Global News Podcast - How do Alaskans feel about the Trump-Putin summit?

Episode Date: August 15, 2025

Hundreds of pro-Ukraine demonstrators in Alaska have been showing their unhappiness about the absence of the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the summit in their state between Presidents Trump and Putin. Mr Trump is travelling to Alaska for the meeting that could prove decisive for the future of Ukraine. Before departing Washington, he posted the words "HIGH STAKES!!! on social media. Also: Two years of negotiations to develop a global plastic pollution treaty have ended in failure, and the robot athletes going for gold in China.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]

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This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Valerie Sanderson and we're recording this edition at 13 hours GMT on Friday the 15th of August. Our main stories, President Trump is en route to Alaska to meet Vladimir Putin for talks on the Ukraine war. An encounter he called high stakes before he departed from Washington. Meanwhile, pro-Ukraine demonstrators in Alaska are outraged by the absence of President Zelensky at the summit. Negotiations develop a global plastic pollution treaty collapse, prompting anger from several countries. Also in this podcast, Japan commemorates the 80th anniversary of its World War II surrender. And if we can spot these recycling faults and protein clumps early, we might be able to find

pancreatic cancer sooner and treat it better. Scientists unlock more clues about a cancer notoriously tricky to diagnose. As we record this podcast, we're just hours away from the highly anticipated meeting between Donald Trump and the Russian President Vladimir Putin about the war on Ukraine. Shortly before President Trump departed Washington for the summit in Alaska, he posted two words on social media, high stakes. And the rest of the world is in agreement. A major concern is the potential for Russia to be offered territorial gains in return for ending the war. This will be the first time in a decade that Vladimir Putin has set foot on American soil.

Since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, around 1,000 Ukrainians have arrived in Alaska. In the state's larger city anchorage, hundreds of protesters waved Ukrainian flags and banners reading, I am with Ukraine. These demonstrators were outraged that the Ukrainian president, Vladimir Zelensky, hadn't been invited to the talks. I think he should be here, should be there at the table.

I think he was appalling how he was treated by our president when they spoke last, but I think he should be here. It's all about his country. If they truly wanted to talk about what was going on in Ukraine and how to end the war, they would have included President Zelensky. There isn't a question of what's right or wrong in this war. Absolutely Ukraine is right, and Trump needs to take a stand. Russia gets no land.

But there was a note of optimism from Galena Tomissa, a Russian-American, living in the city. I want to believe that we will have some positive outcomes because of this meeting. But it's kind of the situation right now, it's like two steps forward or one step forward, two steps back, you know. I just want to hope, and they say the hope dies last, that there will be some. fruitful results from this summit. Our correspondent Tom Bateman, who's in Anchorage, told me more about the protests. I was interviewing people at one where there were several hundred Americans had come out to support the Ukrainians. You know, Ukrainian flags everywhere, lots of banners and placards

complaining about the fact that President Putin would be coming. And remember, he has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for allegations of war crimes over the war in Ukraine. Some people I spoke to saying, why on earth is President Putin being allowed to fly to the United States under those conditions? And not only that, but meeting the president here in Alaska. So those people were extremely concerned about that and said they were going to make their voices heard throughout that. I spoke to one man who lived here for many years, but was originally from Western Ukraine and still have family and friends there, who was outraged by this visit said that his family members who was still in touch with were reflecting the fact that

Ukrainians feel extremely sidelined by this and are very worried about this becoming a carve-up between the US and Russia without the Ukrainians even at the table. So a lot of anger about that but also remember this is a Republican state and there is going to be a rally in support of President Trump and in support of the meeting taking place as well. Don't know about whether we'll get the same kind of numbers out. But clearly President Trump is relying on that support when it comes to the actual base of hope that he has for this particular meeting that he says he thinks that he has a big chance of success. The meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, it's going to be, I presume, carefully choreographed. What form will it take?

Well, President Trump will arrive first on Air Force One, landing at this Cold War era U.S. air base after a seven-hour flight all of. way up from Washington, D.C., then President Putin will land around an hour later, and then they will start the bilateral meeting. Now, the format of that is still unclear. The Kremlin has suggested that at the start of that there will be what they have called a tete-a-tete, a head-to-head between the two men and only their translators, so no other advisors or officials in the room. The White House has not commented or confirmed that. The speculation from the American side is that there will be at least an advisor each to the two men in the room, at least for the sort of formal part of the bilateral meeting.

Whether anything takes place without any advisor, so he's unclear, but certainly that seems to be a suggestion from the Kremlin. There will be a working lunch at which there will be the much wider delegations of the two sides. Tom Bateman in Anchorage. Ukraine has the most to lose from the negotiations. between the two world leaders. President Zelensky has warned that decisions made in his absence will be meaningless. Alexander Marejko is a Ukrainian MP from the ruling party and chairs the Ukrainian Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs.

We don't have high expectations, to put it to the least, with regard to this summit, because for Putin, it's already a diplomatic win. It seems like President Trump has brought back Putin to the limelight and sort of destroyed his status. of isolated pariah, which is very dangerous in itself. I don't expect any tangible result coming out of this summit for very simple reason, because Putin doesn't want to stop the war of aggression. He hasn't abandoned his maximalist goals to destroy Ukraine, to subjugate Ukraine. And President Trump seems not to be keen on imposing serious sanctions on Russia and those countries which provide lifeline to Russia.

So, what's the Russian view of this meeting? Here's our Russia editor, Steve Rosenberg. For Vladimir Putin, I mean, he's delivered himself one thing that he's been looking for. That is recognition, international recognition, that he's a player, a big player on the world stage. The fact that this summit is happening at all, you know, the Russians are portraying as a victory from Moscow, you know, despite all the attempts by Western countries to try to isolate. Vladimir Putin over the last three and a half years, look where he is, sitting at the top table with Donald Trump discussing Ukraine. You know, for President Trump, this may be a listening exercise for Vladimir Putin. It's a legitimization exercise, but also he is keen to come out of this with some kind of victory.

You know, he's the man that started this by pouring Russian troops across the border. order into Ukraine. For him, it's vital to, if the war in Ukraine is to end soon, it's vital to come out with some kind of deal that he can portray to the Russian people as a victory. I mean, I wonder how much experience of Russia there is on the American side. If you look at the Russian side, it's packed full of experience. I mean, Vladimir Putin, right? He's been in power 25 years. He has experienced five U.S. presidents. Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister. He's been foreign minister for 20 years. He knows everything there is to know about America. Yuri Ushakov, Vladimir Putin's foreign policy aid, a former Russian ambassador

in Washington, Kiril Dmitriev, Vladimir Putin's investment envoy, foreign investment envoy, educated in the United States. This team knows about America, it knows about Donald Trump. and this will, I think, add to fears in Ukraine and in European capitals that perhaps at the end of this meeting, the Russian side will have got the better of the American one. Steve Rosenberg, and we'll update you with the latest from that summit in a later edition of the Global News podcast. Negotiators have once again left talks aimed at agreeing the world's first treaty on plastic pollution with no result. After more than two years of negotiations, delegates had gathered at the UN in Geneva, hoping to finalise a deal.

But countries remain deadlocked over whether the treaty should reduce plastic production and put legally binding controls on the toxic chemicals used to make the product. Tricia Farrelly, a scientist from the Plastic Pollution Alliance in New Zealand, is disappointed by the outcome. We've seen during the talks negotiators removing key provisions essential to protecting environmental and human health including obligations to, most concerningly for us to reduce plastic production to sustainable levels, to address chemicals of concern and account for impacts across the full life cycle of plastics.

While a small group of countries actively denied the scientific evidence, we're still encouraged by the overwhelming majority who have engaged constructively with it, but there's still no agreement on any text at this stage. I spoke to our climate and science reporter Esme Stalard, who observed the negotiations in Geneva. To sum it up, they effectively ran out of time. There was two groups that was kind of split between countries. There was an initial draft text that was produced a couple of days ago back on Tuesday. No country was happy with that.

It just, particularly the high ambition countries felt that it didn't address any of their concerns. There was nothing in the text at that point about trying to ban certain chemicals in plastic. There wasn't anything mandatory around the design of plastic. nothing at all around production. However, having said that on the other side, the oil producing states, they also weren't happy. The new text that got published at 2 a.m. this morning local time did seem to address some of the concerns of that ambitious group of countries more. And it seemed that they had compromised, even though there wasn't anything specifically in there on production, that was them giving way to the oil states. There was more measures around better

design of plastic to try and reduce our use of it, particularly single-use plastic. But it seemed like as they were already 12 hours over time, that this new text just didn't have enough time to go through discussions. The EU did say in the final meeting that they felt like this was a good basis for future negotiations, although Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, who are part of that group of oil nations, said that they felt like this was not a good basis for future talks, so they still remain very unhappy. Well, very early days, but will there be future talks, or is this all at an impasse? What happens is in that final meeting, countries will indicate how they would like to see a way forward.

Many countries were saying that they would like to see what they're calling an INC 5.3. So every single round of negotiations was given a number. There was meant to be five of those, meant to finish in December. This was called 5.2 because it was a run-on from those. It was hoped this would be the last one. That hasn't happened, so we would go to a 5.3.

But what needs to happen is finding a location, the money to run these conferences. It's very expensive to host them. But also for those traveling there, that was something raised by the Northern Pacific Nation of Palau, who was speaking on behalf of the island states that they put a lot of money and resources into travelling to these negotiations and they feel very disappointed. They keep having to return with insufficient progress. So I suspect we'll be back, but where and when is still unclear.

And remind us what a big problem plastic pollution is and what these negotiations hope to achieve and haven't done so. Plastic is, you know, seeing this miracle product has helped to transform a lot of sectors, but the problem is how we deal with it. There's a lot of plastic pollution environment that's expected to increase and there's concerns around the impact of toxic chemicals on the marine environment and also increasingly on human health, potentially being carcinogenic some of those chemicals. Esmey Stalard. Here in the UK, scientists say a surprising discovery could make it easier to diagnose pancreatic

cancer earlier. It's one of the deadliest common cancers, often found too late for effective treatment. The team behind the research spotted dementia-like changes in cells that could offer new clues for diagnosis. Dr. Catherine Pickworth from Cancer Research UK spoke to Anna Foster. The researchers were studying how normal pancreas cells start going wrong in the lab. So essentially in cells carrying a common cancer gene called K-RAS. The cells recycling system that exists in all cells called autophagy falters. So instead of clearing out waste and recycling it for energy,

it meant that sticky proteins piled into clumps. And that's a bit like what happens in dementia. So they also looked at early lesions in the human pancreas, and they also sort of similar clums, and that suggests it could also hold true in people. This is pretty early research, but it points to a fresh angle for prevention or therapy as well. So by tracking it back to the source, by seeing how something like this actually starts, it gives you new pathways to treat it. Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's early, but it's new and promising biology. You know, if we can spot these recycling faults and protein clumps early, we might be able to find pancreatic cancer sooner and treat it better.

And as you said, you know, pancreatic cancer survival has remained stubbornly low. You know, it's a tenth for most common cancer, but the fifth leading cause of cancer death. So we've seen survival, cancer survival improved for many types of the disease, but for pancreatic cancer, it's remained stubbornly low. So early biology like this really offers that new avenue for progress. Why is that? Why has pancreatic cancer in particular been so difficult to deal with? One of the reasons is it's often diagnosed late. It's often not picked up early because of the sort of generic.

symptoms, you know, weight loss and ongoing tummy or back pain, changes in poo, can be a number of different things. And those symptoms, you know, it's a deep tissue. It kind of hides away. It's quite difficult to notice the symptoms at that early stage as well. Dr. Catherine Pickworth. Still to come on the Global News podcast. One of these robots came flying around the band to the delight of the crowd. He might be fast, but couldn't quite. quite hold the line. The robot athletes delighting spectators in China. In northern Pakistan, flash floods triggered by torrential monsoon rains have killed at least 160 people over the past 24 hours. Landslides and floodwaters have buried homes and swept

people away. A rescue helicopter has also been reported missing. I got this update from our Pakistan correspondent Azadamashiri in Islamabad. Pakistan is in the midst of its monsoon season and has been experiencing heavy rains, flash floods, on and off for several weeks as well as landslides. So far, officials have said there have been multiple deaths in Pakistan-administered Gilgit-Baltistan. That's one of the provinces that's been most hit, but also in Haibur-Pactun Croix, which is Western Pakistan. Now, in terms of collateral damage, people have seen their homes destroyed in all the provinces that have been affected. Evacuations are also ongoing. And within these areas, there are many

regions that are affected. In Haibri Parthenhoa, for example, SWAT has been badly hit, and that's a tourist attraction. It's very attractive, lots of natural beauty. And as well as closer to the border with Afghanistan, that province has been especially affected as well. So one of the authorities saying, is there a big search and rescue operation on? There is. And in some cases, they've been able to reach people, but it's a real challenge. and the military has said they've now deployed helicopters in some parts to help that effort. There's also another challenge. Emergency teams are also very focused on creating temporary bridges, temporary roads, helping locals and tourists who are stranded across these provinces be able to

travel to safety because, again, keep in mind some of these people aren't actually local to the provinces where they find themselves. And so they need that support. On top of all of that emergency teams have said that this sort of danger could continue for the next week or so. And is it connected to climate change? In some ways, yes, climate change exacerbates the frequency and the severity of these extreme weather events. And Pakistan has a particular challenge because it contributes less than 1% of global greenhouse gases. The gases that warm our planet, but its geography makes it extremely vulnerable to climate change. And the difficulty is that they have a double whammy. They both experience drought, but also monsoon rains. And everyone

here remembers what happened three years ago when floods devastated the country and killed about 1,700 people. We're nowhere near that level of devastation, but people are certainly suffering. As a day, Mashiri, events have been held across Japan to mark the 80th anniversary of the country's defeat in the Second World War. The end of the fighting in the Pacific is largely seen as a day of celebration for the victors, including the US and UK. Here in Britain, there's been a ceremony and a two-minute silence at the National Memorial Arboretum in central England to mark the occasion. In the presence of other veterans and the King and the Prime Minister,

a 101-year-old former RAF pilot Ron Gumbull read out the poem, The Fallen, by Lawrence Binion. I shall not worry them nor the years come in. at the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember then thank you thank you

music the music music and the music The end of fighting came soon after the dropping of two devastating atomic bombs in Japan. That country's unconditional surrender to the Allies on August 15, 1945, remains an extremely somber occasion in Japan.

Shama Khalil reports from Tokyo. In a crackling radio address, Emperor Hirohito accepted defeat, ending the Second World War and ushering in a new and an uncertain post-war era. Hari Unihei was eight when her neighborhood and the entire downtown Tokyo area were flattened in the Great Tokyo air raid on March the 10th, 1945. A hundred thousand people were killed in one night. She told me about the day the emperor made that unprecedented announcement. At that time, the emperor was a god to us.

I asked my mother, what did he say? She said, the war is over, but Japan lost. I stood up and clapped my hands saying, no more air raids. I jumped up and down with joy. But my older brother, who was 15 and had received intense military education, he dragged me out of the room and beat me up in the corner. While there were celebrations in the U.S. and Europe here, this is a day of mourning, remembering the millions who died and praying for peace. Defeats stripped

Japan of its military might. Under the U.S. occupation, it rebuilt as a democracy and an industrial powerhouse. But the country has never really fully confronted or acknowledged the atrocities committed by its imperial army. Many Japanese leaders have apologized over the years for vaguely bad things Japan did, but they don't really get into specifics about what Japan did. Jeff Kingston is a professor of Asian studies in history at Temple University in Tokyo. He says that there's no unified national stance on how Japan views its wartime history, which makes official apologies feel vague and hollow at times. Every time they make such an apology or express these contrite views,

there will always be another prominent conservative who will come out and disparage those views, deny them, denounce them. So, you know, it's understandable. overseas that people are a little confused. Is Japan contrite or not? The U.S. do has never really apologized for Hiroshima or Nagasaki. 80 years on, Japan stands as a modern democracy and a global economic power. And yet, the shadows of its violent past still stretch into its present. Shyma Khalil. The governor of California, Gavin Newsom, has launched a campaign to redraw the state's congressional map to boost the number of seats held by Democrats. He said the aim was to counter Republican moves in Texas. Mr. Newsom also lashed out

at Donald Trump after a group of Border Patrol agents swarmed outside a building where he was announcing the plans. The Democrat and longtime Trump critic said he would not be intimidated by a patrol of ICE agents. Well, I think it's pretty sick and pathetic. And it just said everything you need to know, the setting that we're under, that they chose the time, manner, and place to send their district director outside right when we're about to have this press card. She said everything you know about Donald Trump's America. And that was top down, you know that for a fact. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary, Trisha McLaughlin, responded,

our law enforcement operations are about enforcing the law, not about Gavin Newsom. David Willis is following the story. Gavin Newsom has said that it was probably, in his view, an act of intimidation or intended as an act of intimidation on the part of the Trump administration. More than two dozen federal border patrol agents dressed in masks and wearing helmets and equipped with guns started milling around the building within which Gavin Newsom was announcing his plans today,

plans to hold a ballot, a special ballot here in California in November with a view to a constitutional amendment. that will provide for the redistricting of certain parts of this state to provide for five additional democratic seats going into next year's midterm elections. That's an attempt to basically nullify similar moves being conducted on the part of the Republicans and at the behest of the Republican leader Donald Trump in the state of Texas. Those attempts having been thwarted temporarily by the withdrawal of around 50 democratic lawmakers who took themselves out of the state of Texas in order to basically thwart attempts to have a vote on that matter there.

They're now expected to return in the next few days pending a vote on that controversial measure, which they now say those Democrats they are happy to do because of the moves by Gavin Newsome. here in California. David Willis. Finally to Beijing, which is hosting what could be described as a sort of Olympic Games for robots. Over the next three days, robot athletes from 16 countries will compete in a range of events, including athletics, boxing and martial arts. It's all part of China's push to become a global leader in humanoid robotics. Our China correspondent Stephen McDonald's spoke to us from the venue. I'm standing right next to the running track and one of these robots came flying around the band

to the delight of the crowd, especially there are lots of students in here watching these robots, but of course he might be fast but couldn't quite hold the line and ended up crossing out of one lane into another lane and finally actually crashing into one of the engineers

from one of the other robot teams again much to the delight of all the kids who love that. Bring it on. They love all the crashing and burning as much as they like the success of these robots. So You know, we have seen some spectacular falls, but you wouldn't expect that, wouldn't you?

I mean, this is cutting-edge technology. They are pushing these machines out to the best that they can do, and that is part of the purposey, apart from being a bit of a sort of PR stunt for the Chinese robotics industry. It enables technicians to see, well, how can we move them around in these complicated areas? How can we make them turn more quickly or adapt to situations? So there is a sort of serious science. I mean, to what extent are humanoid robots, the robots that look ostensibly human to us,

with limbs, torsos, heads, are they being used in parts of China, or is it still very much a thing in the future? In terms of the question of are they being used, we're not seeing robots in people's houses yet, but given the speed with which this technology is developing, you wonder how quickly it'll be until that is actually the case. Certainly, there's so much money being thrown into this. The Chinese government wants to be the world's tech superpower. By the way, a bit of a cheer from the crowd there. One of the robot teams has scored a goal in the footy.

China wants to be a tech leader, and so billions of dollars are going into robotics. And that's another point for this sort of events like this, this world humanoid robot games, the companies want to attract investment. So if your robots are the fastest or the grubious looking or something like that, well, it's also money potentially coming your way because it's a bit of a cutthroat industry here. As has been the case with other industries, we've got all these startups, they're not all going to survive, they want to be the companies that do get there in the end.

And so, yeah, that's why the pressure is on to do well at these. games, if I could put it to you that way, for financial reasons, apart from anything else. And do we know, as far as we can tell, who's been winning the races, are there medals ceremonies, all that kind of stuff? It looks like there are going to be medals ceremonies, because I've seen there's a little area in the middle, which it looks like a bit of a podium sort of set up. So I think at some point we are going to see some medals issued. I mean, one funny thing is, with the races, for example, around the running track here, it's a bit unfair because something's got these tiny little robots and others with ginormous legs flying

past them and you wouldn't expect them to be able to, like in a human beings, this would be an unfair race. Stephen MacDonald at the World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing speaking to Nick Miles. And that's it 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, send us an email. The address is Global Podcast at BBC.com. at UK. You can also find us on X at BBC World Service. Use the hashtag Global NewsPod. This edition was mixed by Alana Bowles. The producers were Chantal Hartel and Aaron Cochie, and the editor is Karen Martin. I'm Valerie Sanderson. Until next time, bye-bye.