fisheries Institute says fish deaths have not been witnessed on this scale since 1984 and links the region's changing weather patterns to the event.

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You can't really be sure what is going to happen, but as the environment changes, it becomes less suitable for organisms that used to thrive.

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Last year, Lake Victoria rose to its highest level in 50 years following unprecedented storms which pounded the area and caused heavy flooding. The expanded waters, experts say, means more space for plankton microorganisms, which also compete for oxygen to thrive. The low oxygen levels have affected only the Nile. But scientists have explained that the Nile perch, who are the largest fish species of the lake, are most sensitive to reduced oxygen levels. The death of only one species also explains why scientists have ruled out poisoning at Africa's largest lake.

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And the fishermen here depend almost entirely on Lake Victoria for their food and their income.

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Any interruption to the quality of their fishing not only affects their stomachs, but also their pockets.

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Ferdinand Omondi in Kenya. Still to come in this podcast there is stepping back rather than stepping down was a really difficult environment, as I think a lot of people saw. We all know what the British press can be like.

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And it was destroying my mental health Queen Elizabeth's grandson, Prince Harry, on why he stepped back from his royal duties. The United States Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen, has told a group of finance ministers that the U.S. is changing its position on digital taxation in a way that removes what was once seen as one of the main obstacles to an international agreement. The move could revive stalled negotiations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Andrew Walker reports.

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How to tax international business has been a contentious issue for decades, but digital commerce has made it even harder for many governments to collect what they consider a fair share of tax, where the economic activity really takes place. Negotiations have been underway in the OECD but run into difficulty, especially over U.S. proposals for what they call a safe harbor provision, which critics characterized as making the tax optional for technology giants. Magellan's decision to drop that element is seen as likely to give the talks new momentum.

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The lack of progress had led some countries, including France, to go ahead without agreement, and the US threatened retaliation with tariffs against French goods.

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Andrew Walker, the Nigerian president, Muhammadu Buhari, has said the government will not succumb to blackmail by criminals who target innocent schoolchildren. The statement follows the abduction of 317 schoolgirls from a boarding school in northwestern Nigeria on Friday, Maione Jones reports.

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In a strongly worded statement, President Buhari said that state governments needed to review their policy of rewarding criminals with money and vehicles. He reiterated what his administration has been saying for years. They won't negotiate with kidnappers. But despite this assertion, mass abductions of schoolchildren are on the rise. And this latest one in the town of Jangi is eerily reminiscent of the kidnapping of 276 girls from the town of Chibok in 2014. Mr. Buhari said he would not rest until all the Chibok students were found, but over 100 are still missing.

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And now more children have joined the ranks. 42 people kidnapped in neighboring Niger state last week have not yet been rescued and desirable. A Christian girl taken from the northeastern town of Dapto in 2013 is also still in captivity. Now, the governor has ordered schools across Zamfara be closed. Education has become a casualty of the violence in northern Nigeria.

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Maione Jones. It's been a big week for Facebook. After removing the Myanmar military's propaganda pages following a coup, it temporarily blocked the news from its Australian audience. And this type of influence and power has led many critics to question whether the social media giant has become too powerful roles, Atkins' investigates.

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If you can grab your phone and have a look at the apps on it, I've got mine here. There's Facebook. I've also got Messenger. Don't use that too often. WhatsApp is right where my thumb can reach and there's my neglected Instagram, too. All of these apps are owned by Facebook, so four out of four for me. If you've got any of them, you're in a group of several billion of us who in some way contribute to this company's enormous power, too much power, some argue.

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And that argument is playing out around the world. Have a look at what's happening in Myanmar.

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This is the sound of thousands of people protesting against the military coup which ousted the democratically elected leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.

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Facebook's now taken down some of the military's pages, and that matters because half the population in Myanmar uses Facebook. As The New York Times journalist Paul Moyar explains, the entire Internet is Facebook and Facebook is the Internet.

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Most people don't necessarily know how to operate or get on and navigate regular websites. They can live, eat, sleep and breathe Facebook.

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And that's why Facebook so influential in Myanmar. We saw it in a very different way in 2017 when tens of thousands of Rohingya Muslims were killed in what the UN called a textbook example of ethnic cleansing. And UN officials like Yang say Facebook played a determining role in the violence by hosting content aimed at Rohingya Muslims.

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We know that the ultranationalist Buddhists have their own Facebook and really inciting a lot of violence.

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Facebook dictates what information is shared online right up to the military. And if it can take down the Burmese military, it can also take down the news for Australians.

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This is an assault on a sovereign nation. It is an assault on people's freedom. And in particular, it is an utter abuse of big technologies, market power and control over technology.

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That's the Australian Health Minister, Greg Hunt, angry that Facebook removed all news content in Australia. This now has been resolved, but the display of strength remains. And if you ask Facebook's former boss in Australia, Stephen Schiller, this is a problem.

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Now we're seeing sovereign nations. They haven't come up against Facebook yet, you know, we're not on the same playing field with with Facebook's power, and that concern has reached the UK. This is the head of the Competition and Markets Authority, Andrea Cashell, talking to the BBC this week.

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I think it's a very worrisome development and I think it really shows that we need to urgently do something to reduce this imbalance of power.

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The sheer scale of Facebook, three billion users worldwide means the decisions it takes on what stays and what goes have enormous political, economic and social consequences. As the Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison put it this week, Facebook may be changing the world, but that doesn't mean it runs it. Now, the company has never said it wants to. The governments are increasingly focused on whether it's become too powerful.

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Rosalyn's Queen Elizabeth's grandson, Prince Harry, has been explaining that he stepped back from his royal duties because of the impact of British press coverage on his family and his mental health. He was speaking in a recording for US television before Buckingham Palace confirmed that he and his wife, Megan, would have to give up their honorary military appointments and royal patronage. As our royal correspondent Danniella Ralfe has been watching the interview with The Late Late Show.

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Here we are. Very nice. Yeah. From the deck of an open top bus in the sunshine, Prince Harry opened up to his friend, the chat show host James Corden. The interview was recorded earlier this month. So before Buckingham Palace announced that the prince's life as a working royal was over, Harry said he never saw his departure from the UK as walking away.

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It was stepping back rather than stepping down was a really difficult environment, as I think a lot of people saw. We all know what the British press will be like, and it was destroying my mental health. I was like, this is toxic. So I did what any husband and what any father would do is like, I need to get my family out of here.

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And there were lighter moments to the queen he said had brought his son, Archie, a waffle maker, for Christmas. His son's first word had been crocodile. And yes, he had watched the TV series The Crown. The candid chat also included a brief video call to his wife. Megan had passed.

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I didn't know we were calling you has now no know my wife.

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James Corden offered a sympathetic ear, but the interview allowed Harry to again air his anger at the British press and show the ease he now feels with his Californian lifestyle. Next weekend, it's the turn of his wife and the broadcast of her interview with Oprah Winfrey. Danniella Rough.

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He has brought joy to huge numbers of children. He is a film star. He is a dietary staple. And for a moment it looked as if he was to be no more. He is, of course, Mr. Potato Head, who, alongside Mrs. Potato Head, has amused and entertained millions. On Thursday, it appeared that Mr. Potato Head was about to be gendered. Culture has evolved, said the toymakers, Hasbro, announcing that henceforward he would just be potato head.

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Q General outrage and now a course correction. Mr. Potato Head and Mrs. Potato Head aren't going anywhere, said the toy makers. Instead, the overall brand would be gender neutral, just plain old potato head. We've been speaking to the toy expert, Peter Jenkinson. Mr. Potato Head was invented way back in the late 40s and then it got manufactured and distributed by Hasbro a few years later in nineteen fifty two, it was actually the first toy that was ever advertised on television.

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Potato Head with their own kind. And that's what you mean. Mr. Potato Head is a car and both play along and there's a kind shopping California like Mrs. Potato Head. It's fun to do and so easy.

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So it was just pieces that you were supposed to insert into the potatoes that you already owned, which was quite, quite fun. I did. I mean, even today, that would be quite fun. I did the actual plastic potato body that we know today only came around in 1964 in.

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You've got a friend, Mr. Potato Head, became iconic and remains iconic because it's it's a simple toy, it's recognizable. It's got a whole load of nostalgia with it now. It certainly had that collaborative effect as well, where you could kind of just parents and kids could join in and play with it and do a little bit of role play and create little stories with it. It survived and then been brought back to life, obviously, with its introduction into into Toy Story this holiday season.

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The adventure takes. With toys come to mind and Toy Story, Mr. Potato Head is portrayed as a pretty much a kind of a grumpy middle aged man with a wife that just says it will be all right.

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Dear Mr. Potato Head. He's sarcastic and moody at times, but he can control his body parts when there's a touch. You would not believe what I've been through tonight.

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And his voice, I think, was a comedian called Don Rickles who really brought him to life. He's been in every one since then. They introduced his wife, who was very much his calming influence.

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Here it is, your the mustache.

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He's got such massive comedy appeal. You know, I remember a couple of occasions where they kind of patted him on the back or he got really frustrated and parts of his body would pop out. I mean, there's not much not to laugh about, about him over time as well. We've had he's been rebranded as a Star Wars themed Darth Tater. We've had trooper, we've had to ahto potato with our Optimus Prime.

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So it kind of seems to lend himself to lots of different guises. Peter Jenkins, and that's it from us for now, but there will be an updated version of the Global News podcast later, if you would like to comment on this edition or the topics we've covered in it, do you please send us an email? The address is Global podcast at BBK dot com dot UK. This podcast was mixed by Frank McQueeney. The producer was Beth Timmons. The editor is Karen Martin.

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I'm Mrs. Potato Head. Until next time. Goodbye. I would come home every day sad and angry, and I couldn't be the person that I wanted to be to my family. Sometimes ordinary people find themselves in extraordinary circumstances. We'd gone into a warzone as tourists and we just looked at the suffering. There's nothing we could do. We could have bandages or toilet roll. And we didn't laugh about that. And we did everything. We could be with a rock band and we played rugby on the Outlook podcast.

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We meet people who faced incredible challenges and they said that we believe that there's a direct threat on your life and you need to leave now. People who proved that after adversity, Mary's life was all it was. So just pure happiness. The Outlook podcast from the BBC World Service. So do you think you'll walk again? That's the plan. Just search for a BBC outlook wherever you get your podcasts.