Global News Podcast - Trump says Russia and Ukraine to 'immediately' start ceasefire talks

Episode Date: May 20, 2025

US President Donald Trump says Russia and Ukraine will "immediately" start negotiating towards a ceasefire, after a phone call with Vladimir Putin. Also: videos show capuchin monkeys kidnapping babies of another species.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. What links the Soviet Union, basketball and the iconic American rock band, The Grateful Dead? You got to be kidding. Find out in Bill Walton's The Grateful Team, the new series of amazing sports stories from the BBC World Service. It's a story where sport, rock music, and dramatic world events collide. The Lithuanian team, they were the underdogs, and we love underdogs. Now we got a show.

Search for amazing sport stories wherever you get your BBC podcasts. This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Valerie Sanderson and in the early hours of Tuesday the 20th of May these are our main stories. Presidents Trump and Putin have spoken by phone to discuss the war in Ukraine and how to end it. For the first time in 11 weeks Israel says it's allowed a few aid trucks into Gaza carrying medicine, flour and baby food. The UK and the European Union have announced a series of deals to improve post-Brexit

relations. Also in this podcast. TSMC, your trusted partner to power the AI era. The BBC visits an outlet of a Taiwanese company that makes the most advanced microchips on earth, but in the desert heat of Arizona. President Trump says Russia and Ukraine will immediately start ceasefire negotiations after concluding what he described as an excellent two-hour phone call with Vladimir Putin. Mr Trump also said

I think some progress has been made. It's a terrible situation going on over there. Five thousand young people every single week are being killed. So hopefully we did something. We also spoke to the heads of most of the European nations and we're trying to get that whole thing wrapped up." The Russian president said the conversation had been frank and constructive. We agreed with the president of the United States that Russia will propose and is ready

to work with the Ukrainian side on a memorandum regarding a possible future peace treaty, outlining a number of positions, such as the principles of resolution, the timeline for a potential peace agreement and so on, including the possible cessation of hostilities for a certain period in the event of reaching specific agreements. After the phone call, President Trump spoke to several European leaders. Bata, correspondent in Washington, Gary O'Donoghue says he won't have been able to tell them about any major concessions from the Kremlin. The two-hour phone call produced plenty of warm words, but little by way of concrete commitments. So no 30-day ceasefire at this stage, no announcement

of a meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. No new deadlines. No indication of the promised negotiations being at the highest level. And no indication that Russia is prepared to make any concessions to its long-standing demands. Perhaps the most telling phrase from the Washington end was when President Trump said the conditions for an end to the war will be negotiated between the two parties. This from the man who's always insisted he is the only person who can bring

about an end to the conflict. Washington has, for some time now, been more than hinting that its patience is wearing out and that the administration could simply walk away from the situation. For Ukraine, that could be disastrous, particularly if it were coupled with an end to military, humanitarian and intelligence assistance. European leaders are still firmly behind President Zelensky, but without US muscle and money, their efforts may not be sufficient to sustain Ukraine's resistance. Gary O'Donoghue in Washington.

For more on what Vladimir Putin said about the call with President Trump, I spoke to the BBC's Russia editor Steve Rosenberg, who was in a busy street in Moscow. Vladimir Putin made a statement about his telephone call. He basically said it was a detailed, constructive, frank and pretty useful conversation. So it's clearly a friendly conversation. He said that Russia supported the idea of a peaceful resolution of the Ukraine conflict, but the most effective ways to reach peace had to be worked out. So in other words, Russia for peace, but, and that's something we've heard several times before from the Kremlin, he also talked about Russia and Ukraine working on a memorandum

about a possible future peace agreement. Possible future, that sounds a little bit vague. He said, overall, we're on the right path. So to summarise, Russia's position doesn't seem to have changed a great deal. Russia has been saying for months that it wants peace in Ukraine, but... and setting a string of conditions. America, European leaders and Ukraine have been urging Russia to sign up immediately to a 30-day unconditional ceasefire. That's something Russia has been resisting. And based on what Vladimir Putin said today, no immediate long-term ceasefire.

Although he claims that Russia does want peace and will work on Ukraine to achieve that. It all sounds rather vague. Do you think they have moved forward? From what Vladimir Putin has said, it doesn't seem as if the Russian position has changed very much. Russia is certainly creating the impression that it wants peace. We had those direct talks in Istanbul last week between Russia and Ukraine that had been proposed by Vladimir Putin, but that didn't seem to move us on too far

either. It's clear that Moscow, through flattering words to Donald Trump, is trying to get in his good books and to develop the US-Russia relationship. Vladimir Putin's press secretary said that Russia saw America as a neutral country now in this, and he criticised Europe and accused Europe of wanting the conflict to continue, kind of driving a wedge there between America and Europe and trying to keep good relations with America. So from what Vladimir Putin said, it doesn't appear that Moscow came under any pressure from America to change its position. There had been or

there has been quite a lot of talk about possible new crushing sanctions that America could impose to force Vladimir Putin to end the hostilities immediately. From what Vladimir Putin said, no hint of that. Steve Rosenberg in Russia. Israel says five trucks carrying baby food, medicine and flour have entered Gaza after an 11-week aid blockade. The decision to end the blockade that's brought Gaza to the verge of famine was made under heavy US pressure.

James Elder, spokesperson for the UN's Children Agency UNICEF, said the number of aid trucks entering the besieged territory is nowhere near enough. There's 9,000 on the border, so five or six trucks, this is a little bit more like optics than actually life-saving aid. For two and a half months, the only thing until today, those handful of trucks, the only thing that's been entering are bombs. We need a massive change in that. The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, says his military will take control of the entire Gaza Strip to prevent Hamas from looting aid.

Our Middle East correspondent Lucy Williamson reports from the Israel-Gaza border. It took until sundown for Gaza's siege to end. Five aid trucks, the first trickle of relief for a population many believe is staring famine in the face. Aid agencies say hundreds of trucks are needed in Gaza each day. But Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, justifying it to his hardline colleagues, said the small number he was allowing in was needed to continue the war. Since the beginning of the war, we said that in order to achieve victory, there is one necessary condition. We must not reach a situation of famine, both from a practical and diplomatic standpoint.

Simply put, others will not support us. We will not be able to complete the mission of victory. At an Israeli café just across the border, people were broadly supportive of Israel's lifting of the blockade. Hama Aziz, Israeli to the women, to the children, to the people in need. Dozens of people were killed in strikes across Gaza overnight, as Israel's new military offensive continues. Gaza's second-largest city, Hanyounis, emptying after evacuation orders from Israel's army. I want my dad. Enough war. We are exhausted. Please ask the world to relieve us. Where will we sleep tonight?

Will we sleep on the streets? We're exhausted of being displaced and humiliated everywhere we go." Israel seems convinced that military pressure is what's needed to break its opponent. But the definition of victory still dogs its prime minister. Hamas says the price of releasing hostages is a permanent end to the war. Israel insists the price Hamas will pay for October the 7th is the same, whether it releases the hostages or not. Lucy Williamson. Britain and the European Union have agreed a series of deals aimed at resetting relations following Brexit, which saw the UK leave the bloc in 2020. The new agreements on issues including trade, fishing rights and

defence cooperation were unveiled at a UK-EU summit here in London. The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the British Prime Minister Keir Starmer both hailed it as a new chapter that benefited both sides. Mr. Starmer had this to say. Britain is back on the world stage. The decisions that we've taken have made Britain a place where people want to do business once again. Today we have struck this landmark deal with the EU.

A new partnership between an independent Britain and our allies in Europe. But not everyone is on board. Mr Starmor's critics call it surrender and betrayal. Kemi Medinok is leader of the main opposition Conservative Party. I am gobsmacked that Keir Starmor has signed this deal. This is a sellout. The public had a referendum, they gave an instruction. It's 10 years now. We should be using the opportunities of leaving the EU, not taking steps backwards.

Here's our UK political correspondent, Rob Watson. At the heart of the deal is an agreement that will make it easier for Britain to sell stuff to Europe, right, particularly to do with food and for it to be easier for Brits to travel to Europe. They won't have to have all their passport stamps and all that kind of stuff. In return, Britain has given up some of its ability to make its own regulations on food and agriculture, so it'll have to follow EU rules. And it's also extended the right of European fishermen to catch fish in British waters for another 12 years.

And they've also agreed to continue discussions about lots of other things now such as energy cooperation and a youth mobility scheme and then of course there's defense and security pacts although again details still to be discussed. Now some are saying that Mr. Stammer should have gone much further critics as we heard there from Kemi Badenoch are furious and are calling it a betrayal so how big a change is it? I think the way I'd put it is that it's a significant but limited change to close relations between London and Brussels. Limited because Britain is not renegotiating Brexit, it's not rejoining the European Union or any of its main

institutions, the single market or the customs union. So there's still going to be a very distant relationship compared to membership but significant vow in that after nine years of bitterness, real bitterness, it's a big deal that both sides made it clear they want to leave Brexit behind with all the leaders talking of things like new eras, new pages and the need to look forward rather than backwards. And why now do you think, Rob, why are we seeing this closer relationship between the UK and Europe? Is it because of the war in Ukraine and a change in attitude in the White House? I think it is in large part that. Indeed, the leaders in the summit were quite clear about that, saying this was being driven by geopolitics in a world that looks so much more threatening from a Western European or European point of view than 2016.

Then you had Barack Obama and the White House, now you have Donald Trump, now you have a resurgent Russia and a more aggressive China. So the leaders were making this sort of point that absolutely in a more threatening world you may not want to be in the same union together, but you have shared threats, shared values and that there's a need there for shared solutions. I'm thinking in Britain's case, I mean, there's another element and that is a sense of a need to do something about the lack of economic growth. Brexit had been pretty harmful for the UK. Its thoughts have shaved off about 4% of GDP,

so even a relatively minor deal like this would make a difference in their search for that most elusive of commodities, Valerie, which is economic growth. Rob Watson. The new security and defence partnership between the UK and European Union aims to increase cooperation in areas including supporting Ukraine, security initiatives and mobility of military equipment and personnel. The partnership should also allow Britain's defense industry to bid for contracts under the EU's new 150 billion euro fund to strengthen the country's defense capabilities. Our World Affairs correspondent Paul Evans reports.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the sheer unpredictability of Donald Trump have already brought the UK and EU closer together. Now the two sides are looking to cement this evolving relationship. Speaking in the Commons, the Defense Secretary John Healy said the partnership would enable Europe to confront the threats posed by Russia. Earlier, the president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen spoke of the deal's by Russia. Earlier the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, spoke of the deal's mutual advantages. This joint procurement we've discussed will increase our readiness, will close military gaps that we have and will increase our interoperability when our armed forces are going on missions together. It will create new opportunities of course for our defense industries and open the option for stronger more coordinated

support for Ukraine. The paper published today covers a host of security issues but is little more than a framework for future cooperation. Some of the difficult stuff has yet to be negotiated including how much of the EU's recently unveiled defense fund worth 150 billion, will be available to British companies. The Conservatives have their doubts. James Cartledge, Shadow Secretary of State for Defence, accused the government of giving away fishing rights in exchange for what he called a glorified talking shop with not a penny of guaranteed defence funding. But David Lockwood, the boss of Babcock International,

one of the UK's largest defence contractors, called today's announcement a real achievement in bolstering links with European allies. Paul Adams. You may not have heard of TSMC, but it's arguably one of the most important companies in the world and one that's helping to shape the future of the global economy. TSMC is the Taiwan semiconductor manufacturing company. It makes the most advanced microchips on earth, which are at the heart of everything, from smartphones to cars to hospital scanners. It's also at the centre of a chip rivalry raging across the world, one of the key subplots of President Trump's trade war. An incredibly secretive company TSMC has begun to expand its operations in the US and invited the BBC in to see their

vast facility in Phoenix, Arizona. From there, our economics editor Fazil Islam reports. In the baking heat in the desert of Arizona, just outside Phoenix, an extraordinary building has just been built. And the hum you can hear is of further construction beginning to happen. And it is the most important company you've never heard of, TSMC, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, which makes 90% of the world's advanced semiconductors. And it's a really secretive place because it's amongst the most important intellectual property in the world.

It's super locked down and they've let us in. Welcome to TLC Arizona. Thank you. Microchips are at the heart of virtually every device we use from cars to iPhones to hospital scanners. They power the modern economy and will form the backbone of our AI future, where fierce rivalries are emerging between America and China. One reason why President Trump has become a little obsessed with this company and bringing

its manufacturing process to the US. From TSMC, which is the biggest there is at a level that... Great company, most powerful in the world, biggest chip company in the world. We gradually lost the chip business and now it's almost exclusively in Taiwan. They stole it from us, they took it from us. I'm here in what they call the Gowning Building and the other side of the barrier is the sky bridge and where the workers get dressed up in protective clothing that's meant to essentially

protect the cleanest environment on earth in order to protect the production of these extraordinary microscopic transistors that create the microchips underpinning everything we do. So this is a four nanometer wafer. I'm Konstantinos Ninios. I'm here at Fab 21 as a department manager for Dry Edge. Konstantinos has shown me what's known as a wafer, a slice of silicon the size of a dinner plate on which transistors or tiny circuits

controlling the flow of an electric current sit by the billion. They're smaller than red blood cells, not much bigger than atoms, can't be seen by the human eye and are etched into the wafer using ultraviolet light, a process known as lithography. This is the most advanced wafer in the US right now. This wafer contains about 10 to 14 trillion transistors. If you can shrink and get into this wafer, it will be like skyscrapers. Very tall, because of many, many, many different layers. Understandably, they're hugely protected.

There's a really big, important customers, famous customers, Apple, Nvidia and the likes, who tell this company their designs for their future products in order to make all the advances that consumers buy in the bucket load. And so this makes this one of the most sensitive areas. They won't even understandably show us the other side. I certainly believe it is one of the most important factories in the world. The boss here is overseeing a $165 billion investment that has transferred carbon copies of three of the company's Taiwanese factories with more to come. Rose Castaneris, TSMC Arizona president.

I think it is important to our customers and to the United States and to the industry as the semiconductor supply chain has to have some resiliency. So I'm here in the main extra construction area of this facility. They've built one so-called fab already, two is in yellow, about to be completed in the next couple of years, and then there's another four potentially signed off. Now, President Trump has wasted very little time in claiming vindication for this, for his economic policies, claiming in particular that it wouldn't have happened

without his tariff policies. Now, they're very diplomatic here at this company about that claim. Much of this was already planned under the Biden administration, and it is not at all clear that tariffs will help in this semiconductor supply chain which stretches all over the world whether it's the silicon wafers from Japan, the major machines required for the lithography from the Netherlands,

all sorts of materials from all around the world all now facing tariffs. Indeed, his tariffs will raise costs for key parts of the process. The semiconductor supply chain is global. There's really no single country at this moment that can do everything from chemicals to wafer manufacturing to packaging. And so it's very difficult to kind of unwind that whole thing very quickly. TSMC, your trusted partner to power the AI era. It's a battle for global tech and economic supremacy in which Taiwan's factory technology is a critical asset, much of which is now being moved to the

Arizona desert. That report by Faisal Islam in Arizona. Still to come. by Faisal Islam in Arizona. Still to come… Camera trap films revealed a young male capuchin carrying around infant howler monkeys. The monkeys kidnapping the offspring of another species. What links the Soviet Union, basketball and the iconic American rock band, The Grateful Dead?

You gotta be kidding. Find out in Bill Walton's The Grateful Team, the new series of amazing sports stories from the BBC World Service. It's a story where sport, rock music, and dramatic world events collide. The Lithuanian team, they were the underdogs and we love underdogs. Now we got a show. Search for amazing sports stories wherever you get your BBC podcasts. In Japan, the country's Agriculture Minister has apologised after making a joke which some

people considered to be in extremely bad taste. Takao Etto said he was gifted so much rice that he didn't have to buy any of it for himself. The comments were deemed highly insensitive at a time when there's a shortage of the Japanese staple and its price has doubled in the past year. I heard more from our Asia Pacific editor, Biki Bristo. This is the Agriculture Minister, Takao Eto, who on Sunday at a fundraising event in Japan told the audience that he got so many gifts of rice from supporters that it was stockpiling at home and he had

enough to sell. Now this is a particularly insensitive comment, or many people in Japan think it is, because over the last year or so, the price of rice for ordinary people, for everybody, has just about doubled. It's now about 30 US dollars for a five kilogram bag. And lots of people just are finding it difficult to buy a product which is a staple for most Japanese meals, for most Japanese families. You have the government trying to reduce the price by releasing stockpiles. Farmers are trying to grow more rice, but still people are finding prices rising. And so they find this comment quite insensitive

and really showing the difference between people who are quite privileged like this politician and people who aren't so privileged. And it's become a key political issue hasn't it, with people unhappy with the Prime Minister's handling of the whole rice issue ahead of the elections in July. Yeah, this feeds into the unpopularity of the government. The government is particularly unpopular at the moment. A poll released by the news agency Kyoto showed the support for the government about 24-25 percent, really low. And so to have a minister making this kind of comment obviously does the government damage as well, and that's something

that the Prime Minister has already acknowledged. This is a big issue. Food is an important issue in Japan. Rice is a particularly important issue. And so for the price of rice to be rising, it's really got people hot under the collar. And I think it's worth reminding listeners that whilst Japan is an enormously wealthy country,

GDP per capita income is about $34,000 a year. There is a lot of poor people. They're finding the price of rice very, very high and difficult to afford. That's why they're annoyed. So why are prices of rice so high in Japan? There are lots of reasons. Natural disasters is one of them. There have been an extreme drought for example. There are a lot more people traveling to Japan at the moment. Tourists, they're eating a lot more food so there's less rice available for ordinary people who live there. Also the way rice is structured in Japan, there's a lot of bans on imports. The government has sought to protect farmers

by protecting their own rice crops by making it difficult to import. So there were a number of reasons why there's a shortfall. Mickey Bristow. One of the leading figures in Russian ballet, Yuri Grigorovich, has died. He was 98. Grigorovich was the artistic director

of Moscow's legendary Bolshoi Ballet from the mid-60s to the mid-90s and boosted its reputation as one of the world's best dance companies. Soviet Glassrime reports. Born in the Soviet city of Leningrad a decade after the Bolshevik Revolution, Grigorovich had a career spanning 80 years as a dancer and choreographer. As artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet, he cemented his reputation by staging productions of Spartacus, Swan Lake, and in particular, The Stone Flower. Grigorovich was widely praised for a vitalising male dance.

He introduced more roles for men in his productions, ones which required exceptional strength and technique. Sophie Glass Ryan. A new museum is opening in London celebrating the UK's rich musical history. It's called Live Odyssey and it starts with a special exhibition all about the English singer John Lennon. We'll hear in a moment from Lennon's sister Julia Baird who's been involved in putting the exhibition together. But first, the man himself, speaking to the BBC in 1980 about his existence in the public sphere. An interview Celia Hatton listened to along with Julia.

Even as I put it in my last incarnation, everybody's got something to hide except for me and my monkey. It means really that one cannot be absolutely oneself in public because the fact that you're one cannot be absolutely oneself in public because the fact that you're in public makes you you have to have some kind of defense or whatever it is but we always tried from whether it's from two virgins through imagine through anything we've done together the films we made together always tried to get as near to the uncensored as it were for what we are not

to project an image of something that we're not because having been in that sort of pop business so long and tried to retain myself throughout it but obviously not always being successful at that it was most uncomfortable when I didn't feel I was being myself you know when I would have to smile when I didn't want to smile and it became like all that like being a politician you know, when I would have to smile when I didn't want to smile. And it became like all that, like being a politician, you know. Julie, I saw you nodding and having sort of a smile on your face through just listening to your brother's voice and his reflection. That's him speaking. Many know him as a musical icon.

But to you, he's your brother. How do you marry those two images, really? Well, I marry them by keeping them divorced. I have John the world icon and I have John the family man very much still my brother. But when I'm listening to that, one, it's John, his voice is so distinctive, isn't it? But when he's saying about being interviewed all the time, how do you keep it so that you tell the truth or as near to the truth as you possibly can? While being smiling and pleasant when the truth isn't always what people want to hear, must be very difficult. And of of course John was essentially a truthful person

and it could be quite brutal as it can be for all of us. Do you think he had to work very hard to kind of really stay his authentic self? Yes I do because he was in front of the cameras so much and in front of the microphone so much that you have to sort of alter a bit the way you are and fit in and slot in and it's what the world is about but it must be quite difficult not to change yourself or allow yourself to be dented too much where what are you saying and why did you say that?

Do you think he changed? No, well, if he did, as John himself just said there, I think that he certainly came back to himself in latter days. And when are the years that you think he was sort of struggling with that? Oh, in the full glare of Beetledum. George said a lovely thing when they were really getting to a distressed point with it. George said, without the fans we'd be no one. Well, of course he was right, but I think all of them wanted to be honest with the fans, but you know what the media world is like. It has an expectation.

You've said in the past that you wished he'd never picked up a guitar. I do. I do because I think he would still be here. Picking up the guitar in the way that John picked it up and following it through in the way that John was able to do with the singing and the genius and the lyrics and everything that went with it. His head was way too high over the parapet. LESLIE KENDRICK You know, going back to that exhibition that's opening in London can also physically take us back to that time. I understand it's got a replica of John's childhood bedroom?

NANCY KENDRICK It has. LESLIE KENDRICK Do you know, what do you hope that people will get from this exhibition by seeing that bedroom? What's the message that you think they'll take away about John's life? It was normal. I mean, as in the bedroom, it was a normal bed with a normal quilt and pictures on the wall. It was an ordinary bedroom in an ordinary house for not quite an ordinary boy. Julia Baird, John Lennon's sister Researchers studying a troop of capuchin monkeys living on an island off the coast of Panama have discovered that the animals have been seizing baby howler monkeys,

a different species, from their parents. The behaviour was discovered when a scientist checked footage from camera traps on the island and saw a young male capuchin carrying off an infant howler on its back. More from Richard Hulse. This is the first time that behaviour like this has ever been seen in animals. Scientists were studying the capuchins because the troopers known for using stone tools when foraging for food. Camera trap films revealed a young male capuchin carrying around infant howler monkeys. Over time, the kidnapping behaviour seemed to spread

to other young males in the troop, who carried off baby howlers, sometimes for up to a week. It seems all the baby howler monkeys died as their capuchin kidnappers didn't know how to care for them. Richard Howells. A study suggests there's been a marked decline in the use of semi-colons in works of literature published in the UK over the past 20 years. Research claims that nowadays the punctuation mark appears only once every 390 words. Tyler Dunn has been finding out more. A semi-colon is a sort of colon comma hybrid. It's often used to link related clauses in a sentence. It can also be useful when listing items.

But while a semicolon may be good for connecting thoughts, it also seems to divide opinion. The author Kurt Vonnegut warned writers against using the punctuation mark. He said, all they do is show you've been to college. The semicolon was invented by an Italian printer in the late 15th century. But a new study suggests its future isn't bright. The language learning platform Babbel used software developed by Google and Harvard University to analyse how

frequently punctuation is used. The research claims the usage of semicolons in English language books published in the UK has fallen by almost half over the past two decades. Sir Jonathan Bait, a professor of English literature at Oxford University, says it's a shame so many are shunning the semicolon. If you look back to the great writers of the past, like Jane Austen, she uses semicolons a lot and it really helps to convey complicated thinking, to convey nuance. That is something in our rapid world of texting, the internet and so on that we're losing that sense of nuance and I think that is a little bit troubling. After finding evidence of the semicolons decline, Babel sent a survey to about

half a million students in the UK. Two-thirds of respondents said they never or rarely used the semicolon. It seems despite Kurt Vonnegut's advice, the students are not so keen to show they went to college. Tyler Dunn reporting. 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 globalnewspod. This edition was mixed by Masood Ibrahim Kale. It was produced by Liam McShepery and Charles Sanctuary. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Valerie Sanderson. Until next time, bye bye. time. Bye-bye. series of amazing sports stories from the BBC World Service. It's a story where sport, rock music, and dramatic world events collide. The Lithuanian team, they were the underdogs, and we love underdogs. Now we got a show. Search for amazing sports stories wherever you get your BBC podcasts.