You're listening to the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. Hello, I'm Oliver Conway. This edition is published in the early hours of Sunday, the 16th of February. A US envoy says Europe will not be directly involved in Ukraine peace talks, even though it will be asked to provide security guarantees.
The railway station in Delhi leaves more than a dozen dead as pilgrims travel to and from the Kummela festival. And Israel and Hamas have completed their latest hostage and prisoner swap despite fears the Gaza ceasefire was close to collapse. Also in the podcast. We're trying to sound the alarm and raise awareness that we have to do something to save this industry town and build it back again. Efforts to shore up the film industry in Hollywood.
By engaging directly with Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump has already signalled he is willing to ignore European concerns over a possible deal over the war in Ukraine. Now the US Special Envoy has said that Europe will not have a seat at the proposed peace talks, even though European nations have been asked to contribute to maintaining post-conflict security. Retired General Keith Kellogg told a global security conference in Munich...
The negotiations would involve the US, Russia and Ukraine. Europe would not take part directly, but would still have an input, he said. And he said Russia would face tough demands. To me, there's going to have to be things like territorial concessions. Some of it is unrealistic to expect where you'd want to go to, but it's in some territorial. It could be the engagement of refusing to use force, renouncement of the use of force into the future.
from a political side. He's not going to downsize his military forces. What we're going to try to do is basically force him into actions. What you want to do is force him into actions maybe he's uncomfortable with. What I mean by that, as an example, right now is what we're going to do is try to break this alliance that he...
He's got an alliance around North Korea that wasn't there before. He's got an alliance with Iran that wasn't there before. He's got an alliance with China that wasn't there before, meaning four years ago. Keith Kellogg. US officials have said the American Secretary of State Marco Rubio will lead a high-level delegation in direct talks with Russian officials on ending the conflict in Ukraine in the coming days in Saudi Arabia.
Earlier at the Munich conference, the Ukrainian president said Europe needed its own army as it could no longer rely on guaranteed American support. Our security correspondent Frank Gardner reports from Munich. Volodymyr Zelensky is in a race against time. He came here to Munich to plead with world leaders not to allow a rushed Trump-Putin peace deal that signed away his country's future security.
Today, he told delegates that a flawed deal would simply play into the hands of the Kremlin. Putin will try to get the US president standing on Red Square. on May 9th, this year, not as a respected leader, but as a prop in his own performance. We don't need that. We need real success. We need real peace.
That may well involve trading access to Ukraine's vast mineral wealth for tangible U.S. security guarantees. So far, said Mr. Zelensky, those guarantees are not forthcoming, so he's not signed the deal. Meanwhile, he warned. Europe can no longer count on the US to defend it, so Europe needed its own army.
I really believe that time has come. The armed forces of Europe must be created. And now, as we fight this war and lay the groundwork for peace and security, we must build the armed forces of Europe. so that Europe's future depends only on Europeans. But Europe already has NATO. And America, despite all the seismic shocks the Trump team has been delivering this week, is not leaving NATO. Here's Finland's Foreign Minister, Aline Valtonen.
It's a European army already, and it's NATO compatible, of course. What we try to emphasize is that there needs to be a credible plan to keep Russia at bay going forward, not just in Ukraine, but also elsewhere. And that idea, said Britain's Foreign Secretary David Lammy, is not just about defence, it's about mutual economic interests. I would encourage Donald Trump and the Ukrainians to look very carefully.
at a deepening partnership over the next generations. Why? Because the best deal and the best security guarantee... is binding US industry, business, defense capability into their future. But here in Munich, the prevailing question remains, with US support now wavering. Can Europe arm itself and Ukraine sufficiently and in time to fend off any future Russian aggression?
Frank Gardner reporting from the Security Conference. Well, the speech by the US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday in Munich was met by stunned silence from many European politicians, but it went down well with the far-right alternative. for Germany, or AFD. With just over a week to go until the German general election, the party is second in the opinion polls. Its leaders didn't attend the security conference, but they still spoke to Mr Vance.
Sean Lay asked the deputy leader of the AFD, Petriks von Soch, how the meeting went. It went well. They were talking about 30 minutes or something. And it was a very good and friendly atmosphere. And I think he made very clear in his speech that he did not like the idea to not invite us to this conference and to build firewalls.
the other party's doing to not work with us together. And so I think the speech he gave was really groundbreaking. You described it on social media, I think, as one of those dates that people will look back on and say something changed with this speech. do you think changed? I think he was crystal clear and he made two major points.
I think the main thing he was addressing, that he is concerned about the state of democracy in Europe. And I think he is damn right. And free speech is fundamental for democracy. And free speech is in danger in Europe. They label it as events said in the Soviet area, words like misinformation and disinformation. They label everything like that. All the opinions they just do not like to hear. And they are increasingly censoring.
other people's voices. And then the second point he made clear is that there's nothing more urgent than mass migration. And that's the issue we're addressing. The president's plan for peace in Ukraine, for bringing the war to an end, was that... discussed by your leader with... Vice President Vance? I think they talked about Ukraine, yes. But what is very, very clear also is that Germany at this point doesn't play a major role in the whole game. I do understand why that's the case.
Our economy is thinking our foreign minister is just a joke. There are about, I think, 35,000 US troops currently stationed in Germany. The US Defence Secretary, Pete Hegseth, said this week that that's something... that in time Europe should expect to be reduced. That is going to put a bigger burden on Germany, isn't it? I mean, are you prepared for that, for an increase in defence spending, not only to meet that, but perhaps...
to contribute to the peacekeeping, which we're told would be needed for any peace deal that takes place in Germany, because America isn't going to send troops for that. They're saying Europeans, including Germans, would have to do it. Yes, we as AFD always address the issue that our... army is not capable of serving what they should serve as members of NATO, for example. We are just too weak and all the weapons we had, we delivered to Ukraine. So we're just blank. So we're very in favor.
of supporting our troops and getting our army well equipped. But at the same time, we now have to decide what burden we have to shoulder. We need to spend more money. We have to deliver our part in NATO. We might get involved. somewhat in Ukraine. We don't think that should be any kind of NATO troops in Ukraine. You would be open to peacekeeping troops, maybe under the UN ambit or something like that. Yeah, peacekeeping troops, yes, but probably it's more intelligent to not...
have NATO members at the border with Russia so that if anything occurs, NATO is not in war with Russia. I mean, this is what we should really be keen on. We are no longer able. To have such a bad government, which is just crushing our economy because we have to have money to spend on our army. It's about 1.5% of GDP, isn't it? It certainly was in 2023 that Germany spent. I mean, the Americans are talking about European...
spending 5% of GDP. Yeah, I think that's impossible, but that's impossible when you look to the budget. But spending more and spend it more efficiently is probably the best thing we can do. The deputy leader of the AFD, Beatrice von Stoch.
Now, it had been in serious doubt earlier in the week, prompting dire warnings from President Trump. But the latest hostage and prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas has passed off smoothly. Three Israelis were released in return for about 370 Palestinians. It was the sixth swap since the Gaza ceasefire agreement began last month. Paul Adams reports from Jerusalem.
In the Gaza Strip this morning, three more hostages were driven to freedom. There was no chaos this time, and the hostages, Sagi Dekelchen, Yair Horn and Sasha Trufanov, seemed in better shape. But once again, Hamas put on a display of military... strength, designed to show to Israelis and Palestinians alike that they are still a force to be reckoned with. In Tel Aviv, where friends and supporters gather each week, a wave of relief. Until yesterday this whole complex deal seemed in jeopardy.
There were tears of joy in Yair Horn's hometown, Kfar Sabah, but apprehension too. His younger brother, Eitan, is still a hostage. No one knows when or even if he'll be released. Ron Lee Nisan is a friend of the family. It's bittersweet because every time somebody comes back, we want to be happy, but we are thinking about everybody else that's left behind.
There were plenty of mixed emotions in Gaza, too, as hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, released from Israeli jails, returned home. Some, like Abdul Majid Rajab, telling tales of humiliation and violence in captivity. It was really, really hard, he says. Every day felt like a hundred years. So the ceasefire deal is still on, a source of relief for Israelis and Palestinians alike.
But we're still in the first of three phases. The really difficult issues, Israel's military withdrawal and the future of the devastated Gaza Strip have yet to be decided, even negotiated. Paul Adams in Jerusalem. So after the latest swap, what are the prospects for the second stage of the ceasefire? A question from our Middle East regional editor, Sebastian Usher.
There are more and more issues about it, I think there's no doubt. And the substantial negotiations on it, discussions, indirect between Israel and Hamas, mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the US, which were meant to start at the beginning of this month, the 3rd of February.
got underway yet. Now, there is hope and expectation that they will begin in the next two or three days. But President Trump, who is seen widely as instrumental in nailing down the ceasefire that it has finally happened after so many months when it didn't.
What he has been saying, not just this week, but bigger than anything, his plan, essentially, that the US should take over Gaza, that all the Palestinians should be displaced, moved out, and that a resort should be built there. That's been roundly rejected. widely, particularly by Arab countries. And some of those countries, four of them, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar and the UAE, are going to meet later this week to discuss
What they say is an alternative plan. That would be essentially allowing the Palestinians are there to remain while the rebuilding begins. But we still have no idea of what kind of governance would be acceptable to Israel. What role Hamas, who clearly... still function from what we've seen each week so far. what role they can and will play, and whether the Israeli government, which has elements on the right who really want to get back to all-out war in Gaza, whether that can be controlled.
I think the absolute defining thing of the moment, though, is still that the feeling in Israel is that nothing should get him away of getting the remaining hostages out. Sebastian Asher, our Middle East regional editor. The six-week Kummela is a huge religious festival in India. Tens of millions of Hindus have already visited this year. Many more hope to do so before it ends on the 26th of February. But with large crowds come risks.
Last month, at least 30 people died in a stampede. Now pilgrims travelling to or from the festival have been caught up in a crush at the main train station in the capital, New Delhi. At least 15 people are reported to have been killed, including three children. The Deputy Commissioner of Delhi Police, KPS Malhotra, said the station was overcrowded.
Two trains were delayed and an increase in the footfall of passengers led to a situation wherein a lot of people gathered in a small space. Some people got injured in that. I got more details from our South Asia regional editor, Anbarasan Etiraja.
The New Delhi railway station is one of the biggest in the country, even without this Hindu religious festival. It will be crowded. Trains coming from all parts of India and then departing from there, passing through these stations. And you can as well imagine, as many... of people are moving towards Prayagraj in Budapradesh state. So for many of those people coming from other states, Delhi would be a place where they can transit, they can go to these festivals, also people returning from there.
see several videos being shown on Indian television channels where huge crowds on platforms. And according to one eyewitness, you know, some trains were cancelled that led to more overcrowding on these platforms. And another man, he said, when there
There was a platform change announcement. Then crowds started rushing to the other platforms. We have been seeing several pictures on social media how these trains are overcrowded in the last few days. It has been packed. People are trying to rush and get their place.
inside the train because these are all long-distance trains. We're talking about going for 1,000, 2,000 kilometers far away from Delhi with thousands of people trying to go back home. And trains are still the cheapest mode of transport in India. Several of the leaders have expressed condolences for the families of those who lost their lives. People are trying to find out what happened to the relatives.
Now, the Kummela has been going on for several weeks. There has already been one deadly crush at the scene there. Why weren't the authorities prepared to stop this kind of thing happening at a train station that they would have known was going to be busy? Well, it's the Indian capital.
And you have all the resources. And what one eyewitness was saying, they couldn't find any railway police officers anywhere to do the crowd control. You know, the crowd management has always been an issue. You have seen a number of incidents of people trampled in religion. events. So that has been the question being raised when you know that so many people are traveling to and fro.
At least in the capital city, they should have had more officers in managing the crowd. But again, it's a massive crowd. But how do you do that? That's what people expect the government to make preparations. And it's not the first time. They had this incident late last month.
at Prayagraj itself, where this festival is going on at the moment. So that should have come as a real warning. The fact that the authorities were giving very conflicting information. Initially, they were talking about a stampede-like situation, and then...
situation was brought under control and then later on they started 15 people were injured so it also shows the government is now on a back foot trying to address the situation pictures are showing people's bags addresses and belongings they had And still to come on the Global News Podcast...
It's kind of disrespectful to Abraham Lincoln and to the penny itself, the way we treat it. We just leave it on the sidewalk, leave it in our jar, and we never bring it back. Why the humble US one-cent coin may soon be on the way out. Bye. There's been an outbreak of looting in the city of Bukavu in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo after rebels entered the city on Friday. Reports say there was little resistance from the Congolese army as the M23 fighter swept in.
gussing the conflict at their summit in Ethiopia. More details from Richard Hamilton. Eastern DR Congo, which is rich in minerals, has suffered decades of violence since the 1994 Rwandan genocide when around 800,000 people, mostly ethnic Tutsis, were slaughtered by... The M23 movement is backed by Rwanda and led by Tutsis who say they need to protect their minority group.
Last month, the largest city in the region, Goma, fell to the M23. And on Friday, the second biggest city, Bukavu, suffered the same fate. Chaotic scenes unfolded in Bukavu today. The World Food Programme said nearly 7,000 tonnes of food was being looted there as people took to the streets. This resident, who asked not to be identified, says there's a sense of panic and fear. The things are not easy. People are afraid.
We feel that we are abandoned by the authorities, the military. It's as if they are no longer there. We are afraid because of the crackling of the bullets. Many people are going to loot. especially the youth, they are in the streets, destroying the shops, even some storage places for the world food program is destroyed. But those who have the means, they stay home.
The capture of Bukavu, a city with an estimated population of 2 million, would represent an unprecedented expansion of territory under the M23's control since the latest insurgency started. Thank you. Uganda also threatening to intervene. Meanwhile, the crisis is being urgently discussed at an African Union summit in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.
The UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, opened the meeting with this stark warning. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Congolese people have been suffering yet again from a brutal cycle of violence. And the fighting that is raging in South Kivu, as a result of the continuation of the M23 offensive, threatens to push the entire region over the precipice. There is no military solution.
The deadlock must end, the dialogue must begin, and the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the DRC must be respected. Few would disagree with Mr Guterres' plea for peace. But with rebels advancing rapidly and tension mounting daily between Rwanda and the DR Congo, it's not clear if any of these parties are listening. Richard Hamilton.
The world number one men's tennis player Yannick Sinner has accepted a three-month ban over two positive drug tests. It was reduced from two years after negotiations with the anti-doping agency, prompting outrage from some. is a tennis writer for The Athletic. He's been talking to Lee James. The fact he's not missing any Grand Slams would be a huge relief because there was that expectation that he could miss two of them.
and then be undercooked for the US Open. And, you know, his whole Grand Slam year could have been wiped out. And that's taken away the possibility he could have got a one-year ban or a two-year ban, which was in play, even if not likely.
Tennis has seen some high-profile doping cases over the past six months or so. The leading female player Iga Sviontek accepted a one-month suspension in November after testing positive for a banned substance when she was the world number one. What's the feeling then with...
the sport about these very high profile cases? Is it damaging for the sport? Yeah, I mean, it certainly is. I think they're still at the point where they can say, well, these are two pretty strange, pretty isolated cases where it's been found. Ultimately, the player hasn't done a huge amount wrong. But yes, you start getting many more like this and we've got a big, big problem. And it's clearly a pretty bad look when men's world number one and women's world number one.
is testing positive for doping. And I think what's arguably part of the picture as well and why this is a challenge for tennis is then this perception, at least, and a lot of people say the reality, that it's one rule for certain level players and another. for the top-level players.
Yes, the former Wimbledon finalist Nick Kyrgios called it a sad day for tennis. The former British No. 1 Tim Henman said the ban was too convenient and believes it will leave tennis fans with a pretty sour taste. So there is that feeling then that maybe the top players are treated a little differently.
Charlie? 100%. I mean, look, this sort of two-tier or three-tier nature of tennis is baked right in. Think of... scheduling the best players get to play in the courts they want at the times they want it's there for all to see we know that some top players get appearance fees at playing events but i think it's when it happens in something like this where surely it should be completely fair and even that
when those tensions that are always there, just bubbling under the surface, really come to the boil. Charlie Eccleshed talking to Lee James. One of Donald Trump's more eye-catching ideas to cut what he sees as US government waste is to stop the US mint making one-cent coins. The penny, as it's known, features the profile of Abraham Lincoln, but President Trump says it's too...
expensive to produce. Robert Waples is Professor of Economics at Wake Forest University. The essential problem isn't just that it costs actually more than three cents to mint a penny. but that the value of the penny has fallen so little in comparison to the value of our time.
due to inflation, that people don't even stoop over to pick a penny up and they don't bring their pennies back to the store. And so the store then has to ask eventually the mint to make more of them, setting this vicious cycle in motion. But I think there's really only two.
groups that lose out in this process. And that is the people who work at the U.S. Mint, because about half of the coins they make are pennies. And then the people in the zinc industry, they have been lobbying a long time a group called Americans for Common Sense. Our penny is 97.5% zinc. So they're going to lose out a little bit. Should we spare a thought for those who have a sense of cultural nostalgia around the pennies, collecting them in their piggy banks as kids?
Well, we certainly do, because when I was a kid, a penny was valuable. You could go down to the gumball machine at the grocery store and get a piece of gum. It was great. And pennies stand out. I mean, all the other coins are kind of silvery looking and is so beautiful. shiny and copper looking the penny so we all have a very fond memory of these but i would say that it's kind of disrespectful
To Abraham Lincoln and to the penny itself, the way we treat it, we just leave it on the sidewalk. We just leave it in our jar and we never bring it back. So probably time to get rid of the dear old penny. Robert Waples talking to Krupa Paddy. The combined total of sea ice in the Arctic and Antarctic has fallen to its lowest level since satellite measurements began half a century ago. Dr Caroline Holmes is a polar climate scientist at the British Antarctic Survey. She spoke to Simon Jack.
The Arctic's at its lowest ever as we go into winter. The Antarctic's at its second lowest ever as we go into summer. And in some ways that's not surprising, but the specifics, I guess, are quite surprising in terms of those happening together and just how large the differences are from usual.
And yes, while the Arctic started to really look very different about 15 years ago in 2007, the Antarctic, it's only the last five years that we've started to see these quite big changes in Antarctic sea ice. Prior to that, it wasn't really declining. It was increasing.
And what causes that variation? I guess the key thing to remember is that Antarctic and Arctic sea ice, they vary each year anyway, right? So they're freezing up and melting each year. So anything that changes that freezing and melting process each year will change how much sea ice.
you end up with in the winter or the summer. And so things like winds that push the sea ice into regions of warmer or colder water or warmer or colder winds themselves and also how much kind of ocean heat is sitting near the sea.
surface to stop the ice forming or to melt the ice so it's it's to do with kind of i guess where the warm temperatures are in the system and and how the ice is being moved around sea ice is obviously very bright particularly if it's got snow on top so it's completely white and reflects lots of energy
to space lots of sunlight and if you melt that and get rid of that and replace it with a very dark ocean surface then you absorb all that sunlight into the ocean and so when we've lost this sea ice particularly in the last kind of 10 years ago that's had a sizable kind of negative of effect on how much the sea ice can cool down the earth so normally the sea ice would cool down the earth but then if we lose that it then pushes back
And we end up in kind of a reinforcing loop where we warm up even more than we are already doing due to carbon emissions. How optimistic or the opposite are you? We've already changed the world beyond recognition, particularly the Arctic, and that's going to continue no matter what we do. But there are actually positive things happening in terms of the energy mix and things. And you look sometimes around the world and a country will have all of its energy coming from...
renewables and so we are making progress in in some places and we can continue to make progress and every bit of carbon we save safeguards our future a little bit and minimizes the effects that we have Dr Caroline Holmes talking to Simon Jack. Hollywood has long been synonymous with the film industry, but could its long-held status as the movie capital of the world be under threat? These days it's much cheaper to film in places like London, Toronto or Sydney.
Now there are calls for fire recovery efforts to include a boost for local TV and film production. Regan Morris in Los Angeles has this report. Quiet on set has taken on a whole new meaning. As industry jobs are leaving California. For many in the industry, business still has not bounced back. LA's film crews say it is far too quiet on the set. as productions move to other countries in search of cheaper labor and better tax breaks.
The wildfires, which killed at least 29 people and destroyed thousands of homes, have only added to Hollywood's existential crisis. COVID and the downturn in the TV industry, the sort of streaming bubble popping and the strikes. And I think the mantra had been for a lot of people survive until 25. And then, of course, come January 2025, these horrible fires.
Director Sarah Adina-Smith co-founded Stay in L.A. in response to the wildfires. We are asking for emergency relief to include uncapping the tax incentive for any production that shoots in L.A. County. for the next three years. And then the second really crucial piece of that is calling upon studios and streamers to increase... the amount of production they're doing in L.A. County for three years by 10%.
grander point of all of this is we're trying to sound the alarm and raise awareness that we have to do something to save this industry town. build it back again. Nearly 20,000 people, including actors Keanu Reeves, Zooey Deschanel, and Kevin Bacon, have signed the Stay in LA petition.
Governor Newsom proposing a big boost to Hollywood, raising tax credits for film and TV by more than $400 million every year. Before the fires, Governor Newsom proposed more than doubling the state's film and TV incentives to $750 million. But that wouldn't come into effect until at least this summer, if it's approved by the legislature. Critics say the tax breaks amount to corporate welfare, but that they're a necessary evil if L.A. wants to compete.
Australia, Canada and the UK now all have more lucrative tax deals for filmmakers than California. Yeah, that was an orange tree. Production designer Mark Worthington lost his home in the Eaton Fire. He says many fire victims won't be able to stay and rebuild if there's no work. Well, I haven't worked in two years, and it seems very clear there are two things happening. One is the general reduction in production, which we've seen.
And that's worldwide. And then there is also seemingly the very conscious offshoring of production to avoid. It seems to me to avoid union work, union rates and union benefits. Companies don't often make business decisions based on the greater good of workers in one city. But studios are often very responsive to A-list actors. One of my favorite things about making film is capturing beautiful cultures and being able to create spaces.
all over this beautiful planet. After the fires, megastar Vin Diesel announced that Universal Pictures would finish filming the latest Fast and Furious movie in Los Angeles 25 years after it started here. But as you know... Right now, LA really, really, really needs. productions to help rebuild. Originally set in working class neighborhoods of LA, Fast and Furious has been blamed for glorifying the reckless street racing in Los Angeles that persists today.
Now maybe the franchise will be credited with preserving some of Hollywood's legacy as a dream factory. I'm going to win. Reagan Morris reporting from Los Angeles. And that is all from us for now, but the Global News Podcast will be back at the same time tomorrow. This edition was mixed by Rebecca Miller and produced by Oliver Burlau, our editors Karen Martin. I'm Oliver Conway. Until next time, goodbye.