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

I'm Nick Miles and in the early hours of Thursday the 20th of June,

these are our main stories.

An investigation is published into abuses of students at the height of the Syrian Civil War.

Hundreds of people are reported to have died during this year's Harge pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia

as temperatures in Mecca exceeded 50 degrees.

Scientists have shed light on why some people don't get COVID-19

in a study which may pave the way for new treatments.

Also in this podcast I deliberately write clues that will have things like

Beyonce or one direction in them I want someone who glances at it in their

paper to think oh I thought it was all Shakespeare and Greek

myths.

We enter the notoriously tricky world of cryptic crosswords.

Should they be revamped to attract younger problem solvers.

There are thousands of accounts of human rights abuses carried out during Syria's civil war.

Many of the most brutal cases took place carried out during Syria's civil war.

Many of the most brutal cases took place in Aleppo between 2011 and 2013.

Now a report published by the campaign group Syrian British Consortium concludes that one of the country's top

sporting officials was responsible for many of the abuses. He's Omar al-A-Rube, he is now chairman

of the country's Paralympic committee, but at the time he was a senior

member of the regime-aligned National Union of Syrian Students, a group that reportedly beat

and tortured opposition groups.

...