Global News Podcast - Almost 100 people are dead or missing in Gaza after an Israeli air strike

Episode Date: October 30, 2024

Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry says almost 100 people are dead or missing after an Israeli air strike. Also: IKEA compensates victims forced to make its products and tributes to the Buena Vista Social Club's trumpeter.

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Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC podcasts. This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Valerie Sanderson and in the early hours of Wednesday, October 30th, these are our main stories. According to the Hamas-run health ministry, almost 100 people are dead or missing in Gaza following an Israeli airstrike. The US warns of consequences if Israel goes through with a ban on ANWA, the UN aid agency. The US presidential election enters its final week. IKEA agrees to compensate victims in former communist East Germany

who were forced to make products for the Swedish company. Also in this podcast... They were preserved by a mineral called iron pyrite, otherwise known as fool's gold. And so they have this sort of beautiful golden appearance and they're completely three-dimensionally preserved. They look like they could have died yesterday. A 450 million year old fossil of one of the earliest ancestors of spiders. The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza has said that almost 100 people have been killed

or are missing following an Israeli airstrike in the northern town of Beit Lehiya. The Israeli military said that it was looking into the incident. At the same time, Israel is facing calls not to go ahead with a ban on the UN's Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA. Humanitarian organisations have warned that such a move would be devastating. But a senior ally of the Israeli Prime Minister has said they will not give in to international pressure. Israel is not allowing international journalists from media organisations, including the BBC, independent access to Gaza. On Tuesday, our special correspondent Fergal Keane sent us this report from Jerusalem. In northern Gaza, a boy and his friend are caught up in the aftermath of an airstrike.

As men search for bodies, parts of bodies and the rubble around them, the boy calls out, dear world, feel with us, we are exhausted. Why did this happen? Why is there a massacre? The pace of the Israeli offensive in northern Gaza is unrelenting. Today's strikes came as Israel moved forward with a plan to expel UNRWA, the UN agency responsible for Palestinian refugees. At any time it would have proved a controversial move.

In the middle of the Gaza war with nearly 2 million people displaced in the territory, it's provoked widespread criticism. Jonathan Fowler is the UNRWA spokesman in Jerusalem. It's absolutely outrageous. We said that the prospect of this vote was outrageous. The fact that the vote has happened is equally outrageous. It creates an incredibly dangerous precedent, not just for this region, but potentially with international implications in other places. Israel has accused UNRWA staff of being involved in the 7th of October attacks.

Allegations were made against 19 staff out of 13,000. Nine were fired by the UN. The Israeli MP who sponsored the legislation, Boaz Bismuth, told me UNRWA would be expelled. Because in Israel, I mean, the war, the determination of fighting terrorism is a consensus. And this is part of it. UNRWA has decided on the seventh to go on the wrong side of history.

So no matter what pressure comes from the Americans or from anybody else, this bill will not be withdrawn. You will go ahead with expelling UNRWA. So first of all I have to understand. No, but it's a really straightforward question. Yes or no? Yes, yes. You will not back down? Of course not. Okay. Of course not because we believe in our bill. Some Israeli officials have suggested the bill might not be implemented. That could depend on larger politics, specifically the level of international pressure brought to bear on Israel by whoever wins the American presidential election. Fergal Keen.

BBC News has approached the Israeli military for an interview on what happened in Beit Lahir on Tuesday. We received this statement which has been read by one of our producers. The Israel Defence Forces are aware of reports that civilians were harmed in the Beit Lahir area. The details of the incident are being looked into. The IDF calls on the media to act with caution about information released by her mass sources as they have been proven to be deeply unreliable in previous incidents. The IDF is conducting targeted operations and making efforts to avoid causing harm to uninvolved civilians. We emphasise that the area was evacuated by the IDF as it had been for weeks and it is currently

an active combat zone. The BBC has spoken to a teacher in Gaza. She doesn't want us to use her name for her own safety. But she told Rebecca Kesby she had friends in the area where the airstrike took place. Rebecca asked her if she'd heard the explosion. Yeah, not only that airstrike, but every airstrike that they are having around day and night. Just because we are 10 minutes away from all the northern area of Gaza, we can hear all the bombardments. We can hear all the house demolishing as well. We can hear all the different kinds of bombardments. Every one of them is different and even we

can realise when there's a new weapon being used for killing people over there. Well, so we have heard from the health ministry in Gaza that they're saying that more than 90 people might have been killed in this particular strike and there are others still trapped it seems under the rubble. What do you know of that situation there? First of all, unfortunately you only know about this incident because some people have managed to get to the hospital and inform the media about what happened to that building. Other people who have been killed and trapped under the rubble of their buildings or even

being killed in the streets, and no one knew about that incident. Well, although the number is striking, but it makes complete sense for everybody here because usually people have refuge with relatives and friends. So if there's a five story building or a seven story building, usually each apartment in that building will have around more than 20 people in one apartment because people get together, especially when they escape from the area that the occupation has got some kind of ground invasion or the area that has a heavy bombardment. So people came together

in this building to find refuge, but unfortunately the occupation have targeted all of them. And it's not necessarily that they wanted some kind of a person over there. It's just they are bombarding all that area. I understand what you're saying and you're right that, yeah, I mean many of these attacks people never hear of just because, you know, the information doesn't come out. But with this particular one, I mean the Israeli government would say, look, we told civilians to leave this area because we want to target Hamas militants. And we did tell people that if

they didn't want to get caught up in the violence to leave, what would you say to that and why have people not left? That's completely absurd. How can you just ask someone to leave his home? We have had this kind of story back in 1948 and everybody here, if you ask anybody in the street, even children, they will tell you we are not going to repeat the mistake of our ancestors who fled for their lives in 1948. So people are not living for that reason. That's number one. Number two, they say where to go. There's no safe place in Gaza to go to. A teacher in Gaza who's chosen to remain anonymous for her own security.

America's presidential election has entered its final week with the polls too close to call. The Republican Donald Trump described his rally on Sunday in New York, which was criticised for a speaker's racist comments, as a love fest. As we record this podcast, his Democratic rival, Kamala Harris, will speak at the same spot in Washington DC where Mr Trump rallied supporters before the 6th January attack on the Capitol building back in 2021. North America editor Sarah Smith reports.

Using the White House as a backdrop for her last major event before polling day, Kamala Harris wants to convey a presidential image. This is also the same place where Donald Trump, on the morning of the 6th of January 2021 and in the wake of losing the 2020 election, told supporters to fight like hell before some of them stormed the Capitol building. Ms Harris has delivered many dark warnings about how re-electing Mr Trump could be dangerous to American democracy, but those messages don't seem to be effectively cutting through to voters. So she will instead argue the former president has focused only on himself and his grievances,

while she will aim to deliver for all Americans. Donald Trump is still trying to repair some of the damage done to his campaign by the racist remarks delivered by a comedian at his big rally in New York on Sunday night, saying he's confident of victory. So we're going to fight like hell for the next seven days and then hopefully and then hopefully and most importantly we're going to be fighting even harder for the next four years because we're going to turn this around and we're going to make this country greater than it has ever been. Thank you. Thank you very much.

With the Putin poll still suggesting this election is on a knife's edge. Both candidates will now spend the next seven days furiously campaigning across the country, hitting several of the key swing states each day as they seek the support of every last voter they can find. Sarah Smith. A United Nations investigation has found that rape is widespread in Sudan civil war, with both the Sudanese army and the paramilitary rapid support forces, the RSF accused of committing sexual violence. The UN fat-finding mission reports that RSF troops have abducted women and children for use as sex slaves. Speaking at a UN news briefing, the Director-General of the International

Organisation for Migration, Amy Pope, who's on a visit to Sudan, said the situation in the country is worsening by the day. Amy Pope, Director, National Security Council for the Migration of Sudan It's a deteriorating security situation and we're hearing alarming reports of new atrocities. Our team is sharing stressing details from the conditions that ordinary Sudanese people are facing, those whose lives have been thrown into turmoil by the conflict. The situation here is simply catastrophic. There's no other way to put it.

We're seeing hunger, disease, sexual violence. They're rampant. And for the people of Sudan, they're telling us it's really just a living nightmare. Our Africa Regional Editor Richard Kagoi told me more. Nizami are guilty of using sexual abuse as a tool to punish or to intimidate those that they perceive have links with your opponents. So what they're saying is that, you know, women and girls, the majority of the victims, they have been able to document cases where girls even as young as eight years old and women as old as 75 year old have been abducted and have now been used even as sex slaves. So they're saying that incidences of rape and sexual violence are widespread across the entire of Sudan. But it's not just females is it? There are also cases of

rape of men and boys. Yeah, absolutely. They say that they do have credible information which they have managed to document, also indicating that men and boys are also equally just as victims of these heinous crimes that have been committed by the warring parties in Sudan. And presumably this is about terrorizing the civilian population. Precisely. It's just unfortunate that civilians have really been caught up in all this because it seems like this is being targeted at them and this is perhaps an attempt to silence them, to harass them, to frustrate them so that they don't align with their perceived opponents.

So in this case if you are within areas that are controlled by the RSF, then you don't collaborate with the Sudanese army and vice versa. Richard Kigoy. Sixty-six years after IKEA opened its first store in Sweden, the furniture giant now makes more than $50 billion a year. But before it became a global brand, it had a controversial chapter in its history. In former communist East Germany, political prisoners were forced to make IKEA products. The company has now agreed to contribute to a planned hardship fund for victims of the communist regime. It follows negotiations with the Victims Association.

Our regional editor, Isani Epahard. The use of forced labour by prisoners went on from the 1960s to the 1980s in what was called nominally the German Democratic Republic. There was nothing democratic about it. So tens of thousands of prisoners used to fulfill contracts for Western companies, things like sheets, tablecloths, refrigerators, and many of those people were political prisoners. You could be banged up in East Germany for even for distributing leaflets that were seen as being subversive. So IKEA recognized some of its supplies in the late 70s and early 80s were used to make things like sofas,

chairs, cupboards, that sort of thing. And this doesn't sit very well obviously with IKEA's current reputation as a purveyor of flat pack furniture and soft furnishings and they actually apologized for this back in 2012. They have acknowledged it but this is the first concrete step of actual some sort of financial recognition. And how much are they going to pay and why now? They're going to pay 6.5 million US dollars now because there's a hardship fund that's been proposed by the German government. It's due to be voted on shortly in the Bundestag, the German parliament. And one of the victims, the heads of the victims associations has welcomed this step by IKEA.

He said it was groundbreaking and he hopes other companies will follow Ikea's. But obviously this is a very serious issue. Everyone has to watch their supply chains these days. There's a very strong risk of reputational damage and people also need to be looking at things that happened in the past. Danny Eberhardt. Scientists have discovered a 450 million year old fossil, one of the early ancestors of spiders. The new species was found almost perfectly preserved in iron pyrite, commonly known as fool's gold. Researchers

say the find gives them greater insight into how arthropods evolved. Ellie Price has more. Arthropods include insects, spiders and crustaceans, and there are more of them than any other group of animals on earth. The discovery of their 450 million year old relative sheds some light on the origin of the appendages on their head, such as antennae or pincers and fangs. This fossil belongs to a group of arthropods with large, modified legs at the front of their bodies that were used to capture prey, a group called Megakirans. But despite their menacing-sounding

name, this species measured only a few millimetres. Associate Professor Luke Parry from the Department of Earth Sciences at Oxford University led the team of researchers. The fossils themselves are really, really tiny, but they're preserved in three dimensions, which is really unusual for fossils of this kind. But what happened at this particular site in the US is that they were preserved by a mineral called iron pyrite, otherwise known as fool's gold, and so they have this sort of beautiful golden appearance and they're completely three-dimensionally preserved so they look like they could have died yesterday.

Lomancus edgcomi was named after the arthropod expert Greg Edgecombe who said he was doubly honored. He points out the naming was twofold – the genus Lamancus based on the Greek words loma meaning edge and anchos meaning valley, or the old English word koum, a pun on his own name. Ellie Price Still to come in this podcast… No one had heard the solo before because he just kept it to himself until the track actually went down.

Tributes to Manuel Guajiro Mirabal, the trumpeter with the Buena Vista Social Club. If you're hearing this, you're probably already listening to BBC's award-winning news podcasts. But did you know that you can listen to them without ads? Get current affairs podcasts like Global News, Americast and The Global Story, plus other great BBC podcasts from history to comedy to true crime, all ad ad free. Simply subscribe to BBC Podcast Premium on Apple Podcasts or listen to Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC podcasts. As Russia presses on with its offensive in eastern Ukraine, Kiev's top national security official has announced plans to draft another 160,000 men into the Ukrainian army.

Alexander Lvovnenko was addressing parliament, which has approved a three-month term for the mobilisation. Earlier, Russia claimed to have captured Selidivy, a town 16 kilometres south-east of Pokrovsk, which is Russia's immediate goal. From Kyiv, our Ukraine correspondent, James Waterhouse reports. Ukraine's mobilisation law is seen as deeply unpopular and controversial, with drafting officers, sometimes known as Olives because of the colour of their uniforms, often feared by Ukrainian men concerned about being called up with no notice.

Nevertheless, Kyiv's demand for soldiers is still seen as more important than how its methods are viewed. A security official announced 160,000 would be added to the million men already mobilised. For the past few days, there's been heavy fighting in the eastern coal mining town of Solidovets, which had a pre-war population of 20,000 people. Alongside Russia's claims, some monitoring channels are also indicating that invading troops control large parts of it. With superior numbers and more resources, it is in the Eastern Donetsk region where Russia has been concentrating its soldiers and achieving its greatest gains.

In a separate development, the presidents of Ukraine and South Korea have agreed to plan a response to the deployment of North Korean troops to Russia. With Kiev preparing to face a new enemy, ongoing mobilisation issues and the upcoming US presidential election, these are especially uncertain times for Ukraine. James Waterhouse. In recent years, the Chinese social media app TikTok has proved to be a formidable rival to the American giants Facebook, Instagram and X. So much so that every month TikTok has won billion users. Its never-ending feed of short snappy videos has put the founder of parent company ByteDance at the very top of China's rich list. Jiang Ziming has an estimated net worth of $49 billion. I heard more from

our China media analyst Kerry Allen, who first told me about China's previous wealthiest person. For a number of years, it's been a man called Zhong Shan Shan, who's the founder of a beverage company, a bottled water drinks company called Nongfu Spring. But Zhang Xiuming has now made the richest according to the Huren Report, which publishes reports like this every year. There's a real emphasis today on him being born in the 1980s. You'll often see people who make the list, they're a lot older, very much a self-made billionaire with TikTok. And he has been this big name that's really kind of entered China's media. And they used to be a big dominance of Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu.

But TikTok has, as we know in recent years, it's become this platform that more or less came from nowhere. So is it dominated by tech entrepreneurs? The top 10 definitely is. It's been the case for at least a decade now. There are certain names that you will often see, like Jack Ma, who's the founder of the e-commerce giant Alibaba, and Pony Ma as well, who's the founder of China's big tech company Tencent. So these names are often seen in the top 10. But also I mentioned a water beverage company's chairman being the richest for a long

period of time. One of the other big stories today is that the richest woman in China is also the CEO of a water drinks company called Wahaha. But China's economy has been struggling so even though they're immensely rich has their net worth gone down? Well the Huron report that published this data said that there's been a 10% decrease in terms of the money generated by these billionaires overall, the ones on the list. As newspapers say, the reason for this is due to a slowing economy and market slides. And there have been problems in China in recent years with the shrinking labor market as a result of the now abolished one child policy, the fact that the younger demographic is much

smaller than the older demographic, a shrinking population as a whole. And there have been problems with China's property sector, meaning that regulations, for example, on companies' debt limits have meant that they've been struggling. But this report says the founders of smartphone companies and semiconductors seem to be doing particularly well. So it's not all across the board. There are some who are really benefiting as a result of changes that have been happening in the last year. Kerry Allen. When the Japanese baseball player Shohei Otani signed a staggering $700 million dollar, 10-year deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers, many wondered if any athlete was

worth it. But as Regan Morris reports from Los Angeles, many people believe he was. Let's go Dodgers! Let's go Dodgers! For every home run Shohei Otani hits, Don Tahara pours free shots of sake for his customers. I don't want to say it's a catch-22 but you know obviously because I'm a lifelong Dodger fan so obviously when he hits a home run it's good for the Dodgers you know maybe it's not so great for my pocketbook but you know but it's it's meaningful and it warms my heart everyone's cheering and yeah it's a win-win. When did you start that tradition and do you regret it because my gosh he hits a lot of home runs.

Well, we never would have guessed he would hit so many. One game he hit three. And I tell you, that was... Luckily, I was here to help for it. But yeah, it was a lot of work. Don owns Far Bar in LA's Little Tokyo, which has become the center of LA's love of all things Ohtani. The Far Bar was packed for Game 3 of the World Series, and even though Ohtani didn't hit

any home runs, it didn't dampen the mood. Taketana Kiuchi and two of his friends came from Tokyo to watch the Dodgers. They attended Game 2 when the other Dodgers Japanese star, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, pitched six innings allowing just one hit by the Yankees. Did you come from Japan just for this? Just for the game and we're going back tomorrow. And you're all head to toe in Dodgers gear. Have you been to LA before? 50 years ago, yes. Home run Dodgers, Freddie Freeman. We came here to sit there. And they're not alone.

LA's tourism board says there were 230,000 visitors from Japan last year, up more than 91% from the previous year. And they're projecting a significant otani effect boost when this year's numbers are finalized. Shohei Otani looms large over Little Tokyo. Literally. There's a 150 foot tall mural of the slugger on the side of the historic Miyako Hotel. The muralist Robert Vargas splattered in paint was treated like a rock star by the crowd at Far Bar. I've been talking to people in Little Tokyo and the only person they seem to love as much

as Shohei Otani is you. They love that mural, Matt. What is that like? Well, that mural is so important to this community. My whole reason for painting it is really about representation, about giving space for people who are in this community and some of the under representation here. So that mural is hopefully instilling pride in some of the children to see someone that looks like them up there. But it's exciting

for people to see how people are developing a relationship with the wall. I painted that mural at the beginning of the season, so this pre-World Series, but maybe a precursor for things to come, because he's looking up as he hits the home run. So... Oh, wait a minute, wait a minute, please wait a minute. Please wait a minute. And things are looking up for Little Tokyo. Win or lose the World Series.

For a new group of fans, this neighborhood is now also known as Dodger Town. Let's go Dodger! Let's go Dodger! Regan Morris reporting there from Los Angeles. Now when it was released back in 1997, the Buena Vista Social Club album turned out to be an unexpected commercial smash hit. A recording of a collective made up of mainly Cuban musicians and singers wasn't destined to sell 8 million copies. But its opener, Chan Chan, set the stage for a huge revival in Latin American music. One reason the track

is so distinctive is because of its trumpet solo by Manuel Guajiro Mirabal who has died at the age of 91 following a career that spanned 70 years. Nick Gold is the record producer who brought the Buena Vista Social Club band together and he's been sharing his thoughts about the trumpeter with the BBC. He was a wonderful man and had an encyclopedic knowledge of Cuban music, but was a very, very deferential and quiet guy. I mean, he was just music all the time. If he wasn't playing, he was whistling or humming a song.

And when we made the Buena Vista albums, for example, on Chan Chan. That was the very first track we recorded. And he would have been very quietly in the corner of the studio, sitting with his trumpet in a chair while the sound checks were happening, bits of rehearsals were happening. And then the track would be recorded. And he played that just amazing iconic solo.

No one had heard the solo before because he just kept it to himself until the track actually went down. And the whole record was like that. We didn't know what he was going to do because he was obviously listening, reflecting in his head what he was going to do. And every solo on that record is just, I think his performances are as iconic as the individual singers are. The solos in Dos Gardenas, the solo on Di Camino e Alavoreda, on Quarta de Tula.

They are deceptively simple, but they're meant to be almost part of a composition. Even though a lot of them were improvised, he couldn't then change them because the audiences were desperate to hear what they'd heard on the record But he loved touring he loved being with the band and he loved the camaraderie of it He loved traveling the world

But he didn't like stepping outside and stepping up front. And even his solos on stage, you know, the audience would clamour for him to step forward, but he was very reluctant. He was a very, very shy man. It's a sad day to be thinking about the wonderful music that Guajiro produced. How will you remember him? He made me laugh and he was very, very affectionate. I saw him in March, just gone

and he was you know he was living at home he was very much a family man with his wife and relations he's staying there. I just I don't know I felt very comfortable with him. He was a dear man and a you know a great artist and a great craftsman. He was you know an extraordinary talented man. extraordinary talent. What a flourish. Nick Gold speaking there to Tim Franks about the life and music and talent of the Cuban trumpeter Manuel Guajiro Mirabal. And that's it from us for now, but there will be a new edition of the Global News podcast later. If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, send us an email. The address is globalpodcast.pbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X at Global News Pod. This edition was mixed by Caroline Driscoll. The producer was Daniel Mann. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Valerie Sanderson. Until next time, bye bye. you know that you can listen to them without ads. Get current affairs podcasts like Global News, AmeriCast and The Global Story, plus other great BBC podcasts from history to comedy

to true crime, all ad free. Simply subscribe to BBC Podcast Premium on Apple Podcasts or listen to Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC podcasts.