European Commission chief promises unity on Greenland

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau. Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.

0:47I'm Andrew Peach and at 16 Hours GMT on Tuesday 20th January, these are our main stories. European leaders speak at the World Economic Forum in Davos with discussions dominated by the crisis over President Trump's ambition to annex Greenland. Rescue teams in Spain searched the wreckage of the two trains which crashed on Sunday, killing at least 41 people. Israel has begun demolishing the Jerusalem headquarters of UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees. Also in this podcast... Despite everything China has done on our soil, China has been rewarded with exactly what they want, a super embassy that will be a base for espionage, not just in the UK, but likely across Europe as well.

1:33Reaction to the British government's decision to approve China's new embassy in London, despite concerns it could be used for spying. The European Commission president has promised an unflinching European response to President Trump's threat to annex the Danish territory of Greenland. Ursula von der Leyen was speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, which has been dominated by the crisis in transatlantic relations. We consider the people of the United States not just our allies, but our friends. And plunging us into a downward spiral would only aid the very adversaries we are both so committed to keeping out of the strategic landscape.

2:18So our response will be unflinching, united and proportional. Ms von der Leyen says the bloc should prepare for seismic change. Playing for time and hoping for things to revert soon will not fix the structural dependencies we have. So my point is, if this change is permanent, then Europe must change permanently too. It is time to seize this opportunity and build a new independent Europe. President Trump has fired off more social media posts as he continues to ramp up the rhetoric over Greenland, including an image of him planting the US flag there. We have to have it. They have to have this done.

3:09They can't protect it. Denmark, they're wonderful people. And I know the leaders are very good people, but they don't even go there. And, you know, because a boat went there 500 years ago and then left, that doesn't give you title to property. President Trump says his trip to Davos is going to be interesting. Our economics editor, Faisal Islam, is already there and gave us this assessment of what might lie ahead.

3:36We're here at the World Economic Forum Congress Centre. They get around with these strange sort of cowbell sounding mini buggies. the world's elite financiers the odd journalists and some world leaders to one person that everyone's waiting for donald j trump and he may be reminded with the freezing cold weather of a place called greenland so this is a new development for davos there's a kind of famous church that's just outside the main security cordon that's normally taken over by businesses. This year, Giant Eagles, Big Flames, USA House. And we've been hearing from some of Trump's allies. Scott Besson, the Treasury Secretary, has already spoken, saying that it would be a bad idea for Europe to retaliate.

4:32But I also caught up with a former Donald Trump advisor, who is now the vice president of IBM inventing quantum computers. He knows Donald Trump well. And so what he told me about Greenland, worth listening to and fairly extraordinary. I think at the end of the day, Greenland is an independent country. It was part of NATO. And I think you've got NATO soldiers, NATO commanders in Greenland. So I think Greenland will stay Greenland. I just came from a US... Did you tell Donald Trump that? I am not talking to Donald Trump about this. I just came from a US congressional delegation meeting. And I think there's pretty uniform consensus with both Republicans and Democrats that Greenland will stay Greenland.

5:15Can the United States have a large military presence, a military base? Yes. Greenland has said that. If we want some of the rare earths and minerals that they have, I think there's an offtake agreement to be negotiated. But I think, you know, invading a country that doesn't want to be invaded, that's part of a militaristic alliance, NATO, seems to me to be a little bit over the edge at this point. That's kind of what the president seems to be saying, or maybe I'm just misreading it. Well, look, you've got to give Donald Trump some credit for the successes he's had. And has he many times tried to overreach to get something in a compromise situation?

5:52He has. He has overreached publicly. He has overreached in advertising something to end up getting what he actually wants. And maybe what he actually wants is a larger military presence in an offtake agreement. You say maybe. Maybe. So you leave the option open that we should take him seriously? Look, I would always take the president of the United States seriously. Yeah. Walking down the main thoroughfare of Davos, and it is pretty extraordinary, the sight. You wouldn't really believe if you could see it. It's all the world's major companies have spent millions with these places trying to impress the world, impress the world's political leaders.

6:28I'm Michelle Ruiz. I'm the CEO and founder of Haife. Okay, well, that's a leading American tech company. Are you excited about coming to Davos? Super excited. For me, our focus is more so at the industry level, and that dialogue seems to be very open here at Davos. And then I think at the broader political level, that's where I see people that are a little bit more guarded in the type of dialogue. They are quite guarded, aren't they? No one seems to want to speak. Yeah. But the big man's coming. Are you excited for President Trump? I'm going to be focused on my goals to progress our company. Okay.

6:57Sounds quite diplomatic. Thank you. Faisal Islam in Switzerland. Donald Trump has given a range of reasons why he thinks the US should own Greenland, including that America will treat the locals better than Denmark does, and that if the US doesn't take over, Russia or China will. And now another reason surrounding a group of islands in the Indian Ocean, which until recently were in British hands. Here's our global affairs reporter Paul Moss to explain. These are the Chagos Islands in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Britain actually occupied them first more than 200 years ago in 1810. But in the 1960s, Britain began kicking out the resident population.

7:34Now, this led to a whole series of political and legal rows until the International Court of Justice ruled definitive that Britain occupying these islands was illegal. And in 2024, Britain handed sovereignty of the islands back to Mauritius and in return got 100 years of use of the islands. Now, I can hear you ask, what on earth has all this got to do with Donald Trump and Greenland? Well, the main reason why Britain kicked out the Chagos Islanders was so the United States could have a military base on one of the Chagos Islands known as Diego Garcia, an important strategic asset for America. Now, the deal reached with Mauritius means that U.S.

8:13can actually keep its base there for 100 years, and Donald Trump supported the deal at the time. Now, he said that giving the islands back to Mauritius was an act of stupidity. Why has Donald Trump changed his mind? Well, it seems to be that he's using what happened to the Chagos Islands in supporting his argument that America should have Greenland. Now, I'm sort of filling in the gaps here, but it seems to be him saying, look, if the Chagos Islands could be handed over to someone else, so could Greenland. And the only way we could be secure about our base in Greenland is if we actually own the territory.

8:47We've seen pretty good relations so far between the United Kingdom and the Trump administration. That appears to be falling apart. Well, you know, he's putting Britain in a difficult position again. A key ally of the British Prime Minister, Darren Jones, has been wheeled out to respond to this criticism by Donald Trump. He pointed out that Donald Trump had supported the deal, which gave the islands to Mauritius. And he said, look, the deal means that America still has its base on Diego Garcia for 100 years. The trouble is, I think, that pointing out facts like that to Donald Trump doesn't always prove to be a particularly productive course of action.

9:23I mean, it's just part of the tricky situation which Britain and other European countries have with Donald Trump. On the one hand, they want to keep him on side. They want to avoid terrorists. They want his help in Ukraine. But they, at the same time, can't stand back while he threatens a NATO ally. Paul Moss reporting. Now, for more on all of this, go to YouTube, search for BBC News, click on the logo, choose podcasts and then global news podcast there. After years of debate over security risks, the British government has approved plans for a huge new Chinese embassy in London. Situated near the capital's financial district, some politicians fear it could be used as a base for spying.

10:03Here's the Conservative Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Philp. Despite everything China has done on our soil, China has been rewarded with exactly what they want, a super embassy that will be a base for espionage, not just in the UK, but likely across Europe as well. Of course, approving embassies is part of normal diplomatic relations. The UK is waiting for its own plan to redevelop the British embassy in Beijing to be approved by China's authorities. Our political correspondent Rob Watson explained more. Normally it would be entirely straightforward, Andrew, but this is not straightforward. It hasn't been straightforward, and that's because it is China and essentially opponents of this embassy building, and they have not gone away, by the way, Andrew.

10:47They cite three things. First of all, they just think it's crazy to make a political reward to a country which they allege is very repressive at home. Secondly, they say it's a major security risk that would you really want an embassy with so close to Britain's beating heart of its financial district, security cables, communications. And thirdly, it comes at a time when they allege that the Chinese have been intimidating Britain, including, for example, citizens from Hong Kong. living in the country. Okay, so British politicians like politicians in so many parts of the world torn between seeing China as a business partner and China as a security risk.

11:25Yes, I mean, I should say that the government has said that it has put all of these security concerns to Britain's security services, primarily that the listening place GCHQ and the domestic intelligence service MI5 and they have released a joint letter saying, look, it's not 100 % risk free. But we have made a security assessment and we do think it's OK to go ahead. And essentially, the government is saying, look, the previous Conservative government had got this underway and we can't really think of a good reason not to go ahead. And does this now definitely happen? Nothing is definite in Britain with our planning laws, Andrew.

12:03I would anticipate that there will continue to be objections and it may be subject to judicial review. So it's not absolutely guaranteed. But one other point, Britain is anxious to have good relations with China. Keir Starmer, the prime minister, is heading to Beijing shortly. And we've been told that one thing that President Xi was absolutely insistent on was that this embassy go ahead. But it may not happen anytime soon, Andrew. Rob Watson with me. Israeli demolition teams accompanied by police have begun tearing down the East Jerusalem headquarters of UNRWA, the United Nations relief organisation that provides aid, education and health care to Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and Gaza.

12:45Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of UNRWA, called it a new level of open and deliberate defiance of international law and an unprecedented attack against a United Nations agency. A statement from Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs says the operation is in accordance with Israeli law and once again accuses UNRWA of being infiltrated by Hamas. John Sudworth is at the scene. With dozens of police and security personnel on site, this East Jerusalem neighbourhood is echoing to the sound of the heavy machinery tearing into the Unruh compound that has stood here for decades. Late last year, Israel passed a law severing all state contact with the agency and had already begun the process of closing some of its other buildings and disconnecting the electricity.

13:32A statement from Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs says Israel owns the land on which this compound stands. It calls UNRWA a greenhouse for terrorism and repeats the claim that its employees in Gaza participated in the October 7th attacks. The UN says its premises are protected under international conventions and while it admits that nine UNRWA staff may have been involved on October 7th, it says Israel hasn't provided any evidence for its claim that the agency's been more widely infiltrated. Israel's far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gavir, on site watching the demolition, has described this as a historic day.

14:11Our correspondent John Sudworth reporting. And still to come in this podcast...

14:22We'll look at Vietnam, which is holding a five-yearly congress of its ruling Communist Party as its leader pushes to consolidate power. And research in Antarctica finds penguins are breeding up to two weeks earlier because of climate change.

14:43If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

15:21Heavy machinery is being used in the recovery operation following a major crash involving two trains in southern Spain, which killed at least 41 people. The incident near the city of Cordoba is Spain's worst rail crash in more than a decade. Guy Hedgecoe is there. There is that heavy machinery which has been deployed to try and open up the carriages which have not yet been sifted through by rescue workers. It's an extremely difficult job because of the way that some of those carriages were sort of crushed and twisted during the collision on Sunday evening. But we have been told by the authorities that they expect more bodies to be recovered from the crash site and therefore that the death toll is expected to increase further.

16:05Where I am in Córdoba, DNA tests are being carried out in order to identify the bodies that have already been recovered. Tell us about the King and Queen of Spain who are visiting the site today. They've been at Adamuz, the town next to the crash site, and they've been at the crash site talking to people there. They are also going to be coming to Cordoba, where they're going to be visiting, for example, people who are injured in Sunday's crash in hospital, where they're being treated. They're also expected to meet with relatives here in Cordoba of some of those who are still unaccounted for. So they're going to be meeting with people who clearly are extremely distressed because they're waiting for news about their loved ones.

16:51So I think this visit by the king and queen is seen as quite an important one, quite a significant one. It's part of protocol, but I think clearly the authorities feel that this could help comfort people who are very distressed at the moment. And we should underline, it's really not known what caused this, even at this point. No, it's not. I mean, the investigation into the cause or causes is underway. We've been told that human error has pretty much been ruled out. The authorities don't believe that was a factor. But we do know that the investigators are looking very closely, for example, at the train which derailed, as you would expect, and the condition of that train.

17:33They're also looking extremely closely at the section of rail where the derailment and accident took place. Now, you have to remember that the accident took place on a section of track where there wasn't a curve or a bend. This was a straight section of track, and that is something which has slightly bewildered the authorities, and they have admitted to this. The transport minister has said this was a very strange tragedy for that reason. So they're looking very closely at the track. They're going to be looking at sections of the track in a laboratory, and they're also looking at other trains which have come through along this route in recent days to see if they have had any similar incidents or comparable incidents.

18:14Guy Hedgcoe in southern Spain. Next, to Vietnam.

18:22So that's the Congress of the ruling Communist Party. Happens every five years. Vietnam's leader, Tho Lam, is focusing on combating corruption and cutting bureaucracy and may also seek to extend his own power, a bit like President Xi in China. Our Southeast Asia correspondent, Jonathan Head, told me more. It's rather similar to what you see in China. For communist-run countries, the Party Congress is the ultimate gathering where the path for the next five years is set and where new leadership, if it's replaced, is announced. Now, an awful lot of very secretive behind-the-scenes meetings go on behind the scenes months and months before to decide who those leaders are going to be.

19:04They sit in the top decision-making body, the Politburo, so you should have 18 to 20 members, and then a larger central committee. Most of those decisions will have been made. Some will not. And although Vietnam is not a democracy and ordinary people don't get much say over this, there are a lot of different factions inside the party that sometimes disagree on decisions that are being made. And this time, because To Lam is such a powerful figure and he's announced such an incredibly bold and ambitious plan to launch Vietnam into being an upper income country, technology based within the next 20 years.

19:40that is probably going to have sparked off a lot of debate behind the scenes and every word that's chosen in this, every leadership position that's filled will be analysed and scrutinised closely to see whether he gets a free hand to carry out this really quite revolutionary vision he's got for his country. Just give us a bit more on what the vision is. You've given us a sense of the direction of travel of Vietnam. What's being proposed now to take that further forward? Well, anyone who knows Vietnam will know it's one of the great economic performers in terms of manufacturing and exports on our planet.

20:15Vietnam has gone from being a really impoverished, isolated country 30 years ago to being one of the top manufacturing locations for companies around the world, for iPhones, for a whole range of other technology. It's got very impressive growth. But Tolham has zeroed in on something. He said, we can't just keep on just making stuff, other people's products from other companies. We need to build our own national champions, companies from from Vietnam as big as, let's say, Airbus or Volkswagen or Google. You know, he's looking for that kind of thing. And for a country at Vietnam's level of development is still technically a lower income country.

20:53So low middle income country. That is astonishingly ambitious. No other Southeast Asian country for all of their fast growth has managed to break out of what we call the middle income trap. They're all getting old now and the manufacturing jobs are going elsewhere. Vietnam wants to avoid that trap, but he's looking for 10 % plus growth in the next 10, 15 years. No other country's able to do that. It'll be fascinating to see whether this one-party authoritarian state, which has a great economic record, can do even better. And bear in mind, it's very dependent on exports to the United States, so Donald Trump's tariff wars are a real threat to it.

21:28Our correspondent, Jonathan Head. New research in Antarctica has found that penguins are breeding up to two weeks earlier because of climate change. The story from Ali McConnell. Teams from universities in Oxford monitored 37 penguin colonies over a decade, during which the temperatures recorded by their cameras rose by 0.3 degrees Celsius a year. They found the biggest behavioural change in Gen 2 penguins, whose breeding season shifted by 13 days on average and up to 24 days in some colonies. A daily and chin-strap penguin started breeding on average 10 days earlier. The scientists warn that the changes could threaten the birds' access to food or force greater competition between species.

22:10Now, the Beckhams are a household name here in Britain and beyond. David Beckham, the former England footballer, and his wife Victoria, who found fame with the pop group the Spice Girls. They still have a huge public profile. And now they're in a very public fallout with their son, Brooklyn Peltz Beckham, who said he doesn't want to reconcile with his family in his first comments on the strained relationship he has with his parents. The eldest son, now of Sir David and Lady Victoria Beckham, accused his parents of trying endlessly to ruin his marriage. Here's our arts correspondent, David Sillito.

22:45The crowning moment for brand Beckham. Posh and Becks were now Sir David and Lady Victoria, but one family member wasn't there. Let's make chicken parm. Brooklyn Beckham has over the years been keen to strike out on his own, trying his hand at photography and cookery. And there have been many stories and rumours of a rift. It's now been laid out in public in an Instagram post. Brooklyn Beckham says behind the carefully curated image are inauthentic relationships. He says, my family values public promotion and endorsements above all else. Brand Beckham comes first. Family love is decided by how much you post on social media.

23:29He talks at length about his parents' attitude to his wife, Nicola Peltz. He says they've tried to ruin their relationship and derail their wedding, saying a promised Beckham wedding dress was cancelled at the last minute, and that his mother hijacked their wedding dance. His statement makes clear this is no attempt to clear the air but a deep rift, adding,

24:02I don't think any of us can really imagine what it must be like to live your life with that degree of scrutiny. And I think that they are probably in a different position to an average family where people have fallen out. This is, of course, just one side of the story. The Beckhams have yet to respond. but when it comes to fame and public profile in Britain, they're probably second only to the royal family. And this blunderbuss of a social media post suggests something more than just a family disagreement. Brocklin Beckham says he doesn't want a reconciliation and stepping away from his family has only brought peace and relief.

24:39David Sillito reporting. And that's all from us for now. There'll be a new edition of Global News to download later. If you'd like to comment on this edition, drop us an email, globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk, or you'll find us on X at BBC World Service. Just use the hashtag globalnewspod. This edition was mixed by Holly Smith. The producer was Charles Sanctuary. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Andrew Peach. Thanks for listening. And until next time, goodbye.