Global News Podcast BBC

Due to Coronavirus, a subdued ceremony launches the much-postponed Olympics. Fewer than 1000 invited guests and no spectators are inside the huge main stadium. Also, President Xi Jinping makes first official visit to Tibet by a Chinese leader in 30 years, and one of India's most flamboyant businessmen is arrested for allegedly making porn films.

President Biden has been under pressure to respond to anti-regime protests. Also: the Senate in the Czech Republic has approved a plan to compensate Roma women who were forcibly sterilised, and beset by scandals and Covid-19 concerns, Tokyo prepares to hold the opening ceremony for the Olympics.

The decision to remove Kentaro Kobayashi comes just a day before the opening show is due to be held. It’s the latest scandal to hit the Tokyo Games. Also: Famine stalks Angola as the worst drought in forty years ravages the south of the country; and Norway pauses to recall the mass murder committed by a far-right extremist ten years ago today.

Life expectancy in the US has suffered its sharpest fall since the second world war; Chinese scientists say global warming has made China's annual flood season much more dangerous; and a gold toilet is discovered at the home of a Russian policeman, arrested on suspicion of accepting bribes.

Record-breaking rainfall has brought deaths and chaos in China's Henan province. More than a dozen cities have been affected by the floods. Also, Nigeria secures release of 100 kidnapped women and children, and how a secret site in England is giving experts a glimpse into prehistory.

There have been severe floods in the central Chinese province of Henan with dramatic images of passengers in flooded subway trains; The US warns that the world can't wait for the pandemic to end before facing up to global warming; and are advances in running shoe technology giving today's sprinters an unfair advantage ?