--:-- Jackie Leonard: This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Jackie Leonard, and in the early hours of Saturday, the 16th of August, these are our main stories.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin have ended their much-anticipated talks on Ukraine, saying they've been held in an atmosphere of mutual respect and progress have been made. There was no mention of any ceasefire agreement.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: And the African Union has backed a campaign to persuade governments and international organizations to adopt a map of the world which more accurately represents Africa's real size.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: Also in this podcast... I have to say that I know nothing about mathematics whatsoever, but I came up with a code that seems to have baffled for decades. Are you a codebreaker who wants to crack the CIA's infamous cryptos puzzle? Its secret key is up for sale.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: As we record this podcast, the US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin have just finished holding talks in Alaska on the war in Ukraine.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: Mr. Trump arrived first on board Air Force One at the Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage, the largest US military installation in Alaska and a Cold War facility for surveillance of the former Soviet Union.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: The US president then greeted Mr Putin a short time later when he disembarked from his own plane.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: Interestingly, Mr Putin opted to ride with Mr Trump in his car, the Beast, rather than the Russian limousine that had also been flown in.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: Meanwhile, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, who was not invited to the summit, said his country was counting on America.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: So at stake is the future of Russia's war in Ukraine, and perhaps much more.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: This is what Mr. Trump had to say about Mr. Putin on board Air Force One as he flew into Alaska.
--:-- Donald Trump: He's a smart guy. Been doing it for a long time, but so have I. Been doing it for a long time. And here we are, we're president.
--:-- Donald Trump: That was much more difficult than what I'm doing today, believe me.
--:-- Donald Trump: So we get along. There's a good respect level on both sides.
--:-- Donald Trump: And I think, you know, something's going to come of it.
--:-- Donald Trump: I noticed he's bringing a lot of business people from Russia. And that's good.
--:-- Donald Trump: I like that because they want to do business, but they're not doing business until we get the war settled.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: The world's media have gathered for the summit.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: Inside the base, the two presidents posed for pictures before officials ushered reporters out of the room.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: Thank you very much.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: Thank you.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: Thank you, press.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: Thank you, press.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: Since we came into the podcast studio, talks between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in Alaska have concluded.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: The two men met for more than two and a half hours, each accompanied by senior officials.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: Then there was a news conference.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: Behind a podium was a large caption, pursuing peace.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: First to speak through an interpreter was the Russian president.
--:-- Vladimir Putin: Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen, our negotiations have been held in a constructive atmosphere of mutual respect.
--:-- Vladimir Putin: We have very thorough negotiations that were quite useful.
--:-- Vladimir Putin: I would like to thank once again my American counterpart for the proposal to travel out here to Alaska.
--:-- Vladimir Putin: It only makes sense that we've met here because our countries, though separated by the oceans, are close neighbors.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: President Trump had this to say.
--:-- Donald Trump: I'm going to start making a few phone calls and tell them what happened.
--:-- Donald Trump: But we had an extremely productive meeting and many points were agreed to.
--:-- Donald Trump: There are just a very few that are left.
--:-- Donald Trump: Some are not that significant.
--:-- Donald Trump: One is probably the most significant.
--:-- Donald Trump: But we have a very good chance of getting there.
--:-- Donald Trump: We didn't get there, but we have a very good chance of getting there.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: Sumi Somerskander got this assessment from our correspondent Gary O'Donoghue.
--:-- Gary O'Donoghue: Not a lot really to get your teeth into here, is there?
--:-- Gary O'Donoghue: I mean, that's an extraordinary press conference, as President Trump's concerned.
--:-- Gary O'Donoghue: But he never does them that short, right?
--:-- Gary O'Donoghue: He never does.
--:-- Gary O'Donoghue: He never says that little.
--:-- Gary O'Donoghue: Certainly that unwillingness to take any questions is an indication either they think there's some sensitive progress being made that they don't want a scupper or that there really isn't anything to say.
--:-- Gary O'Donoghue: And as you mentioned in your introduction, you know no deal until there's a deal.
--:-- Gary O'Donoghue: Maybe another meeting in Moscow said Vladimir Putin in English, uncharacteristic for him as well.
--:-- Gary O'Donoghue: Trump saying that might get me some heat.
--:-- Gary O'Donoghue: Well, we'll see.
--:-- Gary O'Donoghue: I mean, I suppose what you can take from this is that they neither of them kind of walked away as Donald Trump indicated he might if things weren't looking good in the first few minutes.
--:-- Gary O'Donoghue: It went off two and a half hours.
--:-- Gary O'Donoghue: Not entirely sure what happened to the lunch they were meant to have.
--:-- Gary O'Donoghue: But nothing particularly concrete to point to.
--:-- Gary O'Donoghue: And of course, if you're in Ukraine and if you're living in the urban areas in Kiev elsewhere Sumy and Harki all these places, you're going to think, well, what does it mean for me tonight?
--:-- Gary O'Donoghue: What does it mean in terms of the missile attacks, the drone attacks?
--:-- Gary O'Donoghue: What does it mean on the front line?
--:-- Gary O'Donoghue: And I think that's something that will be really important in the next few days.
--:-- Gary O'Donoghue: Because Donald Trump, don't forget, has always said, well, I get great words from Vladimir Putin on the phone.
--:-- Gary O'Donoghue: We have nice conversations.
--:-- Gary O'Donoghue: And then he goes away and bombs civilian areas.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: Indeed, Gary, we just a few minutes ago spoke to a Ukrainian voice who was speaking to us with a torch because he didn't have electricity.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: He said at the end of the interview, they're still bombing us.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: Something to keep in mind.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: What about the choreography of it?
--:-- Jackie Leonard: Seeing President Putin speak first, President Trump speak very briefly.
--:-- Gary O'Donoghue: Yeah, I mean, it's extraordinary.
--:-- Gary O'Donoghue: I mean, it was difficult to follow precisely in many ways, even by English translation, what Vladimir Putin was really driving at.
--:-- Gary O'Donoghue: Words were pretty warm.
--:-- Gary O'Donoghue: I thought there was an interesting kind of hands off our problem Europe type message in there as well.
--:-- Gary O'Donoghue: President Trump at the same time wanting Europe to take more responsibility.
--:-- Gary O'Donoghue: Putin doesn't like the sound of that very much, does he?
--:-- Gary O'Donoghue: Europe is part of the problem as far as he's concerned.
--:-- Gary O'Donoghue: And then really this kind of, you know, this lack of any kind of concrete mention of a ceasefire, let alone a peace.
--:-- Gary O'Donoghue: That banner we saw said, you know, pursuing peace, didn't it?
--:-- Gary O'Donoghue: We didn't hear a word about peace in that press conference.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: Meanwhile, the conflict in Ukraine continues.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: Speaking in his evening address, President Zelensky said Ukraine needed to be involved in discussions to secure a lasting peace.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: Russia must end the war, which it started and which has dragged on for years.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: A stop to the killings is necessary.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: A meeting of leaders is necessary.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: At least Ukraine, America and the Russian side.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: This is the format that can provide possible effective solutions.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: For a sense of the mood in Ukraine, Jonathan Beal sent this report from Kiev.
--:-- Jonathan Beal: There is still little hope of a ceasefire anytime soon.
--:-- Jonathan Beal: Even President Trump has acknowledged that.
--:-- Jonathan Beal: Both Russia and Ukraine carried out long-range strikes on the ground.
--:-- Jonathan Beal: Ukraine has sent more reinforcements to the east after small groups of Russian troops penetrated its defensive lines earlier in the week.
--:-- Jonathan Beal: Ukraine says the situation has now been stabilised.
--:-- Jonathan Beal: But President Zelensky said Russia was suffering significant losses as it tried to advance.
--:-- Jonathan Beal: He said it was an attempt to secure more favourable political positions ahead of the Alaska talks.
--:-- Jonathan Beal: In other words, to suggest Russia's winning.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: Now on to other stories.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: We'll delve into one of the biggest secrets held in the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency, or CIA, in Langley, Virginia.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: Now, it's not a dodgy file held in a basement.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: It's actually the first thing you see as you approach the building.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: It's called the Kryptos sculpture.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: A large copper sculpture with four panels, each with a secret code carved into it in letters.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: It's open to the public.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: Anyone can try to crack them, but only three have been solved.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: The fourth remains a mystery, even though some of America's finest codebreakers walk past the sculpture every day.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: Now, the man who made the sculpture and invented the secret codes wants to sell the solution to the fourth panel known as K4.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: And he's putting it up for auction so it can be preserved and possibly outlive him.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: The sculptor Jim Sanborn told Rebecca Kesby about his piece, which he made in 1990.
--:-- Jim Sanborn: Before I say why, I have to say that I know nothing about mathematics whatsoever.
--:-- Jim Sanborn: But I came up with a code that seems to have baffled for decades.
--:-- Jim Sanborn: When I presented it to the panel at CIA.
--:-- Jim Sanborn: I told them, well, I know that you guys have to keep secrets all your lives.
--:-- Jim Sanborn: And with this sculpture that I'm presenting, I'm going to be in the same boat.
--:-- Jim Sanborn: And indeed you are.
--:-- Jim Sanborn: And I do wonder whether you're more irritated that nobody's cracked it yet or those people walking past it are more irritated that they can't do it.
--:-- Jim Sanborn: Early days there were picnic tables surrounding it with many individuals with pen and paper trying to figure it out.
--:-- Jim Sanborn: So they were kind of using it at that time as a teaching tool.
--:-- Jim Sanborn: I'm quite pleased actually that it is moving along the way it is.
--:-- Jim Sanborn: I'd always hoped when I first designed it that it would unravel itself, you know, like a ball of string slowly over time.
--:-- Jim Sanborn: It's worked very well.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: How have you kept this secret your whole life over the past 35 years?
--:-- Jackie Leonard: Have you ever been tempted to maybe tell somebody, a partner, a sibling, a child of yours?
--:-- Jim Sanborn: Well, not that long ago, I did have to tell my wife just in case I keeled over at some point.
--:-- Jim Sanborn: You try to forget it all the time.
--:-- Jim Sanborn: And so I've done everything I can to ignore it and just to forget about it because I didn't want to under pressure, under torture, divulge it.
--:-- Jim Sanborn: And so there it is.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: So what do you hope the winning bidder will do with the solution to the code?
--:-- Jackie Leonard: Keep it as you have?
--:-- Jackie Leonard: Or are you worried that maybe they'll sell it for even more money later down the road?
--:-- Jim Sanborn: There's always that risk.
--:-- Jim Sanborn: But I do really hope that they will keep the code secure and be in a position to maintain it in some way.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: Now, our listeners are very clever, and some of them may be code breakers.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: So I wonder if you can maybe give us a bit of a clue with the first three panels.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: The codes have been cracked.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: I wonder if you can tell us about that, because that may give a clue as to what's on the fourth one.
--:-- Jim Sanborn: Once again, I have to think real hard to figure out what is on the first three panels.
--:-- Jim Sanborn: I wrote the plain text while I was driving in a rental lorry, as you say, from Arizona with a petrified tree in it and driving very slowly.
--:-- Jim Sanborn: During those long hours, I came up with the first three panels, actually all of them.
--:-- Jim Sanborn: The first one I know I just wrote, I guess, something I would call my own kind of sort of poetry.
--:-- Jim Sanborn: The second panel is a quote from, I think it's the second or is it the third?
--:-- Jim Sanborn: Well, anyway, one of those two, it's a quote from Howard Carter's journal.
--:-- Jim Sanborn: That's the third.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: We're going to just, yeah, so I can just give you a tip so you can go into it.
--:-- Jim Sanborn: The K2 is the location, isn't it, of the CIA, the latitude, longitude?
--:-- Jackie Leonard: So K2 is, you know, it says somewhere that it's buried underground and only WW knows.
--:-- Jim Sanborn: And of course, WW is William Webster, who just recently in the last few days passed.
--:-- Jim Sanborn: It's a great old age of 101.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: So a lot of knowledge might have gone with him.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: And where is the envelope that I gave to WW at the dedication ceremony that possibly had the code in it?
--:-- Jim Sanborn: Of course, now I don't remember whether I gave him the whole code or just gave him part of it or told him that I gave the whole thing when in fact I didn't.
--:-- Jim Sanborn: But, you know, this is tradecraft.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: Jim, that's such a tease.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: I feel like we're getting an exclusive there.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: Could be the excitement of discovery.
--:-- Jim Sanborn: Is important to me and cryptos has embodied that in several ways.
--:-- Jim Sanborn: First you know K1 was discovered then K2 was discovered K3.
--:-- Jim Sanborn: It's that sense of discovery that excites me and it's fabulous.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: Okay, you've missed one out though, Jim.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: K4, what's uh what was the meaning of that one?
--:-- Jim Sanborn: Yeah, well you know I just it slips my mind.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: You're not gonna fall for it, I thought I was being clever.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: The sculptor Jim Sanborn.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: Still to come, Lucy, our 3.2 million-year-old ancestor, on tour.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: Lucy's remains are very rare, and the consequences of any damage is therefore much more significant.
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--:-- Jackie Leonard: The United Nations says more than 1,700 people have been killed while seeking aid in Gaza since late May.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: The UN says nearly a thousand of those who died were shot while queuing for food at distribution sites run by the Israeli and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: Emir Nader reports from Jerusalem.
--:-- Emir Nader: The grim figures record an average of 22 Palestinians being killed every day while trying to find food.
--:-- Emir Nader: The UN said the Israeli military was responsible for the majority of the killings, corroborating regular accounts of eyewitnesses and Gazan medics.
--:-- Emir Nader: There was no immediate comment from Israel, but it has repeatedly said its troops fire only warning shots.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: On Wednesday, over 100 of the world's leading aid organisations accused Israel of continuing to block their work and weaponise aid.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: A UN-backed food monitor has said that widespread famine is unfolding in Gaza.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: Emir Nada.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: Israel's far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gavir has published a video showing him taunting the most high-profile Palestinian prisoner, Mawan Barghouti.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: In the short clip, Mr Ben-Gavir and two other people can be seen surrounding Mr Barghouti in a corner of his prison cell.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: The Palestinian Authority has condemned the confrontation as an unprecedented provocation.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: From Jerusalem, here's Yolande now.
--:-- Yolande: The 13-second long video clip is the first time that Marwan Barghouti has been seen publicly in years.
--:-- Yolande: He appears aged and gaunt.
--:-- Yolande: Itamar Ben-Gavir, who's Israel's national security minister, tells him, whoever messes with the people of Israel, we will obliterate them.
--:-- Yolande: Marwan Barghouti, who's 66, was jailed more than 20 years ago, convicted of planning attacks that led to five civilians being killed.
--:-- Yolande: Opinion polls have consistently indicated that he remains the most popular Palestinian leader.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: In Lebanon, the leader of Hezbollah has warned the government against a push to disarm the group.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: In a televised speech, Naim Khasim said that such a move could lead to internal conflict and perhaps even civil war.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: The Lebanese government bears full responsibility for any strife that may occur.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: We don't want it, but there are those who work for it.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: The warning came a day after a senior official from Iran was in Lebanon to consult with Hezbollah, which it backs.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: That in turn followed a vote by the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah by the end of the year.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: So how significant is this warning from Hezbollah?
--:-- Jackie Leonard: Our Middle East regional editor is Mike Thompson.
--:-- Mike Thompson: It's pretty much a call to arms, or at least that is how it could be read, and I think is being read by the Lebanese government.
--:-- Mike Thompson: The Prime Minister has called it intimidation that is unacceptable, a veiled threat of civil war.
--:-- Mike Thompson: Now this, of course, is a country that only came out of the war with Israel last November when there was a ceasefire agreed, and has a history going back a long way of warfare and indeed an impoverished economy.
--:-- Mike Thompson: So very serious.
--:-- Mike Thompson: So how badly damaged was Hezbollah by last year's war with Israel?
--:-- Mike Thompson: And is the government of Lebanon in any position to tackle it, to disarm it?
--:-- Mike Thompson: Well, no one's totally sure just how much damage was done to Hezbollah.
--:-- Mike Thompson: We know, of course, that its leaders and all of its top leaders were killed in this pager exploit of Israel's.
--:-- Mike Thompson: And, of course, a large amount of its arsenal was also destroyed and its missile sites.
--:-- Mike Thompson: But it did claim to have around 100,000 fighters, not verified, I might say, before that war.
--:-- Mike Thompson: So it still must have, you'd think, a lot of fighters.
--:-- Mike Thompson: But, of course, it's going to take the Lebanese army.
--:-- Mike Thompson: If it did come to force, it's going to have to have the power to force disarmament on it.
--:-- Mike Thompson: And of course, that would be a tricky thing.
--:-- Mike Thompson: The Lebanese army has 73,000 soldiers, but even so, it would be a very, very difficult and dangerous job.
--:-- Mike Thompson: And how much pressure is the Lebanese government under to disarm the group?
--:-- Mike Thompson: Well, a lot of pressure.
--:-- Mike Thompson: Israel has said it will carry on attacking Lebanon, or at least attacking Hezbollah military targets in Lebanon, for as long as the group isn't disarmed.
--:-- Mike Thompson: And the US has said if you want money, which it badly needs, to develop the country further, to rebuild it really, then you're going to have to have Hezbollah disarmed.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: That was Mike Thompson.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: The African Union has backed a campaign to persuade governments and international organisations to adopt a map of the world which more accurately represents Africa's real size.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: The organisation, which has more than 50 member states, says commonly used maps foster an impression that the continent is marginal.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: Tyler Dunn reports.
--:-- Tyler Dunn: The world map that we're used to seeing on the internet, classroom walls and in many atlases does a dismal job of representing the true size of the continents.
--:-- Tyler Dunn: It's called the Mercator Projection and it was designed in the 16th century to aid navigation.
--:-- Tyler Dunn: But it also stretches land masses near the Earth's poles.
--:-- Tyler Dunn: Greenland, for example, looks similar to the size of Africa.
--:-- Tyler Dunn: In reality, it's 14 times smaller.
--:-- Tyler Dunn: The distortion has angered some African leaders who say it makes their continent seem less important.
--:-- Tyler Dunn: The executive director of the advocacy group Africa No Filter, Moki Makura, described it as the world's longest misinformation campaign.
--:-- Tyler Dunn: Africa has six different time zones.
--:-- Tyler Dunn: It's huge.
--:-- Tyler Dunn: 30 countries can fit into it.
--:-- Tyler Dunn: Japan, India, China, most of Europe, France, Germany, Italy.
--:-- Tyler Dunn: But yet when you look at it, it looks much smaller than it is.
--:-- Tyler Dunn: And I think that's problematic.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: The status quo has been challenged in the past.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: In 1979, an Australian student called Stuart MacArthur turned the world map on its head, literally.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: MacArthur's universal corrective map puts the southern hemisphere top with Australia near the centre.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: The map's description calls it a first step in elevating Australia from the gloomy depths of anonymity, never again to suffer the perpetual onslaught of down-under jokes.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: Tyler Dunn.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: How old is too old to travel across the world? 80s? 90s?
--:-- Jackie Leonard: Well, how does 3.2 million years sound?
--:-- Jackie Leonard: That's how old Lucy, an Ethiopian fossil of a human ancestor, is.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: Lucy is one of the most significant finds in the field of paleoanthropology, offering profound insights into the origins and evolution of early human ancestors.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: Unearthed in 1974 in Ethiopia, Lucy's remains have played a pivotal role in the shaping of our understanding of bipedalism, the evolution of the human brain and the developments of modern humans.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: And for just the second time ever, the Lucy fossil has left her home country.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: But not everyone thinks it's a good idea.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: Will Chalk has the story.
--:-- Will Chalk: Museum silence in the National Museum of Ethiopia as people inspect Lucy.
--:-- Will Chalk: Except they not actually looking at Lucy.
--:-- Will Chalk: She so fragile that only a replica is on display.
--:-- Will Chalk: The real Lucy is usually kept in a safe vault to keep her from getting damaged.
--:-- Will Chalk: So why is she so precious?
--:-- Will Chalk: Pete Moore is an archaeologist at the University of Reading in the UK.
--:-- Pete Moore: She's a very crucial point within our hominid ancestors in that she represents a pivotal point between when we were becoming more human-like from our original more ape-like appearances.
--:-- Pete Moore: Only around a metre tall and covered in hair with a wide flat face, there is still something human-ish about what scientists think Lucy would have looked like.
--:-- Will Chalk: Now, of course, she is a fragile fossilised set of bones.
--:-- Will Chalk: But fragile or not, it's the real Lucy that's going on a two-month tour to the National Museum in Prague, and it's not without its risks.
--:-- Will Chalk: Lucy's remains are over three million years old.
--:-- Will Chalk: They are very rare and the consequences of any damage is therefore much more significant.
--:-- Will Chalk: Beyond breakages and the natural sort of wear and tear you might expect, we also have to consider the risks of just handling them in the first place.
--:-- Will Chalk: Since her discovery in an ancient lake in 1974, Lucy has only left Ethiopia once for a tour of the United States.
--:-- Will Chalk: But Yohannes Halay Selassie from the Institute of Human Origin at Arizona State University thinks she needs to travel.
--:-- Yohannes Halay Selassie: She just doesn't belong to Ethiopia only.
--:-- Yohannes Halay Selassie: She belongs to the whole world.
--:-- Yohannes Halay Selassie: And she's uniting people.
--:-- Yohannes Halay Selassie: She is giving people the opportunity to see her.
--:-- Yohannes Halay Selassie: She is becoming like a diplomat, creating connections between people, connections between governments.
--:-- Will Chalk: And this is really positive.
--:-- Will Chalk: And I think it should be encouraged.
--:-- Will Chalk: But the tourists who've come to see her replica in Addis Ababa are split.
--:-- Will Chalk: This is part of everybody's history.
--:-- Will Chalk: We all come stem from this.
--:-- Will Chalk: In the travel, there maybe could happen, break or...
--:-- Will Chalk: So it's better to stay here and the people come.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: This trip away will likely seem a long time for Lucy's caretakers in Ethiopia.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: But for Lucy herself, what's two months when you've been on the planet for three million years?
--:-- Jackie Leonard: That was Will Chalk.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: Now back to our main story and whatever else follows the talks in Alaska, we can be sure of one thing.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: There are thousands and thousands of photos of Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: One of the few people to have been close to both men is the Greek-British photographer Platon.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: He photographed them for Time Front Covers, Mr Putin in 2007, Mr Trump at the end of last year.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: When Sean Lay spoke to Platon, he explained how he'd broken the ice with Vladimir Putin.
--:-- Platon: The experience of dealing with Putin was, for me, very intimidating, the build-up.
--:-- Platon: I was led in to this building in the middle of a dark, bleak, gothic forest, which was his private dasher just outside Moscow.
--:-- Platon: And, you know, the security was off the charts.
--:-- Platon: It was like a Cold War movie that we may have seen, you know.
--:-- Platon: But when I actually met him, he comes in with a giant entourage, two translators, group of political advisors, and definitely a group of bodyguards.
--:-- Platon: Bodyguards.
--:-- Platon: And I said to him, Mr. President, before I try to capture this moment in history, I have a question I'd like to ask you.
--:-- Platon: I said, I was brought up by my parents listening to the music of the Beatles.
--:-- Platon: And I would like to know if you ever listened to the Beatles.
--:-- Platon: And two translators translate in his ear.
--:-- Platon: There's some confusing looks amongst the entourage.
--:-- Platon: His mood seems to drop a little and he orders the two translators and all his political advisors out of the room immediately.
--:-- Platon: The bodyguards stay and then Putin turns to me and in perfect English he said, I love the Beatles.
--:-- Platon: I said, oh my goodness, I didn't know you spoke English.
--:-- Platon: He said, I speak perfect English.
--:-- Platon: So I said, okay, in that case, who's your favorite Beatle?
--:-- Platon: And he said, Paul.
--:-- Platon: And then I said, okay, what's your favorite song?
--:-- Platon: And this is where I tempted fate.
--:-- Platon: And I said, is it back in the USSR?
--:-- Platon: And he did not like that very much at all.
--:-- Platon: And then he said, no, my favorite song is Yesterday.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: Think about it.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: And I thought about it.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: And I realized, I think I'm being sent a subliminal message about the old days of power and authority of the Soviet Union through a Paul McCartney song.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: And if you listen to the words, I think it tells Putin's story perfectly on how he feels right now.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: Let's talk about your photograph of Donald Trump just last year.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: What was it like photographing him?
--:-- Platon: I'd worked with him 22 years before, and this time was under very different circumstances.
--:-- Platon: A few days after his historic election victory, I was invited to Mar-a-Lago, which is one of the most opulent places I've ever seen in my life.
--:-- Platon: He's literally forming his cabinet around us that day.
--:-- Platon: And he was called away on a meeting about tariffs.
--:-- Platon: So I had to wait.
--:-- Platon: And as I waited, his team played me music.
--:-- Platon: And I waited for hours.
--:-- Platon: And the music went on for hours.
--:-- Platon: And I was just thinking, who chose all these songs?
--:-- Platon: They're all pop songs.
--:-- Platon: They're all songs we all grew up with.
--:-- Platon: And I thought, this very strange music to be playing me while I'm waiting for the president.
--:-- Platon: Eventually, he walks in.
--:-- Platon: I said to him, Mr. President, I'd like to ask you about the music I've been listening to.
--:-- Platon: And he said, oh, that's my personal playlist.
--:-- Platon: I asked them to play it for you.
--:-- Platon: So I said, well, there's a long playlist, Mr. President.
--:-- Platon: I've been here for four or five hours for no repeats.
--:-- Platon: He said there's 2000 songs on it.
--:-- Platon: So I said, well, what made you choose all those songs?
--:-- Platon: And he said, each song tells a story, our story.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: The renowned portrait photographer Platon.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: Global News Pod.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: This edition was mixed by Zabihullah Kurush.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: The producers were Liam McSheffrey and Peter Hyatt.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: Our editors, Karen Martin.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: I'm Jackie Leonard.
--:-- Jackie Leonard: And until next time, goodbye.
--:-- Hi, I'm Susan Glasser. I'm Jane Mayer. And I'm Evan Osmos. And we host the Washington Roundtable from the New Yorker's Political Scene podcast.
--:-- Susan Glasser: For me, this is the water cooler.
--:-- Susan Glasser: This is a wonderful chance to sit down with two of the smartest colleagues in the country and, you know, just kind of compare notes.
--:-- Jane Mayer: No, that's so true, because first of all, we are actually friends in real life.
--:-- Jane Mayer: But I can't wait until Fridays to hear what you guys think.
--:-- Jane Mayer: Everybody sees the headlines, but you guys fill in the gaps.
--:-- Evan Osmos: I also think, though, occasionally we get somebody to come on, and I'm always smarter for it.
--:-- Evan Osmos: If you get a great historian who can tell you about a presidential election 50, 60 years ago, often it can help you understand about what's happening today.
--:-- Susan Glasser: So if you're looking for weekly insights into what's going on inside the Beltway, please join us every Friday on the Washington Roundtable, part of the New Yorker's Political Scene podcast.
