Global News Podcast - Hospitals out of action and shelters across Lebanon are full

Episode Date: October 5, 2024

Four hospitals in southern Lebanon are out of action and the United Nations says that shelters for displaced people are full. Also: gang violence in Haiti kills at least 70 people and are you ready for smart glasses?

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. Life and death were two very realistic co-existing possibilities in my life. I didn't even think I'd make it to like my 16th birthday, to be honest. I grew up being scared of who I was. Any one of us at any time can be affected by mental health and addictions. Just taking that first step makes a big difference.

It's the hardest step. But CAMH was there from the beginning. Everyone deserves better mental health care. To hear more stories of recovery, visit camh.ca. 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. This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Alex Ritson, and in early hours of Saturday the 5th of October these are our main stories. From Lebanon to northern Israel to Iran we report on the conflict convulsing the Middle East as Israel prepares to attack its arch enemy. The United Nations has said that at least 70 people are now known to have been killed in a gang attack in Haiti. We hear from the widow of a Donald Trump supporter who died protecting her and their children at the rally where the Republican was shot.

Also in this podcast. Their name, photos of them online, home addresses, phone numbers and a bunch of other personal information like what they do for work just by looking at them on the street. Are you ready for smart glasses? As Iran braces itself for Israel's retaliation following Tuesday's missile attack, President Biden has said that he's trying to discourage Israel from hitting oil facilities and that it's yet to decide how to respond. Meanwhile, the war in Lebanon grinds on, with Israel continuing its unrelenting offensive against Hezbollah, which, with the support of Tehran, has been firing rockets into northern Israel

for the past year. On Friday morning, an Israeli airstrike cut a key route with Syria. The Masnar crossing has been used by thousands of refugees who've been fleeing the bombing by Israel, which has insisted that it's attacking Hezbollah targets. From southern Lebanon, our senior international correspondent, Orla Guerin, sent this report. An escape route from Lebanon, now passable just by foot. Israel bombed the road overnight, claiming Hezbollah was smuggling weapons beneath it. Most of those struggling across this border are Syrians, escaping Lebanon's war to go home to their own. Who wouldn't want to escape this? Beirut, another massive Israeli strike, one mile from the airport.

The target, the likely next leader of Hezbollah. His fate, unknown. Hezbollah's two, but from its backer Iran, a massive show of strength. The Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, making a rare appearance in person at Friday prayers. He said Iran's missile attacks on Israel this week were fully legal and legitimate and would be repeated if necessary. In Lebanon, Israeli strikes are on repeat. This is in the south. Was there a Hezbollah target here?

We don't know. But locals say Israel killed five people from one family, including two women and a baby. Hassan Mana was here outside his coffee shop when the airstrike killed his neighbours at the weekend. Two missiles came. I saw the first one landing. I was thrown and the second missile sent me flying again, me and the guys. Now I'm terrified if I hear this sound.

Hassan insists there were no weapons stored nearby and all the dead were civilians. It's not right. It's not right at all. I wish I'd died with him. In Lebanon now, many are lost and weary and fear this war may be just beginning. So we're just hearing explosions now. That's the sound of outgoing fire.

That's rockets being fired from quite close by Hezbollah targeting Israeli positions. A whole stream of rockets being fired now. Israel has released footage of its troops on Lebanese soil, apparently advancing. But the invaders may face a hard fight here, as happened in the past. And how will the Middle East look on the day after? Few would dare to guess.

Orla Geren. Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese civilians have fled their homes and in some cases are living on the streets to try to avoid Israeli airstrikes. According to the state news agency, four hospitals in the south are out of action. More than 1,200 people have been killed in Lebanon in the past few weeks, most of them civilians. I got the latest from our correspondent in Beirut, Lina Sinjeb. It's a fear and worries by the minute and by the hour. I mean, as I'm talking to you, I can hear the drone, you know, hovering over the sky. And that's, you know, nonstop's a nonstop sound that people here in Beirut hear and worry about where the next strike is going to happen. A strike after the other every night is a sleepless night with more bombardment and more attacks by the Israelis here in southern Beirut or sometimes even in central Beirut. And people are constantly in fear of what's going to happen next.

You know, there is a huge demand on hospitals, on injured people needing care, and there is shortage of medicine as well and shortages of supplies. So it's really a country in crisis and there is a huge call for international support. And then this statement from the United Nations that all 900 shelters for displaced people in Lebanon are full. Not only the shelters, I mean, around me in the area I'm living, every empty building is filled there with displaced people. Every apartment is housing, you know, families of the displaced, whoever has a friend or has a relative is housing in their home. It's a huge demand and the capacity of the country is stretched.

People are running to the mountains. Wherever there is an empty space, people are staying in and those who are not able to go into, you know, rental or hotels or pay for their own accommodation are going into shelters. And the problem is the numbers are on the rise every single day with further strikes against, you know, different areas in southern Lebanon or here in Beirut. Lina Sinjab. Israel has said that it believes 250 Hezbollah fighters have been killed in combat since its ground operation began on Monday night.

Nine Israeli soldiers are confirmed to have been killed, while the army has said that a drone launched from Iraq has killed two soldiers in northern Israel. On Friday, Israeli forces met fresh resistance as they continued what they described as a limited and targeted incursion to destroy Hezbollah infrastructure along the border. Our Middle East correspondent Lucy Williamson reports from the Israeli side of the border with Lebanon, close to where clashes have been reported and sirens have been heard. Hezbollah rockets are no longer a response to Israeli troops in Gaza, but to Israeli troops at home, mapping their path through Lebanon's border villages.

We're starting to see more signs of resistance to Israeli forces on the other side of the border. Even a year of airstrikes, intelligence operations, raids by special forces have not destroyed Hezbollah's ability to fight back just a few miles in. We've just heard some bursts of small arms fire and what sounded like some grenades from the Israeli army. And now you can hear the sirens are going off, telling us to get out of the area. We've just heard a series of very loud explosions, what seems to be rockets landing nearby, some small arms fire across the border.

It seems the Israeli army is pushing in to a location. And this was the response. Most of the residents along this border have been evacuated. Come on, time to go. But in the Arab-Israeli town of Jish, a few miles down the road, many people have stayed. The sound of Israeli artillery firing from the hill above. The mayor is one of many here with family ties to Lebanon. Israel's ground war has sparked mixed emotions, he says. It's more than afraid.

Afraid is something for just a few minutes. We have one year of afraid. I don't know how to say it, but it's a fear for a long time. And they don't know when, how, how it will finish. This is Israel's third ground war in Lebanon. So far, those wars have been easier to start than to end. Lucy Williamson. South America has recorded more wildfires than ever this year, with hundreds of thousands across the continent. In 2024, more than 62,000 square kilometres of the Brazilian Amazon has burned,

an area bigger than countries including Sri Lanka or Costa Rica. Most of the blazes are started criminally, but they've been exacerbated by Brazil's worst drought on record. Our South America correspondent, Ione Wells, went to visit Amazonian communities trying to cope with the impact of the fires. It was burning more than 15 days. Imagine that it is your home, the place you live, that's on fire. That's the very real situation for the indigenous community of Caichito.

If these fires continue, we'll no longer have life. Raimondinha Rodrigues da Souza is the chief of the local indigenous fire brigade team that's been trying to put out fires here. Because today it is killing the plants. In a while it will be us because we inhale so much. It is a very aggressive fire that really kills everything that comes its way. When we arrive at the scene and monitor the area to see where it started, we know whether it was arson. Because we find a bottle, often a bottle of gasoline, a match tip. As we speak, she spots smoke emerging from some of the trees behind us,

a sign another criminal fire has been started. We're with the fire brigade team now and they've found a fire. It's a small one but it's certainly significant. Some of the flames have risen up the trees, spread across the ground. There are whole trees on the floor blackened to charcoal and the ground underfoot is basically reduced to white powder. They're trying now to put out the fire before it spreads any further. These fires are a disaster, but not a natural one. In most cases, the match was lit by a human.

Loggers, miners, farmers clearing land. In many cases, illegally, you can see big fields, piles of logs everywhere on the side of the road here. Many argue it's a waste to leave so much land protected rather than productive. Doris Marluis Barufi is a farmer. He's legally owned land here for many years, but he explained why there's been such a boom in farming in the Amazon. I think it is due to the growth of the population that has increased planting up here. It rained well here. I believe if you are working within the law, there is no problem here.

It is a place that provides food. It is a state that can produce a lot. So I think there is still a lot of area to be cultivated here in Amazonas. These fires might be started by humans, but they're made worse by a record drought in Brazil that is turning the forest into a tinderbox. Every day, people like João Mendoza have to collect water from parts of the river where there is still some and bring it to their community where there isn't. It's the worst drought I've ever seen in my entire life. João and others are carrying huge heavy bottles of water on their backs, walking far in the baking sun, barefoot across what would have been the riverbed of the Madeira River, a tributary of the Amazon. Now though, the ground

is very, very dry, covered in huge cracks. There's absolutely no water to be seen here. The impact on local communities here is really obvious, but this matters more widely for the whole world too. The world relies on the Amazon to absorb a lot of its carbon. Just looking at the sky here, covered in smoke, it's now emitting record amounts itself. Ione Wells. Now Now to the United States. Hi, ma'am. Wait, are you Betsy? Oh, OK. I think I think I met you through like the Cambridge Community Foundation, right? Yeah, yeah. It's great to meet you. I'm Kane. Are we ready for a

world where our personal information is exposed at a glance? That's the question posed by two students at Harvard University who've created technology that allows a pair of smart glasses to use facial recognition to almost instantly reveal information about the person you're looking at. Meta, which owns Facebook, has partnered with the luxury sunglasses brand Ray-Ban to make a line of glasses that allow you to take photos and videos, listen to music, make calls and live stream to its platforms. But Anfu Nguyen and Kane Ardefio modified them to allow a single image to be used to access a vast amount of data online, as they told my colleague Leila Nathu. So me and Kane basically built this

software that from a picture of anyone's face can extract their name, photos of them online, home addresses, phone numbers, and a bunch of other personal information like what they do for work just by looking at them on the street. And I guess like we used smart glasses, which we had on hand. But I guess like the main interesting part of the project, which is the identifying from someone's face, could be done on just like any old phone or device. Yeah. It was software that you created on top of the hardware, which is the MetaGlasses. How easy was it to use the glasses with this bit of software? It took a little bit of creative hacking.

They had to do a couple like engineering tricks to get the camera feed. But after that, it was pretty smooth sailing. I wonder if you've had since you've made this public and, you know, I've seen the video where you sort of try this out on people on your campus and strangers on the underground. And it's obviously quite scary in a way uh that they could be instantly recognized like this have you had any approaches since you made it known that you had developed this capability yeah quite a few i mean and i mean a lot of people have asked to buy this software to like as a networking tool or for their other

interests but our like policy to everyone is that we're not releasing any of the code we're not releasing this in any way I mean but I wonder how you feel about it because I think some people listening to this might think this is a future that I've been imagining fearing hoping for and suddenly it's here that you can put on a pair of glasses scan whoever's in front of you and know exactly everything about them i would say like it's obviously a very fair worry um but governments slash companies have had this technology since 2011 or maybe even before i would also say like it's extremely expensive to index the entire internet of faces

and link those to articles, which is the kind of part of the crux of how we can do this. So if you can remove yourself off of a few of the websites we linked in our Google Doc, in our write-up, then you can basically protect yourself

from this ever happening to you. Anfu Nguyen speaking to Leila Nathu. Still to come in this podcast. You don't like it? No. You don't like it? You don't like it? No, I don't like it.

$75 per bite. Cookies. That is disgusting. Crumblegate, the cookie store that really takes the biscuit. Life and death were two very realistic coexisting possibilities in my life. I didn't even think I'd make it to like my 16th birthday, to be honest. I grew up being scared of who I was. Any one of us at any time can be affected by mental health and addictions.

Just taking that first step makes a big difference. It's the hardest step. But CAMH was there from the beginning. Everyone deserves better mental health care. To hear more stories of recovery, visit CAMH.ca. 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. The United Nations has said that at least 70 people are now known to have been killed in a gang attack in Haiti on Thursday. The UN's Human Rights Office blamed the Grand Griffe gang for the rampage in the central town of Pont-Sonde. With more, here's Rowan Bridge. The attack by the Grand Griffe gang was condemned by Haiti's Prime Minister Gary Kniell as an odious crime against defenceless men, women and children. In an audio message, Grand Grif's leader, Luxon

Elan, blamed the state and victims for the attack. Elan, who was sanctioned by the UN last month, accused residents of remaining passive while his soldiers were killed by police or vigilante groups. Violence in Haiti has led to more than 700,000 people being internally displaced. At the same time, the country faces a hunger crisis. Rowan Bridge. It's not so long ago that Donald Trump and the governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, also a Republican, were at daggers drawn, principally over Mr Trump's attempt to reverse the result in Georgia in the 2020 presidential election. The Democrats and Joe Biden won. But elections can make for strange bedfellows.

And on Friday, Mr Trump was in Georgia seeking votes ahead of next month's presidential election. Georgia is one of the states trying to recover after Hurricane Helene at the weekend. Among those enjoying the spectacle of the two political silverbacks trying not to spar was our correspondent Anthony Zerker in Washington. I asked him why Mr. Trump was visiting. Georgia is a battleground state. So the purpose was to show his face in Georgia during the time of suffering and crisis after the hurricane tore through there.

It's to show that he cares about Georgians, to make a connection with prospective voters, and just to be a presence there. I mean, the purpose of the trip itself was to assess the damage, to meet with Brian Kemp, and to see what sort of resources were being directed by the state and by the federal government. So did they look friendly? They looked cordial.

I don't know if there was a whole lot of charisma oozing both ways between the two men. They did shake hands. They did offer praise of each other. Trump, as you heard, said that Kemp was doing a fantastic job. Kemp, as he was leaving the stage, was asked a question, and he said that he had a good relationship with Donald Trump. It is noteworthy, however, that Brian Kemp did not stick around to take questions from the media. He exited as soon as the formal part of the event was over. Donald Trump stayed behind to talk to reporters. What should we read into that? Well, I think it's that the governor does not want to talk about his relations with Donald Trump beyond just that one throwaway line he used as he was leaving, because there is, as you mentioned, a history

between the two men. And Brian Kemp has been very critical of Donald Trump and Donald Trump's continued unwillingness to accept the results of the 2020 election and to say that the vote in Georgia was somehow fraudulent or stolen from him. So I don't think he wanted to have to deal with any of those questions or questions more recently about Donald Trump's criticism of the federal response to the hurricane, which Brian Kemp has praised. Yeah, because they were taking some quite different views on that earlier this week, weren't they? They were. Donald Trump had called into question whether Joe Biden and Brian Kemp ever spoke after the hurricane. That's something that prompted an

angry response in the Oval Office from President Biden saying he didn't know why Donald Trump was lying like that, but he does it all the time. And Brian Kemp came out and said that he had spoken with Joe Biden and that the federal response was good. But once again today, during that questioning time with reporters, Donald Trump said that the response from the federal government has been terrible and that he would do a much better job taking care of Georgians if and when he becomes president. Anthony Zerker. It was three months ago that Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt at an election rally near Butler, Pennsylvania, but two people in the crowd sustained life-altering injuries and one man, Corey Campator, a 50-year-old volunteer firefighter, died while shielding his wife and daughters. Corey's widow Helen has spoken with our Washington correspondent Gary O'Donoghue about her husband and her loss. Corey was very quiet. He was always very straight faced and serious but he was so sweet and kind

he did anything for his community he loved his kids his kids were everything to him wonderful husband how did you guys meet? in school we

went to school together since kindergarten. So I've known Corey my whole life, pretty much. So you really were sweethearts from the very beginning? Yeah. Yeah. A friend as well as a husband? Best friends. And what was weird was the day before he was killed my youngest daughter picked pulled out

his senior photo that he had given to me and on the back he had written that I was his best thanked me for being his best friend and he actually teared up and looked at me and said thank you for being my best friend so it was just kind of weird that we had that moment you know the day before and what was his what were his passions what did he care about he's very passionate about his people under his roof everything was about his family under his roof. Everything was about his family under his roof. He was very passionate about God and, you know, things like that. And he loved Trump. How do you feel about the day itself now?

It's so raw and so recent. Is it something you can think about, or do you find it hard to? No, I think about or do you find it hard to? No, I think about it every day. I see it every time I close my eyes and probably will for a long time. So now I ask that we observe a moment of silence in honor of our friend, Corey. All day,

Corey kept saying, guys, I have to sit on the end over here because he's going to call me on stage and I have to be able to get down. He's going to say, Corey, I need you, bud. It's time for you to come up here. And it was like the joke all day. So,

you know, obviously then he was killed. And then I just cried because, you know, I said he got his moment on stage with Trump. So, you know, it was kind of like a nice moment, but it was a sad moment at the same time. But it must have made you proud. It did did do you feel angry about losing him yeah oh yeah very yep

I'm angry because there were a lot of mistakes made that day and it didn't have to it didn't have to happen. Didn't have to happen. Gary O'Donoghue with that report. And just a reminder that we're doing a special Q&A podcast on the US presidential election in a couple of weeks. So if you have a question you'd like to put to our AmeriCast colleagues in Washington, then please send us an email to globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk or tweet us at globalnewspod. And thanks to those who've already sent in voice notes.

Paul Watson, a veteran anti-whaling campaigner who's featured in the reality television show Whale Wars, has been in prison in Greenland for more than two months as he waits for a decision on whether he'll be extradited to Japan. He was taken into police custody in July after his ship docked in Greenland, a Danish autonomous territory. Mr Watson's case has attracted international attention with the former French film star and animal rights activist Brigitte Bardot

calling on Denmark not to allow his extradition. Japan's foreign minister Takashi Iwea has made a rare statement about Tokyo's international arrest warrant, as Sophie Smith reports. The Japanese authorities have so far said very little in public about their arrest warrant for Paul Watson. So it came as a surprise when the Foreign Minister, Takeshi Iwaya, commented on the case at a news conference on Friday. Japan is requesting the Danish government to extradite the suspect, Paul Watson.

We regard it as an issue of law enforcement at sea rather than a whaling issue. This is the third month of detention for the anti-whaling activist who was arrested by Greenlandic police in July while stopping on the island to refuel his ship. He's wanted by the Japanese authorities on charges dating back to more than 10 years when they say he damaged a Japanese whaling ship and attacked its crew. This week, a court in the Danish territory extended his detention for a further three weeks as the authorities continue to mull Japan's extradition request. Greenland still allows the hunting of some whales.

Known for his marine conservation charity, Sea Shepherd, which confronts whaling ships, the Canadian-American has denied all charges. I didn't do anything to warrant this. It's a minor charge. And if what they charge you with was done here in Greenland, you're 1,500 prone to crime. So there's no justification for what they're doing. This is a political retribution. One of Mr Watson's lawyers, Julie Stage, said they had not been allowed to submit evidence in his defence. More than 100,000 people have signed a petition calling for Mr Watson's release, including the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the actor, Pierce Brosnan. Sophie Smith. Finally, a doughy drama in Australia labelled Cookie Controversy and Crumblegate.

Last weekend, people in Sydney were given a chance at a pop-up stall to try a crumble cookie, a famous cookie brand that's only sold in the US. Hundreds waited in line for hours to get their hands on them, but all was not as it seemed, as the BBC's Hannah Ritchie in Sydney explained. It was marketed across social media. It got a lot of attention. It attracted hundreds of people who were snaked down a commercial block here to try and get a sample. And then it quickly emerged that it was not all as it seemed, to say the least.

The cookies were not officially imported by the brand. Instead, it was a group of enterprising Australians who had flown to Hawaii to buy a few hundred of these tasty treats and then bring them back in suitcases. I know that they encountered some flight issues and ended up that they were storing these cookies for a few days longer than they'd previously planned. So by the time they had set up shop here, the cookies were several days old and the people, most of them influencers and foodies who'd lined up to taste them, were actually biting into very stale, hardened, just awful kind of rancid treats, and a lot of them were live vlogging their reactions. $17 for one cookie.

Actually very bad. It's so sweet. The texture's just weird. You don't like it? No. You don't like it? You don't like it? No, I don't like it.

$75 for five cookies. That is disgusting. The cookie brand has quickly distanced themselves and made it clear that this was not an affiliated store. There's been a lot of people on social media quick to point the finger and say that anyone that's willing to spend $17.50 on a cookie deserves to be scammed. But at the end of the day, most people have a lot of sympathy. Hannah Ritchie, the Sydney organisers have released a statement saying we apologise that

they didn't live up to expectations. However, they are just cookies at the end of the day. And that's all from us for now. But there'll be a new edition of the Global News Podcast later. If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email. The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X at Global News Pod. This edition was mixed by Masood Ibrahimkhal

and the producer was Daniel Mann. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Alex Ritson. Until next time, goodbye. Life and death were two very realistic coexisting possibilities in my life. I didn't even think I'd make it to, my 16th birthday, to be honest. I grew up being scared of who I was. Any one of us at any time can be affected by mental health and addictions. Just taking that first step makes a big difference. It's the hardest step. But CAMH was there from the beginning.

Everyone deserves better mental health care. To hear more stories of recovery, visit CAMH was there from the beginning. Everyone deserves better mental health care. To hear more stories of recovery, visit CAMH.ca. 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.