Parts of the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, are now a burnt-out shell after the army recaptured the city from the RSF paramilitary group. Also: has there been a major evolution in the design of the American baseball bat?
Chapter 1: What is the situation in Khartoum after the army recaptured it?
This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Nick Miles, and in the early hours of Wednesday, the 2nd of April, these are our main stories. The BBC has become one of the first international news organisations to reach the Sudanese capital Khartoum since the army recaptured it and has found overwhelming destruction.
A major rebel alliance in Myanmar has declared a month-long ceasefire to allow earthquake relief efforts to take place. Russia has embarked on its biggest military call-up in more than a decade.
Also in this podcast. So what you're trying to do really is to swing the heaviest thing you can at the fastest speed you can to make contact with the ball.
A redesign of the baseball bat and it's already having a huge impact. For two years now, since April 2023, Sudan has been in the midst of a devastating civil war. The fighting is between the country's army and a paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Forces or RSF. Their fight has caused a huge humanitarian crisis.
Around 150,000 are estimated to have been killed and millions of people have become refugees. In the last few days, Sudan's military recaptured the capital city, Khartoum, for the first time since early in the war. Many of those who stayed have been celebrating the end of RSF occupation, but the core of the city is in ruins.
A BBC team is one of the first media organisations to enter the city since it changed hands. Our Africa correspondent Barbara Pleidasha and her team travelled with Sudan's army to the city.
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Chapter 2: How are the locals in Khartoum responding to the recapture?
We're going over the bridge now into central Khartoum, just days after the army recaptured the city from the rapid support forces. We'll be driving straight to the presidential palace, which the RSF occupied for nearly two years. The palace is damaged and dirty. There's dust everywhere, debris on the floors, holes in the ceiling, holes in the wall, broken glass, looted.
Even the electric cables have been pulled out of the walls, although still some of the chandeliers are hanging from the ceiling.
My name is Aladin Abu Adam Suleiman. Our battalion came from outside Khartoum to defend our country.
So this is the red carpet. We're walking into the palace. What did you think when you first came into the palace?
I was really very excited at the Republic Palace. It's my first time in this place. I waited for this place as the Sudanese in general, they wanted to be free as it is a symbol of our dignity.
It's also an important symbol of power. Soldiers here sang and danced, their jubilation erupting as the Muslim Eid holiday began. But their victory came at enormous cost. Central Khartoum is a battered shell. The level of destruction is stunning. Government ministries, banks, towering office blocks, blackened and burned. The tarmac at the international airport, a graveyard of smashed planes.
Further away from the combat zone, scattered celebrations for the Eid holiday spill into the street. For people here, the war is over, even though it continues elsewhere. The army's been accused of atrocities, and reports say tens of thousands fled the fighting here in recent days. But in Khartoum, people celebrate the end of the brutal RSF occupation.
Duhat Tariq is a pro-democracy activist, part of the movement that toppled the former military leader Omar al-Bashir. She's been focusing on helping her neighbourhood survive the war.
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Chapter 3: What challenges do Khartoum residents face after the conflict?
It sure feels like a celebration. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is. All the little girls in their e-dresses, eh?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for the first time in two years. Everybody's dressing up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Including myself.
She struggled to keep soup kitchens running during the war as food ran out, the city looted by the RSF and under siege by the army. Food is still scarce, but there's hope now, says an elderly man, Qasem Agar.
I'm feeling wonderful. I feel safe. I feel great, even though I'm hungry. You know, it doesn't matter. Freedom is what's important.
Still, the weight of fear and loss is heavy. So many stories of abuse by RSF fighters, of life endangered and disrupted. Our children are traumatized, says Najwa Ibrahim. They need psychiatrists to help them. My sister's a teacher and tried to work with them, but it's not enough.
For the soldiers at the palace, for the army, regaining the capital feels like a turning point in the country's civil war. But it's not clear what direction Sudan will take.
Barbara is still in the city. I managed to contact her and asked her how much of a turning point the taking of Khartoum is for the conflict.
It has shifted the balance of power that had evolved after the beginning of the war, because when the war began, the RSF moved quite quickly, first of all, to take the capital, which was extraordinary. And the retaking of Khartoum followed an advance by the army through central Sudan, retaking that area and then coming up to Khartoum.
So in a way, it's the culmination of really pushing back the RSF. back into its traditional stronghold. And now the question is, what will the army do? It's expected that it will refocus and shift towards Darfur. The reality that has been created more and more is different zones of control.
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Chapter 4: What is the significance of the ceasefire in Myanmar?
Barbara Pledasche in Khartoum. A month after Israel imposed a total blockade on goods and electricity in Gaza, food supplies have been running dangerously low. Now the UN's World Food Programme says it's having to shut down all of its bakeries in Gaza because of a shortage of flour and diesel. I asked our Middle East regional editor Mike Thompson how significant is this?
I think it is very significant, Nick, really, because when you look at what the UN has said, that hundreds of thousands of people rely on this bread, which is maybe a sort of bitter bread, then you can see the need. And there are 2.3 million people in Gaza.
And we've had, since near the beginning of last month, we've had this blockade imposed by Israel on aid supplies going in, and that includes food, fuel, gas.
medicines and that sort of thing so there's all of that side to worry about for people there but obviously with with the food situation the bread is the staple and that hundreds of thousands of people as they said depend on it so it's very worrying and the bread in these bakeries would be heavily subsidized if they have to get the bread from elsewhere prices are going to be particularly high aren't they and the currency is it must be at a premium at the moment actual money in people's pockets
Chapter 5: What is happening with the rescue efforts in Myanmar?
And you can imagine after so much conflict how little most people will have to be able to source bread from other places. We've already heard in markets, for instance, that food prices have really rocketed. So scarcity obviously means high prices.
Now, Mike, in another development, there's news from another branch of the UN, UNICEF, the Children's Fund, about the impact the collapse of the ceasefire has had on children particularly.
Yes, indeed, quite horrifying statistics have come from UNICEF. They're saying that since the end of the ceasefire, 1,000 children have either been killed or wounded. The number of killed is more than 300. And when you look at over 18 months of conflict, they've also said 15,000 children have been killed. Now, that is, of course, according to the figures supplied by the Hamas front.
Health Ministry in Gaza. Now, on top of all that, many of these children, their families are living in homes that are severely damaged. Sometimes they're in tents if their homes have been destroyed. So there's all of that. And, of course, over the last two days, we've seen these big evacuation orders issued, both in the north and in the south, the biggest since, in fact, the ceasefire collapsed.
So that means more people being displaced yet again.
Our Middle East regional editor, Mike Thompson. Next to Myanmar. Three key armed rebel groups in the country have announced a unilateral ceasefire for a month following last week's earthquake. Known as the Three Brotherhood Alliance, they said they wanted to facilitate the most effective relief effort.
Myanmar's military government has continued to attack militant groups, even while coordinating the response to last Friday's earthquake. Correspondents from the BBC's Burmese service have continued to speak to people inside Myanmar. Their colleague So Win Tan pulled together this compilation of their reports.
The searching never stops, except when the rescuers find someone. Everyone shows respect to the dead. The Sky Villa was one of the biggest buildings in Mandalay. Its collapse on Friday was devastating. Kujo is waiting for his sisters. They were swimming in the pool on the ground floor when the quake struck.
Their lives are in the hands of the rescuers at the moment. It's a massive 11-story building. Those 11 floors collapsed down on them. But they might survive if there is a hollow space down there. It's 50-50.
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Chapter 6: What economic changes are expected in the US?
A number of rebel groups have said that we're going to observe a ceasefire. What pressure will that put on the authorities to do likewise?
So what we've heard from the National Unity Government, which is this ousted opposition group, they very quickly announced a ceasefire in the earthquake affected areas and I was speaking to a rebel leader that comes under them today and they were saying that they were coming under attack but he claims that they were not fighting back, that that ceasefire is holding and then today we've heard from the Three Brotherhood Alliance, which has been the most effective alliance of ethnic groups.
They've defeated the military in huge areas of land up near the Chinese border. But they also have control over rebel groups around Mandalay. So their decision to have this month-long ceasefire is important because they control trade routes between China and Myanmar.
But as you say, it's also politically important because it's a stark contrast, isn't it, to say, on one hand, we're stopping the ceasefire because this humanitarian disaster is so grave. We all need to be focusing on that. and on the other hand you have a Myanmar military continuing to bomb.
In places like Mandalay, a very large city, over a million people living there, these are the kind of places that need vast amounts of military aid. Quite frankly, is it there?
It isn't there, yeah, and I think very sadly we've passed that golden period after an earthquake where rescue workers typically believe that people can stay alive under the rubble. So while the focus moves away from the rescue, sadly perhaps... The focus now is on how do we keep those that survived it alive. Rebecca Henschke.
Now, what could be, in the words of one major US news website, the most aggressive overhaul of the global economic system in decades? The US President Donald Trump has been signalling for a while that he wants Wednesday, April 2nd, to be what he calls Liberation Day. It is then that President Trump is expected to announce sweeping tariffs affecting trillions of dollars of US imports.
This is how the White House Press Secretary, Caroline Leavitt, previewed things.
Looking ahead, April 2nd, 2025 will go down as one of the most important days in modern American history. Our country has been one of the most open economies in the world, and we have the consumer base hands down, the best consumer base. But too many foreign countries have their markets closed to our exports. This is fundamentally unfair.
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