US and Denmark reach deal over Greenland

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1:21I'm Celia Hatton, and in the early hours of Saturday, September 19th, these are our main stories. President Trump says he's reached an agreement with Greenland and Denmark that he says gives the U.S. permanent control over security in Greenland. Mr. Trump also signed into law a bill that gives him more powers to impose trade sanctions on countries that buy energy from Russia to get Moscow to stop its war on Ukraine. And the governor of California, Gavin Newsom, wants more safety rules around AI, perhaps even a kill switch. Also in this podcast. If anyone finds that fun, I'm not sure they understand games and the conventional definition.

2:05A board game that's being played in England that's so complex no one has ever finished in.

2:16We'll begin in Washington, where there's been a series of announcements from the White House. In a surprise diplomatic development, Donald Trump says the United States, Denmark and Greenland have reached a security deal for Greenland, a Danish territory. And in another potentially important move, Mr. Trump has banned a number of major media organizations from the White House. We'll get to both of those stories in a moment. But first, the president has signed into law a bill that allows him to impose tough new sanctions on Russia, in addition to severe trade sanctions on countries that buy energy from Russia.

2:53The bill was championed by the Republican Senator Lindsey Graham before he died in July, and gives the president the tools to try to force Moscow to end its war on Ukraine. So how will this legislation allow President Trump to pressure Russia? Our North America editor Sarah Smith joined us from Washington. This allows for the most stringent sanctions on Russia since Donald Trump came back into office. It targets President Putin, some of his fellow ministers and associates and some Russian oligarchs personally. But the really big and what Congress thinks effective part of this bill is it allows President Trump to target Russia's energy industry, which is, of course, what has allowed them to pay for a lot of the assault on Ukraine.

3:37And it does this by giving the president the authority to place sanctions on other countries, third countries that are the biggest purchasers of Russian oil and gas. So other nations who are keeping Russia afloat by buying their energy could face 100 percent sanctions on goods that they are exporting to the United States. But it doesn't trigger that automatically. What it does is allow President Trump to make the choice as to whether he wants to do that on the biggest purchasers of Russian energy. Now, they include countries like China and India. And there are lots of other reasons why he may not want to impose punitive sanctions on those countries.

4:16It's interesting you bring up China, Sarah, because it's one of the biggest purchasers of Russian energy. This comes at an interesting time, doesn't it? Donald Trump is signing this bill just days before a high-stakes meeting with Xi Jinping next week, China's leader. Are we expecting the president to use this new bill against countries like China? Neither the president nor the White House have said if or when he would attempt to use these measures. This was a bill that has taken a year to get through Congress and eventually got a lot of bipartisan support. It was initiated by the late Senator Lindsey Graham, and it's in his memory that it's now been passed.

4:53The president has said supportive things about it before, but given us no indication whether he intends to use these powers. I would be very surprised if he were to put additional sanctions on China before or during the state visit from President Xi, which is taking place at the end of next week. Well, at the same time as having these extra powers to sanction Russia and some of Russia's energy buyers, there are also reports in The New York Times that Mr. Trump is willing to offer Vladimir Putin business deals to get him to stop the fighting. What more do we know about this carrots and sticks measure?

5:28We know that the Times is reporting that Donald Trump's envoys, Steve Wyckoff, the real estate magnate, and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who have been in Moscow talking to President Putin, were offering some business deals, talking about the possibility of signing some before a deal with Ukraine had been done. So it has always been on the table. It's always been known that Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are both very keen to reestablish a business relationship. What we're told, his envoys were talking about in order to try and persuade Vladimir Putin to move closer towards doing a peace deal.

6:01the idea that some of these deals could be put in place before a peace in Ukraine had been established, but with it being contingent on the idea that he would be moving towards that. And Sarah, we are speaking to you on a big day for the White House press pool. President Trump appears to have banned three news organizations, CNN, Politico and MSNOW, from reporting from the White House. What more do you know? Well, he announced this in a Truth Social post on social media, saying that he was sick of their constant fake news reporting. and that these three media organisations would be banned from the White House.

6:34And then he took questions in the Oval Office from some other reporters who were in there and didn't give us a huge amount of detail. So we don't know whether these organisations are banned from the grounds of the White House and from the press briefing room, or whether it is only from the Oval Office, from press conferences and travelling with President Trump on Air Force One. He also said there was no particular reason why he was doing this now. There was no individual story that he was taking objection to that had prompted him to do this move. He just said that the constant negative and fake reporting had annoyed him so much he wanted to take this action because he said it was diminishing his Republican Party.

7:15And of course, it is worth remembering that we're only a few weeks away from some crucial midterm elections. He did mention the possibility that he might want to go on and ban other organizations. he mentioned off the top of his head when he was asked about it, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and ourselves and the BBC, all of whom he said were purveyors of fake news, but he doesn't appear to be making a move in that direction at the moment. Our North America editor, Sarah Smith. And now to that other White House announcement that I mentioned. For months, President Trump has been threatening to annex Greenland if the US failed to secure complete control over the Danish territory's security.

7:54Now comes news from the White House that an agreement has been reached with Greenland and Denmark over a way forward. Though, as we'll hear, just what has been agreed is unclear. Our Washington correspondent, Daniel Bush, told me more. The details of this agreement, Celia, are still pretty unclear. According to President Trump and his Truth Social Post, this is a sweeping agreement that gives the U.S. total control, as President Trump put it, over Greenland's security. However, the officials in Denmark and Greenland, their initial statements were a little more circumspect. They applauded this deal, said that it was good for Arctic security, but stopped short of confirming what President Trump had said, that this would give America unprecedented control of the territory.

8:39It's interesting, Daniel. I mean, there were a lot of tensions around this issue earlier in Donald Trump's second term. Now it seems like this agreement has come out of the blue almost. Is this a win for quiet diplomacy? This has certainly been playing out behind the scenes. And I know from sources that quietly in private, the U.S., Greenland and Denmark have actually been working on this diplomacy track now for months after President Trump threatened to somehow annex Greenland by force earlier this year. That caused a huge diplomatic row. But since then, the sides have been working quietly again to try and reach some sort of a deal.

9:14And it seems that they were able to make progress out of the public spotlight by keeping these talks in private, secret, if you will, to try and reach some sort of an agreement. Now they've done that. But again, the details remain unclear about what exactly what kind of control gives the U.S. over the territory. Why was Donald Trump so fixated on Greenland? This has been an issue that he's been interested in from the very beginning of his presidency, going all the way back to his first term. And now at the start of his second term, especially when he entered office, he was fixated on trying to expand U.S.

9:46territory and in some other way sort of leave his legacy, his mark on foreign affairs. So that was part of this. He's also been told by multiple U.S. officials in his orbit that this is important for national security reasons to protect U.S. interests in the Arctic against threats from China and Russia. So there's geopolitics at play as well as President Trump's own sort of views on his legacy and his ability to expand American power abroad. Danielle Bush in Washington. For weeks now, we've heard warning after warning about artificial intelligence and the potential threat it poses to humanity.

10:23Many of the world's biggest AI companies are based in California, and now the state's Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, has announced he's setting up a panel to look at ways to strengthen safety rules around the technology, including the possibility of what's being called a kill switch. In a video posted to social media, he called on Mike Johnson, the Republican House Speaker in Washington, to do the same. We're going to convene experts to figure out the right path forward. California will do what it can, but this nation needs to get in the game. Washington, D.C. needs to do its job. Remarkably, they left for a summer break.

11:04Mike Johnson should return from vacation and follow California's lead by passing national legislation. Get it done. Earlier in the week, Donald Trump said that fears about the safety of AI are a hoax and rejected calls for greater safeguards. Callie Hayes is our tech reporter in San Francisco. She told me more about what this panel in California might be exploring. I think some of the key things that they would be looking at would be one, getting third parties to come in and actually look at these models as they're developed, the models or the basis of, you know, things like AI chatbots. So just getting having somebody that is not inside one of these companies coming in and being able to look at what is going into the training and saying, hey, that's maybe not the best idea, or don't you think that behavior is weird, that kind of a thing.

11:57But one of the biggest things that I think that people are starting to take seriously is this idea of a quote unquote kill switch, which sounds very dramatic, and it kind of is. But basically, governments and authorities want some way to actually force an AI company to turn off or shut down an AI tool that has started acting improperly. Do you think that this panel could reach any kind of agreement on this huge issue? Tech bosses appear to be very split on how much regulation they'd like to see happen when it comes to AI. I think any kind of broad agreement would be next to impossible. I think they would definitely also fight tooth and nail against the idea of a kill switch.

12:42They really do not want outside people being able to tell them what to do when. But that said, the cynical side of me coming out, there are things that there is already agreement on with regards to like what needs to be done with AI safety. And this idea of third parties coming in and actually looking at the models and having a say in what goes into them is actually gaining a lot of traction. And I think there has already kind of turned up a consensus that this would be a good idea. But President Trump doesn't appear keen to regulate the market at all. And we also have to remember that President Trump and Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, are political rivals.

13:24They are political rivals, but it's funny that they tend to listen to the same people. I mean, Trump definitely has been vehement that he does not want to have any involvement in regulating AI at all. and he has a lot of very powerful, very wealthy people in tech speaking to him directly quite often and kind of pleading their case that they really can handle this themselves. But Newsom definitely has ties to big tech. He has ties to Meta. He has ties to Google. He takes money from these places. So they are political rivals, but they're kind of coming at this from the same group of people. So it will be interesting to see where California actually ends up landing on this, especially as Newsom is leaving office.

14:12Callie Hayes. Still to come in this podcast. He has proselytized for years the notion of long term value investing. So the whole idea is to hold on to companies and investments for decades. The sage of Omaha, Warren Buffett, is stepping down from the investment company he's led for more than six decades.

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15:32style, life stage or experience, Schwab has everything you need, all in one place, so you can invest your way. Visit schwab.com to learn more. Can politicians improve our economic fortunes? Dave Ramsey says no. I'm Tristan Redmond from The Global Story, and I've been speaking to the massively popular US money guru who says, if there's a financial crisis, it's on us. When you borrow on credit cards and take out a$1 ,200 car payment on a freaking Range Rover. You've destroyed your life, not the president. For the full interview, listen to The Global Story on bbc.com or wherever you listen.

16:30true stories from Nobel laureates, authors, athletes, and everyday people about why we do the things we do, and how to make better choices to help avoid costly mistakes. Each episode covers the latest research in behavioral science and dives into themes like the power of self-control, shaping your mindset for success, navigating new beginnings, and why starting over can feel so hard. Listen to choiceology at schwab.com slash podcast or wherever you listen.

17:08This is the Global News Podcast.

17:18Protesters outside Turkey's embassy in London on Friday. They're angry at a crackdown on the LGBTQ community ordered by the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Hundreds of people have been detained across Turkey this week following sweeping government raids. Emily Withers is a journalist covering the story in Turkey. She spoke to Sean Lay. Well, I should start by saying, Sean, that life has been pretty tough for LGBTQI plus people here for some time. So Pride, for example, in this country has been banned since 2015. Turkey doesn't recognise same-sex marriage, but same-sex relations are not illegal here.

17:58But what we saw over the weekend and into the start of this week is really unprecedented. This is a massive crackdown on this community. So over 160 people were detained. Associations were raided. Bars, which are LGBTQ plus friendly, were raided. And then there was this footage that was released from the Justice Ministry, which showed police officers searching offices and confiscating rainbow flags, they say, to protect children and family. And then later in this week, when some of these court cases started happening, these people were being held in pretrial detention. There were small protests outside courtrooms in Ankara and Istanbul.

18:40And the authorities then arrested over 100 people that had come out to show solidarity. So these events have really sent a chill through the LGBTQ plus society here that life for them is about to get a lot harder. Last year, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan designated 2025 as the year of the family, encouraging people to have more children. Is he kind of blaming the LGBTQ community in some way for the fact that the birth rate in Turkey has been falling? Yes, that's right. So like many countries around the world, people in Turkey are not having as many babies as the government would like. So there's been this year of the family last year.

19:20That's now been extended by the government here. So it's a decade where they're going to be pushing people to have at least three children. And they've partly blamed the drop in people having children here on the LGBTQ plus community. Erdogan has made many speeches over the last year or so where he has warned that society risks moral decay and that this decay is spreading from individuals to families and then from families to society. The language that the politicians use here now against this community is really quite shocking. It is effectively hate speech. I mean, President Tayyip Erdogan has called LGBTQI people perverts.

20:00We also heard this week from the justice minister. He made a statement on his social media account that he had let all police force operations know in the country that they had to look out for any activity that might endanger children, might endanger the family. And we have just seen the language around this community tightening, life getting harder for them, people being attacked more, they say, on the street. I mean, just this week, I went to an LGBTQ plus friendly bar. I watched a band play that was made up of queer and trans people. And they said that they used to play in venues all around the country.

20:38And they're now really struggling to find places to perform because bars just simply won't have them. Emily Withers. Father Time always wins. The words of the billionaire investor and philanthropist Warren Buffett in a note to shareholders announcing that he's stepping down as chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, the firm he took control of 61 years ago. Mr. Buffett is now 96 years old. He'll remain a member of the board while his son Howard becomes the new chairman, overseeing what's now a huge conglomerate worth more than a trillion dollars. Here's the Sage of Omaha, as he's often called, speaking to the BBC a few years ago.

21:20The first books I read on investment were actually in my dad's office. Pretty soon I read all the books in the office and read some of them more than once. My dad had various nicknames for me. He'd call me Fireball sometimes because I'd start little businesses. He didn't care about money at all. He believed very much in having an inner scorecard and never worry about what other people are thinking about you. You know, just if you know why you're doing what you're doing, that's good enough. I admired everything about him to the extent that I was absorbing lessons from him without knowing it. And the idea that all eyes have equal value is something that all three of his children felt since I can remember.

22:06Amelia Pollard is the U.S. investment correspondent for the Financial Times. She spoke to James Menendez about Warren Buffett's retirement. Warren Buffett's been planning his succession for decades. And even back in 2011, Howard spoke publicly on 60 Minutes about what that plan would look like and knew even then that this was the eventual role he would take on with the company. What can you tell us about Howard? I mean, is he able to fill his father's very big shoes? Yeah, I mean, I think an important distinction here is that Howard's becoming, you know, head of the board, but Greg Abel is already CEO and took on that role at the beginning of the year.

22:47So the vision is basically to have Abel running the capital allocation and the business side of things, you know, all of the operations and the sprawling conglomerate, you know, that is probably the most famous company in the US at this point or one of them. And then Howard's job is more to steward the culture and values of Berkshire. And so, you know, Berkshire is a really unique company in that there's a cult-like group of shareholders and investors, you know, that travel to Omaha every year for the annual shareholder meeting. And that is part of the responsibility that Howard will take on. And obviously, you know, the Buffett name is synonymous at this point with Berkshire Hathaway.

23:25So I think to some extent, it's to have a sense of continuity for investors and shareholders and who's leading the company behind the scenes. The Buffett name is also synonymous with a sort of certain style of investing. I mean, for those who don't follow the ins and outs of Berkshire Hathaway, I mean, why did Warren Buffett become such a big name? So he has proselytized for years the notion of long term value investing. So the whole idea is to hold on to companies and investments for decades, to think about the long-term evolution of the economy and not about what quick hit wonders might be popular this year or this month.

24:07And that has really been the spirit and the ethos of the company for many, many years and has really brought on legions of shareholders, investors to also subscribe to that philosophy. Obviously, in 2026, that sort of philosophy has a lot more resonance. And, you know, it's quite unique in the age of crypto and AI and, you know, the world we've seen now, which, you know, the S &P 500 and the broader stock market is so intensely driven by these high value, high growth AI and tech companies. And, you know, Berkshire is a bit antithetical to that model and is in much more the longer term camp. Yes.

24:46And has that meant that the company has suffered relative to others? I mean, it has underperformed compared to the main S &P 500 index, hasn't it? By quite a margin. Is that a problem? It has this year. And, you know, I think there are a lot of eyes on Berkshire stock price. You know, the investors that I've spoken to today and in recent months have all said that, you know, they are believers in the long term plan here and think that, you know, Berkshire and historically Buffett and now Greg Abel, you know, are stewards of their money. And they believe that there's a longer term vision beyond just what the stock market's doing this year.

25:24I mean, obviously, there's been intense growth with the S &P 500 index this year. And the broader market, there's also been a lot of volatility. So I think that there is the camp of shareholders that have, you know, are still believers in Berkshire and what's to come, I think, believe that, you know, to not just focus on what the stock and the shares have done. And this year, many of them have held shares since the 70s or 80s and 90s. And they want to see, you know, what Greg Abel can do in passing the baton from Warren to this new era. And haven't been, from my understanding so far, you know, too quick to judge on the share price alone.