Global News Podcast - Syria to join US-led coalition fighting IS group

Episode Date: November 11, 2025

The US says Syria is joining the international coalition to combat the Islamic State group, and Damascus is resuming diplomatic relations with Washington. The announcement came hours after Donald Trump met the Syrian president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, at the White House, describing him as a strong leader. President Trump said he wanted Syria to be a "big part" of his plan for a wider Middle East peace. Also: The Indian capital, Delhi, is on high alert after a deadly explosion. The woman known as the "Chinese Cryptoqueen" is due to be sentenced for stealing billions of dollars from investors. And the novel "Flesh", by David Szalay wins the Booker Prize, Britain's most prestigious award for literary fiction. The Global News Podcast brings you the breaking news you need to hear, as it happens. Listen for the latest headlines and current affairs from around the world. Politics, economics, climate, business, technology, health – we cover it all with expert analysis and insight. Get the news that matters, delivered twice a day on weekdays and daily at weekends, plus special bonus episodes reacting to urgent breaking stories. Follow or subscribe now and never miss a moment. Get in touch: [e-mail]

This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Ankara Desai, and in the early hours of Tuesday, the 11th of November, these are our top stories. The U.S. says Syria is joining the international coalition to defeat Islamic State jihadists and is resuming diplomatic relations with Washington. It follows talks at the White House between Donald Trump and the Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharam. The U.S. Senate has voted in favor of a compromise funding package to try and, try to end the government shutdown. And also coming up in this podcast, the UK's top literary award is handed out.

I wanted to have got some momentum and I felt that it was going to be good. Then it became a pleasure of a process to write it. But at the beginning was tough. We hear from the British-Hungarian author David Saloy, who won the Booker Prize. The US has recruited a new member to its alliance of countries fighting the Islamic State Group in the Middle East. Officials in Washington say Syria has joined the coalition after its president Ahmed al-Shara met Donald Trump at the White House. The two countries have also resumed diplomatic relations. Mr. Al-Sharah is himself a former Islamist extremist with ties to al-Qaeda.

But last year he led the overthrow of the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and became the head of the new government. Since then, he's been trying to build bridges with the West, promising to bring stability to Syria. On Monday, Mr. Al-Sharah arrived at the White House without fanfare, entering through a side door. Afterwards, Mr. Trump said he liked and got along with him. We want to see Syria become a country that's very successful, and I think this leader can do it. I really do. I think this leader can do it. And people said he's had a rough past. We've all had rough pasts.

But he has had a rough past. And I think, frankly, if you didn't have a rough pass, you wouldn't have a chance. Later in an interview with Fox News, President Al-Sharah was asked whether his past as an extremist had come up during the meeting with President Trump. I think this is a matter of the past. Now, we did not discuss this actively. We talked about the investment opportunities in the future in Syria,

and so that Syria has no longer looked at as a security threat. It is now looked at as a geopolitical ally. It's a place where the United States can have great investments, especially extracting gas. Our State Department correspondent Tom Bateman told me more about the White House meeting. I think my sense was that the White House really wanted to work through these two kind of critical issues for either side. One for the Syrians is about getting more sanctions relief because Syria still has a devastated, basically, cash-based economy. and they need the U.S. Congress to lift the sanctions that were imposed on the Assad regime for its human rights abuses.

And for the Americans, they wanted an agreement from the new leaders in Damascus that they will join the American-led military coalition, which is still fighting the Islamic State Group in parts of the country. And it seems as though Ms. Al-Shara has been spending quite a large part of this year trying to build bridges with the West. So President Trump, did he seem receptive to this? And I guess there are still a lot of concerns about, the ongoing violence in Syria, especially against ethnic minorities?

Yeah, you know, President Trump has embraced Mr. Al-Shara. I mean, he sort of repeated this phrase he'd used before after the meeting where he described him as a strong leader from a tough place who had a rough past. We've all had rough pasts, though, he said. He previously described him as an attractive guy. He sort of tends to admire what he calls toughness in leaders, and I think he sees that in Ahmed al-Shara. This was a man who led an al-Qaeda affiliate that has now been accepted by the West as the best hope for a stable transition for Syria.

But a man who had a $10 million US bounty on his head, who was a designated global terrorist by Washington just until last Friday. So there is this move by the Americans, by the West and key Arab countries to try to give this new transitional administration the best possible run, trying to stabilize and secure Syria. But huge challenges, you know, not least of which are the risks of another slide into sectarian bloodshed. We've seen two very severe moments, really, of attacks on the Alawite minority, also the Druze minority over the last year. And the issue of integrating the Kurds and the Kurdish security forces into the central Damascus government still hasn't been solved. This goes to show that President Trump is willing to meet absolutely anyone. As you mentioned, this was a leader who had a bounty on his head, a matter of days ago.

There doesn't seem to be any boundaries as to who he'll meet and try to make deals with. You know, this isn't exclusive to the Trump administration. I mean, the Biden administration were really on the front foot with trying to build relations when Hayatir al-Sham, the group that he led, basically, you know, toppled the Assad regime and then took Damascus. So, you know, this was across U.S. administrations, although I think stylistically, Mr. Trump is, you know, he tends to embrace it. But so have European and countries and key Arab allies of the Europeans and the Americans on this particular front. But I think the question then becomes how long that can be kept going, particularly among the Europeans, where they've talked about the fundamental need for inclusive representative government from Damascus.

and there are signs that that is not really happening or not in the way I think that many would have hoped. You know, stability may always come at a cost in these situations in transitioning out of a devastating 14-year civil war. So I think there's a recognition of that by Washington and particularly by the Trump administration that perhaps some of the more ambitious stuff around solving sectarian divisions and tensions in Syria

might be harder to achieve. Mr. Trump tends to admire a strong man and the White House might think that's what's needed at the moment. The risks of a slide back into despotism into sectarian bloodshed remain very high in Syria. And how you prevent that, of course, will be an acute question going forward. Tom Bateman reporting. Politicians in Washington are a step closer to ending the longest U.S. government shut down in the history of the United States after senators voted in favor of a compromise.

Republicans got the 60 votes. to pass a measure to reopen the government after several Democrats voted with them. Now it will go to the House of Representatives, possibly on Wednesday, to adopt this deal. It will then be sent to President Trump to be signed. John Thune, a Republican, is the U.S. Senate majority leader. I want to take the time to say thank you. To my staff who have worked around the clock tirelessly now for the past six weeks, I know that the strain of these weeks has been immense, that you all have families, rent to meet, bills to pay, car and mortgage payments.

And I'm grateful for all you have done to keep the Senate running. And for all that you do every day, shutdown or no shutdown to serve the Senate and to serve our country. The shutdown, which lasted 41 days, left government services suspended. Democrats broke ranks, angering many of their colleagues who labelled the move a betrayal. Some Democrats have called for the removal of the party's leader in the Senate, Chuck Schumer. Our U.S. correspondent David Willis joined us. Democrats, of course, had been holding out for an extension of health care subsidies for low-income Americans. Those subsidies are due to come to an end at the end of this year.

But Republicans had insisted that they were not going. to engage on that issue until the shutdown was over. And all the Democrats ended up with out of this, really, Anka was a commitment from the Senate Majority Leader John Thune to hold a vote on that matter about possible extension to the healthcare subsidies I mentioned by mid-December. There's no guarantee that the House would vote on any such measure. And that's infuriated members of the Democratic Party who did not want to see an end to this shutdown just yet and were making that a condition.

And they've accused their colleagues the eight Democrats who voted in favor of betrayal, of surrender. And it's prompted calls once again, as you mentioned, for the removal of the party's leader in the Senate Chuck Schumer for failing to keep his caucus. together, even though it's worth pointing out that Mr. Schumer voted against the shutdown ending deal that was voted on successfully tonight. And many Democrats saw last week's election victories, I think, as a validation of their shutdown strategy and did not want to capitulate. Is there anything that could get in the way, David, of finally ending this shutdown then? Well, we've seen during these 41 days cutbacks in food aid, programs, more than a million government employees working without pay, and thousands of

flight delays or cancellations. And that's one thing that could get in the way of this move now going before the House of Representatives. Flight delays that have resulted from thousands of air traffic controllers staying at home because they are not being paid could impede some lawmakers from returning to the capital to Washington, D.C., from their districts, they've been out of session for more than 50 days, the House having been closed throughout the shutdown, but they need to get back to Washington, D.C. in order, it's thought to vote in favor of this measure, which would then go to the desk of President Trump ahead of paving the way for the shutdown to end next weekend. And before you go, David, this shutdown's lasted up to 41.

one day, isn't it? How has this affected the lives of American citizens day to day? Oh, it's had a tremendous effect. I mentioned their cutbacks in food aid programs, what are known as food stamps here, for about 42 million or so low-income Americans who rely on those handouts. I mentioned the thousands of flight delays and cancellations, and we've had more than a million government employees working without pay throughout this long 41 days stoppage. And it's been very, very harmful to certain sectors of the economy. And much relief will be expressed, I think, when this shutdown does finally come to an end. Our US correspondent, David Willis. The Indian capital Delhi has been put on high alert following

Monday's huge blast in a car near the historic red fort. At least eight people were killed and 20 others were injured in the blast on a crowded road. The Home Minister, who visited the scene, said a meeting involving senior officials will be held later on Tuesday. A correspondent, Archina Shukla, filed this report from the scene. Investigation into what caused it is still ongoing. So far, investigative agencies have not said whether it was a deliberate blast or if they have identified a suspect.

We understand that the senior security officials are going to have a meeting in just some time from now and more details may emerge post that. But, you know, this is something that has really shook the city, it shook the country. A blast of this nature has not happened in the capital city in many years. And this is a very, very famous site. It's a very crowded street.

The Red Fort is the 17th century fortress where Indian Prime Ministers deliver their independent speed, every year and the street is usually very busy with tourists, people, traders, etc. And in the evening it was the time when people were going back home. And the impact was so high that people said that they could hear it at least a kilometer or two away. And the remains, the charred remains of the vehicles here show the impact of that place. The security agencies have said, and even the Home Minister here in India have said,

they are not ruling out any possibilities. They are looking at all angles in the investment. It's the anti-terror team that's also on the ground, security agencies, forensic, and all hands are on the ground. Red alert and high alert has been put across the capital city here, also in Mumbai and some of the big tourist places across India. Now to the UK's top literary award that is open to novels written in the English language. This year's Booker Prize has gone to David Sloy for his novel Flesh. Roddy Doyle, who won the prize in 1993, was the chair of the judge. this year and he was joined on the panel by Sex and the City Sarah Jessica Parker.

So what's Flesh all about? I put that question to Charlotte Gallagher. David Saloy is a British Hungarian author. So his father is Hungarian and that's why he decided to set some of this book, Flesh, in Hungary. And it's a really interesting story about this character called Ishvan. And Ishvan doesn't really say much in the book. And things happen to him. And he doesn't really ever mention it like huge things so the reader is left guessing what he thinks about things and sometimes you think is this man totally passive does he have opinions on anything and you're left trying to work it out for yourself but i would say it is an absolutely brilliant read and it's a story as well about masculinity what it means to be a man also class and wealth it's absolutely

fascinating and it's one of those books i started reading it and i thought i do not like this character By the end of it, I was totally absorbed and I wanted him to win. I was really invested in him winning in this book. So I'd say it's definitely a very worthy winner. You know, the shortlist was brilliant. There were some fantastic authors in there, but I think Flesh was an incredible book. And I spoke to David just after he won

and he was feeling a little bit stunned. I wasn't really sure how the book would be received. I guess I didn't really have a very strong expectation for him. the book would be received it's quite an oblique book in a way it doesn't sort of tell the reader how to interpret it this strand himself is not an articulate character who explains himself to the reader so i kind of knew what i was trying to do with the book but i wasn't at all sure until the book was published and sort of started being read that that would be how readers perceived it too but by and large i think it is which is which is really fantastic and have you thought about what you're going to

spend the 50,000 pounds on. Last year they said a bicycle. That's a very expensive bicycle. Yeah, that's what I said, a very expensive bike. I probably won't spend it all on one thing. I will probably, maybe will go on a nice little holiday, but mostly I guess it will just be keeping

the wolf a little further from the door. And you said you started this after you couldn't finish another novel and you started this novel. So was that that pressure kind of on you? Yeah. I mean, there was a real pressure. I think I felt more pressure than any other time in my career as a writer. Pressure to write something good and to write something good now. Yeah. And that made it quite tough at the beginning working on this book. Once it had sort of got going,

once it had got some momentum and I felt that it was going to be good, then it became a pleasure of a process to write it. But at the beginning was tough. I know your Wikipedia has already been updated. That is fast. That is fast. Yeah. Someone was watching and they've updated it already. So that's what you now are, Booker Prize winning author. I still haven't quite got my head round it, but it's great. Lovely to hear from David Saloy, the winner. Also, personally, I really need to know from you, SJP, Sarah Jessica Parker,

aka Carrie Bradshaw was also. They're bringing a touch of glamour. Tell me more. She was. So she was one of the judges this year. And we spoke to her on the red carpet, and she said she was just thrilled to be asked. She said it's this prestigious literary award. She's known about it her whole life

She loves reading She says she can't stop reading So she was so excited to be one of the judges And of course, as you said Anker She did just bring this Hollywood sparkle To the Booker Prize I mean she looked amazing She looked fantastic

She had this gorgeous handbag That seemingly was covered in diamonds But you could really tell as well That she was invested in the prize And who won And I said you know when you read these books Do you think oh I want to make this into a film I want to make this into a TV series of play

And she said no I just read for the absolute love of reading. And you could tell that she was just really genuinely happy to be here. And just like that, she was off our very own girl about town, Charlotte Gallagher at the Booker Prize event in London. Coming up, a Chinese woman will be sentenced for her role in a Bitcoin scam worth billions of dollars. Many families have been broken up. People have been left without money to pay for medical treatment.

All this has really happened. The body which represents international media in Israel and the Palestinian territories has urged Israeli officials to take immediate action to halt attacks on reporters by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank. The Foreign Press Association cited two incidents involving journalists during this year's Olive Harvest. There's been an escalation in attacks by. settlers on Palestinians harvesting olive trees this year. Our Middle East analyst, Sebastian Usher, is in Jerusalem and sent this report. On Saturday, a group of Palestinian villages, activists and journalists came under attack from settlers in an area close to the Palestinian village of Beta, which has been a flashpoint for several years.

An Israeli human rights activist Jonathan Pollock says that one of a journalist, Ranin Saoafta, of Reuters, was the focus of the settler's attack. Eat her up without mercy, continuing to stone her while she was on the ground, and then continuing to attack everyone who tried to come to her help and everyone who was running away from several sides. Both Ranin Saoafta and a Reuter security adviser were wearing protective gear, clearly marked with the word press.

Several other people were also injured in the incident. The Foreign Press Association says that journalists, both local and foreign, have clearly been targeted as they document what the organisation calls an unprecedented level of unchecked violence against Palestinians during this year's olive harvest, which has seen Olive Grove set on fire. The Israeli army which dispatch soldiers to the scene has said that it condemns any act of violence and will continue to operate to maintain security and order in the area. But activists working to document the attack say that

violent settlers are rarely held to account. One suspect has, however, been arrested over an incident last month in which a Palestinian grandmother was injured as she was harvesting olives near Ramallah. Sebastian Usher in Jerusalem. A massive cleanup operation is underway in the Philippines after typhoon Fung Wong left entire villages completely submerged in flood water. The Philippines is no stranger to typhoons and good preparations and well-timed evacuations probably saved many lives. Our South East Asia correspondent Jonathan Head filed this update from Eastern. in Luzon. This neighborhood I'm in now, it's Matarro in Kavanaugh and city.

Now, we were down here yesterday, and this community is right by a creek. The water levels were rising fast. The currents were very strong. People were rushing into their homes to pull out pets, furniture, possessions, really worried about how high the water levels were going to go, simply because of the enormous quantities of rainfall that were dumped by Typhoon Fung Wong. The winds were not as powerful as... some of the strongest typhoons the Philippines experience,

but the amounts of rain were really hard to deal with. The water levels have actually gone down a lot. So that's a sign that for all of that water, now there'll be some relief as those water levels go down. People will be able to go back into communities. Cleaning up is going to take a long time. I mean, it's an awful thing to say. Filipinos are used to this.

They're very good at it. People who live in these kind of poor communities really improvised, but they probably do need quite a bit of help to get themselves back on their feet. Then there are communities that are still cut off where roads have been either washed away or bridges have been flooded and where in particular there have been quite a number of landslides reported

that's always expected during very heavy rainfall and we are hearing of a number of landslides there's one about 150 kilometres north of here where four people in a family were killed but nothing bigger than that so far so if in the end the death toll stays as it is it's in single figures at the moment I think most Filipinos will feel

that they got off relatively lightly, albeit this is just one typhoon after a series of natural disasters. Jonathan Head in eastern Luzon. A Chinese woman at the heart of the UK's largest seizure of cryptocurrency is due to be sentenced on Tuesday in London for the role she played in a multi-billion dollar fraud. Following an investigation by London's metropolitan police, Chan Ji Min was convicted of trying to launch a 61,000, Bitcoin assets, now worth around $6.5 billion, taken from investors in her native China. Tony Hahn from the BBC's Global China Unit has the story.

In this promotional video, Lantern-Geroyi makes big promises. Invest in its cryptocurrency, and you'll get massive returns. The mastermind of the scheme was a middle-aged woman called Qianzimin, more than 100,000 people across China invested. A man we are calling Yu, who spoke to us on condition of anonymity, took out loans and invested everything into the company. I suppose we were just too weak to resist. They just pumped up our dreams

until we lost all self-control, all critical judgment. For a while, he was getting daily returns. But then, in 2017, it all came crashing, down. Law enforcement now say the whole thing was a massive scam. You's marriage collapsed, and he found himself mired in debt. Many families have been broken up. People have been left without money to pay for medical treatments. All this has really happened. When Chinese police started investigating Tianzumian, she fled China for the UK, taking with her a laptop loaded with Bitcoin bought with investors' money. Posing as a jewelry dealer, she started trying to

to turn her cryptocurrency into hard cash and real estate. When she tried to buy a lavish home in North London, she came to the attention of the UK police. The moment they raided her house is captured in this body cam footage. An officer found Tien in her bedroom. Hello, madam. I appreciate you're in bed. I've just got to record down your name, if that is all right. So what's your first name, please?

Detective Constable Joe Ryan was on the raid. The whole house, very large house, fairly messy. And there was cash almost everywhere, thousands of pounds, bundles of £20,000 here. As well as cash, D.C. Ryan and his team found laptops full of cryptocurrency that amounted to $61,000 Bitcoin. Today, worth several billion dollars, the largest cryptocurrency seizure in UK history. A UK court is now deciding who will get that money. But only a small fraction of the victims have stepped forward. to make a claim. A Chinese lawyer representing victims told us that many have struggled to gather

evidence sufficient to meet the legal standard in the UK. The Crown Prosecution Service is in the process of setting up a separate compensation mechanism, but the details are still unclear. You and the other former investors are watching closely. We all read Sherlock Holmes books when we were younger. And in our minds, that's still the image of the real detective. to find all this Bitcoin. Of course, we're very grateful. Here in China, we hope that we can get the capital returns to us. That's our great hope. To be able to save the victims of Lan-Tienguri who are struggling and suffering. Even to save their lives, what a noble act that would be. And if you'd like to hear more, please search for the Chinese Crypto Queen. You can find that on BBC Sounds

or wherever you get your BBC podcasts from. It's 100 years since the birth of Richard Burton, the son of a Welsh miner who rose to become acting royalty. He starred in many films, including the spy who came in from the cold, who's afraid of Virginia Woolf, and of course Cleopatra, which is where he met Elizabeth Taylor, who he married twice. Here he is reading the opening line of Dylan Thomas's Under Milkwood for the BBC in January 1954.

Begin at the beginning. It is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and Bible black. The Cobble Street's silent and the hunched, quarters and rabbits wood limping invisible down to the slow black. Slow black, crow black fishing boat bobbing sea. To mark a hundred years since his birth, the new documentary is being released about his life and career. Adrian Sibley is the director of the BBC documentary, Richard Burton, Wild Genius. I think a lot of a certain generation know about Richard Burton, but it's remarkable about my daughter, who's 18,

had no idea who he was at all. You know, she thought I was talking about Tim Burton, the director, Wednesday. So for me, it was really important, and I felt that to celebrate his centenary, to get across the most remarkable story, I mean, very few actors have got a story like him. He comes from a mining background in Wales where acting was non-existent. That said, he picked it up and had this remarkable rise.

So I really wanted to get across the impact of how he'd come from where he did and achieved what he did. How do you approach a character like that and reflect all of the different facets of their personality? The contradictions within Burton are part of what makes him great in many ways. I mean, if you take a film like The Spy who came in from the Cold, John LaCarray, novel that translated a few years after it was a bestseller into a movie with Burton, he's amazing in it because he really shows that there's something else going on inside him. You know, those contradictions are what make him fascinating. You know, once he rode to conquer Hollywood and become a very successful actor,

he had to deal with the fact that he'd left behind who he was in a way, you know, his Welsh roots. And I think he was never at ease with that. You know, he was never at ease with the role of being an actor. I think he would have preferred to be in a writer. He wrote some amazing diaries that were published after he passed away. I find it sort of particularly interesting. There are some actors, you know, where they're from, their roots. It's not necessarily an important part of who they are.

And we don't necessarily know that much about it. But with him, as you say, it really had an impact on everything he was and everything he did. And it's notable that you mentioned. other Welsh actors. There are certain countries, certain parts of certain countries, where that becomes such a part, a vital part of a person's character. Yeah, well, he's a cultural icon in Wales and he never left Wales in some ways. You know, he enjoyed the rugby. You know, he was always the one to back the Welsh side. He was a rugby player himself. He sort of was imbued with Welshness. But at the same time, ironically, you know, his voice was English, you know, in order to

succeed. He used this voice. I think there was a line of somebody saying that, you know, Richard Burton conquered the world and it wasn't even in his own language. And in some ways, that's true. His voice is just so powerful. You know, I wanted to make sure in the documentary I didn't do loads of Welsh choirs singing along, you know, because it becomes a cliche, because Burton was something else. He really sort of, you know, managed to achieve great things, even with the issues of his drinking and his early death, really. You know, he's an Icarus figure, Burton, so brilliant, came from Wales and suddenly was on the West End stage, selling out the old Vic as Hamlet, and was remarkable.

So I was fascinated with what happened to him and finding out, and it was a privilege to make a film about him. Anna Foster, who is speaking to Adrian Sibley. 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 episode or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email. The address is Global Podcast at BBC.com.com. You can also find us on X.

At BBC World Service, use the hashtag Global NewsPod. This edition was mixed by Kai Perry and the producer was Ed Horton. The editor is Karen Martin and I'm Ankara Desai. Until next time, goodbye.