Global News Podcast - Trump aide tells Ukraine to ''tone down'' US criticism

Episode Date: February 20, 2025

The US national security adviser Mike Waltz has told Kyiv to reign in its criticism of President Trump, and agree to US demands for a mineral rights deal. Also: Amazon gains control of the James Bond film franchise.

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This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Janet Jalil and in the early hours of Friday the 21st of February these are our main stories. The White House National Security Adviser Mike Walz tells Ukraine to tone down its criticism of the US and sign a minerals deal being pushed by President Trump. A planned news conference between President Zelensky and a visiting US envoy is abruptly cancelled as a rift between the two countries deepens. The Mexican army arrests a senior leader of the notorious Sinaloa drugs cartel. Also in this podcast, Amazon takes over creative control of the James Bond franchise

after agreeing a deal with the Broccoli family. They have had their hands on that wheel for a long time, but we are here still talking about Bond 64 years later and I think they will still be looking over the back seat at who's driving. We look at what this means for the future of the world's most famous fictional spy and how a wrong turn saw a cycling race descend into chaos. A day after Donald Trump called the Ukrainian leader a dictator for daring to say that the US president lived in a Russian disinformation space, an aide to Mr. Trump has said that Vladimir Zelensky needs to tone down his criticism of the US

and sign a deal for mineral rights to pay for American support in Ukraine's war against Russia. Mike Walz, the National Security Advisor, told Mr. Zelensky to get over his reluctance to sign the deal, which it thought could be worth as much as half a trillion dollars to the U.S. President Trump is obviously very frustrated right now with President Zelensky, the fact that he hasn't come to the table, that he hasn't been willing to take this opportunity that we have offered. I think he eventually will get to that point, and I hope so very quickly.

Meanwhile, a U.S. envoy, retired General Kief Kellogg, has been holding talks with Mr. Zelensky in Kiev. He said he'd come to listen. But a planned joint news conference on Thursday afternoon was cancelled at the last minute, the Ukrainians say, at the request of the American side. However, afterwards, the Ukrainian president described, at the request of the American side. However, afterwards, the Ukrainian president described his meeting with the U.S. envoy as productive and called for stronger ties with Washington. In just over a week, President Trump has dramatically upended U.S. foreign policy, speaking to Vladimir Putin on the phone, allowing high-level face-to-face talks

between Russia and the U.S US that excluded Ukraine and Europe and suggesting that it was Ukraine that started the war. Our international editor Jeremy Bowen is in Kyiv and he told me US-Ukrainian relations have plummeted to a new low. I think the fact that the news conference was cancelled, guesswork on my part, but the indications I'd say are that they had nothing good to say about each other, so best not to say it in public. And also General Kellogg, the U.S. envoy, would have been asked all sorts of awkward questions about does he agree that Zelensky, who presumably would have been standing next

to him, is a dictator, as President Trump has said, as for Waltz, the national security advisor. And one of the criticisms of the American approach has been is that they are treating Ukraine potentially like a colony where they can extract its mineral wealth, its natural wealth and just walk off with it in a very, very one-sided deal. And Waltz was saying, you've got to get that contract signed and tone down the nasty comments about our leadership, even though the Americans, of course, have license to say, President Trump particularly, about what he wants about the Ukrainians. So I think they are saying, look, it is an unequal relationship. We are

stronger than you. And you know what? Bad luck. We're going to do what we want and you better go along with us. President Zelensky clearly feels he's got nothing to gain by biting his tongue. What do Ukrainians make of the Trump administration lashing out at their president in this way and the way that Vladimir Zelensky is responding to that? One thing Ukrainians are not sure of after three years of war is nationalism. And one thing that Zelensky is good at is defiance. He showed that from the outset three years ago. I mean you remember he did a video late at night with his chief advisors around

him saying we are all here, we're not leaving. And I think that that will quite likely be the approach he takes to all of this. Meanwhile, the Kremlin is saying that it would be unacceptable for NATO countries to deploy peacekeeping troops to Ukraine, but many would say how can you have a peace deal without them? Well, answer, you can't. I think that it wouldn't work otherwise. There are various formulations being discussed, but the thing about it is if there is going to be some kind of a peace agreement and it's a misnomer to talk about what's going on really between the Americans

and the Russians as peace talks because while the Americans had been backing Ukraine they're not direct belligerents in the war and you can't really do a deal just by talking to one side and there now seems to be very little daylight between the things that Trump and his people are saying about the war and the things that Putin and his people have been saying about the war for many years now, since before the full-scale invasion. So I think that Trump does not like defiance and he pushes back when he gets it.

I don't think these bullying tactics are going to work in international relations and particularly not dealing with a country that believes it's fighting for its life the way that they might work if you're around the negotiating table talking about a hotel project in New Jersey. Jeremy Bowen in Ukraine. The Mexican Army says it has arrested a key player in the Sinaloa drugs cartel, one of Mexico's most powerful criminal groups. Jose Angel Canobio is accused of organising the smuggling of fentanyl into the US, an issue Donald Trump has addressed by threatening to impose hefty tariffs on Mexico if it doesn't stop the drugs coming across the border. For more on the arrest I spoke to our Mexico correspondent Will Grant.

He is a significant capture for the Mexican security forces, there's no doubt about it. This is Jose Angel Canorio, commonly known as El Guerrito, meaning the blonde one. He is ostensibly the head of security for one of the sons of the jail drug lord El Chapo Guzman, his son Ivan Archivaldo Guzman, and just that alone tells you that he's a significant figure in the Sinaloa cartel. Drug war experts in Mexico say he was also influential in the organization's recent push to make fentanyl trafficking such a large part of its criminal empire. So this comes just hours after the US added the Sinaloa cartel to its list of foreign

terror organisations along with several other Latin American crime groups. This is all part of the efforts to combat fentanyl. So a big blow for this particular cartel. It is. I think it's always important to take any single arrest in its context. Of course, all of these figures from El Chapo Guzman himself down are important when they are detained, but the criminal organisation is much bigger and much stronger than any single individual. I think what is significant is that this shows there's a sort of more concerted effort by the Mexican government to try and focus on the issue of fentanyl trafficking, something

that clearly Donald Trump has been pushing for to secure, as he saw it, a greater commitment by the government of Claudia Sheinbaum, the Mexican president, towards strengthening the US border and having troops focus on fentanyl trafficking and undocumented immigration. So she'll be hoping that those threatened tariffs won't be imposed, but at the same time she's also saying that she'll press ahead with legal action against US gun manufacturers because she says a large proportion of the weapons used by criminal groups in Mexico actually come from north of the border from the US. On the US side there's the belief that there is no way that US gun manufacturers can be

held responsible for the ultimate destination of those guns. But I think what Claudia Sheinbaum is doing is pushing the elements that matter to her in this relationship with Donald Trump in its early days. She's saying, look, this is a two-way street. You're obviously worried about fentanyl trafficking, so are we. but in return you have to acknowledge two things. One is that the demand for fentanyl on illegal drugs is in the US and two, as you mentioned, the guns are coming illegally smuggled from the United States. Will Grant in Mexico. The authorities in Azerbaijan have ordered the suspension of the BBC's Azeri service, a source of impartial news

and information in the country since 1994. It comes a week after the country's oldest independent news agency, Turan, was also shut down. Rehan Demitri has the details. The BBC's Azeri service and Turan news agency were the last two independent news sources in the oil-rich country of 10 million people. The BBC Azeri website had up to one million readers per week, providing impartial news in a country where information is tightly controlled. More than 20 independent Azerbaijani journalists have been jailed since the government intensified its crackdown on independent media in 2023. intensified its crackdown on independent media in 2023. Journalists are often accused of currency smuggling,

a charge that human rights groups have described as dubious. Last year, the Committee to Protect Journalists, which promotes press freedom around the globe, named Azerbaijan among the world's top 10 countries for jailing journalists. Rehan Demetri, now to one of the most recognizable theme tunes in the history of cinema. The much-loved James Bond films have graced our screens for more than six

decades, but Bond fans may have been shaken and possibly even stirred by the news that the Broccoli family, which has tightly guarded creative control of the franchise, is handing it over to the streaming giant Amazon. This comes four years after Daniel Craig last played the role of the world famous spy. James Bond superfan Mark O'Connell says the success of the franchise is largely down to the broccoli dynasty. They understood that there is a market for this and you can add cool casting, cool music, cool cars, cool tailoring. They have had their hands on that wheel for a long time. People

will say they've been dogmatic or overprotective but we are here still talking about Bond 64 years later and I think they will still be looking over the back seat at who's driving. I asked our arts correspondent Vincent Dowd if this development had come as a surprise. It's a massive surprise. If you'd asked any well-informed arts journalist yesterday, oh what's happening with 007, everyone would have said, oh well it's mired in this terrible, painful, slow row between Eon Productions based in London, who own the franchise and Amazon, who are now the distributors. As you say, basic facts, the most recent Bond film was in No Time to Die in 2021. The next year, the distributors then, MGM, were bought

out by Amazon. And that's the origin of the tension there's been since, which has taken a very surprising turn today. And why do we think this is happening now? Partly age. Eon is basically Michael G Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, who are half siblings. Michael is now 83. Barbara is rather younger, in her mid-60s. She's reported very recently as having been very unimpressed with execs at Amazon and what they might want to do with the franchise. They sort of co-own it in a funny sort of way. Well, what might have changed their minds? I think basically they may have been made an offer they can't

refuse financially. As I say, Barbara Broccoli is in her 60s. She said she wants to devote more of her life and her time to working with the arts and working with charities. She's still very active. So what does this mean now for the Bond films? Well, it's not that No Time to Die was a financial flop. It's made 775 million dollars worldwide. I suspect however that Amazon want to make more of that. Think of what Disney did with the Star Wars franchise since they in effect took over from George Lucas spin-offs, films, all that kind of thing. In the Amazon era already you would be

very possibly ignorant of the fact that there was one non-movie spin-off a game show on Amazon Prime called 007 Road to a Million. Nine pairs of contestants attempt to win a million pounds by competing in James Bond inspired challenges around the globe. It sounded pretty dire, it was pretty dire, widely considered deeply forgettable. And now the big question on many people's lips will be who will be the next James Bond and when will we see the next film? I think it'll be another four years before we see the film. In terms of who it might be I don't think it any longer could be Aegis Elba or Tom Hardy who used to be the frontrunners. The years go by and they're just a bit too old now so James

Norton, Jonathan Bailey, Aaron Taylor Johnson, Paul Meskell, Daniel Kaluuya, all kinds of people. I would guess it's going to be at least a year before we find out. Vincent Doubt. Three months ago, the award-winning French-Algerian writer Boalem Sansal was detained in Algeria after arriving there to visit his family. The 75-year-old novelist is being held for breaching state security. But details of the charges against him are not known. Sansal, a major figure in francophone modern literature, has long been a critic of government repression and Islamic fundamentalism. His French lawyer has still not been granted a visa to see him. Hugh Schofield reports from Paris.

With his long grey ponytail, Boalem Sansalle was a familiar face in the French media. This was him on a popular chat show a few years ago when he'd released a new novel. He was a kind of go-to guy on Algeria, not least because he was very critical of the government there. So it was a shock when, in November, it was announced that on a visit to Algiers, Sansal had been arrested at the airport under state security laws. I am the publisher of the last book of Boilems Sansal. Paris publisher Jean-François Colossimo knows Boilems Sansal well. He describes him as a humane and gentle person

and a genuine free thinker. Above all, he's a man who trusts in human brotherhood. He's a man who trusts in a kind of love for the cosmos, love for the earth, love for history, love for the different people and their cultures. He's really a men of peace. So what has angered the Algerian government so much about him? Well, he is a writer of the size of the Solzhenitsyn, if you want to compare the theater that you

have to go, Solzhenitsyn. He says the truth about the official history. He puts it down for a kind of regime like the one that, unfortunately, the Algerian people have today on their back, truth is unbearable. Sansal had been getting up the nose of the Algerian government for many years. From semi-exile in France, he wrote about corruption, about what he saw as the carve-up of power between the Algerian military and Islamists, about the threat to France of Islamists. And in this interview, on a website close to France's hard-right national rally party

not long before his arrest, he may have overstepped the mark, calling into question aspects of Algeria's official account of its own history. On the Internet, the reaction from pro-Algerian influencers in France has been vitriolic, accusing Sansal of being a stooge for Marine Le Pen. The president of Algeria, Abdelmadjid Taboun, gave an interview, saying that the whole affair was a concoction intended to mobilize opinion against Algeria. ABDELMADJID TABOUN, President, Algeria National Committee on the Rights of Algerians, France

Council on the Rights of Algerians, France Council on the Rights of Algerians, France Council on the Rights of Algerians, France Council on the Rights of Algerians, France Council on the Rights of Algerians, France Council on the Rights of Algerians, France Council on the Rights of Algerians, France Council on the Rights of Algerians, France Council on the Rights of Algerians, France Council on the Rights of Algerians, France Council on the Rights of Algerians, France Council on the Rights of Algerians, France Council on the Rights of Algerians, France Council on the Rights of Algerians, France Council on the Rights of Algerians, France Council on the Rights of Algerians, France Council on the Rights of Algerians, France Council on the Rights of Algerians, France Council on the Rights of a bigger crisis, which is the recent breakdown in relations between France and Algeria, possibly the worst since Algerian independence 60 years ago. Sansal is a victim and a kind of hostage.

He's never written a word that is seditious or inflammatory, merely described the world around him as he sees it. His lawyer, still waiting for the chance to visit him in prison, is François Zimore. He's a free thinker. And as all free thinkers and free minds, his thoughts and beliefs might have shocked or irritated. This is incumbent to freedom of speech, in fact. but at the end of the day I still don't see how his words could have endangered a state of 45 million inhabitants. Francois Zimore, ending that report by Hugh Schofield. Still to come…

It was super insane to see how fast they could learn to tell the difference between my colleague and me underwater. Scientists discover that wild fish can tell humans apart. In every harvest we make, we are telling a story. Money and work are at the heart of so many of the dramas that we experience every day. This is a life or death matter. We have a fundamental problem and it needs to be fixed. In Business Daily, we tell stories about those dramas. We tried the nice way, it didn't work, so we tried the guilt.

Because stories about money are also stories about life. It showed me that the people wanted the same exact change that I wanted to see for my life as well. Business Daily from the BBC World Service. I'm telling you, you go and see for your eyes. Search for Business Daily wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Welcome back to the Global News podcast. As the civil war continues to rage in Yemen more than a decade after it erupted, tens of millions of people remain utterly reliant on aid there.

And yet the UN has paused operations this month in parts of the country after a wave of arrests of aid workers by Houthi fighters. This comes on top of cuts in aid funding. Our Cairo correspondent, Sally Nabil, has been investigating. Over the past few months, we have more than 24 UN staff arrested, as well as others from local and international aid agencies. They have been behind bars for months. Their whereabouts are unknown. One employee for the World Food Program died in detention a few days ago. It took us a while to be able to find someone, an aid worker, who agrees to talk to us. Hannah, who works for a US-funded aid agency, and Hannah is not her real name, she spoke to us on condition of anonymity, and she told us how she had to flee the capital Sana'a after

the Houthis raided her office. I didn't realise how shocking it was until I walked into the office and saw my manager sitting in the meeting room, his phone and laptop confiscated and surrounded by security personnel. Outside, two armoured vehicles were parked near our building and a group of masked armed men stood nearby. What Hannah told me during our conversation is that she believes this heavy crackdown on aid workers is meant to spread fear among the public. They just want to make an example of these aid workers who are accused of being potential

traitors. So now any person who works for a foreign funded agency is very scared. And Yemen has been a big beneficiary of USAID, that's the world's biggest donor agency, which has now been frozen by the Trump administration. What impact has that had on the many people that were dependent on the aid it gave? Huge. I mean, according to Human Rights Watch USAID, it supplies nearly one third of the needs of the Yemeni people. We have talked to families who have been displaced for over a decade and they are living in camps in very miserable conditions. This one lady called Amal, and again, this is not her real name,

she is a mother of nine, and she depends on a monthly food basket that she receives from the World Food Program. And she tells us that these supplies, they run out after two weeks. And I asked her, what if these supplies are to be cut. If assistance is to be stopped me and my children will die. It's painful and shameful to go begging but this is my destiny. And Sally meanwhile no end in sight to the war? No talks have been coming and going with no end in sight. We have the Houthis on one hand they are backed by Iran. We have the Saudi-led coalition that supports the internationally recognised government.

They have been talking but there is nothing in sight and these people, they are waiting for the unknown. Sari Nabil. Millions of people in developing countries make a living from waste picking, salvaging materials that can be reused or sold for recycling. Scrap metal in particular is valuable because it can be recycled repeatedly. But this means it's also become a target for thieves and that's caused great distress to some people who've discovered that the metal crosses they placed on the graves of their loved ones have disappeared. Alfred Lastek went to one cemetery to find out more.

By the green hilltops of Morogoro in central Tanzania is one of the city's biggest graveyards. Each bears a different cross. But over the last few years, several of these graves have been damaged. While passing this area, I have seen over 100 graves with their crosses removed. Many people claim that scrap metal business is the cause of the damage. If you place a metal cross, it will be removed. Now you need to use cement or marble-made grave marker but metal ones are removed and sold to scrap dealers. Pudensiana, 65 years old from Morogoro, often visits the grave where her daughter Veronica is buried. She died at the age of 15 but Veronica's grave was

recently vandalized and the metal cross was taken. We don't know if it's the scrap dealers themselves sending these guys or it's other people stealing and taking them to the scrap metal dealers. Pudensiana and her family have now repaired Veronica's grave. Peter Mataba is one of the gravediggers working at the cemetery. What we know is that once we leave, there are people who come and break into graves. Many crosses have been taken or even broken. It's a problem recognized by the local council.

Dr. Demile Kilatu is the health Officer of Morogoro Municipal Council. We are in the planning phase to strengthen security, but it cannot be today or tomorrow. But we do need to have a fence and also hire guards. The efforts we are making include educating scrap metal dealers on what type of metal they should buy and which they are not allowed to take. For some scrap dealers that education is hit in home. Izire Ramadhan is a local trader who has had his business for 20 years. He regularly checks the metal brought to him to make sure it isn't stolen. Firi Ramadhan is a local trader who has had his business for 20 years.

He regularly checks the metal brought to him to make sure it isn't stolen. In the past they used to bring us crosses, but now we took one of them to the police. And later he was sentenced to three and a half years in prison. After that the theft reduced, but now it has returned. I feel bad because they are destroying the memory of our beloved ones. In the graveyard in Morogoro, Pudensiana walks around the graves. Like many family members who come to visit their loved ones at this resting place, she remains hopeful that this area can be protected.

Alfred Lastek reporting from Tanzania. Now fish have a reputation for poor memories, but are they being unfairly maligned? Scientists have found that fish may be more intelligent than we think. While carrying out research, they accidentally discovered that wild fish could tell two divers apart. The co-author of the study, Katinka Soller, spoke to Evan Davis. The sea breams, they did learn to tell the difference between me as a diver who would provide them with food reward. I feel like the most surprising outcome of this research was our setup that we were fully in the wild,

that the researchers, they themselves went into the wild. It was super insane to see how fast they could learn to tell the difference between my colleague and me underwater. They were not the original study. You were studying other fish and they were kind of getting in the way. Yes. In the previous year, our lab and especially Alex Jordan here observed that this was happening. So we were doing other studies and fish, especially sea breams, but also other species, they were

participating in the experiment while they shouldn't. So they just followed humans. They're quite bright. So what is your view on the kind of cognitive powers of fish? Because I tend to think of them as a bit dim, but have you come around to the idea that they're brighter than we think? Definitely. I think from the perspective of our lab who has been researching in that field for a long time now, it is not very surprising. It's more surprising that we as humans are surprised in general and it is more the fact that we as humans tend to think from our perspective, but maybe that needs to change. Katinka Soller. Elite cycling is a brutal, unforgiving sport that demands those involved give it everything they have.

So it's not often riders race for almost 200 kilometres, only to be told that they've wasted their time. But that's exactly what happened in Portugal during the first stage of the Tour of the Algarve, which ended in chaotic scenes. Our sports reporter Jo Currie takes up the story. It was the race that never was. When viewers of Eurosport watched Italy's Filippo Ganna raise his arms in celebration as he crossed the finishing line first in yesterday's opening stage of the Tour of Algarve, a separate race appeared to be playing out on a road running

parallel to the correct route. That's because in the closing moments of the race, the majority of the leading riders in the peloton mistakenly followed the camera motorbikes and headed down the wrong side of the finishing straight, ending up on the other side of the barriers and among the crowds. It left a bemused Ganna, who had been well behind the leading group, and out of contention to claim a lucky victory. Almost all of his rival cyclists were then forced to find a way to get back on the right route, including by climbing back over the barriers with their bikes. The bizarre scenes led to race organisers later saying the 120-mile stage would be cancelled

with no winner declared. A long day in the saddle with no rewards. Joe Currie. 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, you can send us an email. The address is globalpodcast.bbc.co.uk. This edition was mixed by Rohan Maddison, the producer with Shantel Hartle, the editor is Karen Martin. I'm Janet Jalil, until next time, goodbye.

Money and work are at the heart of so many of the dramas that we experience every day. This is a life or death matter. We have a fundamental problem and it needs to be fixed. In Business Daily, we tell stories about those dramas. We tried the nice way, it didn't work, so we tried the guilt. Because stories about money are also stories about life. It showed me that the people wanted the same exact change that I wanted to see for my life as well. Business Daily from the BBC World Service.

I'm telling you, you won't see for your eyes. Search for Business Daily wherever you get your BBC podcasts.