Global News Podcast: China's Xi to meet Putin in Moscow

Hello, this is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service with reports and analysis

from across the world. The latest news seven days a week. BBC World Service podcasts are

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I'm Alex Ritzen and at 14 hours GMT on Friday the 17th of March these are our main stories.

China's president announces a visit to Russia next week for talks with President Putin.

Slovakia follows Poland in sending fighter jets to Kiev and the luck of the Irish

government ministers on a St Patrick's Day trip to 44 countries.

Also in this podcast three hospital workers and seven police officers in Virginia have

been charged over a black man's death and according to some accounts torture. The weight of seven

individuals on his body face down handcuffed with leg irons and you say my god why?

Let's start this podcast with the situation in Ukraine and a key question just how influential

is China in deciding the outcome of the war? Next week the Chinese president Xi Jinping

will travel to Russia for a three-day visit. China has insisted that it's a neutral player

in the conflict but the West will see the trip as Beijing providing support for Moscow.

Ukraine's foreign minister who will hear from later in this podcast told the BBC that he

doesn't think China is ready to arm Russia but neither does he believe Mr Xi's visit

will result in peace. Wang Wenbin a foreign ministry spokesman in Beijing said that it

would result in stronger ties. At present the situation in Ukraine unseen in a century

is evolving at a faster pace and the world has entered a new period of instability and

transformation. China and Russia are permanent members of the Security Council and major countries

and the significance of our relationship goes far beyond the bilateral scope. President Xi's

visit will be a trip for friendship. It will further the trust and understanding between

China and Russia. Before we go to our correspondent in Beijing let's hear this report from our

Russia editor Steve Rosenberg who is in Moscow. This will be President Xi's first visit to Russia

since Russian troops invaded Ukraine. The fact that the Chinese leader is coming signals Beijing's

strong support for Moscow. There's no surprise about that. Putin and Xi share a similar worldview

both embrace the idea of a multipolar world. Last year the two men declared their partnership

has no limits but that's not strictly true. Up till now China has not supplied Russia with lethal aid

to help it win the war in Ukraine, though the United States claims that China is considering

doing so. As for the declared partnership between Moscow and Beijing, Russia with an economy one

tenth the size of China's finds itself increasingly in the role of junior partner. The two leaders

are expected to discuss the Chinese initiative to end the war in Ukraine but there is no official

peace plan and there is deep skepticism in the West about whether China could broker peace in Ukraine.

Here's the view though of our Beijing correspondent Stephen MacDonald. China has really lifted

expectations on what might be achieved in terms of this visit for three reasons. One it says it's

impartial when it comes to the Ukraine war. Two is that it has sway Beijing has swayed with Moscow

so you would think if they really wanted to they could unconvince Russia to for example step back

a bit and number three because they've brokered this recent diplomatic agreement between Saudi Arabia

and Iran whereby they would resume diplomatic relations and so China's on a bit of a role in

terms of being a sort of global peacemaker I suppose if you could put it that way or at least many

would see them as that the problem is when you really drill down into it Beijing isn't actually

impartial it isn't neutral when it comes to the Ukraine war and all you have to do is watch the

TV news every night the state-run TV news just not neutral because it runs the Kremlin's line

it doesn't give any air time basically at all to what the Ukraine government thinks of that war

in fact it doesn't even refer to a war it talks about the conflict certainly TV news it would

never speak about an invasion and so as you can see it's not really a neutral player that said

it's not going to stop the expectation that Xi Jinping being in Moscow could achieve some sort

of a breakthrough well what sort of a breakthrough could it achieve given that background where

certainly Western powers will not see it in any way as impartial really at the end of the day

when Xi Jinping leaves Moscow will Vladimir Putin have a sense that China wants him to back off

in Ukraine or will he have a sense that really I should just keep charging ahead because the

most pessimistic analysis of this is that actually Russia is doing China's dirty work it's getting

stuck into the west eating up all this ammunition and resources from the west this is something

that China strategically would see as to its own advantage and so what's in it for China to stop the

war to tell the truth I mean if we if we if we're to think of it in in the most sense or I think

many hard heads wouldn't have great expectations or will he have a sense that president Xi is going

to supply the Kremlin with weapons well this is what the the US government has been accusing

China of doing of preparing to send weapons according to some analysts in the US China

is already supplying this kind of dual use technology so for example you send parts for a

plane but which can also be used to repair a jet fighter or you use some other sort of equipment

actually can be used for a sort of military tracking device so in that sense it's already

kind of supplying Russia if those reports are true. Stephen Macdonald in Beijing. Let's hear more now

about those comments made by Ukraine's foreign minister Dmitry Koleber on those who back his

nation in their defence against Russia and others who he said may have mistreated Ukraine and will

be held to account he says when the war ends he told our correspondent James Landel in Kiev that

delay by western allies in the delivery of weapons will cost the lives of Ukrainian soldiers.

If one delivery is postponed for one day it means that someone is going to die on the front line

it means that someone who could have been still alive will be lost. I will say enough has been

done when we win the war and it applies to everyone evenly from the United States to the

United Kingdom and other countries of the world. When we win then all the words of gratitude will

be said and all the conclusions about those who misbehaved in the course of this war and mistreated

Ukraine will be made to. You know war allows you to be honest even if you are a foreign minister.

Of course if anyone in the world thinks that the way this or that country behaved itself or treated

Ukraine at the darkest moment of its history and that will not be taken into account in

building future relations these people just don't know how diplomacy works. Ukraine's foreign minister

Dmitry Koleber but Russia seems just as committed to the fight as we heard from the Russian political

scientist and former advisor to President Vladimir Putin Sergey Markov. From our point of view

independent Ukraine does not exist now because it's puppet regime of the United States of America

and its proxy war of United States of America against Russia. Bakhmut is old Russian city.

Donbass had been artificially joined to Ukraine. I think the biggest Putin mistake was not

sent Russian troops in 2014 and 2015 when he must do it but he promised that time to the

western leaders Minsk agreement should be respected. This war had been prepared by the United States

from a Russian point of view. This war regarded as very bad but inevitable. For us it's a civil

war or rather Russian people. Sergey Markov. Ukraine is still crying out for western military

support. Some of this has been forthcoming but the West is yet to send its fighter jets which

need high maintenance and training. For now it has to make do with aging Soviet era MiG fighter jets.

Today Slovakia followed Poland by promising to send them to Ukraine. I heard more from our

Europe regional editor Danny Aberhardt. These are MiG 29 planes. They were produced first in the 1980s

in the Soviet Union during the Cold War and many of them were brought up by countries in Eastern

Europe in the 90s. So they are old but they're still supersonic jets and crucially the Ukrainian

military already uses these so air force pilots in Ukraine are familiar with them and wouldn't

need training to fly them. So that's why it's important. The government in Slovakia say they're

no longer needed. They were taken out of service last summer partly amid security fears that with

Russian technicians working on them and Slovakia airspace is covered now by the Czech Republic

and Poland in a deal arranged through NATO and Slovakia is waiting for US jets which are to

be delivered next year. So of these jets 10 are thought to be operational. Three have been out

of action for a long time and even those might be useful for Ukraine for providing spare parts

to its fleet. Yeah because there was a similar offer from Poland yesterday. Yes Poland offered to

send four working MiGs in the coming days and it plans to send more in the future. There might be

it has more than 20 MiGs in total and Ukraine has obviously welcomed this but Ukraine really

wants modern Western fighters. Yeah and any sign of those modern jets the sort that are used by

Britain and the US perhaps. The US has repeatedly rejected these requests although President Biden

last month at one time he said for now so that opens up a small window of possibility that at

some point in the future the US could provide things like the F-16s or Britain has said similar

rejections for its Typhoon aircraft but these aircraft require a lot of training and other

technical problems such as having long smooth runways for example so the West is very reluctant

to do that also for reasons of seeming like an escalation. Danny Aberhart. Prosecutors in the

US state of Virginia so they've charged three more people in connection with the death of a

black man who died in custody at a state hospital. After watching a surveillance video of his death

Ivo Otieno's mother called his death inhumane and said he was treated worse than a dog. David

Lewis is following the story. New details have emerged overnight into the death of the Kenyan

born Mr Otieno. The 28 year old aspiring hip-hop artist was being transported from the Henrico

county jail to a nearby psychiatric hospital on the 6th of March when investigators said he became

combative. His family said he was experiencing mental health distress and he died while being

restrained by several officers. The preliminary report from the chief medical examiner's office

identifies asphyxiation as a cause of death. At a news conference his family's lawyer Ben Crump said

Mr Otieno was subjected to horrific treatment. You see in the video he is restrained with handcuffs

he has leg irons on and you see in the majority mark of the video that he seems to be in between

lifelessness and unconsciousness. Now the video which has not been released is the core piece of

evidence in the case. Mr Crump went on to describe what he saw in the footage. You see him being

restrained so brutally with knee on his neck the weight of seven individuals on his body while

he's face down handcuffed with leg irons and you say my god why. So speaking alongside Mr Crump

Otieno's mother Caroline Uko said the footage had been distressing and claimed her son had been

tortured and there have been a number of arrests. That's right three more central state hospitals

and employees were arrested on Thursday charged with second-degree murder there in addition to seven

Henrico county police officers arrested on Tuesday and facing the same charge. We'll soon know a

little more about the direction of this case there'll be a county court meeting next week

and we should find out then which final charges will be brought. David Lewis the BBC has learned

that negotiations to get the UK back into a major EU research programme could begin within weeks.

Britain has been blocked from the horizon scheme because of the row about post-Brexit

arrangements for Northern Ireland. Our correspondent Jessica Parker is in Brussels.

Horizon is the EU's flagship science programme and the UK was supposed to become an associate

member of it after Brexit but its membership was never ratified because of the dispute about

trade rules for Northern Ireland. When a deal on that was struck in principle last month

hopes rose for fast progress on horizon. So reports the prime minister was skeptical about

the scheme's value sparked dismay among university and business leaders who say the

stalemate has been damaging for both research and innovation. Now UK officials say that while

they'll still work on a plan B negotiations for access could begin within weeks but because Britain

has already missed out on part of the seven-year programme there may be some haggling about the

UK's financial contribution and its ability to shape the scheme. Jessica Parker now before we

move on with news of this weekend's happy pot here's Andrew Peach. Yes the happy pot is half an hour

of the happiest news stories in the world and you'll find them here every Saturday. There's a big

tech story this week about using a data centre to heat a swimming pool for free. I've been talking to

the man at the centre of it about how he had the idea in a pub and how his idea might change how we

heat lots of things. There are academic studies about happiness published pretty much every week

going to hear from the oldest this weekend at Harvard University in Massachusetts. They've

been working on it since 1938 and we've got many more of our listeners with the sounds that make

them happy this week from Berlin, Tallahassee, Vienna and Mexico City. Oh and Alison who thinks

she's got the happiest job in the world. Do get involved send me your happy news global podcast at

bbc.co.uk and join me Andrew Peach for the happy pod this weekend. Still to come in the global news

podcast. It looked quite professional till at some point they were announcing maintenance

and the money just disappeared. How thousands of people say they lost their life savings after

trying to ride the cryptocurrency wave. As we approach the 20th anniversary of the invasion of

Iraq one searing image has come to symbolize the suffering of civilians. It was of 12 year old Ali

Abbas in a hospital bed with both arms amputated and burns all over his torso. He had lost 16

relatives in an American missile strike. After treatment in Kuwait he was flown to the UK to

continue medical treatment and he now lives in London where Caroline Hawley who was the BBC's

Baghdad correspondent went to meet him. A warning some of the details in this report are distressing.

The invasion of Iraq blew Ali's life apart and still affects him every hour of every day.

As it began his father had been excited to see the back of Saddam Hussein.

You know when he see the Americans coming you know he'll just make like a party for them

you'll make a barbecue you know we were just hoping for a better life we were thinking that

getting rid of Saddam we will have a good life and a good future for Iraq.

Ali's family had left the capital Baghdad for safety but returned thinking the worst was over

just hours before their home was hit by an American rocket while the family were asleep.

The fire everywhere I I hear my my mother screaming and my father also yeah it was it was

terrible I felt the fire burning my my body and my arms and what is worse even to inhale the smoke

was was really really hard. And who rescued you? My neighbour you know he got my father

and mother first you know and then they were they were dead you know they were gone and so he got me

he got me out after that and yeah they put me in a car and sent me to the hospital. I remember

my neighbour was telling me that when he pulled me out of the rubble because my arm was so badly

burned so when he pulled me out one of my arms came off. Can I ask how your injuries have affected

your life what are the things you can and can't do? My amputation is so high up you know it's not

so easy to use prosthetic arms you know I tried using them yeah but at the moment I'm I'm trying

to use my feet you know so much easier than prosthetic arms like I can I can write with my

feet I can use the phone. Using his toes Ali's just dialed up his five-year-old son Yusuf

who's in Baghdad with his mother though he hopes that one day he'll be able to bring him to the

UK. He's always spoiling me you know he doesn't let me do anything he's trying to be my carer you

know he's taking good care of me yeah I can also hug him with my with my feet so it's it's okay with

that. Eli's going out with me in the car a lot he always gets the car keys open the door for me before

we go. This is an amazing video of Ali driving in Baghdad with friends music's blaring he's got

one foot on the steering wheel the other on the brake and just incredibly dexterous with his feet.

I have been through a very difficult times especially just after the injury I have to

deal with it without parents and without arms so it was very difficult in the beginning but

I've seen many people with injuries that are much worse than mine and I always thank God for

what I what I have got so I think of the positive things. Ali Abbas ending that report by Caroline

Hawley. Thousands of people are believed to have lost their savings after investing in a crypto

trading app called iERNBOT. Experts who have investigated the company say it could be one of

the largest crypto scandals to date. Trading in cryptocurrencies has become popular as people are

often attracted by the promise of large rewards over short periods of time but law enforcement

agencies advise caution as they're seeing a growing number of scams. Sara Monetta reports.

We had enough knowledge to think this might be a scam the fact that in between us and the company

there was a reputable teacher made it that we didn't check too much. Roxana is from Romania.

She lost hundreds of euros when she invested in a crypto trading app called iERNBOT which was

sponsored by a leading IT expert in the country. She's asked me not to reveal her identity so we

are not using her real name. It looked quite professional till at some point they were announcing

maintenance. Roxana says the app blocked all withdrawals and when the alleged maintenance

was over things didn't go back to normal. I made the request and the money just disappeared so

portfolio became zero but I was never credited with any money. iERNBOT presents itself as a

US-based company with apparently excellent credentials and a top-notch marketing team.

On YouTube there are several promotional videos explaining the app. I would like to showcase

the iERNBOT and on TikTok content creators from different countries were recruited to promote it

but when we fact check the information on their website a few red flags come up. The man who's

mentioned as the company's founder told us he never heard of them. iERNBOT claims it's a strategic

partner of MIT and companies like Huawei and Qualcomm but they too say they don't know them.

My name is Sylviata Boushka I'm a researcher with the Center for Legal Education and Research.

After thousands of investors lost their money in Romania Sylvia started to look into the company.

When they have enough money invested in a specific country they do not allow that country to withdraw

money and they open other countries at the global level. It's closer to a Ponzi scheme and not to

real business. We have reached out for a comment to iERNBOT but they have not engaged with us.

In some countries people still trust the app. Dozens took part in this recruiting event that

was organized in Medellin in Colombia by a group of local mentors. Andres is one of them

and he still believes the company is legitimate. They had their registration in the US

showed they were legit and I still believe they are. In Colombia withdrawals have been blocked

since December and now some local organizers are receiving threats. People took loans to invest

and many people were affected. As the leaders did not have answers people started to get angry.

With the help of an analyst we managed to identify one main crypto wallet that received

payments from around 13,000 potential victims for a total profit of almost 1.3 million dollars

in less than one year. But we couldn't identify the people behind this wallet. So the question is

in cases like this how can those responsible be tracked down and held to account?

One of the challenges is to identify and attribute to who the illicit actor is,

where the value is going and then being able to take investigative steps and

you know law enforcement action. John Wyman is the chief of the virtual assets unit at the FBI.

Knowledge and doing some due diligence before you know the investment process is critical.

It's like anything else if it sounds too good to be true it oftentimes is. The FBI has told us

they cannot confirm nor deny that they've opened an investigation into ironbott but they insist

the best way to defeat scammers is prevention. Sarah Monetta. An Australian has broken the

world record for the longest surf session. Blake Johnston has eclipsed the previous mark of 30

hours and 11 minutes at a beach in Sydney and as Phil Mercer reports from Sydney he wanted more.

Blake Johnston has deserved the cheers and support he's received. He said he felt pretty

cooked after catching more than 500 waves during his non-stop record-breaking attempt

at Cranulla Beach in Sydney. He was surfing for more than 30 hours and said he wanted to

keep going and reach 40 hours in the water. Yeah, pretty good. Yeah, I still got a job to do though.

I said 40 so I'll go and give it a crack. Yeah, pretty cooked. I'm pretty cooked. Yeah, thanks

everyone. You're the best. Everyone deserves to feel awesome. So deserve to yeah, take care of

yourselves and yeah. The surf here in Sydney has been good for this exhausting record-breaking

attempt but Blake Johnston's efforts have put him at risk of infected ears, dehydration,

hypothermia and drowning. There is a very serious side to this marathon. The 40-year-old former

Australian professional surfer is raising thousands of dollars for youth mental health projects.

A decade ago his father took his own life. He wants the children he now coaches to have the

resilience and support to cope with life's challenges. Phil Mercer in Sydney. Now giving

babies tiny tastes of smooth peanut butter could dramatically cut peanut allergies. According to

a new study giving little ones a taste during weaning could cut peanut allergy cases by up to

an amazing 77%. So how did scientists come up with it? Here's our health and science correspondent

James Gallagher. This is a big study that's been conducted by a team of researchers in the United

Kingdom and the United States but its implications are truly global and they've been looking at

updated evidence that's come out over the past 15 years or so on what happens when you give

peanut butter and things like that earlier on in life and showing that you can massively reduce

the risk of peanut allergy and that's in sharp contradiction to what many people will be familiar

with because you don't have to go back that long to when the advice was don't give peanut before the

age of three. This is a series of scientific studies and this is an official government

recommendation but truly it would apply globally because the findings have been tested in lots of

different races and ethnicities and in many respects it is a global story really because

this actually started in Israel where peanuts is given much earlier in life but peanut based

snack is given from kind of like earliest weaning and some researchers went there and went why is

nobody here having peanut allergy and yet it is soaring in other countries like in the United

Kingdom it's like one in 50 children now has a peanut allergy and it really stemmed from there

and showing that actually early exposure while the immune system is still learning and developing

and trying to figure out what's friend and what's foe what's safe to eat that earlier exposure is

what can help prevent peanut allergy. James Gallagher as I record this it is March the 17th

and around the world people are celebrating St Patrick's Day marking Ireland's national saint

and national day the Irish government well most of it has chosen to spend the day elsewhere though

36 members of the government are traveling to 74 cities in 44 countries this week I asked our

Ireland correspondent Chris Page who was overseas why they'd left Ireland. In Irish government circles

Alex just a point everybody is overseas and this is really as big as St Patrick's Day tradition

in political circles in Ireland now as the parades are on the streets of Dublin and New York and

Sydney and many other cities around the world to commemorate all things Irish really the Irish

government in Dublin and also politicians in northern Ireland they see St Patrick's Day as

the key opportunity in the year to promote Irish interests abroad so obviously those are

diplomatic interests cultural interests but maybe most of all economic interests so really this

whole week Irish ministers see as the best opportunity they have to travel the world and

sell Ireland as an investment destination so they really hope to come back to their home countries

to their constituents to their citizens with news of jobs announcements with news of multi-million

dollar investments by overseas companies so while it seems like it's a major diplomatic

push that basically there's nobody at home well Ireland would say that in the long run it really

boosts the economy substantially yeah yeah you say there's no one at home who is minding the shop

basically civil servants it seems to me government officials just about every

government minister is overseas the head of the Irish government known as the T-shirt

Leo Vragher he is in Washington to meet with President Biden now there's a tradition there that

the T-shirt gives a bowl of shamrock a plant very much associated with St Patrick's Day in Ireland

to the president and that's happened regularly nearly every year in fact since the 1950s so

that's a reflection of the fact that lots of people living in the US have Irish ancestry and what

Ireland Irish ministers will say is look what country in the world really has annual access

to the White House like that so as far as Ireland is concerned it's a high point of the year it is

a public holiday at home but abroad is a highly significant time where Ireland celebrates the

fact that it is and I think we can say this objectively a country that really punches above

its weight internationally Chris Page and that's all from us for now but there'll be a new edition

of the global news podcast later if you want to comment on this podcast all the topics covered in

it you can send us an email the address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk you can also find us on

twitter at global news pod this edition was mixed by Russell Newlove and the producer was Stephanie

Prentiss the editor is Karen Martin I'm Alex Ritzen until next time goodbye

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.