Quentin Somerville / Interviewee (3:22)

There was a surprise waiting for us as we entered the cartel safe house on the Mexican side of the border. The night air was thick and with a winter mist and smog from nearby factories. We drove into what I can only describe as a very ordinary neighborhood right by the border fence. There was a dental surgery on the corner and we passed floodlit football pitches where games were being played. Despite the fog, the heavy iron gate of the safe house opened and we were told to drive in quickly. And it slammed shut firmly behind us. We had expected to meet two men from a cartel whose name I was asked not to mention. They were there loading up a car with 5,000 illicitly made fentanyl pills, the opioid which has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans and made billions of dollars for Mexico's crime syndicates. They were a taciturn pair and wouldn't say much about their deadly trade, except that they were in it for the money. If they didn't do it, someone else would. They removed the car's back seat, then its fuel pump, and dropped the shiny vacuum pack pills into the petrol tank. The surprise, though, was the third man, a talkative American. He said I should call him Jay. And Jay was proud and expansive about his work as a drug dealer in Los Angeles and across the U.S. northwest. He traveled to Mexico to oversee the shipment, his shipment. He wore his black hoodie up and a scarf covered his face, but I could see pride in his eyes when he told me he sold 100,000 pills a week. He'd never expected a drug so potent, so deadly, to hit the market, he explained with almost detached wonder. And the thing about the drug is people know it's deadly and they're still willing to use the product, he said. They're playing Russian roulette with their lives and sometimes they lose. That's what happens, he said with a shrug. What about remorse or guilt when a customer died? I asked. It's not like I know that person. It is what it is. It's part of the game. He said that a number of times it's just a game. He was clearly untroubled by his part in the opioid crisis. But wasn't it bad for business to kill off your customers? I wondered. There has been speculation that the cartels have weakened fentanyl to reduce the number of fatal overdoses to lessen attention on their killer trade. No, said Jay. We're not trying to make anything safer. It was a shortage of a chemical to make the drug that made it less dangerous. As for dying customers, there would always be more to take their place. All part of the game. It would be wrong to blame solely Mexico's cartels for America's opioid crisis, as President Trump has. Illicit fentanyl may have supercharged overdose deaths in the States, but the drug's emergency predates the arrival of the Mexican made pill. American demand is as much of a problem as Mexican supply. Travel to Philadelphia's Kensington neighborhood and you can see the effects of Jay's game played out for real. It's been called the largest open air drugs market in the us. The streets are crowded with prone bodies of those in the grip of addiction. Many of those using collapse on the pavement after injecting fentanyl or the animal tranquilizer Xylazine. Some OD and must be revived using an overdose reversal drug like Narcan. John White sleeps on the streets or in the neighbourhood's Metro stations. He's 56 and he tells me he struggled with addiction since he was 16 years old. His eyes are roomy and his beard is streaked with grey. Fentanyl has killed him. Once, he told us, a joint laced with it caused an overdose and he woke up in an ambulance after a life saving hit of Narcan. He remembers Kensington's better days when he was a kid, before it was taken over by what he calls the monster. He lived through the heroin epidemic and the crack crisis too. I've been in this city all my life, he said. The fentanyl epidemic is the worst I've ever seen. John admires President Trump. As far as the war on drugs, Trump's got balls. He's not scared of nobody. But even so, he doubts that the President can kill the monster. Drugs is like prostitution, said John. The oldest profession in the world. You can't stop it now. It's gone too far.

Quentin Somerville / Reporter (8:00)

Quentin Somerville. Next to Bangladesh, where hundreds of thousands of Muslim Rohingya people have been living in camps since fleeing neighbouring Myanmar back in 2017 after finding refuge across the border, the Rohingya's survival has largely been dependent on Foreign aid. But this lifeline is now at risk. Following Donald Trump's decision to cut America's aid budget, Samira Hussain visited one of the refugee camps.

Samira Hussain / Reporter (8:31)

I meet Rehana Begum outside a UN food distribution centre. She was wearing a black burqa which hid everything but her eyes. Beside her were two very large plastic sacks with blue writing on them. Inside, she tells me, were six liters of cooking oil, 13 kilos of rice, and a few other basics like onions, garlic and dried chilies, rations given to her by the World Food Program. Like most people in this refugee camp, home for Rehana is a single room hut with bamboo walls and a steel corrugated roof, which she shares with her husband and five children. The food she got today needs to last her family one month, but she says it's just not enough. That's when I tell Reihana that from next month, her rations will be cut in half. A day earlier, the UN told the government of Bangladesh it was slashing food aid to refugees. It took the UN another day before getting the message. Out in the camps, Rehana gives me a look of absolute shock and asks my translator if what I am saying is true. Then she starts to cry. Wiping her tears, she asks, even now it is difficult to manage. How will it be possible? With only half of what we receive now we are begging for aid just to survive. This decision, Rehana believes, will mean people will die of hunger. The World Food Program has said a lack of international funds has forced them to make a drastic cut in aid. From now on, the rations allotted to the Rohingya community in Bangladesh were will only meet their basic daily dietary needs, igniting fears they will be left with just enough to stay alive and not much more. Life here is already bleak for the more than 1 million Rohingyas languishing in the world's largest refugee camp, a persecuted Muslim minority community that the United nations calls victims of ethnic cleansing. The people living here began fleeing violent purges in their home country of Myanmar. And eight years ago they found safety just across the border in Cox's Bazaar, a coastal city in southeastern Bangladesh. Unable to go back home and banned from working outside the refugee camp by Bangladeshi authorities, the Rohingya people here depend on international aid for their survival. The effects of funding cuts, especially by the United States, have been both dramatic and immediate. My car moves along a narrow, dusty laneway and stops in front of a local hospital run by the International Red Cross. It's late in the afternoon and I see no one entering or leaving. Next to the hospital is a small shop selling soft drinks and snacks. I ask the man sitting behind the counter if it's normal for the hospital to be this quiet. No, he says. Before, a thousand people would come in and out of the hospital each day. Now only a hundred. This hospital has lost its funding, which means it can only offer emergency services and nothing more. I walk past the hospital, down an alleyway and up makeshift steps made of mud. To my left and right are more one room homes densely packed together. Every few hundred yards are communal toilets. A dozen children follow me as I meander towards the home of Hamida Begum, who fled Myanmar eight years ago. I duck my head and take two steps down and enter the room. It is dark and humid inside. We sit on a straw mat on the dirt floor. Hamida sits in front of me, her disabled 12 year old daughter Sobeku beside her. Hamida was getting regular treatment for hypertension, but in January her local hospital abruptly closed because USAID stopped its funding. Her husband died last year, leaving her to care for her four children alone, including her daughter who cannot walk. I'm too old and I don't have anyone to help me, she says. I cannot go to another hospital further away because of my daughter. When I ask her how she will manage now that food aid has also been cut, she tells me there is just no way we can survive. We will be left to suffer. Dying would be better. It's not just the United States that is reducing its humanitarian aid. The United Kingdom has also announced it will make new cuts to its foreign aid budget as it comes under pressure to boost defense spending. France and Germany have also cut aid budgets in recent years. It's worth remembering Bangladesh, which is hosting so many Rohingya refugees, is a country facing many problems of its own. It is the largest recipient of foreign aid in South Asia. Last year its people overthrew its government and the interim government is battling to bring back a sense of stability. Nevertheless, it is providing some measure of safety and protection to the Rohingya and as they continue to flee persecution. But that job has just become immeasurably harder.

Quentin Somerville / Reporter (13:15)

Samira Hussein this week US Negotiators met Ukrainian representatives in Saudi Arabia, where they agreed a 30 day ceasefire plan, and US special envoy Steve Witkoff met Vladimir Putin in Moscow. The Russian president said he agreed with the idea of a ceasefire, but that questions remain about the truce, and he set out a number of tough conditions for peace. Meanwhile, both Russia and Ukraine continued fighting with new waves of drone attacks. Our security correspondent Frank Gardner assesses the chances for a lasting peace in Europe's deadliest conflict since World War II.

Narrator/Host (13:58)

Snow light, dry and driven by the wind falling softly onto the cobbled streets and tram lines outside Munich's grandiose Baadescher Hof hotel. Few of us who were gathered there last month for the annual Munich security conference could have predicted just how radically Europe's geopolitical order was about to be shaken up, a transformation that was deeply unwelcome to most of the delegates inside that hotel, yet spearheaded by America's Vice President, J.D. vance. Addressing them from a podium where previous speakers include Hillary Clinton and Vladimir Putin, the US Vice president famously attacked Europe on issues from migration to free speech. Some in the audience dismissed it. It's all just for domestic consumption back home, said one of them to me outside afterwards, tightening his scarf against the icy Bavarian breeze. But there is no denying the change is underway. Just days earlier, the U.S. defense Secretary and former Fox News TV presenter Pete Hegseth had bluntly informed NATO's European members that they could no longer cunt on the US as the guarantor of Europe's security. The entire post war security architecture of Europe, in place for 80 years, was clearly changing fast. Well, about time too, supporters of Donald Trump have said, because why should US taxpayers have to keep on footing the bill for a continent that in their eyes won't pay enough for its own defence? Trump supporters are not the only ones delighted by this sudden turn of events. Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping have been arguing for years that it's time to upend the so called rules based international world order. You may not always like our methods, they say, but at least our system works better than your flawed Western democracies that are now in terminal decline. All three of these men have something in common. They all have their eyes on acquiring more territory by one means or another. And Putin wants Ukraine, Xi Jinping wants Taiwan, and Trump wants Greenland. So where does all this leave the war in Ukraine? Well, there has been a lot of hand wringing on this side of the Atlantic at President Trump's apparent preference for the Russian leader over Ukraine's. This on top of that shock at discovering that Europe had suddenly lost its US security guarantees. But Europe has perhaps been a little slow to realize that after the failure of Ukraine's much vaunted counteroffensive two years ago, Kyiv cannot win this war. Something had to change to bring it to a halt. So the ceasefire proposal announced in Jeddah this past week is unquestionably a major breakthrough, even if its terms do not appeal to Russia. It at least proves to Trump that Ukraine is serious about ending the war that was an essential prerequisite to his restoring the US military and intelligence aid to that Ukraine so desperately needs. But, and this really is a but, there is a great yawning chasm between what constitutes a temporary ceasefire and a final and lasting peace deal that is acceptable to both sides, because here the two sides, Russia and Ukraine, are still far apart. The Americans have made it clear to Ukraine's negotiating team that they're going to have to give up territory. No surprises there, as Russia's forces are firmly dug in across the roughly 20% of Ukraine's territory that they have illegally seized and annexed. But what if Russia still insists on seizing the Ukrainian cities of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, places which it claims are now constitutionally a part of the Russian Federation but which are still in Ukrainian hands? If the US leans heavily enough on Kyiv to give up those cities to Russia, it'll put the Zelensky government in a terrible dilemma. Refuse and he risks Washington once more cutting off its military and intelligence support. But compliance, which may well be against his country's laws, would consign tens, possibly hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians to have to flee northwards or face the horrors of Russian occupation. Ukrainians I had met in Zaporizhzhia told me they know all too well what that means filtration camps, strip searches, brutal interrogations in subterranean cellars, and in some cases, lengthy internship in sadistic prisons on near starvation rations. Russia, for its part, wants nothing short of capitulation by Ukraine. It's made no secret of this. That means not just ceding territory to Moscow, it means giving up any aspirations of joining the EU or NATO and instead coming back into Russia's orbit. Politically, economically, strategically. Ukraine does want peace, but probably not at that price.

Quentin Somerville / Reporter (18:43)

Frank Gardner.

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Samira Hussain / Reporter (19:26)

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Quentin Somerville / Reporter (19:50)

Next we're in Syria's northeast, where a decade ago, a new force swept through the region the Islamic State. After Ayaz fighters reached the city of Kobani in September 2014, they came up against local Kurdish forces, and despite being outnumbered and outgunned, the Kurds managed to endure a siege that lasted for months. Eventually, with the help of international airstrikes, IS fighters were pushed back, allowing Kurdish forces to regain control of the region. Jiagol visited Kobani as it marked the anniversary of the victory. But with recent outbreaks of violence in Syria's coastal cities, he found a community still on edge.

BBC Announcer (20:33)

The road into northeast Syria is a gateway into another world, one shaped by war, resilience and uncertainty. We cross from Iraqi Kurdistan into the Kurdish controlled region over a floating bridge that trembles with each passing vehicle. Beneath us, the ancient Tigris river flows as it has for millennia. The Syrian Kurds call this part of north and northeast Syria Rojava, the west of Kurdistan. As we drive further, the landscape shifts. Rusting pump jacks dot the horizon, extracting crude oil from vast, blackened fields. To reach the city of Kobani, we must take a treacherous detour through Raqqa, the city the Islamic State once claimed as its capital. My guide, a wiry man with sharp eyes, warns us of is sleeper cells still lurking along the road. It is safer than the main route, he says grimly. Checkpoints break our journey. At each one, armed men scrutinize our papers. There are Kurdish, Arab and Christian soldiers, some barely old enough to shave and some in the late 60s. Many are villagers turned fighters. My guy smirks. At night, they sleep with different factions. Flags under their pillows, he claims. In the morning, they raise the flag of whoever is in power. When we finally reach Kobani, the scars of war are everywhere, buildings pockmarked by gunfire. But today the city is alive with celebration. It is the 10th anniversary of the Liberation from Ayas. Girls and boys, draped in vibrant Kurdish outfits dance hand in hand, their voices rising in song. Among them, only a few women wear hijabs. Overhead, white contrails of Turkish Fighter jets lace the sky, a reminder the peace here is always fragile. Nightfall in Kobani is suffocating. Darkness engulfs the city, broken only by the harsh glare of generator powered lights. The air is thick with the smell of gasoline. At a small restaurant, locals gather around us, eager to speak. A 60 year old man with a weathered face leans on his cane. He speaks of his children, six sons, one daughter. If IS and Turkey kills three or four, I still have some left, he says, with the resignation of a man who has seen too much loss. Turkey claims that the Kurdish led forces in this region include members of the pkk, the armed group which has battled Turkey for Kurdish rights for decades and is designated as a terrorist organization by Ankara. The Turkish military has attacked this region frequently since 2016. The Kurdish led forces here have been the backbone of the U S led coalition against Islamic state, losing over 12,000 fighters. But in 2019, after a call with President Erdogan of Turkey, Donald Trump withdrew most of the US troops, allowing Turkey to launch an offensive in the area. The Kurds here worry there will be an IS resurgence if President Trump pulled the remaining U.S. forces out. The local authorities told me there are still around 10,000 is militants being held in Kurdish controlled prisons. In a nearby hospital, beds are filled with the wounded. Some have lost limbs to Turkish airstrikes, others to drones. In a dimly lit room, I meet Avindar, a 26 year old Kurdish fighter from the all female unit YPJ, which fought on the frontline against Ayaz. Ankara sees them as an extension of the PKK even though they are separate entities. Avindar's leg is gone, amputated after an attack by the Turkish backed militia known as the Syrian National Army. Her gaze is fixed on the tv. Where is the international community? She asks. We fought is I lost many friends. Now we fight the same ideology under different names. Backed by Turkey In Damascus, Syria's transitional leader Ahmad Shah speaks of an inclusive government and this week signed an agreement with a Kurdish leader to integrate Kurdish forces and administration into the Syrian government. Many Kurds remain skeptical. They fear that with his jihadi background, the Shah agreement is a tactic to consolidate his power. I watch as young women from the YPJ unit train, all in use supplied military gear. Their commander, Roxana Muhammad, points to the portrait of fallen female commanders. Damascus says we should lay down our arms, she says, but we fought for our rights. If our rights are not respected, how can we be expected to lay down our arms?

Quentin Somerville / Reporter (25:35)

And finally we're in the Faroe Islands. An autonomous territory of Denmark, where locals have been keeping a watchful eye across the Atlantic on what's been going on in another Danish territory, Greenland. Donald Trump's proposal that the US might look to buy it has sparked fresh conversations over Faroese independence and a growing sense of local pride. On a recent visit, Amy Liptrot found a thriving cultural scene and a population on the rise.

Amy Liptrot / Reporter (26:06)

At the harbour in Torshawn stands a symbol of the Pharaoh's national bird, an oystercatcher, which is fighting off a raven, the raven symbolising Danish colonial power. On this visit, however, the national pride I discovered was more gentle and pragmatic than combative. The notoriously changeable weather brings three minutes of hail, then five of sunshine, and the dramatic shapes of the island's peaks disappear and reappear in fast moving cloud. Digital hoardings advertise hamburgers and butter chicken, not the traditional fare of mutton and mackerel. At the harbour, I meet the gentlemen who come down every morning to raise the Faroese flag, and they point out a compass carved into the natural stone. Rather than being remote, the Faroes, halfway between Shetland and Iceland, can be seen as an excellently located trading post between seafaring nations. Duty free in the airport offers goods from Denmark, Norway, Iceland and the uk, as well as the Faroe Islands own products including knitwear, salted fish, powdered seaweed and the local cola. The 55,000 or so people who live in the Faroes have their own TV station, university and a Michelin starred restaurant. The native language is spoken everywhere and the government controls most elements of the nation, including taxation. I'm here for the Faroese Literary Festival, together with other writers from the Nordic countries. And the conversation on many lips is about another Danish territory, Greenland, and President Trump's ambition to bring it into the US. In response to Mr. Trump's comments, the Danish king has changed his coat of arms to feature the symbols of Greenland and the pharaohs, more prominently the polar bear and the ram asserting their place in the kingdom. Why didn't they do this before? Shrugs one local artist I talked to. But in January, when the USA was inaugurating President Trump for the second time, the pharaohs welcomed Elsa Berg, newly elected as the mayor of Torshavn, the municipality containing about half the population. At 28, she is 50 years younger than the outgoing mayor and is from the left wing pro Independence Party republic, with a background as a biologist and an environmental activist. I meet the mayor at the City Hall, a grey stone structure standing out among the colourful wooden buildings straight out of officiating at a wedding. Her long red hair neatly tied back, she talks about the priorities for her four year term as how we can incorporate housing and nature policies and climate action. The islands are seeing the impact of climate change in rising sea levels and diminishing bird populations, and in increases in precipitation which brings risk of landslides. Maya Berg sees the debate about Greenland as not about the US or Denmark, but about self determination. She says she is very supportive and very inspired by the Greenlandic people's desire to be at the forefront of deciding their country's future. Opinions on Faroese independence are split, but the country has been gradually reducing its reliance on Danish support, taking a much smaller subsidy than Greenland. Spectacular mountainous islands rise sharply out of the sea, divided by fjords studded with the rings of fish farms. The hotel where I'm staying is hosting a salmon fisheries conference, the largest industry in the islands and delegates with smart cars Party into the night. The Faroes are not part of the EU and have been free to make their own trade deals, including with Iceland and Russia. The largest of the islands are connected by staggering sub sea tunnels built over the last 25 years, changing their character. The tunnels are so long that driving through them feels like night has fallen and it's a shock to emerge into daylight on the other side and usually into changed weather. The population of the islands is rising slowly, driven partly by people moving home. 27 year old Benir, a queer poet, has lived in Iceland in Germany, but came home during COVID and has now decided to commit to living in the field, renovating an old house in the small town where he grew up while working three part time jobs. Gudrun, a 32 year old academic, is also about to move back after living away for a decade to take up a job in the Faroese department of the university and sees exciting possibilities for a professional life here. That night at a poetry reading, the undulating tones of Faroese, like the swell of the North Atlantic from Poets old and young, show a culture alive and thriving.

Quentin Somerville / Reporter (30:49)

Amy Liptrot and that's all for today, but you can hear more stories on the from our own correspondent podcast on BBC Sounds. We'll be back again next Saturday morning. Do join us.

Samira Hussain / Reporter (31:02)

It's a parent's nightmare.

Amy Liptrot / Reporter (31:04)

I said oh it's a boy and I was holding my hands out ready to cuddle him and they took him away.

Samira Hussain / Reporter (31:11)

A switch at birth discovered with the gift of a home DNA test.

Quentin Somerville / Interviewee (31:17)

The so called brother that we grew.

Narrator/Host (31:18)

Up with wasn't a brother and there's.

Quentin Somerville / Interviewee (31:21)

Someone out there, if he's still alive.

Samira Hussain / Reporter (31:24)

Is a race against time.

Amy Liptrot / Reporter (31:26)

I don't want this woman to leave.

Quentin Somerville / Interviewee (31:28)

This earth not knowing what happened to her son.

Amy Liptrot / Reporter (31:31)

The Gift from Radio 4 with me.

Samira Hussain / Reporter (31:33)

Jenny Kleeman listen now on BBC Sounds.

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