Global News Podcast - UN warns children are at risk of exploitation in Venezuela

Episode Date: July 2, 2026

The United Nations children's agency, UNICEF, has warned that children in Venezuela are at an increased risk of exploitation and trafficking, a week after the country was hit by two devastating earthquakes. It also said some 680,000 children were among 1.8 million people in need of humanitarian assistance. Two thousand three hundred people are known to have been killed, but tens of thousands are unaccounted for, and rescue teams are still searching through the rubble of collapsed buildings. The country's interim president, Delcy Rodriguez, has declared seven days of mourning. Also: we look at why millions of travellers in Europe have been suffering long delays. Canada becomes the latest country to join the Eurovision song contest. And how the powerful opiod fentanyl is affecting the Somali community in the US.The Global News Podcast brings you the breaking news you need to hear, as it happens. Listen for the latest headlines and current affairs from around the world. Politics, economics, climate, business, technology, health – we cover it all with expert analysis and insight. Get the news that matters, delivered twice a day on weekdays and daily at weekends, plus special bonus episodes reacting to urgent breaking stories. Follow or subscribe now and never miss a moment. Get in touch: [e-mail] Photo: Children play in a tent at a temporary refugee camp after earthquakes hit the country, in La Guaira, Venezuela, June 26, 2026.  Credit: REUTERS/Gaby Oraa

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Is the American dream still possible? I'm Asma Khaled, one of the hosts of the Global Social. story podcast from the BBC. One of the most successful exports to the United States has ever sold the world is the American dream, that tantalizing promise of a better, freer, richer life. But is it still attainable? I feel like the American dream is alive, but not well. For more, listen to the global story on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Janet Jaliel and in the early hours of Thursday. the 2nd of July, these are our main stories. Warnings that children in Venezuela could fall victim to traffickers as a number of dead from the earthquakes a week ago rises to well over 2,000. We look at why millions of travellers in Europe have been suffering long delays and how the powerful opioid fentanyl is affecting the Somali community in the US. Also in this podcast, Canada is joining the Eurovision Song Contest from next year. I think it's an amazing opportunity in terms of Canada

actually presenting how excellent and how exciting. Our musical products have been for decades and just really haven't been seen outside of our specific borders. A week on from the devastating double earthquake in Venezuela, the number of dead has now risen to 2,300. With tens of thousands more still unaccounted for, the interim president, Delci Rodriguez, has announced seven days of mourning. Local communities frustrated and angry over the government's slow response

are working with rescue teams from around the world in the frantic search through the vast piles of rubble, hoping against hope after the rescue of a three-year-old boy on Tuesday that more lives can be saved. Egito Limei has been speaking to the little boy's aunt and sent this report from one of the worst-hit areas, Aguira. Most countries in the world would struggle to respond to such a brutal disaster. Venezuela was particularly ill-equipped, battered by years of political corruption and economic decline.

But its people are showing up. Truckloads of volunteers have been driving into the worst-hit areas to offer help. These are construction workers who have come from dozens of miles away. Venezuela is going through a bad moment. We've come to support the people who are trying to dig out survivors to help find the missing however we can. Jean-Pierre Runnel tells us. Are you hopeful that you might still find people alive?

Yes, yes, they shouted. Every second is precious. And it's moments like these that trigger that belief. A three-year-old boy, Kleber Moran, was pulled out from under the rubble, after six days by a Jordanian rescue team. Now stable and in hospital, his aunt, Andrina, is by his side. He doesn't even have a single fracture, just some scratches on his arms and legs. He's giving me little kisses.

He's talking to me and telling me where it hurts. She also says she has faith, the boy's mother, Anna Luz, will be found alive. For thousands, though, their worst fears. have been confound. This is the mother of a 44-year-old woman, Tahina Lula. I'm heartbroken, says Tiberze. I didn't leave the sight of the collapse for even one second. Her father, Clement, told us Tahina's body was recovered after six days.

When they removed the rubble and brought out the bodies, it was like a horror movie. You had to see if the body belonged to a body. your family or not. And you didn't know what to think, whether it was better to find them or not. Tahina, a surfer, and an active member of the community, was also the mother of two children. 14-year-old daughter Salern and 21-year-old Jonathan. In northern Venezuela, tens of thousands are homeless. Even more are reliant on aid for basic needs.

This is a queue for a small handout of food. Even before these disasters struck, this was a country grappling with an acute economic crisis with nearly a quarter of the population requiring humanitarian assistance just to survive. It's quite clear that this country cannot even begin to recover without a massive global effort. It will take years to rebuild what has been lost. Yagita Lemae there with that report on the scale of the destruction caused by last week, earthquakes in Venezuela. Here's one stark figure. The UN's Children's Agency, UNICEF, says 680,000 youngsters need humanitarian assistance and it's warning that many of them could fall

victim to child traffickers. Joe English is from UNICEF. We're working with Venezuela's National Child Protection Authority on identifying unaccompanied and separated children. We had missions going out in the first days, making sure that we're identifying them, you know, strengthening referral pathways, all of these things which are absolutely critical in terms of making sure that children who have been separated can be home with their parents, if that's possible, or with extended family, if not, you know, and making sure that they are safe. And this system is the protection against exploitation. Our correspondent Will Grant is in the Venezuelan capital Caracas.

I put it to him that on top of the trauma of the earthquakes, it was staggering to think that children in Venezuela are now also in danger from criminal gangs. Can you imagine? I mean, it is beyond belief that there are criminal organizations who see this as an opportunity to bolster their profits, to use the orphans and the missing children from this tragedy in people trafficking. But it is the truth. It's always truth in Latin America. These are times after major disasters when children are very, very vulnerable. It was true in Haiti in 2010. It's true in Venezuela in this moment. And it has been before in Australia after very, very major disasters like the Vargas mudslides in 1999. But I think it's also very interesting what was said about those statistics you quoted, 680,000 children at risk with extreme need for humanitarian assistance immediately. And that's everything from blankets to food, to shelter, clean drinking water, and of course trauma and psychological support for what they've been through. And is the aid getting in that all these people need, you talked about the children

There's also millions of adults as well. There are. And I think it is better than it was obviously a few days ago with the main airport in Caracas reopening, particularly to aid flights. So there has been improvement. We're even still, of course, seeing the rescue operations going on with international supports. There's international support in different ways, but the aid agencies of different types are here, everything from World Food Kitchen to the Catholic agencies and other. others already operate in Venezuela.

Of course, this is happening at a time where international humanitarian aid is being cut by a variety of countries, not least Washington, cutting the US State Department's aid agency, USAID. And yet we're hearing that it's going to take years and a massive global effort to rebuild Venezuela. And the US needs to be at the forefront of that. Is that likely, though? I mean, if the place where I've just come from and is anything to go by, will take years, and that's a place called Katia Lamar, right on the northern coastline. You go down certain streets in the car, and there are so many buildings that are completely

collapsed, that it's hard to see how the town will rebuild. And of course, with this supposed new relationship between Washington and Caracas, one would expect there to be support from Washington. At this stage, they are in the thick of the emergency effort. There is a very, very long way to go, but it does remain to be seen. whether or not there will be sort of sustained support, sustained partnership between the United States and the government of Delsi Rodriguez, if she remains in power, for the many years that requires some kind of rebuild and creation of permanent housing, permanent accommodation to the tens,

potentially hundreds of thousands of families that need it. Will Grant in Venezuela. Have you ever missed your flight because of long queues at the airport? Well, an airport's lobby group says new border. control checks in Europe are making this increasingly common, forcing some flights to leave half empty. ACI Europe, which represents hundreds of airports, has written a letter to the European Commission, urging it to suspend biometric checks over the busy summer holiday period. The group says the new rules are causing long delays for the millions of non-EU travellers that pass through

Europe's airports. Our transport correspondent Katie Austin spoke to Ankara about this controversial new system. This is about monitoring who's coming in and out of the Schengen Free Movement Zone, which is EU countries plus a couple more. And it applies to what are called third country

nationals. And that includes British travellers, those from the US, a number of other countries outside Europe as well. And the reason it's been causing some problems in some places is, well, it's a huge

new IT system and it means when all those people I just mentioned go in and out of this area, they are tracked on the system and also they've got to provide biometric details. So you've got to provide your fingerprints and have a photo taken. Now, there's been a gradual implementation since October and it's fair to say there have been some technical problems and where it hasn't worked so well and perhaps there also haven't been enough border staff in some instances, we've seen some quite long delays forming, not only when people arrive in those countries and have to register their information, but also that has to be then checked when they're leaving. So some people have not been able to get to their gate in time at airports because they've got stuck in those

passport control cues as they wait to fly home and then they've missed their flight. And I think the concern now is as we come up to the really busy summer peak, how is this system going to cope? Yeah, yeah, there will be anxiety. I remember seeing cues of people talking about five hours, you know, dozens of people missing their flights as well, as you mentioned. So there is that anxiety around this. And the ACI Europe, what are they calling for exactly? And who are they? So it's a big trade body or lobby group representing lots of European airports. I think they've been saying for a while, no problem with this system in theory, it's meant to make things more secure, but they have been quite vocal about the teething problems. And they have

been calling for the European Commission, who's really in charge of this, to do something. to ease the problems. The airports are really campaigning for the European Commission to, in particular, allow more flexibility for the time being for this system to be more easily suspended, if necessary. At the moment, there is a bit of leeway to suspend it if things get bad, if things get busy, but the airport's kind of lobby is saying that's not enough because as things stand, it'll only get worse,

and we need to be able to proactively or preventatively suspend the system if we know that more passengers are coming through than the border control system can cope with. And actually today the European Commission has said that they hope to meet with the industry. I understand that might be next week and that even though they say they are supporting countries with the implementation,

they might be prepared to do more with this summer period coming up. Katie Austin. Still to come in this podcast. We look at why big video games companies are no longer releasing discs and what going digital only means for gamers. How did the United States build the largest soft power empire in the world with the help of some tiny metal objects? I'm Tristan Redmond, one of the hosts of the Global Story Podcasts from the BBC.

To mark 250 years of the United States, we speak to Roman Mars of 99% invisible. This soft power, this influence, was an incredible invention. For more, listen to the global story on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Cape Verde have captured the imagination of fans at the World Cup. They've already made history by reaching the knockout stages in their debut tournament and now they're ready for their biggest test yet, Lionel Messi's Argentina. And ahead of the game, defender Sidney Lopez Cabral has been speaking to me, Mani Jasmy, for more than the score.

They're all asking me questions like, hey, how are going to stop messy? How are you going to do this? How are you going to do that? And I answer, they're all the same. I don't know. I'm focused on myself. We will see what will happen in the game.

For the stories beyond the score lines, more than the score from the BBC World Service. Listen now, wherever you get your BBC podcasts. The United States is about to mark its 250th anniversary. And so on the global. Story podcast from the BBC, we're telling surprising tales of American influence on the world stage and in ordinary people's lives all across the globe. We have this ability to export our story and a lot of people have bought it. I feel like the American dream is alive but not well.

From the BBC, it's the United States at 250. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. This is the Global News Podcast. The drug fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, 50 times more powerful than heroin, has devastated many communities, especially in the United States, killing hundreds of thousands of people in the past decade or so. White rural populations have been badly affected, but so have metropolitan areas with black and African-American populations. In the city of Minneapolis, the fentanyl crisis has touched many Somali families. Bushra Muhammad has been speaking to two Somali mothers.

One lost her son to a fentanyl overdose, the other watched her son survive addiction and rebuild his life. I came to the United States looking for peace, but I never found it. That's what Miriam Ahmed Saeed tells me. I've never felt peace, she says. When I met her in Minneapolis, she sits quietly in her living room. In her hands are the documents she cannot bring herself to throw away. Her son's papers, his tax records, and the post-mortem report that explains how he died. The report concludes that Samatar died from a fentanyl overdose.

When he died, I decided to do a post-mortem. The community has asked me not to do it, but I had to. And I was told he died because of fentanyl overdose. Mariam fled Somalia's civil war decades ago after witnessing violence and losing loved ones. She hoped the United States would offer safety and a fresh start. I was young when the war started in my country. My loved ones were killed in front of me.

Instead, she says, she found another kind of grief. Death is very painful, and I live with it till now. I live with a lot of pain. Fentanyl has become a major driver of overdose deaths in the United States. Officials say deaths remain high despite recent declines from the peak in 2022, when more than a thousand people died from opioid overdose in Minnesota alone. For Mariam, those statistics are personal. Hassan Samatar is one of them.

Across Minneapolis, another Somali mother told me she once feared she might receive the same devastating news. De Gassan became involved in drugs and street violence as a teenager. She remembers nights when fear took over her home. He will come into the house while being cheered. He will ask me to close all the curtains, switch off the lights, and tell us to lie on the floor. Deca says she often wondered whether Hassan would survive,

but with her help, he overcame addiction and the death of his close friend became a turning point. One thing I am here to let you know is that anybody can do this. Today, he works with the young people struggling with drugs, trying to prevent them from making the same mistakes. These babies who are born in the United States. Julie Pouch is the chief strategist for, for opioid response in Minneapolis, Henipine County. She says cultural differences can play a role in vulnerability to addiction.

They are being raised as third culture kids, but they are now totally surrounded by American culture, and they are being exposed to drugs, alcohol, music, clothes, clothes, all this other stuff their parents never knew about. For Deca, there's a relief that her son survive. So in the end, I decided to change a lot about myself because these kids nowadays will challenge you.

We don't understand each other. But for Mariam, there are only memories and the papers she keeps close beside her. A mother search for peace that began during Somalia's war continues today in a quiet corner from Minneapolis home. That report by Bushra Mohammed. We've now heard from Donald Trump after it was revealed that he made more than a billion dollars last year

from various business dealings in cryptocurrency. That's after pledging to make America the crypto capital of the planet during his re-election campaign. A big turnaround from the days when he used to describe a digital currency as a scam. Many of Mr Trump's followers who invested in his cryptocurrency, known as a meme coin, have suffered big losses. But the president has denied profiteering. He says his sons managed the business via a trust

and therefore there is no conflict of interest. Speaking next to Air Force One, he claimed he was only getting richer because his policies were making everyone else richer too. Well, you know why I'm profiting because the stock market's going up. So we're all profiting. I'm profiting because I have a lot of money and a lot of cash. And I give it to institutions.

I don't know if they know what they're doing or not. So how does this compare to other presidents' business dealings while in office? Megan Gorman, a tax attorney and author of the book, All the President's Money, has been speaking to Rebecca Kesby. When you look across the history of the United States, the real precedent was set by George Washington. You have to remember, there's always an inherent conflict of interests with presidents and their personal finances and being president. But out of the gate, Washington wanted to make sure that he could have some arm's length distance. And every president since then has followed suit.

And so what is so shocking about the news of the disclosures is I think that this is completely unprecedented in American history. Well, Mr. Trump, of course, says that his business is in a trust. It's being run by his sons. So he says there's no conflict of interest. But, I mean, he's never apologized about his wealth. He's never hidden it. But is that just a stylistic difference with other presidents, the fact that he talked about it, whereas maybe other presidents try and keep it more quiet, don't crow about the wealth that they've already got? Yeah, you know, I think it's a little bit of blurring the rules, right, and focusing on what he wants to focus on. Let's go back historically, right, when you look at presidents, and I'll take Ronald Reagan, who came into office in 1981, As he was coming into office, he basically sold everything but his ranch and his personal home.

And he put it into a trust that had an independent trustee. But, you know, what's so different here is they, in that time period, they felt the need to point out to the public that they were not, you know, having a conflict, that they were prioritizing country over personal interest. So what's really going on here is not just what Trump is doing, but it's a good example of the complete erosion in trust that Americans have. So, Megan, on that, let's talk about the issue of cryptocurrency, because one of the complaints is the lack of transparency with these currencies, because literally anybody could be buying it from any country, any individual, they may not have the best interests of the United States at heart

when they invest in these things. Is that part of the issue? I think it's one of many issues. I think that what you're seeing here is the idea that the American public is watching someone capitalize on the presidency. The idea of making money off of being a prior president is a fairly modern concept. It was Gerald Ford, who in the 70s when he left office 50 years ago, 48 years ago, said, it's okay to go into private enterprise and make money. And we've seen that since then. But, you know, this idea of investing in crypto, taking advantage of it, having that influence to allow, you know, the cryptocurrency holdings to benefit the Trump family, that is incredibly unique. Megan Gorman, a tax attorney and author of the book, All the President's Money. The Eurovision Song Contest has a new competitor, Canada, which is joining from next year. If you're thinking, but Canada isn't in Europe, you're not alone.

William Lee Adams is a BBC journalist and founder of Weewe Blogs, the world's most followed independent Eurovision channel on YouTube. He explains why Canada, like Australia, before it a decade ago, has been allowed to join despite being nowhere near Europe. You're absolutely right. But the EBU, the European Broadcasting Union, they would say this is not a contest between countries. It's a contest between broadness.

So in this competition, admission to the club isn't defined by borders. It's defined by bureaucracy. So if you have a broadcaster that's a paying member, full member of the European Broadcasting Union, and you follow certain rules, you're eligible to participate in the contest. That's why we see Australia competing, for instance. We see Israel, which many people don't consider geographically in Europe. And now we're going to have Canada. So all eyes will be on Canada's entry at the next Eurovision contest, which will take place in Bulgaria. Matty McLean is a Eurovision superfan and the host of a podcast called A Canadian in Eurovision. The idea of Canada has always been a country that's trying to prove itself.

For decades, for centuries even, we have been put up pretty much right in proximity to America, which tends to dominate a lot of the entertainment industry. Despite that, Canada has actually had quite the musical background, quite the musical legacy, with some of the best artists that never, frankly, leave our borders. And so with this contest coming up, I think it's an amazing opportunity in terms of Canada actually presenting how excellent and how exciting our musical products have been for decades and just really haven't been seen outside of our specific borders. Your vision is the biggest entertainment stage in the world, arguably. It is artistic. It is incredible. It is something that gives everything from like micro-nations all the way up to major players

an equal stage and the opportunity to represent themselves for at least three minutes with a song. And that opportunity doesn't come around very often. The last country to enter Eurovision and win the first go was Serbia in 2008. And technically they were part of Serbia and Montenegro the couple years before and were consistently doing well. So that's not like such a huge surprise. Australia entered, they did consistently well. The second year they entered, they came in second. Are our chances of coming in first excellent out the go?

I mean, our quality of music is there, so it's possible. And I mean, if I'm some way behind the helm, I have to assume it's going to be better. But apart from that, like, do we stand a chance of winning the first year? Honestly, probably not. But will we do extremely well and better than people expect? Absolutely. Eurovision superfan, Mattie McLean. Now, are we seeing the end of the video game disc?

Last week, US developer, Rockstar Games, said its highly anticipated Grand Theft Auto-6 would come with a download code rather than being a physical copy. And now the tech giant Sony says all new PlayStation games will be digital only from January 2028. The companies say they're following the way people play now. But is this shift really just about convenience? Carla Conti reports. It's the sound that defined a generation.

For millions of people, especially those born in the late 90s and early 2000s, It meant sitting cross-legged in front of the TV, anxiously waiting for the PlayStation logo to appear. It meant long afternoons, faulty memory cards, and blowing dust off of an old scratch disc in the hope that that might somehow bring it back to life. The first PlayStation sold more than 102 million consoles. Its successor, the PlayStation 2, did even better, more than 160 million sold worldwide, making it the best-selling games. console ever. And the games sold in even bigger numbers. In one financial year alone, shortly after the PS2 came out, Sony shipped more than 200 million game discs. But now, one of the most familiar parts of that experience is being phased out. Sony says that from January 28, new PlayStation games

will no longer be released as physical discs. Players will have to buy them digitally. instead, either through the PlayStation store or as download codes from retailers. It's specified that older games already released on disc will not be affected. The announcement comes ahead of the release of Grand Theft Auto 6 in November, one of the most anticipated games in years. Rockstar Games says people will still be able to buy a physical version of GTA 6, but inside the box there will be a download code rather than a disc. For its part, Sony says that the industry is simply responding to the way people already play,

with more games bought as downloads rather than in boxes. And there is a clear convenience to that. You do not have to go to a shop or wait endlessly for a delivery. You can buy your game from the comfort of your own home and start it straight away, or as soon as it's finished downloading anyway. But many gamers fear the consequences could be significant. A disc can be sold on, traded in, lend to a friend or bought second hand. And once games become digital only, that second life largely disappears. That could hurt players who rely on trade-ins or cheaper used copies, especially with

some major titles now costing around $80 or more. For Sony and other publishers, though, fewer disks means lower costs and more control over how games are sold and discounted. But for those who grew up with stacks of games beside the TV and price them like a vinyl record collection, this may very well feel like the end of an era. Carla Conti reporting. And that's all from us for now. If you want to get in touch, you can email us at global podcast at BBC.co.com.

This edition of the Global News podcast was mixed by Russell Newlove. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Jeanette Joliel. Until next time. How did the United States build the largest soft power empire in the world with the help of some tiny metal objects? I'm Tristan Redmond, one of the hosts of the Global Story Podcasts from the BBC. To mark 250 years of the United States, we speak to Roman Mars of 99% invisible.

This soft power, this influence, was an incredible invention. For more, listen to The Global Story on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.