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

I'm Janet Jalil, and in the early hours of Wednesday,

the 29th of March, these are our main stories.

The International Olympic Committee has recommended that athletes from Russia and Belarus

should be allowed to take part in international competitions,

effectively lifting a ban imposed after Russia invaded Ukraine last year.

Hundreds of thousands of people have demonstrated across France again

in protest at President Macron's plans to raise the state pension age.

Mexico's president has said a fire that killed 39 migrants at a facility close to the United

States border was started by the migrants themselves.

Also in this podcast, mammoth meatballs anyone?

The woolly mammoth DNA is actually available on a public database,

and so we identified a key gene that we were most interested in.

The scientists on a mission to make meatballs from the long extinct mammoth.

There's been a backlash after the International Olympic Committee

recommended that athletes from Russia and Belarus be allowed to return to international competition,

although only as individuals under a neutral flag.

The move essentially lifts the ban imposed in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine.

The German government has described it as a slap in the face for Ukrainian athletes.

The IOC President Thomas Bark, speaking in a news conference,

explained the conditions attached to those taking part in the contest.

We got more from our sports news reporter Alex Capstick.

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