Global News Podcast - UN says Israel to allow 100 aid trucks into Gaza

Episode Date: May 20, 2025

The UN says Israel to allow 100 aid lorries to enter Gaza; Also: President Trump's real estate company in talks to build tower in Vietnam as it tries to head off huge US export tariffs; and why does the universe exist?

This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Jackie Leonard and at 13 Hours GMT on Tuesday, May 20, these are our main stories. A senior UN official has warned that thousands of babies could die in Gaza in days unless aid supplies reach them. President Trump's real estate company is in talks to build a tower in Vietnam as the government in Hanoi tries to head off huge US tariffs on its exports and after three years of talks the World Health Organization has formally adopted an agreement on how to handle future pandemics. Also in this podcast the

growing popularity of soft ground wrestling in Uganda. Wrestling has given me hope after dropping out from school. Wrestling has given me a new family. You meet different people and different minds. The UN's humanitarian chief, Tom Fletcher, says that thousands of babies in Gaza could die within days unless aid can reach them. In a BBC interview he said that the baby food brought into the territory by a handful of trucks on Monday, the first aid allowed in after an 11-week blockade, was just a drop in the ocean.

Medical workers in Gaza say air strikes overnight killed at least 60 people as Israel presses ahead with its renewed offensive against Hamas. Tom Fletcher told the BBC that far more aid trucks were needed. We are there on the border right now. We have thousands of trucks ready to go. And let me describe what is on those trucks. This is baby food, baby nutrition. There are 14,000 babies that will die in the next 48 hours unless we can reach them. The UN says it has now been given permission by Israel for a further 100 aid trucks to

go into Gaza. Rachel Cummings is the humanitarian director for Save the Children. She spoke to us from Gaza. The stories that we're hearing from mothers and from children is absolutely desperate. Just a couple of days ago, I was in our clinic in Canunis, which is very busy, and we've only just reopened it, having closed it with the resumption of fighting in the last couple of weeks. So we've reopened it and of course seeing many children and their caregivers. And one of the women shared with me that, you know, her children just cry all the time. They are hungry all the time. And she does not have any food, enough food to give them.

And they're resorting to bulking out food with grass. She was also talking about obtaining animal fodder and crushing it up. People are crushing up food and adding water to try and bulk it out, giving children one meal a day at night to see if they can sleep through because they are hungry all the time. And that's just one instance across thousands and hundreds of thousands of people who are desperately struggling to feed their children. Meanwhile international pressure has

been mounting on the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stop the military escalation. A joint statement by Britain, France and Canada said it was wholly disproportionate. Mr. Netanyahu hit back at them strongly saying the three leaders had offered a huge prize for Hamas in the Gaza war. But what sort of impact might pressure from Israel's friends have? A question for our diplomatic correspondent Paul Adams. Clearly the tone of that statement from the UK, France and Canada was extremely strong. Perhaps the strongest we've seen from any of Israel's allies since the war began. And

that obviously indicates that patience is running very, very thin indeed in the face of mounting warnings about starvation in Gaza and this impending Israeli military operation, which potentially could be the largest seen so far. So I think that explains the kind of the sense of exasperation and the strength of feeling expressed in that statement. Of course, what was different about it also was that it referred to further concrete steps that Britain, France and Canada might take if the situation doesn't improve. Now, it didn't get into what those steps might be, but clearly there's a range of options for these countries from the limiting of the sale of arms, something that we've already seen Britain do at a partial basis last year, the trade deals that

Israel's allies have, and of course the question of recognition of a Palestinian state, something that France was at one point poised to do and may still be poised to do at a conference that it's holding jointly with Saudi Arabia in New York next month. And there have been calls in the British Parliament for the British government also to recognise a Palestinian state, the government's position so far being that that should be a step taken as part of a process, not simply a gesture in and of itself. So there are clearly a range of options and the fact that these were referred to, albeit obliquely in the statement, indicates that these countries

recognise that words alone are not sufficient. And meanwhile foreign and defence ministers from the EU are going to discuss a resolution calling on the bloc to review its ties with Israel over what's going on in Gaza. What to make of that? I think again it's an indication of this mounting sense of despair that all the kind of urging so far, all the verbal cajoling, the hand-wringing about the humanitarian situation in Gaza, that none of this has had a sort of substantial effect and that consequently the time is approaching when something more concrete needs to happen. And no one is talking about sanctions at this point,

but that is the implication of this, that there is a recognition now that there needs to be actual threats of action in order to deter Benjamin Netanyahu from taking what many around the world, and indeed many of his own critics in Israel, see as a mistaken step to launch a massive incursion involving huge numbers of troops

at a time when, for the first time since the war began, Gaza and the people in Gaza are staring at the very real possibility of starvation. That is now something that the international community, the aid agencies are all saying is a real possibility. And we've started to see the first, you know, fragmentary bits of evidence that this is actually unfolding. And so the need to prevent all that, I think, is the background to all of this. That was Paul Adams. It's emerged that President Trump's real estate company is looking to build a tower in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. At the same time, the Vietnamese government

is in talks with the United States about how to avoid punishing tariffs. Our Asia Pacific editor, Mickey Bristow, reports. The US President's son, Eric Trump, is expected to visit Vietnam this week to scout out locations for the tower. He could also oversee the start of work on a luxury resort and golf course being built by the Trump organisation outside Hanoi. That project has just been approved by the Vietnamese government. Progress on these private developments coincides with talks between Vietnam and the US in Washington over tariffs. President Trump has threatened to impose a whopping 46% duty on Vietnamese goods.

Hanoi is keen to persuade the US leader not to do so, knowing the damage it will cause to Vietnam's growing economy. The fact that these two negotiations are taking place at the same time, one over personal investments, the other about diplomatic relations, has not gone unnoticed. For some, the US President is blurring the line between private benefit and public policy. That was Micky Bristow. For the last three years there have been talks taking place at the World Health Organisation aimed at preventing the international disarray that surrounded the Covid-19 pandemic.

Now members of the WHO have adopted an agreement on how to prepare for future pandemics. The President of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa welcomed the accord. Our experience of the Covid-19 pandemic exposed the fragilities of the international system as we witnessed how poorer countries were being pushed to the margins in the global scramble for treatment and care for their people. US negotiators left the discussions months ago, after President Trump began the process of withdrawing his nation from the agency when he assumed office. Our health correspondent Dominic Hughes is in Geneva where the WHO has been meeting. So this is an agreement that was forged in the heat of the battle against the last pandemic

in December 2021. So even as we were all still dealing with the last pandemic, they decided they needed to be better organised, more coordinated when the next one came along because everyone agrees it's a matter of if not when we face yet another pandemic. So this agreement aims at improving global coordination and detection of pandemics, as well as improving access to vaccines and treatments, exactly those sort of issues that Sir Ramaphosa was talking about. There were some concerns from member states

around sovereignty, national sovereignty. So this agreement sort of excludes, if you like, the WHO, the World Health Organization, from imposing measures such as lockdowns or vaccination programs or restriction on travel on member states. We heard, as you said, the United States, which was already in the process of leaving the World Health Organisation, has said this morning, just within the last hour, that it won't take part. And I think that will be a measure of regret here in Geneva, but there won't be any surprise at that.

And it has been a very difficult path to get this far, to get this agreement, hasn't it? They've been talking a long time. Yeah, they have. Three years of very, very tough negotiations at times. I think there were 11 different negotiating sessions. Several of them overran and so they had to go on and on and on. It's still not quite there. It hasn't been ratified yet. It requires, I think, 60 states, 63 states to ratify it before it can then become actually sort of part of the WHO program. There is still one element that needs to be sorted out,

which is a proposal around a pathogen access and benefit sharing system, which is very controversial but the organisers hope that they can do that within the next year and then the ratification process will start in a year's time so it probably won't come into effect for another couple of years. And just to be clear Dominic, how significant is it that the US is not going to be involved? I think everyone expected the US to not be involved given that they have already announced that they were pulling out of the World Health Organisation.

So here in Geneva I think there will be regret and also obviously that has a massive impact on the funding of the World Health Organisation because the US was the biggest single national donor state. So there is a huge impact for the World Health Organization in terms of its funding and its ability to carry out these kind of programs. That was Dominic Hughes in Geneva. Imagine a wrestling match but with the traditional canvas ring replaced by thick sticky mud. That's soft ground wrestling, also known as SGW. In Uganda, young men and women are turning this homegrown version of WWE into a global sensation, boasting almost half a billion online views.

But while the popularity is soaring, challenges around safety and funding remain. BBC Sport Africa's Kelvin Kimati has been in Mokono, a town near Kampala, to meet some wannabe stars. Here in Mokono, there's a special atmosphere whenever these mad wrestlers come out to fight. Even without the bright lights, big screens and spectator stands, the wrestlers here can still drive a crowd wild. And these fans can't get enough of it. It's very good. They are our people. We love what they do. I really like wrestling. I grew up watching WWE. But it's not all glamour and adulation. Soft ground wrestling can really live up to its

name. Training can be tough and wet. The majority of the wrestlers here are orphans or were raised by a single parent. They are no salaries. They survive on donations. 23-year-old Jordan Lovrin is one of Softground's big stars. Wrestling has given me hope after dropping out from school. Wrestling has given me a new family. We meet different people and different minds.

Wrestling has given me the future dreams. So I hope to become a great wrestler and gain a lot of things from wrestling, such as money, fame, to help others. More than a hundred young Ugandans aged 25 or under make up this wrestling team in Mukono. And they are not all men. Just under a third of these wrestlers are women, and Zampi is among them. Before Soft Ground I was somehow a bad girl. It helped me control my anger.

Soft Ground means a lot. It's actually my whole entire life. It has helped me a lot mentally and physically. Zampi and her fellow wrestlers also enjoy a huge following online, thanks to Daniel Bumbash, a wrestling commentator and the man behind this growing phenomenon. In just two years, he's built up a loyal following, translating American wrestling clips into local dialects. Social media has helped me to get fighters from different places that I even don't know because of exposure with these viral videos that are going on everywhere. With over 500 million views across different digital platforms, SoftGround has gained the

attention of some of wrestling's biggest American stars, including WWE's Cody Rhodes, who sent the Ugandans their own ring. But while the ring is a welcome new addition, it's not everyone's first choice, as Zampi explains. I still love the professional ring, but I prefer wrestling the mad ring because it defines the African way. Despite growing popularity, safety is a big concern for these wrestlers. Even though the fighters are entirely scripted and choreographed, they must train for 8 months

before they are allowed to compete. Here is commentator Daniel Bumbash again. Safety has been a hurdle for us because we do not have an ambulance, we do not have a sick bay and medicine in some cases to treat these young fighters in case of any accident. However, we have a volunteer doctor who helps us in case of any emergency. Despite such obstacles and skepticism from some, Jordan says these wrestlers will continue to fight for their future. My dream is to represent Uganda as a professional and help others to fulfil their dreams. The ground might be soft, but these young fighters are certainly not, as they attempt

to use their growing popularity to help change their lives. That report by Kelvin Kimathi. Still to come in this podcast… We're 1500 metres underground in this cathedral for science. A new particle detector that scientists hope will explain why the universe exists. President Zelenskyy has accused Russia of trying to buy time to continue with the war in Ukraine. His comments come after President Trump said a phone conversation on Monday with Vladimir Putin had gone very well, but didn't explain what form the next peace talks would take.

In a post on social media, Mr Zelenskyy said Kiev was ready for any negotiation format that would bring an end to the conflict, but blamed Moscow for putting forward unrealistic conditions and undermining progress. He said only tougher Western sanctions on Russia would change its behaviour. So has Mr Trump's telephone diplomacy moved anything forward? The European Parliament's special rapporteur on Ukraine, Michael Gala, spoke to Rob Young. Unfortunately not. What we see is that there is on the one side from Ukraine the clear commitment to an immediate and unconditional ceasefire. From Russia there's nothing like that. To talk about a memorandum for a possible future peace treaty that might include a ceasefire as well that simply says Putin doesn't want a ceasefire and Trump is pulling out

effectively I would say says he leaves it to those who are directly involved and he also says well I'm focusing on on economic issues with a great future for this bilateral cooperation. That is no contribution to a ceasefire, definitely not. So Donald Trump did go on to say in his remarks yesterday that the US could just walk away from the ceasefire or peace talks, but you are saying that it is effectively doing so now. doing so now? Well, whether now or a bit later, I think I welcome and I commend the attempts from our European leaders who prior to this talk with Putin engaged with Trump to keep him

in its in our, I think it's also in American interest not to simply pull out because that has also effects around the globe. But we have to deal with Trump as it is and to get our acts together as Europeans. Okay, I want to come back to that in just a moment. But Donald Trump did just say in April about the possibility of imposing new banking sanctions on Russia if it became clear that Vladimir Putin didn't want to stop the war. Why do you think the White House keeps changing tack when it comes to how it deals with Moscow? Because I think that Trump's basic belief is it is a European war, a war in Europe, and they should have never got involved. That is what he explicitly said.

So he wants to get out of it. And I think the issue of sanctions against Russia because of Putin's reluctance to commit to anything, I think that he doesn't care too much about that. Unfortunately, I have to state that. When you said earlier on that European nations need to get their act together, what do you mean? Because they have been spending billions and billions of dollars arming Ukraine and supporting its economy.

What else would you like to see European countries do? Well, we have to continue that and upgrade the support, the supply of weapons. That is the one thing. I mean, the European Union has a comprehensive Ukraine facility, 50 billion until 2027. That is for the civilian part to keep the country going. And we should seek further allies around the globe who pursue this approach as well. Michael Gala speaking to Rob Young. a short while ago the European Union and the UK have announced new sanctions against Russia over the war. A statement from the UK Foreign Office said London's new restrictions would further disrupt

revenue streams for what it described as Putin's war machine. The targets include financial institutions while the EU's restrictions target nearly 200 ships in the shadow fleet. Hundreds of thousands of Venez nearly 200 ships in the Shadow Fleet. Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans living in the United States could be deported after the US Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to strip them of their legal protections. They've been allowed by the previous President Joe Biden to stay under a programme known as Temporary Protect protected status, which for decades has let migrants from crisis-hit nations live and work legally in the US. Rights

groups called the court's decision shocking. Our North America correspondent Anthony Zirka told Jeanette Jalil more about the ruling. The Supreme Court basically allowed this revocation of the temporary protected status, that is temporary permanent legal status in the United States, for Venezuelans to be revoked. A judge had earlier put it on hold because there was a possibility in the judge's view that this decision by the Trump administration to revoke status had been made with racial animus. But the Supreme Court, in reviewing an emergency appeal

from the Trump administration decided that there wasn't grounds to step in and put all this on hold. That means that these lawsuits are going to continue and there may be a chance for individual deportees to challenge the revocation of their temporary status, but as a whole, the Supreme Court is going to allow the Trump administration to keep trying and keep pushing ahead with revoking that status. And we didn't actually get an explanation from the Supreme Court on how it reached this decision. Is this consistent given that three days ago it handed a defeat to the Trump administration, a separate case involving Venezuelans? And this all comes at a time when white South Africans are being allowed into the US as refugees. This was what's called the shadow docket for the

Supreme Court and that is a case that reaches the court not through the traditional means. This is more asking the Supreme Court to step in at the lower court level as it's working its way up and render some sort of decision that would either allow things to be put in suspended animation during the legal process or proceed during the legal process. And what happened in this case was the court said, no, things can keep on going and the lower courts can continue hearing the cases, but they're not going to step in and suspend it. What we saw last week was a court saying that the Trump administration cannot immediately

deport individuals under this Alien Enem, a 300 something year old law, saying that these individuals who the Trump administration want to deport have to have some sort of legal recourse, that they have to have courts review their cases. So each instance is different and each case that reaches the court reaches it in a different sort of way. So while it does seem somewhat contradictory in this case, it is not surprising when you look at American law and the legal proceedings. And of course the white South African refugees who were allowed into this country, that was something that was done at the discretion of the Trump administration. While there are definitely political

objections to that, at least so far there haven't been any legal cases raised to try to block it. And this is very concerning for all immigrant communities in the US, some of whom voted for Donald Trump because they thought he would expel criminals or those who are not there legally. Right and there have been studies done and research done by media outlets on some of the people who have already been deported to the El Salvadorian prison for instance or to other countries and

there is evidence that they did have legal status here in this country that they weren't fully undocumented migrants and so they may have been wrongly deported. The problem for them is that once you're out of this country it's very hard to get things turned around and get the legal machinery to work on your behalf as we are seeing with some of these people who are in the Salvadorian prison. That was Anthony Zirka in Washington. The curtain comes down on another English Premier League football season this weekend.

The former Scottish striker Duncan Ferguson is one of the great characters of the league. He had an impressive goal scoring record for Everton over two spells for the club in the nineties and twos and a fearsome reputation to boot. He shares the record for being the most red-carded player in Premier League history. And now Duncan Ferguson has a new book out reflecting on his 35 years in football. Mike Williams asked him whether this hard-man image was a fair label. I considered my red cards etc and obviously I've had some trouble off the field when I was a younger man. That kind of follows you around your whole life, your whole career and of course people

continue to write it, people continue to read it. So it's very difficult to get away from that of course and I was an aggressive player on the pitch but most of my trouble was between what 17 and 19 a long long time ago. Has this image fair or unfair held you back in your coaching career today? In my mind I think that has held me back. Yes my image obviously I've got a lot of young for instance sporting directors or chairmans they might be a wee bit worried about hiring me. The name and the reputation, I think, that goes before me. In 1994 you became the first and only footballer to receive a custodial sentence for an offence committed on the pitch.

When you headbutted an opposing player, you went to prison for seven weeks. How do you reflect on that incident 31 years on? There was no probation for these previous offences that we discussed earlier. I was a young man, it happened on a football pitch. Nobody complained about the incident. The guy that I supposedly assaulted never complained. The police who were in the stadium never complained. There was 40,000 witnesses who never complained about an assault.

There was no assault. Nobody complained until somebody, a procator fiscal in Scotland, watched it on the television and decided to ask the police to investigate because he knew that I was on probation and it still upsets me to this day. Mason What was prison like for a professional footballer? John Prison for anybody, for most normal people as hell is the worst experience of your life. Of course some prisoners are institutionalised, to them it is their life, but to me it wasn't. It was difficult and of course I played for the Rangers. There's another team in Glasgow as well. There's a lot of division up there.

I went into a prison in Glasgow, the notorious Berlinie. You made your professional debut in 1990 Duncan. Broad question, how much has football changed in the last 35 years? Everything is changing and football is no different. There's a lot of foreign players coming to the league, a lot of foreign managers coming to the league. There's better facilities, there's better pitches. You never see any mud on a pitch now.

Back in our day you could hardly see any grass. Just not as physical as it was when we played. And the fans want that, the fans want duels. It used to be a contact game. So, and if there is any contact because of the VAR, you dive. To me it's boring, there's too much rolling around. In my whole career, I cannae remember ever getting treatment on a football pitch. Duncan Ferguson's autobiography Big Dunk is out now. Now we like to ask the big questions on the Global News podcast.

Why does the universe exist? Well a new particle detector is being built in the US that scientists hope will answer that question. It's 1500 metres underground and is called the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment or DUNE for short. The US-led team is in a race with a separate team of Japanese researchers who are several years ahead. More from our science correspondent Pallab Ghosh. Nestled above the mist of the forests of South Dakota is a lab like no other. Inside, scientists are searching for the answer to one of the biggest questions in science. Why does the universe exist?

The answer lies deep underground. They used to dig for gold here, but now, for the scientists here, they're searching for something even more precious. We're 1500 metres underground in this cathedral for science. For nearly 10 years, Jarrod Hees has been involved with the construction of several gigantic caverns to seal off his new laboratory called DUNE from the noise and radiation of the world above. It's now ready for the next stage. We're poised to begin construction of the detectors that will change our understanding

of the universe and that is extremely exciting. This cavern speaks to the potential science that will be filled, knowledge gathered with the instruments that will be deployed by a collaboration of almost 1500 scientists who are eager to answer the question of why we exist. When the universe was created, scientists believed there were two kinds of particles. There was matter from which the stars and galaxies and everything around us was created. And then there was antimatter, its exact opposite. Theoretically, the two of them should have combined and cancelled each other out, leaving nothing but a big burst of energy. Yet here we are. Scientists believe that the answer to why matter won that big battle and the universe

exists lies in studying a particle called the neutrino and its exact opposite, the anti-neutrino. Scientists will be firing both particles in beams all the way from Illinois deep underground to detectors in South Dakota to find out what the differences are. The neutrinos and anti-neutrinos change as they travel ever so slightly. The scientists want to find out if there's any differences in the way they change. If they find a difference, they'll have hit the jackpot and found a key difference between matter and antimatter that will bring them a giant leap closer to explaining why the universe exists the way it does.

That was Pallab Ghosh. And before we go, a correction. In the Global News podcast on May 14th, we carried an obituary of the former Uruguayan president Jose Mujica, in which we said that in the 1960s and 70s he led the armed Tupamaros guerrillas against military rule. In fact, Mr. Mujica joined the Tupamaros before military rule and was in jail throughout the entire period of military rule from 1972 to 1985. It is also true to say that Raoul Sendique, not José Mujica, was the recognised leader of the Tupac Marocs. And thank you to all the listeners who pointed this out. If you want to comment on anything, please do. The email is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk.

You can also find us on x at BBC World Service. Just use the hashtag globalnewspod. But that's it from us for now. There will be a new edition of the global news podcast later. This edition was produced by Alice and Ali. It was mixed by Craig Kingham. Our editor is Karen Martin. I'm Jackie Leonard and until next time, goodbye.