Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Janet Jalil, and in the early hours of Thursday, the 15th of January, these are our main stories.
Chapter 2: What were the outcomes of the White House talks on Greenland?
High-stakes talks on Greenland's future at the White House failed to dissuade the U.S. president to drop his demand for the Arctic island. Donald Trump says he's been told on good authority that the killing of protesters in Iran has stopped. After days of threats against the regime, is he backing away from military action?
Chapter 3: How is President Trump responding to protests in Iran?
A leaked recording of the Taliban in Afghanistan obtained by the BBC reveals political divisions between hardliners and pragmatists. Also in this podcast, the International Space Station carries out its first medical evacuation. There's always a lot of thought that goes into the contingency scenarios.
Chapter 4: What political divisions are revealed in the leaked Taliban recording?
So whilst this hasn't happened before, it's often been trained for and considered. Four astronauts leave the station a month early after one of them develops a serious health issue. A high-stakes meeting at the White House over Greenland's future has failed to make a breakthrough.
President Trump has long made it clear that he is intent on taking over the huge Arctic island, a self-governing territory that's part of Denmark, possibly by military means.
Chapter 5: What significant event occurred at the International Space Station?
That's alarmed his NATO allies in Europe so much that on Wednesday, the foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland went to Washington for a meeting with the US Vice President, J.D. Vance, and US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio. Greenland's foreign minister, Vivian Motzfeldt, said although the talks were cordial, big differences remained.
I think it's very important to Say it again, how important it is from our side to strengthen our cooperation with the United States. But that doesn't mean that we want to be owned by the United States.
Chapter 6: How does the Gaza peace plan move forward after phase one?
But as allies, how we can strengthen our cooperation, it's all our interest.
Speaking to reporters after the meeting, President Trump reiterated why, in his view, the U.S. needed Greenland.
Chapter 7: What are the implications of the Taliban's internal divisions for Afghanistan?
If we don't go in, Russia is going to go in, and China is going to go in. And it's not a thing that Denmark can do about it, but we can do everything about it. Well, we're going to see. I mean, look, we're going to see what happens. We need it for national security, and that includes for Europe.
Our North America correspondent, David Willis, told me more about the outcome of the talks.
Chapter 8: Why did a Michelin-star restaurant receive a poor hygiene rating?
The foreign ministers of Greenland and Denmark looking extremely downcast as they face the media at the White House following that hour-long meeting with the vice president, J.D. Vance, and the secretary of state, Marco Rubio. Lars Locke Rasmussen said there remained what he called a fundamental disagreement with the United States over Greenland.
And he added that President Trump's suggestion that the United States conquer the territory was simply unacceptable. Greenland, Denmark and the U.S. have now agreed to set up a working group to discuss Greenland's future agreement. But the two foreign ministers didn't display very much optimism, I think, that that would lead to the sort of compromise that they would be willing to accept.
And how credible are President Trump's claims that the US has to have Greenland? He's talked about how control of the territory is critical for his planned missile defence system, Golden Dome. Yes, that's right. And before that meeting, Donald Trump doubled down on his insistence that the United States needs Greenland for the so-called Golden Dome project. That's a $175 billion plan.
designed to protect the United States against missile attack. And Mr. Trump made the point that, in his view, NATO becomes more powerful, more formidable and effective with Greenland in the hands of the United States than it would be otherwise. Denmark's view, unsurprisingly, is that Greenland already hosts a U.S.
military base which contains the sort of radar systems that warn of any possible imminent attack by Russia and that under the current agreement between the Danish and American governments, the U.S. can deploy more troops in Greenland to expand its its security capabilities there, but it has chosen not to do so since the Cold War.
And Denmark also makes the point that seizing a NATO member's territory, as Mr. Trump has, of course, threatened to do, actually makes the United States less secure because it serves to destroy one of the most secure alliances currently in existence, namely NATO, to counteract any threat from Russia and China. David Willis, and staying with Donald Trump, will he or won't he?
That's the question that the world has been asking over whether Donald Trump will strike targets in Iran following the brutal crackdown on anti-government protests there. Some American and British military personnel have been evacuated from a huge US airbase in Qatar, and the UK has closed its embassy in Tehran.
All this in anticipation of Iranian retaliation that would surely follow any US military action.
Well, then on Wednesday, President Trump announced that he'd been told that the killings in Iran had stopped and that there would be no executions of protesters, including 26-year-old Irfan Soltani, who was supposed to have been put to death less than a week after being arrested, but seems to have been spared for now.
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