--:-- Valerie Sanderson: This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Valerie Sanderson.
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--:-- Valerie Sanderson: In the early hours of Sunday the 10th of August, these are our main stories. President Zelensky has called for maximum coordination with European allies as Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin prepare to hold a summit on the war in Ukraine without him.
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--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Tens of thousands of people protest across Israel against the government's decision to expand its war in Gaza.
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--:-- Valerie Sanderson: South Korea says North Korea has started to dismantle loudspeakers used to broadcast propaganda across the border.
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--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Also in this podcast... It was a gorgeous day here in Atlanta and a great day to make history. Jen Powell, the first female umpire to ever work a regular season Major League Baseball game.
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--:-- Valerie Sanderson: For the first time in more than 150 years, a woman is umpiring an MLB game.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: We start in Ukraine, where the diplomatic flurry is intensifying, ahead of a planned meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in Alaska next Friday.
--:-- President Zelensky: [in a recording] President Zelensky has not been invited, and he's made it clear he won't surrender any territory to Russia.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Meanwhile, the US Vice President, J.D. Vance, held talks on Saturday in the UK with the British Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, and several national security advisers from Europe, Ukraine and the US.
--:-- Jonathan Beale: Well, I think a simple reason is President Putin doesn't want him there.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: President Zelensky has been speaking to his European allies to shore up support for his position.
--:-- President Zelensky: [in a recording] In his nightly address, Mr. Zelensky said he'd spent Saturday coordinating with European allies.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: The meeting was constructive. All our messages were conveyed. Our arguments are being heard.
--:-- President Zelensky: [in a recording] The risks are being taken into account. The path to peace for Ukraine must be determined together and only together with Ukraine.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: And all the partners share the same understanding of the need for a ceasefire for an end to the killings.
--:-- President Zelensky: [in a recording] Only one actor stands against this, Putin. His only card is the ability to kill, and he's trying to sell the cessation of killings at the highest possible price.
--:-- Yuri Sak: Of course, we want peace and we will negotiate in good faith.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: But our territory is defined by our basic law, our constitution.
--:-- Yuri Sak: Our president said it yesterday very clearly. So regardless of what is being discussed, you know, in any other part of the world without Ukraine's presence, it has to take into account our constitution.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: It has to take into account the fact of illegal aggression and annexation of parts of Ukrainian territory.
--:-- Yuri Sak: And it's almost underplaying it when we call it territories.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: These are territories which are already covered in Ukrainian blood.
--:-- Yuri Sak: We believe that the US has the leverage.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Donald Trump personally has all the means that it needs to force Russia into a meaningful and just negotiating process.
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--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Here are some views from the streets of Kyiv.
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--:-- Valerie Sanderson: I'm against it. Otherwise, our struggle will have all been for nothing.
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--:-- Valerie Sanderson: And we're just supposed to accept that Putin can take our territory.
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--:-- Valerie Sanderson: He won't stop there. That's for sure.
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--:-- Valerie Sanderson: I don't consider Putin to be someone worth negotiating with.
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--:-- Valerie Sanderson: No negotiations with him are worth the time.
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--:-- Valerie Sanderson: They won't lead to anything.
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--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Ukraine should be present at the negotiations between Trump and Putin, as well as Europe.
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--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Only then and under certain conditions might we finally expect to see some kind of lasting peace.
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--:-- Valerie Sanderson: If we give up our territories, Putin will want more after a while.
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--:-- Valerie Sanderson: I don't think we should do this, but we'll see what they decide.
--:-- Jonathan Beale: Well, I think a simple reason is President Putin doesn't want him there.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: I think Donald Trump was open to that idea.
--:-- Jonathan Beale: He talked about a trilateral and it's still possible that might happen.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: But President Putin has always resisted calls to meet President Zelensky.
--:-- Jonathan Beale: President Zelensky's being keen, but President Putin says certain conditions, which he hasn't set out, must be met before they meet.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: So that's the obstacle.
--:-- Jonathan Beale: Nevertheless, we know that Donald Trump has been very, very keen to meet President Putin since he entered office for the second time.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: And he's talked about a summit with him.
--:-- Jonathan Beale: He wants to do a deal on Ukraine, and that is the bigger prize for him.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: So he's going ahead.
--:-- Jonathan Beale: I think part of the reason there's meetings going on involving U.S. officials, European officials, and part of the reason Donald Trump has spoken to President Zelensky in the past is that he knows they're going to have to get Ukrainian support.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: But ultimately, Donald Trump wants to do a deal and he is more focused on that than he probably is on the detail.
--:-- Jonathan Beale: Well, he mentioned, didn't he, President Trump, a territory swap in a possible peace deal.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: What could that entail, do you think?
--:-- Jonathan Beale: Well, we don't know the detail yet.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: But yes, he's talking about swapping territory, which he says will be to the benefit of both countries.
--:-- Jonathan Beale: But it's hard to see how it's going to be to the benefit of Ukraine, because it is Russia that holds Ukraine territory.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Ukraine has a tiny sliver still of Kursk in the north, but it is a tiny sliver.
--:-- Jonathan Beale: So it will be Ukraine that will be asked to give up some of its territory.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Now, President Putin might not get all that he wants.
--:-- Jonathan Beale: Remember, he said he wants essentially the entire Donbass region, which is Lohansk and Donetsk.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: He also wants Zaporizhia and he also wants Kherson.
--:-- Jonathan Beale: At the moment, he has got less of Kherson and Zaporizhia than he has the other two districts where the fighting has been fiercest.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: But ultimately, as President Zelensky has made very clear today, that would not be acceptable within the constraints of the Ukrainian constitution, which does not allow the ceding of land to another foreign country.
--:-- Jonathan Beale: There'd have to essentially be a national referendum on that.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: So at the moment, any swap, it's hard to see how it would benefit Ukraine.
--:-- Jonathan Beale: And it certainly would more likely benefit Russia.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Maybe not everything Putin wants, but certainly more the territory that he's been fighting for.
--:-- Owen Bennett-Jones: Details of the latest proposals regarding Ukraine have been leaking because the US has been briefing European leaders about what's going on.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: And they have been talking to journalists.
--:-- Owen Bennett-Jones: One of the fullest accounts is in the Wall Street Journal.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Owen Bennett-Jones spoke to one of the people who wrote that piece, Boyan Banchewski, the paper's chief European correspondent, who's based in Berlin in Germany.
--:-- Boyan Banchewski: Number one, Putin asked for Ukraine to withdraw from the eastern region of Donetsk and pull these troops out and leave it to Russia.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: And in return, he would freeze the fighting, introduce a ceasefire.
--:-- Boyan Banchewski: And then in the next phase of the agreement, the contact line across the entire front line, which is enormously long in Ukraine, would be frozen and would become de facto boundary between the two nations.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: That is obviously hugely controversial now with President Zelensky because it involves giving up territory that Russia at the moment cannot take by force.
--:-- Boyan Banchewski: But Russia seems to be offering any territory in return.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Looking at it in the round basically the Russians are saying Ukraine has to give up territory it holds in this first phase and get nothing back, really, except a ceasefire, no security guarantees, none of the things that Ukraine's been talking about.
--:-- Boyan Banchewski: So it doesn't seem like the Ukrainians would be able to go along with it.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: On the face of it, that is entirely correct.
--:-- Boyan Banchewski: However, the devil's in the details.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: What is very, very interesting to me as someone who's been kind of closely observing this for three years now, almost four years, essentially Putin crossed his own red line.
--:-- Boyan Banchewski: We must remember that until this offer was made, the absolute red line for Putin was that the four regions where there's fighting at the moment, and there are Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Kherson, all of them are part of the Russian Federation in his mind because he had them written into the Russian constitution right at the beginning of the war in 2022.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: And they are non-negotiable.
--:-- Boyan Banchewski: He was claiming this is Russian soil now and there's no talk about it.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Now he's done a bit of a U-turn and he says, okay, give me the one region and we'll just freeze the front line in the rest of the region.
--:-- Boyan Banchewski: So he's literally crossing his own red line.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: This is a big, big move for him.
--:-- Boyan Banchewski: It quite clearly indicates that the pressure of sanctions and tariffs and punitive measures from Donald Trump is working.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: And the other thing which is very, very important to remember, he did not ask from Vitkov that any deal should involve the so-called demilitarization of Ukraine, which has also been a red line so far.
--:-- Boyan Banchewski: Effectively meaning that he wants to curb and neuter the armed forces of Ukraine, or denazification, which is kind of a shorthand for regime change in Kiev.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: These things were never demanded in the last meeting.
--:-- Boyan Banchewski: So it's a huge kind of shift in the Russian position in terms of their red lines.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: And it's nothing to sneer at.
--:-- Boyan Banchewski: There is movement here and obviously not in a way that seems acceptable to the Ukrainians at the moment.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: As we record this podcast, the European leaders who held talks with President Zelensky on Saturday have insisted that any peace deal must be negotiated with Ukraine's full consent.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: In a joint statement, the leaders of the UK, France, Italy, Germany, Poland, Finland and the European Commission said they would uphold Ukrainian sovereignty.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: They vowed to continue military, financial and diplomatic backing for Kyiv, rejecting any change of borders by force.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: The leaders said they supported President Trump's efforts to end the war in Ukraine and presented their own peace proposals to Washington ahead of Mr Trump's planned talks with President Putin next Friday.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: In Israel, tens of thousands of people protested across the country against the government's decision to expand its war in Gaza.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Families of hostages held in the territory say the plan, which includes the occupation of Gaza City, will put their relatives at the mercy of Hamas.
--:-- Nishay Miran Lavi: Now the government has decided to expand the war and push deeper into Gaza.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: But my husband is still there.
--:-- Nishay Miran Lavi: Every invasion, every bullet, every airstrike could cost him his life.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: This isn't just a military decision.
--:-- Nishay Miran Lavi: It could be a death sentence for the people we love most.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: I'm terrified.
--:-- Nishay Miran Lavi: I'm angry.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: I won't stay silent.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Meanwhile, Arab and Muslim countries have joined widespread condemnation of Israel's latest plans.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Earlier, a senior Palestinian official told the BBC that Qatari and Egyptian mediators had submitted new proposals to revive the ceasefire talks.
--:-- Emma Nader: Israel's plans have provoked outrage, and now there's an attempt to breathe new life into the collapsed ceasefire negotiations.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Mediators are said to have put forward new initiatives to their American counterparts, hoping to avert Israel's military assault on Gaza City that could have devastating consequences for civilians and Israeli hostages.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: In Spain, the US envoy Steve Witkoff met the Prime Minister of Qatar, a key mediator, but it remains unclear how long-standing gaps in the talks might be bridged.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Israel's plans to escalate the war have also prompted a growing coalescence of its critics, both in Europe and in the Middle East.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Turkey has called for an emergency meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: On a visit to Egypt, its foreign minister called for a united front of Muslim countries.
--:-- Hakan Fidan: He said his country categorically rejects the Israeli plan, which he said was a new phase in Israel's expansionist and genocidal policies.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: He added that the Islamic world must act in solidarity against such a move.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: In Gaza, people have reacted with distress and fear to Israel's plan to escalate the war.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Gaza's one million inhabitants are now faced with packing up homes and tents and the prospect of another forced displacement.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: In Nusayret camp today, there was a deadly reminder of how desperate people's basic needs are.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Video footage shared by a local journalist shows Palestinians rushing to the site of an aid drop when a young boy is crushed to death by a falling crate.
--:-- Emma Nader: Gaza's one million inhabitants are now faced with packing up homes and tents and the prospect of another forced displacement.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: In Nusayret camp today, there was a deadly reminder of how desperate people's basic needs are.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Video footage shared by a local journalist shows Palestinians rushing to the site of an aid drop when a young boy is crushed to death by a falling crate.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Here in the UK, police have arrested more than 460 people at a rally outside Parliament in London in support of a banned pro-Palestinian group, Palestine Action.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Many of those taking part on Saturday held placards with the words I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Those who are charged with specific offences could face up to 14 years in prison.
--:-- Frankie McCamley: Shame on you! Shame on you! Shame on you!
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: As each protester was walked or carried away by police from Parliament Square, the crowds chanted and clapped.
--:-- Frankie McCamley: If they ban Palestine action, next it's going to be what other group is next until we're just no longer allowed to protest anything.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: And that's the opposite of democracy.
--:-- Frankie McCamley: Because I believe in freedom of speech.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: And what this government is trying to do is speak the authoritarian.
--:-- Frankie McCamley: And it's extremely dangerous.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: It took police hours to work through the crowds.
--:-- Frankie McCamley: One man, after being arrested once, came back only to be re-arrested.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: At times it was tense, especially when opposition protesters voiced their opinions too.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Palestine Action was prescribed as a terror organisation last month by the Home Office, which said its decision was based on strong security advice following serious attacks.
--:-- Frankie McCamley: That decision will be reviewed by the High Court in November.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Until then, protesters say they will continue to take action.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: In Japan, people in the city of Nagasaki have marked the 80th anniversary of the moment the US dropped an atomic bomb on 9 August 1945.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Twin cathedral bells rang in unison for the first time since the bombing.
--:-- Shaima Khalil: At 11.02 Japan time, Nagasaki fell into silent prayers as the peace bell tolled, marking the moment the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on the city, the second to hit the country.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Survivors and dignitaries gathered in a solemn memorial ceremony in the peace park, remembering the dead and cautioning the living.
--:-- Shaima Khalil: 80 years on, who expected this world?
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: This fight must end now, immediately.
--:-- Shaima Khalil: No more Hiroshima no more Nagasaki no more wars
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: The atomic bomb codenamed Fat Man was bigger and more powerful than the one dropped on Hiroshima three days before.
--:-- Shaima Khalil: It wiped out whole communities in seconds, killing tens of thousands instantly.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: With thousands more suffering from the effects of toxic radiation, Japan is the only nation to have experienced the devastating impact of nuclear warfare.
--:-- Shaima Khalil: It hastened the country's surrender and the end of the Second World War.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: But for people here, this is not just about the past.
--:-- Shaima Khalil: Being in a place like this really makes me wish for a more peaceful world, especially with all the wars and crises that are going on right now.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: It makes me realize that it wasn't all that long ago.
--:-- Shaima Khalil: But still, as the days and years go by, more people might start to forget about the war, thinking of it as something from the distant past.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: When I think about that, it makes me think all the more that it's something we must never forget.
--:-- Shaima Khalil: Many leaders or politicians around the world say that possessing nuclear weapons is for deterrence or for peace, but I strongly believe that such things should never be tolerated.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Last year, a group representing survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki won the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to abolish nuclear weapons.
--:-- Shaima Khalil: Many expressing deep concerns about the ongoing wars in Gaza and Ukraine and the proliferation of nuclear armament.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Eighty years ago, victims begged for water as their skin burned.
--:-- Shaima Khalil: At the ceremony, water offerings were made in a show of respect to those who perished in nuclear fire.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Events ended with a song by schoolchildren, a message of peace from a city that rose from the ashes of nuclear war.
--:-- Shaima Khalil: One of the survivors whose organisation won the Nobel Peace Prize was Tarumi Tanaka.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: He was 13 in 1945 and living in a house just over three kilometres from where the nuclear bomb exploded in Nagasaki.
--:-- Tarumi Tanaka: So, on that day, August 9th, I was 13 years old in the first year of junior high school.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: I was at home reading a book, and then all of a sudden, we heard this huge explosion sound as well.
--:-- Tarumi Tanaka: And I knew that I could tell that there was B-21 plane coming.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: But I never imagined that they would be coming to attack.
--:-- Tarumi Tanaka: However, all of a sudden, after hearing the sound of a plane, there was the explosion, and everything around me turned completely white.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: This was extremely shocking for me.
--:-- Tarumi Tanaka: I felt that then, my life was really at risk.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: So, I rushed down from the second floor of our home, where I was, to the first floor.
--:-- Tarumi Tanaka: There I was crouching down.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: This is when the blast and the wind from the explosion came to us.
--:-- Tarumi Tanaka: You went to search for other members of your family who were closer to the centre of the explosion.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: When you found them, what did you find there?
--:-- Tarumi Tanaka: So initially, in the area between the hypocentre and where I was at the time the bomb was dropped, there were some mountains and hills in between.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: However, I had two aunts and their families living much closer to the hypocenter.
--:-- Tarumi Tanaka: So on the third day after the bomb was dropped, we started to go closer to see how they had fared.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: It was beyond anything I had ever imagined.
--:-- Tarumi Tanaka: An area of around three to four kilometers was a place with tens of hundreds of thousands of people who had been living and working.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: And this whole area was completely devastated into ruins.
--:-- Tarumi Tanaka: There were so many dead bodies that were left neglected.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: These people who were wounded horribly were just lying as they were without anything to be done for them.
--:-- Tarumi Tanaka: But rather than continue to feel that shock, I somehow just had to close off my heart so that I felt no emotions and became completely numb.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: And it was how we were able to continue to search for the bodies of our aunts and family.
--:-- Tarumi Tanaka: We were able to first of all find where the family of one of my aunts had been but all of their bodies were burned, charred, completely black and they had just been left lying there.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: The family of another aunt, their house, had miraculously not burned.
--:-- Tarumi Tanaka: My uncle was there and very seriously burned and almost dead.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: My aunt had already passed away.
--:-- Tarumi Tanaka: We found her body there and then we had to cremate her ourselves in the field there as well.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Another uncle, who had not been injured at all at the time, didn't have any external injuries.
--:-- Tarumi Tanaka: However, 10 days later, he passed away from the effect of acute radiation.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Even though externally, physically, he seemed completely fine.
--:-- Tarumi Tanaka: Within that very short time, because of the internal exposure to radiation, his life was taken away.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: South Korea's military says North Korea has begun dismantling loudspeakers used to broadcast propaganda over the border.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: South Korea took down some of its own speakers earlier this week.
--:-- Miki Brister: Over the years, both countries have periodically blasted propaganda broadcasts towards the other side.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: South Korea often played K-pop songs.
--:-- Miki Brister: The North liked to transmit unsettling noises, such as howling animals.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: But shortly after becoming president in Seoul in June, Lee Jae-myung ended the South's broadcasts.
--:-- Miki Brister: North Korea followed suit.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Pyongyang has now copied South Korea's decision to take down at least some loudspeakers.
--:-- Miki Brister: North Korea appears to be reacting positively to Mr Lee's desire to lessen tension between the two countries.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Mickey Bristow.
--:-- Miki Brister: Still to come... SpaceX Dragon, 400 metres.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Braced for splashdown.
--:-- Miki Brister: SpaceX copies 400 metres and crew are braced for splashdown.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Spacecraft is now about 200 meters above the ocean and has slowed down to about 30 kilometers per hour.
--:-- Miki Brister: Again, it will continue to slow down until about 16 kilometers per hour.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Dragon Endurance spacecraft carrying Crew 10 back home to Earth following their five-month mission, moments away from splashdown.
--:-- Miki Brister: SpaceX copies splashdown.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: And there is Dragon Endurance as it sits on top of the ocean off the coast of San Diego, California.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Mission accomplished.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: And that's it from us for now, but there'll be a new edition of the Global News Podcast later.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, send us an email.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: You can also find us on X at BBC World Service.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Use the hashtag Global News Pod.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: This edition was mixed by Rob Fanner.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: The producers were Leah McSheffrey and Judy Frankel.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: The editor is Karen Martin.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: I'm Valerie Sanderson.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Until next time, bye bye.
--:-- Khaled: I'm Tristan Redman in London, and this is The Global Story.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from this intersection, where the world and America meet.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
