Donald Trump (2:53)

They like each other. I found that out today and I've sort of heard about that. They actually like each other, Lebanon and Israel. And we had a great meeting with the very high officials of Lebanon and very high officials of Israel. And we think that the President of Lebanon and the Prime Minister of Israel over the next couple of weeks will be coming here. They've agreed to an additional three weeks of I guess, no firing, cease fire, no more firing. Let's see. We hope that happens. It's not going to happen between them, but they do have Hezbollah to think about. We had a great conversation and I think it's the beginning of something very important. It would be a wonderful thing to get this worked out simultaneously with what we're doing in Iran.

Alex Ritson (3:39)

Hezbollah rejected any Lebanese negotiations with Israel as the Israeli army continues to occupy a large part of southern Lebanon. I asked our North America correspondent, David Willis if Mr. Trump was more eager to get involved in Lebanon for the sake of, of getting a deal with Iran.

David Willis (3:57)

He does, Alex, saying that Lebanon is a beautiful country that got torn apart and adding that the United States is keen to get involved work with Lebanon in order to protect it from Hezbollah. And President Trump said that Lebanon, Israel have, as he put it, a common problem, namely Hezbollah. And following these high level meetings, he is clearly hopeful, it would seem that a ceasefire can be sustained.

Alex Ritson (4:27)

Al Lebanon has agreed to the ceasefire, but not Hezbollah, which Israel has been fighting. So given that, can this three week extension actually achieve anything?

David Willis (4:37)

Well, it's the million dollar question. President Trump made clear that the United States close ally Israel has the right to protect itself should it come under attack. Israel of course, has established that self declared buffer zone in southern Lebanon and Hezbollah regards them as occupying forces in that area. Hezbollah has said the ceasefire to continue on the basis of full compliance, as it puts it, by Israel. But there remains considerable mistrust. President Trump also wants the ceasefire to hold, not least because it was his decision to attack Iran that reignited hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel. Since when of course, nearly what, two and a half thousand people have been killed in in Lebanon, according to the Lebanese authorities. Mr. Trump knows that a broader truce has to involve Lebanon. And Mr. Trump told reporters that he's hoping to host Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Lebanese President at the White House in the near future in the hope of expanding talks beyond the ambassadorial level to a next phase in which Lebanon would presumably push for Israel to withdraw from the south of the country. Israel wants, of course, the dismantlement of Hezbollah, but what's happened today is significant despite the carve outs such as giving Israel the right to defend itself if it's struck by Hezbollah. Significant as well, Alex, in that the US Is willing to get involved, as we mentioned in Lebanon.

Alex Ritson (6:20)

David Willis, President Trump remains in a bullish mood with Iran, denying that he's keen to end the war with Tehran. He claimed that the US Navy had up tight the critical oil waterway, the Strait of Hormuz, and that it will remain that way until Iran makes a peace deal. But the Islamic Republic is showing no sign of backing down on its demands that the US End its blockade of Iranian ports. Here's our security correspondent, Frank Gardner.

Frank Gardner (6:48)

So the situation in the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz is once again a kind of stalemate, bit of a logjam rally. The good news is that of course, the ceasefire is more or less holding. The full scale war has not resumed. The president, Donald Trump, has not carried out his threat to target power plants and bridges across Iran, although Iran doesn't trust him and thinks that that could still happen at any minute. But the bad news is that there are not one, but two blockades going on on this vital waterway, Iran, which, whether the US Likes it or not, does have some control over the Strait of Hormuz. It has the major coastline there all the way from the Shuttle Arab Waterway up in the north next to Iraq, all the way down to the border with Pakistan in the southeast. And it's still got the ability to target ships. It's attacked three ships in the last day or so. It's reportedly seized two of them. So it's still a threat to shipping. And at the same time, the US has imposed a naval blockade on all Iran's Gulf ports, not on the Strait of Hormuz per se, but on Iran's ability to export its oil and to import produce. And as long as that naval blockade is there, as long as the US Is blockading these ports, Iran says the Strait of Hormuz is not going to be open and they're not going to come to peace talks. So it's really a case of who blinks first. Now, Iran can take a lot of pain, but this is really tough for them. They need their Gulf ports to be able to export their oil, to generate income, to pay people salaries. So not only are they going to be running out of money, but the oil is going to be stacking up in their reservoirs and soon going to fill them up, which means that they're going to have to start shutting down wells. For the US There is pressure because this blockade on the Strait of Hormuz is driving up the price at the pump. And much as Donald Trump says he doesn't really care about that, he's not in a big hurry. Internationally, there's more and more people turning to look at the White House saying you need to solve this and Iran's position hasn't really changed. So the ball is pretty much in the US court on this one right now.

Alex Ritson (8:57)

Frank Gardner. While Russia wages war on Ukraine, the Kremlin is fighting for control of cyberspace. At home, access to popular messaging apps is restricted. There are curbs on mobile Internet and on VPNs, virtual private networks used to circumvent censorship. Officials claim it's for national security reasons. But as our Russia editor Steve Rosenberg reports, there's growing criticism of Russia's Internet crackdown.

Steve Rosenberg (9:28)

Outside the presidential administration offices in Moscow, people are waiting to submit a petition. They're calling on Vladimir Putin to end Internet censorship, to lift restrictions on popular messaging apps. And on mobile Internet, they have the right to petition their president. But in authoritarian Russia, this is very much putting your head above the parapet. It's a very small group of people that's come out today and the suspicion is that people are frightened to publicly demand their constitutional rights are restored. When we turned up here a few minutes ago, we were filmed. We're still being filmed quite closely by security officers on this street, those who have turned up. Pretty brave, I think.

Yulia Grekova (10:16)

My business is entirely on Internet.

Steve Rosenberg (10:20)

Yulia has signed the appeal. She runs a catering company.

Yulia Grekova (10:23)

We are losing money. Every time there is a blockage of Internet, we are losing, losing, losing, losing. And no one is caring about me.

Steve Rosenberg (10:32)

Aren't you frightened? Aren't you scared?

Yulia Grekova (10:33)

I'm very, I'm shaking.

Steve Rosenberg (10:36)

Do you think that coming here today will make a difference?

Yulia Grekova (10:40)

I don't know, probably not. But it's what I can do.

Steve Rosenberg (10:49)

An advert for Max, Russia's new state backed messaging app. The authorities are heavily promoting. It's excellent, says the voiceover. But many Russians doubt it's at all secure. Meanwhile, WhatsApp has been blocked. Access to the popular Telegram messenger restricted. And in many parts of Russia, curbs on mobile Internet mean that only state approved sites open. The authorities talk about a sovereign Internet for a sovereign Russia. It feels like a digital iron curtain is being built. I travel 120 miles from Moscow to Vladimir. In the town centre, the taxi booking app on my phone opens OK and I can access state media. But Google searches aren't working and independent news sites aren't loading. Across town, Yulia Grekova shares her story. She had applied to the local authorities to hold a rally against Internet restrictions. She'd listed 11 options for a venue. City hall replied, sorry, not possible on that day. We'll be cleaning the streets at all 11 locations. Then the police came to her work and warned her, don't protest. Back in Moscow, I asked Vladimir Putin's spokesman, is Russia on a road to the past? No, it's not, replies Dmitry Peskov. Security considerations dictate certain measures. Most of our citizens understand that once the need for such measures disappears, services will be fully restored and returned to normal. It also looks like trust in the president is falling. Vladimir Putin's approval rating has dropped to its lowest level since the full scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. As well as frustration with the Internet restrictions, there is concern about the economy and growing fatigue with the war on Ukraine. Remember Yulia, who I'd met outside the presidential administration office? She handed in her petition. Now she's back at work in the kitchen at her catering company.

Yulia Grekova (13:16)

All the conversation is about survival. Future is not even mentioned in day to day conversations with friends, with relatives. It's like what we are doing in three days, in a week, in a month, nothing more than a month.

Steve Rosenberg (13:32)

Just like the bread I can see expanding in the oven. Rising across Russia right now is a deep sense of uncertainty.

Alex Ritson (13:43)

And you can see the full version of Putin's Russia. We're cut off from the outside world on the BBC News YouTube channel. Delegates attending talks on how to tackle gang violence in Haiti say some progress has been made. Around one and a half million people have been displaced since gang warfare erupted five years ago. The UN Security Council representatives said a new multinational gang suppression force will replace the Kenyan led security forces in the coming months. Here's our global affairs reporter, Mimi Swaby.

Mimi Swaby (14:17)

It is estimated that half of gang members are children, compounding Haiti's status as one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a child. Representatives at the UN Security Council meeting emphasized the need to protect young people amid Haiti's humanitarian, economic and security crisis. The emergency meeting also spotlighted a multinational gang suppression force which will be deployed in phases in the coming months to replace the Kenyan led multinational security force. Although representatives stressed that fragile progress had been made, the new force is heavily anticipated to help Haitian authorities regain control and create conditions for longer term stability in elections this year. Haiti's acting Prime Minister, Alixe Didier Fils Ame, addressed the meeting saying it was time to come together for the state to retake its rightful place and that Haiti would not perish since gang warfare erupted in 2021, nearly 1.5 million people have been displaced by the violence, half of them children. Thousands have been killed alongside widespread reports of sexual assault, kidnapping and extortion.

Alex Ritson (15:25)

Mimi Swaby the tech giant Meta has told its staff that it plans to cut 10% of its global workforce, impacting almost. This comes as the parent company of Facebook and Instagram plans to spend more than ever on artificial intelligence. I heard more from our reporter Alfie Habershan.

Alfie Habershan (15:47)

An internal memo to Meta's staff about these latest cuts didn't mention AI explicitly, but it said this would allow the company to make room for other investments. But if you look at Meta's spending, it's easy to see where that money might be going. The numbers are staggering. $40 billion on AI in 2024, 70 billion in 2025, and now this year set to be 135 billion. It's hard to process figures like that, but it's about the yearly cost of running a country like Portugal or Greece. Meta is not the outlier here. It's worth noting Microsoft, Google, Amazon, all spending similar amounts, all trying to win this race. There's been so much talk about how AI will turn the world of work upside down, but CEO Mark Zuckerberg says 2026 is the year it will happen.

Alex Ritson (16:32)

And it is the latest in a series of cuts from Meta. How is it able to function with such a reduced number of staff?

Alfie Habershan (16:40)

Yes, well, Meta has been rapidly automating a lot of routine admin tasks, content moderation, ad creation, customer support. Even this week, the company told its staff it's going to begin tracking them on their computers and logging their interactions to train and improve its AI models. Given all the layoffs, one employee told the BBC, that situation just feels dystopian. We also heard recently it's even developing an AI version of Mark Zuckerberg himself to give employees feedback. So all this makes for a lower staff count and one that's predicted to drop further.

Alex Ritson (17:13)

Yeah, and you mentioned eye watering spending on AI. Where's all this going?

Alfie Habershan (17:18)

Yes, eye watering indeed. The biggest chunk of it is going to matter's aggressive expansion of data centers. These have come under a lot of criticism of late for their impact on the environment, the sheer amount of water and electricity being used. They can be equivalent to the size of an airport or a small city holding millions of servers to train the AI. Also, as Meta cuts these jobs, as we've mentioned, it's pooling its money together to try and poach some of the best AI engineers around. We're talking about superstar footballer type wages here. We saw reports last year of $100 million offers to persuade some of OpenAI's best talent. That's the maker of ChatGPT, of course. But the overall picture here is the race to so called artificial general intelligence or AGI. That's the buzzword we hear all the time that all these top A are going for. Often defined as developing AI that can surpass human cognitive ability in every area. Of course we're not quite there yet, but we know Meta is a little behind its rivals like OpenAI, Google and Anthropic. And what we're seeing here is Mark Zuckerberg trying to close that gap.

Alex Ritson (18:20)

Alfie Habershun still to come in this

Ruth Slenczynska (18:25)

podcast, eventually Mr. Ralph Lauderdale found out and his place is taken by a nine year old girl.

Alex Ritson (18:36)

The last surviving pupil of the composer Rachmaninoff has died at the age of 101.

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Trace Dominguez (19:04)

Your social media feed says eat more protein. Track your sleep, boost your VO2 max. Wake up in cold plunge. Cleanse yourself of parasites. You're intrigued but confused. So where can you turn? Welcome to Health versus Hype, the show where we take the loudest wellness trends on the Internet and ask the questions only science can answer. What's real, what's exaggerated and what is completely wrong. I'm Trace Dominguez. Each episode we show the science behind viral health claims. From high protein diets to cold plunges, detoxing to sleep tech obsession. And we talk to the people in the middle of it all. Influencers, the curious, but more importantly, doctors and researchers. Not to cancel the trend, not to hype it more, but to understand it. Listen to Health vs Hype with the American Medical association on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Slow the scroll. Start asking better questions.

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Alex Ritson (21:18)

This is the global news podcast. When dinosaurs dominated the Earth millions of years ago, giant octopuses roamed through the oceans. That's according to a new study which found that these gigantic invertebrates may have been among the top predators of the seas 100 million years ago. The research, published in the journal Science, questions what is known about underwater life back then. As our science reporter Helen Briggs explains,

Helen Briggs (21:46)

for decades, scientists have believed the biggest ocean predators at the time of the dinosaurs were animals with backbones such as sharks and marine reptiles. Invertebrates, including octopuses and squid, were thought to play minor roles. But a set of remarkably well preserved fossilized jaw bones of octopuses living between 72 and 100 million years ago tells a different story. The evidence suggests some of the earliest octopuses grew to extraordinary sizes, with powerful arms and crushing beak like jaws for hunting large prey. Researchers at Hokkaido University in Japan say the animals may have reached total lengths of up to 19 meters, potentially making them the largest invertebrates of ever known. The fossils offer a tantalizing glimpse of a powerful, intelligent giant that may have prowled ancient seas. But Dr. Nick Longrich, a paleontologist at the University of Bath, says many questions remain.

Nick Longrich (22:45)

So this would have been an absolutely voracious predator. What exactly it's eating? I think that's, you know, that's the big question there. Is it some sort of apex predator, kind of like a great white shark or like the Mosasaurs were, or like an orca? That's not impossible. Most other octopi don't hunt fish. They don't hunt vertebrates. They hunt shellfish. One possibility, big shellfish would be ammonites. That's kind of my hunch. It's kind of a bit of a mystery.

Helen Briggs (23:11)

Until more fossil evidence is found, scientists can only guess at the exact shape of the animal, how fast it could swim and what exactly it was dining on.

Alex Ritson (23:21)

Helen Briggs. The climbing season at the world's highest mountain is just getting underway. But the route to the top of Everest is blocked. A large chunk of glacier has lodged itself on the path just under Camp 1. The block of ice is 30 metres high. And now the Nepali Department of Tourism is trying to find alternative ways for the climbers to reach the summit. Our environment correspondent, Navin Singh Khadkar, told my colleague Oliver Conway, more about the problem.

Navin Singh Khadka (23:52)

The Sherpas who fix the ropes and ladders, they are known as icefall doctors. They have been monitoring it and unfortunately nothing has happened. They were expecting this thing to move or melt or anything, but that hasn't happened. And it's quite tall, this wall of ice, and they have not been able to cross it, circumvent it. And the fear is if they go near it and if they touch anything, there might be movement and it might fall. The fear is also, you know, recently in 2023, a similar serac fell over a cliff and that triggered an avalanche and killed three Shepard rope fixers. When I talk to them, they have a very, very fresh memory of that and they're quite scared. And how did this block of ice get there?

Alex Ritson (24:39)

Did it fall down from above?

Navin Singh Khadka (24:40)

No. What we need to understand here is the Khumbu Ice Fall. That's a massive stretch. As soon as you climb above Everest Base Camp, you reach this Kum Wai's fall, which is the most treacherous part in when you are climbing ever Everest from the Nepalese side. So what happens is, because it's a moving class here, the Khumbu Glacier, then you'll get all sort of these things, you know, like things come up, appear, reappear, disappear, they melt. So there are crevasses, there are seracs, there are blocks of ice appearing, reappearing. Now, unfortunately, this time around, this has appeared right above the route heading to Camp One. And the fear is it might come down anytime and again, triggering avalanches or even rock falls or whatever.

Alex Ritson (25:25)

So how much of a delay, delay is this causing and how disruptive is it to the climbing season on Everest?

Navin Singh Khadka (25:31)

Going by past experiences, by now they should have fixed the ropes and ladders and climbers who have assembled at the base camp. They should have started acclimatizing up to Camp 1. Now because of this delay, the fear is that there might be a traffic jam and that might cause other risks. That is the real concern.

Alex Ritson (25:53)

And can they do anything other than wait for this chunk of ice to melt?

Navin Singh Khadka (25:57)

This is where everybody is guessing Officials are not coming out. Clearly they say there is a plan B and nobody knows what that is, but there are. When I speak to industry people, the Sherpas or operators, what they're saying is there could be two things. One is they could use strong drones to transport the equipment and all those things to higher camps. And they might even use helicopters to ferry those climbers to those camps, Camp one or so. Again, it might be controversial. It is controversial already, you know, using helicopters and all that. But given the situation like this, you know, it might be a possibility, but nothing official as of yet. These are options being discussed. We are yet to see if it really happens.

Alex Ritson (26:40)

Navin Singh Khadka, a pianist who was the last surviving pupil of the composer Sergei Rachmaninoff, has died at the age of 101. Born in California to Polish parents, Ruth Slenczynska gave her first recital at the age of four and made her debut with a full orchestra in Paris aged seven. She was heralded as one of the greatest child prodigies since Mozart, but briefly turned her back on her music career in protest at her tyrannical father's rules. Our media and arts correspondent David Sillitoe looks back at her career.

David Sillitoe (27:23)

The pianist Ruth Slinska playing Rachmaninoff, a relationship that had begun in the 1930s. The great Russian composer had had to pull out of a concert and the promoter went looking for someone to take his place.

Ruth Slenczynska (27:40)

Dopy as my father, if I could replace him. And I did. And eventually Mr. Rachmaninoff found out that his place is taken by a nine year old girl. Next thing I knew, invited my father to bring me to vintage place again.

David Sillitoe (28:06)

Yes, she was nine.

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Helen Briggs (28:09)

All right.

David Sillitoe (28:10)

And Rachmaninoff's new student was already a veteran of the concert circuit.

Alfie Habershan (28:14)

And what are you going to play to the audience?

David Sillitoe (28:16)

Here she is.

Helen Briggs (28:16)

I'm going to play a minuet in G major by Beethoven, aged five.

David Sillitoe (28:24)

But the pressure from her father to practice nine hours a day led to her running away from home when she was 15. She was in her late 20s when she returned to performing. And it was only in later life that she said she truly came into her own.

Ruth Slenczynska (28:38)

Nobody becomes a pianist until they're really at the age of 60 because you don't know what you want until then.

David Sillitoe (28:48)

Indeed, this recording of Chopin was from a recording deal that she signed when she was 97.

Alex Ritson (28:59)

David Sillitoe. And that's all from us for now. If you want to get in touch, you can email us@globalpodcastbc.co.uk. you can also find us on X@BBC World Service. Use the hashtag globalnewspod. And don't forget our sister podcast, the Global Story, which goes in depth and beyond the headlines on one big story. This edition of the Global News Podcast was mixed by Lee Wilson and produced by Wendy Akurta and Ira Khan. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Alex Ritson. Until next time. Goodbye.

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