Rajini Vaidyanathan

Dr. Leonardo Riella from Harvard Medical School led the team.

He told me colleague Gary O'Donoghue why this breakthrough was so significant.

We passed through a major milestone uh, for two reasons, I think number one, we had a big kidney working and performing all the expected kidney functions for more than nine months allowing our patient to be off dialysis and second, we were able to transition this patient from a pig kidney to a human kidney which was something that, uh, scientists and physicians had some concerns that by doing a pig kidney first we may prevent patients from, uh, having the option of human transplantation in the future.

So those are, are two very important milestones that we're able to pass.

But now hopes are rising after a successful breeding season increased the population by 90 birds.

Alison Ballance is the host of a podcast called The Kakapo Files.

She spoke to my colleague Rajini Vaidyanathan.

This is really exciting and really significant news.

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Hello, I'm Rajini Vaidyanathan.

Thanks for listening to The World Tonight on Thursday the 3rd of September.

We hear from a man who was rescued from an underground tunnel more than a week after flash floods on the Nepal-Tibet border and ask how will the country rebuild.

Ellie Westbrook there and Vanessa Farina.

Well, that ends this edition of The World Tonight.

I'm Rajini Vaidyanathan.

Thanks from me and everyone on the programme for all of you for listening.

Claudia Bauer is Minister for Europe, Integration and Family in the Austrian government.

She spoke to Rajini Vaidyanathan about why this ban is being implemented.

The headscarf is not just a harmless piece of fabric.

A headscarf worn by a girl, a eight-year-old girl, for instance, is a symbol of oppression.

[gentle music] Hello and welcome to News Hour from the BBC World Service.

Coming to you live from London, I'm Rajini Vaidyanathan.

We begin the program with a special report on the plight of the many thousands of Afghans who've left the country crossing into neighboring Pakistan and Iran, seeking refuge or employment in what's one of the biggest cross-border movements anywhere in the world.

In recent years, as the numbers leaving Afghanistan have risen, so have deportation efforts by Pakistan and Iran.

The BBC's chief international correspondent Lyse Doucet there.

You can find more of her reporting from her time in Afghanistan on the BBC News website.

[gentle music] This is Rajini Vaidyanathan with News Hour, coming to you live from the BBC in London.

It is by a stretch the world's largest emitter of harmful greenhouse gases.

However, researchers in the United States are working on a recipe for cookies made from recycled plastic bottles.

Mary Roelofs from Forbes Magazine spoke to my colleague Rajini Vaidyanathan

It's important to note that humans aren't eating raw plastic, even in these cookies.

The microbes, you know, like bacterias and algaes, are eating the plastic, and then breaking it down into the nutritional molecules that we think about, like proteins and fats and vitamins.

A man here in London has become the first person in the world to undergo live AI-assisted brain surgery.

Rhys Hibbert could have lost his sight had a tumor not been removed from his pituitary gland that contains vital hormones.

My colleague, Sarah Montague, spoke to Professor Hany Marcus, who performed the operation.

The gland sits more or less in the center of the brain, and although it's not cancer, these tumors grow and grow and grow and eventually put pressure on the sort of associated structures, including those that supply his vision.

So you've got a consensus across the world, and I think that's more telling than the absence of anyone who might feel it's more sensible to keep their heads down

David Gower speaking to the BBC's Rajini Vaidyanathan.

Grand Theft Auto is one of the biggest video game franchises of all time.

The last in the series sold over 200 million copies since it was released in 2013.