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

I'm Paul Moss and in the early hours of Saturday the 24th of February, these are our main stories.

Alexei Navalny's mother says Russian officials are threatening to bury his body in the Arctic prison where he was held if she doesn't agree to a secret funeral.

Poland gets a $150 billion offer from the European Union, but will the cash actually arrive?

And... I see from behind the gates that these emissated women with children would come and the bodies were so thin.

They were desperate. I mean they were just coming and streams.

A new BBC radio series remembers the Bengal famine

which killed 3 million people in India during World War II.

Also in this podcast, the US says Israel's plans to build new homes in the occupied West Bank is inconsistent with

international law. And why did a big star make such a big bang?

It's about 20 light years across. A teaspoon of this material

weighs about as much as Everest. It is a grim choice.

Alexei Navalny's mother has apparently been told she must agree to a private funeral for her son without any mourners,

or else the authorities will bury him in the Arctic prison

where he died. Meanwhile the Kremlin has continued to deny allegations that it was

involved in Mr. Navarney's death. Reaction from the west it says has been hysterical.

From Moscow, our Russia editor Steve Rosenberg.

According to a spokesperson for Alexei and the Vinelis family, a Russian investigator called Mr. Nervynley's mother,

Ludmila, and delivered an ultimatum.

Either she agree within three hours for her son to be laid to rest without a public

funeral, or he would be buried in the remote

penal colony where he died a week ago.

...