US hails 'tremendous' progress at Ukraine talks

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. You're listening to the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.

0:46Hello, I'm Oliver Conway. We're recording this at 4.30 GMT. The United States and Ukraine say they've had positive talks on ending the war with Russia. More than 50 of the 300 schoolchildren kidnapped in Nigeria last week have escaped. And we have a special investigation in Sierra Leone into the people who kill in order to sell body parts. Also in the podcast, despite a ceasefire, Israel kills Hezbollah's chief of staff in the Lebanese capital Beirut. And later... Our nanny. She was a KGB spy who participated in Trotsky murder. Wow. The Argentinian author who discovered the dark past of her former nanny.

1:37Donald Trump's plan to end the war in Ukraine has been seen as favouring Russia. But at a swiftly arranged summit in Geneva, Ukrainian and European officials have been trying to change that. And they appear to have made some progress, despite the US president once again lashing out at Ukraine, accusing it of expressing zero gratitude. A few hours after his Truth Social post, the White House issued a statement saying talks with Ukraine had been highly productive. The US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, who led the American delegation, spoke to reporters late on Sunday. We arrived here today with one goal, and the goal was to take what is 28 points or 26 points, depending on which version, as it continued to evolve, and try to narrow the ones that were open items.

2:23And we have achieved that today in a very substantial way. Now, obviously, like any final agreement, they'll have to be agreed upon by the presidents. And there are a couple issues that we need to continue to work on. It is probably the most productive day we have had on this issue, maybe in the entirety of our engagement, but certainly in a very long time. But work remains. And because this continues to be a working process, I don't want to declare victory or finality here. There's still some work to be done. The leader of the Ukrainian delegation, Andrei Yermak, was also upbeat about the talks.

2:54We have very good progress and we are moving forward to the just and lasting peace. Ukrainian people deserve and want this peace more than anyone on this planet. While our Europe correspondent Sarah Rainsford was in Geneva, she told Valerie Sanderson that the mood did indeed seem to be positive. Certainly public facing optimism, yeah. Lots of positive talk from Marco Rubio in particular. He was the official who came out after hours of talks in all sorts of formats today. Ukrainians and Americans sitting down, Europeans and Ukrainians sitting down, Americans and Europeans sitting down. And as far as we know, various groups then coming together.

3:34They are talking positively. They're saying that no problem is insurmountable, although Mr Rubio said a couple of problems remain without going into details. But he was very keen to say this is a very productive and meaningful discussion. He said that, you know, there's still work to do, but an incredible amount had been achieved. And I think, you know, that is important because going into this, there was and there still is a lot of concern about a deal which looks to favor very, very strongly Russia. In fact, so much so that Marko Rubio actually had to deny that the whole deal had been written by the Kremlin.

4:08He said, no, this was a US deal. And that's the deal that he went in to defend and to negotiate. But as you're hearing, it is an evolving document and Ukraine is trying as far as it possibly can to have its say and to make sure that this is a deal that basically doesn't sell it down the river. Well, the talks are going to continue. Presumably that's a good sign. What does Ukraine want most of all? I think Ukraine wants certainty. I think it's really struggling with Donald Trump's flipping back and forth. One day saying he's frustrated by Vladimir Putin is going to pile the pressure on Vladimir Putin.

4:42And then the next day turning around and shouting in caps lock on social media about zero gratitude from Ukrainian officials. I think, you know, Ukraine feels the pressure. It knows that it has to engage with this political process, this peace process that the US has embarked upon, because frankly, it needs the United States. So it has to be seen to be grateful. It has to say a lot of thank yous and it has to really commit to discussing this plan. I think basically Ukraine doesn't want to be the one that says no. It doesn't want to be seen as the deal breaker. It wants to be seen as constructive.

5:16What actually happens at the end of this entire process is a very, very open question still, though. And of course, what happens when Russia sees whatever ends up being written is, again, a big open question. Ukraine says quite clearly it doesn't believe that Russia wants peace. And Vladimir Putin himself has said he is quite happy to carry on prosecuting his war. And how important are the Europeans in all this? Well, they're trying to make themselves important because they have been very much sidelined. I mean, the deal that was put on the table a few days ago that had everyone scrambling to respond by Donald Trump's supposed Thursday deadline, so next Thursday, had Europeans very, very concerned that once again they had been left out of the process.

5:55they hadn't been consulted. This was essentially the US and Russia presenting Kiev with an ultimatum that was going to be really hard for Ukraine to cope with alone. So yes, there were European security advisors here in Geneva today. They held discussions, certainly with the Ukrainians. I think they were here kind of to back up Ukraine. And there was talk of some sort of counter proposals coming from the Europeans to the American deal. Although when we asked Marco Rubio about that he would go into any specifics. But I think that the role is essentially a kind of moral backup, if you like, for Ukraine.

6:30So it's not the only one in the room debating this stuff with the Americans. Sarah Rainsford in Geneva. An undercover BBC World Service investigation in Sierra Leone has exposed the trade in human body parts. Sold for thousands of dollars, these parts are used in witchcraft ceremonies in the belief they will guarantee power, success or wealth. The scale of The problem is unknown, but alleged ritual killings are regularly reported on national news and across social media. BBC Africa Eye's Tyson Conte reports from McKinney in northern Sierra Leone, and a warning listeners may find some of the report upsetting.

7:08A TikTok video from May this year shows Fatmata Conte dancing, happy and carefree, surrounded by family and friends. She's celebrating her 28th birthday. The following day, she disappears. Her body, her neck broken, was found here on a patch of rough ground on the roadside. Fatmata is my cousin. My aunt Mariama identified her body. I went in and they removed her clot and there were no wounds on the body, only in her mouth. Her teeth were removed from the mouth. Police have not linked her death to ritual killings, but my family fears the worst. Everyone is talking about it. Ritual killing. I'm on my way to Waterloo, on the outskirts of the capital, Frita.

8:03My sources have connected me to a man who claims to sell human body parts. You ready? Cameras are on. Everything is ready. An undercover investigator arranges to meet him. Grainy video footage shows the man who calls himself Aydara, sitting on a mat, on a death floor. He looks relaxed, confident. I have up to 250 haberlis working under my banner. There are no human parts that we don't work with. The investigator's cover story is that he is an ambitious politician who wants to harness magic to advance his career. Aydara explained how it works. We have ways of processing the bodies. After slaughtering, we put the whole body in one place.

8:55Some say they want the raw parts. Some requested for the whole body. It just depends on what you want. The investigator leaves, instructing Aydara not to do anything.

9:12Outside the capital, Sierra Leone's Council of Traditional Illas meets up. 80 % of Africans rely on traditional medicine, according to the World Health Organization. They said a one rotting fish can destroy the glide of the fish. Shekutaraoli, the president, says the work had to root out rogue herbalists like Aydara. Every month we get an information from the police and community people that they have killed somebody, removed his part. We are not like that. We are healer. We are not killer. Idara calls the investigator with a chilling message. He says he's gathered some of his men and is ready to act.

9:57This is crazy. Someone's life could be in danger here. This is very serious. We have no way of knowing whether what he says is true, but we call the police. The police gather to raid Idara's house. Belief in spiritual practices is widespread in Sierra Leone, even amongst authorities. Assistant Superintendent Ali Jalo. We as police officers, we are an African, you know what that means. You cannot just get into the shrine of a witch doctor without protection. The team gets closer to Aydara's house. The investigator is inside. Secret filming shows the moment Aydara hears the commotion outside. He jumps up and flees.

10:44The police comb through each room. They can't find Aydara, but they discover a shrine along with masks and spiritual objects stuffed in bags. A noise comes from the ceiling. Aydara crashes to the ground and the police detain him. The team continues to search for evidence. Mr. Tori unravels dirty white cloth. Dust and what looks like small bones fall out. He says they are human. The police have not confirmed this. Idara and two other men are charged with practicing sorcery as well as being in possession of traditional weapons used in ritual killings. They have since been bailed pending investigations.

11:34Back in Makini, my cousin Fatmata is buried outside the town mosque. We may never truly know why she was killed. Ritual killing is not recorded as a distinct crime in Sierra Leone. The scale of the problem remains unknown. It's measured only in the grief of the belief. Tyson Conte reporting from northern Sierra Leone. Two days after gunmen kidnapped more than 300 students from a Nigerian Catholic school, about 50 managed to escape. But as of Sunday, some 253 boys and girls, along with 12 staff members, were still being held, according to a Catholic bishop. It's one of the worst mass abductions in Nigeria's history.

12:16The BBC's Medina Maishanu is one of the first journalists to reach the scene. Shattered glasses, flip-flops and uniforms. These are the remnants of this room of 16 where students were forcefully dragged out by unknown gunmen in the middle of the night. Standing in the dormitory room where his son was sleeping when he was abducted. This father didn't want to be identified but described what he saw. They were being trafficked on foot the way shepherds control their herds. The gunmen were on bikes while controlling the girls. The students aged 6 to 18 and their teachers were taken by an armed gang that stormed the Catholic St Mary's boarding school.

13:02My whole life is filled with sadness. He's my only son. He's my firstborn. Please help us. The anger and frustration with the authorities over their inability to prevent kidnappings like this is clear. Everybody is keeping quiet. There is nothing. We are feeling bad. We want the government to come quickly and rescue these children. The kidnapping came as President Trump warned of possible action over what he called the persecution of Christians by radical militants in Nigeria. But Nigerian authorities say Muslims in the country have been just as affected by the abductions, many of which are by criminal gangs.

13:44For many parents, their priority is simply the return of their missing children.

14:14Argentinian author Laura Ramos during her childhood in Uruguay. My colleague Krupa Paddy asked Laura about the moment she found out about her nanny's secret past. One afternoon, I was working in my studio in Buenos Aires, when my brother came to visit and asked to me, do you remember Maria Luisa? Maria Luisa, the dressmaker, I replied. Well, she was a KGB spy who participated in Trotsky murder. Wow, I was stunned. I didn't believe him. He had to come back with the documentation. But first, I didn't want to write this book because Maria Luisa was a close friend of my mother. This must have been a huge shock to you when your brother first came to you and said he had learnt via this various documentation that Maria Luisa was in fact a KGB agent.

15:18What was your reaction? Horror, because Trotsky was for us an uncle. We were very close to the figure of Trotsky, and she was sent to Mexico to infiltrate Trotsky's secretariat at Frida Kahlo's house, where he lived. Our nanny drew the plants of the house and gave them to the KGB. Trotsky's murderer, Ramón Mercader, had been her friend since the Spanish Civil War, where they fought together in Barcelona. He might have been her lover at that time. She took on so many identities, multiple names, placed herself in countless dangerous situations as part of her job as a spy. But to you, she was the seamstress who would pick you up at the school gates and look after you.

16:18Can you help us understand what she was like to you, how you remember her as a young child? She gave us milk, gave us sweeties and pastries. And when I back to Montevideo, met up with my childhood friends and they cry when remember our nanny because they was very fond of her. What do you think were Africa de las Heras, the lady that you knew as Maria Luisa, what do you think were her motivations for doing all of this, being involved in these operations? She was a revolutionary. She perched into the Nazis' troops that invaded Ukraine during World War II. When I went to the north of Africa, where she was born, her great niece told me about her family, very military family, strict family.

17:16and she ran away to Barcelona during the civil war in Spain. She was the head of a patrol in Barcelona. She professed free love, was a very brave woman. She loves the danger. But as you learn, she ultimately took the lives of many. She was a murderer. Yeah, also she was a murderer. This is the great interrogant of my book. She was a hero or she was a murderer. She was the boss. Ara Ramos talking to Krupa Patti. And still to come on the podcast. I want to pinch myself every time I tell people, you know, Oliver is making his own enzymes. Every time we talk about it, I want to cry because it's just so amazing.

18:07The three-year-old boy being treated with pioneering gene therapy.

18:18If 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. It is almost a year since a US-brokered ceasefire formally ended the conflict between Israel and the Lebanese group Hezbollah.

19:03Since then, Israel has been accused of numerous truce violations in southern and eastern Lebanon, targeting what it said were Hezbollah fighters. Those attacks have been stepped up in recent days, and on Sunday, an Israeli airstrike on an apartment building in a suburb of the capital Beirut killed five people and wounded 28, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry. The Israeli army said it was targeting a senior member of Hezbollah who was killed. So what more do we know about him? Jim Muir is a former BBC Middle East correspondent who lives in Beirut. He is called Haitham Abou Ali Tabatabai, His father was of Iranian origin, but he rose rapidly through the ranks of the Hezbollah leadership after all the others were killed off quite systematically by the Israelis during the very intense warfare that ended almost exactly a year ago.

19:53Now, he was described as the chief of staff of Hezbollah. He'd been on the Americans' radar since 2016. He has a$5 million price on his head for the Americans' reward, that he was designated international terrorist as far as the Americans were concerned. So they're not going to be sorry to see him go. The Israelis saying they didn't check it out with the Americans before doing this, but they did tell them immediately afterwards. So in other words, they're making a point of saying, we don't ask anybody's permission before we do something like this. According to the Israelis, he had been instrumental in rebuilding some of Hezbollah's very heavily damaged capabilities over the last year and bringing in arms, et cetera, where they could, because the Israelis have been very vigilant.

20:36So this is the first strike of its kind on the southern suburbs of Beirut for months and months. But they've been carrying out lots of strikes elsewhere, in the south of the country and in the east in the Beqar Valley. In recent days, it's been intensifying. And every day, somebody's been killed, more than 350 by the Israelis' own count, since the ceasefire came into effect. I talked to a senior Lebanese leader just a short while ago. He said, basically, this means there's endless war expected to go on. They'll kill anybody who they suspect of belonging to or having a relationship with Hezbollah, according to him.

21:09Now, the reports in the Israeli newspapers that Israel is, in fact, gearing up for a further escalation, both in Lebanon and in Gaza and with Iran. You'll remember it fought Iran for 12 days earlier this year. Whether that's true or not, we'll have to wait and see. But certainly there are very bellicose statements coming from Israel and actions both in Gaza and here in Lebanon that point in that direction. Jim Muir in Beirut. A serious rift has emerged in the family of the former South African President Jacob Zuma. His eldest daughter has filed a police complaint against a sibling for allegedly recruiting young men under false pretenses who ended up fighting for Russia in Ukraine.

21:50We heard more from our correspondent in Johannesburg, Nomsa Maseko. This was Jacob Zuma's eldest daughter, Nkosazana Zuma Ngobe, seeking criminal charges against her her half-sister, Duzile Sambula Zuma, who is also a member of parliament for Jacob Zuma's political party, and basically accusing her half-sister of allegedly recruiting 18 South African men and also those from Botswana under false pretenses, promising them that they would go to Russia to train as bodyguards. According to the affidavit that was filed, they were handed over to a Russian mercenary group and are now at the front line fighting for Russia in the Ukraine.

22:33There have been reports of the men sending their families photos of themselves wearing military uniform. They've also been in touch with the South African government asking for help. And we are also in the process of speaking to the relatives of some of those men who are still in Russia at the moment. And tell us how it's got to this. What is the relationship been like between the two sisters? Well, this is the first that we're actually hearing of a spat that is so public. But Jacob Zuma, the former president, has about 20 children. So it is highly impossible for all of them to get along. And has there been any response from the sister against whom the complaint has been filed?

23:19There hasn't been a response from her. She's currently on trial after being accused of inciting violence, which was sparked by her father's arrest in July 2021. Those riots led to the deaths of about 350 people. Do we know if the former president, Jacob Zuma himself, knows about this or is involved in it? We do know that Jacob Zuma himself had in the last couple of weeks written to Russia's defense minister to make sure that those men are kept safe and asking for their return. There were requests that were made to the Ukrainian government, which basically said that it does not know of any South African men that have been fighting.

24:05As yet, we don't know for sure if all the men are accounted for. The South African president himself, Cyril Ramaphosa, had said that an investigation would get underway to determine how these men ended up in Russia and if they indeed were sent there without their consent because they signed contracts that were written in Russian that they did not understand that lended them in this position that they find themselves in. I'm Sir Maseko, talking to Valerie Sanderson. A three-year-old boy from California has become the first person in the world to be treated with a gene editing therapy developed in the UK.

24:46Oliver Chu has a rare genetic condition called Hunter syndrome, which causes progressive damage to the body and brain. In the most severe cases, patients may not survive beyond the age of 20. But doctors say they are amazed by Oliver's progress since he started receiving the treatment nine months ago. Our medical editor Fergus Walsh has been following his journey. Oliver, just check your temperature. It's December 2024 and Oliver is in a cot at Royal Manchester Children's Hospital. Father and son have flown from California for this world-first treatment. It begins with Oliver having his blood filtered to remove stem cells.

25:29I'll just give him your line, a little drink. These are sent to Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, where scientists insert a working copy of Oliver's faulty gene. Scientists in Manchester, including Professor Simon Jones, have been working on the gene therapy for around 15 years. A sort of effective treatment that deals with all aspects of Hunter syndrome would be utterly life-transforming for families. It would mean moving from a constant life of medical interventions and slow decline and an early death to a life where there's hope. We have got cells for Oliver Chu. In February, Oliver is back in Manchester to receive the gene therapy via an infusion.

26:20The next is a 10 minutes, a second bush. The hope is Oliver's genetically altered cells will start to produce an enzyme crucial for keeping his brain and body healthy. Go, go, go, go, go. I'm going to jump in the middle.

26:37Three months later, Oliver and his family are back again in Manchester. This time, we meet in a park, and it's clear that Oliver's parents are overjoyed with his progress. His mum, Jingru, says he's come off all other treatment. The gene therapy is working. I want to pinch myself every time I tell people, you know, Oliver is making his own enzymes. Every time we talk about it, I want to cry because it's just so amazing. Also there is Oliver's older brother, Skylar, who's five. He also has Hunter syndrome. Skylar has a weekly infusion of enzymes, which help prevent damage to his body, but they don't reach his brain.

27:22Dad Ricky says Skylar was too old for the trial. My wish upon the star is for, you know, Skylar to be able to get the same treatment. Like, with this gene therapy, it feels like Oliver got a reset in his life and gets a start, you know, with almost a fresh slate, you know, and that's why I want the same thing for Skylar, even though he's a little bit older. Nine months after Oliver's one-off treatment, doctors remained cautious, but they hope the gene therapy could be a permanent fix for Hunter syndrome. Actually, we're so happy, so pleased with his progress. His results are amazing. Professor Simon Jones.