--:-- Alex Ritson: This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Recommendation at moerie.com. Results can vary. Mori is not a substitute for medical advice. See website for more.
--:-- Alex Ritson: 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 in both, perfect for fans of Sarah J Maas and Rebecca Yaros. Available in print, e-book and audio book.
--:-- Alex Ritson: This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Alex Ritson and at 0500 GMT on Tuesday 30th September, these are our main stories.
--:-- Alex Ritson: As Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu agree a peace plan for Gaza, Hamas says it will review the deal and respond. Afghanistan's Taliban rulers enforce a nationwide internet shutdown to prevent what they see as immorality. And the US vice president warns a government shutdown is looming.
--:-- Alex Ritson: Also in this podcast. I just have the skills. I know how to kill. And I don't get convicted for it. The convicts volunteering to serve on the front lines in Ukraine.
--:-- Alex Ritson: We begin in the White House. Thank you very much. And a handshake between US President Donald Trump and Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu in front of the world press as they agreed a peace deal for Gaza, issuing an ultimatum to Hamas, accept it or face the consequences.
--:-- Alex Ritson: The Palestinian Authority reiterated its commitment to work with the US on the 20-point plan, which says all Israeli hostages must be freed within days, Hamas must disarm, and Israel will withdraw its forces from the Gaza Strip.
--:-- Alex Ritson: In the last few hours, Britain, France and Italy have backed it. Eight Arab and Muslim nations ranging from Egypt to Indonesia have also said they're on side.
--:-- Alex Ritson: Our North America editor Sarah Smith is in Washington and sent this report after that press conference.
--:-- Sarah Smith: Donald Trump likes to say he is the best friend Israel ever had in the White House, who's been trying for months to get his pal Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to a deal to end the war in Gaza.
--:-- Sarah Smith: Are you confident, sir, there'll be peace in Gaza anytime soon?
--:-- Donald Trump: Ma'am, bring up. The upbeat expressions today show they have now found something Israel can sign up to, even though Hamas have not yet agreed.
--:-- Donald Trump: So this is a big, big day, a beautiful day, potentially one of the great days ever in civilization.
--:-- Donald Trump: I believe that today we're taking a critical step towards both ending the war in Gaza and setting the stage for dramatically advancing peace in the Middle East.
--:-- Donald Trump: And I think beyond the Middle East, very important Muslim countries. If, and this is the big if, Hamas agree to this, then all hostages will be returned.
--:-- Donald Trump: Israel will start to withdraw troops from Gaza and allow aid to start flowing in.
--:-- Donald Trump: Hamas will not be involved in governing Gaza. It will be run by an international transitional administration.
--:-- Donald Trump: The tyranny of terror has to end. And this is, again, something that we're looking for. This is eternity. This is for forever.
--:-- Donald Trump: To ensure the success of this effort, my plan calls for the creation of a new international oversight body, the Board of Peace, we call it.
--:-- Donald Trump: The Board of Peace, sort of a beautiful name. The Board of Peace will be chaired by President Trump himself, with other statesmen involved.
--:-- Donald Trump: And one of the people that wants to be on the board is the UK former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, good man, very good man, and some others.
--:-- Sarah Smith: We got no further details on Tony Blair's precise role. He's called this a bold and intelligent plan that offers us the best chance of ending two years of war, misery and suffering.
--:-- Sarah Smith: Last week at the United Nations, many countries walked out in protest as Mr Netanyahu began a defiant address. demonstrating the international pressure he is under to end the war.
--:-- Sarah Smith: But Donald Trump told him if Hamas do not agree to this deal, then Israel can do what it thinks is required.
--:-- Sarah Smith: I have a feeling that we're going to have a positive answer. But if not, as you know, Bibi, you'd have more full backing to do what you would have to do.
--:-- Sarah Smith: Everyone understands that the ultimate result must be the elimination of any danger posed in the region and that danger is caused by Hamas.
--:-- Sarah Smith: America's full backing to do what you have to do. An ominous warning, perhaps, of what could happen if Hamas do not sign up to this deal and Israel is no longer constrained by Mr Trump's desire to make peace.
--:-- Sarah Smith: President Trump's view on this, clear as always. But how is the peace plan being received on the ground?
--:-- Sarah Smith: Israel has blocked the BBC and other international broadcasters from reporting inside Gaza, and we rely on information from trusted freelance journalists there.
--:-- Sarah Smith: So, with Hamas yet to respond, could the deal be finished before it begins?
--:-- Lucy Williamson: On Monday, leaflets warning civilians to evacuate Gaza City were being dropped from the sky.
--:-- Lucy Williamson: The message from Israel's army to Gaza City, we're coming. Leaflets warning residents to evacuate dropped on its streets as tanks advanced on the city's central government district.
--:-- Lucy Williamson: The battle against Hamas will not stop until it's defeated, they read.
--:-- Lucy Williamson: Donald Trump's promise of a deal barely landing here at all. But Atiyah Shamala was one of those hoping for it, though it came too late to save his brother or his house.
--:-- Lucy Williamson: The proposal is good. We support anything that stops the bloodshed. We support anything that saves lives.
--:-- Lucy Williamson: And we support Arab forces coming here to the Gaza Strip to organize our internal affairs.
--:-- Lucy Williamson: Israel's Prime Minister has repeatedly vowed to finish Hamas. Today, sounding deflated beside Donald Trump, he agreed to end the war.
--:-- Lucy Williamson: But if Hamas rejects your plan, Mr. President, or if they supposedly accept it and then basically do everything to counter it, then Israel will finish the job by itself.
--:-- Lucy Williamson: This can be done the easy way or it can be done the hard way. But ending a war in Washington risks opening a new political front at home.
--:-- Lucy Williamson: Israeli protesters have long called for a deal to free the hostages, while the Prime Minister's coalition allies have threatened to leave if there's any talk of a Palestinian state.
--:-- Lucy Williamson: One opposition leader told Mr Netanyahu to ignore what he called the threats of extremists in his government, saying he had the support of the public and the parliament.
--:-- Alex Ritson: And we asked her how soon we might have a response from Hamas.
--:-- Lucy Williamson: The BBC understands that Hamas has now been given the proposal. It's said that it will review it, but it needs both its commanders on the ground and its leadership abroad to agree what to do.
--:-- Lucy Williamson: And the sense that some of my colleagues have been getting is that there are military commanders on the ground in Gaza who are still very robust, who still want war.
--:-- Lucy Williamson: One of the concessions it seems that has been made to Israel in this proposal is the language around a future Palestinian state. It talks about the aspirations of the Palestinian people about how conditions may finally be in place after all the reform of the PA.
--:-- Lucy Williamson: That sounds like a very long path with a lot of ifs. That may be too much for Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition allies, but it may be too little for Hamas.
--:-- Anbarasan Etirajan: Schools, hospitals, businesses and homes in Afghanistan are all without the internet after the Taliban cut it off in the ongoing fight against what they consider immorality.
--:-- Anbarasan Etirajan: The country is, in other words, currently under a nationwide communications blackout.
--:-- Anbarasan Etirajan: It's a massive blow for free speech and for the ability of people to communicate with each other.
--:-- Anbarasan Etirajan: Already, the Afghan people are going through a difficult time with various restrictions by the Taliban since they seized power in 2021.
--:-- Anbarasan Etirajan: Secondary schools are off for girls, university education is off, and workplaces, severe restrictions, and they are even removing books written by women.
--:-- Anbarasan Etirajan: Most homes and offices will have fiber optic, basically cable-based internet, which is high speed, more stable than mobile internet connection, what you get on your mobile phone.
--:-- Anbarasan Etirajan: So many of these offices or homes won't be having any access to fiber optic because they have been now cut off.
--:-- Anbarasan Etirajan: And the Taliban, they say, until further instructions, this will last.
--:-- Anbarasan Etirajan: What they were doing was initially they were rolling it out in a few provinces now. This is the first time they're doing a nationwide blackout.
--:-- Anbarasan Etirajan: This has come as a huge blow and shock for the people of Afghanistan.
--:-- Anbarasan Etirajan: Even the mobile internet, the quality is not great. You have to pay more money and you can't do a lot of videos on mobile internet.
--:-- Anbarasan Etirajan: Afghanistan has gone into darkness. And the Taliban think this is what God wants them to do.
--:-- Anbarasan Etirajan: Well, they say what they describe as immorality or to prevent people from abusing internet, they want to have a total control or they are afraid of Afghan opposition groups communicating with each other or talking to people directly.
--:-- Anbarasan Etirajan: But that's actually Sharia law, aren't they? They see it as God's word. It's basically their own version of Islamic Sharia law, their own interpretation, because the interpretation differs in other parts of the world.
--:-- Anbarasan Etirajan: Even the restrictions on women, education, workplace, that's all based on, according to that interpretation of Islamic law.
--:-- Anbarasan Etirajan: But what it has done to families is a lot of people depend on remittances from abroad, people sending money from here to their families there.
--:-- Anbarasan Etirajan: So if you cut off fiber internet, then that means many of these exchanges will have difficulty in accessing. That will be affected.
--:-- Anbarasan Etirajan: And for businesses, especially import, exports. So nobody knows what's going to happen tomorrow morning when the country wakes up to this new reality.
--:-- Anbarasan Etirajan: The problem is the country is going through a difficult economic situation. and even if you can't get money sent from abroad by your relatives because of this internet blackout, how are they going to survive?
--:-- Anbarasan Etirajan: So it is like Afghanistan going back to dark ages.
--:-- Anbarasan Etirajan: The internet is not just about for entertainment, for medical purpose, for hospital records, all these things, they use fibre optic internet.
--:-- Anbarasan Etirajan: So no one knows why they are doing it and what they are trying to achieve through this kind of decrease.
--:-- Michelle Fleury: A federal budget standoff is threatening to shut down the US government for the first time in almost seven years.
--:-- Michelle Fleury: I think we're headed to a shutdown because the Democrats won't do the right thing.
--:-- Michelle Fleury: Democrats are fighting to protect the health care of the American people.
--:-- Michelle Fleury: And we are not going to support a partisan Republican spending bill that continues to gut the health care of everyday Americans. Period. Full stop.
--:-- Michelle Fleury: US Vice President J.D. Vance and Democrat House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries there after a meeting at the White House aimed at avoiding a government shutdown on Wednesday.
--:-- Michelle Fleury: As you can hear, it didn't seem to go very well.
--:-- Michelle Fleury: Neither side has been able to agree to a way forward on a spending bill introduced by the Republicans.
--:-- Michelle Fleury: Our business correspondent Michelle Fleury reports from New York.
--:-- Michelle Fleury: A meeting between President Trump and the top four leaders of Congress ended without any breakthrough.
--:-- Michelle Fleury: Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said significant differences remained, while Vice President J.D. Vance warned a government shutdown was coming.
--:-- Michelle Fleury: Now they come in here saying that if you don't give us everything that we want, we're going to shut down the government.
--:-- Michelle Fleury: We think that's preposterous. We think it's totally unacceptable.
--:-- Michelle Fleury: And we think the American people are going to suffer because these guys won't do the right thing.
--:-- Michelle Fleury: Now, even though Republicans currently control the White House and both chambers of Congress, they still need Democratic support in the Senate to get any funding bill passed.
--:-- Michelle Fleury: That's because 60 votes are required and the GOP only has 53.
--:-- Michelle Fleury: Democrats are holding firm and one of their key demands is more support for health care.
--:-- Michelle Fleury: They want to extend tax credits that help millions of Americans afford insurance and reverse Medicaid cuts introduced under Donald Trump.
--:-- Michelle Fleury: If no agreement is reached by midnight on Tuesday, the government shuts down for the first time in nearly seven years.
--:-- Michelle Fleury: And while the immediate economic impact might seem limited, the consequences could grow quickly.
--:-- Michelle Fleury: For starters, the shutdown would halt operations at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, meaning Friday's crucial jobs report would be delayed.
--:-- Michelle Fleury: And that matters because job growth has already been slowing.
--:-- Michelle Fleury: And with fresh warnings from the White House Budget Office about its intention to use a potential shutdown as an opportunity to initiate permanent layoffs, well, the pressure on the labour market is building.
--:-- Michelle Fleury: So this isn't just a political standoff. It's a moment that could ripple through the economy, just as many Americans are feeling more financially uncertain.
--:-- Akisa Wanderer: A trade deal that's been the cornerstone of US-Africa economic relations for 25 years is set to expire later today.
--:-- Akisa Wanderer: The African Growth and Opportunity Act has allowed dozens of sub-Saharan countries to export products to the US duty-free.
--:-- Akisa Wanderer: But as Akisa Wanderer reports from Kenya, hundreds of thousands of jobs now hang in the balance.
--:-- Akisa Wanderer: In Nairobi, the ham of sewing machines fills the air at Shona, a garment factory in the export processing zone.
--:-- Akisa Wanderer: 29-year-old Joanne Mamboy, an operator at this factory, moves her hands and feet in rhythm on the sewing machine, stitching together pieces of fabric.
--:-- Akisa Wanderer: She's been doing this job for only six months. A single mother, she supports her four-year-old daughter, two sisters in college, and her mother.
--:-- Akisa Wanderer: I'm a breadwinner in my family, and I'm managing myself, my bills, and my everything.
--:-- Akisa Wanderer: It's going to hit me hard, starting to look for new job opportunities.
--:-- Akisa Wanderer: This Kenya is hard to find a job, very hard.
--:-- Akisa Wanderer: On this factory floor, hundreds of workers are stitching clothes meant for the American market.
--:-- Akisa Wanderer: For them, a goa is not just an agreement, it means steady jobs.
--:-- Akisa Wanderer: But with the act expiring today, they're worried for their livelihoods and what it would mean for their families.
--:-- Akisa Wanderer: Joanne understands the expiry won't just affect her. It could disrupt the livelihoods of hundreds of her colleagues.
--:-- Akisa Wanderer: It expires, where shall we go?
--:-- Akisa Wanderer: This company holds a lot of youths, a lot of single mothers, People are here to maybe look for school fees.
--:-- Akisa Wanderer: There are a few people here from the streets. They were drug addicts, so if it expires, we might go back to there.
--:-- Akisa Wanderer: In 2024, Kenya exported $470 million worth of apparel to the U.S., supporting more than 66,000 direct jobs, three-quarters of them women.
--:-- Akisa Wanderer: Isaac Maluki, director at Shona EPZ, says his factory has the capacity to produce nearly half a million garments each month.
--:-- Akisa Wanderer: But this year, output has fallen to almost a third of that following the announcement of Agoa's impending expiry.
--:-- Akisa Wanderer: After all these years of investments it may just come down to having to close down because if we can get enough work to sustain the people here then we will have no choice
--:-- Akisa Wanderer: The stakes are high. Isaac Maluki explains just how much has been invested over the years.
--:-- Akisa Wanderer: If the extension doesn't happen, we are looking at, for our facility, north of $10 million of investment going down the drain.
--:-- Akisa Wanderer: African leaders have been lobbying Washington for Agua's extension, Pressing their case are the United Nations General Assembly.
--:-- Akisa Wanderer: Kenya's Trade Minister, Lee Kinyanjui, says the government is seeking an extension while exploring new markets.
--:-- Akisa Wanderer: An ideal situation would be the extension of the Agua maybe for one year or two years so that some of these transition mechanisms can be done.
--:-- Akisa Wanderer: Across the continent, governments, businesses and workers remain hopeful that what has been built for the past 25 years through this agreement can be preserved.
--:-- Lucy Williamson: Still to come. When I talk to refugees in the camps, they all tell me they want to go home. But what it does pinpoint is obviously there's an issue when there are no homes to go home to.
--:-- Lucy Williamson: A UN-backed report says the Burmese army has replaced Rohingya villages it destroyed with military camps.
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--:-- Lucy Williamson: This is a style lineup you won't want to miss.
--:-- Alex Ritson: Welcome to The W, where legends are made and history is written under the brightest lights.
--:-- Alex Ritson: The WNBA delivers nonstop action and world-class talent every single game.
--:-- Alex Ritson: And now, it all comes down to this. Will the New York Liberty defend their crown? Or will another team take the chip?
--:-- Alex Ritson: This is where champions rise and legacies are defined.
--:-- Alex Ritson: Watch the WNBA postseason Currently underway on ABC and ESPN
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--:-- Alex Ritson: Results can vary. Maury is not a substitute for medical advice. See website for more.
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--:-- James Waterhouse: With both Ukraine and Russia struggling to recruit enough soldiers for the war, they're turning to convicts who may be more willing to take up arms.
--:-- James Waterhouse: Over the past year, Ukraine has recruited more than 10,000 men from prisons.
--:-- James Waterhouse: Russia has long done the same, albeit on a greater scale.
--:-- James Waterhouse: The Ukrainian law allows criminals, including murderers, to join the military, but excludes those convicted of some offences like multiple killings and rape.
--:-- James Waterhouse: In exchange for fighting, inmates will be granted parole once the war is over, but given how many usually end up in the most dangerous parts of the front line, few will make it that far.
--:-- James Waterhouse: Our correspondent James Waterhouse has been to see how the scheme works in practice.
--:-- James Waterhouse: Welcome to the number four penal colony.
--:-- James Waterhouse: This is a medium security prison and you wonder what maximum looks like as we sign in through the double iron gates.
--:-- James Waterhouse: And through we go. A third thick metal door with heavy barbed wire overhead.
--:-- James Waterhouse: And we are here in the central city of Zhatomir to see Ukraine's latest method of recruiting soldiers.
--:-- James Waterhouse: After many stares, we're now in this side room to meet Roman in his brown overalls.
--:-- James Waterhouse: He's serving five years for drug offences. But he could be out soon after signing up for the military.
--:-- James Waterhouse: This is a contribution, rehabilitation to myself, he tells me.
--:-- James Waterhouse: Everyone will end up on the front line in any case, sooner or later.
--:-- James Waterhouse: With the passing of time, Ukraine's appetite to fight is decreasing.
--:-- James Waterhouse: And yet inside these hostile-looking walls is a well of motivation.
--:-- James Waterhouse: 500 out of the 1,000 or so inmates here have signed up so far, but only half of them have survived.
--:-- James Waterhouse: Would you describe that as a meat grinder?
--:-- James Waterhouse: I don't know the source of information of this.
--:-- James Waterhouse: Ukraine's deputy justice minister disputes the numbers which we gleaned from the prison's governor.
--:-- James Waterhouse: Yeah, Yvhen Pekalov, deputy minister of justice for Ukraine.
--:-- James Waterhouse: Can you not see that if you are, say, from a poor background, you've been a career criminal, is that not exploiting that vulnerability in some way?
--:-- James Waterhouse: We simply provide an opportunity for them to defend and protect our country. That's it.
--:-- James Waterhouse: So what does that entail?
--:-- James Waterhouse: Well, here in southern Ukraine, there are 30 or so ex-convicts who've returned from the front line.
--:-- James Waterhouse: They're turning this barn into a military base.
--:-- James Waterhouse: In the corner is Alexei. He's got a pretty serious-looking leg injury.
--:-- James Waterhouse: We were hit by artillery. Only three of us came back.
--:-- James Waterhouse: Alexei is a convicted drug smuggler.
--:-- James Waterhouse: I just have the skills. I know how to kill. And I don't get convicted for it.
--:-- James Waterhouse: Back to Yevhen Beccalo, the deputy justice minister.
--:-- James Waterhouse: Say you were the mother of a son who was run over by a drunk driver, and now they are learning that the person responsible could have their sentence slashed.
--:-- James Waterhouse: How do you think they would react to that, and what would you say to them?
--:-- James Waterhouse: He released on condition. If this guy commits another crime, he will go back to jail and will serve not only new sentence, but the old one.
--:-- James Waterhouse: These men are central to a new assault unit in Ukraine's military, where their main job will be storming Russian positions.
--:-- James Waterhouse: But critics call these missions meat grinders.
--:-- James Waterhouse: We entered Russian trenches and they mistook us for them.
--:-- James Waterhouse: Our equipment is similar to theirs and we were dressed the same.
--:-- James Waterhouse: We took them apart. We were there for around 10 days. Then the shelling started.
--:-- James Waterhouse: One of those was Andrei. He was among the first convicts to join the army since the law changed a year ago.
--:-- James Waterhouse: You immediately notice his various tattoos and broad grin.
--:-- James Waterhouse: He is a career burglar, but, as his shiny medal denotes, is now a hero in the eyes of the state.
--:-- James Waterhouse: What you done is so dangerous
--:-- James Waterhouse: If you were a free man would you have volunteered in the same part of the military
--:-- James Waterhouse: Of course I would I've committed many evil deeds for this country.
--:-- James Waterhouse: I would definitely go fight and do the job I am 100% good at.
--:-- James Waterhouse: Russia was criticized for recruiting prisoners earlier in the war, with around 200,000 ending up on the battlefield.
--:-- James Waterhouse: It's an uncomfortable comparison for the Ukrainians, but their search for able men will only deepen.
--:-- Ioni Wells: Ecuador's largest indigenous rights group has staged protests and been on strike since President Daniel Noboa announced a cut in fuel subsidies earlier this month.
--:-- Ioni Wells: The latest clash has left one civilian dead and 12 soldiers injured.
--:-- Ioni Wells: It's understood an aid convoy, including the president, was ambushed late on Sunday.
--:-- Ioni Wells: We heard today from the Ecuadorian government that a convoy that was carrying humanitarian aid to one of the areas impacted by the strike was attacked by what they described as 350 people throwing Molotov cocktails, throwing rocks at the convoy.
--:-- Ioni Wells: Now, the convoy included President Daniel Noboa himself, as well as diplomats, including delegations from the UN, from the EU, from Italy, from the Vatican, as well as some other more junior ministers as well.
--:-- Ioni Wells: Now, I understand that the ministers and diplomats who were on board were not harmed.
--:-- Ioni Wells: But in some of these clashes that have taken place and this ambush, there were 12 members of the military who were injured.
--:-- Ioni Wells: There have been pretty graphic videos posted on social media of some of them covered in blood as a result of these clashes.
--:-- Ioni Wells: 17 military personnel have been taken hostage, according to the government as well, with no further updates yet on their whereabouts.
--:-- Ioni Wells: And the indigenous community say that one member of their community was also shot three times and died in hospital.
--:-- Ioni Wells: Now, I asked the government for comment on this. They said that this was being looked into.
--:-- Ioni Wells: There was an investigation and the prosecutor's office would investigate the circumstances of this case.
--:-- Ioni Wells: But I think it is fair to say that the situation in Ecuador is feeling incredibly precarious.
--:-- Ioni Wells: It's worth stressing, too, for context, that this indigenous organization, which has been behind the general strike and behind the protests, was largely credited with taking down three different presidents of the country in the past.
--:-- Ioni Wells: So I think this is something which is certainly making the government nervous, as well as potentially leading to further unrest in the coming weeks ahead.
--:-- Nicholas Kuhnjian: UN investigators say they found clear evidence that the Burmese army has replaced the Rohingya villages and homes it destroyed inside Myanmar with military infrastructure.
--:-- Nicholas Kuhnjian: People from the Burmese Muslim minority fled the offensive in 2017 and are still living in crowded refugee camps, mainly in neighbouring Bangladesh.
--:-- Nicholas Kuhnjian: Nicholas Kuhnjian led the investigation team.
--:-- Nicholas Kuhnjian: We looked at seven different village tracks, which include multiple villages.
--:-- Nicholas Kuhnjian: And in each of these village tracks, the areas where there were Rohingya village are now a military base, a border guard police base.
--:-- Nicholas Kuhnjian: I think the report shows how systematic that demolition of Rohingya villages and construction of bases was.
--:-- Nicholas Kuhnjian: Have you heard reaction to this report from Rohingya refugees?
--:-- Nicholas Kuhnjian: It's a huge problem for them because still, when I talk to the refugees, they tell me they want to go home.
--:-- Nicholas Kuhnjian: That's consistently the message that I get. They don't have a real life in a refugee camp.
--:-- Nicholas Kuhnjian: There's no permanent desire on their part or anyone else's that they permanently settle in Bangladesh.
--:-- Nicholas Kuhnjian: They want to go back to their homes, which is in Rakhine State in Myanmar.
--:-- Nicholas Kuhnjian: But what it does pinpoint is obviously there's an issue when there are no homes to go home to.
--:-- Nicholas Kuhnjian: And just remind us how many people we're talking about having been displaced by this war.
--:-- Nicholas Kuhnjian: In total, more than a million.
--:-- Nicholas Kuhnjian: In 2017, over three quarters of a million were displaced to Bangladesh.
--:-- Nicholas Kuhnjian: Some have gone to other countries and recently another 150,000 have been displaced.
--:-- Nicholas Kuhnjian: It's a burden on Bangladesh and many of the other regional states that are hosting refugees.
--:-- Nicholas Kuhnjian: Malaysia, for example, has about 200,000. Thailand has many hundreds of thousands of refugees from different parts of Myanmar.
--:-- Nicholas Kuhnjian: So it is extremely burdensome. It's not simply a domestic issue, it's an international issue.
--:-- Nicholas Kuhnjian: But how close are we to conditions where they could return safely? What is the state of the conflict there?
--:-- Nicholas Kuhnjian: Well, the conflict is very severe at the moment.
--:-- Nicholas Kuhnjian: The Arakan army and opposition group is battling the de facto authorities and the military authorities.
--:-- Nicholas Kuhnjian: Military authorities are conducting widespread airstrikes throughout the region.
--:-- Nicholas Kuhnjian: And there are battles between both
--:-- Nicholas Kuhnjian: There are allegations of forced conscription of young men.
--:-- Nicholas Kuhnjian: So it's a very unsafe situation at the moment.
--:-- Nicholas Kuhnjian: There are so many wars going on in the world at the moment. This one tends to get overlooked, doesn't it, at the moment?
--:-- Nicholas Kuhnjian: Yes, unfortunately, that's true.
--:-- Nicholas Kuhnjian: People, the news cycle moves on, but the refugees remain exactly where they have been for the past eight and a half years.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: A billionaire known as the Bitcoin Queen has pleaded guilty to cryptocurrency crime in a UK court after she fled China with 61,000 bitcoins and tried to launder the money, buying mansions in London.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: Ximin Chen, also known as Yadi Zhang, entered guilty pleas to charges of possessing cryptocurrency that was criminal property and transferring it.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: When police raided a house in a leafy London borough in 2018 while investigating a suspicious property purchase, they had no idea of the value of the belongings they seized.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: Among them, devices containing Bitcoin worth around $5 billion in today's prices.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: It was being stored by Jamin Chen and her assistant, former Chinese takeaway worker Jian Wen, and is thought to be the proceeds of an investment fraud in China between 2014 and 2017, which tricked more than 120,000 people.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: It wasn't until 2021 that investigators realised they'd been storing billions of dollars, by which point Jumin Chen had gone missing, only being apprehended in the north of England three years later.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: Her lawyers say she fled China under duress, citing a government crackdown on crypto entrepreneurs and stressed that she intends to pay the money back.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: A digital diary found by police outlined her plans to build a small kingdom between Croatia and Serbia that she intended to rule with the crown and scepter, featuring infrastructure, including an airport and a Buddhist temple.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: As the trial unfolds, China's government and UK authorities are battling in a separate case over ownership of the Bitcoin fortune.
--:-- Alex Ritson: And that's all from us for now, but there'll be a new edition of the Global News podcast later.
--:-- Alex Ritson: If you want to comment on this podcast, or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email.
--:-- Alex Ritson: The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk.
--:-- Alex Ritson: You can also find us on X at BBC World Service.
--:-- Alex Ritson: Use the hashtag Global News Pod.
--:-- Alex Ritson: This edition was mixed by Caroline Driscoll.
--:-- Alex Ritson: The editor is Karen Martin.
--:-- Alex Ritson: I'm Alex Ritson. Until next time, goodbye.
--:-- Asma Khalid: America is changing. And so is the world. But what's happening in America isn't just a cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.
--:-- Asma Khalid: I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. I'm Tristan Redman in London.
--:-- Asma Khalid: And this is The Global Story. Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from this intersection, where the world and America meet.
--:-- Asma Khalid: Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
