Global News Podcast - Gaza peace deal still in the balance after Blinken ends trip to region

Episode Date: August 21, 2024

The US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, said there was no more time to waste to reach a Gaza ceasefire deal. Also: Africa's main public health agency announces plans to make 10m mpox vaccines available for use across the continent, and researchers say drone swarms could stop wildfires.

Hello, this is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service, with reports and analysis from across the world. The latest news seven days a week. BBC World Service podcasts are supported by advertising. 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 Thank you. Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC Podcasts. This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Chris Barrow, and in the early hours of Wednesday, the 21st of August, these are our main stories.

The US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, has ended his tour of the Middle East with the prospect of a Gaza peace deal still in the balance. Africa's main public health agency has announced plans to make 10 million mpox vaccines available for use across the continent. The first flight has taken off as part of a US-funded scheme to return migrants from Panama to Colombia to stop them travelling on to the United States. Also in the podcast... They hold the ice lolly in their hand for too long, it's going to start United States. Also in the podcast... They hold the ice in their hand for too long, it's going to start to melt. We are really advocating for

lots of different essential experiences. Scientists in the UK say there should be a new way of teaching science in schools with a focus on real life. We begin in the Middle East and the United States is pushing for a ceasefire deal with new urgency as political pressure mounts on the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Standing in front of a US Air Force plane at an airport in the Qatari capital Doha as he ended his ninth visit to the region since the Israel-Gaza war began, the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken stressed that a ceasefire deal must get done in the coming days. With our partners in Egypt and Qatar, our message is simple, it's clear and it's urgent.

We need to get the ceasefire and hostage agreement over the finish line and we need to do it now. Time is of the essence. Time is of the essence because with every passing day, the well-being and lives of the hostages Time is of the essence because with every passing day, the well-being and lives of the hostages are in jeopardy. Time is of the essence because every single day, women, children, men in Gaza are suffering without access to adequate food, medicine, and at risk of being wounded or dying in fighting that they didn't start and they cannot stop. And time is of the essence because with every passing day there's the danger of escalation in the region, escalation that we've been working to prevent from day one since October 7th.

With Egypt and with Qatar, we're united in purpose and united in action. We're working in our different ways to try to ensure that there is not escalation, sending the necessary messages to all of the potential actors, including Iran and including Hezbollah, to avoid taking any steps that could escalate the conflict. The United States does not accept any long-term occupation of Gaza by Israel. More specifically, the agreement is very clear on the schedule and the locations of IDF withdrawals from Gaza, and Israel has agreed to that. Gaza is in many ways the key to making sure that we can actually move things in the north, in Lebanon and Hezbollah, in a better direction. It's the key to helping make sure that we

can take down the temperature in the Red Sea with the Houthis. It's the key to seeing if we can pursue a normalization agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia, which both countries remain very interested in. It's the key to actually putting everyone, starting with Israel, on a path to greater peace and security. And of course, it's key to getting the hostages home. Earlier, a senior Biden administration official pushed back at reported comments by the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, accusing him of making maximalist statements that were not constructive. In Israel itself, the opposition leader, Yair Lapid, called for an immediate ceasefire

and accused Mr Netanyahu of trying to scupper current negotiations. Mr Lapid said a deal was needed before all the hostages died. I spoke to our correspondent in Jerusalem, Wira Davis. This is the overriding concern for most Israelis, if not all Israelis. While they might support some of their government's war aims in Gaza, what they do want is a peace deal because they think that's the best way of getting the remaining hostages freed. This has been a theme for the last few months. Every night in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, other Israeli cities, there are protests calling on the government to do more to release the hostages. They're not convinced that Mr Netanyahu's priority is the hostages. They think his priority

is what he calls a total victory over Hamas first and foremost. And the fact that six hostages, they think his priority is what he calls a total victory over Hamas first and foremost. And the fact that six hostages' bodies have been returned to Israel today is another reminder to the families of the remaining hostages that, you know, that time is running out for them. I'm guessing those families are calling for more to be done, as you might imagine. Absolutely. A lot of people, perhaps internationally and domestically, think that Netanyahu's aims are these military aims. And he, of course, is supported by people he needs in his government. He's got far right wing ministers who don't want to be talking to Hamas. They don't want to be talking to anybody really until what they regard as a total military

victory when Hamas is completely defeated and crushed. There are dissenters in his own government. His own defence minister said last week that a total military victory is nonsense. You cannot completely defeat Hamas. You have to make compromises and perhaps achieve a peace deal without having achieved that goal. And that, I think, is what more and more people in Israel would like Mr Netanyahu to do. Now, Antony Blinken has been meeting presidents to try and get this resolved. How much progress is he making on the diplomatic front? It's really difficult to say because when Mr. Blinken left Israel, he seemed to have got some sort of tacit agreement from Mr. Netanyahu to agree to the next stages before, you know, talking about a peace deal. But then Mr. Netanyahu

seems to have told a domestic audience in Israel today that Israel will retain control over southern parts of Gaza, which is one of the key points for Hamas. Maybe some of his entourage have been somewhat disappointed by what Mr Netanyahu is maybe saying in public and what he's saying in private. But of course, last night when Mr Blinken left Israel, he made it clear that he expected Hamas now to agree to some sort of bridging agreement which would lead, allow peace talks to continue in Cairo on Friday. The problem is that most observers on the ground look at the real politika of continuing Israeli military operations in Gaza and also in southern Lebanon, continuing Hamas intransigence. And the realistic prospects for a peace deal and the release of hostages,

I still think are very, very slim. We're at Davis in Jerusalem. Now to Russia, where President Vladimir Putin has a message for the people involved in Ukraine's incursion into the Kursk region. He was speaking at an event commemorating the 2004 Buslan school siege when more than 300 people were killed. The same way we fought terrorists previously, now we fight those who commit crimes in Kursk region. But just as we achieved our goals in the fight against terrorism,

so we will achieve our goals in the fight against neo-Nazism. And we will certainly punish the criminals. There can be no doubt about that. Ukraine says it's destroyed the main three bridges over the river Seim in the past two weeks. them. And we will certainly punish the criminals. There can be no doubt about that. Ukraine says it's destroyed the main three bridges over the River Seym in the past two weeks. Russia's latest bulletin says it's now evacuating people with civilian boats. At the same time, Ukraine's parliament has voted to ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which has historic links to Russia, further rejecting Russian cultural and spiritual influence. I spoke to our Russia editor at BBC Monitoring, Vitaly Shevchenko, and I began by asking him about developments in the Kursk region. The latest we have is from the Ukrainian top general,

who says that the Ukrainian forces are up to 35 kilometres deep in Russia's Kursk region, and they control 1,263 square kilometres of land, including 93 settlements. Now, why am I giving you these numbers? This is 13 square kilometres more and one settlement more than yesterday. So the bottom line is that they're making slow marginal gains. On the political front, Ukrainian parliament has passed this bill, which bans religious organisations, I think with connections to Russia, and confusingly, one called the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. We know that it supports the so-called special military operation, which it calls Holy War. It supports Vladimir Putin. That's why its branch or affiliate that used to exist in Ukraine openly and officially is seen as an agent of Russian influence.

Now, this church, which slightly confusingly is called the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, since the start of this invasion is saying, I don't know, we've distanced ourselves from Moscow, we've got nothing to do with Moscow. The Ukrainian government doesn't quite believe it. They say that they're still linked to Russia. That's why this bill targets any religious organisations linked to Russia. Has there been any reaction from Russia to this new law being passed, this bill? They are not amused.

The Russian foreign ministry's spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, she posted a statement by Grigory Krasin, a member of the Russian parliament's upper house, who says that this is a shameful blow against the Ukrainian people's historical tradition and it's part of a policy to destroy the Ukraine we loved and thought of as a brotherly nation. Vitaly Shevchenko. It's often difficult to get a picture of the wars that we report on. For example, access to Myanmar is denied by the authorities, the same in Gaza.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is different, but when Ukraine stages an incursion into Russia, access is rarer. Nana Heitman is a freelance photographer from Germany who's worked in Russia since 2019 and has just gone on assignment for the Magnum photo agency and has unusually gained access to Kursk, the region now under Ukrainian occupation. Tim Franks asked her what stories she's heard from people affected by the incursion. Mainly I met a lot of people who are extremely angry, like they are like under shock, they are angry, like a lot of people wait, thousands of people waiting in lines to find shelter,

to find like basic needs like blankets, pillows, etc. And yeah, but like when talking more to different people, I also like encountered a lot of different voices. Like sometimes people would shout at me thinking that I'm like from the state TV and would say like, go to Sucha, that's the city which is currently under Ukrainian control, and tell us again that everything is under control, that nothing is happening, go there and see yourself. So that was obviously pointed towards like state media who have been presenting that the situation isn't that as bad as it's actually. That's quite revealing in itself that people were, as you say, angry. I mean, obviously, if you're sort of suddenly displaced, suddenly forced to flee your home, people are

going to be out of sorts, they're going to be disconcerted. But it is, of course, pretty rare in Russia to hear people openly expressing their disquiet. And yet, you got a sense that they were prepared to do so. Yeah, yeah. I mean, like I met people who are displaced people who feel even more like their narrative, their state narrative confirmed that they are fighting against NATO, that like now that they are under attack by the Ukrainians, that this is even like why the special military, so-called special military operation is taking place. And the fact that now German tanks are entering Russian territory kind of for them confirms like the state narrative that this is a war with NATO.

But I also met a lot of other voices who were far more critical, like one soldier who said he was expecting this for a long time, since it's like just strategically a really important place, Kursk, the nuclear power plant, and so on. Others were pointing a lot of anger also on the Ministry of Defense or the local authorities, accusing them while they failed to prevent the incursion, how they could not realize troops forming up on the Russian border, while others blame it on the corruption that is happening in the Ministry of Defense.

Almost all people I talked to, they evacuated on their own. Others who didn't have the chances to leave by car, for example, they are stuck now in and there's no contact to their relatives. And clearly all this happened, you know, very, very quickly. The Ukrainians managed to spring this surprise and managed to make considerable advances. Did you get a sense that the authorities, you know, by the time you were there, that they, yes, they had failed to prevent the incursion, but were they now responding to the sort of the humanitarian need? Did you get

a sense that that was being properly looked after? Yeah, definitely. I mean, there's like a lot of shelters popping up, like people are distributed all over Russia. But also like we spoke like to people from NGOs, for example, who would say that most people anyway, they plan to stay in Kursk because still everyone has like the hope that they can return soon back to their homes. So still, it's like a humanitarian catastrophe with like a lot of people arriving, but there's like 120,000 people apparently who are already displaced who were evacuated. Can I ask, you were working, I mean, obviously not for state media,

and you were operating independently in Russia in a very, very sort of sensitive region on a very sensitive story. Did you feel sort of worried at all about that side of things? I mean, it's like counter-terrorist regime now. That means like you require special accreditation to get to Kursk or to be able to work in Kursk. And there are a lot of controls by the police, but like having the accreditation basically permits you to move around freely in the city and you can talk without having a mind. I think everyone is nervous, but like I think all journalists who are still working in Russia, we all take as many preventive measures as we can take. And there's always a risk. The photojournalist Nana Heitman.

Africa's main public health agency says it has a plan to make 10 million mpox vaccines available for use across the continent. The centre of the current outbreak is in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where more than 16,000 mpox cases have been recorded this year, as well as 570 deaths. The first doses are expected to arrive there next week, following donations from the US and Japan. Our Africa regional editor Will Ross reports. The head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control said ensuring there are 10 million mpox vaccines in Africa by the end of the year was not just a lofty dream. Jean Cassea said it

was achievable thanks to an important agreement that had been reached with the Danish company Bavarian Nordic. He said it would allow African manufacturers to use the same technology to produce the mpox doses locally. The hope is this will bring down the cost but not the quality. It'll also help avoid a repeat of the problem the continent faced during the Covid-19 pandemic, when countries were relying on handouts from wealthier nations.

That was Will Ross. Still to come... They use their own intelligence, for example, if they've seen a fire, to coordinate. And so that means each robot is running its own intelligence and can, as a result, do its own search. Could drones operating in swarms like bees put out wildfires around the world? 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-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. Last year alone, it's estimated that more than half a million undocumented migrants made their way on foot across a stretch of jungle called the Darien Gap from South America to Panama

before trying to head north. People crossing the southern border into the United States is a key campaign issue in the upcoming US presidential election, which is why the US is paying for Panama to deport people back to their home countries rather than allowing them to continue onto the US border. The first of those flights took off on Tuesday. Closing the route through the Darien Gap was also a key campaign promise of Panama's recently elected President José Raúl Molino. Our Online America's editor, Vanessa Bush Bush-Luter updated me on developments.

The latest is that a flight took off in the early hours of this morning Panamanian time with a group of 29 Colombians on board and what Panamanian officials have said is that these Colombians were chosen because they had criminal records. So there was a sense of urgency in sending them back to their home country. Tell us about the route that people are taking. We mentioned the Darien Gap. What is it like? It's a vast expanse of jungle, about 100 kilometres or 60 miles wide, where there are no roads. So migrants who want to go from South America to Central America and on to the United States, which is, of course, the aim, but also because criminal gangs control many of these routes, of these paths across the rainforest, and they demand high payments. And there's also huge and shocking amounts of sexual violence against women in that area.

And you've mentioned Colombians, but it's hundreds of thousands of people. Where else are they coming from, apart from Colombia? The biggest share currently is Venezuelans who are escaping the political and economic crisis in their homeland. And that number could, of course, increase massively because there have just been elections held in Venezuela. The result of that election is very disputed. The Electoral Council, which is controlled by the government, declared the incumbent President Maduro the winner. And many people had said to pollsters before the election that if President Maduro were to win, they would leave the country. And so that stream of Venezuelan migrants could just explode. Then there's also Ecuadorians who are fleeing the gang violence there, Haitians who are also fleeing the situation

in their country, where gang violence is also rampant. But there's also people from as far away as China, and also some African countries who fly to South America where often they don't need visas to land and then they make their way on foot north in the hope of reaching the United States. Vanessa Buschluter. A federal court in Germany has confirmed the conviction of a former concentration camp typist for aiding and abetting mass murder. Jessica Parker reports from Berlin. Now 99 years of age, Irmgard Furkner worked for the Stutthof concentration camp commander during the last two years of World War II. Some 65,000 people, including Jewish prisoners, Poles and captured Soviet soldiers, are thought to have died at the Nazi camp, which was located near the modern-day Polish city of Gdansk. Federal judges rejected arguments from Furkner's legal team that her involvement didn't

go beyond everyday neutral activities as a typist. Their decision is final and upholds a two-year suspended sentence that was handed down in 2022 in a case that's considered as possibly the last of its kind. Jessica Parker. A Holocaust survivor, Josef Salamonevic, said that seeing justice done, even after almost 80 years, was meaningful. It's incredibly important, not only for today but for the future. It's incredibly important because the people who survived this will not be around for much longer.

Next to Italy, and the authorities say there'll be no let-up in the search for six people missing after a luxury yacht sank off the coast of Sicily. Divers are assessing how they can get better access into the wreck of the Bayesian. Those missing include the British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch, his 18-year-old daughter Hannah and four others. 15 other people on board were rescued, among them Mr Lynch's wife, who owns the yacht. Our correspondent Mark Lowen sent this report from Porticello in Sicily. In cloudy skies and on choppy waters, the search has gone on all day, a helicopter scouring the site where the Bayesian capsized as divers plunged deep below. They're trying to access the wreckage of the superyacht

that was hit by a tornado-like water spout and is now 150 feet underwater. Given the depth, each dive can only be 10 minutes, and with the boat still largely intact, it's hard to get access inside. Once they do, they expect to find the bodies of the missing. Today, the British ambassador to Italy visited some of the 15 survivors who had clambered into a life raft to be rescued. He told the BBC of the anguish he heard. It goes without saying that, you know, what I've heard underlines what a desperately sad and distressing situation they all found themselves in, and find themselves in.

And, you know, my heart and all my colleagues, and I'm sure indeed the whole country, goes out to them. British investigators are now here to assess what happened during the extreme weather that hit the Bayesian. Severe heat and violent storms had prompted a weather alert before the yacht went down, and Carsten Borner, the captain who rescued the survivors, said conditions were ripe for disaster. The water is, since weeks, more than 30 degrees, which is way too hot for the Mediterranean, and this causes, for sure,

heavy storms. Tonight the search goes on, but any hope of a Mediterranean miracle survival has all but vanished. Mark Lowen. Over the last year we've become used to pictures of wildfires around the world. There have been outbreaks in countries from Greece, Italy and Spain to Tunisia and Canada, in many cases causing human casualties as well as massive environmental and economic damage. Scientists have warned that the wildfires have become more frequent and more widespread. Nearly 12 million hectares globally, an area roughly the size of Nicaragua, burned in 2023. Against this background, there may be a new way to tackle these kinds of fires.

Drones have many uses, but you may not have heard of this one, working together in swarms to put out flames before they become wildfires. A team of firefighters, scientists and engineers are working on a project they say will allow swarms of up to 30 autonomous planes to spot and extinguish fires by working collectively using artificial intelligence. The research is still in the test phase but BBC reporter Harriet Bradshaw has been to see the technology in north-west England. I've been in the fire service 28 years, but we've never had the sort of major fires that we've had recently.

I'm Mark Cookson. I work for Lancashire Fire and Rescue Team and I'm one of the drone pilots. The one in 2018 was unprecedented. We were up on the moors four to six weeks. I've never experienced that in my service. Wildfires. Dangerous, vicious, most often caused by human activity. And, according to the National Fire Chiefs Council, more threatening than ever before in the UK because of climate change.

But could engineering inspired by bees, birds and ants hold some answers? So swarm engineering is all about how do you make many robots work together for real world applications. Right, so we can see one, two, three there. I'm Sabine Howard. I'm professor of swarm engineering at the University of Bristol. Here in Cornwall, a swarm of artificially intelligent firefighting drones is being tested for the first time with the goal of detecting and stopping wildfires. Each robot is programmed to follow rules, and so they use their own intelligence and their own understanding of the local world of Ireland, for example, if they've seen a fire, to coordinate.

And so that means each robot is running its own intelligence and can, as a result, do its own search. A small fire is lit and within minutes the drone spots it and alerts other drones. At the moment they're just testing the swarm's ability to find fires, but the plan is for them to carry water and dampen or put them out automatically. On days where we would expect to have a wildfire event, the drones would be launched, they would be in a scanning mode, and then as soon as they identify a fire or a thermal target, fire crews can be deployed before it gets into the developed stage. So my name is Nikolai Jelav, Programme Manager for WindRaces. Nick, on the ground

it is so much bigger than I had thought. How big is this? This one is nine and a half metres, twin-engined, 100 kilos of payload capacity and 700 litres of volume. Crikey. And how many could we see in the

air tackling wildfires than in the future? So 20 of these can patrol about an area the size of California. And one day we'd expect to have hundreds or thousands patrolling high risk areas around Australia, Greece and parts of Europe and the Far East. Is wind races control Gulf, Whiskey, November, Delta, Charlie? We are looking to identify the fire for starters. But what that will enable is when you have 20 or 30 of those patrolling the skies, it would act as a deterrent for people looking to start a fire. Outside the project, it's argued this technology could be part of the answer in the future,

but only part of it, with a push for prevention, such as landscape management solutions, so destructive wildfires don't take hold in the first place. Harriet Bradshaw. Staying in Britain, four leading science bodies have urged the government to allow children to eat ice lollies as part of the school curriculum. The idea is to focus on real-life experiences as a way of reducing inequality in core subjects. Sean Dilley reports. It may sound a bit quirky, but the report says tasting ice lollies is a great way to teach young children science in a fun and relevant style. Eileen Oskin is a teacher and an education policy specialist

at the Royal Society of Chemistry. They can absolutely learn that, you know, if they hold the ice lolly in their hand for too long, it's going to start to melt. We're really advocating for lots of different essential experiences. Other suggestions for English primary schools include getting children to knead dough, visit garden centres and plant vegetables. These proposals, the authors say, are ways to make potentially complicated topics relatable to children's everyday lives and address academic inequalities. That report was from Sean Dilley. And that's all from us for now, but there will be a new edition of the Global News Podcast later on.

If you'd like to comment, though, on the topics that we're covering, do send us an email. Our address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X at Global News Pod. This edition was mixed by Zabahala Khorash. The producer was Liam McSheffrey. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Chris Ferro, and until next time, goodbye. 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-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.