Global News Podcast - Netanyahu meets Trump at White House amid Gaza ceasefire talks

Episode Date: July 8, 2025

The Israeli PM, Benjamin Netanyahu, meets US President Donald Trump in Washington to discuss ways to end the Gaza conflict. Also: Russian minister sacked by Putin found dead, and gangs burn down Haiti's Oloffson hotel.

This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Julia McFarlane and in the early hours of Tuesday the 8th of July these are our main stories. The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in Washington where he's holding his third meeting this year with President Trump. Details are emerging of the tariffs President Trump is planning to impose on major trading partners which are now due to come into force at the beginning of August and Kenyan officials say 11 people have been killed during big anti-government

protests. Also in this podcast the much-loved Olofsen hotel was built in the late 19th century originally as a private home and featured under a different name in a 1960s novel by the British writer Graham Greene. Haiti's most famous and historic hotel has been burned down by criminal gangs who control most of the capital, Port-au-Prince. The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in Washington, where he's held his third

meeting this year with President Trump. Earlier in the day, the Israeli Prime Minister also met US Special Envoy Steve Whitcoff and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Before this recent meeting with the Israeli Prime Minister, President Trump said he'd been very firm with Mr Netanyahu about ending the conflict in Gaza and that he thought there would be a ceasefire deal this week. Meanwhile, in Qatar, the latest round of indirect talks between Israel and Hamas over a potential 60-day ceasefire ended without results.

After Monday's evening meeting in the White House, both leaders had dinner together. Before dining, President Trump had this to say. We've worked together for a long time and we've done well together. We had a great time, which saves a lot of work, but we had a great result recently. And we're going to have a lot of great results. So it's great to have you. Thank you very much. And Benjamin Netanyahu said this. I want to express the appreciation and admiration not only of all Israelis, but of the Jewish people and many, many admirers around the world for your leadership. Pursuit of peace and security which you are leading in many lands, but now especially

in the Middle East. He's forging peace as we speak in one country, in one region after the other. So I want to present to you, Mr President, the letter I sent to the Nobel Prize Committee. It's nominating you for the Peace Prize, which is well deserved, and you should get it. Thank you very much. This I didn't know. Well, thank you very much. Well, just moments before the Israeli prime minister arrived at the White House and standing a short distance from the building, Sumi Somerskander spoke to our State Department correspondent Tom Bateman.

Normally we'd have the Marines and the Honor Guard and the armored car of the prime minister arriving here at the West Wing and a very public display between these two men. None of that this time, as far as the plans go so far, no kind of oval of this moment from a president who loves to platform his positions in front of foreign leaders and the world's media. And I think that points to the way in which President Trump is signaling he intends to apply some pressure

on Mr Netanyahu. He has said that he's going to be very firm with him. He basically wants this deal to get pushed over the line and I think in the end to take whatever is available that comes out of these talks in Doha. That said, there are very significant stumbling blocks really from both sides still in the way of this deal. Now, in relation to that, over the road I bumped into Mike Huckabee who's the US ambassador to Israel will be part of the delegation here for the White House And I put to him the issue of some of the domestic criticisms of mr. Netanyahu in Israel including among some hostage families and those who accused the Israeli Prime Minister of

Basically prolonging the war for the survival of his own governing coalition. And I asked Mr. Huckabee if the US administration shared any of those concerns. That is utter nonsense. To say that anyone would want to see a war continue, I think is an insult to the intelligence of any civilized person. There are plenty of Israelis that have argued that. That is a very unfortunate assessment, one that I would not ascribe to any legitimate government, and I certainly wouldn't ascribe it to the government of Israel. Really interesting to hear that from the U.S. ambassador to Israel.

The Trump administration, President Trump has said this is the final offer, ceasefire deal. What has the administration said it would do if there is an agreement? For example, what pressure is it saying it would put on Hamas? Well, I mean, as you hear from Mike Huckabee, and it's the long-standing position of the administration, and the previous one, actually, that they put all of the blame for the obstacles at the door of Hamas.

I think behind the scenes, obviously, things are a bit more realistic, and they realise this is a two-way street. And perhaps that's why we're seeing Mr Trump allude to pressure on the Israeli prime minister as well. In terms of what they can do if there is no agreement, that takes us right back to the February meeting between these two men, where we got that extraordinary moment where Mr. Trump suddenly stood up and said, the US is going to take over the Gaza Strip.

We're going to, in his, in his words, you know, we talked about moving out Palestinians, basically what they're talking about is the expulsion of the population and building a Riviera of the Middle East, something that flies in the face of international law, of course. It's interesting that we haven't heard as much about that from the administration since then, really, and particularly since Mr. Trump's visit to Saudi Arabia, his first foreign tour. That has been put on the back burner, I think. But that threat, if you want to call it that, I think remains. And that will also have been uppermost in the minds

of Hamas, that they know Mr Trump is an entirely unpredictable president and character. So that also applies pressure. But in the end, the stumbling blocks of this deal come back to the same fundamental issue they have always been. Hamas wants to guarantee that the war will end, that there will be a continuation of the 60-day ceasefire period if negotiations continue in good faith. The Israelis don't want the Americans to give that pledge.

And so we still see that as a remaining stumbling block over these talks. Tom Bateman at the White House. Since October 2023, more than 55,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza. Among them are the mother and sister of a 28-year-old nurse called Roa, who now works with the medical charity MSF. When she spoke to the BBC in January last year, just a few months into the latest war between Israel and Hamas, she had very little hope that the situation would

improve any time soon. Any moment we may die. We just sometimes wish to die because it's easier than this life. So I can't see any future for Tuka. Now more than 20 months into the latest conflict, the BBC's Caroline Hawley talked to Ruwa again just as the Israeli Prime Minister set off for his trip to Washington to meet President Trump. Tuto, here to mummy? Hum, hum, hum, hum, hum. Rua is feeding her one-year-old girl, Taka, born two days before the war began, and her

three-year-old Asma. It's a meal from a charity kitchen, pasta and a bit of sauce. Rua has a job and a salary, luxuries in Gaza right now. But she can't get cash out of the bank and fresh food is almost impossible to come by anyway. There is nothing in the market but the items or the food from the American aids, like some biscuits, and it's very, very expensive for like a small pocket. It costs a lot of money. So what do you most wish for when the war ends? When the war ends, I will fill my house with all items from the market.

You know we can't trust what will happen next. How do you guys talk about the war if at all? We're trying to avoid talking about the war actually. Ignore what happens outside. Just focusing on the inside of the house, let them dance all the day, play games. let them dance all the day, play games. Ruwa sent me a video of Asma in a white top and shorts and little green shoes, singing. She says she's now so used to the sound of bombing. And toka. She only gets scared if it's very close.

Then she even say, no, mommy, like, takhmin gunshot. So, yeah, she run across the house to come sit with me when she hears something like this. So even at the age of one in her vocabulary, she has the word gunshot. Yes, exactly. Back in October 2023, Ruwa's family home in Hanyounis was hit in an airstrike, killing her mother and sister who died in terrible pain from their burns. Her niece and nephew are still badly scarred. Asma, Ruwa says, is aware of everything. She knows that her grandmother and her auntie are in heaven. She always says that I wish I could go to sit with them, play with them. Every day, Ruwa has to leave her kids to commute to work in Gaza City.

It's a two-hour journey each way from Dira Al Bala where she lives. Every day she passes rubble and sewage and the tents on the beach where people who've lost their homes live. She holds her breath to avoid the acrid black smoke from plastic and clothes being burnt to make fuel. And every day she says she's scared she'll be killed on the road. But she can't ignore her patient's needs. It is very bad for all children. There are children who are less than six months complaining of malnutrition.

And the severe acute malnourished cases are increasing. There is no word that can describe what's happening here. It's catastrophic. Caroline Hawley speaking to the Palestinian nurse in Gaza. The White House has confirmed that President Trump's so-called Liberation Day tariffs have again been deferred until the start of next month. Letters have been sent to several major trading partners confirming a tax of between 25 and 40 percent on goods. More are expected for countries who failed to agree a trade deal with the US. The White House press secretary is Caroline Leavitt.

The reciprocal tariff rate or these new rates that will be provided in this correspondence to these foreign leaders will be going out the door within the next month or deals will be made and those countries continue to negotiate with the United States we've seen a lot of positive developments in the right direction but the administration the president and his trade team want to cut the best deals for the American people and the American worker that's what they're focused on. For more details on the US tariffs here's our business reporter Jonathan Josephs. It was at the start of April that President Trump announced these plans to address what he thinks are other countries unfair trade practices. A failure to agree a solution means an initial

12 countries can expect letters informing them of new taxes on the goods they sell in the US. More will follow in the days ahead. The tariffs are due to come into force at the start of August, with an executive order signed to push back this week's deadline. Trade deals normally take years to agree and President Trump has reached just two. Jonathan Josephs Catastrophic flash floods, which hit the American state of Texas on Friday, are now known to have killed more than 100 people. Search and rescue efforts have continued into a fifth

day as dozens remain missing. Organisers of a girls' summer camp, which was badly hit by the disaster, have said 27 children and councillors are now known to have died. The Guadalupe River swelled more than seven meters in an hour after heavy rain, the waters rising fast and in the dead of night. Our chief North America correspondent Gary O'Donoghue reports now from Kerrville on the continuing operation by the rescue teams. Time is against the rescuers but they're not giving up scouring the banks of the Guadalupe River and the trails around it. One group have been searching for Alicia Olvera after finding her husband Jose alive. The couple in their 70s were

holding hands as she was swept away. We believe she's still here in the area and so we had a great group of people show up, about 40 to 50 volunteers, just looking through rummage and digging up as much as we can. I'll shout it from the mountain tops, I want my world to know. Hundreds have been rescued, including these girls from Camp Mystic who bore the brunt of the flood. But it's now been confirmed that 27 girls and councillors from Mystic did not survive. In a statement, the camp said their hearts were broken as they and their families endure this unimaginable tragedy.

Ted Cruz, a Republican senator from Texas, says the whole state is reeling from the disaster. Texas is grieving right now. The pain, the shock of what has transpired these last few days has broken the heart of our state. The children, the little girls who were lost at Camp Mystic. That's every parent's nightmare. Questions though are being asked about the warning systems in the area. One local campaigner, Nicole Wilson, has already set up a petition calling for flood sirens to be installed as they have been in neighbouring areas.

To have camps, to have RV camps, to have houses that close to a river and it flood like that, I don't understand why Kerrville and Kerr County hadn't invested in flood sirens. This tragedy is not over. A number of people are still missing and the weather remains unpredictable, making the rescue and recovery efforts even harder. Gary O'Donoghue in Texas. Next to Kenya, police say 11 people have been killed during another day of anti-government protests across the country.

This was the scene in the capital Nairobi. The sound of police firing tear gas to disperse protesters. A statement said dozens of police officers had been injured. The main state-funded human rights organisation has been highly critical of the police response, accusing it of using excessive force. The former Prime Minister Rela Odinga complained that Kenya's police had gone rogue and needed urgent reform. I propose that the country urgently turns to the agenda of comprehensive police reforms, focusing on enhancing accountability, transparency and improving the police to

people relationship. You're a rogue police force that shoots people with impunity. Anne Sawyer is the BBC's reporter in Nairobi. Paul Henley asked her for more on Monday's events on the ground. A lot of chaos everywhere. There were running battles between police and protesters in different parts of the country. And overnight, police set up roadblocks on all roads leading into the city, the capital. As the day broke, people were trying to get to the city.

They couldn't. People were going to work, as well as protesters who were trying to get to the central business district. I just found all the roads had been blocked. No vehicles were allowed to go through. So transport was paralysed. And so the groups that were able to gather, that's where the confrontations with police were. And as you heard there, they were dispersed using tear gas and in some cases, gunfire. Police have confirmed that 11 people were killed and dozens were injured, including more than 50 security officers.

What were the protests about? The protests, as you said there, were meant to commemorate 35 years since the clamour for multi-party democracy. 35 years ago, Kenya was a one-party state, and so people went to the streets to protest against an unpopular government, and that led to the changing of the Constitution and the first multi-party elections in a while in the year 1992 and so people went to the streets today to commemorate that but you know it would be a different generation on the streets today but also it is a build-up following recent

protests in which protesters were killed by police. There were accusations that armed gang members were operating alongside the police. Can you tell us anything about that? The National Commission on Human Rights has monitors all over the country and it has been monitoring any human rights violations and it says that it accuses the police of some violations, including working side by side with people they identified as criminal gangs who were armed with crude weapons, clubs, machetes and in some cases, bows and arrows, and they

seemed to be working alongside the police. Now the police have not responded to this particular statement, but previously they said they were not working with any criminal elements. And so in Kenya. Still to come on this podcast. Most people spend their whole careers

trying to get a world record or even try to get better. There's so much work that goes into it." But why did a South African cricketer turn down the chance to set a world record for the most runs scored in a test match? Find out later. Russia's former transport minister has been found dead in his car on the outskirts of Moscow just hours after it was announced that he had been sacked. Russian officials on Monday said Roman Saravoit was found apparently with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

Earlier, the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov refused to explain why he was removed from his post. Mr. Staravoyt's dismissal followed a weekend of chaos at Russian airports, when hundreds of flights were delayed or cancelled because of Ukrainian drone attacks. Russian media suggests Mr. Staravoyt may have been under investigation for corruption, but there's been no official confirmation. I spoke to our Russia editor, Steve Rosenberg, and asked him what details we know about his death. This is all we know so far. This morning the Kremlin announced that Raman Sterevoit was being sacked

from the post of Russia's Transport Minister. No reason was given by the Kremlin for that, but a decree appeared on the Kremlin website signed by President Putin to that effect. And then a short while after that, Vladimir Putin was shown meeting the new acting transport minister of Russia, Andrei Nikitin, on Russian state television. This afternoon, the news broke that Mr. Stanovoit, the former transport minister, had been found dead in his car.

That it emerged he was found dead next to his car in a park on the edge of Moscow. Russian investigative committee reported that there was a gunshot wound, his pistol was found by his side and investigators said this was a suspected suicide. So a dramatic turn of events in the morning, news that he was being sacked. In the afternoon it emerged that he was being sacked, in the afternoon it emerged that he was dead. Curious indeed and who was Roman Staravoyt? Well he was 53, he'd been Russia's Minister for Transport for just over a

year. Before that he was actually the governor of Russia's Kursk region, one of the regions that borders Ukraine. He was the governor there for more than five years. What's interesting is that the man who succeeded him as governor in Kursk, Alexei Smirnov, he wasn't in the job very long at all, and he was recently arrested and accused of large-scale fraud in connection with a case about the construction of defensive fortifications on the border of Kursk region with Ukraine. Now what we don't know, there's a lot of speculation here, what we don't know is whether Mr. Stulowait's sacking this morning by the Kremlin has anything to do with the big case, the criminal case regarding corruption and fraud in Kursk region, all we know is that this morning he

was fired and this afternoon he was found dead. Steve Rosenberg in Moscow. Ukraine says Russia has stepped up attacks on Ukraine's military recruitment centres after two separate drone attacks targeted draft officers in the regional capitals of Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia. It comes a day after another Russian drone attack struck a recruitment centre in the central Ukrainian city of Kramachuk. Paul Adams reports now from the Ukrainian capital Kyiv. These are not the first such attacks since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022,

but they do suggest a renewed focus on interfering with Kiev's recruitment effort. A spokesman for Ukraine's ground forces said that Russia feared what he called the steady flow of new service members into the Ukrainian army. Mobilising sufficient troops to fight off Russia's invasion remains a major challenge for the government in Kiev, especially because it continues to resist calls to conscript men under the age of 25. Paul Adams in Ukraine. To Australia now, and as we heard in the earlier podcast, that mushroom murder trial that shocked

nation and the wider world has drawn to a close. Erin Patterson was found guilty on Monday of murdering several relatives by poisoning them at a lunch two years ago. She'd served them all a home-cooked beef wellington which, unbeknownst to them, she'd laced with death cap mushrooms, killing the parents of her estranged husband, Don and Gail Patterson, as well as her mother-in-law's sister, Heather. The sole survivor of the lunch, besides Patterson, was Heather's husband, who recovered after spending several weeks receiving treatment in hospital. The story captivated audiences around the world. So what does it say about society these days that so many of us have been gripped by this macabre story? Tim Franks considers this with Candice Fox, an Australian crime novelist. I think it's the level of participation that this case requires from the audience.

From that very first moment when we saw Erin outside of her house crying in front of the cameras, immediately everyone who was watching turned to the person next to them and said, do you think that's real? And it just invited so many opinions. Because this case doesn't make any sense. The level of premeditation, all of the planning that went into this murderous luncheon does not make sense against the complete lack of planning afterwards. So there's so much discussion from everyone on how this came together. When you say the lack of planning afterwards, are you talking about the slipshod way in

which she tried to conceal what had happened? Yeah, it just seems as though she planned this so meticulously. She gathered the mushrooms, she chose the meal, she cooked it all together, she protected herself and she protected her own children. But what was she planning to say afterwards when, you know, if she had been successful, five people would have died. What was she going to say to the police to account for the fact that these five people had died at her lunch table and the ham-fisted way in which

she disposed of the evidence by, you know, leaving the hospital and driving to a landfill and dumping the dehydrator on full cameras and everything. It doesn't make any sense. I guess the other thing that will mystify people, and maybe it's been part of the reason also why people have been gripped by this, is the lack of an obvious motive. I mean, yes, she was estranged from her husband, and I think I'm right in saying that her school-age kids testified that their parents did have a very bad relationship. But it doesn't, beyond that, it doesn't seem as if, you know, there was obvious animus towards the people she invited to lunch. No, I mean, if you look at all those text messages, Erin and her ex-husband seem to have not liked each other very much. But at the worst, their text messages were stern and bordering on rude.

And the worst that she ever described her in-laws in her private messages were that they were lost causes. And the saddest part about it is that by all accounts, these people have been absolutely accepting of her and warm towards her and they've tried to maintain the relationship even after the breakdown. They've done everything right on paper. These were not vindictive or awful people who you could relate to that angst of having in-laws that you hate. But this doesn't make any sense in that regard either. Candice, can I just ask, I mean, listen, we're doing the interview, we're leading the news programme on this, but is there also a danger that we're all engaged in a bit of prurience here? That,

I mean, in your very first answer to me, you talked about the audience for this trial, that we're seeing it as perhaps as entertainment and losing sight of the people who died here, the victims. The line is getting very blurry between the true crime world and the entertainment world because true crime has just had a huge upswell and there are podcasts where people are talking about their favorite murders or their favorite serial killers and the fact is having written 22 novels myself I know how often it's almost every single novel that I write it's inspired in some way by a true crime and what I'm trying to do when I write my crime fiction novels is provide entertainment

but it comes from someone else's pain and I think that in this case in particular the mushroom poisoning case with Erin Paterson it seems so completely unreal that it's hard to ground yourself in the idea that this actually did happen, that somebody set out to do this. The Australian crime novelist Candice Fox. Haiti's most famous and historic hotel has been burned down by criminal gangs who control most of the capital Port-au-Prince. Our America's regional editor Leonardo Ruscha reports. The much-loved Olofsen hotel was built in the late 19th century originally as a private home and featured under a different name in a 1960s novel by the British writer Graham Greene. The arson attack was attributed to a coalition of gangs known as

Viv'n'Saint. The group has targeted many other buildings in recent months including radio stations and public hospitals. Local media say they thrive on chaos and intimidation, demanding money from businesses to spare them from attacks. The incident is further evidence of the shortcomings of H's transitional government. Next to tennis, and officials at the Wimbledon Championships in London have made changes to the electronic line calling system after it recently failed to notify players of shots that were out. Human error was to blame for the incident which happened at a crucial stage of Sunday's fourth

round match between the British player Soney Kartal and the Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. Here's our sports correspondent Laura Scott. Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova's fury was unsurprising. In her words, a crucial game had been stolen from her in the fourth round of Wimbledon no less. The new electronic line-calling technology, which replaced line judges at the championships this year, hadn't detected that a backhand from Sonny Cartel had landed long. The chief executive of the All England club Sally Bolton told me that was because an operator had accidentally switched the system off. We apologize to the players and we've now put in place the amendments to the system to ensure it doesn't happen again.

Can you explain how it goes about being turned off? I think a lot of people would assume it was on for an entire match. So the system is activated and deactivated in between matches and in this case it was inadvertently turned off. So effectively someone unchecked a box. A repeat should now be impossible as one of the changes Wimbledon has made in light of the incident is to remove the ability of the operators to manually deactivate the ball tracking. The umpire, Nico Hellworth, who was criticised by pundits and players for not overruling the call and instead replaying the point, was given a rest day. One tool that wasn't in his armoury but might be in future is the chance to watch slow motion

replays, something that is in place at other grand slams. Laura Scott at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships Now, what athlete would purposely turn down the chance to get a world record? Isn't that what everyone would want, to go down in sporting history? Well, one South African cricketer did just that, deliberately opting not to score a record for the most runs in a test match. Vian Mulder was within touching distance of breaking the old record, but he stopped batting even though he could have continued. What was all that about? I

asked the BBC's Mickey Bristo, who knows a thing or two about cricket. You're right. It is amazing. Most people spend their whole careers trying to get a world record or even trying to get better. There's so much work that goes into it. They want more goals, they want more points, they want to run faster, jump higher. But here is a cricketer who is in touching distance, so close to a world record and that's the most runs scored in a test match. The record currently is held by Brian Lara, a West Indian cricketer, he scored 400 runs. Vian Mulder had scored 367 runs, so it was well within his reach to get to that 400 total and then suddenly he stopped. He decided for the good of the team that he wouldn't go any further. Quite remarkable when you consider, as you mentioned there,

so many people would have just gone on and got the record for themselves. And can you explain why he might have done that? And bear in mind not all of our listeners may be as well-versed into cricket as you are. That's a great question. I mean, that's the only question, isn't it? And you don't really need to know the rules of cricket to sort of like want to know why is it somebody gives up the opportunity for immortality. The reason he did it is because in cricket in order to win a match you not only have to score the most runs you have to get the other team out twice and what Vian Molder was

worried about was that he wasn't going to leave enough time to do that so he stopped batting his whole team stopped batting just to give them the opportunity. The really funny thing about this is is this match is going on for five days we're only on day two and already the South Africans have got Zimbabwe out once so it looks very much as though he would have had enough time both to win the match and gain the record. So perhaps he was a little bit silly in deciding not to continue batting so early before getting the record. And that's all from us for now, but there will be a new edition of the Global News podcast later. If you want to comment on this podcast or any of the topics covered in it, you can send us an email.

The address is globalpodcast at BBC dot co dot UK. You can also find us on X at BBC World Service. Use the hashtag global news pod. This edition was mixed by Caroline Driscoll and the producers were Liam McShephry and Oliver Berlau. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Julia McFarlane. Until next time, goodbye.