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I've spent the last three decades trying to better understand money across the boardroom, the newsroom and the trading floor.
That's longer than most podcast hosts have been alive.
But even I've got questions.
Join me, Meryn Subset-Webb, every week for my show Meryn Talks Money from Bloomberg Podcasts, where I have in-depth conversations with fund managers, strategists and experts about how markets really work.
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I'm Pete Ross and in the early hours of Monday the 16th of February, these are our main stories.
An Iranian minister tells the BBC the ball is in America's court if it wants to reach a nuclear deal.
Israel carries out more deadly airstrikes in Gaza while the US pushes ahead with its peace plan.
And the alleged gunman of the Bondi Beach shooting in Australia appears via video link at a court for the first time.
Also in this podcast, the FBI finds a glove in the Nancy Guthrie disappearance case and the sound of a successful forest recovery programme.
Over the years, the Swiss city of Geneva has hosted many important diplomatic meetings.
And it will do so once again on Tuesday, when the US Special Envoy, Steve Witkoff, meets Iran's Foreign Minister, Abbas Arachi, for the second round of indirect talks focusing on Iran's nuclear programme.
Many leaders in the Middle East will be watching closely, including Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Earlier, he laid out his demands for any future deal between Tehran and Washington.
The first is that all enriched material has to leave Iran.
The second is that there shall be no enrichment capability.
Dismantle the equipment and the infrastructure that allows you to enrich in the first place.
And the third is to deal also with the questions of ballistic missiles.
The talks come at a difficult time for the Islamic Republic.
International sanctions continue to hurt the country's economy and tensions remain high following the regime's bloody suppression of pro-democracy demonstrations, in which thousands of people were killed.
President Trump has threatened strikes against Iran if a deal to curb its nuclear programme cannot be reached.
But Iran's deputy foreign minister said his government was open to compromise if the Americans were willing to lift sanctions.
Majid Taghravanchi was speaking to our correspondent Lise Doucette, who's in the Iranian capital.
Tehran, a city without certainty.
No one's sure what the next days will bring.
For people who've lived through the worst.
Last year's war with Israel and America.
Last month's uprising put down with lethal force.
A place buffeted by so many worries.
Even its markets, beautiful to behold, are now a measure of a nation suffering.
Iran's cost of living crisis is on another scale.
Yunus, the spice seller, tells us some prices have doubled, others quadrupled.
It's sanctions, he says.
Iran's real currency is in free fall against the dollar.
There's a direct link between the prices in this market and the success of the negotiations far away.
If Iran doesn't do a deal with the United States, none of the sanctions will be lifted.
And if they're not, the government has few tools to fix the economic crisis, much less all the other demands from their people.
One of Iran's top negotiators tells us in this week's talks they're ready to compromise if sanctions are lifted.
We are ready to discuss this and other issues related to our program, provided that they are ready also to talk about the sanctions.
Those sanctions have to be also on the table.
One cannot accept the notion that Iran has to do certain things without the other side committing itself to do their share.
President Trump prefers a deal, but he said it's hard to get, very hard to get a deal with Iran.
He says it's up to you.
No, the ball is in America's court.
Across Tehran, the scars were anger boiled over in last month's nationwide protests.
A tax building in tatters, a symbol of a system...
This was Vanak Square on a night it burned with rage and slogans calling for change.
There's little trace of what happened here.
The police post was quickly repaired.
We heard President Trump saying that, you know, go and take the institutions.
Health is underway.
So it seems to us that this is an incitement to violence.
We are having normal relations with other countries.
But they haven't accepted your account.
They have said you should have allowed people to express a call for their basic rights and freedoms.
Those who are engaged in peaceful demonstrations.
They have every right to express their views, their opinions.
But when it comes to violence, nobody tolerates violence.
In the city's largest cemetery, pain is still raw.
What happened here still looms large.
And no one knows if the next month will bring a deal or another deadly war.
Lise Doucette in Tehran, working on the condition that none of her material is used on the BBC's Persian service.
It's a restriction that applies to all international media organisations operating in Iran.
Israel has carried out more strikes in Gaza.
Palestinian officials said at least 11 people were killed and several others injured in the latest attacks.
Israel does not allow the BBC to report freely from Gaza.
Joel Gunter is following developments from Jerusalem.
The fragile ceasefire in the Middle East was broken yet again when Israel carried out several strikes in the Gaza Strip.
Palestinian officials say the strikes hit a refugee camp in the north and a suburb of Khan Yunis in the south.
Israel said it was responding to a ceasefire violation by Hamas, accusing fighters of emerging from a tunnel into the area of the strip controlled by the Israeli military.
The ceasefire agreement, brokered by the US and signed last October, has barely held since it came into effect, with both sides accusing each other of near daily violations.
The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry says that at least 600 people have been killed by Israeli strikes since the ceasefire began.
Gaza's future will be discussed this week when the so-called Board of Peace organised by President Trump meets for the first time to negotiate funding and security for the Strip.
Meanwhile, in Israel, there's been unrest in the city of Nebrek, which has a large ultra-Orthodox population.
The police arrested more than 20 people and rescued two female soldiers after riots broke out on Sunday.
Anna Aslam reports.
That's the moment.
Israeli police fired tear gas at ultra-Orthodox Jewish men who were throwing stones, burning rubbish bins and attacking officers and their vehicles.
Security forces were deployed to the area after large crowds chased two female soldiers through the city streets.
Footage showed police escorting the pair away as men yelled and ran after them.
Reports suggest they were wrongly suspected of attempting to deliver army conscription orders during an official home visit to one of their colleagues.
Ultra-Orthodox men have historically been exempt from military service, but many are now furious over a law that may force them to serve.
A hardline movement has established what it calls a national alert system to mobilize the community when the IDF engages in enforcement activities against draft dodgers.
Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu strongly condemned the attack on the soldiers, but blamed an extremist minority for the violence.
Ultra-Orthodox Jews make up about 13 of Israel's population and oppose military service because they believe studying full-time in religious seminaries is their most important duty.
But that claim has been criticised by many Israelis, especially during the two-year war in Gaza, with tensions often spilling onto the streets.
We'll be right back.
Like doorbell footage of a possible masked intruder, a potential DNA breakthrough and the recovery of a glove.
The mystery surrounding her disappearance seems no closer to being solved.
Our correspondent in Tucson, David Willis, gave us the latest.
This investigation Pete, has centred on a man caught on video surveillance video on Nancy Guthrie's doorstep.
And that person, of course, was masked and wearing what appeared to be thick gloves, possibly black gloves.
Well, a glove has since been recovered in a field about two miles from Nancy Guthrie's home.
And today the FBI said that the glove appears to match use their words appears to match that of the subject in the surveillance video.
And the DNA of that glove is now being sent for analysis separately to all this.
A couple of days ago.
Investigators reported finding DNA inside Nancy Guthrie's home.
That wasn't hers and it didn't match that of her close relatives or friends.
And that DNA sample has also been sent to the lab.
We don't quite know what connection, if any, there is between these two things, but it does appear that forensic evidence could now be the key to this inquiry.
There seems to be a lot of unknowns in this case.
I mean, police haven't even been able to confirm that Nancy Goffrey was abducted.
I mean, that's the line of investigation they're following, but there's a lot that we don't seem to know.
Can you talk us through anything else that we do know?
That's absolutely right.
And part of the reason for that has been the phenomenal number of leads from members of the public that the police, the sheriff's department, the FBI has received.
But you're absolutely right.
They have yet to identify the suspect in the surveillance video, the man in the mask, as it were, and there is no sign of Nancy Guthrie.
And they have now about 400 detectives on this case.
But yesterday the local sheriff was quoted as saying that this could take days, could take weeks, could take months or could take even years to solve the case of the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie.
You said it could take a long time to solve this, but surely, given Nancy Guthrie's age and the fact that this has been ongoing for more than two weeks time is off the essence, you would have thought.
Well, that's right.
And that is of course heightening concern on the part both of detectives and, of course, on the part of family members.
And indeed Savannah Guthrie has issued another heart-wrenching statement video on her Instagram page, and that video is captioned bring her home.
It's never too late to do the next right thing.
David Willis.
After a period of intense deforestation, Costa Rica has focused on conservation programmes for the last 30 years.
The forests have been recovering, but is the wildlife also returning?
Yes, according to a study by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.
Giancomo Delgado and his team set up more than 100 microphones in pastures, natural forests and restored lands, and then used the audio recordings to compare and analyse biodiversity.
Traditionally, biodiversity monitoring would require you to spend much more time at a single site.
Have a certain amount of knowledge about certain taxonomic groups to make kind of a full list of what is there and what is not.
And what soundscapes allows to do is actually tune into a different type of information.
And so what we did in Costa Rica, we were able to look across this huge geographic expanse.
And actually, we've already recorded across the entire country.
So kind of the first time that this type of scale in terms of data collection has been possible for biodiversity.
That's a howler monkey.
It's one of the larger bodied animals that you might hear in the Costa Rican forest and always a pleasure to hear when you're out there.
You can feel it.
But also what we see in the data is we see this recovery of life really, of these myriad connections and relationships which ecologists call biodiversity.
But really, it's life.
It's life flourishing.
And I think what makes Costa Rica so successful in this regard is this kind of combination of directly attacking ecologically damaging behavior, so banning forest conversion, taxing gasoline use, etc.
And then redistributing wealth directly to local people.
On the whole scale.
That's kind of the approach that we should be taking globally to our ecological crisis.
The ecologist Giacomo Delgado.
Still to come in this podcast, how artificial intelligence is changing agriculture.
We use solar powered AI enabled cameras that detect pests and diseases on the farm.
And Nigeria's famous fishing festival makes a comeback.
We focus on the part of the internet that most people don't know about.
It's called the dark web.
Undercover in the furthest corners of the dark web.
US special agents are on a mission to locate and rescue children from abuse.
Moving in now.
Police!
From the BBC World Service, World of Secrets.
The darkest web follows their shocking investigations.
Search for World of Secrets wherever you get your BBC podcasts.
I've spent the last three decades trying to better understand money across the boardroom, the newsroom and the trading floor.
That's longer than most podcast hosts have been alive.
But even I've got questions.
Join me Merrin's Hubset Web every week for my show.
Merrin Talks Money from Bloomberg Podcasts, where I have in-depth conversations with fund managers, strategists and experts about how markets really work.
And join me for a separate episode where I answer listener questions on how to make those markets work for you.
Follow Merrin Talks Money on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.
Australia is still coming to terms with the massacre, just over two months ago, of 15 people at a Jewish event on Bondi Beach.
Dozens more were injured when two gunmen, a father and his son, opened fire on people taking part in a Hanukkah festival.
The father, Sajid Akram, was killed by police during the attack.
The son, Navid Akram, was arrested.
The alleged gunman has now appeared via video link at a magistrate court in Sydney, facing 59 charges over the mass shooting.
Our correspondent in the city, Katie Watson, gave me the details.
He appeared via video link from prison.
He's at a supermax prison about a couple of hours outside of Sydney.
He was wearing a green jumper, prison-issue jumper.
He said very little.
There was some discussion about some reporting restrictions on the identities of survivors.
He was asked whether he understood that conversation.
He said yes, and pretty much that was it.
Now, his lawyer did speak after the court hearing as well, and he was asked whether or not there was any understanding of which way he would be pleading.
And according to the journalists who were there outside the court, the understanding is it's still too early but he will be appearing, it looks like next month again in court.
So we might get more information then.
Just briefly.
Katie, you mentioned outside the court and given us a bit of a sense of Australia must still be reeling from this.
But what happens outside the court?
Is there much of a presence there?
I mean, this is a story that is obviously a hugely important story, a shocking story.
I mean, the one conversation I had repeatedly was this doesn't happen here in Australia.
I think people were reeling from the violence, but reeling from this the anti-Semitic attack in particular and a community that had long called for more protection and more notice to be taken there, with concerns about rising anti-Semitism.
So this is a case that's clearly being watched very closely by people across Australia.
Katie Watson.
As Russia's invasion of Ukraine approaches its fifth year, Moscow's illegal use of foreign fighters in the war is coming under further scrutiny.
Ukrainian officials now say they found the bodies of two Nigerians who were killed in combat in the east of the country last year.
Several countries have accused Moscow of bringing their citizens into Russia for non-military purposes, only then to press them into service in Ukraine.
My colleague, Rajini Vajajanathan, spoke to Frances Farrell, a journalist from the Kiev Independent.
She asked him how many foreign fighters have been recruited.
We don't have, obviously accurate or official data on this, but it is definitely in the tens of thousands.
This is, of course, not including the tens of thousands of North Koreans who came in an official capacity to fight for Russia.
But Ukraine has said that they have this is from late 2025 18000 names of foreign fighters that they definitely know have fought, 3000 of which have been killed.
But the real number is likely at least an order of magnitude higher.
CNN has reported that just from Nepal alone, for example, it's been 15,000
And it could be a similar number of Cubans.
And Ukraine has also said around 1,500 at least from different African nations.
I mean, it's quite a geographical spread as well, isn't it, Francis?
Yeah, from the Ukrainian figures of those 18000 people they have the names of, that's from 128 countries.
Russia is definitely.
There are a few countries that it prefers that it seems to be targeting more deliberately.
But it sees a great opportunity to basically deceive and recruit people from all across the global south.
What sort of techniques are being used?
I mean, I assume it's financial incentives that's the main driver.
Yeah, absolutely.
So if we look at the interviews from prisoners of war who've come from some of these countries Somalia, from Sierra Leone, from Nepal these are all people who simply were tempted by an offer of a different level of income that they would have access to at home and potentially a new life in what they thought was Europe.
And it's important to remember that some are not even told in advance by these recruiting agencies that they're going to the military at all.
They're just saying it's work in Russia, it's good pay, it's stable, they're going to be a security guard or something.
And those that do understand they're going to the military are still deceived themselves.
They're told that it's logistics work, they're going to be a driver in the rear.
And only when they arrive and they have no agency to do anything are they sent to the front line.
Francis Farrow.
We're often told that artificial intelligence is revolutionising our lives, and now it's even changing the way we grow our food.
Rob Young has been looking at AI's increasing use in farming.
Picture this, a farm in California that hasn't changed much in decades.
Flat land, stretching for miles, rows of leafy green vegetables almost as far as the eye can see.
But where workers once bent under the hot California sun pulling up weeds and applying fertilizer, there is now a 1 million machine powered by artificial intelligence.
Third-generation farmer, Daniel Alameda, says finding workers has been tough and this machine is doing a job nobody enjoyed anyway.
Mainly what we've been using AI for is differentiating between a plant and a weed.
And I know that sounds very simple, but it's actually very difficult to do.
I suppose in a field of spinach, anything that's green looks like spinach.
Correct.
So when we started more or less, we knew where we placed our seed.
So we kind of knew where that healthy wanted plant should be.
This is the sound of tomatoes being mechanically harvested in northern Italy for Mutti, a global brand.
Tomato plants require lots of water, and the farms that supply the company often overdo it to avoid losing crops in the Italian summer heat.
Mutti is now using AI sensors to make sure plants get exactly the amount of water they need, and not a drop more.
Francesco Mutti is the fourth generation of his family to run the business.
Let's consider that 70% of the water utilized is for agriculture consumption.
If we are able to measure exactly what are the needs of the plants in terms of water, that can reduce on the tomato field.
Definitely cannot be done.
Having the sensor that is analyzing help in reducing this quantity.
So what about farmers in emerging economies?
Cutting-edge technology from the US and Europe is expensive, but small-scale farmers are accessing some AI tools too.
I am Esther Kimani, the founder and CEO of Pharma Lifeline Technologies.
Pharma Lifeline exists to get farmers ahead of crop pests and diseases.
And how we do this.
We use solar powered, AI enabled cameras that detect pests and diseases on the farm and notify the farmer with a simple SMS on their mobile phone.
And this SMS will contain the crop that has been planted by this farmer, the pest or disease that has been detected, and recommendations of the most affordable and environmentally friendly solutions that they should apply and the exact quantities.
So far, so optimistic, but every new technology creates winners and losers.
Medha Davari is from the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture, which works to improve livelihoods and enhance food security in poorer countries.
Machine learning has been used for years in agriculture to optimise fertiliser application, to model pest and disease probabilities and provide early warning in weather predictions.
There is a lot of potential, but if these kinds of solutions are fed data that is poor quality, It's completely agnostic.
It will still provide answers, but they may be highly erroneous.
And since AI also offers the potential to disseminate information really quickly, really widely, we do need to be careful with that.
From farming to fishing.
If you were in Nigeria this weekend and lucky enough to be close to the banks of the Matan Fadan River, you would have witnessed an incredible sight.
Fishermen with traditional handmade nets wading into the milky water hoping for the biggest catch, as spectators line the banks cheering them on.
The Argungu Fishing Festival began in the 1930s and is one of Nigeria's most well-known cultural events.
But it hadn't been held for the past few years over security fears and funding shortages.
So this year's return has generated huge excitement.
Tisha is one of the fishermen who took part.
This year, things went peacefully and there was a bigger crowd than last time.
And also, we caught 100% more fish compared to the last event.
Our reporter in Lagos, Makuchi Okafor, told Janet Jalil about the festival.
The Aragongu Fishing Festival is really one of the oldest and even most famous cultural events in Nigeria.
So you see, hundreds and hundreds of fishermen are gathered to compete for who will get the biggest catch.
And this happens in Aragongu, which is one of the villages or communities in Kibi State.
Now, this event started about over 80 years ago.
It started small, just as a peace celebration between two communities the Sokoto Caliphate and the Arigogun Emirate.
But now it has grown to become not just a local event but such an international event, even recognized by UNESCO as one of the intangible treasures cultural heritage of humanity.
So it's huge.
The last one that just happened this weekend had even the president.
Another top Nigerian dignitaries are attending.
So it's quite really huge and very colorful.
And just describe what the fishermen do.
The fishermen in hundreds race into the river.
And the idea is for at least one person to get the hugest catch.
Now, this year, the winner got a fish that is about 59 kg.
Now, the winner, the first, second and third position gets rewarded and they get celebrated.
You know, they even get acknowledged by the country and the state and even the president.
So 59 kilograms, that's the size of a person.
Yeah, more or less.
Actually, yes.
So a huge fish.
So incredible.
The people that win the fish then get to keep the catch.
It's good for the local economy.
It's good for Nigerian culture.
So all kinds of benefits.
Yes, it is.
Not just even about the fish which, of course, clearly communities get to sell and trade and eat and feed and all that.
This event attracts lots of people.
It has lots of attention from Nigeria to Niger to neighboring countries and even beyond.
People travel far and wide to attend.
I know that it was halted for a bit, a couple of years back, due to insecurity in northern Nigeria, which is a region where this happens frequently.
And also a bit of lack of funding.
But now it's been revived.
So I've seen lots of attention not just from people in Nigeria, but from even my friends who live outside Nigeria.
They're like, oh, Arikongo Fishing Festival is back.
I'm so excited.
I'm going to attend next year.
So it's buzzing online.
It's buzzing offline.
Thank you very much.
This edition of the Global News Podcast was mixed by Derek Clark and the producer was Paddy McGuire.
The editor is Karen Martin.
I'm Pete Ross.
Until next time, goodbye.
We focus on the part of the internet that most people don't know about.
It's called the dark web.
Undercover in the furthest corners of the dark web.
US special agents are on a mission to locate and rescue children from abuse.
Moving out.
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