Thailand and Cambodia agree ceasefire

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 Alex Ritson and in the early hours of Saturday, the 27th of December, these are our main stories. Thailand and Cambodia agree to an immediate ceasefire in their deadly border dispute. President Trump has claimed that the Christmas Day strikes he ordered on Islamic State militants in northwest Nigeria decimated their camps. Meanwhile, the US leader also says he believes his upcoming meeting with Ukraine's President Zelensky could be productive, but warned that Kiev would get nothing until he approved it. Also in this podcast. I'm against her job, have always been, especially compulsory hijab.

1:28But I never saw myself as an activist. How could you remain silent after Masa Amini's death? Top Iranian actress Tarana Ali Dustri tells the BBC she won't wear a hijab on screen ever again. Thailand and Cambodia have agreed to an immediate ceasefire three weeks after their long-running cross-border dispute fled up again. More than 40 people have died and around a million civilians have been displaced. The fatalities on the Thai side were mainly soldiers, while in Cambodia, they were mostly civilians. Phnom Penh hasn't officially said that any of its soldiers were killed. A joint statement has been signed by the country's defence ministers.

2:09The ceasefire is meant to have taken effect around now. Shortly before we recorded this podcast, I spoke to the BBC Thai service's Panisa Imoka in Bangkok. So at the moment, after 20 days of the news rows of confrontation between Thailand and Cambodia. Both sides agree to stay exactly where they are. There will be no moving forward, no reinforcement and no new patrols toward each other's line. And also this will allow almost a million people from both sides of the borders area to go back to their home. It is important to note that both of the country also agree that after three days of the peace, the 18th Cambodian soldiers who are currently held in custody in Thailand will be sent home.

2:54We've kind of been here before though haven't we? There were clashes earlier this year and there was a first ceasefire. Can this one actually hold? We can't tell that for certain. We have seen as we already mentioned that the ceasefire in July was broken and also with the Kuala Lumpur joint declarations where the US President Donald Trump was there along with the Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim was also there and it was also broken as well. But what we've seen the Thai side this time, they're very assertive. And it seems that at the moment, they can agree. And we also have the conditions of the 18 Cambodian soldiers to be returned.

3:29So at the moment, it is promising with the term and the condition. Panissa, how deep is the enmity between Thailand and Cambodia now? With this new round of disputes, it actually affects a lot of people in the border. We have actually interviewed a lot of people in the borders, and we have to understand that these borders area in the past before the dispute, or even back in 10 years ago when there were disputes as well, people were still living together as villagers. Some of them are families, they're family, but they have to be separated at the moment. In the past, they don't really have hatred toward each other.

4:06That's severely compared to presence, where you can see that the sentiment, the nationalistic sentiment has spilled over, not only in the border area, and we're talking about nationwide as well. If you go online, we can see comments crashing at each other, attacking each other. So we can still see that even though we have to ceasefire at the moment, and we already have ceasefire before, but the dislike and the nationalistic sentiment is still there lingering toward each other. Panisa Imoka of the BBC's Thai service in Bangkok. President Trump has been making some bold claims following the Christmas Day strikes he ordered against the Islamic State group in northwest Nigeria.

4:45Like the attacks on Iran's nuclear sites earlier this year, Mr Trump has declared that the US military has decimated its targets, in this case, IS camps. It's not yet clear how many people were killed, but US and Nigerian officials said that fighters were among the dead. The Nigerians said that there were no civilian casualties. The BBC's Makochi Okafo has reached the town of Sokoto, close to the strikes, and has spoken to locals. The authorities in Tangasa local government area confirmed to me that strikes were carried out and it did impact on Lakaroa militant camps. Now, Lakaroa is a growing Islamist militant group that has been seen to carry out attacks in parts of Sokoto, Kebi and even Niger.

5:34Now, Sokoto, which is where I am at the moment, shares borders with Niger. And this is in the northwest part of Nigeria. Now, the local community, which is the chairman of the local government, did tell me that the strikes did impact on these fighters. He also confirmed that police and military at the time couldn't access the area because after the huge blast, they were raging fire that followed the strike. And he did say that even the Border Patrol Police in the Nishe side confirmed that they saw some Lakarawa fighters running off and trying to escape the scene that followed this blast. A couple of people said they feel like they welcome this because this part of the country, which is the northern part of the country, even the northwest and even the northeast, which is a little bit farther away from here, for many years have seen different armed groups and jihadist groups terrorizing communities.

6:28So especially people in Tangasa, while they were shocked by this, some of them said they feel a bit relieved that perhaps this could bring some calm to the attacks that they face here. Mr Trump told the Politico news website that the operation which was agreed with the Nigerian military was planned for Wednesday but he chose to delay by a day so he could give the IS fighters a Christmas present as he put it. The US president had previously warned that he was ready to attack Islamists in Nigeria accusing them of persecuting Christians though the government in Abuja insists that innocent Muslims are also victims of IS.

7:08Reverend Father Paul Ebu Bedike is from the Catholic Diocese of Nui in southeastern Nigeria. He said that US intervention was long overdue. It was welcomed by Christians with open arms. This will send a very straight message to the terrorists that Trump was serious with what he said because over the end of the night, they are passing through a lot and lots of persecution because I grew up in the north. That was where I was born and raised. So I saw it firsthand. Every riot that happens there, you see burning of churches. Even if it's tribal riots, they target churches. So the reaction goes this way.

7:47The Easterners are reacting and say, yeah, Trump, you can come, please. So what more do we know about the Islamic State fighters who are targeted? Barry Marston is BBC Monitoring's jihadism analyst. The Nigeria branch of the Islamic State is actually probably the most active of any of its worldwide branches. It's been stepping up attacks over the last year. It's claimed well over 300 attacks, including some very ambitious assaults on military bases across parts of the country. But you could make the case that if the US was wanting to strike the Islamic State in Nigeria, it hit the wrong side of the country, because all of that activity has been right up in the northeastern corner.

8:32The latest attacks were right on the other side of the country, about 1 ,000 kilometres away in Sokoto state. Now, the target seems to have been what is known as the La Carrara Group, which there have been unconfirmed reports that it may have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. But there really is nothing sort of out there in the public domain confirming that allegiance or connections between the two entities. So we have been monitoring Islamic State affiliated channels that have actually been monitoring US military flights over the country over the past month. And we've noticed the prevalence of flights over the Sokota region, as well as Borno areas where Islamic State has very well known camps.

9:14So it's entirely possible the US could be planning to follow up with attacks on these better established, better known Islamic State centres across Borno states. sort of based on this reconnaissance and movement of US planes. Barry Marston from BBC Monitoring. In an interview with US media, President Trump appeared lukewarm compared to the Ukrainian president's optimistic appraisal of peace efforts to end the war with Russia. Mr Zelensky said the peace agreement being brokered by President Trump was 90 % ready. The Ukrainian president is expected to hold talks with Donald Trump in Florida on Sunday in the latest push to secure a deal before the new year.

9:58Our correspondent Samira Hussain sent this report from Kyiv. In speaking with US media, President Trump is certainly striking a different tone to that of President Zelensky. We've heard from President Zelensky that in fact he believes that the peace plan is about 90 % there, that only the thorniest issues remain. He said that he will be speaking with President Trump on Sunday in Florida. And the issues that are left to discuss are issues with regard to security guarantees and, of course, territorial concessions. Now, even though President Zelensky appeared quite upbeat, Mr. Trump was making it very clear that any kind of peace deal between Russia and Ukraine would depend on the United States.

10:49And of course, the question is, what does Russia say about all of this? Now, we know that Russia has been speaking with their American counterparts. And President Trump, in that same interview, said that he expects to be speaking with President Putin sometime soon. Samira Hussain. You may remember the protests which erupted in Iran after the death in custody of Masar Amini three years ago, a young Iranian woman arrested by the morality police for not wearing her hijab properly. Among those who posted in support of the Women Life Freedom Movement against women's oppression was Tarana Ali Dousti.

11:28She's one of Iran's best-known actresses. Now, in an exclusive interview with BBC Persian TV for a documentary, she says she will not take any role where she's required to wear the hijab. Here's the translation of part of the interview.

11:48I'm against hijab, have always been, especially compulsory hijab, but I never saw myself as an activist. I'm an actress and I thought Selima was my destiny. But Iran has changed a lot in recent years, as if there has been this explosion at national level. And all the changes that you see right now are changes that all my life I wish for them to happen. And I know that you can't change Iran with a couple of social media posts. And as an Iranian woman, I feel that burden of responsibility on my shoulders. How could you remain silent after Mahsa Amini's death, after witnessing women being beaten to death for taking off their scarves?

12:27There have been many big moments in my life, in my professional life, but nothing compares to this moment. Look at what I'm wearing right now, sitting in front of you, my hair not covered. And this is how I went out last night. This is how now I go out every day. Some have argued that the movement in Iran after Mahsa Amini's death has been the first feminist revolution in the world. Actress Tarana Ali Duzdi. Farnas Fasihi is a correspondent for The New York Times. She's reported on Iran inside and outside the country for 30 years. What did she make of the interview? Her interview was extremely courageous.

13:09She was very articulate and came across as someone who is willing to stand up for the principles that she believes in and stand on the side of the people against rules that a lot of women have risen up against and are defying every day. And as we see from the way that this interview has broken records, I think last I checked, it's been seen 27 million times on BBC Persian. So it's resonated very widely and very deeply with Iranians inside the country and outside. What professional cost has Tarana paid for her stand? She was arrested and jailed after posting her photo during the protests without her job.

13:53And then she was sick for a long time and sort of we hadn't seen her publicly. And the government had announced that she's banned from working. Tara Neh is the equivalent of a Meryl Streep in Iran. She's Iran's most acclaimed actress with leading roles in all the major movies that have come out of Iran over the past 20 years. Again, it's incredibly courageous and it's a very heavy personal cost that she has sort of announced that she's going to take the stand at the cost of her career. Anecdotally, I've been told that the number of women not wearing the hijab, not wearing traditional dress in Iran is growing.

14:32And that there seems to be, even in a city like Tehran, less intervention by the morality police against women for doing that. Is that correct? Is that your understanding? Correct. That's what our reporting and the interviews that I do and all the videos and imagery that's coming out of Iran on social media and everywhere shows and also the government's own sort of dilemma where they say publicly that we don't know what to do about the growing trend of women not observing the hijab. You know, the mass Amini protests really changed Iran, and I think Tyrone is a symbol of that, of that sort of civil disobedience and the discourse that we see, the defiance we see still by women and young people in Iran.

15:15Barnas Fasihi from The New York Times speaking to Sean Le. People in Myanmar's largest city, Yangon, have spent their first night without a curfew in nearly five years. The military government has hailed what it claims is the city's return to normality. The lifting of the curfew comes just a day ahead of elections. Anna Aslam reports. When the Burmese army staged a coup back in 2021, there were massive pro-democracy protests across the country. As security forces clamped down on the protesters, the junta enforced a strict nighttime curfew in Yangon, home to about 7 million people. The lockdown was from dusk to dawn, but in the years since, it's gradually shrunk.

15:57to between 1 and 3 a.m. Now, with elections scheduled to begin in phases on Sunday, the junta has lifted the curfew completely. A spokesman said it showed regional stability in Yangon is improving. But even when there was only a two-hour curfew, most people didn't go outside late at night due to heightened security concerns, and this looks unlikely to change. Many people left Yangon and other cities after the coup to take up arms in rebel groups fighting against the army. According to the UN, the civil war has killed thousands, displaced millions and left half the nation in poverty. The Junta has promised the upcoming elections will return democracy, but watchdogs have labelled it an exercise to rebrand military rule.

16:40Anna Aslam. Still to come in this podcast. It's like number one sports. I have this fire in me that brings out the best of me. We meet the world champion ski jumpers of Slovenia heading to the upcoming Winter Olympics.

17:20chilling 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.

17:44China's high-speed rail system has just passed a major landmark. It now has a network spanning more than 50 ,000 kilometres. It actually claims to have more high-speed track than every other country put together. The milestone was reached with a new line between Xi 'an, home to the Terracotta Warriors, and Yan 'an, where Chairman Mao had his revolutionary base. Our reporter, Mickey Bristow, told me the country's entire high-speed rail track has been laid in less than 20 years. I think it was 2008 when the first high-speed railway way between Beijing and Tianjin opened up. So 50 ,000 kilometres of track in that short span of time is amazing.

18:26And to a certain extent, it symbolises China's economic and development over the last three decades, really. It showcases the best of what they have to offer, technology, a lot of the trains are developed in China, engineering. China is a really mountainous place, many places. And so you get some tracks, which are all tunnels and bridges. I think one stretch between Wuhan, the city of Wunhan, and Guangzhou in the south, two-thirds of it is either tunnel or bridges. So I can remember when I was reported in China, I would go to places all over the country, and everywhere you went you would see a bridge being built, track laid, or a new terminal or station being opened.

19:08So it really is phenomenal. and great vision on the part of the Chinese government as well because the political leaders decided that they had to have a better transport system to kind of drive the economy going forward and so they decided to build it. If you compare it to our own country here in Britain, we're trying to build a high-speed rail between London and the north of England. That's been delayed. It's taken 20 years to build nothing, hasn't it? Delayed, cancelled, it still hasn't been built. So they could claim that some of the best of Chinese leadership. It has a bad point as well, though.

19:39A lot of people in China, because it's a one-party state, they can do what they like. So to build these tracks, they've cleared away villages, towns, and people haven't had much of a say in whether or not they're going to get out of, you know, whether they wanted to stay or whether they go. So that's a bad aspect of it. But really, it really showcases the best of Chinese engineering and economic development. Yeah, you say the best. You've travelled on some of these trains. Just tell us what it's like. I mean, amazing. I mean, you go through these kind of massive halls, all modern, very efficient.

20:14You get on trains which are clean, modern, punctual. They travel at around 350 kilometres an hour. This new one that's opened between Xi 'an and Yen 'an, it's cut the travelling time from two hours to one hour. Really amazing. I mean, some people who are nostalgic about wheel travel would like to go back to the old time when train travel in China, you'd take maybe many days, you'd travel overnight in little compartments. These new trains are kind of airline style where everybody's sitting in the same direction, three or four abreast, something like that. But certainly if you want to travel anywhere in China now, you can do it quickly, efficiently and relatively cheaply.

20:56Mickey Bristow. You may think that TV adverts putting women in the kitchen are a thing of the past. But new industry research suggests stereotypes in marketing are remarkably resilient. The British agency Cantor examined the top 1 ,400 global ads in 2025 and found they're increasingly portraying women in regressive roles, although there are some adverts that show people in more progressive situations, including one in India, about a washing powder. Here's Lynne Deason from Cantor. We're seeing a drop in the proportion of adverts that feature women in non-traditional roles this year versus last year.

21:38So it was 8 % in 2024 and that's now halved down to 4 % of ads this year. You know, to an extent, culture does vary a lot across the globe and there are specific places where you have to make sure you're getting that right. But I think progressive marketing, when you portray people positively, it works everywhere in the world. When you show stereotypes, they do alienate audiences and they reduce relatability. And that meaningful connection, seeing yourself or people like you or people who you'd aspire to be like in advertising is really key from an effectiveness point of view. What you're doing is you're positively shaping what people think about your brand and predisposing them to choose you.

22:19I think people might be surprised to hear that in India, there's a campaign that's really shifted things from the brand aerial. This campaign started a few years back. It showed a dad and his daughter who's grown up now and he hadn't realised the load that she was bearing. She had an demanding job, but she was also trying to look after the family and the home and it was a wake-up call for him. So he realised that actually he needed to start sharing the load and so did the rest of the family and it shouldn't all be on her. Ads like that that more directly challenged stereotypes can be really good.

22:52The other ad that I think is really positive is Amazon's, what we call joyride ads. Three older ladies watching young children sledging down the slope. They're reflecting back on their own childhood and one of the friends buys the insert from Amazon so they can enjoy doing that. And we don't often see older generations portrayed in advertising, but that resonates with everybody. Lynne Deason. One of Europe's smallest countries is hoping to fly higher than the rest at the upcoming Winter Olympics. Ski jumping is Slovenia's national sport and they go into next year's games at Cortina in Italy, holding both the men's and women's world records.

23:33They won the women's individual gold at the last Olympics and they're hoping this will be the year they can finally claim an individual men's gold medal. Our Balkans correspondent Guy Delaunay went to meet the athletes.

23:52If you want to know how much ski jumping means to Slovenians, you have to come to Planica. Ski jumping is awesome enough as it is, with competitors hurtling into thin air at more than 100 kilometres an hour. But back in the 1930s, Slovenia decided to ramp up the drama even further by creating the giant hill at Planica. The result was an even more extreme version of the sport, which they christened ski flying, and tens of thousands of people make the pilgrimage to Planica every year to watch the climactic event of the season. The first jumps over 100 metres and 200 metres were in Planica, and I think that this tradition continued, and people got in love with ski jumping.

24:40Robert Hargota is the head coach for the Slovenian men's elite ski jumping squad. To be an elite, elite level, it takes more than just training. It takes more than just physical training. You have to have also mental training. And you have to have that something extra that nobody else can provide. So which parts of the body are you using most? I would say the head.

25:08that was the sound of one of the world's best ski jumpers taking off at more than 87 kilometers an hour on a practice jump at this ski jumping center in kran i have eight years old when i start and you go step by step you just use the do this feeling that you're not scared. Niko Vodan was the overall Women's World Cup champion in 2021. It's a really special feeling in the air because you feel this feeling of flying a little bit, especially on the big hills. And also, of course, you need to be prepared physically and mental. Yeah, mental is more important than you are mentally prepared. There's even more of a buzz about Slovenian ski jumping this year because of the Winter Olympics.

26:04Slovenia boasts both the men's and women's world record holders, even more remarkably, their brother and sister. Nika Prejoc is only just out of her teens, but she's already won the overall World Cup title for the past two seasons, and big brother Domen won two gold medals at the most recent world championships. That's actually the first year for me to do the Olympics, but I have the focus to manage a gold medal there. It's clearly a huge thing for Slovenia, isn't it, the ski jumping? Actually, it's like number one sports. I have this fire in me that brings out the best of me because I know there is lots and lots of people that are cheering for me to do my best.