Global News Podcast - Trump signs major trade deals with Qatar

Episode Date: May 14, 2025

President Trump announces a series of deals between the US and Qatar, including a huge order for Boeing jets. Also: President Putin is not on the Kremlin list of officials attending Ukraine peace talks in Turkey.

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I'm Bernadette Keough and in the early hours of Thursday 15th May, these are our main stories. Donald Trump signs a series of deals in Qatar on the latest stage of his Middle East tour. President Putin's name is not on the list of delegates going to Turkey for peace talks on Ukraine. The main political party in Ethiopia's Tigray region has been officially banned, raising fears of a return to violence. of a return to violence. Also in this podcast, with claims that weight loss drugs make you live longer, should we all be taking them? And... You don't tend to meet astronauts,

you don't get to hear their stories, but it was absolutely always my kind of dream job. We meet the woman hoping to be the first Briton to walk on the moon. job. We meet the woman hoping to be the first Briton to walk on the moon. President Trump is continuing his tour of the Middle East. On Wednesday he was in Qatar where he signed a series of deals including a huge order for Boeing planes. It's the largest order of jets in the history of Boeing. That's pretty good. It's over $200 million, but $160 million in terms of the jets. That's fantastic.

So that's a record. And congratulations to Boeing. Get those planes out there. Our North America editor, Sarah Smith, is travelling with Mr Trump. So what sort of welcome has he had on his tour so far? It's been very lavish. These Arab states and these visitors seem to be competing with each other to show who can put on the more sumptuous welcome for Donald Trump. So as he came in from the airport this afternoon he was met by a caravan of camels and there were dancing men with swords the length of the highway and now he's turning up for a state dinner at the Royal Palace and yet again there is all kinds of ceremony to greet him there and he loves it. I mean you can see how much

he is enjoying this tour of the Middle East where he's being fated by royalty and you know as he visits some of the wealthiest countries in the world and he's able to seal some very lucrative deals as he goes around clearly enjoying himself. Now while we heard him announce that huge deal to supply Qatar with aircraft, but at the same time he's under fire at home for planning to accept a luxury jet from Qatar as a gift. Yes, yes exactly. Naked corruption has been described as by some of his critics back in the United States.

Because people are worried that even if the United States doesn't have to pay for this jet, what is the quid pro quo? What will the Qatari government expect in return for handing over a $400 million aircraft for Donald Trump to use for presidential travel. He insists it would be stupid not to accept it. And we don't quite know the details. It's possible that it would be given to the United States Department of Defense rather than to Donald Trump

and that Mr. Trump wouldn't be able to use the plane for his personal travel or use it after he had finished being president. But nonetheless, I mean, it would be a significant benefit to him and one that people are very, very worried not only carries a kind of taint of corruption or bribery about it, but that might actually affect United States policy. Sarah Smith. Before flying to Qatar, President Trump met Syria's new leader, Ahmad al-Sharah, in Riyadh. He's a former jihadist with past links to al-Qaeda, who once had a US bounty on his head. But Mr Trump praised Mr Sharah as a tough and attractive guy with a strong past.

The brief meeting took place hours after Washington announced it would lift all US sanctions placed on Syria. James Menendez spoke to Syria's Minister of Social Affairs and Labour, Hind Kabirat. What did she make of the decision to lift sanctions? Lifting the sanctions is a new hope for my people, it's a new hope for these vulnerable people. This is a new light in the end of this tunnel who we've been since the liberation in December 2024. We've been calling to lift the sanction because we want to help the Syrian people after all those years of war and suffering. How quickly do you think the announcement will turn into real change in terms of what you're able to bring into the terms of what you're able to bring

into the country, what you're able to deliver? When will ordinary Syrians start to see the benefit do you think? First of all psychological benefit, we get it immediately. Yesterday we've been celebrating in the street. We know that this is a new era for us because we've been suffering a lot. So yes, it might take some time in routine, in bureaucracy, but we know that there is always light and we're going to get there. People today, they're full of hope, full of energy, positive energy, James, and this is very important for us. Today you can see the street of Damascus since yesterday, celebrating, dancing. And I'm very happy. It's not only for us, for generation to come.

This is a new era. The government, your government has to honour its promises on ensuring that it is an inclusive government, that it delivers for all Syrians. That seems to be part and parcel of what the Americans are saying needs to be done in return for lifting these sanctions. Can the government deliver on those? Will it deliver on those promises? Absolutely, James. They know, we all know that Syria is a diverse society without inclusivity, without including everybody, without working together. We cannot have the Syria we want. The Syrian government, they

know, including myself, in every single position, in every single area we have to include women, minority and different ethnic groups, this is the Syria we want. It is a priority. It's also about enforcement, isn't it? and keeping a lid on what the various armed groups in the country are doing. And that's going to be done by the army. Most people in the army are allies of HTS, the president's group. I mean, there are some who say that, you know, what's going to happen is that in order to keep order in Syria, it's going to require a heavy hand and that could end up meaning a new dictatorship. What do you say to that? First of all, we're against this war dictatorship and this is out of question. We don't need

another dictatorship. And in other things regarding HDS, it's not anymore exist. We're now talking about military, about Syrian army, which include everybody. This is number two. And yes, we're talking about rule of law. If somebody who violate rule of law, violate and hate speech or any violation against any other group, and they need to get punished. And I'm sorry, rule of law is number one now and we cannot afford any sectarianism we cannot afford any revenge. Syrian government minister Hind Kabowat. One of the US business people forging contacts with the new Syrian government is Jonathan Bass

whose chief executive of energy company Argent. He led an American delegation that went to Damascus at the start of May and met Syria's new president for several hours. James Menendez asked him what he thought about the lifting of sanctions. I'm elated that sanctions are being lifted. You know, these people have been in the darkness. I mean, it's worse than communism, what they've experienced. When you look at the people on the street, their eyes are with despair. They shake. They can't focus on looking at you in the eyes because they're afraid of being locked up, thrown away and killed. And it's a huge opportunity for the world to reset the region. And Ashara has a huge opportunity in front of him to become a leader of a regional

power and set the world on calm and opportunity for the future. How quickly do you think ordinary Syrians will see the benefits? Because lifting sanctions can be a complex process, can't it? Well, look, these people have waited 15 years for this moment and have endured a horrific... I went to Damascus for the very first time two weeks ago. When I landed there, it looked like time had frozen it from 1967. Everything was in decay. These people are paying huge prices for food, cigarettes, everything. And they're all chain smokers.

And I looked around and I said, why do you smoke so much? I mean, you're one cigarette after the other. They said, you know, for us to survive this life, if we didn't have cigarettes, we would have been out. It's a traumatic life here. You're in the energy business. What are the opportunities for someone like you in Syria? So my opportunity with Syria was not about coming in to see what I could take from Syria,

but what could Syria deliver in their energy program in the future for Syria. And so what I had spoken to the president about is establishing a national oil company that would be floated on the New York Stock Exchange, where he would take the assets of everything under the ground, monetize it, and then give him a venue in which he could borrow against that to make the investments within the country to exploit his own project. And in time, that pathway would lead them to fixing their infrastructure, building housing, homes, showing the people that there's real change on the street and being able to utilise their own money, not asking for fish, but asking for fishing poles.

I've been reading some of your comments about the new Syrian president, Ahmad al-Sharah, and you clearly like him. Why are you so confident he is the right person to lead Syria in the months and years to come? He's gone from an ISIS fighter to fighting ISIS. He's gone through fighting the caliphate. He's gone through fighting the Iranians, the Russians. And indeed the US as well. And the US and the Iranians through Iraq and the Turks.

So you have a man who knows his enemy. And to know your enemy gives you a real clear upside in being able to forge a path of peace because you know their weakness and you know your weakness. And so I believe that Al-Sharah is best suited to lead forward because he's traveled down his past. And if he chooses the right path forward, then he brings the country out of darkness and out of despair into honey and sugar. US businessman Jonathan Bass. The Tigray People's Liberation Front or TPLF has dominated the politics of Ethiopia for decades.

Five years ago it fought a brutal civil war against the government. Now it's been banned from political activity. Our correspondent in Ethiopia, Kalkadan Yilbetel, told us why. All the political problems that led to the fighting to begin with were not resolved. Particularly in recent months, there have been new tensions within the TP-LF itself because some factions were accused by the government of trying to form a new alliance with Eritrea, which fought against them during the war and trying to overthrow the government. Other factions within the TPLAF were seen as being allied with the federal government. It comes in this backdrop that the electoral board ordered it to register as a new party,

while the TPLAF was saying that they have been active for decades and they are not going to register as a new party and the peace deal by default you know re-registered them and three months ago the electoral body suspended them temporarily and ordered them to hold a general assembly and register as a new party but they refused. That three month period expired yesterday and today the electoral body announced that they are practically you know they're banned from any political activity. Calcid and Yilbital. Hardly a day goes by when we don't learn something new and positive about weight loss drugs.

A recent trial involving 17,000 overweight patients found the medication halved deaths from strokes and heart attacks and helped protect the heart immediately, suggesting they would also work in those people who didn't need to lose weight. The jabs are being hailed as ushering in a golden age of medicine. So are they really the wonder drug that many are now claiming? Sarah Montagu asked Professor Sir John Bell, the president of Ellison Institute of Technology at Oxford University. Look I think it's one of the great successes of the pharmaceutical industry to produce a drug like this. It goes back a long way, it's been used for a long time, originally in lower doses

and diabetics, but it now looks that with the new drugs that it's having these really profound effects not just on reducing weight. So it started out as a weight loss drug, but it's clear that it affects the liability to a wide range of different diseases. And by wide, I mean a very wide number of different diseases, probably up to 40 diseases are your risk is reduced by taking this drug. Which does seem absolutely extraordinary. Should we all be taking it then? Well, I don't want to get too far out on a limb on this one, but it will have benefits for people and not just the very, very morbidly obese population. I think that's where people have got confused.

It will actually have really profound benefits for people who are even just a bit obese and some of the data suggests that even people who are even just a bit obese and some of the data suggests that even people who are formerly not obese might actually have benefits, long-term benefits from this. So it might well prove to be beneficial in a significant bit of the population. And that's because, as I understand it, in the first instance it dampens your appetite, which is good for the obesity. But there's this secondary thing which is what to do within inflammation? To be clear, nobody really knows how it works. But there is quite a bit of evidence, I think,

that first of all, obesity is associated with chronic inflammatory processes around the body and those are damaging and that this drug may act, particularly in the brain for example, by reducing inflammatory effects in the brain. And we do know that inflammation is one of the common underpinning factors in aging of all kinds. So all these chronic diseases, liver disease, chronic renal disease, heart disease, stroke, these are all in some way associated with both obesity but also inflammation. And dementia, can we add to that list? Well, we will wait, but the trial is due in a couple of months.

But there's quite a bit of sort of real world evidence to suggest that these probably do have an impact on dementia. But let's wait for the trial data. If it does, then I think we're then in actually quite a different place. Now, there has been over decades, we managed to extend a typical life but then there's been a plateauing of that. Is this going to make a significant difference to that? It might but what it'll make a big difference to is not life expectancy but healthy life expectancy. So one of the problems is we have extended life but

we haven't done very well at extending healthy life expectancy. So people get old, they get four diseases, they've got chronic illness one sort or another, and then they die a few years later than they would have previously. What you really want to do is you want to run healthy life expectancy out further. And that's a concept called healthspan, which I think a lot of these preventative interventions are really focused on now. And just from a societal perspective, that's really what we need to be shooting for. We don't well we might but I'm not sure we want a lot of people running around at 140 years of age. What would be nice is that if everybody got to 85 and they were fit and healthy to the end. And not

in a care home and possibly working. And working. Sir John Bell. Still to come, the best-selling Chilean-American author, 82-year-old Isabel Allende talks to us about aging and her newfound love. Look, I got married very late in life for the third time. If I could get a husband, anybody can. So don't give up. And I know. Don't give up on love. to can't be wrong. Download the WISE him and reaction to the case went viral. I've never seen anything like that before. In the Mangione Trial podcast, we're exploring how this case has divided opinion online, unpicking the facts from conspiracy theories, delving into the debate around the healthcare system in the US.

And we're bringing you major developments as the case unfolds in the courtroom. The Manjoni trial from the BBC World Service. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts. The Kremlin has released the list of names in the delegation it's sending to talks with Ukraine in Istanbul on Thursday and there's a notable absentee, Vladimir Putin. The Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has indicated he'll be in Turkey come what may, but he's previously said he'll only meet the Russians himself if his opposite number is among them. The BBC's Russia editor Steve Rosenberg is in Istanbul to cover the talks. James Kumarasamy asked him how surprising it was that President Putin wouldn't be going.

Not a huge surprise. Some people had expressed the opinion that it would have been a big surprise if he had gone. I mean, what is quite remarkable when you think about it is these talks are supposed to take place on Thursday. It's just turned Thursday here, and we've only really just learnt who is going to be in the Russian delegation. So who is in the delegation? Well, there's Vladimir Medinsky, who's a presidential aide. He headed the Russian delegation three years ago at talks with Ukraine, plus a deputy defense minister, a deputy foreign minister and a senior figure from the Russian general staff. Now considering all the rumors and the speculation that's been swirling for the last 48 hours

or so that Vladimir Putin himself might come to Turkey, that looks like quite a low-level delegation, especially when you consider that Volodymyr Zelensky himself is traveling to Turkey. He had called on Vladimir Putin to come to Turkey to talk peace with him. The president of Brazil today spoke to Vladimir Putin and called on the Kremlin leader to take part in the peace talks in Turkey. And we know that Donald Trump a couple of days ago had suggested that, well he thought that Vladimir Putin might come to Turkey, but at the moment it looks as if

that is not happening. It is though going to be face-to-face talks, is it not, between the Ukrainians and the Russians, which is something that's not happened for some time? Absolutely, so even if these talks go ahead at this lower level, that is still quite a moment, you're right, because we haven't seen face-to-face direct Russia-Ukraine talks for more than three years. Whether they lead to anything substantive is another matter. Certainly, I think we can expect Ukrainian officials to react to the absence of Vladimir Putin by saying this is evidence that Moscow is not serious about wanting peace. It will be very

interesting to see what Donald Trump says, how he reacts to Vladimir Putin not coming to Istanbul. The other thing I think it's worth pointing out, we don't know of course what kind of conversations are taking place behind closed doors, possibly between Washington and Moscow and Kiev. So I don't think we can rule out entirely that Vladimir Putin won't pop up in Turkey at some point in the near future. But as things stand and looking at the delegation as announced by Moscow, it doesn't look as if he's coming to Istanbul.

Steve Rosenberg, when the war in Ukraine began three years ago, around a million refugees settled in Poland, joining one and a half million already living there. They were initially welcomed with open arms. But recent surveys show that Poles are far less sympathetic towards Ukrainians now. And as Will Vernon reports from Warsaw, this is playing into the presidential election, which will take place on Sunday.

Svetlana wants to tell me about her daughter, Yulia's, recent experience at a school in Warsaw. We've changed both their names, as Svetlana fears reprisals for talking to us. Girls from the class above started complaining about Yulia speaking Ukrainian. Then they pretended to fall to the ground shouting, missile get down, and laughing. She came home crying. Days before, a Russian missile killed scores of civilians in Svetlana's hometown in Ukraine. She tells me the news traumatised Yulia.

The BBC has spoken to dozens of Ukrainians living in Poland who say there's been a noticeable rise in hostility towards them in recent months, including incidents of abuse on public transport, bullying in schools and encountering xenophobic material online. My name is Natalia Panczenko, I'm the head of the board of Stand with Ukraine Foundation. Ukrainians who work in the shop or reception in the hotel, sometimes some clients start to tell some very xenophobic, very bad things just because they understand that this person had an Ukrainian accent."

Public opinion surveys show that just 50 percent of Poles are now in favor of accepting Ukrainian refugees. That figure has fallen seven percentage points in just four months. Two years ago, it was 81 percent. In the midst of a crucial presidential election campaign, Ukraine has become a hot-button political issue in the live TV debates. The front-runner in the race, Rafał Czaszkowski from Prime Minister Donald Tusk's party, is the most pro-Ukraine candidate, but analysts say he's toned down his rhetoric to try and attract more conservative voters. He's even pledged to take away welfare payments for some Ukrainians.

The other two major candidates, conservative Karol Navrotsky and far-right populist Slavomir Mensen, are both skeptical of support for Ukraine. Recently, Mr. Mensen said Poles must stop letting Ukrainians treat them like fools. Main narratives are that Ukrainians stealing money from Polish budget. At least some of the anti-Ukraine sentiment is being stirred up online, distributed by bots that experts say come from Russia. Experts like Michal Marek, who runs an NGO that monitors propaganda in Poland. We can find a wave of this information which starts in Russian infosphere, in Russian-speaking

Telegram channels. And after that we see that they are spreading the same photos, the same text, only just translated by Google Translate. The Polish government recently said Russia is making an unprecedented attempt using this information to interfere in the Polish elections. We will see the effect of this after elections. How many Poles want to vote for openly pro-Russian candidates? As people head to the polling stations in just a few days' time, perhaps no other group will be watching the results quite as nervously as the Ukrainians of Poland. Will Vernon

Isabel Allende is the best-selling Chilean-American writer, considered the world's most widely read Spanish-language author. Her work includes The House of the Spirits, Eva Luna and Violeta. The protagonists of her books are strong women and her latest work, My Name is Amelia Devaya, is no exception. Isabel Allende spoke to Nuala McGovern from her home in California and began by describing the book's main character. She's a young, feisty, rebellious, curious woman ahead of her time, because this is the late 1800s. But she's good at writing, and she manages to get a job in The Examiner, the newspaper

of San Francisco at the time, with a male pseudonym, because women were not supposed to do anything. They didn't have a voice. But eventually there is a civil war in Chile and because she speaks Spanish and she has roots in Chile, her biological father is Chilean, she gets to be sent to Chile to cover the war. When you were describing Amelia there, you know, curious and strong and wants to be a journalist, I was like, there are some similarities here. Definitely with yourself. I don't have to look too far. There is a part in the book where she begins writing, as you mentioned, under a man's name. Her stepfather says to her, remember,

Princess, that you will have to make twice as much effort as any man to get half the recognition. Are you speaking from experience? Absolutely. And I think that any woman in any field can say the same thing. But in my field, when I wrote The House of the Spirits, it was the boom of Latin American literature, great names, famous names, not one feminine voice. And so when I wrote The House of the Spirits and it became very successful, they said that I was the only woman in the boom. And then immediately a week later, they said, no, no, no, she does not belong to the boom. She is just another narrator from somewhere. So it has taken me a long time, especially in Chile, to be recognized

and have the respect that I have in other places. So you are 82 now, and I know you're interested in observing the aging process. So I want to know, what are you learning? A lot. Pets die, friends get sick and die. You learn to let go of almost everything, to begin with everything material. But then you have to let go also of your abilities, your capacities to stay with a book, for example, in my case, for eight, 10 hours as I used to do before I can't do it anymore. And so it's just a matter

of maintaining what you have so that you don't lose it so fast, but you will lose it. I understand the next will be a memoir of daily letters you sent to your mother since you turned 16. When can I look forward to your next book? Oh, my dear, it's been very difficult to write this book. A memoir, especially at this age, you have to try to get to the truth of who you are, really. And this book is only about the last few years, my divorce when I was 74, and a time of solitude and reflection,

and my new love. Because, look, I got married very late in life for the third time. If I could get a husband anybody can so don't give up. And I know you. Don't give up on love. Isabelle Indy. Now ask any seven year old what they'd like to be when they grow up and astronaut may very well be somewhere near the top of their list. And because of the surge in scientific breakthroughs in space research and commercial

funding for space projects, it's not totally out of reach as a career choice. But it's a long road to achieving the dream. Our science editor Rebecca Morell has been catching up with British astronaut Rosemary Coogan who is currently undergoing six months of training at NASA's Johnson Space Centre in Houston, Texas. Rosemary is scheduled to go on a mission by 2030. So how's the training going? Attention, the NBL. All duty station personnel please report to your assignments. We can see this very large structure that runs side to side. So we have the US lab there and the airlock is actually just down here.

Rosemary Coogan is about to undertake the biggest challenge yet of her astronaut career, a test to see if she's ready for a spacewalk. She's at NASA's Neutral Buoyancy Lab, a 12-meter deep pool complete with a life-sized replica of the International Space Station. Really looking forward to it. There's a lot of buildup. We have a lot of preparations.

We talk together as a team about the different tasks that have to be done, the best ways to do them, the most efficient ways. It's usually about six hours that we're underwater. It's a big day. ECS is secure water flow in BB1 rate. I'm at the poolside where I've been watching Rosemary being wrestled into her space suit. It's taken about half an hour. The boots have gone on, the trousers at the top and finally

the helmet. This is the last stage before the platform that she's standing on is raised up and then it's going to be lowered into the pool where her spacewalk can begin. Zutek EV1, set the delta pressure to four pounds. Being an astronaut always seemed like, of course I would like to do that. And I've certainly never thought of it as something I would really be able to end up doing. At careers day at school, you don't tend to meet astronauts.

You don't get to hear their stories, but it was absolutely always my kind of dream job. school you don't tend to meet astronauts, you don't get to hear their stories but it was absolutely always my kind of dream job. Rosemary, an astrophysicist, was chosen from more than 22,000 hopefuls to become a European space agency astronaut. As part of her training she spent the last six months at the Johnson Space Centre. At the pool, Rosemary is in constant communication with a team in the control centre.

She's been given a list of maintenance jobs to complete. It's very physically intense, psychologically intense. You do a lot of mental preparation. You really think through every single movement. You have to be really efficient with your energy. You really think through every single movement. You have to be really efficient with your energy. Thank you for the details. Rosemary's first launch will be to the International Space

Station, but NASA's soon heading back to the moon. And European Space Agency astronauts will join later missions. How would you feel about being the first Briton to set foot on the moon? I mean, it could happen. I am incredibly excited that we are going back to the moon. You know, we're really building upon everything we learned

from the Apollo missions, and we're going to really expand that. And of course, I would love to be involved with that. The spacewalk test is nearly complete, but then Rosemary is thrown a curve ball. Her spacewalk partner, Makoto, has been asked to pretend to pass out. I'm still not here with my Makoto.

Rosemary has to reach him and tow him to safety. It's painstakingly slow work. Do I have a minute for a quick GPA? Please. So how did she do? Jenna Hanson is assessing the test. It's six hours underwater, so she's got the endurance of a champion. So Rosemary just keep doing what you're doing, you're knocking out of the park and we're so happy to see all your progress. Rosemary, how are you feeling?

Oh, feeling really good, it was a challenging one. Really happy to have got to all the work sites, a challenging rescue. Yeah, it was a really enjoyable day. It's clearly been exhausting work but for Rosemary Coogan, days like this are putting space within her reach. Rebecca Morell reporting. And that's all from us for now, but there'll be a new edition of the Global News podcast later. If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, you can

send us an email. The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X at BBC World Service. Use the hashtag globalnewspod. This edition was produced by Judy Frankel and overseen by Steven Jensen. It was mixed by Rose and Wynne Dorrell and the editor is Karen Martin. I'm Bernadette Keough. Until next time, goodbye. This podcast is brought to you by Wwise. Wwise is the fast, affordable way to get the currency you need at your fingertips. Tap the Wwise Multi-Currency Card to spend pounds in London is the world.