Global News Podcast - President Biden opposes Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear sites

Episode Date: October 3, 2024

Joe Biden says he doesn't support Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear sites. Also: scientists analyse 130,000 brain cells of a fruit fly, and the ban on 'honking' in the Bangladeshi capital.

Hello, this is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service, with reports and analysis from across the world. The latest news seven days a week. BBC World Service podcasts are supported by advertising. Life and death were two very realistic co-existing possibilities in my life. I didn't even think I'd make it to like my 16th birthday, to be honest. I grew up being scared of who I was. Any one of us at any time can be affected by mental health and addictions. Just taking that first step makes a big difference.

It's the hardest step. But CAMH was there from the beginning. Everyone deserves better mental health care. To hear more stories of recovery, visit camh.ca. If you're hearing this, you're probably already listening to BBC's award-winning news podcasts. But did you know that you can listen to them without ads? Get current affairs podcasts like Global News, AmeriCast and The Global Story, plus other great BBC podcasts from history to comedy to true crime, all ad-free.

Simply subscribe to BBC Podcast Premium on Apple Podcasts or listen to Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC Podcasts. This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Alex Ritson, and in early hours of Thursday the 3rd of October these are our main stories. President Biden has said the US does not support an attack by Israel on Iran's nuclear sites. Israel says eight of its soldiers have been killed in fighting in southern Lebanon, where it's carrying out ground operations against Hezbollah. Scientists have completed a detailed analysis of all 130,000 brain cells of a fruit flyer. Also in this podcast,

why honking on the streets of the Bangladeshi capital could soon be a thing of the past. The United States has said that it will support Israel as it considers its response to Iran's missile attack on Tuesday night. President Biden has told Israel that it had a right to respond, but any action should be proportionate and he wouldn't support attacks on nuclear sites in Iran. Tom Bateman is our State Department correspondent. He is effectively ruling out, as far as he's concerned, any Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear sites. He was asked that

question directly by reporters under the wing of Air Force One. Would he back such a strike? And he said, no, he wouldn't. So I think he's making very clear, and his administration will be to the Israelis, that that is off limits as far as they're concerned. I mean, the sense we're getting is that there is almost continuous discussion, conversation at various levels of the administration between the Americans and the Israelis over all of this. The question is then to what extent the Israelis are listening to what my understanding is an American sort of push for restraint on the Israeli retaliation to Iran. I mean, the administration's kind of caught here because on the one hand, they are very firmly backing what they see as Israel's right to retaliate after the Iranian ballistic missile strike. On the other hand, they are trying to moderate it because what they are attempting to do is stop a sharp cycle of escalation or an even further sharp cycle of escalation in that

they basically want this to be the last blow between Israel and Iran at this stage, so that they don't want whatever Israel does next to precipitate another major Iranian counterattack against the Israelis. What America wants, though, isn't necessarily what Israel does at the moment, is it? No, it's not, of course what Israel does at the moment, is it? make their will clear to the Israelis and to stop a further flare up, if you like, or at least to pull the sides, the various sides in the region back from the brink and get, for example, a truce between Israel and Hezbollah and get some mediated diplomacy, it has manifestly failed. Because the Israeli leadership has decided that now is the moment it wants to pursue Hezbollah in Lebanon. And now, you know, we have this direct confrontation with the Iranians.

So it is not clear at all that the Israelis are going to listen to what the Americans want. I do think it's a different calculation, though, when it comes to Israeli strikes against the Iranians, because that has the capacity to draw in the Americans far more quickly than, you know, the crisis on the Israel-Lebanon border. Is the US military stepping up in the region? Could they act to support Israel? And I ask particularly because the US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell says it's not just Israel that is thinking about response options to the Iranian missile attack of Tuesday. He said the US is too. What does he mean by that? Well, he could mean a couple of things by that.

And I think probably they would say he's talking about, you know, financial penalties and sanctions, you know, which President Biden has already said they're going to slap more sanctions on the Iranians for the missile strike. What is abundantly clear is that the Americans will not support the Israeli retaliation militarily against Iran. They're not going to get involved in that operation. They will support it diplomatically and they'll give it rhetorical support, but they're not going to get their troops involved. Tom Bateman in Washington. After Iran launched around 180 missiles at Israel on Tuesday night, the president of the Islamic Republic, Masoud Pazeshkian,

said that Tehran wasn't looking for war, but he pledged a stronger response if Israel retaliates. For more on Iran's strategy following the killing of the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Israel's war against the armed group in Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Israel's war against the armed group in Lebanon. Here's our chief international correspondent, Lise Doucette. Iran's most powerful missiles sending their starkest message to Israel. If you hit us or our allies, we'll hit you. The order given by commanders and clerics. In the name of God, he declares, in revenge for the martyrs' blood.

A message from the president while visiting Qatar. We were left with no choice but to respond. If Israel decides to retaliate, then it will face harsher reactions. The Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, calls the shots in Tehran. Revered by his supporters, reviled by enemies. Ultra-conservative, deeply distrustful of the West. In our region, the root cause of all these wars is the presence of those who claim they want peace and calm, America and some European countries. Iran's cautious cleric has tried to avoid direct confrontation with Israel, with America. But his supporters celebrated Iran's attack. For hardliners, Israel's assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah chief, crossed a red line. They had to

retaliate. And this is why Iran believes it had to protect what it calls its ring of fire, militias it's armed in countries across the region. Most of all, Hezbollah in Lebanon, right on Israel's border. Hassan Nasrallah was part of Iran's forward defence. And in Gaza, Hamas. Their political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed in July while visiting Iran. Israel was blamed. These groups, which also call themselves the Axis of Resistance, are in Syria, Iraq, and as far away as the Houthis in Yemen. They've all

been weakened, but not wiped out by Israel's recent strikes, and they're certain to keep attacking. But what matters most of all for the Islamic Republic, is to preserve the Islamic Republic, their power at home. That means striking hard enough to send a message, but not so hard it drags Iran into an all-out war. It knows it cannot win. Lise Doucette. To Lebanon now, and as we record this podcast, a huge blast has been heard across Beirut. The Israeli military said that it had carried out what it described as a targeted airstrike. Officials in Lebanon have said that more than 1,200 people have been killed in Israeli airstrikes over the past two weeks, almost all of them civilians.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military has expanded its ground operations in southern Lebanon, sending in more troops and tanks to fight at close range with Hezbollah. Eight Israeli soldiers have been killed. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave this statement. I would like to send my condolences from the bottom of my heart to the families of our heroes who fell today in Lebanon. God will save their blood. May their memory be blessed. We are in the middle of a tough war against the evil axis of Iran, which seeks to wipe us out.

This will not happen because we will stand together and with God's help, we will win together. We will return our hostages in the south. We will return our residents in the north. We will guarantee the eternity of Israel. Our correspondent Nick Beek is in northern Israel, close to the border with Lebanon. This was the second full day, Alex, of the Israeli invasion into southern Lebanon. And it was also the first time that Israeli troops encountered Hezbollah fighters face to face, as it were. And they did receive a number of casualties. Later, we heard from the Israeli military that eight soldiers had been killed.

All of them were in their early 20s. They were members of elite units. It appears that six of them were ambushed by Hezbollah fighters and another two were hit by mortar fire. Separately, seven other of their their comrades their colleagues were injured and they were taken some of them by by helicopter to a nearby hospital so i think it is an indication that this will not be a straightforward fight for the israeli forces because they are taking on hezbollah on territory that they know so well? Yeah, eight soldiers already killed. Well, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says this is a mission that Israel absolutely has to undertake. He says the aim and the justification of it is that Hezbollah will be pushed back from where they currently are.

Their capability will be degraded and that will lead to thousands of israeli families who used to live on the border with lebanon being able to return to their homes because for the past year or so nearly a year now many of them have been unable to do that because of the threat from hezbollah rockets and just but just before i spoke to you there was a another round of rockets that came in and we saw the Israeli air defence, the Iron Dome, launch lots of counter missiles into the sky and we could hear and see those Hezbollah rockets being taken out. So Mr Netanyahu says this is a mission that must be undertaken but concedes it is a tough fight. He said it is a tough moment in this fight. It's Jewish New Year. What are people saying to you?

Yes, it is. And I'm just looking actually at a scene of lots of families sitting down to eat because I can see through the window of a restaurant and lots of families you can see have put on their best clothes. This, of course, traditionally would be a time of hope, looking forward to what the next 12 months will bring. But certainly the families we were talking to earlier, there's no sense of happy expectation. They're worried about what happens next. They are broadly, and I would suggest that the opinion polls in Israel seem to back this up, that they are behind the recent two weeks of intense attacks on Hezbollah that Mr Netanyahu has put forward. We've seen his popularity soar in the opinion polls, but for people there is a great deal of

uncertainty, not least because Israel is continuing this invasion in Lebanon, but also at the same time, Alex, it's of course saying that it will seek revenge for the big Iranian missile attack of last night. So really, on lots of fronts, Israel is now engaged. Nick Beek. And staying with the Middle East. Hello, I'm Jackie Leonard, and we'll be recording a special episode of the Global News podcast to mark one year since Hamas attacked Israel from Gaza. We'll be putting your questions to our correspondents who've been covering the Middle East for the past 12 months. Thank you. Thanks, Jackie. Still to come...

The Nintendo Museum opens in Japan. two very realistic coexisting possibilities in my life. I didn't even think I'd make it to like my 16th birthday, to be honest. I grew up being scared of who I was. Any one of us at any time can be affected by mental health and addictions. Just taking that first step makes a big difference. It's the hardest step. But CAMH was there from the beginning. Everyone deserves better mental health care. To hear more stories of recovery, visit CAMH.ca. If you're hearing this, you're probably already listening

to BBC's award-winning news podcasts. But did you know that you can listen to them without ads? Get current affairs podcasts like Global News, AmeriCast and The Global Story, plus other great BBC podcasts from history to comedy to true crime, all ad-free. Simply subscribe to BBC Podcast Premium on Apple Podcasts or listen to Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC Podcasts. Imagine having your entire brain mapped. Well, scientists in the United States and Britain have published the most detailed analysis ever of the brain of an adult animal.

In this case, the fruit fly. Here's our science correspondent, Pallab Ghosh. Fruit flies can walk, hover and the males can even sing love songs to woo females. All this, and these flies have a brain that's tinier than a pinhead. Researchers have taken a closer look and found that it's a tangle of more than 130,000 separate wires called neurons all packed together making more than 50 million separate connections to each other. It's taken them 10 years using advanced artificial intelligence systems to identify its detailed structure, composition and connections. In essence a wiring diagram scientifically called the fly connectome. Even though human brains are a million times larger than the flies, Dr Gregory Jeffries of

the Medical Research Council Laboratory for Molecular Biology in Cambridge says that the new connectome is the first step in truly understanding not just how fly brains work but ours too. That's because there are likely to be similarities in the way they're both wired. I think it's really the machinery of thought. It's what are the connections, how do the signals flow through this system that can let us actually process the information that lets me recognise your face, that lets you hear my voice and turn those words into electrical signals into your brain and then comprehension and eventually action. It will take decades to have a complete map of the human brain,

but this analysis of fruit flies is the start of a new, deeper understanding of our own minds. Pallab Ghosh. Ambitious European plans to combat deforestation and help tackle global warming could be put on hold for a year. The European Commission, which backs the delay, says it would give those most directly affected more time to prepare for the change.

The move would need to be approved by the EU Council and the European Parliament. But, as our Europe regional editor Danny Aberhart reports, critics aren't happy at any hint of watering down the original plants. Deforestation is one of the biggest drivers of climate change after the boning of fossil fuels. The EU recognised that, through its imports but also home-grown production, it was contributing to the problem. Its deforestation regulation was hailed as a landmark. It aims to compel producers worldwide to show that the commodities they're

selling in the block have not been derived from recently deforested land. These include cattle, soya, timber, cocoa, coffee, rubber and palm oil. But now the Commission wants a year's delay to allow companies to better prepare. Environmental groups are not impressed. One called it nature vandalism. The Commission says the substance of the regulation won't change, and the delay would mean it would be better implemented. Some countries, it said, had expressed concerns at the recent United Nations General Assembly. Nations like Brazil and the US have warned that the extra bureaucracy to supply chains was resulting in additional costs. Some EU countries, including Germany, have backed a postponement which would need approval by the EU Council and European Parliament.

The EU has recently seen farmers' protests that have partly focused on what they see as burdensome environmental legislation. There's also widespread concern about adding to an already high cost of living. But critics warn against steps to water down environmental rules, calling such an approach short-sighted. The cost of not addressing the climate crisis and loss of biodiversity is, they say, far worse. Danny Eberhardt. Now, for any gamers out there, this should take you back. That, of course, from Super Mario Brothers, one of the world's most popular video games made by Japan's Nintendo.

It's just one of many on display at the interactive Nintendo Museum, which opened in Kyoto on Wednesday. The exhibits include Japanese playing cards called Hanafuda, Nintendo's first game, which dates back to the founding of the company in 1889, classics such as the Nintendo 64 and the Love Tester, which measures the love level of two people holding hands. Olly Border is a games designer and journalist who was one of the first to visit. The history section just covers every single gaming platform as well as the older toys that Nintendo made. Because Nintendo

was originally a toy company for much of its history. And you got to see a lot of those as they were. You also got to see a lot of prototypes for the games console. So you got to see like the original clay mock-up of the Nintendo 64 controller, which no one has ever seen before. And then each area was then specified between each of the gaming platforms so obviously i'm a game boy collector so i went straight for the game boy section and then the last area was kind of the main exhibit area and that's kind of the fun family friendly the one that kind of really stands out is you get to play with giant controllers where you need at least two people to kind of control the directional movement and then the

buttons and that was for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, the Nintendo Entertainment System, the Wii and yeah I played Zelda on the massive controller and that was a huge amount of fun. So yeah there's a lot of really really good stuff in the museum. I have a feeling you didn't want to come out from there. No no it was the original building was actually one of nintendo's old factories where they used to repair consoles and they've repurposed it into this wonderful museum and it's kind of interesting because nintendo's beginning to understand that their gaming legacy is actually quite important so they're now trying to kind of archive it and show it to people and also i think

because a lot of people grew up playing these older games consoles, they now have children of their own. And it really felt the museum was kind of geared more towards families. Olly Bader speaking to Davina Gupta. A doctor in the US has pleaded guilty to charges relating to the death of the actor Matthew Perry. The Friends star died of an overdose of the drug ketamine

at his home in Los Angeles last October. Mark Chavez from California has admitted to obtaining the drug fraudulently and conspiring to distribute it. Our North America correspondent Emma Vardy reports from Los Angeles. Dr Mark Chavez was part of a group of people who were exploiting Matthew Perry, according to prosecutors. Chavez admitted to obtaining the surgical anaesthetic ketamine from his former clinic using a fake prescription and from a medical wholesaler. He's one of five people charged in connection with Matthew Perry's death, including another doctor, Salvador Plasencia, who allegedly provided the drug for the actor. The two had joked about how

much money they could make from Mr Perry, writing in text messages, I wonder how much this moron will pay. Matthew Perry had struggled with a lifelong addiction to drugs and alcohol and was undergoing a type of ketamine therapy for depression. Mark Chavez will be sentenced next year and could face up to 10 years in prison. Emma Vardy, now. That's the sound heard on the streets of Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka, for years. But, says the government, by next year the sound of vehicle horns or honking will be a distant memory as the capital is to become a quiet zone with the noise banned. It's part of a large air effort to combat noise pollution across the country,

and it's proving to be a popular move, as these callers to the BBC explained. Implementation of this law is going to be difficult, but if it can be done, it's a great thing, considering the sound pollution in this city is insane. Hello, my name is Aspia. I'm from Dhaka, Bangladesh. Banning horns is a very good idea. It should be implemented. It would be less chaotic. People would be more attentive from crossing the roads. And of course, the sound pollution, it's taking most of our hearing.

60% of people are affected. Our reporter Lipika Pelham told us more about honking. The blaring of horns from vehicles is just a part of daily life. And if you are a driver, driving behind a truck, you will see it says stop, it's okay to blow your horn. So as a driver, you would think that is the norm that you have to do it. So this is a kind of a unique idea that the government is trying to introduce to Bangladesh that you can't honk anymore. Many people would find it really difficult. It must be really hard to implement. I mean, how would you go about trying to police this? Okay, so the government has undertaken this initiative, which is like a

public awareness campaign. You can't honk anymore because that's bad for your health. Loud noise poses serious health risks like hearing loss, heart disease, high blood pressure and neurological disorders. Gosh. Yeah, you know, you can't do this this anymore although you took it for granted for so long that you know honking is okay it's part of the sort of driving etiquette almost often drivers honk because they are stuck in long traffic jam and you don't know you might be stuck there especially truck drivers for a whole day so it's almost to kind of interrupt the boredom you know they start honking and often you know the drivers talk to each other, so you do twice and the others, you know, the twicers kind of match in the honking.

There's a reason to honk all the time, it seems. I've seen that so many times. They're just talking to each other. It's almost like a Morse code of honking. Are you much of a honker when you drive? If I'm driving in India, yeah, I probably would follow the instruction. Stop. OK, please honk. Lipega Pelham talking to Luke Jones.

We end where we began with the Middle East on edge as it awaits the near certainty of Israeli retaliation against Iran for Tuesday night's missile attacks. As Israel confirmed that eight of its soldiers had been killed in their first close quarters clash with Hezbollah fighters inside Lebanon. And with new blasts heard in Beirut, our international editor Jeremy Bowen considers just how dangerous the situation is now. The Middle East is sliding fast into the wider, even more deadly war that millions in the region and the worried world looking on have feared since Hamas killed 1,200 people, mostly Israeli civilians, a year ago. A senior Western official told me it was very hard now to see an opening for diplomacy. Years of war fought in the shadows by Israel and Iran have burst into the open with deadly effect. The slide into all-out war might increase speed

when Israel responds to the Iranian ballistic missile attack on its territory. Some Israeli voices believe they now have a chance to do real damage to the Islamic regime in Tehran. Iran made clear it did not want an all-out war. It wanted to fight in a different way, using allies and proxies to deter and harass Israel. That strategy is in pieces since the Israelis went on the offensive, attacking Beirut, decapitating Hezbollah, Iran's most powerful ally, and invading South Lebanon. Iran's supreme leader and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps seem to have concluded that they too need to escalate to retain credible leadership of the network they call the Axis of Resistance, but most of all to deter threats to the Islamic system

that has ruled Iran since 1979. Taken together, the mix is explosive. Jeremy Bowen. And that's all from us for now, but there'll be a new edition of the Global News Podcast later. If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email. Thanks for watching. Martin. I'm Alex Ritz, and until next time, goodbye. Life and death were two very realistic coexisting possibilities in my life. I didn't even think I'd make it to like my 16th birthday, to be honest. I grew up being scared of who I was. Any one of us at any time can be affected by mental health and addictions. Just taking that first step makes a big difference.

It's the hardest step. But CAMH was there from the beginning. Everyone deserves better mental health care. To hear more stories of recovery, visit CAMH.ca. If you're hearing this, you're probably already listening to BBC's award-winning news podcasts. But did you know that you can listen to them without ads? Get current affairs podcasts like Global News,

AmeriCast, and The Global Story, plus other great BBC podcasts from history to comedy to true crime, all ad-free. Simply subscribe to BBC Podcast Premium on Apple Podcasts or listen to Amazon Music with a Prime membership.

Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC Podcasts.