Deadly train crash in Spain

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1:10I'm Alex Ritson, and in the early hours of Monday, the 19th of January, these are our main stories. At least 21 people are killed in a high-speed train crash in Spain. Europe weighs up retaliatory measures against the United States, as their dispute over Greenland continues. And the Syrian government agrees to cease fire with Kurdish-led forces. Also in this podcast. The BBC joins a police raid in Sierra Leone on a suspected people-trafficking network, and there's a dramatic end in men's football to the Africa Cup of Nations. As we record this podcast, at least 21 people have been killed and dozens injured after two high-speed trains collided in Spain. One survivor described the moment of impact as feeling like an earthquake. Emergency workers were trying to rescue those trapped inside carriages. Footage shows people being pulled through smashed train windows.

2:13The Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, said the country was enduring a night of pain. A dread-correspondent Guy Hegeco is following developments. We know that one of these trains which crashed was heading from the city of Malaga and the south of Spain up towards Madrid, where I am in the center of the country. And about an hour into its journey, it derailed, or some of its carriages derailed, crashing into another oncoming train that was heading in the opposite direction down to the south of the country. Now, we've been told that there were victims on both of those trains. And we understand that the emergency workers have managed to pull all the survivors out of one of the trains, but they're still working to pull survivors out of the other one and the military has been deployed to help them. Because these were both high-speed trains and they go at an incredible rate, don't they?

3:14Yes, both high-speed trains and Spain has a vast high-speed rail network, one of the largest in the world. The strange thing about the accident seems to be the thing that seems to be mystifying authorities is that the train that derailed did not seem to be going round a corner and it's going round a bend rather, or it's certainly a steep bend when the accident happens. So there's not been a sort of an obvious reason for the derailment to happen. We haven't had an accident like this on the high-speed rail network since 2013 when 80 people were killed up in the northwest of the country. And the king and queen speaking out? Yes, King Felipe is following events very closely after the news came out. We heard that the Royal Household was following this closely. Obviously, the government is following this. We've heard from the transport minister who has said that it's too early to know about causes and we're not going to know more certainly for several weeks.

4:17Someone else we have heard from was the mayor of Adam Muth, which is the town right next to where the accident happened down in the region of Andalusia in the south of the country, Raphael Moreno. He was one of the very first people on the scene after the accident happened. And he said there was twisted metal all over the place. These two trains have intertwined and he described it as being like a nightmare. Guy Hedgeko. The dispute between European countries and the United States over Donald Trump's determination to annex Greenland continues to escalate. A full EU summit will be convened on Thursday to consider a collective response. That, after an emergency summit of European ambassadors on Sunday, they decided it would best to continue to pursue a diplomatic solution with the US. They don't want to get involved in a trade war with Washington. President Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on European allies from February 1st to force Denmark to hand over Greenland.

5:19The foreign ministers of Denmark and Norway have also held talks in Oslo to discuss the crisis. Afterwards, the Norwegian foreign minister, Espen Barthida, was anxious to stress European unity. Norway, like all other Nordic countries, European countries and Canada stands fully behind the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Denmark. But we are also communicating very clearly that if there are security concerns in the Greenland or anywhere else in the Arctic, we stand ready to work together in the NATO alliance to deal with those issues. Some European voices want tougher action. One German lawmaker even raised the possibility of boycotting the football World Cup finals later this year in the United States. Despite all this, the US Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Besant, told NBC News he remained confident President Trump would get his way. The European leaders will come around and they will understand that they need to be

6:19under the US security umbrella. What would happen in Ukraine if the US pulled its support out? The whole thing would collapse. And that's regardless of what people think in Greenland itself. Here are the thoughts of some people in the capital nuke. I think he has lost his mind. I hope that soon will be some clever people in the states who will tell him, no, no, no, it's not going to work. He can't scare Greenlanders. We're not scared. We'll fight them to the end. We will never give in. And we are so happy. We have so good allies. I think the man is out of reach. It's ridiculous. We have a lot of allies. And now they are stepping up. There's no doubt that President Trump's threats have given European leaders a huge headache. Our European editor, Katya Adler, reflects on the febaral mood in Brussels and how the collective leadership should respond.

7:21I'm so concerned that EU leaders have announced this evening they're going to be holding an emergency summit here in Brussels. On Thursday, there's all sorts of backtrandal conversations going on about what action to take or not to take because there's a feeling in Europe that they're damned if they take action, they're damned if they don't. If they get more confrontational with Donald Trump over the proposed Greenland tariffs, France wants to do that. Other member states of the EU have said, no, no, we want to hold fire for now because what they worry is that could alienate the United States even further. And the brutal truth is Europe needs Donald Trump for now. They need him to get a sustainable peace deal in Ukraine. They need the United States for their own security. But if Europe continues to play it softly, softly to try and manage Donald Trump, as it has done pretty much since he returned to the White House, then it risks looking extremely weak with the sovereignty of an EU member state, a NATO member state, and in this case Denmark, and being threatened. And watching, of course, from the sidelines,

8:22Russia and China probably with a big box of popcorn because in their eyes, that concept of the West that's dominated global politics for decades with Europe and the United States tightly knitted its core, they think that's crumbling. This is the biggest crisis in the defence alliance, NATO's history. What you have here is the biggest, most powerful member of NATO, going up against so many of the other member states, the UK, France, Germany, Western Europe has relied on NATO since the Second World War for its security here. What you're looking at is potentially the whole thing crumbling. That's why European leaders don't want to jump to any action. What else are we looking at? We're looking at potentially a full-blown, transatlantic trade war. That would affect all of us, and that will happen if Donald Trump goes ahead with his Greenland tariff. And if the EU, for example, retaliates strongly against the United States, so with so much at stake, that's why you're hearing strong pronouncements

9:22from European leaders, but they're really worrying about what actions should they take. That's why there's going to be this emergency summit of EU leaders here on Thursday. The Syrian government has agreed an immediate ceasefire with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic forces. It follows nearly two weeks of fighting that have seen the military advance into Kurdish-held areas. The peace agreement would also see Kurdish troops integrated into the National Army and the government take responsibility for prisons where Islamic State militants are held. My colleague Paul Henley spoke to Amber in Zaman, whose chief correspondent for the Arab-American news website Al Monitor, and has recently returned from Syria. She said the president has now gained more control of the country. It's a huge win for Ahmed al-Sharah as he seeks to consolidate his rule over Syria, because you know he got off to a very shaky start back in December 2024 when he first took charge

10:24and ran into quite a bit of trouble with various ethnic minorities, notably the Druze and the Aloids. And his forces have been accused of committing huge massacres of both those ethnic groups. And for a long time, it seemed like he wouldn't last. And there was a lot of international outrage and all of that. But now what we're witnessing is something quite extraordinary because the group with which he assigned this ceasefire and I would qualify this as more of a capitulation are the Syrian Kurds who have the longest time with the biggest allies of the United States in the fight against the Islamic State. And what we've witnessed now is a lot of our US pressure being brought to bear on the Kurds to basically just cave to all of al-Sharah's demands. And that's what they did. Is this the end of the Kurds as an influential force inside Syria? I think it would be premature to say that.

11:26But what we can say is that it appears to be an end to their autonomous administration, to their independent military entity, which is now going to be collapsed. And a big success, as you say for the president, how does he capitalize on that going forward, finally? Well, obviously, if he can market this as a very peaceful good agreement with the Kurds, and he was very clever on Friday, he signed this decree under which the Kurdish language is now recognized, not as an official language, but a national one, saying that it can be taught in government and private schools, that the Kurdish New Year that celebrated on March 21 is now an official holiday, a lot of sort of cosmetic stuff, that really falls way short of the Kurds' real demands, which is for a decentralized form of government,

12:27which they say is the only formula for Syria, where you have not just the Kurds, but as I mentioned previously, many other ethnic groups who are also calling for autonomy. Senegal have won the Africa Cup of Nations in men's football for the second time after an amazing, and sometimes chaotic final. They beat Morocco 1-0 in extra time, but not before the match was interrupted when the Senegalese players walked off in protest at two decisions in favor of the host nation. For Morocco, the defeat couldn't have been more bitter after so much money had been invested in staging the tournament. The James, from the BBC World Services Sports World Program, was at the game and spoke to me just after the final whistle. Plenty of controversy, one of the most controversial finals in the African Cup of Nations history. The reason we got to that situation with the Senegal players at leaving the field encouraged to do so by their coach,

13:30Pap Chial, is because of the controversy late on in this game. Senegal had a goal disallowed, addressed the gaze header against the post with his malice saw putting in the rebound, but the whistle had gone before the ball hit the net, with Addressage having a judge to have brought down Hakemi. That stirred up the controversy, and then to compound Senegal's frustration, Morocco were awarded a penalty after a VAR check, El Haji Malik Juve, appearing to drag Brahim Diaz to the ground by his neck. Both those decisions, on review, and we've seen the replays a number of times, a feel like they were fair ones, but that didn't mean the Senegal coaching staff agreed with that. It was Pap Chial who was encouraging his players to leave the field of play. We then, Alex Soar, some very ugly scenes with the small group of Senegalese supporters that are here inside the stadium, a number of them spilling out onto the pitch, and with angry violent confrontations with the security personnel and police here.

14:33It took a very lengthy delay over 10 minutes before they returned to the field of play, encouraged to do so by Sadio Mane, and then the penalty, Alex, well, a remarkable one from Brahim Diaz. He attempted the Penenka, where you try and deceive the goalkeeper into making a die before you chip it down the middle of the goal, but Ed Wadmendi didn't move at all. It was a comfortable catch, and yet incredible scenes, even before Senegal scored that goal in extra time. Is that chaos a bit of a sad end? To what has been an amazing tournament? It really has been, we've been praising the organisation of the tournament, certainly the infrastructure, the stadium where this final was played, the Prince Mule Abdullah, is state of the art, one of the finest stadiums in world football. It will host World Cup matches here in 2013, but yes, I think the controversial scenes do leave a very sour taste, and for the organisers, they will be the images that will inevitably

15:33be remembered from this tournament. It took several minutes to get control from the fans from Senegal, who were causing those problems away to our left. It actually took the actions of Sadio Mane to try and restore some calm. He was the one that was encouraging his players, not to walk down the tunnel. He was telling them to come back onto the field of play, and then he went over to the Senegal fans after the full-time whistle, begging them to calm down, so the match could resume in extra time. So he deserves great credit for that, but with a World Cup in four years time, certainly not the scenes that the organisers here would have wanted from this final. So the long wait continues from Morocco, but Senegal, worthy winners? Yes, absolutely. I think with the goal that was scored in extra time from Pratchow, because it was a stunning strike, hammered into the top corner, just off the bar, and yes, that long wait goes on. It's been over 50 years now for Morocco. They have spent so much here.

16:33They've invested so much in football. They wanted a return with a trophy. It is not to be, but Alex will be talking about this final for a long, long time to come. Lee James. Coming up later, the sound almost lost to extinction. Conservationists celebrate the Karkapoo Parrots comeback. I'm Steve Rosenberg, the BBC's Russia Editor. In our man in Moscow, I'll show you what it's like being a news correspondent in Russia as the Russian authorities wage war on Ukraine and try to silence dissent. The sound of war has reverberated around Ukraine for three years. Dramatic geopolitical upheaval alongside threats of intimidation and imprisonment. Watch with the subscription to BBC.com and the BBC app. Visit BBC.com slash docs to learn more.

17:34Decisions made in Washington can affect your portfolio every day, but what policy changes should investors be watching? Listen to Washington-wise, an original podcast for investors from Charles Schwab to hear the stories making news in Washington right now. Host Mike Townsend, Charles Schwab's managing director for legislative and regulatory affairs takes a non-partisan look at the stories that matter most to investors, including policy initiatives for retirement savings, taxes and trade, inflation concerns, the federal reserve, and how regulatory developments can affect companies, sectors, and even the entire market. Mike and his guests offer their perspective on how policy changes could affect what you do with your portfolio. Download the latest episode and follow at Schwab.com slash Washington-wise. Or wherever you listen. This is not the future we were promised. Like hell that out for a tagline for the show. From the BBC, this is the interface, the show that explores how tech is rewiring your week and your world.

18:39This isn't about quarterly earnings or about tech reviews. It's about what technology is actually doing to your work, and your politics, your everyday life, and all the bizarre ways people are using the internet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. The Chilean president, Gabriel Borich, has declared a state of emergency in two southern regions where wildfires have forced 50,000 people to leave their homes. At least 19 deaths have been confirmed in New Blay and BioBio regions. Bernadette Kio has the latest. The region's worst affected with fires blazing for two days are about 500 kilometres south of the capital Santiago. Fire crews are contending with flames fueled by gusting winds. Images on local television showed widespread gutted buildings, charred cars, and hospital evacuations.

19:41The most ferocious blaze which is burning across more than 20 kilometres has raged through dry forests and plantations bordering the coastal city of Concepcion. The declaration of emergency means the armed forces will now get involved. A forestry official, Norma Perez, urged extreme caution. We are working with all the resources we have available deployed in all the advancing zones of this fire to try to stop it as soon as possible and we're trying to contain this emergency with the numerous fires across the region and I want to reiterate the call to people to take extreme precautionary measures. The authorities said firefighters were battling 24 active fires across the country early on Sunday with most areas under extreme heat alerts. Chile has experienced a series of devastating fires in recent years, worsened by long-term drought and climate patterns

20:42with similar fires breaking out in Argentina's Patagonia earlier this month. Bernadette Kio, thousands of people across West Africa being lured by the promise of a job abroad only to find themselves being held captive and pushed into forced labour and exploitation. The problem is rifling Sierra Leone where about two-thirds of young people are unemployed. Women and children from poor communities are most vulnerable. Our reporter Seidou Bar was given exclusive access to a raid by Sierra Leone police and Interpol's anti-trafficking unit in the city of Makini. This is Makini in the north of Sierra Leone. Police officers read a concrete building where dozens of young people are held captive. Some of the captives are as young as 14, held in poor conditions, clots and suitcases strewn all over the floor.

21:42The human traffickers who trapped them here appear to have fled. Young people are tricked into pay money with the promise of a job abroad. The traffickers use the name of a legitimate wellness and lifestyle company called CUNET. To offer work opportunities as a front for their illegal activities. On the outskirts of Makini I met a young trafficking survivor wearing short braids and a black t-shirt. She told me she paid a thousand dollars for a supposed job in the U.S. She did not want me to use her name. He waited for us to go there to feed you. When the first goods you, they feed you, they take care of you. But as time goes by, they stop. So we remain hard to go to extra miles of survive. You have to sell your body and go to sleep with men so that you can get money. Victims like her are often pushed to recruit more people in this camp.

22:44So if you call ten, when you call and try to convince your friends to join, the traffickers will give you an international number. Then they take you to the airport, they give you a passport, give you fat travel papers, then they take your photos, so you can send them to your friends and family and pass with them to CUNET. The name CUNET has become a byword for this type of trafficking in West Africa, prompting the community to publicly distance itself from these activities. Meanwhile, one of the trafficking bosses has been in contact over the phone with the police. A member of a trafficking gang was arrested in an alley arid and they want to secure his release. I want to put it on hold-up and wait for Kulda. Let's find a way to cool this thing down. Maybe leave something in the envelope and we can put this police thing on hold. I don't have the power to do that. I have to call somebody. You know how to get one way to cook?

23:45You say you don't have the money, but... What I can do is call one or two people. Whatever they tell me, I will tell you. We can give you one or two million. No problem. I'll listen to you from now to money. Thank you. The police tells me that they will not accept money from the traffickers and that this is just a tactic. Yes, this is just a method I use to get some. But it's like a bit. It's a bit. But it is still shocking to me. To see how easy it is for them to negotiate in this way. The police say they have conducted over 20 raids in the last year, rescuing hundreds of victims of human trafficking. But many of the victims find it difficult to return home. Well, wait till now, even if she announced, I was scared to go back home. I had told my friends, I had traveled abroad. I had told my family the same. I was thinking about all the money they had given me to get there.

24:45So when I did play, so when I played, I played to forget about the first couple. That report from BBC Africa Eyes Say Do Bar. New data shows that China's economy grew by 5% last year. Despite it being in line with government predictions, it's not anywhere near. These stellar growth figures China has had over years past. And the economy faces a number of problems. Not least, a continually weak housing market. The population also fell by just over 3 million last year. I asked Asia Business Correspondent Nick Marsh to put these numbers into context. 5% is one of the slowest rates of growth that China has seen in a long, long time. We're used to spectacular growth from this very fast growing economy. But you compare it to the 1%, 2% rates of growth if that that we see in, you know, most developed Western democracies. And it suddenly looks really, really big, doesn't it?

25:47Another reason that China's government will be happy with these figures is basically the year that China had last year when you think about the Trump administration's campaign of tariffs, of tariff threats, of trade tensions, and so on. And in the face of all of that, Chinese exports still continued to explode. They announced the trade surplus of $1.2 trillion last week, $1.2 trillion more goods and services sold than were imported in China. So, yes, trade with the United States was down, but China found customers in places like Southeast Asia, Latin America, and Africa to sell to. And it actually accounted for a third of China's GDP growth. So in spite of all these pressures from the outside, Chinese exports go from strength to strength, and they are the main contributing factor to this 5% growth. And yet the compilation of these figures, it's not done quite as independently as in some other countries, is it? Can we trust them?

26:47It's a very difficult question to answer, Alex, to be perfectly honest. I think the broad direction of the numbers, the sort of broad picture they paint, I think are widely respected and recognized by economists, in and outside of China. When you dive down into the nitty gritty details, yeah, it becomes more difficult, because we know China is a one-party state, and all institutions are ultimately controlled by the Communist Party. China has never missed the growth target. You know, put it that way. But that doesn't mean that there aren't problems with the Chinese economy at the moment, and that policy makers, they're not hiding the fact that China is facing challenges economically domestically. Yeah, and the population shrinking, that's a significant item, isn't it? The population shrinking is a long-term problem that China's going to have to deal with. It's not the only Asian nation that's going to have to deal with that. Right now, the biggest problems really are to do with domestic consumption. So basically, households not feeling like they have much money to spend.

27:50That's been really exacerbated, created actually by a property crisis, in which property prices have plummeted. Lots of Chinese people have their money in property invested, so people aren't spending as much as they want to. So even though China's selling a lot abroad, people domestically aren't spending, there's a graduate jobs crisis as well with higher unemployment there. So this year, expect growth to be lower than 5%, and expect the government to actually start intervening with some stimulus packages, and maybe you'd be lowering interest rates as well. Nick Marsh. Now, some good news from the natural world. People in parts of New Zealand can hear more of this distinctive sound. That's the mating call of the Karkapu an intriguing species that's been brought back from the brink of extinction over the past three decades. They are the world's fattest parrots. Bright green, flightless, and nocturnal, and a bumper fruit crop this year,

28:52means they're gearing up for a hefty breeding season. Conservationist, Deirdre Verko, says it could lead to the biggest boom in chicks yet. Karkapu are a really unusual parrot. They're the only lick breeding parrot in the world, so they don't form pear bonds, but the males advertise and compete for females, and they do that with that beautiful booming sound that you just heard. And then making that sound from some thoracic ear sacks that are kind of inflated in their chest, so they've got this big spongy boom sack, and it has the most beautiful whiskers. They're the best dressed bird in the forest in New Zealand, I think. They're exactly like a dappled forest life, so they're very camouflage. It's very hard to see them when you're in the forest, but yet they have very forward-facing eyes. They've got kind of that wise owl look to them, big, big, beautiful whiskers. They do have reasonably big wings, even though they can't fly, but they've got very strong, sturdy feet, and they can climb right up into the tops of the canopies.

29:54And then the very agile actually, once they're up there, 20, 30 metres off the ground, moving through the trees at speed, there are quite a few things out there that could bring carcouple to harm, and definitely drove them to that brink of extinction. So stoats are enemy number one. Feral cats, rats potentially could take young chicks or eggs from nests, so we've been able to double the population over the last 10 years, and we're heading in the right direction, 236 carcouple as of today, which is still a critically small number, but some quite good population growth, so that does bring a few challenges, and one of those challenges is where to put them next, we're actually running out of predator-free real estate here in New Zealand. That's suitable for carcouple, that's our kind of challenge for the next five to 10 years. Didry Verkow from the New Zealand Department of Conservation? 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 or the topics covered in it,

30:57you can send us an email. The address is globalpodcastatbbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X at BBC World Service. Use the hashtag globalnewspod. This edition was mixed by Pat Sissons. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Alex Ritson, until next time, goodbye.