Global News Podcast - NATO calls for unity as tensions rise with US over Ukraine

Episode Date: February 14, 2025

The NATO secretary general, Mark Rutte, has called for unity as a rift opens up between Europe and the US on how to end the war in Ukraine. Also: love rats and Valentine's Day.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. What does it take to go racing in the fastest cars in the world? Oscar Piastri. Your head's trying to get rid of one way, your body's trying to go another. Let's stroll. It's very extreme in the sense of how close you're racing wheel to wheel. We've been given unprecedented access to two of the most famous names in Formula One, McLaren and Aston Martin.

I'm Landon Aris. They build a beautiful bit of machinery that I get to then go and have fun in. This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Nick Miles and in the early hours of Friday the 14th of February these are our main stories. The head of NATO has appealed for the West to stay united as a rift opens up between Europe and the United States on peace negotiations about Ukraine. Days ahead of German elections, the man tipped to be the country's next leader has said things must change after an asylum seeker drove a car into a crowd of people. Riot police in Tehran have prevented

a protest demanding the release of people still under house arrest 13 years after they disputed an election result. Also in this podcast The most romantic day of the year. But if you're single or seething and would prefer getting back at your former flame, help is at hand. We hear some unusual advice for Valentine's Day. How will the war in Ukraine end and at what cost to Kiev? That is the question dominating the minds of politicians

and diplomats across Europe and beyond after Donald Trump's conversation with Vladimir Putin on Wednesday. Speaking to reporters a day later in the Oval Office, President Trump was asked if he believed his Russian counterpart wanted peace. I believe he wants peace. I believe that President Putin when I spoke to him yesterday, I mean I know him very well. Yeah I think he wants peace. I think he would tell me if he didn't. I think I'd like to see peace. I believe that yeah I believe that he would like to see something happen. I trust him on this subject. The European Union's foreign policy chief K Kaya Kalas, has accused President Trump of appeasing Russia over Ukraine.

She insisted that European states and Ukraine itself must be part of any peace talks. It is clear that any deal behind our backs will not work. Any agreement will need also Ukraine and Europe being part of it. And this is clear that appeasement also always fails. So we shouldn't take anything off the table before the negotiations have even started because it plays to Russia's court and it is what they want.

Why are we giving them everything that they want even before the negotiations have been started? It's appeasement. It has never worked. US officials have already said Ukraine can't expect to get all its territory back or be allowed to join NATO. But speaking after a NATO meeting in Brussels, the US defence secretary Pete Hegseth said this didn't amount to a concession to the Russian president. I think realism is an important part of the conversation that hasn't existed enough inside conversations amongst friends. But simply pointing out realism, like the borders won't be

rolled back to what everybody would like them to be in 2014, is not a concession to Vladimir Putin. It's a recognition of the hard power realities on the ground, after a lot of investment and sacrifice first by the Ukrainians and then by allies, after a lot of investment and sacrifice first by the Ukrainians and then by allies, and then a realisation that a negotiated peace is going to be some sort of demarcation that neither side wants. The German defence minister did, though, call it regrettable that Washington was already making concessions, in his words, to the Kremlin. Jonathan Beale is our defence correspondent in Brussels where he asked the head

of NATO, Mark Rutter, if he agreed with that. Well he's saying that the parameters as does Pete Hegseth of these negotiations have not yet been decided. Even though we have heard from the US defence secretary that Ukraine will not be a member of the NATO alliance as far as the US is concerned, that it will not regain all the territories it's lost since 2014, that the US will not be a security guarantee for Ukraine if the war should end by putting boots on the ground. Both Mr. Rutter and also the US Defense Secretary suggesting that those are not concessions, that the talks haven't, the negotiations haven't properly begun, that both sides will have to make concessions and indeed as far as Mr Rutter is concerned, that Ukraine will have to be involved in those

decisions. But at the moment it does seem one-sided because it does look like, and that's certainly the view of the German defense minister, Kaya Callas, that concessions have been made to Vladimir Putin but then there have been no such preconditions issued to Russia as to what they should concede and so it does look a bit one-sided to a lot of countries here. Yes, certain individual European politicians, as we've heard, are more forthright than NATO over their concerns. Why is that, do you think?

Is NATO in some way cowed by Donald Trump? I'm not sure I'd use the word cowed, but I think everybody remembers the first Trump administration and when there was a summit here in Brussels and Donald Trump was threatening to pull out of the alliance because he felt countries were not spending enough on defense. That message again has come through loud and clear from the US Defense Secretary Pete Hegs who said Donald Trump wanted to make NATO great again, in other words taking a campaign slogan and adjusting it for the alliance, but also saying that Europe had to take more responsibility for its own security and spend

more on defense, suggest that they should spend the states 5% of their national income GDP on defense. That's not even a figure that the US meets. They're just over 3%. But I think that as a way of keeping America in, and let's remember America is the biggest, most powerful member of this military alliance, that they have to, to some extent, build bridges with Donald Trump. And that is the way that Mark Rutter, the head of NATO, operates. He's a consensus builder. He was a prime minister who ran coalition governments, that is how he

survived and that is how he sees the way of keeping America on side. So I think there is certainly an effort to try to, again we're back to the word appease, Donald Trump to make sure that he doesn't completely sideline NATO or Ukraine. And if the war goes on and the fighting hasn't stopped, let's remember these negotiations, we don't know whether they will succeed, but they will, European allies still have to provide and fill the void left by the United States in terms of military support. Jonathan Beale. So how has Wednesday's phone call

between President Trump and Vladimir Putin been received in Russia? Our Russia editor, Steve Rosenberg, reports from Moscow. In Russia, rarely has one telephone call caused so much excitement. The day after the conversation between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, Russian state TV praised America's new approach to Russia as a sharp turn and historic shift. The Kremlin's pleased, too.

On a Kremlin conference call, I asked President Putin's spokesman for his assessment of the call. It was a very important one, replied Dmitry Peskov. In recent years, he said, Moscow and Washington had had no high-level contacts. He accused the Biden administration of prolonging the war in Ukraine and praised Donald Trump for trying to end it. No mention of the fact that three years of war began with Russia's full-scale invasion of its neighbor. To many Western leaders, Vladimir Putin is a pariah.

To Donald Trump, he's a potential partner. The U.S. president says he'll work with him to bring hostilities to an end. Thanks to President Trump, the Kremlin leader has already got one thing he wanted. The opportunity to negotiate on Ukraine directly with the United States, potentially cutting out Europe and even Ukraine itself. Steve Rosenberg. Meanwhile in Kiev, the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has insisted his country must be involved in peace talks about the future of his country. With his assessment of Ukraine's position he is our international editor Jeremy Bowen.

America is under new management and Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky has joined a growing list of US allies who are finding out that the world according to Donald Trump is cold, uncertain and potentially dangerous. President Zelensky, visiting a nuclear power plant, told journalists that it was not pleasant that President Trump had rung Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin before calling him, but much worse was the thought that the two men might want to settle Ukraine's future between them and no one else. The main thing, President Zelensky said, was to stop Putin's plan to make all negotiations

between Russia and the U.S. bilateral. As an independent country, he said, Ukraine could not accept any agreements made without its involvement. When he starts negotiating seriously, President Trump might find that it's impossible to bridge the gap between Ukraine and Russia's positions. President Zelensky wants Russia to pull out of Ukraine and to deter any future invasions by joining NATO. Both Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin seem to agree that neither will happen. President Putin says he'll end the war if Russia keeps the land it has captured and gets more as Ukraine becomes neutral and demilitarized.

That is an ultimatum, not a peace proposal. For President Putin, ending the war is not just a real estate deal of the kind that Donald Trump might understand, working out who keeps what. Vladimir Putin wants much more than land. He is demanding Ukraine's capitulation, the surrender of its independence and sovereignty. With Russia grinding forward on the battlefields of eastern Ukraine, this is the toughest moment Volodymyr Zelensky has faced since the dark and desperate first months of the war. It is also a moment of decision for Ukraine's Western European allies. President Trump is forcing them to face up to the gross disparity between their military promises

to Ukraine and their military capabilities. The Europeans need to make tough decisions that cannot be put off much longer. Jeremy Bowen in Ukraine. Next to Germany, and police have given more details about the Afghan man arrested in Munich after he drove into a crowd, injuring 28 people. They say the suspect is a failed asylum seeker who has been in Germany since 2016.

Counter-terrorism police have taken over the investigation. The incident comes during a general election campaign in which immigration and asylum are key issues. The front runner to become the next chancellor in nine days time, Friedrich Merz, said things had to change so that everyone would feel safe. Earlier, the current German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, says crime will be treated very seriously. It is very important for me to get the message across that anyone who commits crimes in Germany will not only be severely punished and sent to prison, they must also expect that they will not be able to continue their stay in Germany will not only be severely punished and sent to prison, they must also expect that they will not be able to continue their stay in Germany. Our correspondent Jessica Parker sent this report from New York. The sound of a chaotic scene as a man is held down on the ground and cuffed by police,

others tend to the injured. It all happened near Munich's central station after a car plowed into people who'd been marching peacefully through Bavaria's capital. Eyewitnesses have spoken of their horror. He went into the crowd and caught 10 or 15 people. I am shocked this is the first time I've seen something like this and I hope it's the last. You don't really know what to do with yourself. What was left was a trail of devastation. High vis jackets strewn on the floor, umbrellas, a pram overturned in the street. Children are believed to be among those hurt. The march had been part of a public sector strike that included hospital and kindergarten staff over pay and conditions. A car is said to have overtaken a police vehicle that had been marshalling the protest before driving into the crowd.

The suspect is a 24-year-old Afghan asylum seeker, known to police for drug and theft offences. Thomas Schelshorn is a spokesman for Munich police. We know that the suspect is a 24-year-old Afghan who applied for asylum here in Germany. The status of the asylum process is part of the investigation. This suspected attack is the latest of a string in Germany, where the suspect has been an asylum seeker. That's fuelled an already fraught debate about immigration, a signature issue of Germany's increasingly popular far-right party. There are warnings that Germany must not allow itself to become divided. But immigration and public safety were already dominant issues

in the country's election campaign. That will now likely only intensify with just over a week until polling day. Jessica Parker in Germany. Israel has said Hamas must release three living hostages on Saturday or the Gaza ceasefire will be over. The demand follows an earlier announcement by Hamas that it will now meet that deadline. The group had previously said it would postpone the release, accusing Israel of breaching the terms of the ceasefire deal. That led President Trump to say Israel should let hell break out in Gaza if the captives aren't freed. Our Middle East correspondent Lucy Williamson reports from Jerusalem.

freed. Our Middle East correspondent Lucy Williamson reports from Jerusalem. After the crisis sparked by President Trump's suggestion that all the remaining hostages held in Gaza should be released this coming Saturday, both Israel and Hamas appear to have climbed back from the brink and endorsed the original terms of the ceasefire agreement they signed. Earlier Hamas confirmed its intention to carry out the agreement, including, it said, the exchange of prisoners according to the specified timetable. That timetable dictates that three more Israeli hostages should be released this Saturday. Israel has also now signaled that it will not break the ceasefire and return to war

if Hamas does release three living hostages by midday that day. Israel's defence minister had earlier warned that any resumption of the war in Gaza would be of a new and different intensity and would not end until Hamas had been defeated. There had also been confusion about whether Israel had changed its demands regarding the number of hostages due for release after President Trump's comments. The crisis was sparked after Hamas suggested it might postpone the next release of hostages, accusing Israel of violating the deal by not allowing enough tents or aid into Gaza and firing on civilians. Lucy Williamson, meanwhile the families of some of the young women hostages freed from Gaza have told the BBC of their treatment during 15

months of captivity and the ways they survived. The parents of four of them have described how they were given little food, saw another hostage being beaten and were threatened by armed men as they were held in tunnels and buildings above ground. Alice Cuddy has been speaking to the families of the freed hostages and sent this report from Jerusalem. Some people may find the following distressing. It was a nightmare they warned of, but no one seemed to have listened. In a video filmed by Hamas and later released by the hostage families, you can hear the women pleading in English.

The last remaining female observers, the soldiers who watched Gaza's border, were released in the first weeks of the ceasefire after more than 15 months in captivity. Now home with their families. The feeling was that, I will take care of you was that I will take care of you now. I will take care of you now and everything will be okay. Now daddy's here and that's all. Everything was quiet.

Yoni Levy's 20-year-old daughter Nama started at the Nahaloz military base just the day before October 7th. In captivity, held for long periods without sunlight, he says she heard him calling for her release. She heard me talking on the TV and she saw her pictures and it's give her a lot of hope. Everybody's fighting for her, for her release, Nobody forgot her and we'll do whatever we need to take her out of this hell. For more than a year, the families have prayed

for the return of their loved ones. The childhood sweetheart of one of the observers, Daniela Gilboa, even shouted a marriage proposal towards Gaza in the hope that she might somehow hear. Daniela, will you marry me? Yes! Her mother, Orly Gilboa, says Daniela was moved frequently from underground tunnels to homes hidden from view.

They watched a release of the latest three male hostages at the weekend and cried together. Elie Sharabi, one of those who appeared emaciated, is their cousin. She told me, mommy, if I were released two months ago, I probably looked like them. She lost a lot of her weight through the captivity. In the last two months, they got a lot of food so they can gain weight. These are among the first interviews with close family members

since the hostages have been released, and their parents say full details of what happened to them are still emerging. There are things they can't say, fearful that it may put the 76 hostages still held in Gaza at risk. She's saying that they are playing all the time with their gun and with their hand grenades.

It's fighting. Schlommi Berger's daughter, Agam, is a 19-year-old violinist among the women who had just started at the base. Her father says she knows her own mind and was shocked by the way women were treated. There was times that she was threatened and sometimes they torture other hostages, female hostages in front of her eyes. It happened in the same room.

Now finally home, all the families are calling for the remaining hostages to be urgently released, and for answers about why their warnings were missed. They say they will join calls for a national inquiry, one they believe is long overdue. On her return home, Daniela reminded her mum of a stark warning she made just before October 7th. She told me, mommy when I'm going back to the army there's going to be war. In my worst nightmares I didn't think it's going to be such a war and of course that my daughter will take an hostage. That report was by

Alice Cuddy. Still to come. There's impacts on the growth of species, their reproduction, their behaviour, even at the molecular level changes in the way that individual proteins may be synthesised within their cells. We find out what's causing so much damage around the world. What does it take to go racing in the fastest cars in the world? Oscar Piestri. Your head's trying to get rid of one way, your body's trying to go another. Lance Stroll. It's very extreme in the sense of how close you're racing wheel to wheel.

We've been given unprecedented access to two of the most famous names in Formula One, McLaren and Aston Martin. I'm Landon Aris. They build a beautiful bit of machinery that I get to then go and have fun in. They open the doors to their factories as the 2024 season reached its peak. I'm Josh Hartnett. This is F1, Back at Base. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Riot police in Tehran have prevented a protest demanding the release of people still under house arrest many years after they disputed an election result. The 2009 Green Movement believed the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had been rigged. The organizers of Thursday's protest had submitted a formal request

to hold the non-violent demonstration. Sivash Adlan of BBC Persian reports. The Islamic regime took no chances. It went through the list of names of individuals who had submitted a formal request to hold a non-violent protest rally and arrested them one by one. These were war veterans and all-time activists affiliated with Iran's reform movement. Riot police were also deployed in their hundreds to where the rally was to be held. It's not yet clear how many people were arrested. The organizers were demanding an end to the house arrest of the 2009 Green Movement leaders,

now entering its 14th year. Sivaj Adilan. President Trump's controversial nominee for US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has narrowly secured approval by the US Senate. Mr. Kennedy's confirmation follows hearings in which he was questioned about his record of skepticism about the safety of vaccines. He says his priorities include tackling obesity and cutting out ultra processed foods. A day after the US election last November President Trump's former chief of staff Mick Mulvaney gave his view on the

likelihood of RFK jr. being made US Health Secretary. Bobby Kennedy might be involved but he could never get confirmed by the Senate because I think he's crazy. But there will be good people. Trump has said, he has said Robert Kennedy will be sorting out the health of the nation and such like. Yeah, that's right. And my guess is he'll be appointed to a non-confirmed sort of czar position to use a broad term that is overused. Not so it seems. Evan Davis spoke to Anthony Zirka, our North America correspondent, and asked him more about Robert F Kennedy Jr.'s appointment.

It was 52-48. There was one Republican, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the former Senate majority leader who voted against him and he released a press statement shortly afterwards and condemned Kennedy's quote, record of trafficking in dangerous conspiracy theories and eroding trust in public health institutions. Of course, McConnell, he is a polio survivor. He has a lot of faith in vaccines, particularly polio vaccines, which Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

had criticized in the past. So maybe that was not surprising. But every other Republican stuck with Kennedy. Obviously, the health establishment, mainstream opinion in health will find this a shocking appointment. What exactly do they fear of RFK? Well, I think they fear, first of all, a lack of funding, and that's something that we're already seeing from this White House. Big cuts to the Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Disease Control and other federal agencies that spend a considerable amount of money

funding medical research in universities and independent research centers across the country. They fear changes in regulation, regulation that could be more restrictive on chemicals and additives in food. Although I will say it's interesting, Pharma, which is the big lobbying group for the pharmaceutical industry, they didn't go all out in opposing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. They said they can work with him. That suggests that maybe the fears of what Robert F.

Kennedy Jr. can do as health secretary might be a bit overblown. Anthony Zirka. Ruthless, vicious and notorious. Pablo Escobar, Colombia's former drug-smuggling kingpin, was responsible for hundreds of murders and kidnappings in the 1980s and 90s. It is more than 30 years since he was killed in a shootout with police, but thanks to the books and TV programmes about him,

he is as talked about as ever and he's also big business. He's on mugs, keychains and t-shirts sold in tour shops across the country but now the Colombian government is proposing a bill to ban Escobar merchandise and that of other convicted criminals. Our reporter Catherine Ellis who's normally based in Medellin where Pablo Escobar was based told me more about the proposed law. So it's going to prohibit a number of things if it actually does become law. So it will be the sale and the distribution of items and symbols associated with convicted criminals. So it's not actually just related to Pablo Escobar, it could be any convicted criminal,

but obviously he's the one that's being sold on things like key rings, on t-shirts, on mugs, even on coffee as well. So it's going to look to prohibit these kind of things. Basically, the kind of things that you might buy if you go on holiday. And the interesting thing is if you go to Colombia now, like you go to Bogotá, the capital, or you go to Melin, where Pablo Escobar is actually from, these cities are saturated with these items. You don't just find them in a corner of a shop, you find them everywhere. There are whole districts, the downtown areas, they're full of these items and people are buying them.

Now it's mainly tourists buying them, but you do get Colombians buying them as well. And Catherine, why is this being proposed now as a law and how much political support is there for it? Well the reason it's being proposed now more than anything is just because people have been talking about it for such a long time and it is actually gaining a bit of momentum and getting support. You know there are a lot of Colombians saying we we really don't want this. It's embarrassing. And they think Colombia's image is tarnished by Pablo Escobar. But apart from that, it's really out of respect for the victims. And this has been a very, very long time coming. Now, I've been speaking to one of the victims. His father was actually killed when he was

just a child. But his father went out to work, he went to board a plane to go to a meeting in another city and the plane exploded. Now, they were on the orders of Pablo Escobar, who wanted to kill a presidential candidate. The presidential candidate didn't end up taking the flight, but 107 people died. And this is what he has to say about the bill. His name is Gonzalo Rojas. The loss of a father, I think, one never gets over it. I applaud and truly thank the congressman who took this initiative to be able to put, let's say, a milestone on the road about how we can reflect on what is happening with respect to the

commercialisation of images of Pablo Escobar in order to put it right. And what do people making money out of this trade make of this proposed law? Well the views are actually quite mixed. If you do speak to the people that are directly making money out of this, well, obviously, they do want it to continue. So some people do say, if everybody is doing this, then if this ban applies to everybody, then it's not a problem. We can sell other things. But other people, some people do say, well, I have a little bit worried about Columbia's reputation, what it's doing to our kids. So generally, there are quite mixed views. So I've been speaking to some people at Medellin, some of

the vendors selling these products and this is what they had to say. The souvenirs being produced with his photo give food to many people who need it here. Imagine if I for example sell 10 t-shirts, I sell most of Pablo, and you need to sell what gives you most money. They want us to forget about him, but people from the United States, from other countries, when they arrive, the first thing they ask is about things related to Pablo. It's bad because many families depend on this. It helps us make a living. Sometimes it's how we pay rent, buy food and take care of our children.

And Catherine, how likely is it do you think that this law will go ahead? There are a lot of politicians who are very in favour of this. They really do think that it needs to be banned. But on the other hand, there are politicians who really don't think it's going to be popular with their constituents. So once it actually moves through the stages we're going to see a lot of bait around this and whether it actually becomes law really remains to be seen. Catherine Ellis. Now scientists have been pouring over hundreds of studies about the impact of pesticides and they found to what extent they're having a serious impact on biodiversity around

the world and on all sorts of species. James Menendez heard more from Dr. Ben Woodcock of the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology and co-author of the new research published in the journal Nature Communications. We've taken information from 1700 studies everywhere across the globe and looked at the impacts of pesticides on over 800 species. Everything from microorganisms, fungi, plants, to insects, birds, mammals, amphibians, everything. So this is a really comprehensive assessment of what the consequences of pesticides are in the real world. And what did you find then? Overwhelmingly we find there are negative impacts. There's impacts on the

growth of species, their reproduction, their behavior, even at the molecular level changes in the way that individual proteins may be synthesized within their cells. So there's a range of different effects going all the way from outright killing things to much more subtle things that might have an impact over a much longer time scale. And it's not just other insects, this is all sorts of species, is it? I think that's a really critical thing about this. This is going everywhere from bacteria all the way up to mammals and including insects and everything else in between. So it's really getting a good idea at that ecosystem level what the potential consequences

are and this is looking at species that are not considered to be a target for pesticides. And it's important to note that pesticides are intended to attack very specific things. So collateral damage, if I can use that horrible phrase. How serious then is it for biodiversity? Are things worse than we thought? There are global declines. We know for insects, for example, that there is a decline in their abundance, 10% annually.

And we see declines across whole ranges of other groups. Now there's a whole load of different things contributing to this. But the results that we show here strongly suggest that pesticides are one of those factors that are adding to that global biodiversity crisis. The trouble is, farmers need to use pesticides, don't they, to maximise their yields and make sure that we have the crops that we need to feed ourselves. So is there an easy solution to this? Yeah, if you stop pesticides tomorrow, the world would starve, farmer livelihoods would collapse. What is viable, however, is changes in the way that we focus the

use of pesticides. If you apply pesticides a lot, pests become resistant to them. So there are a lot of things that can be done to actually reduce the usage. For example, breeding crops that might be resistant to pests, changing the time with which you sow seeds so you avoid when pests are prevalent, promoting parasitic insects or predatory insects, or using drones that can really pinpoint where a pest population is, rather than just spraying in general. There's also issues with regulation as well. It's not very good at detecting very long-term, low-level exposure effects and sometimes you get an interaction between two types of pesticides that can make one of them much more toxic. Ben Woodcock of the UK Centre for Ecology and

Hydrology. In case you've forgotten, February the 14th Valentine's Day. But if you're not in the mood for love, some animal sanctuaries are offering the perfect antidote. One venue is giving people the chance to name a rat after their ex and feed it to a bird of prey. And there are other options too. Here's David Lewis. The most romantic day of the year. But if you're single or seething and would prefer getting back at your former flame, help is at hand. And you'll be doing your bit for conservation, sort of. It's called the No Regrets campaign. For a five dollar fee, one Canadian bird breeder is letting lovers name a rat after an X before feeding it to a northern

spotted owl. The venue in British Columbia is promising a photo showing your newly named pest being scoffed down. Videos are available on request. Cash Raised will be going on protecting the species, but as is often the case with matters of the heart, not everyone is happy. After putting the Rat vs Raptor campaign up on social media, the critics swooped in. How dumb and cruel! What you are feeding is a bad opinion about rats!

Completely undeserved! said one. For the record, others did think the owl idea a hoot. But for all you spurned lovers out there, there's more than just this ratty revenge. In the United States, daters can now feed their exes to the wolves, figuratively speaking of course. Staff at T&D's Cats of the World in Middleburg, Pennsylvania

will scroll the name of your ex on a peanut butter dog treat, then chucked at the pack like Cupid's broken arrow and wolfed down. The snack is in the shape of a gingerbread man, the website says. Revenge is sweet. Or if your old consort was creepy, why not name a crawly? Bronx Zoo in New York will call a hissing cockroach after your lost love.

You'll even get a certificate to prove your purchase. But there's more. If you always felt like a number two in your relationship, Memphis Zoo will send a video of an elephant pooping to your ex. The promotion's called Dating or Dumping. Cost $10. Happy Valentine's Day listeners. David Lewis. And that's all from us for now, but there will be a new edition of the Global News podcast

later. If you want to comment on this podcast, all 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 at global news pod. This edition was mixed by Nick Randall. The producer was Liam McSheffrey. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Nick Miles and until next time, goodbye. get rid of one way your body's trying to go another. Land's stroll. It's very extreme in the sense of how close we're racing wheel to wheel. We've been given unprecedented access to two of the most famous names in Formula One, McLaren and Aston Martin.

I'm Landon Aris. They build a beautiful bit of machinery that I get to then go and have fun in. They open the doors to their factories as the 2024 season reached its peak. I'm Josh Hartnett. This is F1, Back at Base. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.