Global News Podcast - Donald Trump meets Syrian leader

Episode Date: May 14, 2025

Donald Trump has met Syria's president Ahmed al-Sharaa after announcing a surprise decision to lift US sanctions on the government in Damascus. Also: the remarkable first aid abilities of chimpanzees.

This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Paul Moss and at 13 Hours GMT on Wednesday 14 May, these are our main stories. Donald Trump has met the Syrian leader Ahmed Al-Sharah after his surprise decision to lift US sanctions on Syria. Israel has launched more fatal airstrikes in Gaza, and a BBC investigation has found that Iran is using foreign criminal gangs like drug dealers and even Hell's Angels to carry out assassinations. We hear why. Also in this podcast...

They have transformed themselves from the dark days when they were first sentenced to prison, and from that they have blossomed into incredible human beings. 35 years after murdering their parents, the Menendez brothers have their sentences cut and could go free. It wasn't expected to be a long meeting. Donald Trump had merely said he would say hello to the Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharah during his visit to Saudi Arabia. But this was the first time in a quarter of a century that an American leader met their Syrian counterpart. And more than that, Mr Al-Sharah leads a group still listed as a terrorist organisation

by many countries, an offshoot of al-Qaeda. But speaking afterwards, President Trump made clear that brief hello is intended to be just the start of a new diplomatic era between the two countries. We are currently exploring normalising relations with Syria's new government, as you know, beginning with my meeting with President Ahmed al-Sharah and Secretary Rubia's meeting with the Syrian Foreign Minister in Turkey. I am also ordering the cessation of sanctions against Syria to give them a fresh start. And that, of course, represents a major concrete development in the new US-Syria diplomacy.

A concrete step which is not merely of interest to business people and economists. Just listen to these ordinary Syrians welcoming the news on the streets of the capital Damascus. The feeling is indescribable. Unbelievable happiness. Hopefully, God helps this country and it will be better for everyone. Congratulations to everyone. There is incredible happiness for all Syrians. It will be great for our country.

Construction will return, the refugees will return, everyone will return, the prices will drop. There is good to come, God willing. It just needs a bit of patience. But good things are coming our way. There's been fierce international debate about when and whether to lift sanctions on Syria. On the one hand, President al-Sharah leads a government dominated only by Sunni Muslims and with just one woman represented in the cabinet. And the Syrian armed forces he now controls have been accused of committing atrocities

against civilians who come from the minority Alawite community. But this is still a very new Syria, according to Muaz Mustafa, executive director of the Syria Emergency Task Force, one with, he says, a bright political and economic future. Syria has natural resources, including oil and gas. Syria has an incredible labor force that's probably the cheapest, if not one of the cheapest in the world. Syria is very implored geopolitically,

and in terms of both trade routes and others. Syria is now a country that is pursuing its path towards democracy and it is a country that sees itself and its values and its interests more aligned with democracies than the authoritarian regimes that supported the Assad regime and committed horrible massacres. So was it the promise of democracy in a country known only for its vicious dictatorships which appealed to Donald Trump. Or was it all those natural resources on offer? Our correspondent in Damascus, Lina Sinjab, emphasised to me that the most important thing was simply that they met at all.

This is a big breakthrough, you know, and a big turnaround because, you know, Ahmad al-Shar'a was wanted by the United States. He's on the terror list. There was a bounty of 10 million for arresting him that was lifted shortly after the fall of Assad led by Al-Sharah and his group HTS or Ha'yat Tahrir al-Sham. So for him to sit down in a meeting, in closed meeting with the President Trump is a big breakthrough, especially after months of culminating regional and some international diplomatic success, especially after meeting the French President Emmanuel Macron last week.

So this is really important for the legacy of President Al-Shara, giving him more legitimacy to rule Syria, engaging on a regional and international level. But lifting the sanctions is going to enable him to get more credibility from his own people that he's able to help and boost the economy. And we heard there those voices on the streets of Damascus, very optimistic. I mean, why is it going to make such a difference for U.S. sanctions to be lifted on Syria? I mean, are the two countries about to engage in major international trade? The issue is that this is a country that has been crippled by deteriorating economy, and

the sanctions only made it worse for Syrians. And at the end of the day, although the sanctions were designed to Assad regime because of war crimes he conducted against his own people but the ordinary's are the ones who are paying the price. Assad regime was corrupt they've managed to make all possible benefits for their own pockets and for their own life while 90% of the population is left to live under the poverty line. If you are in Damascus or in Syria, you can see the effects of it. Some medicines are not imported. You know, the country is cut off of world communication, even for education,

for students who wanted to have access to online websites. They were all blocked because they are in Syria. Banking is not possible to operate, whether international or receiving money into Syria. So even donor countries or even international businesses who want to operate inside Syria and help rebuild the country were not able to do so because of the sanctions on the banking system and now the hope is that all is this is going to allow the flow of money will allow millions of refugees and internally displaced who've lost their

homes because of Assad's bombardment. Now there is hope that money will come to rebuild their homes. We also heard that very positive description of Syria being very democratic, now heading to be a fully-fledged democracy. Does it feel like a thriving democracy? I think this is really a big statement to make. We're still very much looking towards change in Syria. The announcement that Ahmed Al-Sharra made with the constitutional declaration with appointing the government was all one sided. He decided everything. The constitutional declaration was for five years that many criticized it lacks the foundation

for a real democracy. Even the word democracy was never mentioned from this government and or from Ahmad al-Sharaz people. So, but there is a great hope inside Syria because there is wider freedom. People are speaking their minds, are lobbying, are working hard, are criticizing hard. So there is hope that they will not be able to accept any dictatorship in the making and will fight for their own freedoms. Lina Sinjab in Damascus. Some had hoped that President Trump's presence in the region might have served as a catalyst

for Gaza peace talks. But so far his main focus seems firmly on economic talks. But the need for some sort of ceasefire has become even more pressing. Israeli forces have carried out intense attacks on the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza overnight, with reports that at least 70 Palestinians were killed. And this follows another Israeli attack on Tuesday, this one hitting a hospital in the southern city of Karnunis. Rescuers at the scene said 28 people were killed. Israel insists these were legitimate targets, a spokesman David Mensah dismissing the criticism it faces. We have an opportunity to strike every military target but when we do we get condemned.

You know, or we don't strike them and we reward the use of human shields. Hamas are deliberately embedding its commanders underneath hospitals, knowing that any Israeli airstrike, however legal and precise, will generate headlines which they can weaponize. It's a textbook case of asymmetric warfare. The IDF is punished for acting and Hamas is rewarding for hiding. One of the places which Israel claims to be a Hamas hiding place was that hospital in Khan Yunis which was hit by an airstrike on Tuesday. The BBC and other journalists are not allowed into Gaza,

but our special correspondent Fergal Keane has been compiling reports on what happened at the hospital from Amman in neighbouring Jordan. BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM! The rockets landed in the car park, where families were told to gather to prepare for the evacuation of their sick children from Gaza. The Israelis say they were targeting the head of Hamas, who they alleged was in a command centre under the hospital.

A BBC colleague was wounded, but not seriously. He's the cameraman who filmed the images of five-month-old Suar Ashoor, emaciated her eyes gazing out from a shrunken frame. Today, her mother Najwa sent us a message appealing for the world to help. I wish she could receive the treatment she needs to recover fully. She's my first child and as her mother I'm deeply heartbroken for her. I truly hope someone can help save my daughter. Some children have already been evacuated here to neighbouring Jordan.

In January we recorded the arrival of Abdulrahman and his mum Asma. He lost his leg in an Israeli airstrike. For four months, they've lived in a place with food, a safe place. When we visited Asma today, she called her children and their grandmother back in Gaza. Here, we encountered the agonizing differences

in the life of one family. The rockets are everywhere, firing over our heads. The food, life is very bad. There is no flour. The prices are very high. I don't know what to say. I'm very grateful for my mom, for all she's doing for me. I wish I could return back to find them safe and in good health. outside the blockade there are talks about a ceasefire talks about allowing aid but for now they are just talks so with aid not getting through to Gaza and

the Israeli onslaught continuing where does that leave Hamas the organization which these airstrikes are supposed to be targeting? Jeremy Bowen gave us his insight. Hamas, my assessment would be, was broken as a coherent military organisation, the organisation that was able to launch those devastating attacks on the 7th of October that killed 1200 people in Israel, mostly Israeli civilians, and took those 251 hostages. They are plainly not capable of doing that. What has happened now is that instead of that coherent military organization, there is an insurgency going on against the Israelis. And insurgencies,

history shows very clearly, will go on as long as there are mostly young men who are prepared to take often light weapons and move against the people they see as their invaders, oppressors and occupiers. And you know when I'm using words like that, that's simply the way that they look at this thing and these occupies these insurgencies can go on for years and years and years. And of course Netanyahu's critics inside Israel say that that would quite suit him because he wants to prolong the war, not to make Israel safer, not to get the hostages back. In fact, hostage families are absolutely appalled that they're talking

about a new offensive there, but because when the war goes on, he keeps his hard, ultra-nationalist right-wing happy and therefore he stays in power. He puts off the day of reckoning about his part in security failures leading to 7th October and also then the emphasis will go back onto his corruption trial, which could end up with him serving a jail sentence if he's found guilty. Jeremy Bowen. It's become one of the most infamous American murder cases of modern times. The Menendez brothers, Lyle and Eric, were convicted of killing their parents back in 1989. But the boys insisted they were acting in self-defence after years of physical and sexual abuse.

The case prompted books, documentaries and dramas. And the brothers have won support from a variety of celebrities. And now it seems they may go free. The judge has cut their sentence to 50 years, making them eligible for parole. And it's two very different brothers who would emerge from prison, according to their cousin Diane Mullen, who spoke outside the Los Angeles Courthouse. They have transformed themselves from the dark days when they were early on when they were first sentenced to prison without hope, in despair, and from that they have blossomed into incredible human beings. It's not just their personalities that might have changed. The decision to cut

the brothers sentence came after they offered what was effectively a new kind of testimony according to our correspondent Peter Bose who was there. When they spoke in court and this is the first time really we've heard it phrased in this way, Lyall Menendez said that he and his brother took full responsibility for what they did, that point blank range killing of their parents that so really shocked this country, divided opinion in this country for much of the past 30 years. And especially in the last few months, they've garnered new supporters and that public opinion has been really I think divided again because some people

see them as the brutal murders that they were portrayed clearly in the drama that was shown on Netflix but the documentary maybe told a little bit of a different story with the brothers speaking for themselves, telephone interviews from the courtroom but it certainly brought the case back to public attention and that's I think in large part why so many people have been watching what's been happening over the last day in this court when a judge has been considering the resentencing.

Yeah and tell us what that judge decided and what it means for their possible release. Well, originally they were given life in prison without the possibility of parole. No possibility of freedom. The judge has considered the facts, considered the arguments on both sides and the sentence now is 50 years to life, which opens the door to parole. The possibility of being set free. It isn't a done deal yet because it means that they now go before the California Parole Board, which again will consider arguments from all sides, people who believe that they should stay in prison, others who believe that they have served their time. The Parole Board will make a recommendation

that will be sent to Gavin Newsom who is the Governor of California and he makes the final decision. Peter Bowes speaking to my colleague Oliver Conway. A judge in the US state of Wisconsin looks set to be placed in the dock herself. The accusation that she helped a Mexican immigrant avoid being arrested and potentially deported by guiding him to leave her own courthouse through a back door. Now North America correspondent David Willis has that report. Prosecutors alleged that after learning of the presence in her courtroom of

agents from the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Department, Hannah Dugan helped Eduardo Flores Ruiz and his lawyer slip out through the back of the building. Mr. Flores Ruiz had re-entered the United States after being deported in 2013, and on the 18th of April was facing domestic abuse charges. Judge Duggan has been suspended from the bench, and following her indictment by a federal grand jury faces

the possibility of up to six years in jail. David Willis. Still to come on this podcast. Some of the plants that the chimpanzees are using for these wound care behaviors actually have known traditional uses in human medicine. Others have pharmacological properties that actually known to have wound healing components. New evidence that chimpanzees use medicinal plants to treat injuries. For decades we've been hearing about often fatal attacks being carried out on Iranian dissidents living abroad.

Murky assassinations, unlikely abductions, terrifying threats. Now the investigative documentary series, BBCI, has found that many of the attacks are being carried out for the Iranian regime by criminal gangs around the globe, proxies authorised by Tehran. It points to a chilling connection between Iranian security forces and international criminal networks. Victoria Taylor from the US State Department says there's no question about Iran's tactics. We have seen evidence of this kind of coordination between Iranian government officials and criminal organizations, whether it's drug traffickers, organizations

such as the Hell's Angels. Tehran has always denied carrying out any assassinations of its enemies overseas. But the BBC journalist who carried out the investigation, Gia Gol, told me how these attacks have continued, albeit with new methods. In the past, Iranian regime, if they wanted to assassinate dissidents, they were using groups who ideologically close to them like Lebanese Hezbollah or Islamic Jihad, but they have changed tactics in the past few years. What we have found out is the Iranian intelligence service and also Iranian Revolutionary Guards elite Quds Force, particularly unit

840. They go, they hire international criminal groups and pay them. They do the intelligence gathering. They find every pattern of the target and then they hire the criminal groups to carry out the assassination or kidnapping in Europe, in United Kingdom and in United States of America. Do we know how Iran has managed to build links with these ordinary non-political criminal organizations around the world?

Well what we know, the Iranian intelligence service has been using mafia groups. I know in the case of, for example, the assassination is in Amsterdam. I was told by Dutch Foreign Ministry, they said they believe Lebanese Hezbollah is linking them with some of the international criminal groups. But also there is a mafia bus, there is a criminal drug dealer in Iran, his name is Najib Sharifi Zindashti, which we pretty much follow his footsteps many different places. He is the one, he's doing international drug dealing and also he knows many criminal groups, including Hales Angels in Canada and also Eastern European

criminal groups like thieves in law. So why? Why would Iran use ordinary criminal gangs for these very political assassinations and kidnappings? I think Iran doesn't want to these assassinations, when they carry out the assassination, be linked back to Iran and say, well, it's a criminal group. In one hand, not only they assassinate the victims physically, also when you assassinate someone or kidnap someone by criminal groups, it's an attempt to assassinate their characters as well.

Because if someone is being killed by criminal groups, the first question is what kind of relationship that person had with criminal groups or mafia. I guess some people will see this as a sign of Iranian desperation, that they have been hammered, their allies attacked around in various other countries so they're now using criminals. Absolutely I think obviously Iranian regime has been denying all the accusations against them they say we don't send people to kill others but what we are seeing is whenever the Islamic Republic of Iran feels the system is in danger like three years ago

when there was a mass protest in Iran, we saw the rise of the assassination and kidnapping plots in Europe and US against journalists and also Iranian dissidents abroad. Shia Ghol. When a South Korean aircraft crashed last December, it killed 179 people, but also prompted many questions. Why did the plane lose control in the first place and why was there a concrete wall at the end of the runway which the aircraft hit? Now some family members of the victims have fired a criminal complaint accusing 15 people of negligence. The list goes right up to the country's Transport Minister. Our correspondent Jean Mackenzie is in Seoul.

The plane skidded off the runway after its landing gear failed. It then right up to the country's transport minister. Our correspondent, Jean McKenzie, is in Seoul. The plane skidded off the runway after its landing gear failed. It then slammed into a concrete structure and burst into flames. The police and government are investigating the crash. But four months on, the cause hasn't been established and no one's been charged. Now 72 of the bereaved relatives have submitted a criminal complaint, accusing the airline, the transport minister and airport officials of negligence. This is an attempt

to put pressure on the authorities to speed up their investigations. One relative, who lost her father in the crash, said in a statement, we can't help feeling deep anger and despair over the fact there has been little progress. Jean Mackenzie. It was captured on camera, an attempted crime right in the centre of Paris. This was the moment on Tuesday when a gang tried to kidnap the daughter and grandson of a cryptocurrency executive. Help, she's pregnant, her husband shouts, as the couple struggled to hold the gang off. The perpetrators eventually escaped in a van empty-handed, as Hugh Schofield in Paris told James Kumarasami.

What we know is very visible on this extraordinary video which somebody took from a neighbouring building. very visible on this extraordinary video which somebody took from a neighboring building and you you're looking down on this Street who passion the 11th hour on dismal and you see a fracca and there are two people it seems lying on the ground and three other people masks who are trying to get them and drag them into a van a kind of white post office fan which is parked beside them and we now know what was happening was that a woman and a partner and a child had come out of a building in this street, this gang was waiting for them and they tried to get them into the van, the back of the van but the two resisted, they lay down on the ground, it was proving problematic, they started shouting and screaming, passers by were beginning to notice and someone joined in, picked up

a fire extinguisher and started sort of threatening the gang. The gang at this point gave up and jumped into the van themselves, and it drove off. So it was a close-run thing for this group of people who we now know were the daughter and the grandchild and the daughter's partner of a leading figure in the world of cryptocurrency, a platform called Paymium, the father of this woman worked for. And of course, this has triggered all sorts of alarm bells because it is the third such

incident in the last couple of months. Yeah, and those other two incidents, some fairly gruesome details in those. Yeah, indeed. The first one was in January, where a man called David Ballon, who ran a company called Ledger, which makes little pocket wallets, electronic wallets for people who are dealing with cryptocurrencies, he was kidnapped down in the Cher department in central France with his partner. There was a ransom demand. They cut off part of his finger. But the police then intervened and freed them without any ransom being paid.

And then more recently, only a couple of weeks ago, a man, the father of an entrepreneur in the world of cryptocurrency, was kidnapped briefly from the streets of Paris in broad daylight, bundled into a van in very similar circumstances, taken off. Again, his finger was cut off by the kidnappers as a sign of we've got this guy give us some money but again the police intervened he was found at a place called Palais Zoo outside Paris and freed before any ransom could be paid so there's quite clearly a pattern here and everyone is trying to figure out what on earth is going on.

Hugh Schofield chimpanzees in Uganda have been observed using medicinal plants to treat their wounds, appearing to carry out first aid on themselves and occasionally on each other. Scientists from the University of Oxford followed two groups of chimps in the Budongo Forest, cataloguing what they describe as forest first aid. Researchers say it's just one way in which primates, including chimps, orangutans and gorillas, use natural medicines. Victoria Gill reports.

Welcome to the Bodongo Forest in Uganda, where chimpanzees have been observed using plants for first aid to treat open wounds. I'm Victoria Gill, a science correspondent for BBC News. Let me tell you about what scientists have been finding out about our primate cousins. Multiple groups of researchers have spent years watching these chimps as they go about their daily lives. And a team led by the University of Oxford has just discovered and published a whole repertoire of chimpanzee first aid. Some of that involves the apes using forest plants

that are known to have healing properties. In some of the footage researchers have captured an adult male dabs a wound with a leaf from a plant that's also gathered by local people for medicinal use. Another rather shaky but extraordinary video shows a young female dabbing chewed-up plant material onto an injury on her mother's body. This is rare evidence of wild chimps using plants to tend to each other's injuries. Dr Elodie Freiman is lead researcher on the study just published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution. She says her team has also found evidence of chimpanzees tending to the wounds of animals that they're not related to.

And this, she says, is particularly exciting because it adds to the evidence that wild chimpanzees have the capacity for empathy. Some of the plants that the chimpanzees are using for these wound care behaviours actually have known traditional uses in human medicine. And others have pharmacological properties that are actually known to have wound healing and others have pharmacological properties that are actually known to have wound healing components that help either prevent against infection or also reduce inflammation. In captivity, life for a chimpanzee is of course very different, but there are some strikingly similar behaviours that have been seen in the chimps that live at the UK's Chester Zoo. Siobhan Ward is a senior keeper there and a primate expert.

If they've got mine injuries like a little cut here and there, some of the more dominant chimps might even come up to the keepers and almost show it to them. Really? Chimps are fascinating, they're so clever, that we know our chimps here and we know a lot about them, but learning from the wild is stuff that we'd never even thought they could do and so if they use them first aid different plants in the wild we could even plant some of those plants here and see if they do the same reaction. These animals are some

of our closest living relatives. Studying them in the wild gives scientists insight into the origins of our own social behavior, our communication, and now how we care for one another. Here's Dr Elodie Freiman again. Chimpanzees thrive here because they know how to access the secrets of this place and how to find all they need to survive from their surrounding. Scientists also hope that studying this wild ape behaviour, protecting the natural habitat that these animals live in, and understanding more about the plants that chimps use when they're sick or injured could help in the search for new medicines for us too.

Victoria Gill reporting. And that's all from us for now, but there'll be a new edition of the Global News podcast later. If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email. The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X at BBC World Service. Use the hashtag globalnewspod. This edition was mixed by Kai Perry and the producers were Rebecca Wood and Mazaffa Shakir. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Paul Moss. Until next time, goodbye.