--:-- Julia McFarlane: This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. If you've got a move coming up, you really need to look into United Van Lines, the do-it-all moving specialists.
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--:-- Julia McFarlane: In the shadows and flames, primals will fall and from the blood and ash, new gods will rise. Poppy was never meant to awaken and consequences are devastating. Stirring ancient powers from their slumber, transforming Castile and Kirin in ways the fates couldn't foresee. The great conspirator has returned to stop the primal of death. The gods have awakened, harboring blood-soaked secrets, and every choice can undo everything. The primal of Blood and Bone, perfect for fans of Sarah J Maas and Rebecca Yaros. Available in print, e-book and audio book.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Julia McFarlane and in the early hours of Thursday the 14th of August, these are our main stories.
--:-- European leaders have given a positive account of their talks with President Trump ahead of Friday's meeting with Vladimir Putin as they seek to influence the terms of any ceasefire in Ukraine.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: The Peruvian president has signed a law pardoning military and police officers who are accused of human rights abuses during a bitter conflict with leftist rebels.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: And Lebanon's president has warned a visiting Iranian security official against interference as the government moves towards disarming Hezbollah.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Also in this podcast...
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Please have mercy on us. Our suffering is worse than you can imagine. Help us in any way possible, especially the children. They are innocent in all this, and they are dying before our eyes.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: The crisis intensifies in the besieged Sudanese city of El Fasha.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: On Wednesday, just two days before Vladimir Putin is welcomed back onto American soil, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky and other European leaders spoke to Donald Trump to make clear their red lines in any negotiations with the Russian president.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Neither Mr Zelensky nor his allies in Europe have been invited to the US-Russia summit in Alaska, but President Trump took a call from Berlin.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: The German Chancellor Friedrich Meir's told him that he and other European leaders, some of whom were also on the call, would never recognize a land grab by Russia.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: His words are spoken by a translator.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: A legal recognition of Russian ownership of this territory cannot happen. There have to be robust security guarantees. The sovereignty of Ukraine has to be respected. If there is no movement on the Russian side, we and the U.S. have to put more pressure on Russia.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: President Trump knows his position and largely agrees with it.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: President Zelensky, also in Berlin, said an immediate ceasefire must be top of the agenda.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: He urged the US president to impose tougher sanctions on Russia if Mr Putin did not agree.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: After the call, the French president Emmanuel Macron said the American will was to obtain a ceasefire, and the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, said there was a viable chance of one.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: European leaders may be claiming they and Mr Trump are on the same page regarding the outcome of Friday's summit, But Mr Zelensky signaled a warning.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: He said that Vladimir Putin wanted to trick the United States into agreeing to give Ukrainian territory to Russia.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: His words are also spoken by a translator.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Putin is bluffing. I have been talking to Trump, European colleagues, that Putin doesn't want peace. He wants to occupy our country. And we understand it. Putin cannot fool us. We need to pressure him. Sanctions not only from the US, but also from the European Union. Together, our union of partners can really, really stop Putin's war.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Speaking a few hours later in Washington, President Trump said that he had a positive conversation with Ukraine's president, who could potentially meet Mr. Putin after the summit in Alaska.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: We had a very good call. He was on the call. President Zelensky was on the call. I would rate it a 10, you know, very, very friendly.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: There's a very good chance that we're going to have a second meeting, which will be more productive than the first, because the first is I'm going to find out where we are and what we're doing.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: If the first one goes okay, we'll have a quick second one. I would like to do it almost immediately.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: And we'll have a quick second meeting between President Putin and President Zelensky and myself, if they'd like to have me there.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: And that would be a meeting where maybe it could be absolutely work.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: But if the second meeting takes place, now there may be no second meeting because if I feel that it's not appropriate to have it because I didn't get the answers that we have to have, then we're not going to have a second meeting.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Our correspondent James Waterhouse has been covering the Ukraine war since the beginning and he spoke to me from Berlin.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: What struck you when Zelensky and Mertz came out of this virtual summit is they look shattered. It was clear they'd had some pretty intense conversations in there.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: You know, this is an incredibly significant week diplomatically for Ukraine, of course, and Europe, because they are trying to muscle in on a process that will define its very future.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: And so they were very keen to point out, yes, Donald Trump agreed to the need for a ceasefire first.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: He agreed the current front lines would be the starting point for any kind of negotiation.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: He ruled out any legal recognition of occupied territory.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Now, there are, of course, technical workarounds, but I think this was Europe throwing the kitchen sink at trying to influence Donald Trump's thinking in any way.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: But, you know, for all of the notes of reassurance and positives they might feel, there is so much that can happen between now and the end of Friday's summit in Alaska.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: And I think there's going to be a lot of nervous waiting to see what developments, if any, are announced after that, when, as we know, Donald Trump can change his mind very quickly.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Indeed. I mean, how much of a difference do you think all of this will make today on Friday?
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Well, clearly, Europe has been able to change, even improve its relationship with the US, not least through its increased defence spending.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: I mean, going from, in some cases, 2.5% to 5% is not to be sniffed at, and Donald Trump points that out.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: If you look at how Donald Trump was talking today in terms of being on good terms with Zelensky, clearly the words and tone have changed.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: He's also made quite sizable threats to Russia and its major trading partners in terms of sanctions and heightened tariffs.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: But aside from giving the green light for US-made weapons to be provided to Ukraine via Europe and paid for, there still isn't the action that the bloc would like to see exerted on Russia by the US to force it to reconsider, to slow its war machine in any way.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: And I think until that happens, if there is a stumbling block on Friday, then Europe will be hoping something else happens.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: James Waterhouse.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: As President Zelensky arrived for the talks in Berlin, the governor of Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region ordered the evacuation of a dozen settlements in the face of a Russian advance.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: More details now from our diplomatic correspondent, Paul Adams.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: As all eyes start to turn in the direction of Alaska, something is unfolding on the scarred battlefields of eastern Ukraine.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Close to the town of Dobropilya, Russian units have broken through front lines and pushed deep into Ukrainian territory.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: The move threatens key supply routes and the local authorities have ordered civilians to evacuate.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: But what does it amount to?
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Matthew Savile is Director of Military Sciences at the Royal United Services Institute in London.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: What we don't know yet is, is this a genuinely extensive breakthrough? Or have we got small bands of Russians now roving more deeply behind Ukrainian defensive positions and they will be rounded up in the next few days
--:-- Julia McFarlane: But it certainly of a significant concern to the Ukrainians
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Ukrainian officials say the Russian units involved are being detected and destroyed.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: But the move, possibly designed to allow Vladimir Putin to claim that Ukraine's defences are collapsing, highlights the fragility of the eastern front line and, for Kiev's European allies, the urgent need for a ceasefire.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: If Donald Trump manages to persuade Vladimir Putin to halt the fighting, a very big if, then the so-called Coalition of the Willing, headed by Britain and France, wants to be in a position to deploy what Sakhir Starmer is calling stabilisation forces to help on land, in the air and at sea.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: But the shape, composition and role of such forces remain unclear.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Paul Adams.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: International aid organisations have intensified warnings about starvation in the Sudanese city of El Fasha.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: The city has been under siege by paramilitary fighters for over a year and no aid is getting in.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: The Sudanese army has been battling the Rapid Support Forces militia for more than two years now.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: The army regained control of some parts of Sudan, but El Fasha remains one of the most brutal front lines.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: The BBC has obtained rare footage showing the desperation inside the city.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: From Nairobi, Barbara Pletasha sent this report.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: In this place of relentless need, your best hope is to find a way to suppress the hunger.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: This community kitchen in Al-Fashr is one of the few still functioning.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: The kitchen of goodness, it's called.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Now crammed with women and children sitting on the ground waiting for food.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: The kitchen manager is talking about the meal if you can call it that filming it on his phone
--:-- Julia McFarlane: It's a porridge made of ambas the residue of peanuts after the oil has been extracted normally fed to animals
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Sometimes it's possible to find cereal grains in the market
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Today he says there is no flour or bread
--:-- Julia McFarlane: May God relieve us of this calamity
--:-- Julia McFarlane: There's nothing left to buy
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Al-Fashir's been under siege by the paramilitary rapid support forces for more than a year, a front line in Sudan's terrible civil war, and a death trap for the people inside it.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: No aid is getting through.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: This woman told us she was displaced to the city from a village nearby, only to find herself besieged from all sides.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: We don't know what to do. We can't find food.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Please have mercy on us. Our suffering is worse than you can imagine. Help us in any way possible, especially the children.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: They are innocent in all this and they are dying before our eyes.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Hospitals can't cope with the crisis.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: I am in the pediatric hospital.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: We have now, for example, five severe, much-nourished child, and also they have medical complications, and unfortunately there is no even drop of milk to give them.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Dr. Ibrahim Abdullah-Khattar sent us this voice note from the al-Saudi hospital.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Many others have closed, damaged by shelling, and desperately short of medical supplies.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Again, I can say the situation is so miserable, it's so catastrophic.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: The children of Al-Fahir are dying on daily basis due to lack of food, lack of medicine.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: This week, the battle intensified.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: The rapid support forces launched a major push on Al-Fahir.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: They published this video claiming to have advanced.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: In social media posts, the army and its allies insist they repelled the assault and inflicted heavy losses.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: But civilians caught in the middle are fighting for survival.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: That fight continues even after they've fled, and hundreds of thousands have, ending up in squalid camps at a place called Tawira, some 60 kilometers away.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: In Tawila, at least, aid workers have access.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: But the challenges are still daunting, says John Joseph Ochebe.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: He's the on-site project coordinator for a group called the Alliance for International Medical Action.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: We are having shortages, as you can see, in terms of wash, in terms of medical supplies, to be able to deal with this situation.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: We have limited supplies currently in the field due to access constraints.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Lying on one of the beds in the tent is Zubayda Ismail Ishak, looking gaunt and exhausted.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: She arrived from Al-Fashar a few days ago.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: She is seven months pregnant.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Her story is a tale of trauma told by many.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: We drink water without boiling it.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: We have no one to get us water because my husband was captured on the road to Al-Fashar and my daughter has a head injury.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: The United Nations is appealing for a humanitarian truce, but the enormous costs of this unending war continue to be paid by the weakest.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Barbara Pletuscher.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Artificial intelligence is starting to play a bigger role in all of our lives, but is it always helpful?
--:-- Julia McFarlane: A new study has found that doctors who regularly use AI-assisted systems to evaluate footage and data from colonoscopies, and examination of the bowels, become less able to detect precancerous growths without it.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Could technology be eroding the very skills it's meant to support?
--:-- Julia McFarlane: The researchers say the findings were concerning.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Our technology editor Zoe Kleiman reports.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: The study analysed around 1,400 colonoscopies carried out across four centres in Poland, both before and after AI tools were introduced.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: The research team found that the rate at which experienced professionals identified precancerous growths independently of the technology during the procedures fell once the tools were in use.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: One of the report's authors, Dr. Marcin Romanczyk from the Academy of Silesia in Poland, said it wasn't clear why this was the case, but other potential factors such as increased workloads or staff working longer hours have been ruled out.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: There are some suspicions that perhaps we are overlying on AI systems because we are basically waiting for the machine to show us where the polyps are and maybe we are not paying that much attention for careful inspection.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: I would not say that based on our research we should stop using AI but we should identify the least risk factors.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: The use of AI tech in healthcare is increasing and it's considered to be very successful at spotting specific symptoms.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: The tools are trained to use large amounts of data, as many different images as possible, for example, of the symptom they're being developed to recognise.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Supporters of the tech say it frees human doctors up to spend more time with patients.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Zoe Clyman.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Now to Scotland, where AI is having a less ominous impact.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Scientists there are developing what they're calling superpower glasses, which could improve people's hearing.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: The device uses a mixture of lip-reading technology, AI and cloud computing to filter out background noise and isolate a speaker's voice in real time.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Dr. Asana Deel of Stirling University told us how it all works.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: You would have a camera on the glasses or it could be on your earrings or it could be a locket.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: So that visual camera is going to actually capture your visuals, specifically your lips.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: So because lip movements are associated with the speech, right?
--:-- Julia McFarlane: So when I say hello, you would see that my lips are saying hello.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: If you're in a very noisy environment, so the speech is going to be really buried under the noise.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: And you can imagine yourself being in a cocktail party or, you know, in a get together.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Even people with normal hearing, you know, they just struggle to hear speech.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: But what they do I mean the brain automatically uses the visuals to clean the speech
--:-- Julia McFarlane: So these visual images from your cameras they going to go into the audio only hearing aids
--:-- Julia McFarlane: And of course they going to improve the speech
--:-- Julia McFarlane: We are developing an AI chair specifically for these multisensory hearing aids that are going to mimic a parametral cell in the human brain that is now suggested to be the hallmark of conscious processing.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: So we are able to mimic these cells and we have showed that we can really process these big data, audio-visual information on the chip.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Dr. Hassan Adil.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Still to come.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: For thousands of years, the native people of Alaska and the Russian Far East travelled back and forth across the Bering Strait to share a common culture and speak similar languages.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: And all that came to a halt as the Cold War erupted after World War II.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: We return to Friday's Trump-Putin Summit and hear how Alaska, where they will meet, has been a key contact point for generations.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: As America's most trusted movers, Mayflower has seen it all, from big dreams and new beginnings.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: All right, here we are. Oh, it's perfect.
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--:-- Julia McFarlane: So guess what?
--:-- Julia McFarlane: We're having another.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Another?
--:-- Julia McFarlane: We definitely need more space.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: To more practical homes.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Yes, Mayflower has been there for it all and will always have your back.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Every moment, every move, every step of the way.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Schedule your move now by going to Mayflower.com.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Go on, get a little out there into the big heart of Nevada, where you can go off-road and off the map on two lakes or on horseback.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Dip into hot springs and dive into deserts.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Climb a mountain or make your best effort.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: See thousands of stars in some of the darkest skies.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Stake out haunted hotels.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Can you make it to sunrise?
--:-- Julia McFarlane: There's always something new to see because we've got plenty of space to just be.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Plan your trip at TravelMevada.com.
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--:-- Julia McFarlane: According to a nationwide survey conducted by GeneSight, Nearly 9 in 10 Americans who've been diagnosed with depression or anxiety believe that mental health medications are somewhat or very effective.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: However, despite that belief, more than half of those individuals say they have avoided taking medication due to concerns about potential side effects.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: That's why Dr. Whitney Brown, a family and psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner based in Alabama, often recommends genetic testing to our patients as part of their treatment journey.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Dr. Brown explains, As part of my treatment plan, I offer the GeneSight test, which analyzes how a patient's genes may influence how they metabolize or respond to certain mental health medications.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: It gives me insights and takes out some of the guesswork that can be associated with prescribing them.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: If you or someone you love is facing challenges with depression or anxiety, talk to your doctor about how genetic testing may help.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: To learn more, visit Genesight.com.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: That's Genesight.com.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Human rights groups have condemned the move by Peru's president Dina Boluarte to grant immunity to hundreds of military and police officers for human rights abuses committed during the country's internal conflict back in the 1980s and 90s.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: According to official data, 70,000 people were killed during the fighting between the government and left-wing rebel groups like the Shining Path, which endorsed Maoist ideology.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: I asked our America's regional editor, Leonardo Rocha, why Ms. Bolluarte had decided to sign the legislation now.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Well, she said that she was restoring dignity to people who fought for democracy and fought for the country.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: And we have to bear in mind here that President Bolluarte, she didn't make the decision herself.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: This was a measure that was approved by Congress only a month ago, and she just signed it into law.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Of course, she supports that.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: She has spoken about that very, very often.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: And what she said is that these people were fighting communism, fighting violent groups, and they've been attacked by human rights groups, by the left, and that they deserved to be respected for what they did in her views for the country.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: And this is expected to affect five, six hundred people who were being tried, and now they will be basically released.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: And Leonardo, this conflict happened decades ago.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: What exactly was it all about?
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Can you bring us up to date for those of us who aren't so well informed on Peru's history?
--:-- Julia McFarlane: This conflict that started with Tupac Amaro, a left-wing group, guerrilla group, and then the shining path of the Sendero Luminos, a Maoist group.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: They were mainly the Maoist group, the Sendero Luminos.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: They were vicious.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: They killed people.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: They carried out massacres.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: And then you had paramilitary groups, very violent groups that came on to fight them.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: And for a while, it looked like these rebel groups are going to defeat the government.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: They almost brought them down.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: And then you had President Fujimori, who died a year ago, and he came back and they fought with a lot of violence.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: You have many people who say they saved the country because these rebel groups were really very violent and also committing huge abuse.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: But what you had here is innocent people, indigenous people, poor people who were basically executed for being considered to be close to the rebels or helping the rebels or sometimes living in the same areas as them.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: So for many people, it's a complete disgrace that you have innocent people who won't have any justice for that.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Leonardo Rocha.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: There's been a tense visit to Lebanon by a senior Iranian official.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Under pressure from the US, the Lebanese government has committed to disarming Hezbollah, which is based in Lebanon, by the end of the year.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Iran backs the Shia Muslim group and does not want this to happen.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Speaking at a news conference in Beirut, Ali Larijani, the Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, accused America of bossing Lebanon around.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Other countries should not give orders to Lebanon.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: The Lebanese nation is a mature nation.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: It can make decisions itself.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Our correspondent Hugo Boshega in Beirut told me more.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: This is part of a regional tour.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: First he was in Iraq, where the Iranians support a number of militias, part of what Iran has described as the axis of resistance.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: And here in Lebanon, obviously, you know, Iran supports the group that used to be the most powerful of this alliance, Hezbollah.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Iran has spent a lot of time, a lot of money building Hezbollah.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: And the group was obviously significantly weakened in last year's war with Israel.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: So it is a very difficult situation for Hezbollah.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: This is the worst moment in their history.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: So I think this is a way for Iran to tell Hezbollah and also the Shia community that we've got your back and also a way to send a message to everybody that Iran has been weakened, but it's still in the game.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: The recent decision by the Lebanese cabinet to disarm all the non-state actors hasn't been very popular with Iran.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Sure.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: How has it gone down in Lebanon?
--:-- Julia McFarlane: And you mentioned the Shia population.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: How have they reacted to that?
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Yeah so there is obviously some discontent in the Shia community especially because there been almost no money to rebuild you know communities that have been destroyed because of the war
--:-- Julia McFarlane: But outside Hezbollah's support base, there is a lot of support for the idea of disarming, you know, Hezbollah.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: For many Lebanese, you know, the idea of having an armed group inside the country with the ability to drag the country into wars is over.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: So there is a lot of support.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: This visit is happening just days after the Lebanese cabinet approved a roadmap backed by the US for Hezbollah's disarmament.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Hezbollah so far has said, look, we're not going to accept.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: So there is obviously the fear here that if there is any kind of move against Hezbollah, this could lead to some kind of violence.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: And obviously, a lot of people here, you know, still have memories of the civil war.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: So this is something that is being taken very seriously by a lot of people here.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Hugo Busega in Beirut.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Let's return to our main story.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: And it's tomorrow, Friday, when the media glare will be on the US state of Alaska as the US and Russian presidents fly in to talk.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: President Trump has a 5,500-kilometer trip.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: But President Putin's trip from Moscow is even further, around 7,000.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: The westernmost coast of Alaska is only about 90 kilometers from the easternmost coast of Russia.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: The northern U.S. state was once a Russian colony sold by a 19th century czar who needed the money for a war in Crimea.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: In 2025, the talks will revolve around another war in the same part of the world.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: So how does this meeting fit into the history of Russians and Americans crossing paths in Alaska?
--:-- Julia McFarlane: David Ramso is an Alaskan journalist and author.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: There are only about 800,000 Alaskans here, even though our state is so huge.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: About 40% of the state population is in Anchorage.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: And we have about 200 very remote, mostly indigenous villages in the north and western part of Alaska that are from 50 to a couple of hundred people.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: So take us back to 1867, when the then Tsar of Russia needed some money.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: He sold Alaska to the United States.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Well, we certainly got a very good deal.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: $7.2 million, about two cents an acre, is what the United States paid for Alaska.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: We produced that much in about a day of oil production from the north slope of Alaska.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: But the history between Alaska and Russia is actually very long.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: For thousands of years, the native people of Alaska and the Russian Far East traveled back and forth across the Bering Strait to share a common culture and speak similar languages.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: And all that came to a halt as the Cold War erupted after World War II.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: And so both countries agreed to a treaty that basically sealed the Bering Strait.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: No travel was allowed.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: And that pretty much lasted from 1948 to the mid-1980s.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Despite that, how Russian does Alaska still feel?
--:-- Julia McFarlane: There are a number of Russian Orthodox churches in Alaska communities.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: A lot of Alaska Native people became Russian Orthodox back in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and that still continues.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: There are a number of Russians that came over during the heyday of positive relations, and so there are a few hundred Russians who married Alaska citizens, started families and businesses and remain here.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: That's only 55 miles between the two mainlands, and there are two islands in the middle of the Bering Sea, Russian Big Diomede and U.S. Little Diomede, and they're only two and a half miles apart.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Starting in the mid-1980s for about 25 or 30 years, there was really a heyday of positive relations between the two countries, and those really continued until Mr. Putin came to power and slowly shut all that down.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Did you take the opportunity to go during that period?
--:-- Julia McFarlane: I did my first trip to Russia in 1988.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Alaska Airlines, which is a carrier in our part of the world, loaded a plane with mostly Alaska natives who flew over to the Russian coast and met some Russian natives who they had not seen in 40 years because of the Cold War closure.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: And it was a very emotional time on the tarmac there being reunited.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: When something like this President Trump, President Putin meeting comes to Alaska, does the state enjoy the scrutiny of being the center of the world's attention for a while?
--:-- Julia McFarlane: We've actually long been a meeting place for international dignitaries.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: A number of U.S. presidents, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, have held summits here.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: And so we're used to the tension that we get internationally.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: But I think Alaskans are pretty upset about this summit where Ukraine is excluded and it legitimizes Putin by allowing him to land on U.S. soil.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: And I think a majority of Alaskans and Americans oppose that.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: David Ramseur speaking to Ben James.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Now, while President Trump has been planning the Alaska talks, his vice president, J.D. Vance, has been on a family holiday in England, though he's had a few official meetings as well.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: He spent the past few days in the scenic Cotswold countryside.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: It's hard to imagine anywhere more, well, English.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: But not everyone is pleased at having a VIP visitor.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Rather shockingly, for the sleepy Cotswolds, there have been protests against him.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: So we're calling it J.D. Vance Not Welcome Party.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Essentially, we've got everybody bringing along their homemade banners.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: We've brought along loads of images of that meme that we know he hates with him with the bald head.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Vance, Vance, Vance!
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Out, out, out!
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Farts, farts, farts!
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Out, out, out!
--:-- Julia McFarlane: He's entitled to holiday here just like anybody else is, but we're also entitled to express our opinion.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Police everywhere, in the fields, you know, our taxpayers are paying for all of that.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: He's not welcome here, so we want him to go home.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: And there's been trouble too for one of his hosts earlier in his stay, the British Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who welcomed him to the government's countryside retreat of Cheven
