Global News Podcast - Ukraine and Russia agree prisoner swap after direct talks

Episode Date: May 16, 2025

The first direct talks between Russia and Ukraine in more than three years have ended without a ceasefire agreement. Also: a man who attacked the author Salman Rushdie is jailed for 25 years

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. How did the internet go from this? You could actually find what you were looking for right away, buying to this. I feel like I'm in hell. Spoiler alert, it was not an accident. I'm Corey Doctorow, host of Who Broke the Internet from CBC's Understood. In this four-part series, I'm going to tell you why the internet sucks now, whose fault it is and my plan to fix it. Find Who Broke the Internet on whatever terrible app you get your podcasts.

This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Valerie Sanderson and in the early hours of Saturday the 17th of May these are our main stories. Direct peace talks between Russia and Ukraine end with no ceasefire but a prisoner swap is agreed. In Gaza, officials say 100 people have been killed following intensive Israeli airstrikes. The former president of Gabon, Ali Bongo, has arrived in Angola after being released from detention in his homeland. Also in this podcast, as voters in Portugal prepare to go to the polls on Sunday, we hear about the issues dominating the general election campaign.

We have been growing relatively well during the last year, but we know that in the next year we will grow less. So we have a major problem here due to the lack of active population. Ukraine and Russia's attempt at direct peace talks has ended with no agreement on a ceasefire, but has achieved a deal on the biggest swap of prisoners since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Ukraine's defence minister Rustam Omerov spoke to reporters after the talks had finished. The tentative success of today's negotiations is still to be consolidated. That means that the pressure on the Russian Federation must continue.

And there are many issues that can be resolved if only the leaders can meet. Rustam Umarov referencing the fact that President Zelensky of Ukraine and Russia's President Putin did not attend. Vitaliy Shevchenko is Russia editor at BBC Monitoring and told me more about the prison swap. A thousand people going home from each country, so that's progress. But not exactly what Ukraine and its allies had been demanding. Up until the talk started, Ukrainian officials from Vladimir Zelensky down had been saying what we need is an immediate ceasefire

to start now lasting at least 30 days. That didn't happen. The head of the Russian delegation, Vladimir Medinsky, only said that the two delegations had agreed to exchange their visions of how this is possible. Another thing that the Ukrainians were demanding is a meeting between Vladimir Zelensky and Vladimir Putin. And the Russians, they took note of the request. And the head of the Ukrainian delegation here,

Rostam Omerov, was speaking here right next to me in Istanbul and he said the next step should be a meeting between Zelensky and Putin. So still making demands, they're still outlining the vision of what should happen. But apart from that prison exchange, very little has been achieved. And the question is, how will Ukraine's allies react? How will Donald Trump react? Because together with Vladimir Zelensky, they've also been saying, we need a ceasefire now or else.

You will remember that a week ago, European leaders, including Manel Macron and Kirste Amma and the new German Chancellor Mertz, were in Kiev saying we need the Russian ceasefire starting at the 12th of May. That deadline came and went and nothing happened and we are not seeing any sanctions yet either. So little pressure is being applied to Vladimir Putin who I don't think is feeling pressured into ceasing fire in Ukraine. Well, President Trump has again spoken of meeting President Putin himself. Is that the way forward? Is that the view?

I'm sure this is what Vladimir Putin would love to have. The two presidents, Trump and Putin, I think they share this vision of sorting out global problems between the two of them. And this clearly sidelines Ukraine. It sidelines Ukraine's European allies. This isn't something that Vladimir Zelensky would want to happen. But the truth is that he doesn't really have much choice, even though he's been saying for a long time now that Vladimir Putin come to Istanbul, I'm prepared to meet you. That didn't happen. So it just shows that

he'll possibly have to wait for this meeting between Putin and Trump and see what comes out of it. Vitaly Shevchenko. Israel has dropped leaflets across northern Gaza urging Palestinians to leave the area as concerns grow that it's preparing to intensify its offensive against Hamas. In recent days the Israeli military has stepped up its bombardment. Hamas says more than a hundred people were killed on Friday alone. Israel says it struck dozens of terrorist targets. The UN human rights chief Volker Turk says the attacks, combined with the blocking of aid, amount to a campaign of ethnic cleansing.

Jeremy Lawrence is Mr. Turk's spokesman. This latest barrage of bombs, forcing people to move amid the threat of intensified attacks, the methodical destruction of the entire neighbourhoods, and the denial of humanitarian assistance underlines that there appears to be a push for a permanent demographic shift in Gaza in defiance of international law. Our correspondent in Jerusalem, Wera Davis, gave us this update.

Well the most recent attacks which were by land, sea and air, and were by far the biggest attacks, according to local reports, that we've seen since the resumption of Israel's military attacks at the start of March. They were focused in northern Gaza around Beit Lachia and Jabalia, but over the last week we've seen missile strikes attacks across Gaza, from the south to the center to the north of the Gaza Strip. As I said, these are the latest to the center to the north of the Gaza Strip. As I said, these are the latest and the biggest attacks. It's not yet the start of what has been named Operation Gideon's Chariots, which is the much-promised and much-threatened huge military

offensive in Gaza that Benjamin Netanyahu has said will happen if the ceasefire talks between Hamas and Israel, those indirect talks fail. It looks like they are failing. There's been no positive news from Doha. So I think in coming days we can expect something even bigger than we saw overnight. So what is Israel saying about these attacks that have just been happening? Israel justifies them saying they're attacking specific targets, the bases of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. There had been some rockets earlier in the week, a handful of rockets

fired by Palestinian Islamic Jihad from northern Gaza into Israel. So Israel says it's attacking command and control centers. It of course accuses the Palestinian armed groups of operating from within civilian infrastructure. In fact one of the most biggest developments over the last 24 hours has been a drop of leaflets by the Israeli Air Force and a warning to people in Gaza City and in northern Gaza to evacuate places like homes, like a university, a former hospital, and three former schools. Now these are places where thousands of people are sheltering from the war because they've been made homeless by the war. And Israel has now told people to leave these places in northern Gaza

and in Gaza City because of what is going to come in the next few days. You're in Jerusalem. I mean, how much support is there in Israel itself for the ramping up of military action in Gaza? The latest polls actually show that an increasing majority of Israelis do want some form of ceasefire agreement. Of course, the priority for many Israelis is the release of the remaining hostages.

About 20, 23 of them are thought still to be alive. But they think that the government's priority, and Benjamin Netanyahu has made it clear abundantly that his priority is defeating Hamas, destroying Hamas. Most Israelis would disagree with that. They say the hostages release is the most important thing. Therefore, most Israelis do support a ceasefire agreement. They also see Israel standing in the world, its economy suffering as the war continues. You know, one byproduct of Donald Trump's tour of the Middle East was that Israel seemed

to be on the fringes, on the sidelines. Israel was hardly mentioned publicly by Donald Trump as he was striking these big multi-billion dollar deals with various Gulf countries. And I think that worries a lot of Israelis as well. They see this war, the prolonging of this war, as damaging for Israel as well of course as damaging for the prospects of returning the hostages alive. Wira Davis. President Trump appears to have adopted a more sympathetic tone towards the

plight of Palestinians after completing a tour of the Middle East. He told reporters that a lot of people were starving in Gaza as he ended the trip which didn't include a visit to Israel. The US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said yesterday that the White House was troubled by the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza. With his thoughts about whether there is a rift between the US and Israel, here's our State Department correspondent, Tom Bateman. In February the Trump-Netanyahu relationship seemed unshakable. But in short order, Mr Netanyahu has looked increasingly sidelined by an unpredictable president.

It began with Mr Trump's decision to start direct talks with Iran, which he declared publicly in front of Mr Netanyahu in the Oval Office. Mr Trump's sacking of Mike Waltz as US National Security Advisor came amid reports denied by the White House that the President was angry that Mr. Waltz, an Iran hawk, had spoken about military strategy with Mr. Netanyahu, who also rebuffed the story. Mr. Trump left Israel out of his gilded palaces tour of Gulf Arab capitals, during which he said the US

had no stronger partner than Saudi Arabia, an epithet usually reserved in the region for Israel. And in the Emirates, Donald Trump spoke of the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza amid Israel's increasingly ferocious assault. We're looking at Gaza and we've got to get that taken care of. A lot of people are starving, a lot of people are, there's a lot of bad things going on. Such rifts at a political level between the White House and its closest Middle Eastern ally are nothing new. It may have suited Mr Trump for some distance to appear between him and Israel

while he was wanting to get multi-billion dollar investment deals from Arab states. But the fundamentals in this relationship have not shifted, with Mr Trump speeding up Washington's arming of Israel. His new attention to Palestinian suffering is more likely an attempt to promote a much-criticised US-Israeli plan to bypass the UN as the major humanitarian agency. However, there are signs the administration has been more prepared to go around Israel to work on a ceasefire and hostage deal, having set a precedent by carrying out its own backchannel talks with Hamas

to free the Israeli-American Edan Alexander. At the same time, Israel has chosen to intensify its offensive in Gaza, where hundreds of Palestinians are being killed every week. Tom Bateman. The former president of Gabon, Ali Bongo, has arrived in Angola after being released from detention in his homeland. He'd been toppled in a coup in 2023. His wife and son, Sylvie Inuridan, had also been imprisoned following the coup. It's understood that corruption charges against these two are still ongoing. Richard Hamilton is following the coup. It's understood that corruption charges against these two are still ongoing. Richard Hamilton is following the story.

The coup leader, Brice Olige Ngema, put Ali Bongo and his family under house arrest, accused them of corruption. He hailed himself as a new clean leader and he won the elections last month. And then after that election, the African Union was satisfied that there was a return to democracy and it lifted sanctions against Gabon and called for the family's release. So a deal was done behind closed doors to fly Ali Bongo and his wife and son to Angola and it's understood he won't be prosecuted but there may be corruption trials against Sylvie, his wife, who's thought to be really the power behind the throne because Ali Bongo had a stroke, and as well as the

son. But these trials may not be held in Gabon, they may be also in absentia. And the Bongo family, they're incredibly wealthy, aren't they? That's right, I mean about a third of the population of Gabon lives below the poverty line, while the Bongo family basically siphoned off its oil wealth. So Transparency International said there were staggering riches, hundreds of millions in 70 bank accounts, 39 luxury properties in France, including mansions in Paris, luxury cars like Rolls Royces, Ferraris, Mercedes, and Ali Bongo was reportedly he liked to go on high-speed joy rides in the deserts and Gabon's anti-corruption watchdog said half of the state budget simply vanished.

Now his father Omar Bongo came to power in the 60s and was basically kept there by France. It was mutually beneficial. Nicolas Sarkozy called Gabon their special partner, and it's thought that Omar Bongo personally bankrupted Jacques Chirac's election campaign back in 1981. So what about the new leader of the country? Are things going to get any better for the population? Well that's the big question. So Brice and Gemma, as I say, has portrayed himself as the man who toppled this corrupt Bongo dynasty, he's actually Ali bongo's cousin and some analysts think that despite all the rhetoric of turning a new page starting a new chapter for the country that in fact the

extended bongo family and its sort of shadowy network is still in power just under a new name so some analysts are saying it's a case of meet the new boss same as the old boss. Richard Hamilton. Still to come in this podcast. Because oldest siblings tend to have the academic edge, younger siblings tend to be overrepresented in things like elite sports. They see that their older siblings have the lane of academics and so they push themselves to excel in a different arena. Can a relationship with a sibling do more to influence the course of a sister or brother's life than we may think? This podcast is brought to you by WISE. WISE is the fast, affordable way to get the currency

you need at your fingertips. Tap the WISE multi-currency card to spend pounds in London or download the app to move pesos to Mexico City. WISE always gives you a fair exchange 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 Mangione trial from the BBC World Service. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.

Portugal's Prime Minister and Democratic Alliance leader, Luis Montenegro, has wrapped up his election campaign, asking people to vote in Sunday's election. It's the third general election there in four years, after the government lost a vote of confidence in early March. Luis Montenegro had been under pressure after a scandal involving a company he'd transferred to his wife and children, which had links to government contracts. His Senderite government has tightened immigration laws and they're a key issue in these elections. Antonio Fernandes has this report from Lisbon. Despite political turmoil, the Portuguese economy has kept growing,

verging on 2% growth last year. Portugal has successfully attracted foreign investment, often described as Europe's Silicon Valley, but it's also an aging country, with one of the oldest populations in Europe. We know that in the next year we will grow less. So we have a major problem here. João Rodrigues dos Santos is economics professor at Universidade Europeia in Lisbon. Without immigrants, the problems that we now feel, they would be worse.

In 2017, the then socialist government created something called an Expression of Interest Scheme that allowed people to move to Portugal and only then request a visa to live and work. But they could actually start working right away while waiting for their visa. Immigration numbers rocketed, going from 400,000 to nearly 1.6 million. I think immigration for the first time in this campaign was a major topic. That's Gonçalo Matias. He's a migration expert and the president of the foundation Francisco Manuel dos Santos. In response to that influx, the outgoing government ended the scheme.

By then, immigration agency AIMA already had a backlog of more than 400,000 cases. Created a lot of backlogs and also a general perception in the public that immigration was not under control. We have to understand that immigrants need a home. general perception in the public that immigration was not under control. André Ventura and his far-right party Chega grabbed on to that feeling and in last year's general election managed to go from 12 to 50 MPs in a 230 seat Parliament. The centre-right has stayed away from a coalition with Chega which would have given them a majority but they have kept immigration as a key issue. That has led to accusations of populism.

Here's the leader of left-wing party Bloco de Esquerda, Mariana Mortagua, in a TV debate. You realise that attacking immigrants is a political propaganda tool to fight for Chega's votes. As I call an Uber to get across town, I'm driven by Thiago. He is 42 and came from Brazil six years ago. Thiago tells me he first came to Portugal as a tourist, making use of the Expression of Interest scheme. He says that he was stuck in Portugal for more than two years, waiting to get his resident visa.

When I ask him if he would do it again, he says no, it has become too difficult. But then, surprisingly, he tells me that even as an immigrant, he agrees with a lot of what Andre Ventura says. He's seen a rise in Brazilians arriving and becoming homeless, so he thinks immigration needs regulation. According to official figures, the number of immigrants entering Portugal fell by almost 60% since the scheme was cancelled last year. But there remain issues concerning both work and living conditions for immigrants. And that's why Professor João Rodrigues dos

Santos agrees that immigration can't carry on without regulation. The problem is that we need immigrants but we don't know if our country has enough conditions to receive all of these immigrants. So it's, I would say, probably an equation without a simple solution. That report from Antonio Fernandes in Portugal. A man who tried to murder the British author Salman Rushdie at a cultural centre in New York State has been jailed for 25 years. 27-year-old Hadi Mata repeatedly stabbed Mr Rushdie on stage, leaving him blind in one eye and suffering multiple other injuries. Jason Schmidt was the district attorney who brought the case. I think the evidence is clear that Mr Rushdie would have bled out from about 15 holes that were inflicted upon his torso and his neck and his face right there on the stage in front

of everyone who was there to watch it. The FBI believes Mata was attempting to carry out the 1989 fatwa issued by the leader of Iran at the time, calling for Mr. Rushdie's execution following the publication of his book, The Satanic Verses. Our correspondent Jake Kwan in Washington told us more. This is the maximum sentence that a second degree murder as well as an assault can bring. The prosecution had painted this picture during the trial of a man who was radicalized. He's a man who subscribed to Hezbollah's ideology, which in the United States they see as a terrorist organization. This is the picture that the prosecution had

been painting that he had tried to send money to Hezbollah and that he believed that the organization still wanted the death of the author. Now this book, Satanic Verses, was published years before this man was even born. He's in his late 20s now. The book was published more than 35 years ago. And he believed that the decree to kill Mr. Rushdie was still valid. And then he saw this tweet and he decided that he's going to go to this speaking event and stab him. Now his defense had argued that it was not a premeditated murder, that it was not his intent to kill Mr. Rushdie. The fact that there was no guns or there were no bombs, that it was not his intent to kill Mr Rushdie. The fact that there was

no guns or there were no bombs, that it was simply a knife that Mattar had brought was a sign that it was not murder that was in his mind but obviously the jury did not buy that and they reached a conclusion pretty quickly only after two hours and reached verdict that he is guilty. Jake Kwon. Can a relationship with a sibling have more influence on a brother or sister's life than we may think? There are famous examples of family successes. The Williams sisters, Elle and Dakota Fanning, but often one sibling's success may propel another in a totally different direction.

The topic is now the subject of a book by New York Times magazine journalist Susan Dominus, The Family Dynamic, a journey into the mystery of sibling success. She spoke to Simon Jack about how her interest in the issue began. Well, I started out writing this book about high achieving siblings and I expected it to be a book about parenting and I kept interviewing parents but when I really spoke to the high achieving siblings, the themes that came out over and over again was the influence of their siblings even more than their parents, or at least as much as. And I realized that this was kind of an underexplored phenomenon and was really influential for these young people or these successful people.

In what way? I mean, everyone knows, listen, when Serena Williams was going to tennis camp with Venus Williams, it was pretty clear they were both going to be successful tennis players, but some of the things you say is that actually it pushed you in different directions. What kind of influences did you come across? So there's this really interesting phenomenon, which is that the oldest child tends to have the cognitive edge over their younger siblings because they get all of that enrichment in that first year of life when they're an only child. You know, oldest children are only children for longer than any of the other siblings.

So does that mean they thrive academically? Yeah, they tend to do a little bit better academically than their younger siblings. They test higher, even at age one. And where I'm going with this is that we see that because oldest siblings tend to have the academic edge, younger siblings tend to be overrepresented in things like elite sports. And the thinking there is that they see that their older siblings have the lane of academics and so they push themselves to excel in a different arena.

And one of the people I interviewed was Sarah True, who's this Olympic triathlete turned Ironman champion. I'm sure she was a great student, but she looked up to her older siblings and thought they were much better students. And she says she remembers making a concerted choice that this was something that not only did she think she could excel at, but she didn't think they cared about it. So it was hers.

You know, she owned it. Presumably some of this comes down to how parents change over time. They learn to parent differently and, you know, try and pick out different skills and gifts and traits in their different children? What really matters in a way for differentiation is also, or different, you know how do we explain such different outcomes within a family? Parents finances fluctuate over time and that can make a really big difference in how siblings turn out. Like it's sort of like musical chairs, you know, where were you when it was time to go to college? Did your parents have the funds or didn't they? By the way, divorce

is really common. How old were you when your parents divorced? Were you already out of school? Were you 14 years old at that really sensitive, tender age? So I think parenting matters of course in the day to day, but also where are their resources? What is the stability at the time? Those kinds of things. Is this a kind of, maybe it's a family sense of drive for excellence, whatever field it may be in? Yeah, I think that's exactly right. You see more differentiation actually in middle class and upper middle class families because

there are the resources, oh darling, you want to go into theatre, here, let me get you into this writing programme. Right. Whereas in working, lower than working class families, the kids spend more time together, so they actually influence each other more. Or for example, I wrote about the Mergias, who all ended up in very prominent national level leadership roles in the United States, came from very humble backgrounds. But all four of them went to law school.

And I think that none of them would have been successful if they didn't have the symbiosis of the four of them in similar enough fields that they could help each other out. Journalist Susan Dominus. It is 50 years since the release of the film Jaws, and the anniversary is being marked by the endurance athlete Lewis Pugh, who's swimming 100 kilometres around Martha's Vineyard off the east coast of the US, where the movie was filmed. During a break between stages, Lewis told the BBC he hopes the swim will change the movie was filmed. During a break between stages Lewis told the BBC he hopes the swim will change the narrative around sharks.

It's the 50th anniversary. I have always wanted to do a swim to talk about sharks and how important they are and the 50th anniversary is a perfect moment. Swimming in the ocean can never be risk free but next to me I've got a boat with people looking out for sharks and next to me I've also got a kayak. You do have those thoughts in your mind all the time. The movie was so effective, it became a blockbuster, but it set a narrative and the music was so effective, right? And it set the narrative for the last 50 years and I hope that doing this swim we can set a new narrative about just how important sharks are for a new generation. I mean sharks are apex predators. They're

absolutely essential for a healthy ocean and they're really threatened globally right now. I mean the numbers are just frightening. So about 274,000 sharks are killed every day. I mean, think about that. You multiply that over a year, it's nearly 100 million sharks are killed every single year. It's completely unsustainable. It's an ecocide which is taking place right now. The Swimmer, Lewis Pugh. 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 Daniel Fox, the producers were Charles Sanctuary and Stephanie Tillotson. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Valerie Sanderson. Until next time, bye bye. This podcast is brought to you by WISE. WISE is the fast, affordable way to get the currency you need at your fingertips. Tap the WISE Multi-Currency Card to spend pounds in London is world. 12 million customers managing their international money with Wyse can't be wrong. Download the Wyse app today or visit Wyse.com. T's and T's apply.