Global News Podcast - Israeli soldiers evacuate Palestinians besieged by settlers

Episode Date: August 13, 2026

The army said it was acting to protect residents in Qusra and that it had demolished two illegal settler outposts. The mayor of Qusra says the village in the occupied West Bank has been declared a closed military zone. Also: Russia's president Vladimir Putin visits an island claimed by Japan - causing sharp criticism from Tokyo; Romania shuts down its only nuclear power plant because of low water levels in the Danube; why vultures are becoming endangered in West Africa; and Cameroon and Malawi make the final of the Women's Africa Cup of Nations, as the hosts Morocco crash out.The Global News Podcast brings you the breaking news you need to hear, as it happens. Listen for the latest headlines and current affairs from around the world. Politics, economics, climate, business, technology, health – we cover it all with expert analysis and insight. Get the news that matters, delivered twice a day on weekdays and daily at weekends, plus special bonus episodes reacting to urgent breaking stories. Follow or subscribe now and never miss a moment. Get in touch: [e-mail] Photo: Israeli soldiers in Qusra, Nablus. Credit: EPA/Shutterstock

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This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Valerie Sanderson, and at 15 hours GMT on Thursday the 13th of August, these are our main stories. Palestinians say the Israeli military have evacuated several houses in a village in the West Bank, where Israeli settlers have been besieging Palestinian families. Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, visit It's an island claimed by Japan, drawing sharp criticism from Tokyo. Romania shuts down its only nuclear power plant because of low water levels in the Danube. Also in this podcast, why vultures are becoming endangered. Haunting vulture to use them in what we call belief-based use,

and that's the use for vulture in traditional medicine or what we call voodoo. And Cameroon and Malawi make the fun. Final on Sunday of the Women's Africa Cup of Nations. We begin the podcast in the occupied West Bank in the village of Kuzra, south of Nablus. There have been growing tensions there all week after a group of illegal Israeli settlers surrounded the residential compound of two Palestinian families on Sunday, blocking the entrance and exit. The families told us the settlers had cut off their electricity and water supply. Additional Israeli forces have been sent to remove.

Israeli settlers today, and the soldiers reportedly have told about a dozen Palestinian households to leave their properties. One of those evacuated is Kusei Abu Riddy. His brother, who owns the property, is Palestinian-American. The army came to us and told me, you have half an hour to take the belongings you need and leave the house. I asked him, what do you mean leave the house? He replied, there's a military order here from the central command officer who's with us. You're House and Yusuf's house are among the homes that we want to turn into military posts. They left us Rizek's house, who's Yusuf's brother. His house is one of the homes that had been under siege. A woman who asked us not to use her name was visiting one of the houses at the centre of the story

just before the siege of the property by Israeli settlers began. She described how the IDF evacuated the families from the compound earlier on Thursday. At the one, maybe at 39 in the morning, we have all been waking up very abruptly from the military. At least 10, 15 militaries were standing in front of the house. And they asked us to evacuate the house in 30 minutes. And we have been moved to another house inside the gate. There has been no arrest whatsoever to settlers. And now from the house we can still see at least 10 of them are still harassing.

in absent patrolling the house outside without army doing anything about it. David Menser is a spokesman for the Israeli Prime Minister's office. He says arrests will take place. We don't condone violence against innocent people. We're a country of law and order. Where there is wrongdoing, we act against it, and we investigate it, and we arrest those responsible.

What here is so often missing from this discussion is that these crimes, and they are crimes, they're committed by a tiny extremist minority, maybe only 150 in number. They're juvenile delinquents. Very often they're not even from the area. The American ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, has described the group of settlers involved as Israeli terrorists. He wrote on social media that there was no excuse for such thuggish behavior. Our correspondent John Donison is in the village of Khuzra and spoke to Rebecca Kesbby.

The Israeli army overnight, they went in with bulldozers and they demolished this small outpost, I guess tent encampment that the settlers had set up close to these Palestinian houses, which still remain under siege. These soldiers then went inside the houses and we've spoken to the families inside and they told us that they were all moved from two of the houses into a third house. So the families are all now in one house. they haven't been told to leave entirely yet, but that is what they fear. And they still say that they are low on water.

I think the electricity, certainly if it's not cut off for the moment, it's been cut off for much of the last few days. At the same time, we've just been down into Kusra village itself. We spoke to a guy who was one of about 11 families who this morning, the Israeli soldiers went in, simply went into their houses, told them to get out and they have seized those houses for a period of several hours they were told, but still they'd not been allowed back in. So they have taken over those houses for what they said were military purposes. It was also quite interesting that Mr Mensa said that

there will be arrests of these illegal settlers, but there's no sign that that's happened at all yet. No, I did hear reports that perhaps one settler had been arrested overnight, but The truth is that prosecutions, given the number of incidents, successful prosecutions are very, very rare. And the accusation from the United Nations, from human rights groups, from Palestinians, is that the Israeli military allows settlers to act with impunity with the backing of far-right ministers within Israel's government, who not only don't condemn these sort of actions, but they actively are accused of encouraged in them and inciting such violence. And I think what's important to remember here,

and clearly the line from the Prime Minister's office and from Ambassador Huckabee, the US ambassador, is that these are a few extremists, a few bad apples. But certainly, you know, Mike Huckabee and the Israeli government support the settler project more broadly. And this is just one outpost that's been dismantled today. It happens in Janine, a big Palestinian, city to the north of here today, a whole new settlement has been opened. John Donison in the village of Kuzra. And we'll have more on this story on our YouTube channel.

Just search for BBC News on YouTube, and you'll find the Global News podcast in the podcast section. There's a new story available every weekday. The Kural Islands have been a bone of contention between Japan and Russia for more than 150 years. Since the end of the Second World War, the island chain has been completely under Soviet and later Russian control. Moscow maintains a military presence there, but Japan claims, as its own, the three southernmost islands, including Itterup, as well as a few smaller uninhabited ones. That's why a visit by the Russian President Vladimir Putin to Itterup has caused anger in Tokyo.

A reporter in Tokyo, Karumi Mory, told me more about the visit and the controversy it's caused. President Putin visited one of the four Russian-held islands that Japan also claims. it's located off the coast of Japan's most northern prefecture of Hokkaido. Russian media report showed Putin walking around in a dark suit. He's inspecting some fish and visited a seafood processing facility and tasted some local fish row. Now, Japan and Russia never signed a formal Second World War peace treaty, so it remains this unresolved territorial dispute over the islands.

I want to point out in 2018, then Japanese Prime Minister Shenzhou Abe, and Putin did engage in peace treaty negotiations. They did try to discuss this, but it never really materialized into any sort of treaty. And since then, there hasn't been any progress. Apart from voicing anger, though, what can Japan actually do? That's the thing. Not much. They can, as they did, issue a statement in response to the visit. Foreign Minister Toshimitsimottegi did so.

He said Japan strongly protests the visit and that the northern territories, as Japan calls it, are Japan's inherent territories, both historically and under international law. We just heard a short while ago from Prime Minister Sanay Takaiichi. She was speaking to reporters at the Prime Minister's office, criticizing Putin's visit. The northern territories are an inherent part of Japan's territory, both historically and under international law. This latest visit to Etorifu Island by the Russian president

is incompatible with Japan's consistent position regarding the northern territories. It also hurts the feelings of the Japanese people and is absolutely unacceptable. She also said that it has made a mid-to-longer-term relations with Russia more difficult. I mean, apart from that, I guess Japan can also find allies. The U.S. supports Japan's stance on the islands. And to Russia, that's been a threat. As Moscow sees the U.S. presence, for example, on these islands, geographically very close to Russia as a threat. I suppose there's lots of theories about why Vladimir

Putin has chosen to make his first ever visit to these islands now. Yeah, you know, the timing is interesting. I mean, Japan has been supporting Ukraine. That could be a reason. We should also note the timing is significant because this comes two days before August 15th, which marks Japan's surrender in World War II. So given the context of these islands and the Second World War II, war, it gives this visit some additional weight. I mean, it is quite complicated when it comes to validity of Japan's claim and Russia's claim, because from Japan's perspective, it goes way back to 1855. That's when the islands peacefully became Japanese territory when Japan, the Eddo Shogunate, and Russia signed their first treaty from both sides, mutually recognizing them as inherent Japanese

territory. But just before the end of World War II, the Soviet Union, now Russia broke that treaty and declared war. So after Japan's surrender, the Soviet army occupied all four northern islands and Moscow views that as a legitimate outcome of that global conflict. So it brings us to today and just a couple days before August 15. Karumimori in Tokyo. Elections are underway in Zambia, a country regarded as one of Africa's most stable democracies. Despite the stability and the fact that it's the continent's second largest producer of copper, more than 70% of the population live on less than $3 a day. That's according to data from the World Bank.

Our reporter, Dingindaba Jonah Boyoya, gave me this update. The voting seems to be going on well. A lot of the polling stations started at 6 a.m., which is the designated voting time for voting to start. A lot of people have turned out to vote, which was a concern for several analysts, that some people may not turn out a vote, but the vote turnout seems quite decent at this time. The president is seeking a second term, isn't he? What about his main rivals? Or indeed,

there is one main rival, isn't there? Yeah, there is one main rival. The election has 14 presidential candidates, but there's one main challenger, Brian Munduele, who is a first-time presidential candidate. He served as a member of parliament and opposition whip in the previous government, was also minister in the previous government and is now challenging for the presidency. He's an ally of the former president of Zambia, Ed Galungu, who died last year. And a lot of the base support that he has at the moment is coming from the former president's support, the northern side of Zambia, which happens to be their stronghold. And the southern side being the stronghold of the incumbent. And what about the incumbent's record? The incumbent president, Hagan de Jiglema, is

seeking re-election. And his argument has been that his government has improved economic performance. Inflation has dropped from around 20% to now 6.5%. They say they've restructured the country's debt. And this, as we know, Zambia had been dealing with high debt levels and it was structured around 13 billion. But that's also, interestingly, the argument by the opposition as well, that while these larger parts of the economy have been dealt with, people still complain of a high cost of living, which they believe the incumbent has been unable to deal with. The incumbent has voted in the election already, and he has called for citizens to remain peaceful and uphold the country's legacy of holding peaceful and

democratic elections. And do you think the economy is the main concern for voters? Probably the biggest issue in this election. The issues coming out of there have to do with the cost of living. A lot of the Zambians that I have had a chance to talk to say they have seen the discussions around improved inflation, around improved debt restructuring and the introduction of free education. But they say that the cost of their commodities keeps increasing and they are unable to afford it. There's also an issue around young people and employment. This has been a major talking point as well. The opposition are also saying that they feel like their democratic rights, freedoms of expression have been limited. And this is one of the talking points that

they have been using to campaign throughout this period. Dingindaba Joda Bayoya. A United Nations-backed multinational force in Haiti has begun its first major deployment outside the capital, Port-au-Prince. The troops were sent to the Caribbean Island nation to fight armed gangs who are terrorizing large parts of Haiti, as Kamila Mills reports. Sri Lankan troops have been sent to the central Artie-Bon-It region, where armed groups have expanded their control and carried out a series of deadly attacks. Artie Bonit is one of Haiti's most important agricultural areas, and growing in security there has disrupted communities already facing severe food shortages and displacement.

The gang suppression force was authorized by the UN Security Council last year to replace an underfunded Kenyan-led mission, which struggled to contain the gangs. The new force is intended to support Haitian police in retaking territory and improving security. Camilla Mills. Still to come in this podcast, the World Health Organization says the spread of Ebola could make it the worst outbreak of the disease in Africa. At its current pace, it's on track to eclipse the West African Ebola outbreak of 2014 to 2016. Growing businesses deal with the same problem. Too many tools, too much back and forth

and not enough time. Odu helps bring it all together. It's an all-in-one business management platform, fully integrated from sales and accounting to inventory and marketing, so your team can spend less time chasing information and focus on growth. Whether you're in retail, manufacturing or service, Odu gives you one place to manage your business. Visit Odu.com to book a demo. It's O'D O.O.com. This is the Global News podcast. It generates a fifth of Romania's electricity, but now the Chernivode plant, the country's sole nuclear power station, has been completely shut down. The plant needs water from the Danube for its cooling systems,

and the river is at an historically low water level. Romania shut down its other reactor last month. Neighbouring Hungary is planning engineering work on the Danube to raise the river's levels and keep its packs power plant working. The move comes as a fifth heat wave is peaking throughout Europe. A central Europe correspondent, Nick Thorpe, told me more. It's pretty serious. You know, one immediately thinks of water shortages,

with a consistent drought. Instead of that, the emphasis, both here in Hungary and in neighbouring Romanian throughout the region, really, first and foremost, has now been on energy to lose 20% of the energy and I'm told that it has now completely shut down the two reactors

at Chernivoda now. Very serious indeed. Romania, fortunately, for itself, has a lot of solar, it has wind power, it has hydro. Just looking at the figures from an hour or so ago, solar is now generating 45, of Romania's electricity, wind 13%, hydro is down to 8%.

Romania has huge hydro powers on many of its rivers, but they're affected, of course, by those same low water levels. They can't step in now. So during the evening hours, Romania will have to, for the coming weeks, as we can see it, import a lot of electricity. And that will obviously cost people a lot of money. Exactly, yes. And we've seen this in Hungary as well when the Pox Nuclear Power Station,

It's now running at about, also only about a fifth or a sixth of its normal capacity. It almost had to shut down. And as you said in the introduction there, it's now trying to follow some of the same methods which were attempted in Romania but failed to sink large barges with tons and tons of rocks in the middle of the Danube to divert some of those very shallow waters towards the cooling systems of the power station

to try and keep it ticking over. It's also, of course, you know, provoking debate about the future whether nuclear power does have a future in these areas where it depends on the waters of a Danube, which is not just having lower water levels during periods of drought, but year by year the levels of water in the Danube sinking. And if the water levels rise, is it quite straightforward to fire up this nuclear power station again? It's relatively straightforward, but it takes a while and it takes a long time for the waters, the rainwater, say, falling in the Alps, in Austria, or in the Carpathian mountains, up in Slovakia, on the border with Poland or Ukraine, to reach the Danube.

So we're talking about several weeks before they can reach 1,200 kilometres downstream from Budapest to the Chenevodah Power Station. Nick Thorpe in Budapest. The World Health Organization says it's aiming to reverse the spread of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo within three months. but its warning the outbreak will not be over by then. The key, it says, is improving contact tracing. Meanwhile, the head of the WHO has warned that the current Ebola outbreak is on track to become the worst ever. Since May, there have been at least 2,000 deaths

and more than 4,000 confirmed cases. Dr. Tedros Gabriessor said at the present rate, this outbreak would surpass the West African epidemic that killed more than 11,000 people a decade ago. It's already the second biggest Ebola epidemic on record, and it's moving faster than any previous Ebola outbreak. At its current pace, it's on track to eclipse the West African Ebola outbreak of 2014 to 2016. One of the focal points of the outbreak is Bunia. Trish Newport, the Ebola Programme's deputy manager for Doctors Without Borders in the DRC,

is there and she'll know the BBC about the challenges in containing the spread of the disease. This outbreak is increasing at such rapid rate. It's an exponential increase. The response to the Ebola outbreak at this moment is not catching up to the size and the growth of the outbreak today. There needs to be a rapid change in the strategy for how to respond to be able to actually control the outbreak today. There needs to be a massive scale-up of the response. There are areas where their new Ebola cases, and there's absolutely no response today. And we saw just last week a new case went into an area that had no Ebola. They died, and two weeks later, there were 17 new cases, which shows that if you don't have a response, every single place where there is an Ebola case,

the numbers are only going to grow exponentially. But putting Ebola treatment centers isn't enough. You also need to really be engaging with the community. You need to be talking with the community leadership so that they're also leading the response. We can't cut the chains of transmission without the community involved. This is essential. But yes, we need to be having Ebola responses everywhere where there are cases. So in the villages, in more remote areas, we need to have enough resources on the ground that we can actually working in the areas that don't have cases yet.

And at this day, with all of the reactive responses, there's just not the capacity to do that. To respond to Ebola, you need specific training. If you have people responding that don't have the skills, more people are going to get exposed. So in a new area, you need to make sure that you have that knowledge going to the area to be able to do training, to be able to be setting things up. Today, this isn't happening everywhere. People are trying their hardest, but we definitely need more resources on the ground to be able to put changes of strategy into place. Trish Newport of Doctors Without Borders Vultures are disappearing across where.

West Africa. Once a common site around markets, abattoirs and dump sites, the birds have become increasingly rare in many parts of Nigeria. Conservationists warn their decline could pose a serious public health risk as they remove rotting meat from the environment. But in southeastern Nigeria, one community is defying that trend. There vultures are revered and fiercely protected by local traditions. A reporter Makuchi Okofor has traveled to Anambra State to meet a man whose dedicated his life to protecting the birds, risking his own safety and challenging deeply held perceptions. His story reveals how an ancient belief system has become one of the last refuges for vultures in the country.

For many people, vultures are birds linked to death and decay. Their disappearance across Africa has gone largely unnoticed. But in one community in southeastern Nigeria, one man is fighting to protect these misunderstood birds. Good afternoon, sir. How are you doing? Good to meet you today. I'm meeting Chukwemaka Igu,

a middle-aged man in Oketiti, inside the sacred forest where an ancient shrine has become an unlikely refuge for vultures. Locals know him by an unusual name. So people began to call me Ez Zeudene, which means

the king god vulture. And I cannot run away from it. At the center of this forest is the shrine to Nguma. Where sacrifices and his Secret Tree provide safety and shelter for vultures. Like I said, most of the times people do hunt the vultures. They will run to higher trees.

But when they run here at this shrine, you found out that people fear the environment where the shrine is. No evil will ever happen here. So nobody fights vultures that pitch is here. But there was a time when vultures were done. disappearing from Oketiti. Chukwemeka remembers when the skies were once filled with them. When we are growing up here, I tell you, vultures, there are too many flying everywhere,

because nobody hunts them. The birds were part of everyday life. You'll be walking, the vulture will be walking as well, looking for what to eat. Then hunters from outside the community arrived. Slowly, the birds began to disappear. So at a time, vulture began to... disappear and nobody knows why and what causes it. In 2017, the Nigerian Conservation Foundation began working with the community to protect

the birds. Chiku Emeka became one of their strongest voices. Thank God for Conservation Foundation, NCF. And they bring this very suggestion on how to make Vultures come back. Across West Africa, conservationists say Vultures face a growing crisis driven partly by demand for traditional medicine and spiritual practices. It's not limited to Nigeria, which is haunting vulture, to use them in what we call belief-based use, and that's the use for vulture in traditional medicine, or what we call voodoo or jazz.

Dr. Stella Egwe, a conservation biologist with Nigerian Conservation Foundation, says the demand for vulture parts has filled a wider trade. There is a huge demand for vulture and vulture parts for traditional medicine. Seven African vulture species are now threatened with some listed as endangered or critically endangered and some populations declining by up to 98%. It's been registered that vultures are used for that. And that demand for vultures have created a network of trade within the country and even across the borders in the country. Nigerian custom spokesperson, Abdullah,

says endangered species cannot legally cross borders under international laws. He says seizures and prosecutions are helping to tackle the trade in Nigeria. So we are doing everything possible to make sure that I'm smuggling of items, including vulture, including donkeys, including other species outside the country, is truncated or is suppressed to the bearers minimum. But conservationists say enforcement, alone is not enough. They say working with communities is key. For Chukwemeka and other local volunteers, their efforts are starting to pay off. The missing vultures, they're almost back. If you

go to the marketplace now, you see vultures. What we've done in Okra-a-Tit is one very good example of a success story where people have taken charge of what's going on in their environment. That makes us happy. For this king of vultures, every returning bird is a victory. But with vultures, disappearing across much of Africa, he knows the fight to save them is far from over. Mukuchi Okofor in Nigeria. At the Women's Africa Cup of Nations, the hosts Morocco have crashed out of the competition in the semi-finals after penalties. Cameroon will now play Malawi in the final on Sunday after beating Algeria.

Football commentator, Pyrus Edwards, is in Morocco. Well, the Morocco-Cameroon game was quite extraordinary. It followed Malawi beating Algeria. earlier in the day, which had its own sensational story, Malawi debutants in the competition, making it through to the final of the first ever try. But the big match was Morocco and the expectation was that the Atlas Lionesses, as they're called, would make it through to their third final and hopefully go on and lift the trophy. But Cameroon's goalkeeper, Mikhaili Bina, had other ideas. The game was goalless after 90 minutes and was goalless as it came towards

the end of extra time. Morocco awarded a penalty. saved by the Cameroonian goalkeeper, so went to a penalty shootout, and then remarkably, she saved three of Morocco's spot kicks in the shootout. They'd never missed a spot kick in a shootout before Morocco. Cameroon squeezing through, and so they will meet Malawi in Sunday's final.

And the remarkable thing about Cameroon is they didn't actually even qualify for this tournament about a week or so after their failure to do so, having gone out in the qualifying rounds, as I said the tournament was. expanded from 12 teams to 16. So they've got a backdoor entry to come in. And so they've made it through to the final.

So a sensational story for them. And Malaria said, well, it's a fairy tale for them on their debut. So sensational, a fairy tale. Is it your view, this tournament's gone pretty well? It's gone amazingly well, I would say. So the Confederation of African football, CAF, has put a lot of money and a lot of investment into trying to develop women's football in recent times.

They've introduced a women's champions league. They've expanded this competition, have said. They've created more money for the women's game. And so we're seeing very much a changing of the guard. Nigeria, South Africa with the big guns, Nigeria record 10-time champions. They're not even in the semi-finals for the first time. So we're seeing new teams. And for Malawi, as said, they're ranked 32nd on the continent of 54 teams in Africa.

They are amongst the final two. They are led by some sisters called Tabitha and Temwa Chawinger. And their nickname the Scorches. And Malawi so far have been red-hot. Piers Edwards. That's it from us for now. If you want to get in touch, you can email us at global podcast at BBC.com. You can also find us on X at BBC World Service. Use the hashtag Global NewsPod. And don't forget our sister podcast, The Global Story, which goes in depth and beyond the headlines on one big story.

This edition of the Global News podcast was mixed by Joe McCartney. The producers were Aaron Kochie and Oliver Berlau. The editor is Karen Marlon. I'm Valerie Sanderson. Until next time, bye-bye.