| | | | | | | Hello. Dozens of families in India have appealed to the federal government to bring home relatives who unwittingly signed up to fight in the Russian army. Imran Qureshi and Neyaz Farooquee hear stories of how agents recruited workers promising well-paid jobs, but without disclosing their true nature. In the US state of Alabama, Nomia Iqbal speaks to Christians who have had their lives upended by a controversial ruling on in-vitro fertilization. Finally, Shaimaa Khalil meets women who have taken part in Japan's Naked Festival for the first time in its 1,250-year history. |
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| | | | Top of the agenda | | 'We weren't told we were being drafted' |  | | Agents reportedly recruit people from India, UAE, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. Credit: BBC |
| | Saturday 24 February marked the second anniversary of the morning Russia sent tanks over the border with Ukraine. Throughout the conflict, Russia has supplemented its troops with mercenaries, but not all foreign fighters appear to have made that choice willingly. Last month, an Indian lawmaker wrote to the foreign ministry seeking government intervention to bring Indians duped into fighting for Russia back home. BBC reporters Imran Qureshi and Neyaz Farooquee have spoken to the families of several men who reported being sent to the front line through agents who advertised lucrative jobs in Russia. They were lured by the promise of higher salaries, their relatives said, but did not know what they were getting themselves into. Read their stories. | | | | |
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| | | | | | | AT THE SCENE |  Birmingham, Alabama | | IVF ruling divides devout Christians | | The view that life begins at conception underpinned the drive in the US to legally recognise foetuses as people, which resulted in restrictions on abortion in several states. A court in Alabama has applied that principle to frozen embryos, creating a schism even among fervently Christian communities. | | | | Margaret Boyce had been taking fertility drugs for 10 months and was days away from her first appointment for in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) when the justices of Alabama's top court upended her life. Their ruling, which prompted many fertility clinics to pause their work, has left her turning to the Bible daily for comfort. Some anti-abortion groups celebrated the explicit use of scripture in Justice Tom Parker's opinion to justify what for them was a momentous decision. But the chief justice's theocratic justification has left Margaret puzzled. "Nobody understands more that an embryo is not a child," she said, before taking a pause, "than the person yearning for that embryo to be a child." |
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| | | | Beyond the headlines | | 'My bank manager stole from my account' |  | | Credit: Getty Images |
| | For four years, Shveta Sharma and her husband deposited their life savings from their US bank account into an ICICI account for non-residents in India. In January, they found out their funds had vanished. | | | | |
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| | | | Something different | | Kayaking in the Death Valley | | An ancient lake has resurfaced in the driest place in America. | | |
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| | | | And finally... | | The Hadaka Matsuri, or the Naked Festival, at the Konomiya Shrine in Japan, traditionally sees nearly naked men tussle, push and shove to touch a shrine that is meant to drive the evil spirits away. Now, for the first time in its 1,250-year history, women have taken part in the festival, albeit with a few tweaks. |
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| | | | | | US Election Unspun newsletter | | Cut through the noise in the race for the White House, every Wednesday to your inbox. | | |
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