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

I'm Valerie Sanderson. And in the early hours of Tuesday, the 20th of October, these are our main stories. The United States has indicted six Russian military intelligence officers over a series of extensive cyber attacks around the world. President Trump says he's ready to remove Sudan from a U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. Hundreds of young people have converged on the international airport in Nigeria's commercial capital, Lagos, as part of their growing protests for better governance. Also in this podcast, scientists in Australia are trying to regenerate the bushland by dropping gum trees, seeds from drones in an attempt to help koalas survive and thrive.

The goal is to repopulate native species and to build a more resilient Australia to deal with climate change and fire related disasters.

The US Justice Department has indicted members of a Russian military intelligence unit over an extensive and long running series of cyber attacks. The assistant attorney general, John Demmer, said they were responsible for the most disruptive and destructive series of computer attacks ever attributed to a single group. Here's our security correspondent Gordon Corera.

The six Russian military intelligence officers, some pictured in uniform in an FBI most wanted poster, were accused of involvement in some of the most damaging cyber attacks of recent years. These include switching off the Ukrainian power system, a 2017 attack on businesses estimated to have cost up to 10 billion dollars globally, the targeting of the French election and the disruption of the opening ceremony of the 2018 Winter Olympics. The aim of such public accusations is to deter future activity. But Russia has consistently denied any role.

Gordon Corera. President Trump has tweeted that he'll remove Sudan from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism if the country follows through on its pledge to pay 335 million dollars to American terror victims and their families. Sudan has undergone huge changes since President Omar al-Bashir was overthrown last year after nearly three decades in power. I spoke to former BBC Sudan correspondent James Copnall and asked him why the country was originally put on the U.S. list.

So this goes back to 1993. Omar al-Bashir had been in power in Sudan for just a few years, and he created a climate where lots of the most radical Islamists from around the world lived in Sudan, moved to Sudan, Osama bin Laden, the most famous of them. So the US imposed this sort of sanction, in effect, calling Sudan a state sponsor of terror. And that's continued ever since. And the American authorities, for example, blamed Sudan for supporting the people who bombed US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.

And that was another factor in keeping Sudan in the US is bad books.

This status has essentially made Sudan a pariah state for most of the world for the past 25 years or so. It also cut it off from vital sources of international finance and debt relief. It's been a devastating thing for Sudan.

So why is President Trump making this announcement now? Why is he taking Sudan off this list?

Well, it has to go through Congress first. That's probably worth pointing out. But essentially, it's a couple of things. The first is that Sudan is changing hugely. Omar al-Bashir was overthrown in popular protests last year. There's a civilian government in place, albeit with some military supervision. It's a recognition that the country is moving towards democracy, making sort of progress that simply wasn't imaginable under Omar al-Bashir.

It's also, I think, linked to the American elections. President Trump wants a foreign policy win before he goes to the polls. And in the negotiations leading up to this announcement, there was a lot of pressure put on Sudan to normalize its relations with Israel, recognize Israel. In essence, there's no mention of this during President Trump's tweeted announcement. There's something that was incredibly controversial in Sudan, but that's one thing to look out for in the next days and weeks, whether there is this rapprochement between Sudan and Israel as a result of this conflict.

And what difference will it make to Sudan itself once it's not on this list?

A huge one, particularly economically. The country's economy is really an extremely bad way right now. Very. High inflation, people really struggling to eat a meal a day in a lot of cases, despite this civilian government coming in, in the medium term, Sudan will be able to presumably get debt relief.

It will join the international financial system again. So that means it will be able to get lending and loans and investment, which right now is essentially blocked because of this state sponsors of terror. And I think also psychologically, it will do a huge amount of good for the Sudanese people to say that, hey, we're no longer someone considered by the U.S., the most powerful country in the world, as a source of terror, a force for bad in the world.

So the hope of the Sudanese authorities I've been talking to in the last few hours, it's going to radically change the economy and it's going to make Sudan's transition to a democratic country that much easier.

James Copnall, there are just 14 days to go until the U.S. presidential election on the 3rd of November. On Monday, voters in six states were allowed to cast their ballot in person ahead of Election Day. That included the key battleground state of Florida, which has voted for the presidential winner in every election since 1996. The Democratic vice presidential candidate, Kamala Harris, urged people to vote at a drive and rally in Orlando, Florida, Orlando.

I had to come here on the kick off of early voting in Florida because you can't make it happen, you will make it happen.

How many of those already in line to vote in Florida should Miss Harris enthusiasm?

I've had people who straight up threatened to take business from my company if you don't vote their way. It's just unfortunate and but it motivates me to vote. And I think people should vote. It's the coronaviruses more than anything else. You know, people need to get a handle this, you know, I mean, somebody with experience in the government.

I well, we have right now, there's things that I say this is a very important election because it's time to end the divisiveness, the corruption, the hate.

There are record numbers of people voting ahead of Election Day this year. Nearly 30 million Americans have already cast their ballot either by mail or in person. Our North America correspondent Anthony Zacker says the high turnout is being fueled by the pandemic.

That's what polls are indicating, that that is first and foremost in people's minds. It obviously is the issue that is most directly affecting their lives, not only their health or their perceptions of their health, but also the economy, their jobs, whether they can go to work, whether they even have a job. So nothing has been able to shake the coronavirus as the top issue since the pandemic really began in mid-March here in the U.S..

Do we know who's turning out for early voting?

If you look at the electorate, you can glean some things from it. It suggests that the electorate right now at least, is more Democratic, is younger, is more diverse. That's really good news for Democrats. In Florida, for instance, we've had two point four million votes already cast. About 49 percent of those are by registered Democrats, compared to 30 percent for Republicans. The question, however, is, is this just Democrats who are enthusiastic and getting their votes early and Republicans will make up ground on Election Day?

Or does this represent an electorate that is becoming more democratic when all is said and done?

President Trump has made many allegations about the voting process, hasn't he, Anthony? Most recently that 50000 votes had gone missing in Ohio. How are the authorities trying to ensure the process can't be challenged?

Well, it is a difficult time for a lot of states and trying to manage the increase in mail and balloting because people are afraid of voting in person because of concerns about contracting the coronavirus in Ohio, that 50000 number, I think that relates to incorrect ballots that were sent out in near Columbus. And that is a problem that several states have had where they've misallocated sent ballots or misprinted them and then had to go back and correct them and send new ballots out.

It is not going to be an easy thing for them to handle. And it makes it very easy. If it comes down to Election Day and it's a close vote for one side or the other to say these mistakes cost them at the ballot box and to turn to the courts to challenge it. States are doing the best they can, but this is uncharted territory for a lot of them. They're not used to this volume. They're not used to this kind of a system being in place.

And the last presidential debate takes place, doesn't it? On Thursday is a lot of anticipation about that. I mean, President Trump is out on the stump, isn't he? He is.

He is keeping up a blistering campaign schedule pretty much since he got out of hospital for Coronavirus. He's been having multiple rallies a day. He just finished a West Coast swing. Joe Biden, by contrast, has no more public events scheduled this week up into debate time. He's doing television interviews. He's doing debate preparation. So two very different type of styles and preparations and strategies going into what is going to be the last major set piece event of this election season where tens of millions of Americans are going to be watching these two candidates on the stage together for the last time.

Anthony Xhaka, French police have arrested 15 people after an Islamist teenager beheaded a history teacher in broad daylight on the outskirts of Paris last Friday. A source close to the inquiry said four of those detained are children suspected of being paid by the killer. To point out, Samuel Partite, the 47 year old victim. Police shot the killer dead. The French prime minister, Jean Kazaks, said the government would fight with unwavering energy against radical Islam. Bruno Bernell is an MP for the French ruling party République Ammash.

This crime rang the bell of a situation that was undercover for too long. And now when you hit really the situation where they touch something which is fundamental to the teacher of the French philosophy and République, then really you wake up the people.

I think it's a wake up call to members of the European Parliament have paid tribute to Mr Party with a minute's silence. The president of the parliament, David Sassily, said he died defending fundamental human values. Leterrier second padel education terror is best combated by education teaching as some of the party tried to teach teaching that is open to society, which looks towards dialogue and knowledge.

This battle is a daily battle.

It's fought by thousands of teachers who carry out their task with courage and determination, courage, determination.

Eight computer specialists have gone on trial in Germany, charged with running a huge facility for cyber criminals. Prosecutors allege that the four Dutch, three Germans and a Bulgarian ran servers which enabled criminals to carry out hundreds of thousands of offenses on the so-called Dark Web. Our Europe editor, Mike Sanders has been following the case.

This is a case that in some ways is straight out of the pages of James Bond. It's alleged that a Dutch entrepreneur bought a former German army bunker five stories underground in a hill by the river, Mosul, in Germany back in 2013. And prosecutors say he told the local council he was going to run a data processing center. But investigators believe that what he was really doing was running our host for the dark web, the dark net, so that cyber criminals could use it to sell things like drugs, stolen bank cards, that kind of detail.

And the prosecutors really will have to prove that the people who are running this center actually knew that it was being used for criminal activity.

How was it discovered? The police had it under surveillance for some time. They were rather suspicious about the entrepreneur said he was going to create a lot of jobs locally. And I think that didn't materialize. So they wondered what was going on and how it was being financed. They actually sent in an undercover policeman who managed to find out some of what was going on. And they monitored everyone who came and went into the facility and tapped their phones. And eventually they got a judge to give them a warrant to tap the phones of the center itself.

It was finally raided 13 months ago. Police special unit, that unit went in and broke into the bunker and seized 400 servers that were hosting two million gigabytes of data. And that's going to be the basis of the case that the prosecutors are going to present probably over a year.

It will take for this case to run Maxentius in Nigeria. On Monday, hundreds of protesters gathered outside Lagos International Airport as protests against police brutality and demands for government reform continued in several cities. Earlier in the day, gunmen posing as protesters overran a jail in southern Nigeria, releasing hundreds of prisoners. The governor of the state has imposed a 24 hour curfew. For more details. Here's the BBC's Chris AirCar, who's in Abuja.

The state government said that the curfew will remain in place across the state. At least 200 prisoners escaped after some armed men broke into a prison facility in the state capital on Monday. Eyewitnesses say the attackers blocked the roads leading to the facility, obstructing the road user from plane, the route they broke through the gate of a Web security agents and set prisoners free. The jailbreak is coming amidst continuing protests against police brutality in Nigeria. The police also say people posing as ANZAAS protesters carted away arms and ammunition from the armoury and freed the suspects in police custody before settling some of the police facilities ablaze.

Chris Abakar. An undercover investigation by BBC Arabic has found systemic child abuse inside Islamic schools in Sudan known as Huwa. There are nearly 30000 of these schools in the country. They're also popular in other African countries. The BBC secretly filmed inside 23 who was in Sudan. The investigation found that boys as young as five are routinely chained, shackled and beaten. The team also found evidence of sexual abuse. Some listeners may find this report from Mamadu Ariake upsetting. I was in the hospital and undermine another anxiously watches as his son Mohammed is treated by doctors for horrific injuries.

Thank God he's opened his eyes now.

They kept them in a room since Saturday without food or water, the Eruptor all over their bodies. He has been so badly beaten, you can even see his spine.

Mohammed Nader and a friend were beaten after trying to run away from their Islamic school or halwa. There are 30000 followers in Sudan where young boys learn to read, write and memorize the Koran for 18 months. We went undercover in hallways across Sudan to investigate reports of violence against children. We found children were routinely shackled for weeks at a time, and sometimes they change six or seven of us together and make us run.

We fall over, they with us and we get up again.

We also saw children brutally punished for misbehavior or making mistakes when reciting the Koran.

We watched as a boy was held down and whipped many times by a teacher. When we approached the school later, they denied this took place in another school just outside the capital, Khartoum. We found a room full of whips and chains and the young boy desperate to go home.

The sheikhs won't let me leave if I try to beat me and put me in chains until I want to go to my mom. I don't want to stay here. I want to go to my mother's family.

The school later told us, and Yusef is now in charge and that chaining and beating have stopped.

We'd also filmed in the school where Mohammed Nader and his friend were badly beaten, the conditions here were the worst we have seen. There was even a prison. The police charged two teachers with assault who were later released on bail, and the halwa remained open after months of recovery at home.

Muhammad, neither was ready to talk about his experience.

No, no, no. They tied me up and laid me on my stomach before giving me the beating. Didn't just happen on a single day. A lot of people came to beat us. Was the rest of the world's asleep after that? I don't know what happened. I just woke up in the hospital.

We were also told that rape and sexual abuse was carried out by older students in the school.

It was time to take our evidence to the man in charge of the boys school shooting, why he showed us around the school and the changes he had made and that training of children had stopped. But why had it happened in the first place?

Love is the most allures use changing, not just me. I was chained myself. It's packed with benefits, but we prohibited it after it caused problems. We stopped it completely. But the mood changed when we asked him about the allegations of rape.

And I fear God, you are talking about such bad topics. You should fear God. Don't fight the Koran. Be careful. Listen to me. These words make you really guilty and you will be punished. So be careful.

Several months after this interview, Sheikh Hassan was killed in a car accident. The hallway is now run by his brother, who told us under his management, the beating of children would not be tolerated. Sudan's religious affairs minister, Nasrudin Mauffray, says the government is planning to tackle abuse in Carlos, but were not that easy.

No beating, torture, violation of human rights or children's rights whatsoever. Anybody who breaks these laws would be stopped and the railway would be shut down.

Mohammed now is slowly recovering, but his mother, Fatima, is determined to make sure the men accused of beating her son are brought to justice.

That Mohammad needs plastic surgery. You see them with their clothes on and they look fine. But inside, you don't really know what's happening. If we stayed silent about this, there might be thousands of others tortured.

Just like Mohammed. Must we sacrifice our sons just to honor the religious men that remoulade with a deal that ends?

That report from Mamta Arabic in Sudan.

Still to come, Royal Navy submarines are meant to be rarely seen or heard. An exception is when something goes wrong. It did last month while one of its four nuclear armed submarines was tied up at Kings Bay in the US.

So what is the connection between a submariner, his barbecued chicken and a nuclear submarine? Find out later. The authorities in Belarus have released several prominent figures from prison and transferred them to house arrest in a rare concession after weeks of protests over Alexander Lukashenko, whose re-election as president. The group includes a high profile American political consultant who had been imprisoned for 10 weeks. The Russian opposition's coordination council said only the release of all political prisoners could help achieve a settlement of the political crisis.

Our Moscow correspondent Sarah Rainsford told me more about those who've been freed.

I think it's an important step and specifically the release of Italian lira is interesting. He's actually a U.S. citizen and there've been a lot of controversy over his detention. Even before the elections, he was accused of crossing unrest. The authorities have linked them to the blogger, security analyst who had tried to run for president himself and been blocked. Mr. Sherif had been in detention. His family were very concerned about his health. His wife is, in fact, the US diplomat, and they've been quite a lot of appeals for him to be released.

But that didn't happen until today, along with two activists from the opposition, both of them very closely connected to the protest movement. So they're now under house arrest. The charges have not been dropped, but still a significant move after they've spent many weeks in prison.

And why do you think this has happened now? Well, it's interesting. All three of them were at this very strange meeting on the 10th of October when Alexander Lukashenko himself went to the KGB prison in Minsk and held this kind of roundtable with some of those political prisoners essentially in Belarus. And we were told from state media and then from some of the participants themselves that they discussed the possibility of constitutional reform. And it seemed really to be an attempt by Mr.

Lukashenko to seek or at least to be seen to be seeking some kind of compromise, because, of course, there are still mass protests on the streets of Belarus, particularly in the capital, Minsk, every single weekend, and also smaller process through the week. And obviously, that's not something that can go on indefinitely. I think he's also keen to show perhaps to the EU, which are talking about imposing sanctions on Mr. Lukashenko, that he is trying to have some kind of dialogue with the opposition.

Some of the opposition see it as a sign of weakness, that he's been forced essentially into this dialogue. Others are worried that this is an attempt to actually to split the opposition and that Mr. Lukashenko should just step down from office because the charges against these dissidents haven't been dropped, have they?

So they could be put behind bars again, I suppose. And also, there are other dissidents still in jail, aren't there?

Well, exactly. Yes. And some of these charges are really quite serious with several prison terms attached if the prosecutions go ahead. And as you mentioned, some significant figures, the most significant figures from the opposition are still behind bars and they're still holding a strong line there saying that Alexander Lukashenko is illegitimate, the elections are unfair, he has to go and that there can be no dialogue with the opposition whilst there are still so many people behind bars.

Sarah Rainsford, the social media platform Instagram is facing two investigations under EU law into the way it handles children's personal information. The inquiries are being carried out by the Irish Data Protection Commissioner because the firm's owner, Facebook, has its European headquarters in Dublin. Here's our technology reporter Zoe Climate.

The minimum age for an Instagram account is currently 13, and the investigations follow a study last year which found that if children upgraded their accounts into business ones, their contact details would be publicly displayed. Instagram says this was always made clear to users at the time. The Irish regulator wants to find out whether Instagram had a legal basis for collecting children's data in the first place and whether it's done enough to keep that data secure. It also wants to determine if the site's account settings are appropriate for children who should be seen as vulnerable persons.

If it finds against Facebook, the company could be hit with a large fine. The tech giant disputes some of the research, but says it has changed its practices for business users to maintain privacy. And it will cooperate with the inquiries.

Zoe Climate, now Pakistan and twin girls who were born joined at the head and separated last year by a team of doctors at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London. They've finally gone home. Saffar and Bawa underwent three major operations, and their mother says she's delighted with the outcome. But the lead surgeon on the team says he has some regrets. Medical editor Fergus Walsh has been following the twins story over the past two years.

Sasha and Malia are now three and a half and still having regular physical therapy. Born joined at the head, they couldn't see each other's faces until they were separated in February last year. The surgery took more than 50. The hours spread over four months, all their treatment was paid for by a private donor in one operation, the surgeons had to make an impossible choice. Only one twin could receive some key blood vessels that nourished both their brains. They were given to Marwah, the weaker twin.

But as a result, Saffer had a stroke. Saffar now has permanent damage to her brain and may never walk. It still troubles the lead surgeon, always Jalani.

I feel Marawa has done really well and carries on making great progress. So when I look at the whole family, yes, it was probably the right thing to do for the family. But for Safa as an individual, I'm not so sure it's a decision that I made as a surgeon. It's a decision that we made as a team. And it's it's a decision we have to live with.

But the girl's mother has no regrets and regards the surgeons as heroes. She says whatever the future holds, Marwa and Safa will face it together as sisters and twins, but also separate individuals.

Fergus Walsh, Britain's Royal Navy, is investigating claims that an officer on a nuclear submarine was sent home for being unfit to work after turning up for duty drunk. It's understood that the weapons engineering officer arrived at HMS Vigilent last month, still feeling the effects of a previous day's barbecue and clutching leftover grilled chicken. Our defence correspondent Jonathan Beale reports.

Royal Navy submarines are meant to be rarely seen or heard. An exception is when something goes wrong. It did last month while one of its four nuclear armed submarines was tied up at Kings Bay in the US, where they load and unload the Trident missiles. Lieutenant Commander Ledlow had returned from a trip ashore to keep watch on HMS Vigilance, weapons of mass destruction. But he'd been drinking and was clutching a bag of leftover barbecue chicken when he reported for duty.

He's now been flown back to the U.K. The Royal Navy has begun an investigation, while the defence secretary has raised his concerns with the head of the Navy.

But speaking to the BBC, Ben Wallace also tried to reassure the public that no one person is in control of these type of complex weapon systems or indeed any submarine weapon system. There are lots and lots of checks and balances. And therefore, you know, this individual, you know, there's a whole there will be reasons behind this. But he has been dealt with and we will ensure that we provide the safety wrap around these weapons and any weapon in the British armed forces.

Since that incident, there's also been an outbreak of covid on HMS Vigilant, around 30 sailors. A quarter of the crew tested positive with reports that some broke their own lockdown rules to visit bars and clubs ashore. And three years ago, the same submarine was at the center of another scandal, with several crew removed for taking drugs and the captain sacked over a relationship with a female crew member. Stories of sailors misbehaving ashore, a result as the Navy itself.

But it's different when it comes near Britain's nuclear weapons system.

Jonathan Beale. Wildlife experts in Australia are deploying drones to drop 40000 gumtrees seeds a day in an attempt to help koalas survive and thrive after thousands were killed in bushfires. Gum tree leaves or koalas, main source of food. And the aim is to drop seed from the air to aid the regeneration of bushland. Stephanie Prentice has been looking into the story.

The koala rescue. She's the mother of a baby just trying to protect as many as you can see.

Videos of koalas dying from burns, starvation and dehydration were widely circulated in the aftermath of the Australian bushfires this summer.

All little things, it's impossible to know how many died, but estimates say it could be 10 percent of the population. And the fires that incinerated habitats nearly half the size of the United Kingdom left many of those that survived with nowhere to go. Now authorities are trying to regenerate bushland and forests as quickly as possible to help a species that was already struggling with population numbers. Kelly works for the Science for Wildlife Conservation Group.

So overall, the koalas have been declining for many years now, which is a real area of concern in these protected areas. You know, we found these populations that have been doing really well, young growing populations, and the main threats to them have been fires. And for a few years now, you know, we've always known it would be a threat here, but we just we saw something of a scale we'd never imagined happened last summer during the fires, helicopters were used to drop food to help starving animals.

And now drones will drop seeds from above and strategically, too, in an attempt to create corridors of trees and to reach an. Accessible areas, it's hoped the new habitats could eventually double the numbers of the marsupials. Here's Kelly again.

We're talking about species that have been around for millions of years. So looming extinction is not a good picture. And also, if you want to try and reverse that trend, it's going to take a lot of time. You know, it's not something you can change overnight. So it's something needs to be taken very seriously.

Right now, the World Wildlife Fund is now seeking to raise 210 million dollars to help pay for the program. Stephanie Prentis.

And that's it from us for now. But there'll be an updated version of the Global News podcast later. If you want to comment on this podcast, all the topics covered in it. Send us an email. The address is Global Podcast at BBC Dot 08 UK. I'm Valerie Sanderson. The studio manager was Gillian Farber. The producer was Leah McCaffrey and the editor. And our boss is Karen Martin. The next time my.