Podcast with everything

Our correspondent Orla Guerin travels alongside Colombia's Jungle Commandos - an elite police force - as they seek to eradicate cocaine production in the Colombian Amazon and Andes. The defence minister told the BBC that they destroy cocaine factories "every forty minutes". Meanwhile in Washington, following months of tension, Colombia's President Gustavo Petro met President Trump for the first ti...

President Zelensky accuses Moscow of using the coldest days of winter to terrorise Ukrainians, as temperatures drop to -20 degrees celsius. Also: French police raid the Paris offices of the social media platform, X. Spain becomes latest country to consider banning social media for children. Iran's president says he will pursue talks with US. Only five patients cross the border out of Gaza, as the...

President Trump says India has agreed to stop buying Russian oil as part of a trade deal with the United States. In return, Washington will lower tariffs on Indian goods to 18%. Mr Trump said Delhi has pledged to buy more oil from the US and, potentially, from Venezuela. Also: Bill and Hillary Clinton have agreed to testify in Congress about Jeffrey Epstein. Marius Borg Høiby, the son of Norway's...

The reopening of the Rafah crossing is a key part of President Trump’s ceasefire plan for Gaza, but only about 50 Palestinians are being allowed to cross in each direction, each day. Also: Pakistan begins a nation-wide anti-polio campaign to vaccinate more than 45 million children; Syria's only woman in the transitional government tells the BBC about the challenges facing her country; technology c...

Liam Ramos and his father were freed from detention in Texas and are now back in Minneapolis. The detention of the boy, photographed wearing a blue bunny-shaped hat, and a Spider-Man backpack sparked a national outcry. Also: The former British Ambassador to Washington, Peter Mandelson, has resigned from the governing Labour Party because he said he does not want to cause further embarrassment by h...

In September 1999, just weeks into Vladimir Putin’s first premiership, four bombs blew up four apartment buildings, over a period of twelve days, killing hundreds and plunging the entire nation into fear. The government blamed Chechen militants, a conclusion corroborated by many journalists at the time. But whispers of a darker conspiracy persist to this day. A new BBC podcast, The History Bureau:...

A second woman has alleged she was sent to Britain by the late sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein, to have sex with Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor who has always denied wrongdoing. Also: there are explosions in Iran amid heightened tensions; a US federal judge allows ICE to continue the immigration crackdown in Minnesota; Pakistan's army kills rebels in Balochistan province; European and non-English movies...

We meet a woman whose near death experience as a teenager inspired her to study why some people are willing to risk their lives for others. Dr Abigail Marsh was rescued by a stranger after a car accident and wanted to understand what drove him to help her. She says altruists, those who instinctively help without expecting anything in return, are more sensitive to the needs of other people -- but w...

The US Justice Department releases millions more pages of files in its Epstein investigation. Victims of the late sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein, have promised to fight on, after they accused the US Department of Justice of protecting abusers. Also: Mexico's president warns that US tariffs on countries helping Cuba could trigger a humanitarian crisis. Claudia Sheinbaum's comments come after Preside...

US President Donald Trump is again threatening military strikes on Iran, saying he has sent a ‘huge armada’ to the Middle East while signalling he is open to negotiations. Meanwhile, Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi has been holding talks in Turkey, where President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has offered to mediate. Also: during a visit to China, the UK prime minister Keir Starmer announces that B...

US President Donald Trump says Russia's Vladimir Putin has agreed not to attack Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, and other cities and towns for a week due to "extraordinary cold" weather. Also on this podcast, Venezuela’s parliament has passed a new bill that will roll back decades of tight state control over the country's oil sector. In Afghanistan, new research has shed light on the impact of the Taliba...

China and the UK have agreed a number of new deals during the British Prime Minister Keir Starmer's visit to Beijing. They include visa-free travel for UK citizens visiting the country for less than 30 days, and a partnership aimed at increasing trade in services between the two countries. The British-Swedish pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca has also announced a $15bn investment in China. Keir Sta...

Donald Trump has warned Iran that "time is running out" to negotiate a deal on its nuclear programme following the steady build-up of US military forces in the Gulf. The US president said a "massive armada" was "moving quickly, with great power, enthusiasm, and purpose" towards Iran, referring to a large US naval force. Iran insists its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful, but warned that a new...

Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer is in China on a three-day visit, the first of its kind by a British PM since 2018. The UK government views it as an opportunity to strengthen trade and cultural ties between the two nations after years of acrimony. For China, this is part of a charm offensive in the hope that some will now look at Beijing as a stable, predictable partner - in contrast to the...

President Trump says he will "de-escalate a little bit" in Minneapolis, as protests continue over the killing of two US citizens by federal immigration agents. Also: TikTok settles out of court in social media addiction case; a leading tech company leader warns of an AI bubble; how Soviet architecture is helping Russia in the Ukraine war; Saudi Arabia moves away from futuristic megaprojects as mon...

Two decades in the making, the EU-India agreement will allow free trade of goods between the bloc of 27 European states and the world's most populous country. Together, they make up nearly 25% of global gross domestic product and a market of two billion people. The deal will see a number of huge tariff cuts across a range of goods and services, and a joint security partnership. Also: new videos fr...

President Trump is sending Tom Homan to lead the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis. Reports suggest the current border patrol chief, Gregory Bovino, will leave the city with some of his agents, in an apparent White House policy change. It comes after federal agents killed two US citizens - Alex Pretti and Renée Good - in recent weeks. Also: the latest from the storm in North America; we hear fr...

The Trump administration is facing a growing backlash over its immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, after another US citizen was shot dead by federal agents on Saturday - the second such case in a month. The former president Bill Clinton has urged Americans to stand up and speak out, with President Barack Obama warning core US values "are increasingly under assault." Some Republicans have joined...

President Trump says his administration is "reviewing everything" as outrage grows over the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti by US federal immigration agents. State and federal officials have provided conflicting accounts of the moments prior to his death. Also: a huge winter storm in the United States leaves more than a million households and businesses in the United States without power; Interpol i...

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney seemed to challenge Donald Trump in a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week, declaring that “the old world order is not coming back” and urging fellow “middle powers” to come together. In response, Trump said Canada gets “a lot of freebies” from the United States and “they should be grateful”. After striking a major trade and tariff deal with Chi...

Masked ICE agents in Minneapolis have shot a US citizen dead -- the second such killing this month - sparking further protests in the city. The Department of Homeland Security says he was violent and armed with a gun. Also, we report from Myanmar on the final stage of elections, with the dominant pro-military party on course for a landslide victory; Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has des...

Mesfin Dollar, who grew up in rural Ethiopia, had to travel to the US for two heart surgeries as a teenager. Twenty-five years later, by chance, he was reunited with the surgeon who saved his life -- when they both volunteered for a charity mission to his home country. Mesfin and Dr Jim Kauten went on to work together, performing hundreds of life-saving operations. Also: a Paralympic athlete and m...

Anger is mounting over President Trump's comments about NATO troops' role in the Afghanistan war. Non-American veterans have demanded an apology, saying they fought alongside US soldiers on the front line. Also: the United States, Russia and Ukraine hold their first trilateral peace talks; the UN Human Rights Council approves an inquiry into Iran's protest crackdown; Alex Honnold postpones his con...

A spokesman for Britain's prime minister, Keir Starmer, has said President Trump was wrong to diminish the role of NATO troops during the war in Afghanistan. There's been an angry backlash to the US president's claims that NATO allies avoided the frontline during the conflict. The Polish defence minister said the sacrifice of their troops should not be forgotten. The Dutch foreign minister describ...

Long-running negotiations to secure TikTok’s future in the US have ended. The Chinese social media app will split its American operations from the rest of its global business. Also: Ukraine's President Zelensky says Kyiv and the US have reached a deal on post-war security guarantees, ahead of the first set of trilateral peace negotiations; the BBC is given rare access to facilities in Yemen where...