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

Hello, I'm Oliver Conway.

We're recording this at 14 hours GMT on Tuesday, the 17th of January.

China's population falls for the first time in 60 years,

so who will look after the growing number of elderly people?

The opposition leader who lost the disputed presidential election in Belarus

is put on trial in absentia.

And tens of thousands of civil servants in Sri Lanka

are told their salary payments are being delayed because of the economic crisis.

Also in the podcast, there is such a thing as ethical accountability.

This means the Interior Minister, the National Police Chief,

even the Prime Minister, they should all take responsibility.

A police report in South Korea says the fatal Halloween crush in Seoul was a man-made disaster.

In 1980, as its population reached 1 billion,

China imposed a strict one-child policy.

The birth rate declined, but that meant fewer young people to support an aging population.

By 2016, that had become a problem, and the one-child policy was abandoned.

However, the birth rate remains low, and now China's population has fallen for the first time

since the famine of the 1960s. It is still the largest in the world at 1.4 billion,

but the decline of 850,000 could mark the start of a long-term downward trend

with implications for China's economic growth and stability.

Our China media analyst, Carrie Allen, told me how people there were reacting to the news.

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