Global News Podcast - CIA chief holds talks with Cuban officials in Havana

Episode Date: May 15, 2026

The head of the CIA has visited Cuba as the island struggles with a severe energy crisis - made worse by a US fuel blockade. John Ratcliffe reportedly said Washington was prepared to engage on economic and security issues, but only if Cuba made fundamental changes. Also: tens of thousands of Israelis have taken part in an annual religious nationalist march through Jerusalem's Old City. Before it began, a far-right Israeli minister broke long-standing rules by unfurling an Israeli flag at a site holy to both Jews and Muslims; a BBC investigation reveals a new nationalist vigilante group is spreading across Russia; a new dinosaur has been discovered in Thailand that was twice the size of a T-Rex and weighed as much as nine adult Asian elephants; and how a horde of peacocks is ruffling feathers in an Italian seaside resort. The Global News Podcast brings you the breaking news you need to hear, as it happens. Listen for the latest headlines and current affairs from around the world. Politics, economics, climate, business, technology, health – we cover it all with expert analysis and insight. Get the news that matters, delivered twice a day on weekdays and daily at weekends, plus special bonus episodes reacting to urgent breaking stories. Follow or subscribe now and never miss a moment. Get in touch: [e-mail]

This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Janet Jalil and in the early hours of Friday the 15th of May, these are our main stories. The head of the CIA holds talks in Cuba as the island struggles to keep the lights on because of a US fuel blockade. Fuel saving measures are introduced in the Indian capital Delhi to combat the fallout from the US-Israel war on Iran. We have a special report on the rise of a new nationalist vigilante group across Russia. Also in this podcast? An animal like this would have been around 25 metres long. We imagine three double-decker buses lined up in a row.

A massive new dinosaur is discovered in Thailand. As Cubans struggle with rolling power cuts and shortages of fuel have forced schools and universities to shut down, because of a month's long US energy blockade, the director of the CIA has gone to the communist-run island for talks with his Cuban counterparts. The visit to Havana by John Rackcliffe comes after the Cuban president, Miguel Diaz-Cannell, rebuffed a recent offer from the US of $100 million in aid, saying it would be better for Washington to lift its blockade instead. This was imposed in January, shortly after American forces captured the Venezuelan president, Nicholas Maduro.

Venezuela had supplied much of Cuba's fuel. Mr. Trump has threatened to slap massive tariffs on any country that sends oil to the island, where many people live in abject poverty. Louise Fahado from BBC monitoring told me more about the meeting between the CIA director and Cuban officials. The Cuban state media announced that high-level officials from the Cuban government had met with Radcliffe, an extremely unusual visit by the head of the CIA to Cuba. The Cuban officials said that they had told the U.S. government that Cuba presented no kind of security threat to the United States whatsoever. Of course, Cuba is right now dealing with the consequences of U.S. sanctions,

and specifically a very, very serious energy crisis that right now has caused almost a virtual shutdown of the economy because of an absolute lack of fuel now almost, according to the latest reports. And this energy crisis has been caused by a US blockade that has been in force since the US seized the Venezuelan president Nicholas Maduro back in January. That's right. The US has made a very strong move against any country delivering fuel supplies to Cuba. Cuba says now it has practically run out of fuel. Many basic activities in the economy are literally shutting down big parts of the island

without any electricity or any kind of energy. And again, a major, major disruption in the Cuban economy, of course. Conservative politicians, Republican politicians in the US, particularly in Florida, are saying that this will weaken the communist government in Cuba. And they have insisted on the Trump administration telling them to continue their pressure on the Cuban authorities, hoping to lead to political change in the communist ruled island. Do you think that's likely? Could there be a change of leadership?

Could there be a change in the relationship between the US and Cuba, which has traditionally been very hostile for decades? It has been very hostile and a very politically sensitive issue in the US, particularly with the Republicans, particularly Cuban Americans, who have insisted on this. There have been frequent reports in recent months about the US government maybe seeking a deal with Cuban authorities that would stop short of a total regime change, but would instead try to reach an agreement by which they, the U.S. would reduce some of the sanctions in exchange for substantial political change in Cuba. However, of course, Cuban authorities have proven very resilient in the past to very difficult economic situations. And there's also a big resistance in parts of the U.S. Republican Party, particularly Cuban Americans, who again insist that the U.S. government should be targeting a complete political change in Cuba

rather than a deal that would somehow allow current government of Cuba to survive in some form. or in some way. And despite its problems, Cuba, which was offered a hundred million dollars in aid from the US, said it would be better if the US lifted the blockade instead of promising aid. The Cuban government certainly has for decades criticized very strongly the whole economic set of measures taken against them. They have described it as a genocidal policy against Cuba. They say that they're causing a lot of suffering in the population.

And of course, Cuba is indeed suffering a big economic cost from this. But on the other side, sectors in the U.S. society, and particularly the Republicans, have emphasized that this is one of the few ways in which the U.S. has an ability to promote and facilitate political change in the island, which has suffered for decades, very strong restrictions to basic individual liberties. And many people think that in this situation where the government is facing such a big economic crisis, it could be perhaps more willing to negotiate some kind of arrangement to improve the situation. Vahado. Meanwhile, the authorities in the Indian capital Delhi have announced measures to save fuel there as countries around the world deal with the economic impact of the US and Israel's war on Iran.

The Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for reduced consumption to cope with disrupted supplies from the Middle East. Our global affairs correspondent, Ambrasaneti Rajan, told us how Indians were struggling. They are feeling the pinch, what is happening in the Middle East. They're not getting enough fuel and other related chemicals that is causing a lot of supply chain disruptions. And that's one of the reasons why the Delhi government, you know, the city of more than 30 million people, they are announcing various measures, basically asking government staff to work from home for two days a week. And they hope that private companies will also follow suit. And then they're not going to buy petrol diesel or hybrid vehicles for the next six months.

and they are encouraging public to stop using their own cars or other vehicles and use public transport instead. They are also reducing the consumption of fuel for government vehicles. So some of these measures, of course, they will go on for the 90 days. What it shows is now it is impacting the capital. And many people would wonder why they didn't announce it earlier, whereas Philippines, Sri Lanka and Indonesia, various other countries were implementing various measures to save fuel

because India imports nearly 90% of its fuel and more than 50% comes from the Gulf. So the prices have gone up. And also, there is a shortage of supply. It is a huge impact on India, for example, fertilizer prices. India is not getting enough imports to make fertilizers. And they're also stopping export of sugar from September, borrowing a few countries.

So we can expect more measures in the coming weeks. Ambrasan Eshirajan. Tens of thousands of Israelis took part in an annual. religious nationalist march through Jerusalem's old city on Thursday. Before it began, a far-right Israeli minister in Benjamin Netanyahu's government broke long-standing rules by unfurling an Israeli flag at a site that is holy to both Jews and Muslims. Here's our correspondent in Jerusalem, Yoland now. The flag march, time to mark the anniversary of Israel's capture of East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle

East War has become associated with violence and racist chance aimed at Palestinian residents. This year, dozens of Israeli peace activists turned up to try to counter the harassment. Ahead of the march, the far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gavir, was filmed waving an Israeli flag, dancing and singing by the Golden Dome of the Rock. The Temple Mount is in our hands, he said. The Temple Mount, the site of biblical temples, is the holiest place in Judaism, known to Muslims as Haramashirif. it's the location of Alaksa Mosque and the third holiest site in Islam.

Under decades-old rules, known as the status quo, displaying national symbols is not allowed at the holy site, and Jews are not officially allowed to pray there. However, the Israeli police, which come under Ben-Gavir's responsibility, have increasingly tolerated breaches. The Israeli Prime Minister's office told the BBC that the status quo remained in place. Your Land now. Now to an exciting discovery in Thailand,

a new species of dinosaur that was twice the size of a T-Rex. It's thought to have been 27 metres in length and to have weighed as much as nine adult Asian elephants. Scientists have named the new species Naga Titan after the giant mythological water serpent Naga. The fossils were first found a decade ago beside a pond in northeastern Thailand and they've shed new light on how changes in ancient climatic conditions

allowed gigantic dinosaurs to develop. The co-author of the study, Paul Uppchurch, a paleontologist at University College London, told us more about the Naga Titan. It would have been about 25 to 28 metric tons. So if your listeners imagine something that would have looked a lot like a brontosaurus, so long neck, small head, standing on all four legs. But this is one from Southeast Asia.

We don't know much about what was going on in that part of the world, about 110, 150 million years ago when this animal lived. We think it was a vegetarian? What kind of lifestyle did it have? All of these animals are called sauropods are basically plant eaters. They potentially lived in herds and essentially used their long necks for getting vegetation from the tops of trees. A bit like giraffes in that sense of using the long neck to get up high. Right, and it was found near a pond or sort of wet area. Is that significant?

You call it after this water serpent nager. It's very nice when you get to name a dinosaur because you can use your imagination. The name was produced by my Thai colleagues. I think that's their right given that it's found in their country. I think it's quite an evocative name because, obviously, it's a serpent, it's a reptile, so it kind of makes sense from that point of view. My understanding is that the ponds sort of started to dry up because of weather or climate, and that helped reveal the bones.

You gave us the tonnage earlier, but no sort of visual on how big it might be. Because it's quite big, isn't it, for dinosaurs in that region? Yeah, so an animal like this would have been around 25 metres long. People would say, imagine three double-decker buses lined up in a row. They're quite large. The same weight as nine Asian elephants, for example. That's big. What about the climate?

Because I read that you discovered that the climate was a little bit hotter and that had an impact on them. Our understanding is that from around when this animal was living, about 110, 150 years ago, from that point onwards for the next 20 million years, the Earth got hotter and hotter because of increased CO2, global warming, all those kind of things, and it got extremely hot at its highest point. And for some reason, the sauropods seem to do quite well under those conditions. They have some structures related to their lungs that allow them to collect heat from the insides of their bodies and then expel it when they breathed out. And that might have been quite a useful thing to be able to do under those really hot conditions. I'm just taking a look on the BBC website of an artist's impression. of it. It's got quite a little head. Do we think they were very intelligent? No. We can't be sure

because we can't observe them actually behaving, but we know that plant eaters generally don't tend to be as bright as your carnivores. I guess you don't have to be as clever to out with a plant as a meat eater has to out with another animal. Carnivores tend to be cleverer. Herbivores, you know, their main job is to avoid getting eaten, eat some plants, make some baby herbivores, and that's job done. Paleontologists Paul Uppchurch speaking to Rebecca Kesbby. Still to come in this podcast? Our horde of peacocks is ruffling feathers in Italy.

This is the Global News podcast. Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a new nationalist vigilante group has spread across the country. They're known as Ruskaya or Russian community. BBCI investigations has uncovered the scale of this new group who claim they are saving Russia from a foreign ideology and defending traditional values. But critics say their methods, including hundreds of raids,

rely on fear and intimidation. For the World Service, Christopher Giles has been investigating this story, which begins in northern Russia, more than a thousand kilometres from Moscow near the Arctic Circle. It's Saturday night in our Henghisk, Katia Phil's 30th birthday party. My events attract an alternative crowd. People who stand out.

Bright hair, piercings, unusual makeup. I made a poster. It's a themed costume party. I only shared it in a private group. Just as I was about to blow out the candles, people who weren't invited, forced their way into my private celebration. I thought it was a prank. Then I realized something terrible was happening.

I could hear violence from every corner. Alongside police masked men wearing patches reading Ruska Abchina burst in. My mom was at my birthday. A man from Ruska Apchina approached her. She recognized the patch and told her to get on all force because she was wearing bunny ears. In Russia, a new baby. vigilante force has emerged, fueling the country's shift towards nationalism and control.

Rizhya, Ruska Abchina, is Russia's largest nationalist group, with nearly 150 branches across the country and the occupied territories. Dmitri, a former member, joined over three years ago. He agreed to talk if we protected his identity by changing his name and voice. Right now we're doing, a lot for society. We're trying to make the world better. Trying to clean up some of this filth that goes against Orthodox Russians. If I had to describe Ruska Apshina in one word, it has to be brotherhood. The group urges their thousands of followers to take action via telegram. Their channels show that more than 900 raids have been carried out by its activists from 2023 to 2025. In Russia, trained civilians are allowed to help police maintain public order, but critics say the way

Ruska-Opschina operate is without legal authority or accountability. Their most visible real-world activity is, of course, they raid. Alexander Vakovsky has studied Russia's nationalists for over 20 years. Ruska which claims to uphold law and order mainly operates through intimidation, which is itself illegal. The group claims to be a grassroots movement, but our findings highlight two major donors. one reported to work closely with the Kremlin. The Kremlin,

the Kremlin is likely aware of Ruska-Pshina unless it function for now. If it changed, they'd have been shut down already. That's how things work now. Everything has banned. Riska Abchina said Russia's enemies would twist anything they say and claim that the BBC invented

the sources of funding. Today we am open the corridor. I'll look at this mess. A month after, her party was raided. Katya was charged with blasphemy. I was sentenced to 200 hours of community service. The charge was based on the claim that Ruska Obshina were offended by a red neon cross. I was getting more scared every day.

To keep myself together, I always dressed up when I did community service. Have you ever seen cleaner in heels? As their presence grows, so too. do does the debate around their influence and place in Russian society? Christopher Giles reporting. There are warnings of a super El Nino affecting weather later this year. Scientists are also warning that 2027 could be the hottest year on record after new forecasts showed increasing confidence

that the developing El Nino could be one of the strongest ever. In its latest forecast, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says a climate event will intensify over the next few months, with a two in three chance of developing into a so-called Super El Nino around October. Parts of the Pacific Ocean have been warming rapidly, with data this week showing sea surface temperatures about half a degree higher than normal. The BBC's lead weather presenter, Simon King, spoke to Anka Desai about what this means for weather around the world.

El Nino comes from the longer phrase, is the El Nino Southern Oscillation or Enso. And that's part of a larger climatic pattern where in the tropical Pacific you go from phases of warmer than average waters in the Pacific, the El Nino phase, to a neutral and then a cooler phase, which is the laninia weather pattern. And actually we've just come out of Linenia in the last year, that cooler phase. So now things are starting to warm up in that tropical region of the Pacific,

heading up into a El Nino. What kind of impacts, and I guess more specifically, risks to human life, are we likely to see from the El Nino this year? So it's quite a large weather pattern. And while the most direct impacts often occur near the Pacific, where you get this larger change in weather patterns, it can have global impacts. So the one thing that we will definitely, or most likely see,

is a boost to global average temperature. So if you just think about the Pacific and you get all the extra heats with the sea surface temperatures there rising above average, it's almost like a radiator that you're turning on. And that radiates up into the atmosphere and it increases our global average temperature by around about 0.2 degrees Celsius. So it's likely that 2027 will be the warmest year on record. But in terms of other regional impacts, you can see changes to rainfall patterns. So for the likes of Peru, southern Ecuador, you can likely see more flooding problems there. But you also tend to see drought issues in parts of, say, Australia. And that can lead on to wildfires and potentially devastating impacts really around the globe,

particularly around the Pacific region. Yeah, I just want to expand a bit on that as well, because it can intensify into a super El Nino, which is what's expected to happen in the last. half of the year. So just explain what happened last time we experienced one of those. And I guess whether this one would likely cause similar problems or not. No two El Nino's are going to be exactly the same. And it also depends on how strong they actually turn out to be. But the last strong El Nino we had was actually in 23, 24. It was only for a very short time, but actually helped make 2024 the warmest year on record. Before that, you have to go back to 2015-16 when there was a

very strong El Nino and that had quite far-reaching consequences actually. There was severe drought and parts of Africa, especially through Ethiopia and the Caribbean. There were increased wildfires which hit Central Asia. And that can all have an impact on not only those communities there, but around the world, because obviously you think about food production and harvests, if you have an impact of the weather and almost a flip in what they're usually expecting, that can destroy crops. and the droughts and the floods caused by El Nino in 2015-16, the UN suggested that affected the food security of more than 60 million people. So it could potentially be quite devastating for many people.

Simon King. The Super Bowl, American Football's showpiece event, has long been synonymous with blockbuster half-time performances that draw millions of viewers and some of the biggest stars in music. But now for the first time, the men's Football World Cup fight, to be played on the 19th of July in New Jersey is going to replicate the iconic American tradition of a halftime show. The Queen of Pop, Madonna, the K-pop superstar boy band, BTS, and the Colombian singer Shakira will be headlining. The 11-minute concert is being

orchestrated by Coldplay's Chris Martin. He made the announcement on social media with help from Elmo, the Sesame Street puppet. I was always happy to help. Well, this year for the first time, there's a half-time show at the World Cup final. No, a half-time show? Yeah, a half-time show. A half-time show? What's a half-time show?

Our New York correspondent, Samira Hussein, Hasmo. Last year when they held the men's club finals, they did have a similar kind of concert. And they were like, wow, that went well, let's try it again for the biggest sporting event. on planet Earth. For the Super Bowl this year, you had about 125 million viewers. For the last World Cup, globally, you had 1.5 billion viewers. And so that's a lot of advertising potential. FIFA also is very strict in terms of just how long that halftime can be. And so although there is talk that perhaps the show may go on longer, it would have to operate within the realms of the rules of FIFA, but this is not actually something that's being done solely for profit. They are

also raising money for children's education. It's part of like a four-year long-term commitment between FIFA and Global Citizen. And Global Citizen has been organizing these kinds of concerts around the world for the last several years. So there's a little bit of experience, but to manage this kind of concert with those kinds of big names and then also having the world's largest sporting event for a single sport. I mean, that's a lot of logistics. I mean, the one thing with the Super Bowl is that you get a lot of people that are there for the show and for the game. Here, you really have people for the game.

Samira Hussein. An Italian seaside resort is divided over some unusually glamorous troublemakers. More than a hundred peacocks are roaming the town of Punta Marina in the north of the country, delighting tourists but testing the patience of residence. as Carla Conti reports. It's being called a peacock invasion. In Punta Marina, on Italy's Adriatic coast, more than a hundred of the colorful birds

have taken over the streets of this quiet seaside village near the city of Ravenna, strutting their iridescent feathers, perching on rooftops, wandering into gardens, and waking residents before dawn with their mating calls. The birds have lived around the town for years. Local legend says it began with, one escaped peacock in the nearby pine forest

before someone eventually introduced a mate. But their numbers are thought to have grown sharply during the COVID lockdowns when quieter streets brought the peacocks further into town. Now, with few predators in the urban area, the colony has spread. And for some residents, the charm has given way to frustration. Peacocks are a problem because they're not in their natural environment.

They're animals that certainly need to. be protected, but they should be caught and taken to a habitat that's suitable for them. Certainly not in the middle of residential areas, in gardens, on rooftops or on top of cars, because residents end up having to pay for the damage out of their own pockets. And that's not fair. Others say they block traffic or ruin gardens and leave the streets covered in droppings. The males also peck at shiny surfaces, apparently mistaking their own reflections for rivals. But Punta Marina is split.

Someone the birds out, while others say they've become part of the town's identity and even a tourist attraction. Shops are selling peacock souvenirs, a bakery has made peacock-shaped biscuits, and curious visitors are flocking to the town to take pictures. There have also been offers to rehome them. A nearby safari park says it could take some in, while Italian pop star Eletra Lamborghini, the granddaughter of the sports car founder, as reportedly offered to adopt some too.

And then there is Emmanuel Eccentini, a self-appointed peacock ranger who thinks Punta Marina should learn to live with its new residents. If they come to live in your garden, they really are a problem. But there's plenty of space in Punta Marina. They could live out everywhere and cause no trouble at all. We could set an example of intelligent and mature coexistence. We can easily manage it.

Ravenna Council says the census will be carried out by the end of the month, with experts counting not just how many peacocks there are, but how many are male and female before deciding what to do next. But until then, Punta Marina's most flamboyant residents are here to stay. Carla Conti reporting. And that's all from us for now. If you want to get in touch, you can email us at global podcast at bbc.com. This edition of the Global News Podcast was mixed by Derek Clark.

the producers Wakala Conti, Emma Zaffa Shakir. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Jeanette Jaliel. Until next time, goodbye.