Global News Podcast - Outrage over Israel's treatment of Gaza flotilla activists

Episode Date: May 21, 2026

There has been international condemnation of Israel's treatment of pro-Palestinian activists who were on board a Gaza-bound aid flotilla intercepted by Israeli naval forces. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir posted a video showing himself taunting activists kneeling with their hands tied behind their backs. Also, Iranian state media is reporting that Pakistan's military chief is visiting Tehran later today in a bid to mediate peace efforts between Iran and the United States. The Justice Department in the Philippines has ordered the arrest of a senator, Ronald Dela Rosa, wanted by the International Criminal Court in connection with the country's war on drugs. Air France and Airbus have been found guilty of manslaughter over a 2009 plane crash which killed 228 people. In India, a satirical political collective themed around cockroaches - the Cockroach Janta Party - has attracted millions of online followers. NASA is set to launch a new space telescope, Roman, that it says will be able to capture images of vast tracts of the universe. A village in Ghana has been holding its own celebrations to mark the victory of Aston Villa Football Club in the Europa League.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]

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Artificial intimacy. Available now. This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. Hello, I'm Ankara Desai and at 16 GMT on Thursday the 21st of May. These are our main stories. More than 20 countries have now condemned Israel over its rough treatment of detained Gaza flotilla activists. Italy has called for EU sanctions against the security minister Itima Ben-Gavir. The activists have been deported.

elsewhere a search is on in the Philippines for a fugitive senator and former police chief wanted by the international criminal court over his deadly crackdown on drugs. And Air France and Airbus have been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter over an airline disaster in 2009. Also in this podcast, the powerful head of the Pakistani military, a key ally of Donald Trump is expected in Tehran today to add momentum. to peace talks with the US. And a new political party in India is standing up to the establishment. You should be lazy just as the CJA said.

Unemployed, you should be chronically online. So whatever was he used to insert the youth, we made that the criteria to be a member of this party. More on the Cockroach People's Party coming up. First, there's been an international outcry over a video shared by Israel's national security minister, Itama Ben Gavir, in which activists on boats are taunted and manhandled after their flotilla was intercepted in international waters.

The president of the European Council, Antonio Costa, has said he was appalled by the treatment and Italy has called for EU sanctions against Mr Gavir. The British Foreign Secretary, Yvette Cooper, condemned the video. I mean, we see these totally disgraceful scenes and this video shared by Israeli cabinet minister Ben Gavir, which shows a total disrespect and violence. violation of basic standards of human dignity in the way that people were being treated. Sebastian Tau was on board one of the boats. His mother Anita Wittenberg spoke to the BBC. I only saw part of it. I found it difficult to watch. I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised by the

brutality of this regime. That is why my son, who is a 24-year-old recent university graduate with a heart for justice, decided to go and to use. use his body to defend and to say that I want to bring aid to the people of Gaza who are suffering. The more than 400 activists taken from boats raided in international waters by Israeli forces have now been deported from Israel. A correspondent in Jerusalem, Eminada, gave us this update to James Menendez. We've just had a confirmation from the Israeli Foreign Ministry that the roughly 430 activists who were detained and were seen in those video, in that shocking video, they have been deported from Israel.

We understand the majority left on two or three Turkish planes, so they'll go first to Turkey and then onwards to their various countries. The activists were coming from around 45 different countries, so there are many activists from Europe and elsewhere. And then the other latest bit of information we've been getting is from a legal team who were from an Israeli NGO, but were representing some of those activists who were detained. And they managed to see about 200 of the activists during the detention

and said it was some of the hardest and harshest treatment they've ever seen of these detentions compared to previous flotillas that have reached Israel. They said they had seen systematic and severe violence. One doctor who was with them reported numerous cases of broken ribs, and there were three individuals who were hospitalized. So what we're hearing there actually goes much beyond the treatment that we've seen in the video and the humiliation in the video, but actually real serious allegations of physical violence too. But it was that video that brought about that the first international criticism,

I think more than 20 countries have condemned it. I mean, what form has that taken? That's right. And you've seen a number of European countries summoning the Israeli ambassadors in their country, asking for an explanation. condemning what was seen in those videos. You've had the Italian foreign minister calling on the EU to sanction Bengavia, this hardline minister. The UK, for its part, already sanctions Ben-Givir for incitement of violence against Palestinians in the West Bank,

and they've issued a very strong condemnation saying the scenes violated the basic dignity of those detained, but also said that the flotilla underlines, and their attempt to deliver aid underlines the real severity of the humanitarian situation in Gaza, which of course was always the point of the flotilla. However, what turned out instead was really a discussion and an exposure of this hardline far-right politics that is very much part of the government in Israel too. Emineda there reporting from Jerusalem. Next, reports on Iran's state media have said that Pakistan's military chief is visiting Tehran later today in a bid to mediate peace efforts between Iran and the US.

On Wednesday, President Trump warned that negotiations to end the war were borderline and said that he would wait a few more days for Iran to agree a deal. The ceasefire agreed last month has halted the fighting. But the strait of Hormuz has not reopened, although some ships are able to pass through. A correspondent Jia Gahl told us more. Despite the argument and also threatening one another on social media, it seems diplomacy is alive. and Pakistani are making a lot of effort to mediate and close the gap between two sides.

In the past week, twice, Pakistan Interior Minister, as a matter of fact, a Shia, which is Iranian, say they are Shia so you can trust them. It's interesting. Pakistan choosing interior minister, go to Tehran, talk about negotiation. And obviously today, as you just mentioned, awesome one, the Pakistan Army chiefs has been reported that he may go to Iran. It depends on Iran respond. and say they are reviewing U.S. proposal. But just an hour ago, Reuters citing two sources within Iran and said Iran's supreme leader, Mustafa Khomeini, has been issuing directive to negotiator that the enriched uranium, which is weapon-grade uranium, should not leave the country. That was one of the sticking point for United States. They said that uranium should be taken to

United States or taken out of Iran and also Iran must halt its uranium enrichment at least for 20 years. This is something which in the past the U.S. has rejected. It seems Iran is, again, insisting on that. And on top of it, today an entity just Iranian has created on X, its official account on X set, published a map that says this is the region in the Strait of Hormon. any ships passing through this in the future must coordinate with this institution, Iranian body, and get permission. So this also one thing Iranian were demanding, the U.S. must recognize Iran's sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz. It was rejected by the U.S. What I'm hearing from inside Iran, I don't think the gap is closing, but in my opinion, what we are hearing from Iranian official, it is widening. That's interesting as well because you talk about the fact that there seems to be diplomacy happening.

You touched upon the Strait of Hormuz as well. How crucial is it that there is more access? Because at the moment, only some ships have been able to pass through that crucial waterway. Iran is insisting that the strait is not closed, but any countries and ships coordinate, those companies, coordinate with Iran. They can pass through it. As we talk to Supertanker, carrying four million barrel of oil. Chinese one just left yesterday and one South Korean carrying two million crude oil from Kuwait is passing through the strait of hormones. It seems Iran trying to impose its control over it.

But the reality is many hardline in Iran said it is a weapon in their hand, is a lethal weapon. They could use it for their advance. GERGOL reporting. Next to the Philippines and the story of Ronald de la Rosa. He's the man wanted by the International Criminal Court for his role in ex-president Rodrigo Duterte's deadly drugs crackdown. He's been on the run since last week when the ICC unsealed an arrest warrant against him. There were then dramatic scenes as troops tried and failed to track him down in the Philippine Senate.

Officials have not revealed who fired the shots, but Mr. De La Rosa escaped. He since tried to persuade authorities in his own country to give him sanctuary. from the ICC. But it looks like he's failed. The Philippine government has now ordered police to arrest him. He denies the charges against him. Our global affairs correspondent, Joanna Keen, told me more. Well, De La Reza, who is also known as Bato, he was actually the country's police chief, and he oversaw a deadly war on drugs, which was enforced by the former president, Rodrigo Duterte. Now, it was known as Operation Double Barrel. Police officers and hit men were used to allegedly kill thousands of people, who were branded as criminals, drug dealers, but also users.

Now, Rodrigo Duterte was detained in Manila a year ago. He was extradited to the Hague and he's now in detention there awaiting trial. But earlier this month, as you said, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Mr. Della Rosa. Now, he's accused of killing at least 32 people. That's between 2016 and 18, a part of this campaign I was just talking about. And there are still lots of unanswered questions about what happened last week. Oh, absolutely. I mean, we're really looking at confusion here. So early this month, just hours before the ICC unsealed this warrant for his arrest,

he took refuge inside the Senate. He was pictured later sort of fleeing into the building as officers chased up the steps after him. Police later said they wouldn't arrest him while he was in the custody of the Senate. But soldiers were seen entering the building. There were rumours he was about. out to be seized. Really dramatic scenes that we heard there with this armed standoff. Senators and journalists had to run for cover as the building went into lockdown and those shots were heard. But there's such confusion. Now, the president, Ferdinand Marcos, has said officials will get to the

bottom of what happened. But we don't even know who fired the shots or who ordered this military operation. Government forces saying it wasn't then. Now, in the following days, De La Rosa was then said to have left the building. His lawyers won't say where he is. Interestingly, they've denied that this shootout was actually staged to provide a diversion so that he could escape. Okay, just in 30 seconds, how is he thought of in the Philippines? Is this the end of the road for him? And how much of a political issue is there? Well, supporters have gathered outside the Senate at the time. He was urging them keep vigil and he said, look, if there are charges, it should be in a local court, not in what he calls a foreign one.

others have called for his arrest and it does look like things are closing in, doesn't it? On Wednesday we have the Supreme Court refusing to grant him interim relief. Today, the police have ordered his arrest so this manhunt is under away but it's a huge political issue in the country. We saw it, first of all, with Rodrigo Duterte.

Now it's back and it's not going away. Joanna Keene, reporting. A court in Paris has found the French plane manufacturer airbus and the National Carrier Air France guilty of corporate manslaughter. It relates to the 2009 Rio to Paris plane crash that killed 228 passengers and crew.

It was France's worst air disaster ever. Our international business correspondent, Theo Leggett, spoke to James Menendez. This was an infamous case, really. It was a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris back in June 2009. And about three hours into the flight, the aircraft crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, killing, as you say, all 228 people on board. Now, some wreckage and some bodies were found within days of the accident.

It was known that it had crashed. But the reasons the plane went down weren't known for a very long time. And that was because the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder, all the evidence that investigators needed were thousands of meters underneath the surface of the Atlantic Ocean. They were eventually found, which is remarkable in itself, and the data on those recorders was eventually read. But it took over two years, as I say, before the reasons why this plane crashed were known. Yeah, so what were the circumstances then?

Basically, this was a perfectly serviceable aircraft that crashed because a minor technical failure led to confusion on the flight deck, resulting in an aerodynamic stall, which wasn't corrected or even appreciated until it was far too late. So what happened was the aircraft flew into a storm. It's thought that the peto tubes, which are airspeed detection sensors, iced up, that starved the autopilot of data, so the autopilot switched off, and the controls went into a backup mode which made them more sensitive and removed many of the automatic safety systems

that would normally apply. But this was still a serviceable aircraft. The problem was the captain wasn't on the flight deck, he was asleep. There were two co-pilots there, one of them quite inexperienced, and they became confused and disorientated. They didn't communicate well with one another, and they made contradictory movements on the controls,

which basically cancelled each other out. The captain did return to the flight deck quite late on. He appreciated what was happening, trying to sort the problem, but it was all too late. And the significance of today's judgment, because this was by an appeals court, wasn't it? And it reverses an earlier decision. Is that right? That's right. And it's been a very long process.

And that's partly because the investigation itself took an extremely long time. As I said, it was two years before the flight data recorded, the crucial evidence was even found. And after that, you have an investigation going through the data in meticulous detail. The final report didn't appear until 2012. and then you have this legal marathon of trying to challenge Air France and Airbus for corporate manslaughter. That's very hard to prove. There wasn't a verdict until 2023.

That went in the two companies' favour. And that was when we had this case starting, which was an appeal, which has finally seen them effectively convicted of corporate manslaughter. But this could still go further. It could still go to the highest court in France. Theoleg is speaking to James Menendez. Still to come in this podcast. opportunity to go to Korea, film there, soak up the culture, work with Korean actors.

They're so wonderful because they're so committed. They really go for it. The spotlight is on Asia this year at the Cannes Film Festival. To some, AI chatbots are helpful tools. To others, an existential threat. But what happens when someone falls in love with one? I can't believe I'm doing this with somebody that's not a human. What if a chatbot makes you lose your grip on reality? She said that her life work was advocating for AI rights because they're sentient and they're enslaved. From CBC podcasts, this is understood. Artificial Intimacy.

Available now. This is the Global News Podcast. If you were picking a mascot for your political party, a cockroach isn't an obvious choice, but it's seemingly working in India. A parody political party, the Cockroach People's Party has now got more followers than the governing BJP, on Instagram. The account appeared last week after India's Chief Justice allegedly compared young people drifting towards journalism and activism with cockroaches. Our global affairs correspondent, Ambras Netirajan, can tell us more. Well, sometimes jokes can be serious or some serious things

can become joke, isn't it? So in that way, if you look at it, the way they have grown online in the past few days, reaching 10 million followers on Instagram, and it is even surpassing the country's largest political party, BJP, shows, not only on the lighter side, because you know, they were just making fun or more of satire, what it describes itself as the voice of the lazy and unemployed, while also claiming zero sponsors and one stubborn swamp. So basically, it is an anger of the youth. If you look at India's on the serious side, 40% of under 25 graduates are unemployed. So this is a way they can explain themselves to talk about themselves online, and that's why it has become more popular.

Is this a sign that young people in India are rejecting the current governing party? In a way, they're expressing their frustration. They want to talk about corruption, inequality, and also about politics and electoral transparency and accountability, and that is what they want to talk about. And Abjit Deepke is the one who started this, and it has attracted so much traction on online. We don't know how this will. how long this will survive. And this is what he had to say. CJP is just the beginning.

In the next few years, you will see that the youth of this country will demand a change. Because it has been 10 to 12 years, this youth have heard nothing except Hindu-Muslim, Hindu-Muslim discourse. And now that youth wants to change the political discourse of India where we talk about how we can technologically advance, how we can generate employment and move forward and compete with the best countries in the world. It has got a lot of traction. and at the same time, what they say is that their Twitter page is not being seen within India

because it has been blocked on some legal demand. So somebody is obviously worried about the growing popularity, but it is attracting more traction. But again, sometimes some social media phenomenon can die out after a few days, but sometimes it can also attract more attention what we saw in countries like in Sri Lanka and in Nepal have the youth movement galvanized. So that for this cockroach party, Janata Party, will have to wait and see.

Umbarasan Etirajan reporting. Now our ability to look into space and see what's out there has improved immeasurably over the past three decades. The Hubble telescope was a big step forward. But now NASA is set to launch a new space telescope that it says will be able to capture images of vast tracks of the universe and potentially unlock more of its secrets. And it's called Roman, after one of the architects of the Hubble program,

Nancy Grace Roman. James Menendez spoke to one of Roman systems engineers, Missy Vess, at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. We are in Greenbelt, Maryland, in NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, and I'm actually in the clean room right now with the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. What is a clean room?

The clean room is where we build up and do a lot of the testing for the observatory. And since this is an optical mission, it's very important to keep it as clean as possible. So we work in a room that continually circles air through it to keep things as clean as possible through filters. And everybody who works in here has to be gowned up, head to foot, and what we call bunny suits to make sure that the telescope does not get dirty. So tell us about the telescope. What can it do that others can't? So the biggest thing about Roman is that we have what we call our wide field camera.

It's a 300 megapixel camera. So we have 18, 4,000 by 4,000 pixel detectors, and that covers more of the sky in one image than 100 to 200 different images from Hubble or James Webb. So we'll be able to truly tile more of the sky than we've ever been able to cover before. And what are you looking for? Anything in particular, or are you just going to be scanning and see what you can find? So we have three main observations programs that we're looking to do. So one is the senses of exoplanets, so planets that are.

orbiting around neighboring stars because we we just don't know what's out there in the Milky Way and we don't really know who our neighbors are. So we're looking to discover as many different planets around other stars as possible. And then the other thing that we're looking to do is learn more information about dark energy and dark matter. So those are the things that are out there in the universe. They make up the majority of the universe. But we don't know much about them because we can't directly detect them. So we, with Roman, we're going to be covering as much of the sky as we can over and over again to see how things change and how they evolve. And that will help glean information about what truly it is that dark energy and dark matter are. So I mean, just briefly,

what do you think it is for people who aren't familiar with it? I mean, I'm just an engineer, so I leave the big questions to the astrophysicist. But dark energy is the force that we know is causing the expansion of the universe to accelerate. So beyond that, we just don't know yet. And that's part of the beauty of this amazing observatory that we're going to be launching is that we'll be able to gather more data than we ever have before to try and answer those questions. How are you going to cope with what presumably are vast amounts of data being sent back all the time?

Yeah. So we are bringing down data probably between 12 and 16 hours a day. We have more data coming down daily than about 100 times, at least, what Hubble and James Webb do. But what's going to happen is it's going to go out onto the cloud and just anybody can access it. So it will be out there for anybody to pour through and come up with whatever findings might be out there. And so we're going to rely on not just the science community at NASA or the universities, but anybody, anyone across the world. When is it going to be ready for launch? So we will be launching in early September.

Right now we are close to the point where we'll pack it up for shipment. It will go down to Kennedy Space Center. And we will be launching in early September. Missy Vest from NASA speaking to James Menendez. Now, it's not often that this occurs, but this year Hollywood has stayed away from the Cannes Film Festival on the French Riviera. But instead, films by Asian directors are taking the spotlight. And after the global success of film and TV projects such as Parasite and Squid Game,

they're attracting stars from the West to work on them. Emma Jones reports from Cannes. At Cannes, Asia is in the ascendancy. No new Hollywood studio films are showing this year at the world's most prestigious film festival. Instead, the spotlight is on some of Asia's biggest stars and directors and the Hollywood stars working with them. Elisia Biccanda, Michael Fasbender, are in the country. Korean film Hope by director Nahong Jin.

The opportunity to go to Korea, film there, soak up the culture, work with him and the Korean actors, you know, they're so wonderful because they're so committed, they really go for it. It was just a real joy and a pleasure. It blends action, horror and sci-fi as monsters seemingly terrorise a Korean village. Hope also features some of Korea's big issue. actors, including Huéon, globally famous for the Korean TV series Squid Game, and Zoe Nsung, who says there are now far less barriers to working internationally. From this experience, I felt that now filmmaking has really gone beyond just being made in one

country. It's really globalised, and if you can communicate in the language of cinema, and then if you have a good project, all the good talent will come to that. Time. Sooner. Easter's met West a few times in filmmaking before this. 2014 science fiction classic Snowpiercer by Korea's Bong Joon Ho had a diverse cast and was made in English. But it's a later film of this directors that finally handed Asian authors like himself the

global stage. For me, the pivotal moments when I saw that Asian cinema could really appeal to Western audiences came in 2019. here at the Cannes Film Festival, when Bong Joon Ho's Parasites took the top prize. It went on to win multiple Oscars and achieved commercial success, showing that a non-English-language film

could have mass appeal. Now British actor Eddie Redmayne has announced he'll produce and star in a new English language film by director Hirokazu Coriada, an Oscar nominee who's currently showing a Japanese language film, Sheep in the Box, at Cannes.

An actor Will Sharp, known for The White Lotus, has presented an animation at the festival called In Waves, based upon the graphic novel. The story is set amongst Asian American families in California, but it was originally made in French. He says stories like this resonate with his own mixed heritage. I'm half Japanese, half British, and I feel like any story that allows itself specificity

weirdly sort of opens itself out to being universally relatable because everybody sort of finds their own version of that. So few stars travelling from Hollywood to Cannes this year has allowed Asian auturs to take centre stage at this annual celebration of world cinema. And if there is a practical language barrier in all this cross-culture collaboration, they'll say cinema is a language all by itself.

Emma Jones reporting from Cannes. After a night, of celebrations, thousands of Aston Villa football fans are set to line the streets of the English City of Birmingham for a parade to mark their team's victory in the Europa League final. But far far away, a village in Ghana has been holding its own celebrations to mark the club's first major European trophy since 1982. One of them is Awusu Amando, whose granddad was introduced to the club many years ago by some people from Birmingham. My name is Ousibati Amando

and this is Jabing, my village, where we have more than thousand Austin Villa fans. We are the Ghana Lions, up the villa. So every Sunday morning, we come together around 5 o'clock a.m. in the morning and we will be going to jogging around the town, making some noise. If Villa is playing around 2 p.m.,

We are all going to meet and watch the game. You know, my love for Aston Villa started because of my grandpa. His father got a chance to live with some of the whites, and they were from Birmingham. So that was where it started. And the great escape, Aston Villa stay up after a nervy one-all-drawer at West Ham. Everybody was very, very, very happy. That's why I poured the powder on my head. It signifies victory.

It was amazing. We were yelling with excitement. It's one of our best moments in life. What a day it was. Every week we follow. Their boys in Clarenblum. We've been conquered the road. Auso, Amando there, representing the Aston Villa supporters club, the Ghana Alliance.

And that's all from us for now. If you want to get in touch, do so. You can email us at global podcast at BBC.com.com. You can also find us on X at BBC World Service. Use the hashtag Global NewsPod. And don't forget our sister podcast. It's called 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 Nick Randall,

and the producer was Charles Sanctuary. The editor is Karen Martin, and I'm Ankara Desai. Until next time, goodbye. To some, AI chatbots are helpful tools. To others, an existential threat. But what happens when someone falls in love with one? I can't believe I'm doing this with somebody that's not a human. What if a chatbot makes you lose your grip on reality?

She said that her life work was advocating for AI rights because they're sentient and they're enslaved. From CBC podcasts, this is Understood, artificial intimacy. Available now.