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This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service.

I'm Jonathan Savage. And in the early hours of Thursday, the 22nd of October, these are our main stories. There's growing international condemnation of the reported killing of protesters by Nigerian security forces in Lagos on Tuesday at a ceremony in Paris. President Macron has led tributes to the teacher beheaded for showing a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad in class. The makers of the opioid that contributed to thousands of American deaths has pleaded guilty to charges related to the distribution of the drug.

Also in this podcast, the need to light heat and cool homes and offices is responsible for over a quarter of the world's CO2 emissions, say scientists. And as global temperatures rise, the need for air conditioning is growing rapidly.

But could a new type of paint make buildings and others feel cooler?

There's been widespread international condemnation of shootings in Nigeria in which Amnesty International and witnesses said security forces killed at least 12 protesters in the city of Lagos on Tuesday. The Nigerian army has denied any involvement. The UN secretary general has called for an end to the brutality. It's believed many of the killings happened when soldiers opened fire at a toll booth plaza in the suburb of Lecky. Sporadic unrest is continuing in Lagos despite an indefinite 24 hour curfew. So what exactly happened on Tuesday, Babaji?

Some were also is the governor of Lagos State Street to the point you knew there was a curfew that was declared at about 10, 30, 11 in the morning. And the coffee was meant to start at four o'clock right at the first, which was meant to be total lockdown. And people are meant to disperse and be at home from four o'clock. There were several appeals, you know, that we should extend the curfew time. And so we graciously communicated after that.

Yeah, the curfew will be extended until 9:00 p.m. So those were the communications that were out and those were the communications that were passed on to a whole lot of the security apparatus, you know, but I think at about seven o'clock or thereabouts, there was a small unit of of of the military that now went there, you know, and we had that gunshots were fired. You know, initially we couldn't even believe it because we thought no people were not meant to be there as security officers are not meant to be there till around 10:00, 11:00, you know.

So why would anybody be there now?

Well, the army said it wasn't there. Was the army there or not?

I think the footage I think the footage shows that the military I think the footage shows that I wasn't there. But I think the footage, some of the things that were caught on camera showed that it was the way.

Why is the army denying it then?

They don't report to me. And, you know, I wouldn't know why the instructions were that they shouldn't be there until around 10:00 PM. Right. So I think there must have been some miscommunication somewhere in their own formation, because what we hear is the unit that went there and their location is less than 10 minutes from where the incident occurred.

But just to be clear, you're not saying that people should have been opened fire on because they disobeyed the curfew, are you?

Absolutely not. Nobody I mean, no instructions to that effect that could have been given. I'm not party to that. I would never expect people to open fire on protesters. What?

Babaji, they some were, although the governor of Lagos State talking to Paul Hennelly people have been protesting in Nigeria for several weeks now, demanding the authorities reign in a notorious police unit called the Special Anti Robbery Squad. That unit has now been disbanded and replaced with a new one, but demonstrators say they want to see deeper police reforms. The social media hashtag and Saar's has helped bring the issue to the world's attention, with prominent celebrities calling for an end to the violence.

As our senior Africa correspondent Ansari reports, the U.N. secretary general, Antonio Guterres, has urged the Nigerian security forces to exercise restraint and said the perpetrators of the killings should be held to account. And perhaps unsurprisingly, the violence in Lagos has struck a chord in the United States, where similar protests against police brutality took place earlier this year. The Democratic presidential candidate, Joe Biden, in a statement to Nigeria's forces to seize the violent crackdown on protests. Prominent Nigerians abroad have also been speaking out.

The Manchester United striker Albany Nicolau issued a statement on his Twitter or.

Oh, I'm sorry. Look, I don't know where to start from, but I can't keep quiet anymore. And what is going on back home in Nigeria? I was say Nigerian government. You guys are shown to the world for killing your own citizens.

The heavyweight world champion, Anthony Joshua, who is also of Nigerian heritage, expressed his support for the protesters.

Your voices are definitely being heard. So keep on pushing. Keep on striving.

Celebrities like Beyonce, Rihanna and Drake have also called for an end to the violence and SOI.

France has paid tribute to Samuel Party, the teacher beheaded in broad daylight last Friday by an Islamist teenager in a speech to dignitaries at the Sorbonne University in Paris. President Emmanuel Macron called him the face of the Republic. Mr. Party was killed after he showed his class a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad during a lesson on free speech. From Paris, our correspondent Lucy Williamson reports.

For France's secular martyr, an Irish rock song, Salvio Pattie's coffin was carried into the Sorbonne to the U2 song one a favorite of his, a song about unity and division fitting for a nation making sense of this attack on his coffin. The legend honor awarded to him by President Macron Samuel Patte, Mr Macron said, was one of those teachers you never forget. He was the face of France.

Samuel Shihri. Paris is among Tussler.

Samuel Patty was killed for this because he embodied the republic that is reborn every day in classrooms, the freedom that is transmitted and maintained in schools. Samuel Patty was killed because the Islamists want our future and they know that with quiet heroes like him, they will never have it in the lawn zemi.

Away from this somber ceremony, there's been a frantic burst of government activity against the spread of militant ideas. President Macron has been promising action on this issue since he came to office. But this attack happened before most of his proposals were in place. Among the readings was a poem written for Samuel Party by the French singer Gauvin Samuel Party.

Seems we're getting used to the tears of the nation, it said to the horrors that we lived through, but the killing of innocent people that we don't get used to.

President Macron then led a minute's silence as the country's motto appeared on the ancient stones in front of him. The service ended with a simple Maziarz. But Samuel Party has left France with a painful question how values meant to protect the nation failed to protect the man who taught them and instead provoked his death. Lucy Williamson in Paris With the US presidential election less than two weeks away, Donald Trump and Joe Biden are locked in a tight race and campaigning on both sides is picking up pace ahead of the final televised debate on Thursday, President Trump held his latest rally in the key state of North Carolina.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden is counting on his former boss, Barack Obama, to help his push for the White House. The former president has made his first in-person appearance on the campaign trail in the crucial state of Pennsylvania, sitting in front of a Biden Harris banner at a question and answer session in Philadelphia. He urged young people to vote.

The answer for young people when I talk to them is not that voting makes everything perfect. It's that it makes things better, you are more likely to have representatives like the congressman or the senator who are going to. Look out for you who understand who you are. Your voice through them will be heard in the corridors of power. And what that means is that when budgets are decided. Or policies are issued. That they are more likely to reflect your views and meet your interests.

That's worth spending 15 minutes to go vote Barack Obama. Somali refugees hoping to start a new life in the United States are closely watching the presidential election campaign.

Their future is potentially dependent on who wins in November four years ago.

US President Donald Trump banned refugees from countries like Somalia, which were considered hostile to the White House. But before the U.S. government shut its doors, some Somali refugees at the Dadaab camp in Kenya had secured asylum.

Our correspondent Ferdinand Omondi has returned to talk to one of those families two years ago.

Hassan Noor told me he had worn his dream and after years of trying secured asylum in the United States for his family, he even had the plane tickets. But Donald Trump became president and later banned refugees from Somalia, one of the countries considered hostile to the U.S. Today, Hassan 853 is still here with his five children, wondering whether he will ever leave so soon as that time.

Our life is just becoming more hard and hard because of hardships in the refugee camp, because of we don't have any expectation to get any other resettlement and nothing is going on. So we become hopeless. Me and my family together.

It took six years for our son's U.S. immigration request to be processed at any given time in Dadaab. The waiting list to enter the US can run in the hundreds.

He thought he was one of the lucky ones because we were not expecting challenges against us from the highest person in the administration, which is the president who was just saying to you that I don't want refugees, I don't want Somalia.

Nearly a quarter of a million refugees leaving Dadaab, most of them escaping the civil war in Somalia, which has raged for over 30 years. The Kenyan and Somalian governments have been encouraging Somali refugees to return home. But Hassan says it is still too dangerous to take his family back. He doesn't even know whether he would trace his relatives or who scattered when they fled decades ago. Somalia remains under the continuous threat of militant group al-Shabaab. There have been regular attacks in cities and villages since the truck bomb killed over 500 people in the capital, Mogadishu, three years ago.

Still, Hassan hopes to leave the dubh and has been closely following the U.S. election campaign. In June 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld President Trump's ban on travelers from five Muslim majority countries, including Somalia, it has continued to be a campaign issue for the Republicans.

Hello, everybody. Hello. It's a campaign rally in Minnesota early this month.

President Trump famously attacked his presidential challenger, Joe Biden, over the issue of refugees, 700 percent increase refugees coming from the most dangerous places in the world, including Yemen, Syria and your favorite country, Somalia. All right.

You love somebody who's got to love Somalia. Biden will turn Minnesota into a refugee camp.

And he said that overwhelming public resources, overcrowded schools and inundated your hospitals.

But Democratic Party congresswoman from Minnesota, Illinois, former a Somali American, defends the contribution that refugees bring to the United States. Biden has promised to restore the refugee resettlement program, which was effectively stopped under the Trump administration back at the refugee camp.

Hassan is still hopeful that one day he will be able to resubmit his application and realize his dream of resettling in the U.S.. For 30 years, he has lived in the camp, fallen in love and started his family here, living in a shack and surviving on food aid. But he is old now, and his wish is to see his five children. The eldest, aged only 14, gets a good education and have a chance of a better life.

That report by Ferdinand Omondi. The opioid crisis in the United States has been linked to nearly half a million deaths over the last 20 years. Now the company that makes OxyContin a powerful painkiller, experts say helped fuel the epidemic, has agreed to plead guilty to federal criminal charges over the distribution of the medicine.

At a news conference in Washington, the US deputy attorney general, Jeffrey Rosen, detailed the settlement reached with Purdue Pharma.

The global settlement announced today involves the company pleading guilty to three felony counts for defrauding the United States and violating the anti kickback statute.

The district attorney for Vermont, Kristina Nolan, condemned the company's practices.

The unlawful, dangerous scheme put profits over people by seeking to increase scrips for addictive aeros, even when they were not medically appropriate.

And at the height of the US opioid crisis, our business correspondent in New York, Michelle Fleury, told me more.

You cannot underestimate the importance of this. I mean, one of the first things out of the prosecutor's mouth this morning was to highlight this as a success story in America's fight against the opioid crisis. And remember, Purdue Pharma was seen as one of the key players in this epidemic that has claimed so many lives. So to get a global settlement, one worth eight billion dollars, money that will go towards helping those suffering from addiction is seen as a win.

You've got three guilty pleas by the company, including one involving the anti kickback statute that involves the suggestion that Purdue paid two doctors between 2009 and 2017 to incentivize them to prescribe its products, part of a pattern, prosecutors said, of illegal marketing practices. So you can't deny the fact that this will be seen as a win. That being said, there are plenty of critics who say the owners of the Cycler family are getting off too lightly.

What will happen as regards holding them accountable, if anything?

Well, the Sandler family, it's been announced, will pay to settle a civil claim. But given their wealth, that's seen as sort of something of a slap on the wrist. Prosecutors were asked about this and they defended their position, arguing these people have been forced to give up their ownership of this company, which means they won't have any future source of income from Purdue Pharma. And also, this deal does not preclude prosecutors from going after the family or the company in the future.

But that may not give satisfaction to those who say these are the people who have profited off the addiction of so many people and of the suffering of so many people.

Is there anything significant about the timing of this? We are two weeks away from the presidential election.

Well, I think this case would have been a long time in the making. But obviously, when you headed towards an election, there is going to be an eye on the calendar. And depending on the outcome on November 3rd, you want to wrap up your most important cases and sort of get that out there, because if there is a change of personnel, then this is a way to ensure that your work doesn't get undone.

Michelle Florie. Scientists in the United States say that a new type of white paint has the potential to cool buildings and reduce the reliance on air conditioning. A study found the new product using different sized particles of calcium carbonate was able to reflect nearly all sunlight. Here's our environment correspondent Matt McGrath.

The need to light heat and cool homes and offices is responsible for over a quarter of the world's CO2 emissions, say scientists. And as global temperatures rise, the need for air conditioning is growing rapidly, particularly in emerging economies. Now researchers say they've developed a cheap and effective solution that could limit temperatures and buildings there. White paint is rich in calcium carbonate, a widely used, chalky substance which helps reflect away over 95 percent of sunlight from surfaces if it's commercially developed, say the authors.

It could cut the need for air conditioning in most buildings and offices. Professor Shilan Run from Purdue University, is one of the authors of the study on the paint. He says it will have a wide range of applications.

The use of these can be on buildings, can be data centers, can be other infrastructures. You know, the cost is comparable, even lower the commercial paying. There is no additional cost compared to the patients who are already using today.

Further testing will be needed to determine the long term efficiency of this paint. But the researchers are confident and there are strong interest from manufacturers in the commercial development of the product. Matt Megraw.

Still to come, I think everybody's probably heard that there's been a huge demand for pets during lockdown, which took a lot of us by surprise.

So how important is it to have a four legged. Stand by your desk while you work from home. Find out later.

You know, for more of our special reports and the run up to the US presidential election four years ago, Russia was accused of interfering in the US election and it is once again being accused of seeking to sway the presidential vote.

But this time it's not alone.

The BBC's cracy Twigg has been looking into possible involvement on Russian, Iranian and Chinese state media.

But the answers are by Russian TV pundits here enjoying a joke at the expense of Joe Biden. In Russian state media's coverage of the US election, mockery has been almost entirely reserved for the former vice president.

You'd be forgiven for thinking Russia is rooting for you belong in the Kremlin, prefers Trump because he is a very strong force that undermines the status quo that the Kremlin does not like. He undermines the rules-based global order that the Kremlin doesn't like. BBC monitoring.

Russian media analyst Vitaly Shevchenko says that the Kremlin media have picked their favorites not necessarily because they like him, but because of the potential benefit he could bring to Russia.

The main message is that America is failing, America is in chaos, and Russia and maybe China are taking America's place on the global stage.

America deceitfully team million ideas. And Will O'Meara's to you. My dear journalist Mitry Kiselyov often called the Kremlin's propagandists in chief, sums it up by painting a vivid picture of America, he says, is like a respectable pastor who towards the end of his career, starts turning up with his trousers undone, drunk and harassing female members of his flock.

Another idea that officials in Iran have also not stated their preference is for the next US president. In fact, they often insist they don't really care.

But the Iranian media coverage of the US election tells a different story. Vali Nasr. And to hear Joe Biden. But do not. From then on, every development gets covered in great detail.

Trump's maximum pressure policy on Iran following America's withdrawal from the nuclear deal in 2018 has had a devastating impact on the country's economy in the eyes of its media. Another four years of him in the White House would be disastrous for Iran, says Kian Sharifi from the BBC Monitoring Iran team.

The way the presenters talk about America, specifically Trump in this case, there is a sarcastic tone and the way they speak, there is a smirk on the presenters faces because they just don't see Trump, or rather they don't want people to believe that they see Trump as an accomplished politician compared to both Russia and Iran.

Chinese state media preference for one of the candidates seems more subtle.

There are a lot of countries around the world, I think Joe Biden pointing the finger at Russia, not China, when it comes to interference in the US election has been keenly highlighted in state media in Russia.

And Trump's anti China rhetoric over the coronavirus has irked the nation. Kerry Allen is our Chinese media analyst.

I very much get the sense that Chinese would rather have Biden in power than Trump. And there's concerns that Trump is an aggressor, whereas Biden might actually be able to work with China and work out a positive relationship.

Kerry Allen ending that report by cracy tweek.

Pope Francis has voiced support for civil union laws for homosexual couples and what Catholic observers say are his clearest remarks yet on the issue.

Speaking in a TV documentary, Pope Francis said same sex couples had the right to be in a family and nobody should be thrown out or made miserable.

I heard more from Mark Lewin, our correspondent in Rome.

Jonathan, he said that homosexual people have the right to a family. They are children of God. And then he said, well, we have to have it a civil union law. That way they are legally covered.

So this was the clearest support that Pope Francis has made as pope for civil unions, for homosexual couples. And it is significant in that it is the first time, of course, that a pope has thrown his backing behind civil unions for same sex couples. But it is not actually a radical shift from his previous positions, because when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires before he became pope, he was a staunch opponent of gay marriage. And he supported civil unions as an as an alternative.

And he has voiced support for them in interviews since. But this is his clearest backing for four civil unions, for homosexuals. And so therefore, it will be welcomed, I'm sure, by the liberal wing of the church and criticized by the conservative one. There is, of course, a difference between words and actions. So is Pope Francis shifting the Catholic Church's position on homosexuality?

That's a very good question. This is a pope who has previously flirted with liberal sentiments only to fall back on traditionalist positions when push comes to shove. When he first came into the papacy in 2013, he was seen as a liberal, partly because he came off the back of a more conservative pope, Pope Benedict, the 16th. But he is actually quite traditional and quite conservative on social issues. And bear in mind that he gave he gave this he said his words in the context of an interview rather than a sort of formal speech.

There's not been any sign of high level discussions at the top echelons of the Catholic Church. So I wouldn't expect the Catholic Church to change teaching on this core policy imminently.

You mentioned a mixed reaction from from within Catholicism, but do people openly criticize or take issue with the pope's views from within the church?

They do. I mean, there is that there is a conservative wing within the church. There are some cardinals, a couple of them American, one, for example, who is quite outspoken against against Pope Francis. There's the kind of conservative political establishment here in Italy on the on the right wing, the far right. There has been, you know, some criticism of him in other kind of conservative wings. And he has been quite critical of Donald Trump, for example, in the past on various issues.

So, you know, the pope is not seen as this kind of figure that you can't speak out against, but it is quite rare for people to lay into him. But there is certainly a wing of the Catholic Church that feels very uncomfortable with the fact that he has expressed a more open attitude towards some social issues, and they will be the ones who will be very exercised against him tonight.

Mark Lowen in Italy. For the past six years, Libya has been split.

At the moment, the divide is between the internationally recognized government in the capital, Tripoli, and General Khalifa Haftar, a self-styled Libyan national army, know the warring parties have held talks in Switzerland and agreed to open land and air communication routes between the two halves of the country. Our Geneva correspondent Imogen Foulkes, explain the significance of this agreement.

I think for many, many Libyan civilians, it will be very important because the country has been riddled with different military groups loyal to these two factions, which means that people can't move about, they can't visit their families, they can't move for work. Aid agencies can't get any aid through. So this kind of thing will, I think, really help ordinary people as long as it actually works. But we have seen a couple of flights already and there will be more and the land routes opening in the next few days.

OK, so it's a step forward. But what is getting in the way of a lasting ceasefire?

Libya has been in a really complicated conflict with dozens, thousands, by some estimates of different little warring factions. In addition, we have now external intervention. Turkey on the one side supporting the government in Tripoli, Russia, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, supporting the General Haftar forces in the east. So you see a tinderbox like this one little, you know, outbreak, escalation of the conflict, and it could all go bad again. But what we do see here in Geneva is these are the military representatives.

They have committed themselves to no further escalation. They've also committed themselves to negotiating on the release of detainees, which is always in a civil conflict, a really good confidence building measure. We've just seen that in Yemen, for example. So those are good steps. But we have a political process to come in Tunis next month. And from there, hopefully we may see a permanent cease fire. And the long term, what every ordinary person in Libya, I think, wants to see free and fair elections and moving to a more normal and peaceful life.

Imagine folks in Geneva. Now, here's a question mark. Well, the answer to that is having a dog probably costs a lot more than it did a year ago, it now seems we can't get enough of man's and woman's best friend.

More people have been adopting dogs and cats since so many of us were told to work from home this year. That desire to have a four legged friend while you work away at your kitchen table has benefited pet related industries.

Rob Young has been talking to Justin Thompson, the editor of the website Pet Business World News, and more importantly, the owner of three dogs, including Billy, who was lying by Justin Feet during the interview.

He's looking at me because I've stopped playing with his wife. She doesn't have to say she's fine and then she begins to drown.

And then then she would have used the odd noises.

So much for doing this. What is demand been like for pets from from breeders this year and I suppose from rescue homes as well. And what kind of pets have people been trying to to get their hands on?

Well, I think everybody's probably heard that there's been a huge demand for pets during lockdown, which took a lot of us by surprise. But I suppose you should have done the Pet Food Manufacturers Association instead. In fact, two point one million young people, that's people aged 24 to 35, introduced a pet, mostly a dog, into their home during lockdown in the U.K..

It is, you know, just I mean, that's quite short period as well, six months or so. So it's a staggering increase in dog ownership. They were the most popular pets during the pandemic at 57 percent. But cats there, also 38 percent of new pets during the pandemic were cats. So mostly dogs and cats, but also some small animals.

I've got to wonder where these animals came from. That is the issue. We've done quite a few stories and I know some of my friends that they've tried to get puppies during lockdown and it's been impossible.

And also the prices of hugely inflated gone up from 800 pounds for cockapoo puppy up to two and a half thousand. One of my friends paid for her. So, yeah, terrible.

The laws of supply and demand very much working in the world of Patillo Queuing. And I know also that even some of the adoption shelters run out of animals as well, if you say. But I mean, that is a good thing, obviously.

Why do you think people have been keen to get their hands on a pet?

I think probably it's to do with the fact that finally they're at home. They have time people who've always thought, oh, wouldn't it be nice to have a pet have finally had the time and the energy to think about it, to be at home, to know they could be at home, to look after a puppy, which is quite hard work after all, and it's just given them the opportunity working from home.

Justin Thompson and her dog, Billy, and 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 edition or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email. The address is Global Podcast at BBC, Dot Seo Dot UK. I'm Jonathan Savage. The studio manager was Hannah Montgomery. The producer was Leah McSherry and the editor is Karen Martin. Until next time.

Goodbye.