← Global News Podcast
Global News Podcast
Trump and Putin to hold Ukraine talks in Alaska
00:28:04
The US and Russian leaders will meet in Anchorage without the Ukrainian president
Loading summary
Transcript79 lines
- [00:00]
Jackie Leonard
This is the global news podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Jackie Leonard and in the early hours of Friday 15th August, these are our main stories. Donald Trump says he believes Vladimir Putin is ready to make a peace deal as the two leaders prepare for talks in Alaska later today. US Scientists have used artificial intelligence to create new potential antibiotics that can kill drug resistant superbugs. And there's been fierce international criticism of the Israeli finance minister's decision to approve long delayed plans to build thousands of homes in the occupied West Bank. Also in this podcast.
- [00:44]
Rebecca Kesbie
Bratwurst is a staple of German and Austrian cuisine and is readily available at sausage stands.
- [00:51]
Jackie Leonard
The row about the origins of the bratwurst sausage. President Trump says he believes Russia and Ukraine could make peace as a result of his talks with Vladimir Putin later today in Alaska. But Mr. Trump acknowledged that the risk of the talks failing could be as high as 25%. Speaking at the White House on the eve of the summit, the US Leader said that if there was a breakthrough, the summit in Alaska could be followed by discussions also involving the Ukrainian leader, Volodymyr Zelensky. Mr. Trump hoped that these could start shortly, possibly even in Alaska. The Trump Putin meeting is being held at the Elmendorf Air Force Base, a major US Military installation that has been crucial in monitoring Russia. Ukraine and Russia are said to be far apart on many issues, and President Putin recently said that the conditions for him meeting Mr. Zelensky haven't been met. President Trump also had this to say about the war in Ukraine.
- [01:57]
Donald Trump
I think if I weren't president, he would take over all of Ukraine. It's a war that should have never happened, Mr. President. If I weren't president, in my opinion, he would much rather take off, take over all of Ukraine. But I am president and he's not going to mess around with me.
- [02:13]
Jackie Leonard
So how are Ukrainians feeling about the one on one talks in Alaska without them? After more than three years of a full scale and painful war, as our defense correspondent Jonathan Beale has been finding out, soldiers and civilians are worried about what may happen at the summit on Friday.
- [02:35]
Jonathan Beale
They call it drone training to deal with what is now the greatest threat to a Ukrainian soldier's life. Russian drones, their defense isn't that sophisticated, she said. A shotgun. They say it's still the best way to take down a drone. If Donald Trump can't get a ceasefire, then this training in the east may help save their lives. And among these troops, there seems to be little confidence the US President can do a deal without giving up More of their land for which they're still fighting in Darwin.
- [03:19]
Valeria
Well, it's a very hard question for me because I lost on this war, my father, a lot of my friends, and for what?
- [03:28]
Dr. Stephen Hall
It must be stopped and we must win.
- [03:32]
Jonathan Beale
But if you give away territory, or if President Trump makes Ukraine give away.
- [03:36]
Valeria
Territory, will that be a win?
- [03:38]
Jonathan Beale
It will be.
- [03:38]
Donald Trump
Not my solution, but I don't like this idea.
- [03:45]
Jonathan Beale
The views from the front are reflected in Ukraine's towns and cities. The capital too has been subjected to more intense Russian drone and missile attacks. Though as those Alaska talks get closer, the strikes have slowed down. On the streets of Kyiv, there are signs of resignation, that some sacrifices will have to be made.
- [04:13]
Valeria
Probably we will not be able to.
- [04:15]
Donald Trump
Take what was captured back.
- [04:17]
Valeria
Moreover, if they gave the weapon in the very beginning, then it might have helped.
- [04:22]
Donald Trump
And now we don't have the resources. All our boys are in the heaven.
- [04:26]
Valeria
Or in the hospital.
- [04:31]
James Gallagher
But look, if we don't stop, we'll.
- [04:33]
Donald Trump
Lose even more territories and more people.
- [04:35]
James Gallagher
It's like gambling in a casino. The more you play, the more you lose.
- [04:40]
Jonathan Beale
President Trump has said that in the end, President Zelensky will have to sign something. But One of his MPs, the chairman of Ukraine's Foreign Affairs Committee, Oleksandr Merezhko, says that's not true.
- [04:54]
Dr. Stephen Hall
Absolutely not. Because one thing to sign something, but absolutely another thing is to impose this on Ukraine, on our society, on our armed forces. Ukraine has proved many times that you cannot impose anything on our people. That's why, first of all, I'm sure that Zelenskyy will never sign a document which goes against interests of Ukrainian people. And second, we're a democratic society. We have proved it many times.
- [05:27]
Jonathan Beale
Gennady says he's not expecting much from the talks. He says it's all too vague. The 78 year old's home in Luhansk is now occupied by Russians. Is it very sad what's happened? His eyes well with tears. When he tells me he'll never go back again, he says, I still miss it. I liked fishing there. I had a small plot of land. I grew grapes and walnuts. And now it doesn't exist. Kanadi is just one of three and a half million Ukrainians who've been displaced by the war. He's now living with hundreds of others in mobile homes just outside the capital. 18 year old Valeria is another resident of this new makeshift town, now waiting for news from Alaska.
- [06:15]
Valeria
I really hope there will be something.
- [06:17]
James Gallagher
Good after those talks, but I don't have much hope. I don't want our country to lose any territory.
- [06:22]
Valeria
I have my friends from the territories.
- [06:24]
James Gallagher
And they don't want to lose their home.
- [06:26]
Jackie Leonard
It's our home.
- [06:27]
Valeria
It should not be part of Russian Federation.
- [06:31]
Jackie Leonard
Valeria ending that report by Jonathan BEALE In Ukraine, WhatsApp says Russia is trying to block its services because it offers users secure communications and it's found to do its utmost to continue to make encrypted services available since Moscow introduced draconian laws after its full scale invasion of Ukraine. Criticism of the war can land people in jail, so WhatsApp has become a crucial communications tool. Earlier this week the Russian authorities announced kurbs on voice calls via WhatsApp and Telegram. Dr. Stephen Hall, Lecturer in Russian and Post Soviet politics at the University of Bath in England, told Rebecca Kesbi More about what Russia's doing.
- [07:14]
Dr. Stephen Hall
The Kremlin's thinking on this is to be able to control the message and the narrative. The Kremlin has created a new social media network similar to WhatsApp and Telegram, based to an extent based on the Chinese platform WeChat called Max, and this comes from Vkontakte, which is the Russian version of Facebook, which is now controlled by the regime. So this is a safe space, as it were, that is controlled by the.
- [07:48]
Rebecca Kesbie
Kremlin, I suppose you could say. It doesn't show that they're very confident though that Russian government is popular. What does it tell us they're worried about?
- [07:58]
Dr. Stephen Hall
Well, it highlights that they're worried. I mean a lot of the talk is that they can't control the internal situation. It links back to the Croker City hall terrorist attacks which according to the Kremlin were instigated by the Ukrainians somehow and that this has been the case in other places where pensioners and Russian teenagers have been blackmailed or convinced to go and burn. Military registration offices and relay stations linked to transportation transport and the fsb, the Federal Security Bureau, the internal domestic security services have always blamed this on Ukraine. So the idea is to control the communication, control the narrative and to be able to send Russians regime approved narratives.
- [08:46]
Rebecca Kesbie
Okay. But I mean it would be something that Ukrainian actors might be interested in doing in actual fact. So perhaps they have been quite successful in using WhatsApp and Telegram for, let's say, subversive activities.
- [09:01]
Dr. Stephen Hall
I don't know exactly whether they have been successful or not. The sbu, especially in the gru, the military intelligence have been very effective in the past and so you would assume that they do know what they're doing. And this has been very helpful in getting Russians to attack their own infrastructure to deal with the war effort in Russia.
- [09:25]
Jackie Leonard
So, yes, Dr. Stephen hall from the University of Bath. For some time, there's been concern about the emergence of superbugs, the infections that can't be cured by current antibiotics. So there's cautious optimism about the news that scientists have created a new type of antibiotic using artificial intelligence. In laboratory and animal tests, researchers found that the drugs, which were designed atom by atom, could kill off two hard to treat bacterial infections, including mrsa. Professor James Collins from mit, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology says the drugs need further refinement before trials can begin. But the power of AI is already clear.
- [10:10]
Dr. Stephen Hall
We're excited for the story because we show that gender of AI can be used to design completely new antibiotics, ones that can be used against multidrug resistant pathogens. And this gives me great excitement for how AI can be used to address the antimicrobial resistance crisis here. AI can enable us to come up with molecules cheaply, quickly, and in this way expand our arsenal and really give us a leg up in the battle of our wits against the genes of superbugs.
- [10:39]
Jackie Leonard
Our health and science correspondent James Gallagher told us about the discovery.
- [10:43]
James Gallagher
We know that we need new antibiotics and this is a way of trying to find new ones. So artificial intelligence has already been used to scour existing drugs. Chemicals have already been made to see if any of those have antibiotic potential. This has gone that step further of going, can you use AI to actually design a drug and does what it come up with work? And the answer is yes. So what they've done is they've set loose the artificial intelligence, they've trained it, they've asked it to develop an antibiotic from scratch, they've narrowed it down, they've manufactured the most promising looking candidates that have been invented, they've tested them in laboratory and they have two ones that work against gonorrhea and ones that work against mrsa.
- [11:24]
Jackie Leonard
And why is this, why is this so important?
- [11:26]
James Gallagher
It's so important because we have a desperate need for new antibiotics. So what's happened pretty much since the 1980s is science has pretty much pulled out of inventing new antibiotics. And in that time, superbugs have taken off partly because we're overusing the antibiotics that we have and using them inappropriately. And what's happened is bacteria have become progressively more and more and more resistant to the drugs that we, we have. It's what's known actually as the silent pandemic. Now, because More than a million people a year are being killed by these infections. They're now resistant to the drugs that we have. So we need new ones and we need new ideas for finding new ones. And AI is appearing to be a potential driving force for these new drugs.
- [12:08]
Jackie Leonard
And how big a difference to medical developments, medical research is AI making?
- [12:14]
James Gallagher
Well, AI is all over the place, everywhere. So kind of like drug discoveries we're just discussing here, but also interpreting and analyzing scans. So like breast cancer scans or mammograms, or analyzing a lump growing on your skin to work out whether it's a mole or is it actually a dangerous skin cancer. So AI is being used in all of these fields as well as just being used in hospitals to make doctors and nurses work easier. So I think we are going to see AI have like a transformative effect on medicine. It's still quite to be figured out exactly what that is going to be, but there's no doubt that it's already starting to make those changes.
- [12:50]
Jackie Leonard
Are you excited about this development?
- [12:52]
James Gallagher
The problem is that we don't know if these antibodies are going to work. So, like they're great in mice, are they going to be great in people? Is still a question that needs to be answered. But the fact that you can train a piece of software and it can invent something that is actually able to treat and kill bacteria, that's pretty incredible. So I think I'm more excited about the technology than the drugs that has found. But in 10 years time, if these have proven to actually really do work and make a difference, then I should have said I'm excited about all of it.
- [13:20]
Jackie Leonard
That was James Gallagher. There has been fierce international criticism of Israeli plans to build more than 3,000 homes in a controversial settlement in the occupied West Bank. The country's far right Finance Minister, Betsell Al Smotrich said the move, which will split the territory, will bury the idea of a Palestinian state. The UK and EU have condemned the plan, describing it as a flagrant breach of international law. From Jerusalem, our correspondent John donison reports.
- [13:52]
Dr. Stephen Hall
The E1 project has been controversial for decades. The plan to expand Jewish settlements, illegal under international law, in an area of land between Jerusalem and the existing settlement of Mali Adumin. Palestinians have long argued it would in effect cut the occupied west bank in two, making their vision of a future Palestinian state impossible. The difference now is that the Israeli government is proudly saying that very thing. At a news conference in 40 degree heat on the rocky hilltops east of Jerusalem, the far right Finance minister Bezalel Smotrich said the land had been given to the Jews by God. And he put it to me that the plan would kill the idea of a Palestinian state forever. What message does that send to the likes of Britain and France who have just announced their intention to a recognized one?
- [14:45]
Valeria
It will not happen. I say to the leaders of France and Britain and Norway and Australia and Canada, you have no chance. You have no chance. A Palestinian state will not be established. You will not determine from overseas what will be the future of the Jewish people who finally, after 2,000 years, are taking their fate into their own hands and caring for their future existence and security. If you recognize the Palestinian state in September, our answer will be to impose full Israeli sovereignty over all of Judea and Samaria so that simply you will have nothing to recognize.
- [15:18]
Dr. Stephen Hall
Mr. Smotrich thanked President Trump for his support and it was suggested the E1 project could be renamed T1 in his honor. The Palestinian Foreign Ministry called the new settlement plan an extension of crimes of genocide, displacement and annexation. The scheme is expected to be given final approval next week.
- [15:38]
Jackie Leonard
That was John Donison.
- [15:42]
Valeria
Still to come, we started very early in the morning on smooth flat roads where we can get the greatest amount of efficiency on reasonably low speed roads and just try and be as efficient as we can.
- [15:51]
Jackie Leonard
Smashing the world distance record for an electric vehicle on a single charge. The current head of the Economic Community of West African States, known as ecowas, has urged military led Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger to rejoin the organisation. The three countries broke away from ECOWAS after refusing its demands to restore democratic rule. Will Ross reports.
- [16:23]
Valeria
The Sierra Leonean president, Julius Madabio, says he's held talks with the three military rulers to learn about their grievances and find solutions. Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger officially broke away from ECOWAS in January after forming their own alliance of Sahel states. They've grown close links with Russia and have cut ties with France. The big worry for the whole region is that this split is undermining efforts to work together to tackle the growing threat from Islamist militants. The coastal countries Ghana, Togo, Benin and Ivory coast are all worried about the violence spreading south from the Sahel region.
- [16:58]
Jackie Leonard
That was will Ross. The U.S. state Department has approved a possible sale of $346 million worth of weapons to Nigeria. Washington says the package, which still needs to be approved by Congress, includes rockets and bombs and will bolster Nigeria's security as well as support U.S. foreign policy objectives. Nigeria faces several major security challenges, including attacks by Islamist militants, kidnapping gangs and separatist insurgents in the southeast. Our correspondent in Abuja, Chris Awoko told us more.
- [17:33]
Donald Trump
This deal is coming from a request by the Nigerian government asking for over 1,000 general purpose bomb and more than 5,000 precision guided rockets including other military hardwares. And this has now been approved by the US government and expected to be given the green light by the US Parliament before being shipped over to Nigeria.
- [18:02]
Jackie Leonard
It's quite a contrast isn't it to the Obama administration in 2014 when it refused to sell lethal weapons to Nigeria?
- [18:09]
Donald Trump
Yes indeed, in 2014 the Obama administration actually declined selling lethal weapons to Nigeria and they say it's due to the military's human rights record and at the time it actually made the Nigerian government to come playing bitterly and insisting that, you know, halting such sale was affecting its effort in defeating the Islamist group Boko Haram again in 2021. US lawmakers also held down another proposed sale of attack helicopters amidst also mounting concerns about Nigeria government's human rights record. But this was shortly after Nigeria took delivery of six Tucano aircraft valued at $500 million from the US.
- [19:00]
Jackie Leonard
So why does the Nigerian government want these new weapons now?
- [19:03]
Donald Trump
As it is, Nigeria is battling a complex web of insurgency and criminal violence across the country and this weapon is expected to help bolster the government's effort in the fight against these security challenges. Today Nigeria is grappling with two jih these group attacks especially in the northeast, kidnapping gangs also in the west of the country and separatists agitation in the southwest in central Nigeria. We've also seen criminal gangs operating as well as clashes between headers and farmers that require intense efforts by the military to put down. So but basically I think the focus is mainly to defeat Boko Haram and a group in the northeast as well as a due decisive blow to bandits and criminal gangs that engage in kidnapping for ransom in the northwest of the country.
- [20:06]
Jackie Leonard
That was Chris Ewoko. Now some good news for those thinking of making the switch to an electric vehicle, but who suffer from what's known as range anxiety, that fear that you'll run out of battery power and be stranded in the middle of nowhere. A team from Polestar, the Swedish EV company has just smashed the world record for distance on a single charge using a standard publicly available unmodified vehicle achieving just under 1,000 kilometres on a single charge. Three efficiency drivers were at the wheel and Sam Clark was one of them. Rebecca Kesbie first asked him what exactly is a professional efficiency driver?
- [20:46]
Valeria
I have been driving electric vehicles now for 20 plus years and therefore have got fairly well experienced now in knowing how to get the most out of them. And in the most recent years, there's been a huge amount of attention, particularly from automotive OEMs like Polestar, to see how far we can really push their vehicles. And therefore someone like me that's been doing it a little while is well versed or well placed to be able to try and get as much efficiency out of these vehicles as we possibly can.
- [21:13]
Rebecca Kesbie
Right, so how did you do it then? Because you drove just shy of 1000 kilometres on one charge of the battery. There were three of you in the car working as a team. Talk us through how it works.
- [21:26]
Valeria
Yes, it takes a lot of planning and there were three of us as drivers, but only two of us were ever in the vehicle at one time. So we made sure that we did shift patterns for safety to make sure that everyone had an opportunity to have a rest. Yeah, we started very early in the morning on nice, smooth, flat roads in the Norfolk area of the uk, where we can get the greatest amount of efficiency on reasonably low speed roads and just try and be as efficient as we can.
- [21:49]
Rebecca Kesbie
I should point out that Norfolk in the UK is known for being quite a flat terrain. It's not full of hills that you might get elsewhere in the country. Talk us through that, then. Because obviously every time that you brake in an EV and you then have to accelerate, like traffic in cities or something, or going over the Scottish hills and mountains, all of that uses more energy.
- [22:12]
Valeria
That's right, yeah. And the important thing about these records is they're journey records, so they're done on real world conditions. On. On normal roads, we're not allowed to go over the same roads twice. However, we also, you know, it's a record. Right. So we want to make sure that we're pushing the limits wherever we can. So flat terrain, warm climates, which is why we do it in the summer, are all things which play to our favour. The vehicle isn't modified in any way, but we do try and use the variables as best we can. So we're hoping that there's no rain, that we drive as efficiently and as smoothly as possible. That's the key thing to driving EVs is trying to be smooth. They can be very torquey, very, very high accelerating type vehicles, which is good fun, but also energy sapping. So what we're trying to demonstrate with these things is that no one's going to be able to travel the distances that we achieved. And we're not suggesting that anyone can. It's just a demonstration of the art of the possible and just show that you can really make EVs do long distances now with reasonable ease. And we can all do that.
- [23:02]
Rebecca Kesbie
You talk about energy sapping. Apparently you were driving at around 20 miles an hour most of the time. That can't have been easy for you as a driver.
- [23:15]
Valeria
It was a little bit faster than that because we were on the road for about 22, 23 hours, but we obviously stopped quite a lot. So the vehicle was stationary for several hours throughout that journey as well. So our average was probably more like 30, 35 miles an hour. But you're right, Rebecca, there's a lot of concentration required and it gets obviously more challenging through the night or through the morning, through the day and then back through the night again. So that's one of the reasons why we wanted to make sure we change drivers regularly. And the person in the passenger seat is helping with navigation at all times, because we come up against all sorts of challenges on these things when you travel such long distances in one go, particularly road closure. Well, road closures was a big one. There's an area called Melton Mowbray, which we're all familiar with from the pies that we were attempting to drive through seamlessly at about midnight, only to find that there was a cycle race happening the next day and all the roads were shut.
- [24:04]
Rebecca Kesbie
Oh, no.
- [24:05]
Valeria
So trying to navigate around that and ensure that we didn't go on the same road that we'd already been on, because that would have avoided the record was a challenge. So even at sort of midnight, having driven for 18 hours, there's still a great deal of concentration required.
- [24:16]
Jackie Leonard
That was Sam Clark. And speaking of cycling, the British cyclist Matthew Richardson has become the world's fastest rider after breaking the record for an event called the flying 200 meters. He covered the distance in 8.941 seconds. Richardson said it was a pretty cool feeling to achieve a goal he had had for some time. Here's our sports Correspondent, Joe Lynske.
- [24:41]
James Gallagher
200 meters in under nine seconds. Matt Richardson, who was born in Kent, switched from representing Australia to Great Britain last year. He's now gone quicker than the previous mark set by the Dutch rider Harry Lavresen. He did it as part of a multiple world record attempt by British cycling at a velodrome in Turkey. The paracyclist Will Bjorfeld also made history cycling more than 50 kilometres in the course of an hour. That breaks a record that had stood for 11 years. Bjorfeldt said it was an achievement he'd been working for. For a long, long time.
- [25:17]
Jackie Leonard
Jo Linsky. A row has broken out between two German states over which can lay claim to having invented the bratwurst sausage. Regensburg in Bavaria has the world's oldest bratwurst stand. But a chance discovery by historians suggests the grill may first have been fired in neighbouring Thuringia, as Bethany Bell has been find.
- [25:42]
Rebecca Kesbie
Bratwurst is a staple of German and Austrian cuisine and is readily available at sausage stands. It's made from finely chopped meat, usually pork, although sometimes beef or veal that's chunkier than a frankfurter. Until now, the Wurstkuchel Tavern by the stone bridge in Regensburg has claimed to be the oldest bratwurst stand in the world. The first documented evidence of a cook or a food stall on that site dates back to 1378. A little to the north in Thuringia, the earliest written reference to bratwurst dates to 1404. However, historians in Erfurt, Thuringia's state capital, have now come across an even earlier document that mentions a meat roasting stand. It's dated 1269. 109 years before the Worstkuchel site. They're now looking for the place in Erfurt where the sausage stand once stood. Back in Regensburg, however, they're unimpressed. Andreas Meyer from the Wurstkuchel says that unlike in Erfurt, they have a living tradition producing charcoal grilled pork bratwurst with mustard.
- [26:58]
James Gallagher
They may have found a document in.
- [27:00]
Dr. Stephen Hall
Erfurt, but the important thing is that.
- [27:02]
James Gallagher
We actually work here. The historic Wurskuchel is alive and in Erfurt there's a piece of paper.
- [27:09]
Rebecca Kesbie
It's not the first time there's been a row about bratwursts. Regensburg and Nuremberg, also in Bavaria, have both laid claim to the oldest sausage stand title. Eventually it was ruled in favour of Regensburg, which is not going to give up the honour without a fight.
- [27:27]
Jackie Leonard
That was Bethany Bell and that's it from us for now. But there will be a new edition of the Global News Podcast later. If you would like to comment on this edition or the topics covered in it, do please send us an email. The address is globalpodcastbc.co.uk. you can also find us on X at BBC World Service. Just use the hashtag globalnewspod. This edition was mixed by Jack Wilfam. The producer was Liam McSheffrey. Our editor is Karen Martin. I'm Jackie Leonard and until next time, goodbye.