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

I'm Valerie Sanderson and at 13 hours GMT on Wednesday the 7th of May.

These are our main stories.

Pakistan says India's overnight missile attack has ignited an inferno in the region and it's ready to respond.

India claims it targeted nine sites, which it

described as terrorist infrastructure. We look at what this escalation in violence means for the region.

More than 130 cardinals are being locked in at the Vatican in order to choose in a secret ballot,

a new leader of the Catholic Church.

Also in this podcast.

What the hell's going on here?

What president ever talks like that?

That's not who we are.

We're about freedom, democracy, opportunity. In an exclusive BBC interview, the former U.S. President Joe Biden accuses his successor Donald Trump of appeasing Russia, warning that Europe is going to lose confidence in America's leadership.

A war between India and Pakistan is one the world cannot afford.

So says the UN after the two nations exchanged fire overnight.

Long-running tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbours have spiked

since a militant attack two weeks ago on a tourist site in Indian-administered Kashmir.

India accused Pakistan of supporting the militants and suspended

participation in a water-sharing agreement. Now, it's launched overnight missile strikes on what

it said were terrorist sites in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. In a media briefing,

Sergeant Colonel Safia Kareche of the Indian Armed Forces said that everything had been done to avoid the death of civilians.

The selection of these targets for operations was based on credible intelligence and the role of these facilities in perpetrating terrorist activities.

...