Plus: The deadly fentanyl trade, from Mexico to the US ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
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| Hello. Russian President Vladimir Putin has visited the southern region of Kursk and reportedly spoken to soldiers there. He has still not commented on the US ceasefire proposal that Ukraine has agreed to, and which our state department correspondent Tom Bateman analyses line-by-line. In a powerful report, senior correspondent Quentin Sommerville travels between Mexico and the US to track the various stages of the deadly fentanyl trade. And finally, we take a look at a centuries-old celebration in Ethiopia to mark the transfer of power to a new chief. | |
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TOP OF THE AGENDA | Putin visits soldiers fighting in Kursk |
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|  | Since Ukraine agreed to the proposal, the Kremlin has given no indication of its position on a ceasefire. Credit: Getty Images | President Putin has visited Kursk for the first time since Ukraine launched an incursion in the Russian region in August. According to Russian media reports, he told the military to "fully liberate" the region and said Ukrainian soldiers there would be treated as “terrorists” rather than prisoners of war. Kyiv's counter-attack represented a key moment in the war that followed Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Putin has yet to respond to the US proposal for a 30-day ceasefire. Earlier on Wednesday, President Donald Trump said US representatives were on their way to Russia to discuss the plan. Tom Bateman has given the proposal a thorough line-by-line analysis. |
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| Duterte in The Hague after ICC arrest over drug war | Rodrigo Duterte, who will face charges of crimes against humanity, led the Philippines from 2016 to 2022. | What to know > |
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| Passengers describe ordeal on hijacked train | Passengers freed from a train seized by armed militants in Pakistan's Balochistan province describe "doomsday scenes". | Read their testimonies > |
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| Lawyers argue over moving detained activist | Mahmoud Khalil, a US permanent resident and Columbia University graduate, took part in pro-Gaza campus protests. | What happened > |
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| Spotify paid out record royalties in 2024 | The figures come as a heated debate continues about how much money artists and songwriters receive in royalties. | How it all works > |
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| Chasing the deadly fentanyl trade |  | Drug overdoses kill more people in the US than guns or car crashes. Credit: Darren Conway/BBC | The White House has mentioned fentanyl smuggling as a motivating factor in its policy of raising tariffs against its neighbours. The BBC gained rare access to a cartel's operation along Mexico's northern border and travelled to the US to meet their ultimate customers, to see whether the dispute was doing anything to halt the illegal flow of narcotics. |
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| | Quentin Sommerville, senior correspondent |
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| | The men we meet at the safe house are foot-soldiers of a well-known cartel. Two of them loading the car admit to fleeting moments of remorse. But when I ask the man packing the drugs into the fuel tank if he feels guilty about the deaths the pills cause, he sniggers. "We have family too, of course we feel guilty. But if I stop, it's going to continue. It's not my problem," he tells me with a shrug.
In Philadelphia's Kensington neighbourhood, drugs are cheap and plentiful, and people shoot up in the open. As she walks the neighbourhood, Rosalind Pichardo of Operation Save Our City finds people passed out on the pavement, a woman in a stupor with her trousers down, a man lying prone next to a metro turnstile, another man in a wheelchair, his eyes closed and money in his hands. |
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SOMETHING DIFFERENT | How to spot fake art | Experts share five simple rules that can help uncover fake masterpieces. | |
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And finally... in Ethiopia | The week-long Gada ceremony in southern Ethiopia, which ended on Sunday, sees the official transfer of power from one customary ruler to his successor - something that happens every eight years. The centuries-old tradition is also a time to display a variety of different traditional outfits. Take a look. | |
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US Politics Unspun newsletter | No noise. No agenda. Just expert analysis of the issues that matter most, from North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher. | |
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