Global News Podcast - US threatens to walk away from Ukraine peace talks

Episode Date: April 18, 2025

American top diplomat Marco Rubio warns US will walk away from Ukraine peace talks if progress is not seen within days. Also, US strikes in Yemen reportedly kill nearly sixty people, and the Fyre Festival relit?

This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Janet Jaleel and at 13 Hours GMT on Friday the 18th of April, these are our main stories. The US threatens to walk away from Ukraine peace talks if real progress isn't made within days. US strikes on a key oil terminal in a Houthi controlled part of Yemen are reported to have killed nearly 60 people. Sudan's biggest camp for displaced people is destroyed by RSF rebels. Also in this podcast, what will the new Islamist-led government in Syria mean for religious minorities? We are not just Muslims in Syria. It is a diverse society. The priority for us is to learn music, theatre, how to film. It is more important than building a mosque.

And could it be a game changer? The artificial heart transplanted into a small boy in China. But first, time is running out to agree a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. Donald Trump famously promised to end the war within a day if he became US President. But having failed to extract any major concessions from Russia, Mr Trump has recently been showing growing signs of frustration and this week again blamed Ukraine for starting the war. Now his top diplomat Marco Rubio has warned that if there isn't real progress soon, America will simply walk away. This despite Ukraine taking the first

step towards signing a controversial minerals deal with the US. After a day of talks in Paris with European leaders, Mr Rubio sounded this warning. So we came here yesterday to try to figure out very soon, and I'm talking about a matter of days, not a matter of weeks, whether or not this is the war that can be ended. If it can, we're prepared to do whatever we can to facilitate that and make sure that it happens, that it ends in a durable and just way. If it's not possible, if we're so far apart that this is not going to happen, then I think the President's probably at a point where he's going to say, well, we're done. We'll do what we can on the margins. We'll be ready to help whenever you're ready to have peace. But we're not going to continue with this endeavor for weeks and months on end.

So what could this mean for Ukraine? Our correspondent there is James Waterhouse. It's a perilous political juncture for Ukraine because it could mean that America brings in more punitive measures for Moscow in terms of further sanctions to try and bring it to the table. But hearing Mr. Rubio there, that seems like America would turn its back. And when you consider that American military aid for Ukraine is just going to dry up, the Trump administration hasn't signed off any further packages, none have been put in front of Congress, he hasn't used any presidential drawdown powers to sign off military aid.

That would amount to leaving Ukraine to continue to fight this war with the Europeans still working out what kind of troop presence they could provide, what kind of weapons manufacturing they could uphold, and it's widely accepted that that collective weight of Europe and Ukraine is still insufficient to keep Russia at bay in the long term. Despite all of the positive sounds coming from Paris with the meeting of European, American and Ukrainian officials, it seems that actually we are more on a knife edge in regards to the course of this war. James Waterhouse. Well, the Kremlin spokesman was asked for his response to the US threat to abandon the Ukraine peace talks. Dmitry Peskov said it was up to the White House to answer that question, but insisted that some progress had been made. For instance, a temporary moratorium on striking

Ukrainian energy infrastructure, which Russia now says has expired. Contacts going on are quite complicated because naturally the topic of peace settlement in Ukraine is not an easy one. Russia is committed to resolving this conflict, ensuring its own interests, and is open to dialogue. We continue to do this. So what could this latest US threat mean for Moscow? Our Russia editor is Steve Rosenberg. Well, just listening to Dmitry Peskov there, he doesn't seem to be overly concerned by the warning from Marco Rubio. There's no sense that Russia is changing its position. What the Russians are saying is, yep, things are not going very easily in negotiations. But he said it was up to America to decide whether to pull out or not.

So I don't think there's any change in position there. But I think it's important to realize, to keep in mind, that we're only seeing the tip of the iceberg here. We are not privy to all the conversations that have been going on around the tables, and that includes the conversations between Donald Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, and Vladimir Putin a few days ago in St. Petersburg. That includes the conversations that went on in Paris yesterday. Clearly there's a lot of diplomatic activity going on, high-level diplomatic activity.

So I think we need to wait and see what happens in the next few days. But there does seem to be a frustration on the part of the Trump administration, that this deal that Donald Trump thought he could get in 24 hours, but he hasn't got it yet. And there's a lot of fear from Ukraine as we were just hearing. We heard President Zelensky talking about Mr. Wyckoff of spreading Russian narratives. If the US was to walk away from the peace talks, surely that would suit Russia given that it has such a bigger military

machine? Well, I think Ukraine has more to worry about this than Russia does. Certainly. You mentioned Russian narratives, yes. For months now we've seen senior US officials, particularly Mr. Witkoff, repeating Russian narratives. He's been effusive in his praise of Vladimir Putin. And clearly, the Trump administration wants to get on and repair relations with Russia. There's talk about potential lucrative deals, economic partnership. So while the Ukraine peace talks have been going on, at the same time, the US and Russia have been getting on separately trying to repair their relations. And there's no suggestion that if the Trump administration was to walk away from the Ukraine

peace talks, that it would stop its bilateral discussions with Russia. Steve Rosenberg. The Israeli military is continuing to attack Gaza as Hamas resists its attempts to renegotiate the original ceasefire deal that saw hostages released earlier this year. Hospital officials say at least 23 people were killed in the latest overnight strikes on the strip. Hamas says it will accept a deal that sees all the remaining hostages in Gaza released in exchange for an end to the war, but it won't accept a partial deal that serves the Israeli Prime Minister's political agenda. Our correspondent in Jerusalem, Yorlan Danel, gave us this update. The latest we've heard from reports from local hospitals of at least 23 people killed

in different parts of the Gaza Strip, particularly in the south and in the north in the latest strikes. We've not had new comments from the Israeli military on what it was targeting. It did say a day ago that it was hitting Hamas targets and had hit more than a hundred of them, what it called terror targets, in the past couple of days. There was a lot of attention that was being given towards the end of Thursday to these shocking scenes that came out from the Al Mawassi camp, this sprawling tent city for displaced people, which is on the coast in southern Gaza.

This is where the Israeli military has repeatedly told people to flee to for their own safety as they've been leaving Rafah and other locations in the south, but it has seen repeated airstrikes. Dr. Mohammed Abu Mujaseb is currently based in Al Mawasi and he contacted the BBC to describe what life is like there. It's a madness what's going on. People don't know where to go. People are running. Hundreds of thousands of people are moving from one place to another.

I mean, they don't know where to go. There is no safe place at all. There is no food. There is no drinkable water anymore. The remaining food is not as high prices. You see their faces in the streets. You see the prices. You see their faces in the street, you see the patients, you see their colleagues even. I mean everyone's face reflects the huge stress and trauma that they are facing. The effect of these bombs, I mean the ground is shaking,

it's like an earthquake. And this comes as a far-right Israeli minister has said it's time to open the gates of hell on Hamas after it rejected Israel's latest ceasefire offer. That's right, this is Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister. He's also calling for Israel to continue its fighting in the Gaza Strip to go for a full military occupation there and ultimately he is somebody who advocates the re-establishment of Jewish settlements in Gaza and you can see how there is this hardline government in Israel with the Prime Minister Benjamin

Netanyahu part of that really insisting that the fighting should continue to dismantle Hamas in terms of its governmental and military capabilities saying that's the only way to bring home hostages. While Israeli opinion polls suggest there is actually wide public support for a ceasefire deal to bring home the remaining hostages, it's thought there are 24 still alive in Gaza being held by Hamas. And there's an acknowledgement that that will involve hard decisions and ending the war. Really a lot more focus on this in the Israeli and Palestinian media after we heard from the chief Hamas negotiator Khalil al-Hayyeh in this televised

address basically making clear that Hamas would not accept the latest Israeli proposal for another 45-day ceasefire we understand. Khalil al-Hayyeh is saying Hamas would engage in what he called comprehensive package negotiations for a ceasefire that would release all the remaining hostages and would bring a full end to the war and a full Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. Israel, we understand, has been pushing now for the complete disarmament of Hamas to be part of a new ceasefire deal. That's a red line for the group and it's now very clear there is just this big gap that mediators are really struggling to bridge.

Jolaine Nell in Jerusalem. As we record this podcast, US strikes on a key oil terminal in a part of Yemen controlled by the Houthis are reported to have killed nearly 60 people. It's one of the deadliest attacks since President Trump ordered US forces to intensify their bombing campaign last month in response to Houthi assaults on Red Sea shipping. Iran, which backs the Houthis, has condemned the US attacks, which come a day before Washington resumes negotiations with Tehran over its nuclear programme. Our Middle East regional editor, Mike Thompson, told us more. This was a very big strike on the Rassisa Ports fuel terminal. We had TV pictures coming in from,

that's Houthi-run TV pictures of fireballs lighting up the sky and thick columns of black smoke and burning vehicles and bodies being taken from the scene and as you'd mentioned there 58 people are believed to have died according to the Houthis and another 120 injured. And the aim of all this, the US says, is to hit the Houthis' fuel supplies and also dent their funding. And we've had this strong condemnation from Iran. What have they been saying? Well, Iran, which of course backs the Houthis, has called this barbaric and a blatant violation of the fundamental principles of the UN charter.

Even Hamas has weighed in too, of course also backed by Iran, saying it's a fully fledged war crime. And tell us about the broader picture here, why the US military has stepped up its attacks on the Houthis in Yemen. Well it follows the Houthis saying they were going to resume attacks against shipping following Israel's aid blockade of Gaza. And that's been going on for more than six weeks now. And the Houthis, of course, had stopped these attacks during the two-month ceasefire from January to mid-March.

The US has resumed its strikes on almost a daily basis since then. And President Trump has said these will continue until the US considers that the Houthis are no longer a threat to shipping. Mike Thompson, hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the civil war in Sudan have sought refuge in Zamzam camp. But now satellite photographs from the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab show that the camp has been almost completely destroyed after attacks by the rapid support forces, a paramilitary group that has been trying to seize power. The RSF also attacked another camp, Abu Shuk. Both are in north Darfur near the regional capital of Al-Fasha,

the last major city in Darfur controlled by the Sudanese army, but which has been under siege for months. Both sides have been accused of appalling abuses including extrajudicial killings of civilians and sexual violence. Our Africa correspondent Mayani Jones has this report. Almost half a million people are still fleeing after Zamzam Sudan's largest camp for the internally displaced was attacked by the paramilitary rapid support forces. After losing the capital Khartoum to the Sudanese army many RSF fighters have retreated to the stronghold of Darfur where they've taken over camps for the internally displaced on the outskirts of the town of El Fasha.

They're accused of killing thousands of civilians and of raping women as they tore through the camps. Those fleeing walked for days across 60 kilometres of arid land to the nearest safe haven of Tawila. What we are witnessing is really hard to describe. Marion Ramstein is the project coordinator for Doctors Without Borders in North Darfur. It's a truck full of people arriving every five minutes and the people who arrive, some of them are deaf upon arrival, some of them are lacking water, food, they didn't have a

drip of water, a drop of water for two days and children are actually dying because of lack of water and lack of food. Humanitarian agencies in Tawila say they were overwhelmed by the number of new arrivals in the day following the attack on Zamzam. Since then, the flow of people has slowed down. Those fleeing the violence say RSF fighters are preventing people from leaving and distributing food to make them stay. But many of those who managed to get to Tawila are injured and in desperate need of urgent medical care. Issa Abdullah Ahmed used to live in Zamzam and fled to Tawila with six other people.

He has a large bandage covering his mouth. On the road here we encountered the rapid support forces. Three vehicles opened fire on us, they beat us, humiliated us and took everything we had, even our belts. A bullet hit me by the mouth. Fatiha walked for four days carrying two children and her belongings. She says she's hungry and has no clothes but her biggest wish is for the war to stop. She says she's hungry and has no clothes. But her biggest wish is for the war to stop. Saadia says the RSF fighters burned down her home and her sheep. She was robbed by other fighters as she fled with her two toddlers

and her donkey. She says they have nothing left and are exhausted. The RSF says it set up a parallel government that will serve all Sudanese people, but those who have witnessed the violence of the past week have been left traumatised. The group wants to overtake Al-Fasha, the last state capital in Darfur, under the control of the Sudanese armed forces. If they're successful, their fear is the worst is still to come. That report by Mayeni Jones. Still to come on this podcast, the Fyre Festival eight years ago was a disaster. Oh my god.

Turn me back right around. The save yourself mode kicked in. It's a free for all. It became this looting mentality. But its organiser has not given up despite having to serve a jail term and is trying to hold it again. You're listening to the Global News Podcast. When President Trump brought in 25% tariffs on the auto industry earlier this month and Canada

retaliated. Stellantis, the car-making giant that owns brands such as Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep, announced it would close its assembly plant in the Canadian town of Windsor for two weeks. Windsor is just a bridge away from the American state of Michigan and the plant is the town's largest employer with more than 4,000 workers. On Monday, production will start again. But for how long? Flavio Volpe is the president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers Association. He told Luke Wilson about the impact of the two week closure. Well, you know, there's thousands of people that work at that plant

that are, you know, multi-generational auto workers who've got some real anxiety, but also there's about three times as many people that work at the supplier plants that make the components that go into that final assembly who've had the same experience. We're watching the plant reopen after a two week shutdown in April, which is unprecedented in this business. The company has promised that it'll be up and running for the next couple of weeks and then we'll see what happens. That anxiety isn't lifting.

We don't know the long-term future of the plum. No, we don't. What's interesting is Stellantis and the brands that they make their Chrysler Dodge, they've been making cars in Windsor for 99 years. It's a critical part of the culture and the identity of that city and has been a wonderful investor and employer. It's just the front line of this idea that none of us in the business has ever modeled for the fact that the president would use the powers of the Oval Office to turn the business upside down. And there have been some suggestions earlier this week, President Trump saying that automakers might be getting some kind of temporary reprieve from these

tariffs. He said that they need a little bit of time because they're going to make them here. What do you make of that? I've always said automakers don't need a little bit of time. You know, they need a lot of time. If he actually wanted to have these companies move to the US, which will fight tooth and nail for it, to wind up a plant, to set up the same capacity on some willing site. If as planned, tariffs go through on May 3rd for auto parts.

I've been saying for months it will grind the industry to a halt. You can't make the cars without all of the parts. So if you're making a Jeep in Ohio and the seats don't show up from London, Ontario, well you're not making a Jeep. And if you put a 25% tariff on parts that have a 7% profit margin, someone's not going to ship. Taking it back to the Stellantis plant and to Windsor, what does it mean for the people

there, the mood of the workers, the people in that community, Flavio? In a practical sense, you go to work at that plant, you go on your shift and you're not on your phone and they don't have TVs or a radio running. So you go in to work for eight hours and you're working with the person beside you and the other person beside you in a place where you earn your living to feed your kids and pay your rent or pay your mortgage. People that are starting to get used to television cameras, recording them on their way in and on the way out is not what people sign up for. And they're in a car town. You're in a car town contemplating that your car employer may not be there two weeks from

now, two months from now, two years from now. I sympathize very much with that because what we've seen throughout the Midwest, when car companies pick up and leave, these are $2 billion capital investments. When they leave, they don't come back. And usually what that means is if you want prosperity, if you want the next generation to have what you had, they have to move. And somehow your job is political. I don't think any of those people sign up for that.

Flavio Volpe, four months on from the fall of the Assad regime and the end of decades of repressive rule, Syria has a new transitional government. Syrians have been enjoying their new political and social freedoms after more than half a century in which they could be incarcerated, tortured or disappeared for the most minor of offences. But some fear that those freedoms could be lost once again under the new Islamist-led government. Lina Sinjab sent this report from Damascus. This is a scene from the most popular Syrian soap opera during Ramadan,

Al-Batal, The Hero. The story reflects the reality of the past 14 years, war, bombing, displacement, corruption and killing. Director Leith Hajjo is instructing actors from behind his monitor. He faced difficulties obtaining filming permits from the old regime, but says the new authorities have given him their full support. but says the new authorities have given him their full support. I received all the support and facilitation from the people in charge of the media and the new government. But that doesn't mean anything in the long run.

I am not optimistic at all about the coming period regarding what we are seeing or experiencing. what we are seeing or experiencing. Recent violence in coastal cities saw more than 1,400 civilians killed, many of them Alawites, part of Assad's minority sect. The violence has also affected filming. Unfortunately, the line between drama and life has started to blur to the point where our own events are repeated with our characters. The characters in the series found themselves trapped in their place. Some actors in the series couldn't come to the filming because they were trapped in the

mountains. At Damascus University, students represent Syria's mixed and diverse society. Now a new mosque is being built on campus without notice and without building permission. Students like Zahra Majar don't think this is a priority. We are not just Muslims in Syria. It is a diverse society with different sects. The priority for us is to learn music, theatre, how to film. It is more important than building a mosque. There have been no new laws or rulings imposing restrictions on social life, but Syrians have

seen several attempts to enforce Islamic rule, with some public institutions separating entry for men and women, and some men seen distributing flyers asking women to wear full-face veils on public buses. And in Christian neighborhoods in Damascus, some cars were filmed driving through the streets with preachers advocating for Islam over loudspeakers. Islam over loudspeakers. Locals are not happy, including Muslims. In the predominantly Christian neighborhood of Bab Sharqi in Damascus, several bars were shut down for serving alcohol.

A few days later, under public pressure, they were allowed to open again, provided they obtain a license. The fear is that they will never be able to get them. In the heart of the Umayyad mosque in Damascus, the call for prayer has started. Damascus is known for its tolerant type of Islam, but many fear that among the new authorities, there is a more salafi background that could affect social freedoms. At this mosque, they are attacking Sufi worshippers and calling them infidels.

I spoke to Imam Muhammad Alaa al-Din al-Sayyid and asked if he worries a more radical Islam will take over. It is impossible. Our society will not accept it. We have lived in harmony with different sects for years, even during difficult times. The Qur'an says it clearly. No compulsion in religion. Syrians have been through a lot over the past decades. While the majority live in poverty,

they do enjoy religious and social freedoms. But some fear that these two are in the grip of a new repressive Islamic order. That report was by Lina Sinjab in Damascus. It's been hailed as a potential game changer in paediatric heart care. Doctors in the Chinese city of Wuhan say they've implanted one of the world's smallest and lightest artificial hearts into a seven-year-old boy. Rebecca Wood reports. Paediatric heart failure, when a child's heart isn't able to pump as well as it should,

remains a serious medical challenge worldwide. The answer can be surgery, medication, sometimes a heart transplant is required. But with a shortage of donor hearts, the wait can be long and worrisome. One option is to have a temporary artificial heart fitted, but the issue here is that most current models are designed for adults. That's something doctors at Union Hospital in the Chinese city of Wuhan wanted to address. Teaming up with a medical technology company they developed a special artificial heart and now doctors say they've had a significant medical breakthrough. A seven-year-old boy suffering from end-stage heart failure has had what the hospital says is the

smallest and lightest version of the device fitted. Weighing just 45 grams, less than 3 centimetres in diameter, it's around the same size as the cap of a plastic water bottle. This tiny piece of technology will critically give the child more time to wait for a transplant. China isn't alone in trying to tackle this problem. Back in 2012 doctors in Italy implanted a device weighing just 11 grams into a 16 month old boy. It's hoped that such advancements could help future young heart patients around the world. Rebecca Wood. A Netflix documentary called it The Greatest Party That Never Happened. Billed as a luxury festival experience, it was meant to offer

the finest food, music and art on a remote island in the Bahamas. But the Fyre Festival in 2017 didn't quite turn out like that. Its American creator, Billy McFarland, ended up being jailed for fraud. After serving his sentence, he's now having another go. But so far, that's also not really going to plan. Here's Alfie Haberschen. $10,000 is a lot to pay to haul a mattress through a car park in the rain as screaming people fight over cheese sandwiches.

But there's a surprising appetite for Fyre Festival 2. Will it be any different to number one? All these models, like like in the Bahamas. The most insane festival the world has ever seen. Island getaway turned disaster. It became very barbaric. While the Netflix documentary told the story of that spectacular demise, Bill McFarland and his team were left with about six weeks to throw together a lavish experience that became a dystopian flop.

Oh my god. Turn this back right around. The save yourself mode kicked in. It's a free for all. It became this looting mentality. People were left stranded in disaster relief tents and in a moment of desperation, McFarland urged his event planner to offer sexual favours

to secure water, which was in critically short supply. But he's had six years in prison to think about how to fine-tune Fire 2.0. A 50-page festival manifesto, drawn up in solitary confinement, has put Mexico as the destination, with the top package on sale for a million dollars. But now, a stumbling block. The local government says it has no record of any requests for planning permission. So it's been indefinitely postponed. Perhaps an oversight from the irrepressible McFarland. But he says he's not going to give up on relighting the fire. Alfie Haberson there.

And that's all 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, you can send us an email. The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. This edition was mixed by Nora Hull. The producer was Oliver Berlau. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Janet Jaleel. Until next time, goodbye.