Global News Podcast: Peace talks held over Nagorno-Karabakh dispute

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 supported

by advertising. The documentary from the BBC World Service brings the globe to your ears

through original documentary storytelling. Search for the documentary wherever you get your BBC

podcasts. This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service.

I'm Janak Jalil and on Thursday, the 21st of September, these are our main stories.

Azerbaijan has held peace talks with ethnic Armenian separatists after seizing control

of the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. India has halted visa services for Canadians

as a diplomatic route between the two countries intensifies. Poland says it's no longer transferring

weapons to Ukraine as it's focusing on building up its own defences. Also in this podcast.

In a speech to the French parliament, Britain's King Charles praises the historic ties between

the two countries. We start in Azerbaijan, where after two days of fighting in the disputed territory

of Nagorno-Karabakh, a delegation representing ethnic Armenians has been holding peace talks with

the Azeri government. They've been discussing how to integrate the region as part of a ceasefire

agreement after Armenian separatists were forced to surrender when Azerbaijan sent its forces in

this week. The president of Azerbaijan says they now have full control of Nagorno-Karabakh

after decades of dispute with Armenia, which has twice flared into full blown war. More than 100,000

ethnic Armenians are estimated to live in Nagorno-Karabakh. But speaking before the talks,

Elchin Ambebeov, a special representative for Azerbaijan, contested that number.

As to the number of residents in Karabakh region, I think the figure of 120,000 is

highly exaggerated. The real number of Armenian residents, including 10,000 of armed forces,

is now no more than 50,000. With the first round of talks now wrapped up, I asked our

caucuses correspondent Rehan Dimitri what, if anything, had come out of them? Unfortunately,

not much. There have been a couple of comments from Elchin Ambebeov, whose clip you just played.

He's Azerbaijani president's representative, and he just said that there are a lot of issues that

need to be discussed, a lot of problems, and just having one meeting is not enough. He said that

there will be many more meetings to discuss the process of integration of ethnic Armenians into

Azerbaijan. He also said that based on these talks, there's a prospect now of signing a peace agreement

with the Republic of Armenia, and that Azerbaijan sent these draft documents to Armenia already.

The big question now is what is going to happen to the population of ethnic Armenians,

whether or not they will be given a choice to stay or to leave. In his comments, the representative

of the Azerbaijani president said that there are no talks of repatriation for the ethnic Armenians,

and that now it is an internal matter of Azerbaijan. We also heard from the Armenian side,

from the prime minister's office, saying that, of course, Armenia would be ready to

receive any refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh. It doesn't bode well that the representative

is saying that the real number of Armenians in the enclave is less than half of the official

figure. There are real fears of a refugee crisis, and some people are saying that Azerbaijan has

basically been emboldened by Russia's example in Ukraine. That's absolutely right, but anything

in that disputed territory, Janata, is disputed, even the number of people who live there,

the names of places, and so on. Of course, Russia has played a role in helping to negotiate

the ceasefire, which ended with Karabakh Armenian governments surrendering to Azerbaijan,

and Russia says that it is now helping with the humanitarian crisis and that it helped

about 5,000 refugees who were escaping from the villages that are on the front line.

Rehan Dmitry. To Poland, where the government says it's still carrying out previously-agreed

deliveries of weapons and ammunition to Ukraine. The statement was issued a day after the Polish

Prime Minister, Mateusz Muriecki, said his country was no longer supplying arms to its

neighbour as it looks to focus on its own defences. His comments marked another step in the worsening

relationship between the two nations. Poland, along with Slovakia and Hungary, has banned

imports of Ukrainian grain. This prompted the Ukrainian president,

Lodomir Zelensky, to complain that some countries were only pretending to support the war against

Russia. Our correspondent in Warsaw, Adam Easton, told us why the Polish Prime Minister had made

this announcement now. Well, this was an interview that the Prime Minister, Mateusz Muriecki, gave to

the private broadcaster Pulsat News, in which it was mainly about relations with the Ukraine,

and as you mentioned, the grain embargo that Poland has extended, it's not accepting any Ukrainian

grain, ostensibly to stop a flood of cheaper Ukrainian grain entering the country and undercutting

the price of Polish grain, because we do have an election in October and the government is counting

on the rural vote, the vote of farmers, to win that election. So it's trying to protect its farmers.

And there's certainly some disquiet amongst the Polish government officials that President Zelensky

at the United Nations General Assembly appear to suggest that this grain embargo is supporting

Russia. And I think there's been some umbrage taken, and that has ratcheted up the sort of rhetoric

that we're hearing. But what Mr. Muriecki, the Prime Minister, actually said was Poland is no

longer transferring any military weapons to Ukraine. And that is true, because Poland has

already sent 320 of its Soviet era tanks to Ukraine. It's already sent 14 MiG fighter jets.

It doesn't have any more of those weapons in its stockpiles to send to Ukraine. And it is currently

replacing about one third of its military capability that it's given to Ukraine. It's now replacing

that with modern Western-made tanks and fighter jets. And that's what Mr. Muriecki was referring

to. I don't see this as a change in government position in terms of helping to arm Ukraine. In

fact, there's a Polish arms manufacturer, which right now is fulfilling a contract to supply

about 60 Krabb-Howitzers to Ukraine, which will be sent to Ukraine in the coming months

and over the next year. So there will be Polish military arms going to Ukraine. But this is a

private deal. It's done not from the government in terms of donation. Ukraine is paying for those

Howitzers. Just want to clarify this. Now, this statement has obviously caused a lot of alarm.

Poland is basically saying it's not sending any more of its own weapons because it needs to

restock its own supplies. But it's also a major supply route for weapons that come from other

allies like the U.S. and Britain. Those weapons are going to continue arriving in Ukraine. Is

that correct? That is correct. Yes. And Mr. Muriecki said that this is important. There's an

international hub for humanitarian and military aid in Zeszów, in southeastern Poland, near to

the Ukrainian border. And he said that will continue. We're not talking about an embargo

of weapons transferring from Poland to Ukraine. That is not the case.

Adam Easton, as we've been hearing, Poland's decision to ban Ukrainian grain import says

angered Kiev. With more, here's our Ukraine correspondent, James Waterhouse.

Well, what we're hearing from different commentators, different news channels is,

is this really a fight Ukraine wants to pick? Because I think what we are seeing is an almost

stubborn stance from the Zelensky administration. But we are talking about one of Ukraine's

most loyal allies in a country where if you are close to the border in western Ukraine in

near Lviv, for example, there is an endless flow of Western weaponry, humanitarian aid that comes

in under police escort through lorries. There's a military base across the border where typically

U.S. aircraft land to drop their western weaponry. And the idea, politically, that now Ukraine is

sort of doubling down on its condemnation of this grain ban is hard to fathom it seems in

political circles here. What Ukraine is desperate to do is to get its grain out because its economy

has suffered enough already. It needs to get its main produce out of the country. So there are issues

around regulation, where this grain ends up. But I think you have both sides here thinking, well,

this isn't our fault. So you wonder what is happening to the grain in the interim, where it

is transported, where it is stored. And I think unless there is any kind of reform

in that specific part of the supply chain, it's hard to see which side will be satisfied.

James Waterhouse. Meanwhile, as the war in Ukraine grinds on, the number of amputees coming

back from the battlefields is soaring. 15,000 men and women have lost limbs in the first half of

this year alone, according to official figures released by Ukraine's Ministry of Health. The

government won't reveal how many are soldiers, but the vast majority are likely to be military.

That means Ukraine has seen more amputees in six months than Britain did in all six years of the

Second World War. Our senior international correspondent Oleg Irin met one amputee and

his wife in Kiev. I'm sitting with Andrei Smolensky and his wife Alina. They're both

27 years old. And Andrei, like very many young Ukrainians, went to fight when Russia's full

scale invasion happened. And he has come back from the war and he has lost both of his arms.

He has lost his sight and the hearing in one ear. Andrei, could I ask you just to tell me

what happened that day, the day you were injured? I was the commander of Small Reconnaissance Unit

that is responsible for UAVs drones. Our mission was to come early in the morning and do our job.

And then I remember how I started climbing out of the trench. And the next memory is I just

waken up in a hospital. Everything was so dark, I thought, oh, what a dark night. And what a weird

dream. But then slowly I start realizing that I cannot move with my hands and that something

is on my eyes, like something covering my eyes. That moment I realized that maybe something

bad happened, actually. Alina, what was your feeling when you managed to see him and to reach

the bad side? Of course, it was very difficult. But the only thing that I thought about it was

I want to be with him. I just want to be with him. I just want to touch him. I just want to say

that he is not alone. I saw that Andrei really didn't have his hands. So I just touched his

leg and started to talk with him. I said that we are family. We are together. Don't worry. I am

with you. And everything will be okay. Tell me what future do you see now for you and Alina?

I am feeling like I am still fighting because the war is not ended. It's my new mission to help

other veterans that would come after me. We had never had such a big amount of amputees,

people that get blinded because of war. And that's crazy. Our medical system is not ready for that.

So it felt like this is a new challenge for our country. What has been the hardest part

of what you've gone through? What's the hardest thing to deal with? I would say the hardest thing

to deal with for me was I didn't achieve my goal. I wanted to win this war. And I don't feel like

I'm finished when I started. Former Ukrainian soldier Andrei and his wife Alina speaking there

to Ola Gehrin. India has halted visa services in Canada and called for a reduction in Canadian

diplomatic staff in India amid a deepening row between the two countries. A spokesman for the

Indian Foreign Affairs Ministry, Arindam Bagchi, said the visa suspension was because of threats

to staff. The question is not about travel to India. Those who have valid visas, those who have

other kinds of documents, are subject to travel to India. But the issue is of incitement of violence,

the inaction by the Canadian authorities and a creation of an environment that disrupts the

functioning of our high commission and consulates. That's what's making us stop temporarily these

issuance of visas or providing visa services. Relations deteriorated sharply this week when

the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Indian agents may have been involved in the

murder of a Canadian Sikh activist. Archana Shukla in Mumbai has more details. An online visa

application centre has said the Indian mission in Canada suspended visa services for Canadians

until further notice, citing operational reasons. India's foreign ministry has not responded to

queries about the matter. This comes a day after India advised its citizens in Canada to exercise

utmost caution. Tensions flared this week when Canada said Indian agents may have been involved

in the killing of a Canadian Sikh separatist leader in June near Vancouver. India has strongly

denied allegations, calling it absurd. Both countries have expelled a diplomat each likely over the case.

Archana Shukla. Still to come,

Mexican train services bound for the US are suspended as thousands risk life and limb to reach the border.

I had just come out of one of my bare knuckle boxing matches. I don't know why,

but the first thing that came to my brain was what if I do a drag show?

Remarkable personal stories told by the people that lived them.

I could easily have pulled that trigger, but that was not my brief. I was not an assassin. I was not

told to do that. I was not told to murder him.

Lives less ordinary from the BBC World Service. Find it wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

Welcome back to the Global News Podcast. Police in China are warning people to

beware of false propaganda after they detained more than 50 people, including 11 internet celebrities

who are accused of raking in money through deceptive live streaming. The companies running these

scams were also accused of employing people to promote counterfeit agricultural products

during the broadcast. Our China media analyst, Kerry Allen, told us more about the scams.

Well, these live streamers had millions of followers and many of them operated out of

southwestern China, a province known as Sichuan. And largely what connected them was that they

allegedly relied on fabricating tragic experiences. So they spoke about impoverished backgrounds

in the hope of getting sympathy. And then what happened was that they allegedly promoted

counterfeit goods, mainly honey, local products, they said. And they hired people online to post

comments to boost their engagement. So generally this was a large operation involving a lot of

people promoting fake traffic. So the police report says, and people who didn't claim to be who they

said they were, posting online. So one user, for example, she'd racked up three million fans.

And questions started to be raised about her after she was seen wearing expensive clothing

and visiting high end places. Whereas previously, a lot of her content had shown her in the

countryside around farms. So there were questions about the authenticity of who she was.

And how big is the live streaming e-commerce market in China?

It is absolutely huge. I mean, we factor in that China has a population of 1.4 billion people

anyway. The latest statistics are that users of live streaming e-commerce platforms in China,

that there are over 400 million of them, 469 million by the end of June 2022.

And they sell tens of millions of pieces of goods online. And it's a very popular profession for

young people nowadays. I've seen a recent poll suggesting that more than 60% of Chinese youngsters

want to become internet influencers or live streaming hosts.

Yeah, as you say, growing industry, and it's getting harder and harder to tell what's real

from what's fake anymore, what are people calling for? What do they want to see done?

Yeah, there's a lot of concern about this because obviously with the rise of artificial

intelligence and facial recognition technologies, you can add filters nowadays that can change the

way someone's face looks. And this changes perceptions about whether someone is who

they really say they are. And there are concerns because, yes, it's a huge lucrative industry

where people can make a lot of money out of deception. So there have been calls for increased

regulation in the country. I mean, there are already lengthy terms and conditions about

what people can and can't live stream in China anyway. But particularly in the last

months, there have been calls to enhance laws around facial recognition to make it

and to make sure that companies aren't using it or without due course or reason.

Kerry Allen. Now to Mexico, where footage emerged this week of an alarming sight.

Hundreds of people crammed on top of a moving freight train en route to the US border,

many of them standing. There's been a big rise in the number of migrants trying to hitch similar

rides and getting killed or injured in the process. As a result, Mexico's biggest rail

operator has announced it's suspending some of its services in the north of the country.

So just how bad is the situation? Luis Fajardo is following this story from Miami.

This is a situation that has been going on for quite some time. There are reports of hundreds of

thousands of people using the trains that cross the border from Mexico into the US. This train

system has a terrible reputation among the people who are trying to reach the US and people refer

to it as the beast, these trains that cause a lot of injuries and accidents for people

trying to cross without documents. They try to jump on the train. Sometimes even when the trains

are moving, they obviously have to try to avoid the controls by Mexican security forces and by

the train companies themselves. So that very often makes them engage in dangerous practices.

And the other thing is that they are being targeted by criminal gangs that prey on these

vulnerable migrants trying to reach the US without documents. They come from all across

Latin America and all across the world. Many of them will have traveled great distances by foot

across Central America. Just to give you an idea of the figures, this Monday the US border patrol

said that on a single day they had apprehended nearly 8,000 people trying to cross the border.

Also very large numbers of children. One estimate says that there's more than 80,000 children who've

crossed this year in the first seven months of the year. So again, record numbers clearly

are very serious humanitarian situation and a situation that's going to have political impacts

in the US as the electoral season gets nearer. Luis Fajardo. It's 10 years since Alishabaab

Gumman stormed the Westgate shopping center in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. Over the course of

four days, 67 people were killed and more than 200 wounded. One of those who died was

a celebrated Ghanaian poet and diplomat, Kofi Awunor, who was in the Kenyan capital to speak

at a book fair. Awunor's son, Afetzi, survived the attack. He spoke to my colleague, Alan Kusucha,

about how he lost his father by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

On that morning at breakfast, he kept complaining that he was tired of the food,

the East African food, because he likes a lot of pepper and spice. So he wanted something spicy

to eat for lunch. He suggested we find an Indian restaurant. Alish, he figured I'll be the closest

thing to the kind of pepper we eat here in Ghana. Instead of going somewhere we hadn't been yet

by ourselves and getting lost and not him being late, let's just go to the mall because

it's right next to the hotel and we've been there before, so it was fine. We asked the hotel to

get us a car they did and then we left. So we're just going for lunch, quick lunch. Literally as

we arrived, I got out of the vehicle, I opened the door for him as I stood there waiting for him

to step out of the vehicle. The blast went off, followed by the shots. I turned and started running

into the mall. We didn't realize it there. The mall was the target, so I dashed into the mall and

now I realized that he followed me because when I turned to run into the mall, I sort of

tried to slam the door shut so he would stay like sort of hide in the car because I figured it was

passing by. It was then coming to the mall. But as I was running into the mall, I could hear the

bullets zip past me, some zip past my ear and just before I got to the top of the stairs,

I got hit in the back so that I fell to the ground and the glass shattered in front of me

that I crawled the rest of my way into the mall and then I turned right into the first shop which

was the Tapas restaurant. The people still seated on their tables, you know, having enjoyed their

meal and drink and they were looking at me on the floor like, what the hell is going on? Then I'm

like, get down. Then everybody realized, oh okay, we went into the back of the restaurant which was

the kitchen. And so you're bleeding, you're crawling on the floor, you're going to the kitchen.

They had now advanced into the mall. I could see two of the attackers standing at the entrance.

They were back to back. One was facing into the mall firing. The other one was now facing towards

the car park also firing in that direction. Now at that point, I didn't see my dad behind

so I realized he was still either outside or in the car or outside. Then one of them turned

my direction and saw me standing there staring at them. And then he said something to the other guy,

they sort of laughed a little that he pointed his rifle towards my direction and started

walking into the restaurant. So I ducked and then I went under the sink. If I had a few shots,

then it was silent for a couple of seconds. Then I heard a blast. At that point for a few

seconds, I sort of froze, you know, because I thought that was it. He's just coming to finish

everybody. But I just heard the shots and it was moving further away. So I figured, okay,

you probably do a grenade or something and just left.

Avetsi Aounour talking about the attack on the Westgate Shopping Centre in Kenya 10 years ago.

The French are famous for overthrowing their monarchy centuries ago, but that hasn't stopped

them from giving a very warm welcome to Britain's King Charles. After a lavish state banquet at the

site on Wednesday evening, today the King addressed French lawmakers in the Senate in French.

Yuskofield was watching.

This was the first time in history a British monarch has addressed members of the two houses

of the French Parliament assembled in the Senate chamber. Speaking in a combination of French and

English, the King used the occasion to plead for a renewal of the alliance between the two countries,

which he said was more important than ever in view of the threat to European security in Ukraine

and because of what he called the most existential challenge of all, that of global warming and

the catastrophic destruction of nature. Let us renew the entente cordial, he said,

and make it an entente for sustainability. There was a lengthy standing ovation from

the parliamentarians when the King concluded. Yuskofield.

And that's all from us for now, but there will be a new edition of the Global News podcast later.

If you want to comment on this podcast with topics covered, you can send us an email.

The address is globalpodcastatbbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X, formerly known as Twitter,

at Global NewsPod. This edition was mixed by Pat Sissons, the producer was Jacob Evans,

the editor is Karen Martin. I'm Janet Jalil. Until next time, goodbye.

You can be the voice of reason. The Financial Times can help you make an impact.

With detailed analysis, insightful commentary, and a deep understanding of the global economy,

don't just speak, resonate, fearlessly pink. The Financial Times. Read more at ft.com slash fearless.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.