Global News Podcast - Reaction to Israeli assassination of Hamas leader

Episode Date: October 18, 2024

Hamas confirms the death of Yahya Sinwar and says it will not return the Israeli hostages until the IDF stops its assault and withdraws troops from Gaza. Also: reports that North Korea is sending soldiers to Russia.

Hello, this is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service with reports and analysis from across the world. The latest news seven days a week. BBC World Service podcasts are supported by advertising. This week on Witness History, in 1970, Gary Gygax was fired. And that event, believe it or not, changed the gaming industry forever. He went on to create Dungeons & Dragons. In the 50 years since its release, the tabletop roleplay game has generated billions of dollars in sales and now boasts more than 50 million players worldwide. Search and subscribe to Witness History wherever you get your BBC podcast.

This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Andrew Peach and at 13 Hours GMT on Friday the 18th of October, these are our main stories. We'll bring you a reaction to the killing of the Hamas leader Yaya Sinwar, suggestions that North Korea is deploying 12,000 troops to help Russia against Ukraine, and with new section assault allegations against the former hip-hop star P Diddy, we'll hear from his former publicist. I've seen people throw themselves at Diddy. They want his attention, and girls and guys would certainly want to be part of his world.

Also in this podcast, I called them and said I don't want to go through with it. They started threatening me saying they know where I live. They said we are going to set fire to your house or throw you in the ocean. In Japan, a surge in people being recruited for criminal jobs on social media. A good day for the world, the words of the US President Joe Biden as he congratulated the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for killing the Hamas leader Yaya Sinwar. Now, just before we recorded this podcast, the senior Hamas official Khalil Aheya confirmed Sinwar's death, saying he died in combat. In a video, the group's chief negotiator says the assassination will turn into a curse on the occupiers and that Hamas won't return the Israeli hostages until the aggression on Gaza stops

and Israel withdraws. Ruby Chen is the father of Itai Chen, an Israeli soldier who was killed during the Hamas attack on the 7th of October. He told us Mr. Netanyahu needs to end the war now. Yichia Sinwar was an obstacle to get the hostage deal. Well, this obstacle has been removed. So now it is time to urge the world community to hammer out a deal to end the suffering of the hostages, as well as end the humanitarian crisis that is in Gaza as well. The prime minister of Israel has said many times that this war could end with the release

of the 101 hostages. Now is the time to end it. Here's what people in northern Gaza have been telling us. YAHYA SINWA, President of the United Arab Emirates of the United States of America We long for a return to normality, so that people can finally find some rest. We are wary of the constant war and the unending exhaustion. It's already too much that our homes have been destroyed and looted. MOHAMMED AL-KHATIM, President of the United Arab Emirates of the United States of America We received the news of Yahya Sinwa's assassination with great shock.

His death will not halt the ongoing crimes of the occupation in the Gaza Strip. However, it may influence negotiations regarding the exchange of prisoners and soldiers. We hope this will lead to an end to the aggression and the war that has persisted in the Gaza Strip for more than a year. I've been speaking to our security correspondent Frank Gardner. I think we should debunk any kind of fantasy that they're just going to roll over and say, oh my gosh, OK, you guys have won, let's give it up. They are vowing to continue their, what they call their struggle, their resistance.

They are very badly degraded militarily. They're not completely defeated. And the problem is that, you know, for Israel, is that this is war amongst the people. You know, for every Hamas fighter they've killed, there are many more civilians who've died. There's not a single family in the Gaza Strip who isn't in some way touched in a negative way

by the horrendous last 12 months, as indeed Israeli, the same applies to Israel in the wake of the October the seventh massacre last year. So I'm not particularly optimistic, and there aren't a lot of people saying this is a wonderful opportunity. It's a chance to revive peace talks, ceasefire talks, et cetera. But I don't think Benjamin Netanyahu is in a mood for that. Israel is on a roll.

They're taking on all their enemies at once. And let's not forget, amidst all of this, everything that's going on in Gaza and Lebanon and the West Bank and Yemen, Israel has vowed to retaliate against Iran for the massive October the 1st missile barrage of 180 ballistic missiles that were launched by Iran against Israel, many of which penetrated

Israel's air defences. That, they said, was in retaliation in turn for the assassination by Israel of Hassan Nasrallah on September 27. Well, 17 days have passed since then, and I'm sure some people have either forgotten about it or will be thinking, ah, you know, maybe the US has talked Israel down from the brink and discouraged them from doing anything. I think Israel will hit back, but is probably going to limit its response to bases, military bases, belonging to say the Revolutionary Guards Corps or the Basij militia. How high a priority for Benjamin Netanyahu is getting the Israeli hostages back? I think a lot of Israeli families would say rock bottom.

It is no priority at all. That would be perhaps a little unfair, but it's definitely subordinate to his priority of crushing Hamas. He's had plenty of opportunities to do a ceasefire deal and he's turned his back on it. He says, nope, We're not doing that We're not going to give them an inch He firmly believes that in his mind or at least what he's saying publicly The best way to get the hostages released is to defeat Hamas militarily and to

Force them to give them up or to deliberate them by military force That hasn't really worked the best release of hostages the biggest chunk of hostages who were released in one go came in November last year when 104 were released by mediation in Qatar with the help of the Egyptians and small help from the Americans. And a lot of those hostage families are demonstrating and are very angry with the Netanyahu government because they see it as being an obstacle to getting their loved ones out. And, you know, hardly a week goes by

when there's more bad news that another one has died or been killed down in those dreadful tunnels beneath Gaza. And meanwhile, the war goes on with a very high death toll of Palestinian civilians in Gaza Strip. And that shows no sign of letting up. Our security correspondent Frank Gardner with me. So as the war continues the humanitarian situation in Gaza remains dire. For the first 12 days of this month the UN said no aid had entered northern Gaza from crossings controlled by Israel. Earlier this week the US warned Israel that if it didn't allow more aid in it risked losing US military help. My colleague Victoria O'Hunda spoke to James Elder from UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Agency, and asked if more aid convoys had been allowed into Gaza in

recent days. Unfortunately the number of trucks entering the north has reduced once again we were having these conversations a year ago to a lethally low level. So you've got a population there who is under very severe attack. We've seen dozens of attacks on schools and shelters in the last couple of weeks. These great restrictions on aid, since now early October,

only 80 trucks in total of all commercial humanitarian aid have been able to get into the North. That was compared with 460 in the same period last month. So again, we've got this cruel choice for civilians. It's endure deprivation or flee into displacement. The challenge now is though that deprivation grips all of Gaza. So being displaced now simply just leads to more suffering and ever worse conditions for children. You were there just last month and you talked about the deprivation and the destruction we've

seen but very few people actually have been on the ground since October 7th attacks on Israel. What does it look like being in there and the people, the stories that you're hearing? It looks horrendous. There's two places I spend most of my time, Victoria, one is in hospitals. And if you imagine your local hospital with people in every single hallway, every corridor, every bed, every piece of floor, and those people being children and mums or old men,

there's something deeply undignifying about seeing an old man with wounds of war, having to use you know, use a bottle in a hallway. So hospitals are complete and utter war zones with children with the most grave, grave, grave injuries. I mean, I saw a little girl, a 12-year-old girl who had been wounded when her family home had been struck. Her brother and sister had both been killed. This little girl literally almost lost her face, her face was torn off. Now, somehow doctors with platinum have managed to repair that, but it's dissolving and she is one of hundreds of children

who require medical evacuation. And the brutal honesty here is that whilst we are being restricted or getting aid in, also these very life-saving cases of children with the wounds of war are being obstructed and not allowed to actually leave. So that's hospitals and not allowed to actually leave. So that's hospitals and then you're in camps. Now, Al Mawassi, this one area is the most densely populated place on the planet and people have lived in tents for a year. They didn't live in

tents. They lived in homes and apartment blocks and they had access to water and schools. They've had none of that. So now they're in tents. Winter is coming. They know that they are physically exhausted. A lot of the only water available is unclean water and Victoria there's a level of trauma that I've never seen before. James Elder from UNICEF with Victoria Uonhonda. Relations between Russia and North Korea have deepened since the start of the war in Ukraine. In fact, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent Vladimir Putin a birthday message only last week calling him his closest comrade.

Ukraine's Vladimir Zelenskyy has spoken previously of North Korea joining the war. There's mounting evidence that Pyongyang is supplying Russia with ammunition. Now South Korea's spy agency says the North is deploying 12,000 troops. I asked our Asia Pacific regional editor Celia Hatton what we know about that deployment. Celia Hatton, Asia Pacific regional editor South Korea's spy agency has basically downloaded what they know about this situation. There have been rumors for quite some time. We know that North Korea has already been sending laborers, weapons, military engineers to help

Russia in its conflict in Ukraine. But now the South Koreans say this has really gone up a whole new level. They have already sent, South Korea says, North Korea has already sent four brigades are on the move, 12,000 soldiers. Now ordinary North Korean troops are malnourished, they're poorly trained. So there are concerns they're really just going to be used as sort of cannon fodder at the front lines. But they're also sending, and this is key, special forces to Russia. Now, even the Americans say that North Korean special forces are among the best in the world. So they're sending, in theory, 1500, these are unconfirmed reports, but apparently

they're already on their way to help Russia. Now, South Korea says that these troops are not going to be wearing North Korean uniforms. They say they're going to be wearing Russian uniforms and carrying fake Russian IDs. But the South Koreans say that they are using AI facial recognition to be able to recognize the North Koreans in Ukraine and in Russia. Okay. So pulling back from the details, tell us about this relationship between Russia and North Korea and what's in it for both sides. Well, North Korea and Russia don't have many friends on the world stage right now. But ever since that conflict began in Ukraine, when Russia invaded Ukraine, it's

really looked to North Korea for help. And North Korea has really profited from this. So North Korea has supplied old weaponry and ammunition to Russia. They're now in theory supplying troops. In return, the Russians are giving them much-needed spy satellite help. They're giving them cash, which North Korea has been used to upgrade its own military. And key, they are going to be giving if the North Korean troops start fighting in Ukraine, they're going to give those troops real-world experience, which is something that they lack

because North Korea is so isolated. So these are all things that the North Koreans need and this is why Kim Jong-un is probably quite happy about this deal. Our Asia Pacific editor Celia Hatton. There's been a series of new sexual assault allegations against the American rapper P. Diddy. Seven new lawsuits have been filed this week. The three-time Grammy winner whose real name is Sean Combs is accused of having drugged, raped and assaulted women and men over a period of more than a decade. He denies those allegations. From Los Angeles our correspondent Emma Vardy reports. A ticket to one of P Diddy's parties was the hottest invite in town. This is the legendary white party, it's the real white party. Make some noise if you've been here before.

It was an A-list spectacle. Guests included Jay-Z, Beyoncé and Usher. There was an all-white dress code, circus performers, dancing and no shortage of champagne. He put on a show. He was the ring master in this circus that he created. That's Rob Shooter, Diddy's former publicist. I used to get phone calls from publicists, from A-list celebrities begging to get tickets. But some of Diddy's parties are now alleged to have had a different side. In recordings from the parties, obtained by the BBC, the rapper even hinted at it himself.

To all the kids, the kids have like an hour left. Because after that, y'all gotta go. It's a wrap for y'all. Because this thing turns into something that when y'all get older, y'all don't want to come to. Here he was on a well-known US talk show. What do you do to make just an amazing killer party? Women. beautiful women. We need alcohol. You need the ladies, you need the booze.

Right. You need locks on the doors. This is sounding kind of dangerous now. It's a little kinky but you know. Though Rob says he never saw anything illegal, he did see the power that Diddy could command. I've seen people throw themselves at Diddy. They want his attention and girls and guys would certainly want to be part of his world. In recent months, allegations have continued to mount.

Sean Combs has been charged with criminal offences, including sex trafficking and transportation for prostitution, and drugging and raping alleged victims. There's also been more than a dozen civil suits accusing the star of sexual assaults and rape with lawyers saying there'll be more to come. We're on the street here in Beverly Hills where P Diddy lived and some of the parties happened at this mansion.

No one was keen to chat openly, but one neighbour told us this and her words have been voiced by an actor. For six or seven years it was just parties, parties and parties. We saw girls coming out and sitting down on the street. They didn't know where they were. Their underwear was showing and they were just lost. Police records obtained by the BBC show that officers were dispatched more than a dozen times to this property alone. It's definitely what we call a reckoning.

Gloria Allred is a prominent women's rights lawyer who's been an advocate for many victims in similar cases. There are many alleged victims who have kept silent for many, many years, either because they were intimidated or were threatened, and they may feel more confidence as this case progresses. So I would say we're at the beginning essentially. Sean Combs is now awaiting trial at a prison in Brooklyn. His lawyer says he emphatically and categorically denies all allegations and says they are false and defamatory. He's set

to stand trial in May next year. Our correspondent Emma Vardy in Los Angeles. Still to come in this podcast? It is absolutely phenomenal. It has just transformed. It is green, it's messy, it's noisy. You walk through and insects go up and then you stop and listen and the bird song is just amazing. The British scientists re-wiggling a river. A social media trend known as Yamibito or dark part-time jobs has been causing concern in Japan. A string of robberies and scams have been linked to the phenomenon which involves people being recruited for criminal jobs on social media. Dan Hardoon has been looking at this for BBC Trending.

How can applying for a part-time job on social media end up with you going to prison? That's what happened to Hiroshi, whose name we've changed to protect his identity. In 2020, Hiroshi quit his job due to severe depression. Desperate for work, he came across a post on X, formerly Twitter, offering what was vaguely described as a job using the internet, paying the equivalent of $200 a day. I got in touch and they replied to me on Twitter's DM function and told me to switch the conversation over to Telegram. About a day later, they asked me to send my ID. They also asked me for emergency contact information,

so I gave them my parents' details. Initially, Hiroshi was told to print out a document at a local convenience store. But when it turned out to be a fake police ID with his photo on it, he became suspicious and told the recruiter he no longer wanted the job. I called them and said I don't want to go through with it. They started threatening me, saying they know where I live. They said we are going to set fire to your house or throw you in the ocean.

I just remember feeling very scared. Hiroshi is one of many people in Japan who have been sucked into an online phenomenon known as Yibito. They're dark part-time jobs where ordinary people are recruited for criminal activities using social media. The job postings most commonly appear on platforms like X as well as Line, a Japanese messenger app. They use hashtags like side job or high paying part-time job.

Hiroshi told us he felt pressured into doing this work. He was involved in five scams targeting elderly people for their bank cards. This week on Witness History, in 1970, Gary Gygax was fired. And that event, believe it or not, changed the gaming industry forever. He went on to create Dungeons & Dragons. In the 50 years since its release, the tabletop role-play game has generated billions of dollars in sales and now boasts more than 50 million players worldwide. Search and subscribe to Witness History wherever you get your BBC podcast.

And was eventually jailed for three years for fraud. He says he now bitterly regrets what he did. What sticks with me is that all the elderly victims really believed that these scam stories were true. I felt even more guilty looking at them in that state. If you felt so guilty, why didn't you decide to just stop? Every time I told them I wanted to stop, they started threatening me all over again. Yamibito covers a wide range of crimes including drug trafficking, money laundering and theft. In May 2023, a high-profile robbery at a luxury watch store in Tokyo's Ginza district brought the issue to national attention when it emerged that one of the suspects had apparently been recruited on social media.

Since then, Japanese police have been cracking down, but BBC Trending has explored evidence that recruiters are still operating online. My colleague Ryozo Tutsui set up an anonymous account on X following BBC guidelines and contacted some of those accounts tweeting Yamibito style posts. One got back to me he said as a job this is very easy you just need to carry some stuff if you can stay in contact and do as we say there's a low risk of getting pakuraderu which means cuffed. So I asked him, is there a risk of getting arrested? And he said, and I quote, what do you think a courier job is? This is not Kuroneko Yamato, which is a Japanese courier service. Obviously, I didn't agree to do anything illegal for them.

We can't say for certain that this courier job is illegal. But the emphasis on not getting caught and the overall communication pattern closely mirrors Yibito. Of course this isn't unique to Japan, side hustles are popular all over the world and social media has made it far easier for criminal recruiters to draw people in. For now the best advice is to be wary of any online job posting promising unusually high pay. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Dan Hardoon reporting. You can hear the full BBC trending documentary, Yamibito, inside Japan's dark part-time jobs on BBC Sounds or wherever you get your podcasts. The US President Joe Biden got a warm welcome in Berlin today.

He was presented with Germany's highest honour, the Order of Merit, on what's seen as his farewell trip to Europe as US President. His German counterpart, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said Mr Biden had rescued the transatlantic relationship almost overnight. Mr President, to have you in our most dangerous moment since the Cold War, to have you and your administration on our side is no less than a historical stroke of good fortune. For us here in Europe, the past two years have shown once again America truly is the indispensable nation.

But it has also shown something else. NATO is the indispensable alliance. Talks with European leaders about the war in Ukraine will be a focus of Mr Biden's trip. Germany and the United States stood together to support the brave people of Ukraine in their fight for freedom, for democracy, for their very survival. And I want to thank every leader across Germany's government whose work tirelessly to ensure that Ukraine prevails and Putin fails. Our correspondent Jessica Parker is in Berlin following Mr Biden's trip. Joe Biden was in a room with sort of the political establishment of Germany and obviously Frank

Wolter Steinmeier, the president of Germany, then stood up to make various remarks. And my goodness, it was a long list of heartfelt compliments saying that J Biden had been a beacon of democracy and marked as well for his decency, as Mr Steinmeier put it, and that they'd been deeply grateful for his restoration of Europe's hopes in the transatlantic alliance. And look, if you cast your mind back, you'll remember that when Joe Biden became president, it was obviously after Donald Trump. And there was a bit of a reset. There was definitely a reset. Relations between Germany and Donald Trump's administration were certainly strained at times over a number of issues. Donald Trump sometimes sort of seemed to have Germany in his sights for criticism.

But then, of course, as well, following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the relationship between Germany and the U.S. has become even more crucial because they've both been top providers of military aid to Ukraine. And I slightly suspect that Joe Biden is really trying to solidify his political legacy in this area, because there are nerves around what could happen next. And whether Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who, yes, Germany is the number two backer to Ukraine in terms of weapons aid, but he has been criticized for being quite hesitant on this issue sometimes. So perhaps J Biden is really trying to remind European allies to keep backing Ukraine once he's no longer in the White House. And we were talking earlier about a sort of, you know, undercurrent of anxiety among European

leaders about the possibility of Donald Trump being elected, to put it bluntly, in a few days' time in the US. I mean, Ruth, that's been writ large. There's no, there's nothing subtle about it. Yeah, I mean, look, sometimes I speak to diplomats in Europe and they downplay the anxieties a little bit. They say, look, we've been there before. Donald Trump was already in the White House.

So to some degree, we know what to expect, but also expect the unexpected, because a lot of people I speak to would say one of the chief characterizations of Donald Trump is they found him slightly unpredictable in terms of a partner to deal with. But we're in a very different time now, of course, from when he was first elected. There is now the full scale Russian invasion and Donald Trump has clearly hinted at whether

he could cut aid to Kiev, whether he wants to push ahead with trying to get a quick piece as he's put it, which has led to fears he could pressure Ukraine to cede territory to Russia. So I think the anxiety in many European capitals is very real. Jessica Parker in Berlin. Let's talk about Netflix after it cracked down on password sharing, expanded into ads and invested billions in television. The results are in. In the last three months, the streaming giant has gained more than five million new subscribers. Here's our business correspondent, Felicity Hanna.

Netflix, you'd assume, would be feeling pretty chill about those numbers. But in fact, they've beaten investor expectations. Investors had expected four million subscribers in that three-month period. So they've beaten analysts' expectations. And despite that, investors are all a bit meh about it. This is a slowdown in growth, in subscriber numbers for the streaming giant. The investors like the growth that they are seeing. They like that it beat expectations. But yeah, they're looking at this and wondering where Netflix goes next. And Netflix is making some interesting steps. So you might remember recently it cracked down on password sharing, and that pushed a lot more people to sign up just to keep using the service that they were used to. That started to slow down now.

And what's I think really interesting about Netflix is how it's trying to change its business model. It's not just going to sort of grow to a certain size and then sit there and hope that people keep streaming it. It's trying to stay really relevant. So in September, for example, its new ad-supported service accounted for more than 50% of signups in the countries where it was available. So people wanting that budget option. And then it's got big plans to stream more live events, including sports, which is a big draw for advertisers. So in November, it's going to

stream a fight between the YouTube star Jake Paul and Mike Tyson. Then it's going to have its first NFL games in December. These are different moves, different audience and potentially more valuable for advertisers. It's also said it's going to start raising prices in some countries. So it's not just a company that wants to sit there, sit in its laurels and rest. It wants to keep innovating. Our business correspondent Felicity Hanna. Here in the UK, scientists say they've successfully restored a wetland habitat by effectively resetting a river.

They've completely filled in a river in southwest England and then let the water take its own course through the landscape. Our climate editor Justin Rolat has been following the project. From the air, the river Alla used to look like a typical British river. It had been straightened into a neat single channel. It kept the land dry but left little room for nature. So here's the question. Is it possible to do the ecological equivalent of a complete reboot, to reset the river and let it find its own course through the landscape?

Other projects in the UK have used diggers to re-wiggle rivers, reconstructing the curves they used to have. But here in West Somerset, the National Trust decided to try something much more radical. They completely filled the river in with earth and then waited to see what would happen next. A year on and Joe Neville, a river expert with the National Trust, is delighted with the watery world they've created. It really is foggy down there, The National Trust is delighted with the watery world they've created.

It really is foggy, though, isn't it? It's absolutely brilliant. It is absolutely phenomenal. It has just transformed. It is green, it is messy, it is noisy. You walk through and the insects go up and then you stop and listen and the birdsong is just amazing. Because what's so interesting about this is you didn't actually know what was going to happen, did you? No, it's one of the first projects that really has been done like this on this scale in England.

There's a lot of uncertainty and kind of, you know, what's going to happen, what's it going to look like? Is it going to do what we think it's going to do? Which is both a little bit scary, but also, you know, brilliantly exciting. Dr Alan Puttock of the University of Exeter is one of a team of scientists who've been using drones to record the changes here. He says they raise a fundamental question. Is this really still a river at all? What we see is you no longer have that single channel what we think of as a river what you have in said is a complex Messy wetland environment. You can't even see when the original channel was you have multiple threads multiple ponds multiple wetland areas

That network of different environments explains the explosion of life the scientists say they've recorded. There are many more birds and bird species and mammals too, including endangered water voles. They better be careful though. Barn owls now hunt here. But what happens down river? The villages of Allerford and Bossington regularly flood. 2003 floods were particularly bad, flooded lots of the surrounding cottages. Ben Erdley runs the River Project for the National Trust. His team got anxious when last winter turned out to be one of the wettest on record.

Post restoration we had some really significant rainfall events, you know, unprecedented really. The site responded really well, we didn't get any downstream flooding. Other villages in and around Somerset, you know, really badly flooded. The data's backed up now we've got from sort of Exeter and Nottingham universities, you know, we've significantly reduced the flood peak and helped protect downstream communities from that extreme weather. The UK is reckoned to have lost 90% of its wetlands in the last 100 years. River resets like this won't work everywhere,

but the National Trust is already considering sites where it could be repeated. That was our climate editor, Justin Rolat. Now, the UN's annual climate change conference starts on the 11th of November in Azerbaijan. Ahead of that, we're going to record a special edition of the Global News podcast for you. And we have a request. Here's my colleague, Nick Miles, is going to be quizzing two of the BBC's top climate change experts. Record-breaking hurricanes in America, droughts and floods in China and around the world the highest sea temperatures on record. Climate change has never been so clearly with us, but sometimes

it can be confusing to say the least about what the UN Climate Change Conference is trying to achieve and what it delivers. Which nations are leading the way and which are dragging their heels. We need your questions to put to our experts. Just email us at globalpodcast.bbc.co.uk. Thanks. And we'll be even more grateful if you could email us that message as a voice note. And that's it from us for now. There'll be a new edition of Global News to download later. If you'd like to comment on this edition, drop us an email, globalpodcast.bbc.co.uk, or you'll find us on X, where we are, at Global News Pod.

This edition was mixed by Jonathan Greer, the producer was Isabella Jewel, the editor is Karen Martin. I'm Andrew Peach, thank you for listening, Gary Gygax was fired. And that event, believe it or not, changed the gaming industry forever. He went on to create Dungeons & Dragons. In the 50 years since its release, the tabletop roleplay game has generated billions of dollars in sales and now boasts more than 50 million players worldwide. Search and subscribe to witness history wherever you get your BBC

podcast.