Global News Podcast - President Biden hails biggest prisoner swap since Cold War a 'feat of diplomacy'

Episode Date: August 2, 2024

President Biden hails biggest prisoner swap since Cold War a 'feat of diplomacy'. In total, 10 Russians -- including 2 children -- were exchanged for 16 Westerners and Russians imprisoned in Russia. It was a seven nation prisoner swap which involved complicated and long negotiations. Also: Three men accused of plotting the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States in 2001 who have been detained in Guantanamo Bay receive a plea deal. We get reaction from a family member of one of the victims, and in the Olympics a clash in the women's boxing was abandoned after just 46 secs amidst controversy over gender eligibility rules.

Hello, this is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service, with reports and analysis from across the world. The latest news seven days a week. BBC World Service podcasts are supported by advertising. If you're hearing this, you're probably already listening to BBC's award-winning news podcasts. But did you know that you can listen to them without ads? Get current affairs podcasts like Thank you. Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC podcasts. This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Valerie Sanderson and in the early hours of Friday the 2nd of August, these are our main stories. We have more details on the major prisoner swap that's taken place between Russia and the West.

President Biden described it as a feat of diplomacy. The head of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, says Israel crossed red lines by killing one of its commanders and can expect revenge. Also in this podcast. I can't emphasize how painful it has been to be living 23 years after my sister was murdered and to fear that I would die before there was justice. As three men accused of plotting the 9-11 terrorist attacks in the US receive a plea deal, we get reaction from a family member of one of the victims. In the Olympics, a clash in the women's boxing competition was abandoned after just 46 seconds amidst controversy over gender eligibility rules. And there's a final farewell to British tennis legend Andy Murray, whose Olympic hopes have come to an end. We've been getting more details of the largest east-west swap of prisoners in decades between Russia and Belarus on one hand and the US, Germany and other European

countries on the other. The exchange of a total of 26 people, including two children, was made in Ankara in Turkey. The Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomed his nationals at the airport when they returned. Mr Putin congratulated them, saying Russia, the motherland, didn't forget about them for a minute. It comes after a discussion about a prisoner swap for the American journalist Evan Gershkovich, who'd been detained in Russia and given a hefty jail sentence. Natalia Pellevina is a Russian opposition activist in exile who knows the high-profile Kremlin critic Vladimir Karamurtsev, also one of those being exchanged. We're very happy because we know that now they

will make it, they will survive, which unfortunately, for instance, Alexei Navalny did not. The conditions that political prisoners are kept in in Russia are absolutely horrendous. Every effort is made to make their life as horrible, as impossible as could be. Many of them were suffering health issues already. So it was clear that unless something like this was to happen, that many of them just won't survive. And now they will keep living. That's really great news. Here's our Russia editor, Steve Rosenberg. It was the largest East-West prisoner exchange since the Cold War. It involved 26 people being held in seven different countries. The location had been a closely guarded secret,

Ankara Airport. Among those freed from Russian jails, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, former US Marine Paul Whelan, he'd spent more than five years behind bars, and US Russian journalist Al-Sukur Mashava. America has repeatedly accused Moscow of jailing US citizens to use them as bargaining chips to free Russians jailed abroad. Released to, and now out of the country, prominent Kremlin critics and anti-war campaigners like Vladimir Karamurza and Ilya Yashin. Speaking later from the White House, President Biden gave his reaction to the news. It says a lot about the United States that we work relentlessly to free Americans who are unjustly held around the world. It also says a lot about us that this deal includes the release of Russian political prisoners.

They stood up for democracy and human rights. Their own leaders threw them in prison. The United States helped secure their release as well. In exchange, 10 people are returning to Russia, among them spies and agents, including Vadim Krasikov, a convicted assassin identified by a German court as having links to the Russian state. For the families and friends of those released today from Russian prisons, this is a moment to celebrate.

But for the Kremlin, this is mission accomplished. It got what it wanted. It got its agents back. The likely takeaway for Moscow will be that hostage diplomacy works. And that means we're likely to see more of it. More prisoners, foreigners and Russians being used here as bargaining chips. Steve Rosenberg. As we've heard, President Biden hailed the prisoner swap as a feat of diplomacy. The White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan confirmed no money had exchanged hands and no sanctions relaxed to facilitate the deal after former President Trump criticised the swap. I spoke to our Washington correspondent, Nomi Iqbal, about the timing of the exchange. Well, we know that this has been a month-long negotiation. A senior administration official

did tell the BBC that Vice President Harris was actually involved in very critical meetings as far as back as mid-February, and that's when she attended the Munich Security Conference, meeting privately with the Chancellor of Germany, to stress the importance of releasing Vadim Krasikov, who's the main person that Vladimir Putin wanted, but she also met with the Prime Minister of Slovenia. And the White House says that her requests in these meetings became part of the prisoner deal.

But I think it's fair to sort of read into the fact that President Biden is legacy building. And there was a very interesting detail in The Wall Street Journal's reporting, which said that President Biden, just about an hour before he notified everyone that he was dropping out the presidential race on July the 21st, called the prime minister of Slovenia. Slovenia has contributed two convicted Russian spies to the swap to try and secure the pardon that was necessary. So I think there's some element of that as well. President Biden wants to show that his administration can negotiate with Russia. And he has said in a statement released today, there is no higher priority of his than to get Americans back safe.

Nomia Iqbal. The head of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, says the battle with Israel has entered a new stage on all fronts after it killed the top Hezbollah military commander, Puad Shoker. In a speech delivered from an undisclosed location at the commander's funeral, Sheikh Nasrallah said Hezbollah is considering what he called a real studied response to the attack. It comes as a funeral was being held in Iran for Hamas political chief Ismail Hania, who was assassinated on Wednesday. Our diplomatic correspondent Paul Adams compiled this report from Jerusalem.

Israel is used to assassinating its opponents, but even so, this has been a remarkable week. This morning came confirmation that an Israeli air raid on the Gaza Strip almost three weeks ago killed Mohammed Daif, one of the two most senior Hamas commanders. The Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said Mr. Daif had been responsible for the massacres of October the 7th, as well as many other attacks. He was Israel's number one wanted man for years. His elimination establishes a simple principle that we established.

Whoever hurts us, we hurt him. A thousand miles to the east, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei offered prayers at the funeral of Hamas's political leader Ismail Haniyeh. Thousands turned out in Tehran, where Mr. Haniyeh was killed early yesterday morning. Initial indications pointed to an Israeli airstrike, but now it's been reported that he may have been blown up by a remotely detonated bomb planted two months ago. However it happened, it represented another crushing security failure for the Iranian authorities, one which the supreme leader has vowed to avenge. In the Lebanese capital, the fallout from another Israeli assassination,

this time a top commander from the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah. Israel claimed that Fuad Shukr was responsible for a rocket attack last weekend, which killed 12 children in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. A huge crowd turned out to hear the response of Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah. He too vowed revenge and spoke of a battle on many fronts, Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq. The enemy, he said, would have to wait for Hezbollah's response. In Israel, the authorities are taking precautions. Flights have been cancelled, factories close to the Lebanese border ordered to close and all public events in the city of Haifa cancelled.

People know that retaliation is likely and that it may come in various forms. This may not mean all-out war, but anxiety is palpable. Paul Adams. At the Olympics in Paris, the Italian boxer Angela Carini says she withdrew from her welterweight bout with Imani Khalif after just 46 seconds because she said she had to preserve her life. Her Algerian opponent is one of two athletes cleared by the International Olympics Committee to compete in women's boxing, despite being disqualified during last year's Women's World Championship. Our sports editor Dan Rowan reports.

Imane Khalif's first fight of these Paris Olympics was always going to be hugely controversial. The Algerian was allowed to compete in the women's boxing competition against Italian opponent Angela Carini, despite being disqualified from last year's world championships for what the IOC says were elevated levels of testosterone. But an already divisive situation quickly escalated. Having been punched in the face, a clearly distressed Carini abandoned the fight after just 46 seconds, later explaining that she couldn't bear the pain and had to preserve her life. But the row is set to intensify. Tomorrow, Taiwan's Lin Yu-Ting, who, like Khalif, competed at the last Olympics, will also fight here, despite being stripped of a medal at last year's World Championships after failing a gender eligibility test. With

the sport's Russia-led governing body suspended, the International Olympic Committee is running the boxing competition and insists both fighters have met their eligibility rules. Algeria's Olympic Committee, meanwhile, has condemned what it called unethical targeting and baseless attacks on Khalif, who's lost nine times in a 50-fight career. But with testosterone levels linked to muscle size and strength, the fear is that a fighter could be badly hurt, and Karini's abandonment of her fight will only reinforce mounting questions facing the IOC over inclusion, fairness and safety. Dan Rowan. The British Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, says measures will be introduced to tackle violent disorder in parts of England

following a mass stabbing that took place in Southport in the northwest of the country on Monday. Speaking at a news conference the Prime Minister said scenes of unrest were not protests but crime being driven by far-right hatred. It is obvious to me and I think obvious to anybody looking in that so far as the far-right is concerned this is coordinated, this is deliberate. This is not a protest that has got out of hand. It is a group of individuals who are absolutely bent on violence. And that's why it's important, I think, to pull together the senior police and law enforcement leaders, as we did today, to ensure that that is met with the most robust response in the coming

days and weeks. On Thursday morning, the teenager charged with the murder of three girls and attempted murder of others at a dance class appeared in court. He was named as Axel Rudra Kubana. Our reporter Will Vernon is in Southport. Until today, we weren't naming the suspect because he's underage, right? He's 17 years old, but he'll be 18 in just six days. And that was one of the reasons the judge at Liverpool Crown Court today decided not to impose restrictions. And the other reason the judge took this step was because he said it would prevent the spread of misinformation in a vacuum. Because the police fear that a lot of violent disorder we've seen in the last few days.

There's been a riot in Southport on Tuesday night. That was one day after the stabbing. In the last 24 hours, there's been violent disorder unrest in other places around the UK too. And the police think that these are linked to false claims on social media that the perpetrator of this attack was a Muslim or an illegal immigrant. So Mr. Rudakabana today in court, he was remanded in custody awaiting trial. So the next court date will be in October. The other thing we heard in court today was that Mr. Rudakabana, the defendant, he has an autism spectrum disorder diagnosis and that he had been unwilling to leave

the house and communicate with family for a period of time. Now, the main question among people here in Southport is why this happened. What led this person to go into a dance studio during the summer holidays and start stabbing, attacking little children. Will Vernon. Still to come, the first underwater expedition to the Titanic is taking place following the implosion of the submersible Titan. As we now know, we lived in false hope for four days. And the one redeeming thing that we can say is that at least we know they didn't suffer. Thank you. membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC Podcasts. Insecurity and violence in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has led to one of the world's worst and least reported humanitarian crises. Many thousands have been killed and hundreds

of thousands more have been forced to flee their homes. But now there appears to be a major breakthrough. The foreign ministers of the DRC in Rwanda have agreed to cease fire. We heard more from our reporter Richard Hamilton. The talks have been held in Rwanda, the Angolan capital, in the presidential palace because they were mediated by President João Lourenço. They come as a humanitarian truce between the Congolese army and the rebel group, the M23, was due to expire

on the 3rd of August. So it's not immediately clear if this ceasefire extends that truce or whether it has a wider scope. So we do have to be a bit cautious, and previous agreements have collapsed. But if it holds, this could be a massive deal. Rwanda in the past has denied supporting the M23, but the United Nations has in a report said that Kigali funded the group, and Rwandan forces have also been accused of operating inside the DR Congo alongside the rebels. Now this all goes back to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda when Hutu militia escaped across the border into the DR Congo which was then Zaire.

Rwanda in turn armed militias to use them as a buffer to protect the Tutsi population and to avoid a repeat of the genocide. The M23 was created in 2012 and it re-emerged in 2021. They took the provincial capital Goma in the past and at the moment control nearby towns. So tens of thousands have been killed and up to half a million displaced in the last few years. So a massive potential deal that's already been welcomed by Belgium, the former colonial power. Richard Hamilton. The Bangladeshi government has banned the country's main Islamist party, the Jamaat-e-Islami, and its student wing from all political activities. Notifications said they were prescribed under the Anti-Terrorism Act. And Balasan Ethirajan reports.

A leader of the Jamaat had earlier described the move to ban them as illegal, extrajudicial and unconstitutional. The party was effectively barred from taking part in elections in 2013 after a court ruling that its registration as a political party conflicted with Bangladesh's secular constitution. In the meantime, police have released from custody six student leaders who were leading demonstrations against job quotas in civil service jobs. They were detained last week with police claiming the detention was for their own safety. And Balasan Ethirajan.

September 11, 2001 is a date when many remember exactly where they were at the time. We heard a big bang and then we saw smoke coming out and everybody started running out and we saw the plane on the other side of the building. There's people jumping out of windows. I've seen at least 14 people jumping out of windows. Nearly 3,000 people died following the 9-11 attacks on the United States when teams of suicide attackers hijacked four passenger jets. Two crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York, one hit the U.S. Defense Department building in Washington, and another crash-landed in Pennsylvania. On Wednesday, the U.S. Defense Department said three Guantanamo Bay detainees,

including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, accused of plotting the attacks, agreed to plead to conspiracy and murder charges in return for assurances they won't face the death penalty. The attacks were carried out by al-Qaeda, a network of Islamist extremists led by Osama bin Laden, and sparked what became known as America's War on Terror and the invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq. James Menendez spoke to Terry Rockefeller, who lost her sister Laura in the attacks, and asked what she thought of the plea deal. I think the plea agreements have been a long time coming, and they are truly the only way that 9-11 families like me would have seen any justice and accountability for the crimes of 9-11. I have followed the

hearings at Guantanamo since the arraignment in 2012. And after five years, I was convinced that the government was never going to be able to conduct a trial because we believed plea agreements did hold out a real opportunity for us to learn what happened on 9-11. I can't emphasize how painful it has been to be living 23 years after my sister was murdered and to fear that I would die before there was justice. And why will it give you that closure? And why will it give you the answers that you want, given that there's unlikely to be a full trial where much of this can be heard in open court? Well, what you have to understand is that what's going on at Guantanamo is not in any way, shape or form related to the kinds of trials we have in here

in the United States in federal court. And what there will be is a sentencing hearing. We as victim family members have been assured by the prosecution that questions can be put to the defendants. What would, if you were given one question to put to the defendants, what would it be? Why did you do what you did? Let me just say further that what these plea agreements offer is the absolute assurance that the sentences cannot be appealed. Had there been a trial, the convictions would have been appealed to federal court. And that could have easily taken additional years. And that would have extended your anguish even further. And, you know, yesterday, when I heard the announcement, I held in my heart the family members I have known who didn't live to see this moment. I will see finality, judicial finality. And my most fervent hope is this nation never again betrays its values and tortures people.

And are you angry about that, about the way this has been handled and the methods used to interrogate the defendants? It goes beyond anger. It goes, it's shame and grief. Terry Rockefeller. Carol Rosenberg is a journalist with the New York Times. She's currently in Guantanamo Bay, the US naval base on Cuba, where the men are being held and has reported on the facility there for two decades. So what more does she know about the deal?

It's been about 27 months in the making. They started right after the return to work from the coronavirus shutdown and hit many stumbling blocks along the way, including the White House's unwillingness to participate with and meet some of the demands. But yesterday we learned that there is a secret agreement that did not involve the White House that was strictly between the military prosecutors and three of the five men who've been accused of plotting the 9-11 attacks. And what will it entail exactly? Well, later today, it should entail them coming into court and putting it on the record in

front of their military judge that they have indeed signed these agreements. And then the judge decides whether the plea is, as they call it, provident in the military. From that point on, a process that would roll out in months will involve putting together a military jury. The death penalty is off the table, as they say. The key part of this plea agreement is that there will be no capital punishment as the ultimate punishment. The ultimate punishment would be life in prison without possibility of release. That many months process will also involve family members of those who were killed coming down to Guantanamo Bay and speaking about their loss. If it's not excluded by the agreement, it could also

include evidence about the men's torture in the three years they were held by the CIA. Yeah. And that last point, people listening may be thinking, why on earth has this all taken so many years? Is it those allegations that the men were tortured to extract confessions that has essentially stopped this going to a full trial? Absolutely. You know, when they were captured in Pakistan in 2003, the Bush administration made a decision.

They did not take them to New York City and put them into the regular legal process to face U.S. criminal justice. They took them to the black sites, the secret prisons, and they interrogated them using brutal, brutal techniques, including sleep deprivation, waterboarding, forced nudity. This case has focused for the last dozen years on what information about that time period has been able to be surfaced. Given all that, why then was the Biden administration opposed to a plea deal? What were its objections? The Biden administration was asked to meet certain conditions that the defendants, the men, wanted. They wanted the administration to agree that they would have continuing contacts with their lawyers. And the

Biden administration said, we are not participating in this. This is a process that belongs in the courts. Journalist Carol Rosenberg. For several days in June last year, there was hope that five people on board a Titan submersible, which went missing en route to explore the sunken wreck of the Titanic, would be found alive. Knocking sounds were heard that might have come from the Ocean Gate sub, but when it was located, the vessel had imploded. For those on board the mothership at the surface, the wait was excruciating. Rory Golden was on the expedition, and our science editor Rebecca Murrell spoke to him before he set sail on the first trip to the site of the Titanic since the Titan sub-disaster.

The headlines this morning, a huge search is underway in the North Atlantic for a mini submarine. The news last June of a missing submersible with five people on board at the site of the Titanic grabbed the world's attention. For those on the sub's support ship, the Polar Prince, it was a start of days of anguish. When the sub was overdue, we weren't unduly concerned because communications break down a lot in the ocean. But when the alarm was finally raised, that's when we realised that there were some serious issues. Rory Golden was on the Ocean Gate expedition giving presentations about the Titanic. After the Titan submersible went missing, a major search and rescue operation was launched. And a glimmer of hope in the search for the missing Titanic sub. A few days in,

sounds of banging were detected underwater, raising hope that they were from the vessel. But Titan had imploded just a few hours into its dive. The one redeeming thing that we can say is that at least we know they didn't suffer because we had this image in our heads of them being down there running out of oxygen in the freezing cold, getting terribly frightened and scared. Those who perished were British explorer Hamish Harding, the British Pakistani businessman Jizada Dawwood and his son Suleiman, Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate, and French diver P.H. Nargile.

And he was a very special man, very generous and imparting of knowledge of what he knew about the Titanic. Rory Golden was a close friend of P.H. Nargile. I was one of the last to see him. He left the ship in great spirits and great form and he was happy out. He was going to somewhere that he wanted to be. Rory is now on the first expedition to the Titanic since Titan. It was an expedition PH was supposed to lead. Now a plaque is being laid at the wreck site to honour him.

Rory had also visited the Titanic on the Titan sub. I made a dive two years ago when I was on the Ocean Gate expeditions and I'm here. I mean what do you think now about going in the sub? Do you wish you hadn't? No I don't wish that at all. Does it not make you look back and think, oh, I was lucky that it was OK? Yes, I was. It wasn't my time. So life is precious. You never know when your time is going to come. And that certainly brought that home to all of us.

Industry experts had raised many questions about the safety of the sub and an investigation is still ongoing. It's likely to call for changes to ensure such a tragedy doesn't happen again. Rebecca Murrell. After tears and a standing ovation, Britain's Andy Murray has ended his tennis career with the defeat in the quarter-finals of the men's doubles at the Paris Olympics. The 37-year-old, speaking after the match, said he'd been ready for the moment for the last few months. The BBC's Shorja Sarkar reflects on Andy Murray's career. He will forever be celebrated as the man who fulfilled a national

sporting obsession. The gentleman's singles title at Wimbledon had not been won by a British player for 77 years until Andy Murray delivered on a warm, sunny July day in 2013. This famous old centre court could be about to go crazy. Murray serves. Here it is. Here it is. Forehand from Murray, backhand from Jocker. Murray's the Wimbledon champion! A prodigious talent had broken through tennis's glass ceiling, but it had been coming.

Murray had won the US Open the year before. There were five other Grand Slam finals. There was also Olympic gold at London 2012. For a period of eight years, Murray was revered as one of the Fab Four of tennis, in a band with the greatest names of all, Federer, Nadal, Djokovic. And the magic didn't stop stop he led Great Britain to a

first Davis Cup title in 79 years. In 2016 a second Wimbledon title followed another Olympic gold in Rio and the coveted world number one ranking. It's taken a lot of work this year to do it I certainly was very far away and you, second half of the year after the French Open has been the best of my career and, you know, really happy I managed to do it. But then came a long, cruel struggle with injuries. And despite the determination to play on with a metal hip, Murray couldn't quite reach the heights of the past. At Wimbledon last month, he finally admitted

that his body just could not do it anymore. I would love to keep playing, but I can't. You know, physically it's just too tough now. All of the injuries, they've added up, and like I said, they haven't been insignificant. But, yeah, I want to play forever. I love the sport. Andy Murray will be remembered not just as a tennis great,

but an all-time British sporting great. Shurjo Sarkar on Andy Murray. 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 globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X at Global News Pod. This edition was mixed by Chris Cazares. The producer was Marion Straughan. The editor, as ever, is Karen Martin.

I'm Valerie Sanderson. Until next time, bye-bye. If you're hearing this, you're probably already listening to BBC's award-winning news podcasts. But did you know that you can listen to them without ads? Get current affairs podcasts like Global News, AmeriCast and The Global Story, plus other great BBC podcasts from history to comedy to true crime, all ad-free. Simply subscribe to BBC Podcast Podcast Premium on Apple Podcasts or listen to Amazon Music with a Prime membership.

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