Global News Podcast - The world is urged not to 'look away' from Sudan's civil war

Episode Date: April 16, 2025

A conference is held but neither of the warring sides were invited, so what can be done? Also: the Russian hairdresser jailed after a neighbour denounced her and China's small businesses struggling with Trump's tariffs.

This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Valerie Sanderson and in the early hours of Wednesday 16 April these are our main stories. After two years of war in Sudan, a warning that the world must not turn away from the huge numbers of women and children in the country who are victims of indiscriminate sexual violence. We hear about a Russian hairdresser who's been jailed after she was denounced by a neighbour for criticising the war in Ukraine. President Trump suggests that Harvard University

could lose its tax-exempt status over its refusal to accept government monitoring. Also in this podcast... Do you still sell to the US? No. Stop production already. You've stopped production already? Yeah, all the products are in the warehouse. They're all in the warehouse?

Yeah, in the warehouse, yeah. The effect of President Trump's trade war on small businesses in China. There have been dire warnings about the scale of suffering in Sudan as the country's civil war enters its third year. Tens of thousands of people have been killed in what aid agencies have described as a humanitarian crisis worse than Gaza or anywhere else in the world. Millions more civilians have been forced from their homes. The United Nations estimates that in recent days 400,000 people fled the Zamzam camp for displaced people close to El Facha, the last major city in the western region of Darfur

controlled by the Sudanese army which is fighting the rebel Rapid Support Forces or RSF. Marion Ramstein, the emergency coordinator for Medicens Sans Frontières said that people had arrived at its hospital in the town of Tawila every five minutes. Here in Tawila, it's only 60 kilometres away from Zamzam. What we are witnessing is really hard to describe. We're talking about more than 20,000 people arriving in less than two days. It's a truck full of people arriving every five minutes. And the people who arrive, some of them are lacking water, food,

they didn't have a drip of water for two days, and children are actually dying because of lack of water and lack of food. On Tuesday in London, a one-day conference on Sudan was co-hosted by the UK, EU countries and the African Union. But no representatives from Sudan's warring sides were invited. The British Foreign Secretary David Lammy urged the international community to persuade the army and the RSF to protect civilians. Aid amounting to around $300 billion was pledged by the UK and Germany. Our Africa correspondent Mayeni Jones has this report which contains

distressing details. A terrifying and familiar sound. Residents of the besieged city of Al-Fasha have been living with heavy shelling and artillery for a year. The paramilitary group, the Rapid Support Forces, wants to capture what is the last state capital in Darfur, still under the control of the Sudanese army. The RSF have been accused of killing and carrying out grave human rights abuses against non-Arab tribes across the region. This woman in a refugee camp in Chad was confronted in her home by RSF fighters, including one she recognized. He wanted to kill me so I couldn't expose them. The other said, don't kill her, let's rape her.

I told them, you have to kill me before raping me. After the beating I got that day, I couldn't move for 12 days. A famine was declared in North Darfur last year. Over the weekend, the RSF targeted Zamzam, the biggest camp for the internally displaced in Sudan. The charity Doctors Without Borders has told the BBC that getting access to food and drinking water is the biggest challenge for an estimated 400,000 people fleeing the violence. These women in displacement camps spoke to the

BBC's Sudan's Lifeline radio programme. Sometimes food aid arrives every 15 days, but sometimes it doesn't come at all. Right now we have no food and no water and we're hungry. Our children are severely affected. They are malnourished, often sick and too weak to leave their beds. We are suffering deeply. This war has destroyed us. A major conference has been held in London to try and restart negotiations for a ceasefire. In his opening statement, the Foreign Secretary David Lamy

said safety and stability in Sudan were crucial to the UK's national security, as the conflict has led to the displacement of an estimated 13 million people. So many civilians beheaded, infants as young as one subjected to sexual violence, more people facing famine than anywhere else in the world. we simply cannot look away. With the two main parties in the conflict seizing territories, they fear Sudan could become de facto split in two. Speaking at the conference, the African Union's

Commissioner for Political Affairs, Banco Lea Deyewae, said the solution to the crisis needed to be found without any meddling from outside powers. We call on our external actors to refrain from interference in Sudan. It does not help. Only a united front to save and support Sudanese will be a lasting solution. After two years of war, the Sudanese people are desperate for peace. But with neither of the warring parties present at today's conference in London and reports of more shelling

in al-Fasha today, peace seems a long way off. My Annie Jones, for more on what's fuelling the conflict inside and from outside Sudan, I spoke to our Chief International Correspondent, Lise Doucet. Well undoubtedly it is the enmity between the two main generals, the two warlords, the head of the armed forces General Wuhan and the head of the paramilitary rapid support forces General Daghelo, that is the main fuel for this conflict. But undeniably, Valerie, it is the backing of their supporters who are arming and financing them, which are helping this to keep the war going. You have on the side of the Sudanese army, you have Saudi Arabia, which used to have ties on both sides, but has tended to focus more on the Sudanese army. You have Egypt and also Russia. Russia also used to

On the Sudanese army, you have Egypt and also Russia. Russia also used to be keep contact with both sides of the war. Now they've thrown their backing behind General Bahrain, who is the de facto authority. And not surprisingly, recently clinched a deal to open a naval base on the Red Sea. And similarly, on the side of the rapid support forces, it's mainly the United Arab Emirates, which comes under criticism, although it denies it. Kenya as well, which was also at the conference, was criticized for hosting a conference of the rapid support forces in Nairobi. Countries like the UAE have had longstanding ties with the rapid support forces. Their fighters used to help the UAE fight another war in Yemen.

And now there's a very, very lucrative trade in Sudan's gold going between Sudan and Dubai. So these different players have all their own interests. And I have to say that even when they organize peace talks, it also becomes a conflict. The mediators told me that it's what they call in their business, forum shopping. That is, the generals can think, well, maybe I'll go to the talks in Geneva. There's a better chance that I will look good there. Well, no, I'm not going to go to the talks in this place. And basically allows them to keep prosecuting this war. And as we've heard, the Sudanese civilians, including

the democracy activists, the civil society groups, they're the ones who are paying such a huge price in this grievous war. So did this conference held today in London, did it achieve anything? Well, the co-chairs have called for an immediate and permanent ceasefire to end the conflict. And let me read what they say, and, the transition to a civilian-led government elected by the Sudanese people. Because there wasn't even a press conference, which of course you can imagine has been criticized by journalists who say, well, how do we know what happened behind closed doors, if we don't get a chance to even ask questions of some of the main players around that table. There was a lot of criticism as to why the Sudanese groups were not there.

You could argue why ask the two generals or their forces when it's clear they're not ready to go down the path of peace. So the Foreign Secretary David Lamme made an impassioned plea, we can't allow this to go unseen by the world, We have to highlight it. But quite frankly, perhaps in the days to come we'll get a better sense of what actually happened behind closed doors. Did anyone speak bluntly to some of the parties who are said to be fuelling this conflict? They continue to deny it despite the fact that the reports by the United Nations, by human rights groups, keep coming in. Lise Doucet. A court in Russia has sent a woman to prison for five years for criticizing President Putin's war in Ukraine.

Anna Alex Andreeva, who works as a hairdresser, was apparently denounced by a neighbor whom she'd fallen out with. was apparently denounced by a neighbour whom she'd fallen out with. Also on Tuesday, another court handed down sentences to four Russian journalists for cooperating with an organisation founded by the opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died last year in a Siberian penal colony. Our Russia editor, Steve Rosenberg, reports on the Kremlin's continuing crackdown on dissent. Today was a reminder that the Russian authorities are not only waging war abroad, but at home against individuals perceived as political opponents. In Moscow, at the end of a trial held behind closed doors, a court convicted four Russian

journalists of belonging to an extremist group. They'd been accused of preparing and editing videos for the outlawed Anti-Corruption Foundation, an organisation set up by the late opposition leader and fierce Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny. The journalists Antonina Favorskaya, Artem Kriga Sergei Karelin and Konstantin Gabov were sentenced to five and a half years in prison. Earlier, a court near St Petersburg delivered a similar punishment, five years and two months in prison, to a hairdresser. Anna Alexandrova was found guilty of spreading false information about the Russian army. The law she was judged to have broken was one of several repressive laws adopted following

Russia's fourth-scale invasion of Ukraine, laws designed to silence criticism of the authorities and of the war. These laws have been used to jail government critics, but it's claimed they are also being used to settle scores in the community. The hairdresser had fallen out with her neighbour over a plot of land in their village. It led to a feud and eventually to Anna's neighbour reporting her to the authorities for spreading fake news about the army. Steve Rosenberg. China's President Xi Jinping is on a so-called charm offensive trip across Southeast Asia. He's been visiting Vietnam, Malaysia and Cambodia to rub up relations to counter punishing tariffs on Chinese goods sold in the United States.

But what do small businesses in China make of President Trump's trade war? Norbica has been hearing their views at a sales fair in the south of the country in Guangdong province. We're heading into the Canton Fair, but this place has so many halls, that even we're getting lost in having to ask for directions. Are we going the right way? Yes. The whole fair takes up a space of around 200 football fields so that gives you an idea of the size of this. This area has everything you might need for the home from toothbrushes to vacuum cleaners,

coffee machines, blenders, washing machines, fridges. As well as household goods this year the Canton Fair is full of bewildered traders wondering if they can still sell to the US market including Lionelel Xu from Sorbo Technology. For US market we have more than 15%. 50 or 15? 50, 50. More than 50% in US market. So it's very hard for us because crazy Trump. This is crazy.

He's a crazy one. What are you going to do? What's going to happen? How are you going to sell your products? I mean, we will go better in one month or in two months because I believe Trump will change his mind. So you think you have your fingers crossed? Yeah, I believe I have my fingers crossed, yeah.

Lionel's orders bound for the US are piled in his warehouse waiting and his company is not the only one. Amy is selling electric ovens and ice cream makers for the Guangdong Sailing Trade Company. How is business for you these days? Not good, not bad. How about tariffs? How about Donald Trump and his tariffs? Do you still sell to the US? No, stop production already. You've stopped production already? Yeah, all the products are in the warehouse. They're all in the warehouse? Yeah, in the warehouse, yeah, because... Tariffs. Do you think that will change? Do you think there will be a deal? Maybe. The effects of this trade war will likely be felt in kitchens and living rooms across America. He'll now have to buy these goods at higher prices from elsewhere. China has maintained its

defiant stance and vowed to fight this trade war until the end. It's a tone also used by some at the fair. Haive Yang was looking to buy some electric ovens for his firm and waved off the effects of tariffs. They don't want us to export. They put too much tax means that no need to export. If you put too much tax, it means that there's no need to export. We already have China market, very big, many people. Yes, we give the best thing to Chinese first. I think it's good, right? Most of the stallholders we spoke to who export to America say all their exports are in warehouses waiting to be shipped. If you export to the United States, you are currently in limbo, waiting for two leaders, President Xi and Donald Trump, to come together and

negotiate. But any talks seem quite far off. It's my understanding that there is limited contact between the two sides and that any negotiations so far have been between intermediaries. That means there's a long way to go before China and the US resolve this dispute and that will leave many, many manufacturers here in Guangdong, in Limbo. Laura Bickerco reporting. Still to come in this podcast... It's very difficult to comprehend that in the middle of the 20th century, in the middle

of Europe, six million people are exterminated. A survivor of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, which was liberated 80 years ago. In our earlier podcast, we heard from a history professor at Harvard University, who described the freezing of more than $2 billion in grants by the Trump administration as a groundless act of vengeance. One hour of the battle between the US President and one of America's most prestigious seats of learning is escalating. Donald Trump has suggested that Harvard should lose its tax exemption status, which is crucial to helping universities raise money. Harvard had its

grants frozen after refusing to change its governance, its hiring and admissions policies in defiance of Mr. Trump, who accused the university of promoting political ideological and what he said was terrorist-supporting sickness. Some of this stems from claims that Harvard tolerated anti-Semitism on its campus during pro-Palestinian protests. Caroline Levitt, the White House press secretary, addressed the issue. The president at that time made it clear to the American public he was not going to tolerate illegal harassment and anti-Semitism taking place in violations of federal law.

So the president made it clear to Harvard, follow federal law and you will receive federal funding. Unfortunately, Harvard has not taken the president or the administration's demands seriously. He also wants to see Harvard apologize and Harvard should apologize for the egregious anti-Semitism that took place on their college campus against Jewish American students. Harvard said it had made definite and measurable progress in clamping down on anti-Semitism. It also firmly rejected what it described as government control and ideological monitoring by the Trump administration. The former US President Barack Obama, a graduate of Harvard Law School, has also stepped into the row. I heard more from our Washington correspondent, Nami Iqbal.

Well, the Trump administration has argued that universities allowed what it considered to be anti-Semitism to go unchecked during those campus protests last year, where you had students protesting against Israel's war in Gaza and schools denied it and we saw how there were notable leaders of universities, including Harvard, who were at a very combative congressional hearing, which led to the resignation of some of them Now the Trump administration basically says Harvard is not living up to conditions that justifies this huge federal investment And so it sent this long list of demands or some of those you've listed there Saying that it has to change in order to justify getting the money

But the university is rejected that saying, that would mean ceding huge control to the government and it would compromise our independence. And critics have basically accused President Trump of authoritarian tactics and trying to reshape university education in the US. I mean, what would it mean for Harvard if the president gets his way? Well, basically, it would mean that it would lose all its funding, essentially. So we're talking about billions in government funding. Just to give you some numbers, Harvard got $2.4 billion from the endowment in fiscal

year 2024, and that made up nearly 40% of the university's $6.4 billion operating budget. So it's a lot of money that they would lose, but Harvard's president, Alan Garber, has said that the administration is trying to reduce the power of students, certain students, academics and administrators simply because of their ideological views. And Nomiya, former presidents try to stay out of the political spotlight don't they when they've left office so what is the significance do you think of President Barack Obama's involvement? And certainly Barack Obama tries to stay out of the spotlight and doesn't really get involved as much in what the Trump administration is doing.

But I think the fact that he is a graduate of Harvard Law School and the fact that he has said something is significant in the sense that it's sort of feeding into the anger that's happening on the liberal side, certainly about what the Trump administration is attempting to do. I mean, already you've seen Columbia University, that was one of the main universities where the protests kicked off last year. They've already pretty much given in to Donald Trump's demands. The administration cancelled $400 million in federal funding ostensibly because of the school's handling of anti of antisemitism on campus. In order to get that money back, Columbia agreed to the demands made by the

Trump administration. They've been hugely criticised for that. They've been criticised for capitulating. And so I think in some sense, you know, you've got President Obama probably coming out and he's praising the university. He says that they have now set an example. That's Harvard University by rejecting what Donald Trump is demanding. Nomi Ekber, Building Work has started in Helsinki, the capital of Finland, on what's expected to become the biggest campus in Europe for start-up companies. The hub, called Maria Zero One, is set to provide office and event space for more than 6,000 entrepreneurs, investors and larger businesses that want to collaborate with start-ups.

Maddie Savage reports from Helsinki. Yellow diggers are shoring up mounds of earth as construction workers prepare to lay the foundations for three new buildings at Maria01, a non-profit hub for startups that opened in 2016 and is partly funded by local taxpayers. Sarita Runneberg is its CEO. Well right now we are the largest startup hub in the Nordics but what we're actually aiming at becoming is that we'll be one of the very very biggest ones in Europe if not the biggest one. So looking at the site now what will we be able to see when this is finished? The whole place is really based on communities. So apart from actually like offices,

so there's going to be a lot of event spaces, a lot of possibilities for people to meet each other and in that sense then also kind of find different kinds of resources to grow their businesses. and then also kind of find different kinds of resources to grow their businesses. Finland is a small country with a population of around five and a half million, yet it's already spawned 12 unicorn startups, businesses worth a billion dollars or more. That includes several gaming companies and the food delivery platform Volt, which was acquired by its U.S. rival DoorDash in 2022. Finland is committed to becoming a global leader as a startup and growth company ecosystem, Volt, which was acquired by its US rival DoorDash in 2022. Finland is committed to becoming a global leader as a start-up and growth company ecosystem

and it was stated in the governmental programme two years ago. Mario Illemari works for Business Finland, a government agency that promotes investment and innovation. She provides support and advice to entrepreneurs. Really it's not just about rankings. The real goal there is to create an environment where our ground-breaking startups can emerge and really tackle the global challenges and also, meanwhile, drive growth in the Finnish economy.

One part of the agency's strategy is attracting more global tech talent by offering start-up visas and marketing the country's strategy is attracting more global tech talent by offering startup visas and marketing the country's transparent business culture, abundant nature and free education. But whether all this is enough for Finland to overtake Europe's more established startup hubs is up for debate. Well I think we have in the international comparison, we have high taxes and low salaries. That's Mikael Pentikainen, CEO of the Federation of Finnish Enterprises, which lobbies for

smaller businesses. He says the government has recently lost support amongst entrepreneurs after raising a sales tax to try and stabilise public finances. It's now 25.5%, the highest rate in Western Europe. Plus? it's now 25.5% the highest rate in Western Europe. Plus... The general economic situation that we haven't had growth in the Finnish economy now for more than 10 years, that's of course causing difficulties for many entrepreneurs. Are you going to the events this week?

Yeah, I think so. At Maria01's existing offices, some of the international founders are taking a break to play pool. There's also a sauna, a big Finnish tradition and an ice swimming club. Most people I've met here are confident hubs like this one can help attract more founders and investments. But that might create new challenges. Jack Parker is a British founder who runs a health tech startup. The advantage of the ecosystem right now is this kind of small town everybody knows each other so if I reach out to somebody it's quite likely eight out of ten times that they will respond. Scaling that up to a large scale you know there is the risk of actually losing that element of it.

Another concern is the geopolitical rift between the US and Europe over how to tackle the war in Ukraine. Finland is on the border with Russia and some fear investors and founders might place their bets elsewhere if tensions escalate further. Maddie Savage. Israelis have been banned from visiting the Maldives which is advertised as a tropical paradise for tourists. The president of the Islamic country in the Indian Ocean ratified a law approved by the parliament which said that it wanted to show resolute solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, where the war between Israel and Hamas rages on. The Maldives is made up of more than a thousand coral islands, some of which are

luxury holiday destinations. Oliver Conway heard more from our South Asia regional editor, Sanjay Desgupta. In terms of actual significance, this is more form than substance. The President Mohammed Mouizou immediately ratified the legislation. His office made a statement saying the ratification reflects the government's firm stance in response to the continuing atrocities and what he called ongoing acts of genocide committed by Israel against the Palestinian people. And he went on to say that the Maldives reaffirms its resolute solidarity with the Palestinian

cause. The Maldives is an Islamic country. Overwhelming majority of its population are Muslims, 98% out of a population of little more than 500,000. So it's not very surprising that they would do this. Has there been any reaction from Israel and indeed Israeli tourists hoping to visit the Maldives? Now interestingly no, Israel hasn't officially reacted but given the fact that not very many Israeli tourists visit Maldives anyway, there were

59 tourists in February, 1,435 Israeli tourists visited the Maldives the whole of last year. And that is when more than 214,000 foreign tourist arrivals happened only in the month of February. So overall, the number of Israeli tourists in the M of February. So overall the number of Israeli tourists in the Maldives isn't much. Given that the story is getting wide traction, the Times of Israel has picked it up as have the Times of India and there are a number of other news outlets which are giving it quite a bit of prominence. Sanjay Deskupta. Tuesday marked the 80th anniversary of the

liberation of the Bergen-Belsen Nazi concentration camp in northern Germany, where British soldiers discovered death and disease on an unimaginable scale. The world was finally learning about the horrors of the Holocaust and the huge numbers of deaths, more than six million people, the majority of them Jews. In Bergen-Belsen in 1945 the Liberators found around 60,000 prisoners. BBC's Richard Dimbleby was traveling with the troops. I wish with all my heart that everyone fighting in this war and above all those whose duty it is to direct the war from Britain and America could have come with me through the barbed wire fence that

leads to the inner compound of the camp. I passed through the barrier and found myself in the world of a nightmare. Dead bodies, some of them in decay, lay strewn about the road and along the rutted tracks. On each side of the road were brown wooden huts. There were faces at the windows, the bony emaciated faces of starving women too weak to come outside, propping themselves against the glass to see the daylight before they died. Richard Dimbleby. Marking the anniversary, the British Prime Minister Keir Starmer wrote Never Again must mean never again. One of the few survivors of Bergen-Belsen, who's still alive,

is Peter Lantos. Born in Hungary, he was sent to the camp when he was a child. He eventually settled in Britain, and earlier this year, Grim Satchel spoke to him. As a child of five, I was deported from our home to a concentration camp with my mother and father, and that was the summer of 1944. We knew that my father was unwell because he met him every day,

and then he got weaker. He was one of the thousand dead. Because by that time, going from our barracks to his, you cross people just lying there in singly or in groups or in dozens. Did it just become normal that there were dead bodies everywhere? Yes. Yes. Yes, after a while, it was part of the landscape. As well as his father, Peter lost 21 members of his family in the Holocaust. It's very difficult to comprehend that in the middle of the 20th century, in the middle of Europe, 6 million people are exterminated in cold

blood. After the war Peter trained to be a doctor, he became one of the world's leading neuroscientists. He says having seen so much suffering he wanted to do something with his life to help other people. There is an element of defiance that if I survive Belson, I'm going to survive everything else. If there is revenge, it is our survival. My age group is the large generation of survivors. And I think until we are around, there is a sort of moral obligation to tell people

in 10 years' time, no one will be here. Ending that interview with Peter Lantos was a BBC recording from Bergen-Belsen of Jewish survivors saying Hetikva, the hope, which became Israel's national anthem. And that's it 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 or the topics covered in it, send us an email. The address is globalpodcast.bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X at BBC World Service. Use the hashtag globalnewspot. This edition was mixed by Caroline Driscoll. The producer was Daniel Mann. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Valerie Sartre-Stan. Until next time, bye bye.