Global News Podcast - Trump awarded Fifa peace prize at World Cup draw

Episode Date: December 6, 2025

Fifa President Gianni Infantino awarded Donald Trump with the football federation's first-ever peace prize, at a lavish ceremony to select the groups for the 2026 men's World Cup. The tournament will be co-hosted by the US, Canada and Mexico. But why does President Trump care about football? Also: Colombia signs a peace deal with the criminal drugs gang Clan del Golfo. Violent clashes jeopardise a ceasefire between Afghanistan and Pakistan. And the celebrity architect Frank Gehry has died at the age of 96.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Celia Hatton, and in the early hours of Saturday, December 6th, these are our main stories. The world's most popular sport goes to Washington. Donald Trump presides over the men's World Cup draw at an offbeat event that tried to mix sports with politics. There's nothing bigger than the biggest event in the world. world's biggest sport, and he wants to be front and center of that. Colombia signs a landmark peace deal with its largest drug gang.

And our correspondent travels to northern Italy to speak with women migrants trying to start new lives in Europe. Also in this podcast, a woman who's wanted for allegedly trafficking tiger parts is arrested in India after 10 years on the run. We're going to start with an event in Washington, D.C., that on the face of it, was focused on sport, but managed to mix in politics and entertainment, too. It's the draw for next year's Men's World Cup, starting next June in the U.S., Mexico and Canada. The draw was meant to focus on allocating the 48 qualifying teams into groups to set out how the tournament will proceed. But it was an entertainment event too.

The more than two-hour spectacle was hosted by the Hollywood actor Kevin Hart and supermodel Heidi Klum and featured a long list of celebrities and sporting greats. Donald Trump was the one winning all the accolades and was presented with the newly created FIFA Peace Prize at the ceremony. The head of FIFA, Gianni Infantino, said he was handing over the giant golden trophy and medal on behalf of football fans worldwide. We see images of war all over the world. And like everyone, we suffer for every child that dies.

We cry with every mother that loses someone she loves. And we want to see hope. We want to see unity. The Peace Prize has been criticized by human rights groups. They're questioning the decision-making process that allowed the U.S. president to receive the award. But after all that, the draw for the tournament. Our football correspondent John Murray was at the ceremony and he described it for us. We had the longest draw for a World Cup that we've ever had before.

It was due to be two hours. In fact, it lasted significantly longer than two hours. And it was, in fact, it was 87 minutes before the draw proper. actually began. So there was a lot of celebrities, there was a lot of Rasmataz, there was a lot of Gianni Infantino, the FIFA president, and all rounded off by the village people with YMCA. All right, well, let's talk about the main reason all this was taking place. The football. What were the key matchups from the draw? I think if you're looking for the toughest group that was drawn together, I think you would probably go for France's group.

and France, in a group with Senegal, they are not to be underestimated. Norway are in that group, which were the team that no one wanted, because they are on the up and up, they're on the rise, and they could easily make an impact at this World Cup with Manchester City's Erling, Harland, front and centre of it, having scored 16 goals, the record goal scorer in this qualifying campaign. And the other team in there will come from the playoffs, but that will be Iraq, Bolivia or Surinam.

That's a challenging group and that will not be straightforward for France. The tournament is set to be the biggest ever. It's taking place across three countries with games being played in 16 different cities. What kinds of issues could this raise? It is such a contrast to the last World Cup in Qatar where none of the venues that were used for that World Cup were more than 35 miles away from each other. For this one, the longest distance between stadiums is almost 3,000. miles. So there is the issue of traveling. There are the issue of what time the matches kick off, what time of day, because the temperatures, unlike Washington today, the temperatures next summer in many parts of the country and in many parts of the host venues, will be absolutely sweltering, whether that is high temperatures or whether that is heat and humidity. So that is something that has to be contended with. This is the possibility of thunderstorms as well and matches having to be suspended or perhaps delayed, and also throw into all of that as well, the pictures

that are being used for some of the matches at some of the venues, they will need extra work to make sure that they're in the right condition. So you'll hear a lot about this over the coming months before we get to the start of the World Cup next June. Our football correspondent, John Murray. Well, Terik Panja is a sports correspondent at the New York Times. He explained to us earlier why Donald Trump had taken such an interest. in football. It's enthusiasm for attention. That's something Donald Trump has been very good at from when he first challenged to become the US president before his first term throughout that first term. And here we are. He knows where the cameras are. He knows where the attention can be

garnered. And he realizes there's nothing bigger than the biggest event in the world's biggest sport. And he wants to be front and center of that. And he's made that clear, both during the bid for the World Cup. He was present then in 2018 when the US got the hosting rights of Mexico and Canada, and he will be the president when the final takes place in New Jersey on July the 19th. As one FIFA official said to me this week, this will be the Donald Trump show. And that's what it felt like. There was this hastily arranged FIFA Peace Prize. This wasn't discussed at all two months ago, the board was not told about this at all. Senior FIFA officials, some of them only found out about it a day before it was to be announced. And the fact it was

going to be awarded to surprise, surprise, you know, the winner in Washington at this event where Donald Trump was going to be was all choreographed for this one man. There's nothing bigger than being front and center of the biggest event in the biggest sport in the world. And that's what the World Cup is. And he is right there. And Gianni Infantino has made his bed as well by allowing himself firmly with Donald Trump. And therein lies a risk to him, actually. FIFA has very strict rules on political neutrality. And some of the ways in which Gianni Infantino has gone about his relationship with Donald Trump might be skirting his own regulations when it comes to FIFA. New York Times journalist Tariq Panja.

Colombia produces more cocaine than any other country in the world, and a good trunk of it is trafficked to the U.S. and Europe by the criminal organization Clan Del Golfo. Now, Klan Del Golfo has signed a peace agreement with Colombia's government following months of negotiations in Qatar. It's an agreement that's meant to reduce violence and crime in large parts of Colombia. Our correspondent Will Grant told me more about the deal and how it will work. Specifically, I think there are things for.

both sides in it to some extent. The key point is that members of the clan del Guelpho will have to concentrate in three, as it were, demilitarized zones. Two of those are in the Department of Chocon, which is actually one of the poorest places in Colombia. They'll have sort of swathes of land where they will be, as it were, corralled and gradually move towards the demobilization starting from March next year. On their side, that will also bring with it the fact that there will be no longer extradition or orders for capture of them. So in a sense, it takes the heat out of the chase, as it were, over the years for their top leadership. On the other side, of course, this is a big step for the government of Gustavo Pedro

in what he calls his quest for total peace, i.e. making agreements with the many, many different types of armed groups, both political and criminal, that exist in Colombia. So what are the biggest challenges to this agreement now that it's been signed? Well, in a sense you'll kind of pick up on a lot of skepticism in the Colombian press and among Colombian people over this agreement. While it is an important step towards that concept of total peace, you have so many different armed groups that it will be extremely difficult to reach all of them. In the instance of those agreements that have already been established,

there is still a lot of impunity. some of the parameters of agreements haven't been respected. It has been better for the criminals than it has for the government. It has given a sense of peace without real peace. That is the sort of key argument against it. So those really are the challenges that both the federal government will have to overcome and to an extent so will the Clan de Golfo if they are actually serious about peace. There are those who say this is much more about, as it were,

washing their image, improving their image in the face of the public, particularly when it involves things like preventing the recruitment of children and adolescents into the gang. So how are the Colombian authorities planning to manage other gangs to stop them taking over the trafficking routes that Clan del Golfo has established? Yeah, it's a very good question. I mean, in a sense they already are in the process of talking to different gangs and trying to achieve this very lofty goal of Total Peace in Colombia. The truth of the matter, as we know on the ground, is that a vacuum is very quickly filled when it comes to drug cartels by other groups and where you sort of knock out the importance of one, others emerge or they rearm. We saw that with a piece of cords with the left-wing

rebel group, the FARC, were achieved in Havana. And that has not been entirely successful, particularly in that element of the gangs going back into drug trafficking. So it's a huge challenge. Will Grant. Migration to Europe is often framed as the story of young men seeking a better life. But more women are making the journey too, often alone or with their children, and they face risks that men rarely encounter. The UN Migration Agency, the IOM, told the BBC that many migration policies are gender unaware, failing to take into account women's specific needs.

Our correspondent Sophia Betica has been, into northeast Italy, a key entry point into the European Union from the Balkans. She sent this report and a warning it contains descriptions of sexual violence. I'm standing in a square outside Trieste's train station where volunteers are handing out hot plates of pasta to migrants. A lot of them women, most of them are carrying backpacks. Later tonight, many will catch trains to try and reach France, Germany and the UK. The routes to Europe are notoriously dangerous,

but for women, the risks are even greater. Some even carry condoms because they know they could be raped at any point. I can still hear the voice of my sister, and of all those women, screaming for help. In this shelter, women and families have just arrived, sleep on small, metal-framed beds, with nowhere else to go. We have women from Nepal tonight, from Cameroon, from Kosovo.

Katarina runs the shelter. She says many of the women here are fleeing gender-based violence. Abuse or harm directed at them because they are women. Yet, many face the same threats again on the journey to Europe. Sometimes they don't even realize that they are victims of gender violence, because for them it's normal. Does this make it harder when women seek asylum because it's quite difficult to explain what gender violence is? Yes, it is harder because they must first grow the awareness

and also sometimes they are ashamed to tell and then their request for asylum is rejected. It can take years. My name is Adebayor Esther. Esther from Nigeria was sleeping in the streets of Lagos when a woman promised her a new life in Europe. She didn't hesitate. She'd always dreamed of living in the UK.

When I get to Libya, then I was locked up in the room where she brought a man. The person had sex with me with force. I was still a virgin. So you were basically detained and forced to have sex with men? Yes, for four months. That's what they do in Libya. Esther managed to escape and reached Europe by boat.

Other women are making the journey on foot along the so-called Balkan route, and that's just as dangerous. Nina left Kosovo with her sister. Even though we were up in the mountains, in the dark, you could hear the screams. Women, like my sister, were crying, begging for help. It was harrowing.

The men would come with a torch, shine it in someone's face, pick who they wanted, take them further into the forest, and then do whatever they wanted to us. I asked Nina why she chose to face such danger to leave Kosovo. I had no other choice but to escape. My boyfriend was violent. He wanted me to become a prostitute and give him the money. This is very common in Kosovo. People think life is good here. But if you are a woman, you have no rights, no voice. It's terrible.

Dance classes like this are helping women find their place in Italian life. But critics say Europe's asylum system needs a complete rethink to recognize women's unique vulnerabilities and we're responds to the reality of more and more making the journey. Sophia Betteza in Italy. Still to come. You've got a horrible disease. We don't have homosexuals in this school. You will be expelled immediately. Unless you agree, we can cure you of your disease.

We'll hear how hundreds of people were subjected to electric shock treatment. to government and run hospitals in Britain in the 1960s and 70s in a bit to change their sexuality. Decision making nowadays, I would say, is much, much harder than it was maybe 10, 15, 20 years ago. Jan Gilg from SAP sees it everywhere. The complexity, the pressure, the stakes. Here's what I discovered about transformation. The companies that will thrive aren't trying to predict the future. They're building something more powerful.

The way we create value is evolved. It used to be around how do we create more efficient and more standardized processes. Now it's about how do we use AI in a more meaningful way to do that. how does data play a huge role in enabling AI to create value? Vadi Narasem-Hmurdi from Deloitte has watched this evolution across hundreds of transformations. The rules of business are being rewritten in real time. It's almost like a digital brain for your business. So we really talk about autonomous business processes rather than just automating business processes.

That's not just clever technology. It's a fundamental reimagining of how business works. We have a whole framework around original value. You're investing a lot of money in this transformation journey. You really want to understand how to plan it. Futureproofing is about connecting your strategic vision and the value you actually deliver. So how do winning companies stay focused while everything shifts around them? Find out by listening to NT plus OP equals EOP, the first episode of Resilient Edge wherever you get your podcast.

You'll have to listen if you want to find out what NT plus OP equals EOP means. It'll be life-changing. I promise. It's 5.23 p.m. One of your kids is asking for a snack. Another is building a fort out of your clean laundry. And you're staring at a half-empty fridge and thinking, what are we even going to eat tonight?

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HelloFresh.C. Hello Fresh, Canada's number one meal kit delivery service. There's been a breakthrough in a major animal trafficking case in India. A woman who's wanted for allegedly trafficking tiger parts has been arrested in a remote village in northern India's Sikkim state. Yang Chen Lachengpa, who's also known as the ghost because of her ability to cross borders undetected, was detained after months.

of surveillance in sub-zero conditions along the India-China border. Our global affairs reporter, Ambarisan Aterajan has more. Wildlife officials describe the arrest of Yangtchen-Lachung-pa as a major breakthrough in the battle against the poaching in India. It's rare for a woman to be arrested in connection with the illegal trade of animal body parts. She is accused of playing a critical role in building trafficking corridors from India to Nepal, and China for tiger parts and pangolin scales. Ms. Yongchen is on Interpol's most wanted list.

Figures show that more than a hundred tigers were killed by poachers in the past three years in India. The animal's body parts are in demand in China where they have been used in traditional medicine. Police have been looking for Ms. Youngchen for several years after officials ceased to five tiger skins and seven sacks of bones in neighboring Nepal and it was successful. suspected that the consignment was about to be smuggled into Tibet. DNA analysis showed one of the tiger heights belonged to an animal from a tiger reserve in central India. She was apprehended on suspicion in 2017, but she disappeared after getting an interim bail. And Beres and Etirajan reporting. To the border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan now, where a shaky ceasefire has been in place. But officials from both sides, say fighting's broken out there again. Our global affairs reporter Sanjay Dathgupta told me more. Details are still sketchy.

The spokesman for the Taliban in Afghanistan, Sabeullah Mujahid, has posted on X.com, accusing Pakistan of launching an attack in the Spinboltak district. Just across the border lies Chaman in Pakistan, and the spokesperson for the Pakistani Prime Minister, he has posted on social media. that as a result of unprovoked firing by Afghan troops on Chaman, there were clashes. Predictably, both sides, as you can see, are blaming each other.

What is interesting to note is that this has happened on what is known as the Spin Boldat-Chaman border. It is one of the most important commercial crossing points and a very important border point, which is used by tens of thousands every day for travel and trade. There was supposed to be a fragile ceasefire in place after fierce clashes in October. So what's the state of that? There was a ceasefire in place, a fragile one, as you say. The clashes in October were deadly, dozens left dead on either side. They agreed a ceasefire.

A few days ago, there was the latest round of peace talks between the two neighbours in Saudi Arabia, which ended without a breakthrough significantly. this clash comes literally two, three days after that. What is at the heart of the dispute is the fact that the Pakistanis routinely accuse the Afghan Taliban of sheltering militants who Islamabad says launch attacks inside Pakistan and carry out suicide bombings. Now, if the Afghan Taliban deny this, they point out that they should not be held responsible for what goes on across the border on Pakistani soil. Sanjay Desgupta.

The BBC understands that the British government will investigate the historical use of electric shock treatment or ECT in state hospitals run by Britain's National Health Service, which aimed to change people's sexuality. A BBC investigation found that at least 250 people were subjected to the therapy in the 1960s and 70s. survivors say they were referred by their school, church or a court and have told of their lasting physical and psychological pain. You might find this report from Haley Hassel contains distressing

details. Aversion therapy was a painful procedure involving patients having straps fastened to their arms and legs and being given electric shocks, often for more than an hour at a time every week over a six to 12 month period to try to change their sexuality. The idea was to associate the pain with their sexual preferences. This happened in at least 10 hospitals to at least 250 people between 1963 and 1973. Gay men, lesbians and transgender people were all subjected to the therapy. Some patients were bribed or threatened with being expelled from school or losing their jobs to coerce them into changing their sexuality. Jeremy, who lives in the Northwest of England was at school when his teacher discovered he had feelings for another boy.

He said that was, you've got a horrible disease, we don't have homosexuals in this school, you will be expelled immediately, unless you agree, we can cure you of your disease. And I sat on this chair, and he fastened a strap around my left hand, and I did the same with my right hand, played with a switch, and I got a pain in my arm here, and he said, did it hurt? And I said, yeah, Yes, and they said, good, it's meant to. Most of the doctors who carried out this so-called treatment are in their 80s or 90s or are no longer alive.

But I managed to track down one who took part. Jim was just a trainee then, and he asked to meet a woman, Pauline, who endured 20 sessions of electric shocks at Crumstall Hospital in Manchester when she was 19. I'm here to firstly apologise, above of all of those of us who were involved back in those days, psychology was going through a very strange period at that time.

We thought we could change everybody looking back. I think shame is not an inappropriate word. I'm ashamed that we were doing that unreservedly, sorry. Thank you for that apology. First of all, let me say I completely accepted because I do understand what it was like then. The shock therapies at Crumsell Hospital were trials, overseen by academics at Manchester University. It has expressed regret,

saying the attitudes behind the experiments were widely held at the time but are now considered unethical and harmful. The BBC understands the government will now investigate the historical use of electric shock therapy. The Equality's Minister Olivia Bailey condemned the practice as utterly appalling and pledged a full ban on conversion practices. That report by Haley Hassel.

Well, a few architects were as famous as Frank Gary, who's died at the age of 96. Born in Canada, Gary moved to the United States to study architecture when he was a teenager, and he continued working into his 90s. One of his most famous buildings, the Guggenheim Art Museum in Bilbao in northern Spain. It's innovative use of stone, glass, and thousands of sheets of titanium that can change colors from silver, to gold, created the Bilbao effect, the introduction of fresh buildings with stunning architecture that revamped rundown cities. Vincent Dowd looks back on Frank Gehry's career. When Frank Gehry took a bow at the opening of the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles in 2003,

as the architect, he was as much a star as any performer. Yet there had been bitter rouse about cost overruns, and construction delays. But Frank Geary was always tough-minded. He said he'd designed a good building which worked well. I did not set out to do a landmark work. People ask me now, what would you like to do? Now that you can do anything, I look blank because just forget about that. Take what comes your way.

Do the best with it. Something good will happen. And it has. Frank Geary had been born in Toronto as Frank Goldberg. When he was a teenager, his family, far from wealthy, moved to California. He worked as a truck driver, but going to night school started to build a career. He studied city planning at Harvard, but left the course early. Travel helped persuade Gary.

His vocation was architecture. I went to Europe, shocked to find the great architectural history, denied us in school in the early 50s. I got to Paris. The first thing I saw was Notre Dame, and I was really angry at my teachers. I said, look at this. And underlying my work is a big chunk of inspiration from that. Gary was in his late 60s before he joined the ranks of the so-called star architects. In 1997, the Guggenheim Commission in Spain made his name around the world.

He clad the museum in elegantly curved thin titanium panels. It made Bilbao much more of a centre for tourism. The Disney Concert Hall in L.A. showed Gary's appreciation of the beauty of steel. At an age when most Americans have retired, Frank Gehry became one of the world's best-known architects. Vincent Dowd on the life of Frank Geary, who's died at the age of 96. And that's all from us for now, but there will be a new edition of the Global News podcast later. you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email. The address is Global Podcast at BBC.co.uk. You can also find us on X at BBC World Service.

Use the hashtag Global NewsPod. This edition was mixed by Zabihula Kurush and produced by Stephen Jensen and Wendy Urquhart. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Celia Hatton. Until next time, goodbye. Thank you.