Kremlin signals no breakthrough after Ukraine talks with US

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

I'm Alex Ritson, and at 0400 GMT on Wednesday, the 3rd of December, these are our main stories. The Kremlin says there's been no breakthrough in talks to end the war in Ukraine.

On the anniversary of the failed coup in South Korea, President Lee Jae-myung praises those who saved democracy.

Tensions are mounting in Honduras, where there's still no result from Sunday's presidential election.

Also in this podcast. There's a lot of workshops, there's a club to promote Bitcoin and everything.
I personally don't use any cryptocurrencies. A Swiss city aiming to become Europe's Bitcoin center.

Donald Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff and the U.S.

President's son-in-law Jared Kushner, who both helped to secure a ceasefire in Gaza, were at the Kremlin for five hours on Tuesday for much anticipated talks with President Putin on ending the war in Ukraine.

They were discussing President Trump's plan for peace, proposals that appear to have been amended after lobbying by Ukraine and its European allies. Would President Putin accept the changes?

One of his aides, Yuri Ushakov, said the negotiations with the two American envoys would remain confidential, but they were positive.

The conversation was very useful, constructive, and highly substantive, and it lasted not for five minutes, but for five hours.

This allowed us thoroughly to discuss the prospects for further joint efforts aimed at achieving a long-term peaceful resolution of the Ukrainian crisis.

There's been no apparent breakthrough, even if the Kremlin said the door to a solution remained open.

The big issue appears to be Ukrainian territory held by Russia, as the BBC's Will Vernon, who's reported from Moscow, explained.

That does seem to be the kind of crucial sticking point in all this. And Mr.

Ushakov said in his comments that the territorial question was discussed at the meeting, as you mentioned in an earlier version of this draft peace plan.

Ukraine would have been forced to give up large parts of the Donetsk region that it still controls, and that was unacceptable to the Ukrainians and the Europeans.

So what was presented in this meeting, we think, is a kind of amended, or you could say, even watered down, version of the plan. Mr.

Ulshakov also mentioned that Vladimir Putin commented on, quote, the destructive actions of European countries over the Ukraine peace process. And Mr.

Putin also quite indignantly criticised the Europeans before the meeting, saying that they basically are sabotaging peace. So you kind of build up a picture of how these talks went.

Yeah, quite scary sabre rattling towards Europe. Yes, he said that if Europe wants war, then we're ready right now.
And what critics of Mr Putin and Mr Trump, in fact, would say...

This shows that Vladimir Putin thinks he can do a deal, wants to do a deal, is perhaps manoeuvring to do a deal over the heads of the Ukrainians and the Europeans directly with Mr Trump, a deal that's favourable to Russia and is definitely not favourable to the Ukrainian.

Yeah, because although Russia has said that no compromise compromise has been reached, the process, well, it's not over, is it? No, the Kremlin said that contacts will continue.

Look, I think all sides really want to do a deal. We know how keen Mr.
Trump is to do a deal, to claim a win.

In fact, you know, his critics say that he's perhaps too eager to do a deal and that the Russians know that. And, you know, Mr.
Putin does what Mr.

Putin always does, and that is go in from the outset with maximalist demands, knowing that that is more likely to kind of yield results that are more favourable to Russia later on.

And, you know, time is on the Kremlin's side. Russian forces are advancing on the battlefield, although pretty slowly.
The Ukrainians are losing ground. They have a manpower shortage.

And also, the Kremlin doesn't have to worry about pesky things like upcoming elections, which Western governments do have to worry about.

So, you know, they can afford to sit it out and wait for a better deal.

Will Vernon,

we want to bring you an update on the floods and landslides on the Indonesian island of Sumatra with a voice from the heart of the devastated region.

Officials now say more than 750 people have died and hundreds of thousands have been evacuated from their homes.

Villagers have told the BBC they've had to walk for hours to find clean water, rice, or a phone signal.

We managed to get through to one man living in North Sumatra, Ludwig Mapuong, who sent us some videos and they're pretty shocking. In this one, you see a road transformed into a raging river.

Well, Ludwig told us he didn't speak much English, but what he did tell my colleague, Rebecca Cesby, about the plight facing him and others in his vicinity was very powerful.

The road is broken in my region. So

many people are hungry. Electrical is black out.

The food is empty now in my region. Many foods not be distributed to my country.
You're saying that the road is impassable. Nobody can get through on the road.
There's no power.

And you're running out of food in that area.

The food distributed by helicopter. So many people in my region

will be hungry. for two or three days.

I know that the military are trying to drop food by a helicopter, as you say, but we've also heard that people have got so desperate, there's actually been some looting and some people have been injured in the scramble to get through to whatever aid is being distributed.

The situation now is chaos.

Many citizens are hungry.

Is there a fear that there could be disease spreading as well? Because when there's a lot of flood water and possibly, you know, dead bodies in the water, that could be a health risk, couldn't it?

Yes, yes, miss.

The government now finds many helpers to grow food in this area. So the government works fast in my area so people can be connected to another area.

Ludovic, good to speak to you. I'm so sorry you're going through this.
Good luck with it. And thank you so much for helping us understand the situation there.
Help my country, miss.

Help my country, miss.

It's very many people hungry now. Many people are hungry, miss.

Help me, help our area, miss.

Ludwig Ma Paung in Indonesia.

The Liberal candidate Salvador Nasrallah has taken a narrow lead in the presidential election in Honduras.

With just over 60% of the vote counted, he's slightly ahead of his Conservative rival, Nasri Asfura. Asfura.
Votes are being counted by hand.

The delay in the results following Sunday's election has caused rising tension in Honduras.

Meanwhile, the country's former president and convicted drug trafficker Juan Orlando Hernandez has been released from jail in the United States after receiving a pardon from President Trump.

A lawyer for Mr. Hernandez, Renato Stabile, was asked whether the former leader would remain in the U.S.

I think it's premature to figure out what he's going to do next. His name is clear.
He received a full and unconditional pardon from President Trump. So there is nothing left.

It has been wiped away completely and absolutely. In terms of what he's going to do next, like I said, I think it's just too early to tell.
I don't know if he's going to return to politics.

I don't know what his next thing is going to be.

Our Central America correspondent Will Grant joined us from the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa. First, the pardon.
Why was he freed from prison?

I think, in essence, because Donald Trump has been persuaded of the argument that Mr.

Hernandez's family has been making since the moment he was arrested in 2022, that this was all some kind of politically motivated attack against him, it was revenge, supposedly, for having clamped down on drug traffickers himself, and that the entire case was just simply built on the testimony of convicted criminals and didn't stack up.

The key, in terms of Mr. Hernandez's family was getting that argument to Donald Trump and then him agreeing with it to the point that he would issue a pardon.

They have managed to do that in part with support from certain key MAGA figures to actually bring the case to Mr. Trump's attention.

It does seem like a contradiction, though, for Mr.

Trump to be releasing a convicted drug trafficker while at the same time using what you might call gunboat diplomacy over supposed drug trafficking in Venezuela.

And that has been noted not just by journalists, but also by members of Congress, members of the Senate.

Questions have been raised, of course, by people on the streets of the Gucci Galpa around Honduras, who are scratching their heads and wondering how this makes sense.

The argument from the Trump administration from that is that there is a key difference. That, in essence, Mr.

Hernandez was, as Donald Trump himself put it, set up by the Biden administration, whereas Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela has a slew of allegations and indictment waiting for him over his own involvement in the supposed cartel, the cartel of the sons.

Now, the difference for many ends up being more political than actual because, of course, despite the pardon, Juan Orlando Hernandez was found guilty of being at the very center of a conspiracy to bring in over 400 tonnes of cocaine into the United States while president.

Well, while we have you, the election, when are we going to know the result? And are Hondurans feeling nervous about the outcome? They are feeling nervous.

It's been going on now since Sunday night once polls closed. It is still on an absolute knife edge.
It is getting there. So two-thirds of the votes have been tallied.

As you said in your introduction, the former Vice President Salvador Nasrala now has a very slender vote over Nasri Azfura, who's Mr. Trump's favoured candidate.

But there's still a good number of votes left to go. That control, that lead, could change hands yet again.

Will grant in Honduras.

The most popular English language articles of 2025 on Wikipedia have been revealed by the Wikimedia Foundation. The top 20 most read pages span politics, religion, and entertainment.

Our technology editor, Zoe Kleinman, has the details. The U.S.
conservative activist Charlie Kirk was Wikipedia's most read page of 2025, viewed nearly 45 million times.

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Zoe Kleinman

Still to come.

The Winter Reg is one of 50 imperialist racks that Fabergé created for the Romanovs. Only 43 still exist.
I think it's the best. It's a true masterpiece.
Absolute joy.

A Faberge egg, commissioned by Russia's final czar, sells for a new record.

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South Korea is a young democracy, but admired across the globe for its vibrant politics.

But a year ago, the country descended into political chaos when the then president, Yoon-suk-yeo, tried to impose martial law.

It failed, in part because thousands of people came out onto the streets of the capital, Seoul, to stop the soldiers.

To commemorate the anniversary, the man who's now South Korea's president, Lee Jae-myung, praised residents who'd come out to defend democracy.

The South Korean people confronted armoured vehicles heading towards the National Assembly with just their bodies.

They protested against the police, who'd blockaded parliament and helped lawmakers climb over the assembly fence so they could fulfil their constitutional duties.

It was thanks to the people stepping forward themselves that the National Assembly was able to vote to lift martial law, and our military faithfully complied with that decision under democratic civilian control.

President Lee Jae-myung also warned that there is still much to do to ensure the events of one year ago do not happen again.

Our sole correspondent, Jake Kwan, spoke to me from outside South Korea's National Assembly and told me more of what the president had to say in his national address.

against those who what he described as the designers of the coup d'état and the insurrection.

Yesterday he said that those who had organized this needs to be punished like what had happened to the Nazi Party, which are quite strong words from him.

And this is something that he had compared to a wound that needs to be cut out of the South Korean society. There has been some of

the elements of the South Korean right who had justified the martial law, who

the main opposition party is still haven't fully divorced itself from the former president who launched the martial law attempt.

So there are signs to suggest that this divide seems like it is entrenching itself.

Of course, former President Yoon was forced from office and put on trial. Where are we in that process?

Well, the President Yoon Seog-gyeol, former president, is now standing trial for five different charges, as well as as the former First Lady and many members of his cabinet have been arrested or have been indicted.

And this is a trial that has been going for months now. Now, we're going to see the result of one of the first trials against his prime minister for not being able to stop

the charge being insurrection. And we're going to see the result around next month.

That is going to be the first kind of result of this whole insurrection trials, and that will kind of give us a steer on what will be the verdict on the arrest of President Yoon and his cabinet.

But, you know, this is one of the most serious charges in South Korean law, criminal law, and the punishment is either life in prison or death.

So, you know, this will be a very much a big, like historical moment in South Korea's democracy.

But the result, we may not see it for many months, and it is surely expected to go all the way up to the Supreme Court.

Jake Kwan. And for more on one of today's big stories, you can go to YouTube, search for BBC News, click on the logo, and then choose podcasts and global news podcast.

There's a new story in Vision available every weekday.

The Swiss lakeside city of Lugano is aiming to attract businesses and investment by becoming Europe's Bitcoin capital.

You can still pay for everything in Swiss francs, but in hundreds of shops and restaurants, you can use Bitcoin instead. Our reporter John Lawrenson went to check it out.

In a McDonald's by the lake, in the centre of Lugano, a customer orders coffee.

The salesperson holds up what looks like a credit card payment terminal, but which is in fact a special crypto one distributed free to businesses by the town council.

The customer pays contactless from the Bitcoin wallet on his telephone. 0.00008629 Bitcoin it comes to a figure constantly changing because of the currency's notorious volatility.

Bitcoin, this purely digital currency that uses encryption to control, manage and issue units as opposed to so-called fiat money used by central banks or governments.

People often buy it as an investment, a gamble in other words, on its value going up as opposed to down as it has quite a lot recently.

But how many even think about using it to buy actual things like a diamond ring or a pizza? Well in Lugano it's different. I want to talk about an experiment I did this July.

I have a problem with my bank. I had to live in Bitcoin only for 11 days.
Mir Liponi runs the Plan B Hub, a meeting place for people who work in the Bitcoin sector.

You can survive here in Bitcoin only. It's missing public transportation at the moment, which is really important.
Another one is fuel. Groceries are okay.

I got things delivered at home, even plenty of medical places, but not a dentist.

And another big thing are bills. You cannot pay bills with Bitcoin.
Although you can pay for municipal services, if you get a parking fine, you can pay it in Bitcoin.

Yes, you can also pay taxes uh in bitcoin which is probably not why bitcoin enthusiasts move to this town but still

i wander along the lakefront and into a park where there's a square block of metal a plinth upon which stood a statue of satoshi nakamoto the mysterious person who brought bitcoin into being in 2009

Playing on the mystery, the statue made of slats of metal is transparent when you look at it from the front.

And it is now completely invisible because this summer some equally anonymous individual or individuals unscrewed it, broke it into bits and threw it in the lake.

Not everyone here, it seems, is keen on crypto. In front of the empty plinth, I get talking to a few passers-by, like Lucia.
It's interesting because not that many things get vandalized around here.

So. This is a quiet place.
Yeah, it's quiet. People are usually fairly well-behaved, and um

you don't see often people having very strong political opinions either.

Like I'm from the University of Lugano and there's a lot of workshops, there's a club to promote Bitcoin and everything.

I personally don't use any cryptocurrencies so I don't feel like it impacts me at all. But I do find it surprising that institutions such as my university would promote it so much.

I think it's associated to crime, to the dark web and speculation, like cryptocurrencies in general. A lot of people lose their money because they invest in it and then it crashes.

I asked the mayor, Michele Foletti, if he is concerned that Lugano will become a mafia magnet. No, because mafia people are more interested to use fiat for money laundering.

And the risk for Switzerland is this, is with the Swiss franc, not with the Bitcoin. Because when they sell drugs or something like this,

they receive fiat money, not Bitcoin, because the most anonymous is the cash. You can use fiat money to do something good or something bad.
The same with Bitcoin.

Lugano is, though, a Bitcoin magnet with almost 110 crypto sector companies moving or starting up here.

John Lawrenson with that report:

work, work, work, work, and

work.

That was the election phrase of Japan's new Prime Minister, the first female in the job, San Ai Takaichi. She's pledged to abandon her own work-life balance for the duration of the job.

She famously only sleeps for around two to four hours a night. But she's also said, I will have everyone work like a horse.
Japan already has a reputation for long working hours.

The work slogan has just won won Japan's catchphrase of the year. Rebecca Kesby has been talking to one young mother in Japan.
She's an office worker and only wants us to use her first name, Hiro.

So, what does she make of it all? Our generation was surprised and a little bit shocked. Can you explain that a little bit for us?

Because I know in the past, I mean, there's even been, there's a word for it, isn't there? Is it karoshi, death from overwork?

Ah, yeah, has been a thing, or or that's like been discussed in Japan and such long working hours for many decades.

And there was a move, wasn't there, to try to reduce that and to give people a better work-life balance, especially people like you trying to bring up children.

Yes. I think that nowadays conditions in Japan, working hours has become considerably shorter.
In the case of me nearly 10 years ago, it was quite common to work from 7 a.m. until 11 p.m.

Sorry, from when? 7 a.m. until 11 p.m.
7 a.m. till 11 p.m.

For me, for me.

And my colleague working like that, and so hectic. But I now get home before 6 p.m., especially since I have a child.
My company is considerate toward me.

That said, many of my colleagues still work overtime.

What about specifically the gender issue? Because obviously she's the first first female Prime Minister and no doubt lots of women, you know, thought that would be a good thing.

And lots of women in Japan have felt forced out of the workforce when they've had a child because it's so difficult to try and balance the two things. Do you think this will turn off female voters?

Many people think that because she's Prime Minister, Prime Minister need to work so hard to change our country.

So some people accept the phrase from her, but in case of me, I don't think like a big prefer from her, just one sentence, like working so hard.

But the problem is that a more old generation think that her phrase is so welcome. Do you think there is a sort of generational gap then? Yes.

So like our generation said this, we understand that working hard culture, but younger generation really valued the work-life balance and work style reforms are progressing within large corporations.

So young people are increasingly reluctant to join companies where work-life balance is not properly established. And politically, do you think this is a message that will get support?

I understand this is only her message for herself. So we believe and we hope this is only herself.

So you're basically saying she can work however hard she wants, but you know, as long as she doesn't make the rest of us do the same.

Especially young people, younger generation and women who need to care, young children, wanted to work shorter than before. So just one comment.
It won't change the society quickly.

That was Hero, a young mother in Japan.

Now, let me tell you about the Winter Egg. It has wood anemones carved from white quartz and is just sold at Christie's auction house in London for more than thirty million dollars.

I should say that price includes fees, and it's much higher than the previous auction price for a Faberge egg.

The Winter Egg once belonged to the Russian Imperial family and was commissioned from the House of Faberge in St. Petersburg by Tsar Nicholas II in 1913.

Margot Oganisian is from Christie's and she's been speaking to James Kumarasami.

The Winter Reck is one of 50 Imperialist Recs that Fabric created for the Romanovs, but out of those 50 only 43 still exist and most of them are in museums.

So in fact the Winter Reck was one of only seven Imperialist wrecks left in private collections. Incredibly rare piece and a rare chance to acquire such a rare work.
What does it look like?

The winter wreck is carved from rock crystal, quite a fragile stone, but the craftsmanship is amazing. If you look at the egg, it opens.

Inside, there is a basket of sprint flowers, which symbolizes the revival, the spring that comes after winter, and the egg sits on a beautiful base, which looks like melting ice, also carved from rock crystal.

And what is it about the egg that is so attractive to collectors? The rarity and the provenance, the fact that it was made for the Romanov family, and that was a gift from Nicholas II to his mother.

Secondly, craftsmanship. I think that's what Fabergé is really known for and that's what collectors really appreciate.

When you look at the winter wreck, it's really hard to comprehend how they've made it. It's such a timeless design and inspiration came from nature and it's really beautiful.

And the fact that one has not been up for sale for more than 20 years, what was the sense of anticipation like, do you think?

Well, there was a huge amount of excitement on the market. And in fact,

over the six days that we were open for public viewing, we had nearly 4,000 people came to see it.

And lots of excitement on the market, but also among the general public who wanted to see this masterpiece, because things like that do not come up very often. Most of them are in museums.

It was great. This one, has it gone to a private collector? We are not commenting at this time.

so we will see if the buyer would like to make it public. But at the moment, it's confidential.

If it were my egg, I would gaffer tape it to the wall. Margot Oganisian from Christie's Auction House.

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, you can send us an email.

The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X at BBC World Service.
Use the hashtag global newspod.

This edition was mixed by Russell Newlove, and the producer was Mickey Bristow. The editor is Karen Martin.
I'm Alex Ritz, and until next time, goodbye.

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