Global News Podcast - Israel identifies 'Hezbollah bunker full of cash and gold' under Beirut hospital

Episode Date: October 22, 2024

Israel says it has identified a Hezbollah bunker 'full of cash and gold' under a Beirut hospital. Also: research into how clock changes in the UK affect mood, and why an airport is limiting farewell hugs.

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. This week on Witness History, in 1970, Gary Gygax was fired. And that event, believe it or not, changed the gaming industry forever. He went on to create Dungeons & Dragons. In the 50 years since its release, the tabletop roleplay game has generated billions of dollars in sales and now boasts more than 50 million players worldwide. Search and subscribe to Witness History wherever you get your BBC podcast.

You're listening to the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. Hello, I'm Oliver Conway. This edition is published in the early hours of Tuesday, the 22nd of October. Israel says it's identified a Hezbollah bunker full of cash and gold under a hospital in Beirut, but says it won't strike the hospital itself. A British police officer has been cleared of murder after he shot an unarmed black man in the head two years ago. And the world's biggest conference on biodiversity has opened in Colombia. Also in this podcast, When we experience a big disruption, like a changing of the clock or a change in our

routine, if we cope well with it, time seems to pass more quickly. And if we cope poorly with it, time seems to pass more slowly. A new study into how we cope with clock changes in the UK. Once again, the night skies above the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital Beirut have been lit up by explosions. As Israel struck targets, it said were linked to Hezbollah. One airstrike hit near Rafik Hariri Hospital, the main government medical facility, which was not one of the areas told to evacuate by Israel. According to the Lebanese Health Ministry, four people were killed, including

a child, while 24 others were wounded. The Israeli military earlier said it had identified a Hezbollah bunker concealed under a different hospital, which it said held at least half a billion dollars' worth of cash and gold. Rear Admiral Daniel Higary said the money was being used to finance Hezbollah attacks on Israel. He said Israel was monitoring the compound but wouldn't strike the hospital itself. He presented computer graphics but no hard evidence to support the claim. Hezbollah built this bunker directly underneath this hospital. There are hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and gold inside the bunker right now.

I'm calling on the Lebanese government and the international organizations. Don't allow Hezbollah to use the money to attack Israel. While the Israeli military said it hit a different underground vault containing tens of millions of dollars worth of cash and gold during its attacks on Lebanon on Sunday night. It also said Hezbollah had fired about 170 projectiles into Israel during the day on Monday.

Jackie Leonard asked our correspondent in Beirut, Emea Nader, for more details on the latest Israeli claims. The details are few that have been issued by the Israeli army spokesperson, but what they did issue was a graphic illustration of the hospital and an illustration of the bunker complex underneath it. Now, we haven't had any particular evidence besides that issued by the Israeli Army, but they say within the alleged warren of bunkers underneath this As-Sahel hospital is a large reserve of gold and money by which Hezbollah uses to fund its activities. Now, this has been

somewhat different to the usual warnings issued by the Israeli army spokesperson of an imminent airstrike and rather he said we are monitoring this and it was no clear indication was given of what the Israeli army might be going to do about it. The head of the hospital has said that the claims are untrue and it is understood that tomorrow there will be media taken around the hospital to prove the doctors' claims. And meanwhile there have been more airstrikes on Monday night, haven't there? Tonight at around 10pm the Israeli army spokesperson issued around seven warnings for neighbourhoods,

for areas in the Dahya neighbourhood of Beirut. Around 15 minutes later a series of airstrikes began hitting this neighborhood of Beirut. Around 15 minutes later, a series of airstrikes began hitting this neighborhood of Beirut, but also another neighborhood, the Al-Jannah neighborhood, which wasn't among those warnings. And one of the airstrikes appears to have hit in the vicinity of the main government hospital in the Al-Jannah neighborhood. According to local media, the building itself of the hospital wasn't hit, but the first reports indicate that people, around four people, have been killed, including a child in the strike in the neighborhood of that hospital. Our correspondent, Emir Nader, in Beirut.

Meanwhile, Israel says it has dismantled a spy network gathering intelligence for Iran. The police said seven men, all naturalised Israelis from Azerbaijan, had been arrested. Wira Davis in Jerusalem has the details. The Israeli Internal Security Agency and the police say they're part of an Iranian spy network that's been operating for more than two years. According to the Israeli police spokesman, they've undertaken more than 600 missions, notifying their Iranian handlers about sensitive military sites and also sensitive civilian installations like electricity stations and so forth. The Israelis also say that that military base in northern Israel near Haifa that was attacked in a Hezbollah

drone last week in which four people were killed. That was also among the places that had been spied on by this group. Now, it's not the first time that alleged Iranian spies have been caught in Israel. There's been six or seven instances over the last year. But of course, with this imminent Israeli military response to Iran after the Iranian missiles were fired a few weeks ago. There's increasing tension between those two sides and both accuse each other of having spies espionage and there have been arrests of Israelis in Iran and now we've had this quite significant I think arrest of seven Israelis who've been accused of spying for Iran.

We're at Davies in Jerusalem. As with much of the world, Russia has a big interest in what happens in the American presidential election in two weeks time. Donald Trump has refused to deny claims that he's had as many as seven phone calls with Vladimir Putin since leaving the White House and has boasted about having a good relationship with the Russian leader. For her part, the Democratic candidate, Kamala Harris has called President Putin a murderous dictator. But what's the view from Russia? Steve Rosenberg reports from Moscow. It was November 2016 and down at the Russian

Parliament they were handing out plastic cups and pouring champagne. The toast was to Donald Trump for winning the 2016 US election. Convinced that Russia now had a friend in the White House, ultra-nationalist MP Vladimir Zhirinovsky celebrated with 132 bottles of bubbly. True, the fizz went flat. President Trump didn't end sanctions against Russia, or recognise Crimea as part of Russia. But the Kremlin was grateful for one thing he didn't do,

and that was lecture Russia on democracy. That was the value of Trump. He never preached on human rights in Russia. Konstantin Remchukov is owner and chief editor of Russia's Nizhevisumaya Gazeta. He believes that when it comes to Donald Trump vs. Kamala Harris, Moscow is still attracted to Trump. Trump seems to be more pragmatic and lacking certain principles. And being pragmatic and without principles,

you make it easier to strike a deal. Does that include a deal on Ukraine? Do you want Ukraine to win this war? I want the war to stop. I want to save lives. In the presidential debate, Trump refused to say whether he wants Ukraine to win the war against Russia. He's also criticised the scale of US military assistance for Kiev. Moscow will have appreciated that.

But not this from Kamala Harris. Because of the air defense, the ammunition, the Abrams tanks that we have provided, Ukraine stands as an independent and free country. If Donald Trump were president, Putin would be sitting in Kiev right now. And you should hear what they've been saying about Kamala on Russian state TV. This presenter suggests that Kamala Harris would be better off hosting TV cookery shows than being in the serious business of politics. Still, politics and cooking have one thing in common. It's easy to get your fingers burnt.

Russia did in 2016 when it expected so much from the Trump presidency but received so little. Journalist Andrei Kolesnikova thinks that Moscow would be advised to keep that in mind in 2024. I think it was a great disillusionment with Trump for Putin after Trump's first term, because there was some hopes that now we should rule the world, because Trump is in our pockets. But at the same time, the worsening of the relations, it was the initiative of Trump, paradoxically, despite the chemistry between two autocratic leaders. But what does the Russian public make of America right now?

How closely is it following the US election? To find out, I head to a park opposite Moscow's Novodevichy convent. I want America to disappear, Igor tells me. It has started so many wars in the world. The US was our enemy in Soviet times, and it still is. It doesn't matter who's president there. It doesn't matter who's president there. It would be very cool if a woman finally... Marina likes the idea of a woman president.

I'd vote for a woman, she says. I'm not saying it would be better or worse, but it would be different. It would indeed. Neither America nor Russia have ever had a woman president. For all their differences, it's one of the few things they have in common. Russia editor Steve Rosenberg. Two years ago an unarmed black man was shot in the head during a police chase in London. Chris Cabba died after an officer fired a single shot through the car windscreen. His death sparked protests across the country.

It later emerged that the vehicle, which didn't belong to Mr Cabba, had been linked by police to a gun incident the day before. The officer who fired the shot, Martin Blake, has just been cleared of murder by a jury. Chris Cabba's family said they'd been left with the deep pain of injustice. Speaking outside court, a family friend, Sheeda Queen, read out a statement on their behalf. Our son deserved better. Their acquittal of Martin Blake isn't just a failure for our family but for all those affected by police violence. Despite this verdict, we won't be silenced. We'll continue fighting for Chris, for justice and for real change.

With more details of the case, here's our home editor Mark Easton. A young unarmed black man shot dead by a white police officer on the streets of London. Demonstrators gathered in cities across England. The chant of Black Lives Matter went up. Chris Kaber was hailed by some as Britain's George Floyd, the black man whose murder by police in Minneapolis in 2020 sparked the largest racial justice protests in America since the Civil Rights Movement. There were marches in Britain, too. Colonial statues pulled down or vandalized. Institutional racism was the charge. In that context, the killing of Chris Cabba could hardly have been more sensitive. But a jury took barely three hours to conclude this was

not Britain's George Floyd moment. They had to work out what happened in the 17 seconds between armed police stopping a suspect vehicle and the fatal shot. They learned about the demands and responsibilities placed upon the firearms officers, the split-second decisions. They no doubt heard how some Met Marksmen turned in their weapons after Martin Blake was charged. For them, the prosecution was misguided and wrong. The Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Mark Rowley, had this to say. No police officer is above the law, but we have been clear that the system holding police to account is broken.

I worry about the lack of support officers face for doing their best. But most of all, I worry for the public. The more we crush the spirits of good officers, the less they can fight crime. That risks London becoming less safe. There will be questions for the Crown Prosecution Service as to how the officer ended up in the dock. But such decisions are never taken in a vacuum. Community tensions were palpable. London's police force was already on the back foot over a series of scandals and accusations of racism. And this is not

the end of the matter. There are still possible disciplinary measures against Mr Blake and more to come too on the background to those fateful 17 seconds in Brixton. Our home editor Mark Easton. Here in the UK the clocks go back this weekend, ending what's known as British summertime. It means sunrise and sunset are an hour earlier. However, some people say it would be better to stick to summertime all year round because the darker evenings affect their mood. Scientists are researching the effect of the clock change and our altered routines on our perception of time. Does winter go faster or slower with those lighter mornings and darker evenings? Ruth Ogden is professor in the

psychology of time at Liverpool John Moores University. What we know is that our sense of time is really vulnerable to distortion. So what you're doing in your life, how you feel, these all affect our sense of time. And when we experience a big disruption, like a changing of the clock or a change in our routine, if we cope well with it, time seems to pass more quickly. And if we cope poorly with it, time seems to pass more quickly, and if we cope poorly with it, time seems to pass more slowly. So we think that people who like the change in the clock, who function well when things change in their life, will experience a bit of a quickening in time. Winter might pass more quickly, summer will come sooner, whereas people who struggle with it will experience it a bit more slowly.

I find that the first five days are the worst, really. I mean, they take a lot of adjusting. It's almost a jet lag effect, isn't it? That you suddenly just find you're constantly thinking, goodness, it's really five o'clock already. I just wonder whether the effect wears off after a week, essentially, whatever effect we have. Yeah, so that's exactly what we'd expect. Our lives are heavily routine, even though we

like to think that we're very free-spirited individuals. We all have a very set routine. and when the clock changes, our routine changes and that takes a period of getting used to. One of the things that affects our experience of time though is how much we have to process in our environment, how difficult our life is, and when our time changes, life becomes more difficult, we don't have the usual markers to keep us in place. So this extra stress, this extra level of processing is likely to both impinge on our experience of time, maybe making it slow down, but also impinge on our wellbeing, making us more stressed and potentially a little bit more depressed.

Mason V.O. When times are good, time passes more quickly and when it's bad, it drags. Is that a well established empirical observation? Time flies when you're having fun. When we're engaged in an environment where when we're having a nice time we don't pay very much attention to time, we just let it run in the background. Whereas when we're feeling depressed or when life is not going as we want it to, we tend to pay much more attention to time. So that might be clock watching, or it might just be thinking about when this period's gonna be over. And when we think about time too much,

time drags for us all. If things are getting boring, you've gotta get out of the moment and stop thinking about it. It's watching the kettle waiting for it to boil, isn't it? It's exactly that. So that's what we would always recommend. If you feel like your life is dragging,

try to distract yourself, try and fill your life to the best of your ability with activities and people who distract you from ongoing processes and give you more to think about. And if you can do that, then you're much more likely to feel like your days are passing quickly. But also when you look back on your life, you're likely to feel that it was long and full. As you grow older, does time bypass more quickly?

Because my sense is it just seems to flash by. When you're seven, a year of your life is a really long time. It's a huge proportion. And when you're in your 50s, it's much more proportionate. Ruth, we're out of time. We're out of time. I wanted this to finish with me saying we're out of time, but it didn't drag at all. The BBC's Evan Davis talking to Ruth Ockton. And still to come on the Global News podcast.

This is outrageous. Do you know of anybody measuring their hug time? I don't. The airport putting a limit on farewell hugs. This week on Witness History, in 1970, Gary Gygax was fired. And that event, believe it or not, changed the gaming industry forever. He went on to create Dungeons and Dragons. In the 50 years since its release, the tabletop roleplay game has generated billions of dollars in sales and now boasts more than 50 million players worldwide. Search and subscribe to witness history wherever you get your BBC podcasts. The world's biggest nature protection conference has opened in the Colombian city of Cali, known as COP16. Its focus is biodiversity and specifically how to ensure more than 20

UN targets agreed two years ago can be met by 2030 to halt and reverse the loss of nature. The Colombian environment minister, Susana Muhammad, addressed delegates. Her words are spoken by a translator. Resources and funds for war are immediately made available in trillion dollars. In one week, billion dollars are assigned for weapons, for bombs. But when we talk about the most important purpose, which is defending life, which is what generates security and safety for everyone that will generate the possibilities of survival and generations that have already been born for that,

we do spend years to be able to achieve fair funding at the correct scale. The conference will also hear a proposal from the UK and Chile that fungi get the same protection as animals and plants. The idea emerged from a collaboration between the two countries and the Fungi Foundation. Its chief executive is Giuliana Forci. Fungi have been recognised as an independent kingdom of life since 1969. They are factually, scientifically neither plants nor animals. Most policy through legislation, public policies and agreements refers to the conservation of nature and moves to conserve biodiversity, referring to biodiversity only as flora and

fauna or animals and plants. Precisely because fungi are neither animals nor plants and are neither flora nor fauna is that we need to get the language right and include fungi in those political frameworks. What constitutes fungi? Yeast, mould, mushrooms, lichens, wood ears and many many other. And without yeast, for example, we wouldn't have wine, beer, bread, chocolate, coffee. Without moulds we wouldn't have, for example, penicillin, one of the most important antibiotics that shaped the face of humanity. Without mushrooms and without the fungi that live on and in roots of trees, no plant could live outside of water. So basically, the world as we know it, the planet as we know it, could not be without the role of fungi.

And how are fungi different from the other things that we characterize as flora? Plants, for example, photosynthesize. They use the energy of the sun together with water to make food. Fungi don't do that. Animals ingest, digest inside their bodies. Fungi live in a different way. They are organisms that live inside their food that connect things in nature in a way that plants and animals don't do. Fungi in essence are the organisms that make a system an ecosystem, decompose organic matter together with bacteria and allow for the fluxes of energy and nature. Their role is essentially different as living organisms. How do you think policy has gone wrong because people haven't distinguished fungi? One of the most

graphic ways we can demonstrate the need for fungal conservation is the fact that when you are looking to conserve many animals, you can move them to zoos, you can take them out of their habitat and breed them in a different place and make sure that the species thrives and continues. With most plants you can do something similar, but with most fungi you can't do that. And one of the most important things about fungal conservation is the fact that to conserve fungi you need to conserve the habitats and the ecosystems in which they live. It's time to introduce these organisms into legislation so that we have a chance at conserving the

ecosystems that we depend on. How would you say fungi shape human lives? No plant can live outside of water without fungi on and in their roots, so the atmosphere we live in is due to fungi. Most herbivores can't digest the plants they eat without the fungi in their stomachs, and therefore herbivores wouldn't exist and which has been staple food for humanity in time. Without fungi nothing would ferment because yeasts are fungi and therefore the process of fermentation to preserve foods wouldn't have existed without fungi and again without fungi nothing would decompose.

The earth would be just a huge rubbish tip. Julianna Farshee talking to Sean Lay. Well next month another conference of the party's COP29 begins in Azerbaijan. It's the UN's climate summit. John Kerry is the US former climate envoy. Evan Davis asked him what he thinks of the efforts so far to reduce carbon emissions. Well I think the world has shifted quite considerably in the last few years. And I actually have optimism, despite the fact that we're not moving fast enough today. But we are moving. New technology is being deployed. Battery storage is getting stronger, longer.

And solar has had a 99 percent cost reduction over these past 10 or 15 years. All of this progress and focus that is coming from many large nations, many large companies around the world is having an impact, but not yet enough. Secretary Kerry, you go to the United States, everybody's driving trucks. They don't seem to have a small car category anymore. Electric vehicles seem a very long way off from mass adoption in the United States. How do you rate the performance of the US

when it comes to all of this? The penetration isn't quite as high as it is in Europe or in Norway, for instance, which is about 90 something percent penetration of electric vehicles. I think we have to push further. In the United States, we have the Inflation Reduction Act, which President Biden passed. It has prompted massive

amount of, I mean, in the tens of billions of dollars, investment in renewable energy and alternatives. So I think there's a lot happening, but we, like everybody, have to pick up the pace. Even in Europe, the pace needs to pick up, and we, like everybody, have to pick up the pace. Even in Europe, the pace needs to pick up and we all need to be doing more in order to meet our targets. Obviously, there will be people looking at the election in the United States and thinking if Donald Trump wins, that is the end of global cooperation to the end of mitigating the effects of global warming. Is that your

perception that Donald Trump just doesn't care? Donald Trump has made it clear that if he is elected, he's going to pull out of the Paris Agreement again, and he still calls the climate crisis a hoax. But I really don't believe that one person can stop what is happening on a global basis. Even when Donald Trump was president, by the way, we have 37 states in the United States which have passed what are called renewable portfolio laws that require those states to raise the level of their use of renewable energy. And even while President Trump was there, Republican governors and Democrat governors did what the law said they should do in their states. So while Donald Trump pulled out of the agreement, I think it's safe to say that the American people

stayed in it. John Kerry and ahead of the COP29 we're recording a special edition of the Global News podcast putting your questions to two of the BBC's top climate experts. So if there's anything you want to know, please email globalpodcast.bbc.co.uk and if you can send a voice note, then all the better. The killing of two opposition figures in Mozambique has sparked widespread anger there. Riot police in the capital Maputo fired tear gas to disperse a crowd protesting about the deaths and alleged fraud in the recent elections. Richard Hamilton has the details. Maputo fired tear gas to disperse a crowd protesting about the deaths and alleged fraud

in the recent elections. Richard Hamilton has the details. Several hundred people scattered as heavily armed police walked down a main street in Maputo and started firing tear gas. Shops were closed and helicopters hovered above the city. The opposition leader Venancio Mondlane, backed by the Podemos party, who ran for president in the election on the 9th of October, had called for a general strike to contest the early results, which suggested the ruling Frelimo party was ahead. Mr Mondlane said police had tried to prevent him attending the demonstration. I was cornered in my house. There were people at my door who were not letting me leave.

I was being followed all night. That's why I was forced to be here very early to start the strike. My appeal is that everyone goes home because it was a big success. The country is 95% paralysed, which means that we've achieved our primary objective, the suspension of all public and private activity. Tensions grew over the weekend after two of Mr Mondlany's close associates were shot dead in Maputo. His lawyer, Elvino Díaz, and Paolo Guambe, a Podemos candidate, were in a car when they were surrounded by other vehicles and attacked by gunmen. Elvino Díaz had predicted that he and Mr Mondlany would be targeted by death squads. The European

Union, African Union and United Nations have all condemned the shootings and urged the authorities to identify the perpetrators. But the police have denied any culpability. Last year several people were killed in clashes after municipal elections were won by Frelimo, which has been in power since independence from Portugal in 1975. Official results are still pending from the polls, but Western observers have cast doubt on their credibility, citing intimidation and vote buying. Richard Hamilton. Now, are you a hugger? Well, if you visit a particular airport in New Zealand, you may have to restrain yourself slightly because it has imposed a three-minute time

limit on farewell cuddles. And that sparked plenty of reaction as Stephanie Zachrisson explains. A sign in the drop-off zone at Dunedin International Airport now states, Max hug time, three minutes. Another says it's hard to say goodbye, so make it quick. Gentle reminders to anyone passing through that they shouldn't take up too much time in the area while saying their farewells. At least that's the aim of the rules, according to airport CEO Daniel de Bono, who explained them to Radio New Zealand.

It's really about enabling enough space for others to also have hugs, right? So there's only so much space we have in that drop-off area. Too many people are spending too much time. There's no space left for others. Interesting fact, I did some reading on this a few weeks ago. It turns out you need 20 seconds, 20 seconds to get the oxytocin and the serotonin released from a hug. Anything less, you don't get the happy hormones. And anything longer I guess, it's probably going to get into the awkward territory. Dania de Bono said he's a hugger himself, but reckons a 10-second one does it for him. It's not the first time such rules have been implemented at airports.

A Danish one put up a sign over a decade ago, reading kiss and goodbye, no kisses, above three minutes. But the Dunedin decision has sparked reaction from travellers around the world, some calling the rules draconian, others appreciating the airport having a free drop-off area at all, given the general rise in fees and fines at airports. We received some messages from listeners sharing their thoughts. People departing by plane usually means that they are going far away. Why restrict a hug at the airport unless it's delaying a flight? I think that hugging should be done at home before leaving instead of standing in front of everybody and hugging at the airport.

This is outrageous. Do you know of anybody measuring their hug time? I don't. If anyone's worried about having to use a stopwatch when dropping off a loved one, they can rest assured there won't be any hug police deployed. But Daniil Dubono says they might be politely directed towards the car park, which allows for a 15 minute free stay for Fonda farewells. Now, whether these time limits will take off elsewhere, that is still up in the air.

Stephanie Zakrisson. And that is all from us for now, but the Global News podcast will be back very soon. This edition was mixed by Caroline Driscoll and produced by Alison Davis, our editors, Karen Martin. I'm Oliver Conway. Until next time, goodbye. ["The Star-Spangled Banner"] This week on Witness History, in 1970, Gary Gygax was fired. And that event, believe it

or not, changed the gaming industry forever. He went on to create Dungeons & Dragons. In the 50 years since its release, the tabletop roleplay game has generated billions of dollars in sales and now boasts more than 50 million players worldwide. Search and subscribe to Witness History wherever you get your BBC podcasts.