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

I'm Jean-Audele, and at 14 hours GMT on Wednesday the 18th of December, these are our main stories.

Russia has detained an Uzbek man accused of assassinating a senior general in Moscow on behalf of Ukraine.

The United Nations expresses concerns about the expected

large-scale return of refugees to Syria. Two of Japan's biggest carmakers, Nissan and Honda,

are considering merger talks because of increased competition from Chinese electric vehicle

makers.

Also in this podcast, Polish prosecutors seek a Europe-wide arrest warrant for a former deputy justice minister accused of misusing state funds.

And?

The bear was up on this deck here, testing the door.

What did you do?

You use your vehicle horns and you chase

them in a desirable direction, which in this case would be away from town. How melting sea ice

has drawn polar bears closer to people. A day after a senior Russian general was assassinated in the heart of Moscow,

Russia's security service, the FSB, says it has detained a 29-year-old man from Uzbekistan over the killing,

saying he acted under instructions from Ukraine.

General Igor Kirillov died alongside his assistant when a bomb went off outside his apartment on Tuesday. He was in charge of the force

protecting Russia's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and had been accused of using

chemical weapons in Russia's war in Ukraine.

Svetlana Petrenko is a spokeswoman for the investigative committee which looks into major crimes in Russia.

During interrogation, he explained that he was recruited by the Ukrainian special services.

On their instructions, he arrived in Moscow and received a homemade explosive device.

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