Global News Podcast - UN warns entire Gaza population at risk of famine

Episode Date: May 30, 2025

UN says the world must do more to save the entire population of Gaza from famine. Also: BBC finds the EU has spent more on Russian oil and gas than aid to Ukraine, and do parents know best when it comes to child health?

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. American prom culture has spread around the world and in Uganda, some students get to their school prom in helicopters and luxury cars, but not everyone's impressed. The government says it's gone too far and it's brought in new rules for school proms. Today we're explaining what students make of this and how prom got to be so big in the first place. I'm Hannah Gelbart. I'm the host of What's in the World, an award-winning podcast from the BBC World Service. You can listen to us wherever you get your BBC podcasts. You're listening to the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.

Hello, I'm Oliver Conway. We're recording this at 13 hours GMT on Friday 30th May. The UN says the entire population of Gaza is at risk of famine. Even a Samas downplays the chances of a ceasefire deal. A BBC investigation finds the EU has spent more on Russian oil and gas than aid to Ukraine. And we hear from Jewish students who could be caught up in President Trump's crackdown on Harvard University. Also in the podcast why plastic waste is filling the stomachs of birds in Australia. When will the war in Gaza end? Israel says it intends to keep fighting until Hamas is destroyed and the far-right minister Itamar Ben-Gavir says now is the time to use quote full force in the territory. The US has proposed a ceasefire deal which it says Israel accepts. But Hamas says the plan doesn't include a permanent end to the fighting. It

also wants guaranteed aid deliveries. Today the UN warned that the entire population of Gaza is at risk of famine. The humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher says the world has a responsibility to do more, as Fergal Keane reports. The chaos and the pity. The desperation that is the legacy when aid is blocked. Today, the UN's chief of humanitarian affairs, a former British diplomat, told me Israel had forcibly starved Gaza. Out loud Israeli ministers have been saying that they want the population of Gaza to be relocated.

Is that ethnic cleansing? It's the forced removal of a population. Ethnic cleansing? And in this case by withholding of aid. Again, the courts will judge what to call that and I have to pick my words very, very carefully. I'm a humanitarian, I'm not a lawyer, I'm not a politician. To be clear, what we are seeing is the forced starvation of the population.

We're seeing food sat on the borders and not being allowed in when there is a population on the other side of the border that is starving. And we're hearing Israeli ministers say that is to put pressure on the population of Gaza. That's a war crime, isn't it, if you use food as a weapon? Yeah. It is classified as a war crime. Obviously these are issues for the courts to take the judgement on and ultimately for history to take a judgement on.

Israel has claimed that Hamas steals food aid and it accuses the UN of acting like a mafia by refusing to cooperate with Israel's military-organised aid distribution centres. The Israelis say they have to do it their way because Hamas are stealing the aid. There's very, very little stealing of aid by Hamas. Now, is some of that aid then getting to market and being stolen by Hamas from market? There's always a risk of that. In such a complex, contested, militarised environment, I don't want to see any of that aid getting to Hamas. That matters to us, because these are our principles.

Neutral, impartiality, independent. So it's in our interest to stop that aid getting to Hamas and ensure it gets to civilians. Mr Fletcher visited Gaza in February while there was still a ceasefire. In recent days he's come under criticism for stating that 14,000 babies would die in 48 hours because of the blockade, a claim the UN has retracted. Didn't you damage your own case when you talked about 14,000 babies dying within 48 hours?

Pretty big gaffe. I think we've got to be very, very careful with our numbers. We've got to be precise, and that's a lesson that I've learned in the last couple of weeks. Are you sorry for that? I regret that I used that 48 hours because, in reality, those deaths will take place over a longer time, but they are at risk. Because when people take that and along with the statement about thousands of trucks lined up on the border not being able to get in.

Mr Fletcher drew international attention when two weeks ago he appealed to the UN Security Council to act to prevent genocide in Gaza. A statement Israel attacked as support for Hamas. But how will history judge how the world responded to the Gaza crisis? When I went to the Security Council, I chose my words very, very carefully. And I'm choosing them again carefully now. I wanted to issue a warning to the Security Council that in previous cases, Rwanda, Srebrenica, Sri Lanka, the world had told us afterwards that we didn't act in time, that we didn't sound the warning,

and ask that the world respond to prevent genocide. And that's my call to the Security Council and to the world right now. Will you act to prevent genocide? The UN's humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher talking to Fergal Keane. So what are the prospects for a ceasefire in Gaza as Hamas continues to assess the US proposed deal? I asked our Gaza correspondent Rushdie Abu Alouf in Cairo. Hamas said it's very unlikely that they would accept this because they see the gap between

the talks with the Americans through their back channel in Doha and what is in the new Witkoff proposal is too big. They said we haven't seen any guarantee that Israel will not resume fighting after the six days of the ceasefire. We haven't seen any clear line about the way the humanitarian aid would be allowed into Gaza. What Hamas said, they need the same humanitarian protocol that was back in the ceasefire in January, which allow 500 trucks every day, including fuel to hospital, and to be distributed by the UN agencies, not by this new American backed foundation that they said it's very risky for the people and it's in an area under

Israeli security control. And the third main sticking point and issue for Hamas is that the new proposal did not include or show how Israel would reposition to the area, I mean, taking their forces out of different areas in Gaza to the position where they were before resuming the war back in March. So it seems that the gap is too big and it is very unlikely that Hamas would accept this as a senior Hamas official told me last night. And yet, they haven't rejected it entirely. They say they're still studying it. So could there be room for negotiation? There is always room for negotiation and we understand here the Egyptian

were on the line with Hamas this morning. The Qataris are maintaining some pressure. The Turkish authority were also in contact with Hamas. So too many players are trying to understand what's going on and trying to put pressure on Hamas. But based on what I got most of the time from Hamas leaders, including one who participated in the meetings with this back channel with the American businessman, and it doesn't like that there is much hope that this issue will be resolved, but the talks will not stop. And what is the latest on aid getting into Gaza? The American Foundation said that they have opened up three centers to distribute food.

And yesterday was very chaotic and people break inside the center and they steal everything inside it. That this seems to be suspending operations in two centers and there is only one place in Rafah. And the problem is that, you know, Gaza is divided into two places, south and north, and most of the centers are in the south, so about half of the population in northern Gaza are not getting any aid since the Israel resumed with about seven to eight hundred trucks only allowed into Gaza is not enough and people call it a drop in the ocean. Rushdie Abu al-Aloof in Egypt.

A BBC investigation has found that Western nations are helping fund Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine through purchases of Russian oil and gas. Our analysis found that Kiev's allies spent more on buying fossil fuels from Russia than on supporting the Ukrainians. Vitaly Shevchenko, Russia editor at BBC Monitoring, has compiled this report. At the G7 meeting this afternoon, we agreed to work in unity to maximise the economic price that Putin will pay for his aggression. And this must include ending Europe's collective

dependence on Russian oil and gas. Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaking in parliament on day one of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Back then he announced heavy sanctions on Russian fossil fuel imports but more than three years later Ukraine's allies are still paying billions for Russian oil and gas. Since that speech by Boris Johnson, NATO member states and sanctioning countries have spent tens of billions of euros more on Russian oil and gas than on aid for Ukraine. Last year alone, EU member states paid Russia 22 billion euros for its fossil fuels. That's four billion euros more than they gave Ukraine in aid. Russia has made more than three times as much money through exporting hydrocarbons than Ukraine has received in various types of

aid from its allies in total, according to data from the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air and the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. Mai Rosner, a senior campaigner from the pressure group Global Witness, says many Western politicians are concerned that cutting imports of Russian fuels will lead to higher energy prices. There's not a real desire in many governments to actually limit Russia's ability to produce and sell oil. There was way too much fear about what that would mean for global energy markets. This dependence on fossil fuels means that we are really at the whims of global energy producers and the hostile dictators therefore who oversee a lot of that.

The EU's foreign policy chief, Kaia Callas, admits that the alliance has not done enough to end oil and gas imports from Russia. We haven't had the strongest sanctions. I mean, if you think about where their money for fueling this war comes from, it comes from oil and gas. We haven't put strong sanctions on that. Because we haven't had an agreement on that. There are some fears among some member states

on what would further escalate the war and what would stop it. So what can Western governments do to stop oil and gas imports from funding Russia's war against Ukraine? Former Russian Deputy Energy Minister Vladimir Milov says sanctions should be better enforced, particularly the oil price cap adopted by the G7 group of nations, which he says is not working. Complexity and consistency are the recipes which might finally force Putin to end the war after a certain time. I think what is more important at this moment is enforcement of sanctions,

making sure that they are fully implemented rather than even adopting new ones. I think enforcement is key, and proper enforcement matters a lot more than actually discussion about which new sanctions should be introduced. Since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Western nations have greatly reduced fossil fuel imports from Russia and the EU plans to stop Russian gas imports by the end

of 2027. In the meantime, some of the Russian drones and missiles attacking Ukraine have been paid for by Ukraine's own allies. Vitaly Shevchenko of BBC Monitoring Parents know best is a saying that some may dispute, but it may actually be true when it comes to their child's health. New research has found that a mum or dad's gut instinct can give an important indication of childhood illness even when it's missed by medical tests. Dr Erin Mills of Monash University in Melbourne spoke about the study to the BBC's Simon

Jack. So what we did is we included one simple question. We asked parents, are you worried your child is getting worse? And then we compared the outcomes for the children whose parents said yes versus the outcomes for the children whose parents said no. And what we found was that when a parent said, I'm worried, that was more strongly associated with the child ending up in the intensive care unit or on a mechanical ventilator to help them with their breathing than that child having any abnormal vital sign and that included heart rate, breathing rate, conscious state, blood pressure or oxygen levels.

That's quite an astonishing finding that isn't it? I mean how do you think these findings should be used? Yeah it certainly was. I mean everybody knows that the parent is expert in their child but this proves that and I think it proves that we need to build the concerns of parents into our systems used for routinely monitoring for children that are deteriorating in hospital. And do you think that, I mean, it should just be formalised in terms of rights of parents to sort of opine on the treatment of their child. I can see doctors perhaps getting frustrated that they are feeling that their expertise is being drowned out by worried parents? Yeah, it's kind of two parts to that isn't there? Most health services have a system

for patients and their families to be able to come forward and voice their concerns and get a response from that. But what we found was that the most vulnerable patients in our health system, particularly those who don't know the system within the country that they are or don't speak the language local to the country, they find it very hard to articulate their concerns and get the response that they need. So what we decided to do is flip that responsibility onto clinicians to proactively assess for worry in parents and other carers and build that into our system for monitoring vital signs. So it's done for every patient, every time and the patients tell us that makes them feel a lot more comfortable

about voicing their concerns. Dr Erin Mills of Monash University in Melbourne. Now what do you think this is? Well incredibly that is the sound of plastic waste crunching inside the stomach of a small bird – the Sable Shearwater from Lord Howe Island, 600 kilometres off the coast of Australia. Scientists from a group known as the Adrift Lab have been studying the birds for nearly 20 years. Dr Alex Bond from the Natural History Museum in London is one of the researchers. It's absolutely gut-wrenching. We've just come back from our last season on Lord Howe Island.

We had more birds like that than we've seen ever before. It was really heartbreaking. But we're finding whole bottle lids, lids from Tetra Pax. We had plastic cutlery for the first time this year, closed pegs and if you get sushi, you get your soy sauce in a little fish-shaped plastic container. We found one of those hole with lid on inside one of the birds this year. We've seen things like changes in blood chemistry. So if you're not feeling well, you go to the doctor and they take some blood from you and send it off to a lab. We can do the same with birds. Plastics obviously causes some impact on what's circulating in the blood. We see in the brains they start to show the same symptoms that humans and mice show when they have

Parkinson's and dementia. These are chicks, they're 80 days old and this is the plastic that the parents have brought back to them and they're still showing these effects. We don't know really why sea birds go out and pick up plastic from the ocean. If you keep chickens at home you might know that they are really quick at figuring out what's food and what's not. And yet these birds that live 30, 40 years still struggle with this. And one theory is that it smells like food. So plastics in the ocean pick up a lovely biofouling little surface layer of algae on them. And that can sometimes give off the same chemicals that their food does. In the last four or five years, it's

just gone off a bit of a cliff edge where the number of birds that have plastic in them has increased. But so has the amount of plastic. So this year, I can't remember how many birds we had that had 10, 20, 40 grams of plastic in them. And this represents 20% of their body mass. That's how much plastic they're carrying around in their stomachs. Why should people care about this, Alex? Why should we be bothered that birds are ingesting plastic in this way? I mean, seabirds are sort of the canary in the coal mine for the health of the oceans and the oceans look after so much of what goes on on the planet in terms of climate,

carbon cycling. When your canaries start to drop dead, that's usually the sign that you should get out of the mine. They're the sort of the early warning for what's going on in the world's oceans, which ultimately we are all reliant on for existence, really. So what's the future looking like then for these birds? Unfortunately, it's not looking great at the moment. Plastics are increasing, production is increasing, and even if we pulled every policy lever at our disposal today, plastics would still increase in the ocean for the next 30 years, but what's required is sort of a really high level cross-government approach to this. And we're

trying to do this with a global plastics treaty to regulate plastics and deal with the problem that we've created in the world's oceans, which has only been around for the last 70 years, one or two generations. Alex Bond talking to Kylie Pentelow. And still to come on the Global News podcast. Ladies and gentlemen, please remain seated with your seatbelt fastened until the fasten seatbelt signs have been switched off. The Turkish airline threatening to find impatient passengers. changes. Harvard has won a temporary reprieve in its ongoing row with Donald Trump. On Thursday a court blocked the president's order banning the university from enrolling

international students. Mr Trump says he's trying to protect Jewish students, some of whom say they've been harassed and assaulted by pro-Palestinian classmates. But some Jewish students from overseas fear they'll be caught up in Mr Trump's ban, as Nomiya Iqbal reports. With its pomp, parties and pageantry, graduation day is distinctively Harvard, but the university's identity is at risk. But the university's identity is at risk....2025 from down the street, across the country and around the world. Harvard president Alan Garber didn't name the other president, who he's in a legal

battle with, as he addressed students. ...around the world just as it should be. President Trump claims the university is anti-Semitic and anti-Israel after pro-Palestinian protests spread across US campuses like here last year. President Garber, who is Jewish, admits there are problems but says major steps are being taken to rectify them. For Israeli student Nitzan, the mood on campus has got better. For the first time in a long time, I feel very proud to be a Harvard student.

I haven't always felt that over the past two years. I think Harvard has been under immense pressure over the last two weeks from the Trump administration. And the institution has shown that it is making decisions with integrity to defend its academic freedom. More than 2,000 Harvard students identify as Jewish. And for some of those from abroad, if Mr. Trump's actions are about keeping them safe,

they're not all convinced. Certainly wasn't expecting to walk into something of a conflict zone when I was doing my PhD. I thought I was leaving one. PhD student Genia is halfway through her course. She isn't sure what happens next. The foreign student ban is on hold for now. President Trump says he's doing this to protect Jewish students.

You are Jewish. You've been caught up in this. Do you think he's gone too far? There is a distinction between what we want and what the US government probably wants. I think everybody politicizes everything. I'm very cynical about people. I have not experienced any anti-Semitism personally, like individually, on myself.

Others feel similar. One Israeli research fellow who didn't want to be named thinks it's unfair to make Harvard solve the world's problems. It should be a place of rigorous debate. And I've had a lot of events, some of them I co-organized, and interactions here, which have been difficult with people who I disagree with on certain areas. But I also feel like for myself and for people that I've interacted with,

not all the time, but there have been times when there has been learning. Harvard professor Stephen Levitsky goes further, though. He has spent decades studying authoritarian governments and believes President Trump is trying to bring elite education in America under his control. If the Trump administration is able to bully Harvard into acquiescence, then it knows that no other university will be able to stand up to it. The notion that we have a serious anti-Semitism problem that requires federal intervention

as a Jew who's lived here for 25 years, I can tell you it's laughable. This ongoing battle threatens to leave Harvard in a different place, even if the school is successful in its fight. Funding is unlikely to return to its full level and for many students from around the world prestige has turned to panic. Many are thinking twice about staying to build the future they had once dreamt of in America. Nomi Iqbal reporting. Millions of girls in South Asia have their childhood cut short as they're forced into marriage, some as young as 12. Now the Pakistani president,

Hasif Ali Zardari, has approved new legislation which aims to eradicate child marriages in the capital Islamabad and the surrounding area. And Rahsan Etirajan is our South Asia regional editor. There are lots of issues here, cultural, religious and social. Because in South Asia many parents would feel that having a girl child it also increases their responsibility. The first instinct for any family would be to get them married off

at the earliest. So that is the social pressure. And also there are religious things where religious scholars would say, you know, people should be married soon after puberty. So these are some of the issues facing young women or girls in South Asia and in particular in Pakistan which is about 19 million child brides, according to UNICEF, sixth highest in the world. So that's why the government is trying to stamp out this practice. It is only a small step because it is only for Islamabad and the surrounding area, but it is seen as a long way towards a major goal in eradicating this child marriage practice.

And that is why activists are welcomed to this this new law even though the Sindh province passed this law ten years earlier so this will be you know encouraging other assemblies like Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and other provinces to follow suit. So this law is in the region around Islamabad how will it it work? Now, this law replaced the 1929 Child Marriage Restraint Act. This was during the colonial era. So you can as well imagine how old this previous law was. Now, this means those family members as well as the clerics or registrars who enable these weddings, those who are married under the age of 18 for girls or at the moment, both for male and female at this age, anyone enables this marriage or force people to get

married, they will face seven years imprisonment and there is also a fine. So this is basically sending out a clear-cut message to the society, trying to encourage the idea that even for their own sake because what the experts are talking about if you marry a girl before the age of 18 it deprives them of education it deprives them of social ability to interact with the people and health complications if they you know when they get pregnant when you are too young it has got complications and their childhood is cut short. That's the

main reason why people say that you know at least they should start with the age of 18. But there are opposition to this. Religious scholars have been saying this is un-Islamic and this is also against the social values of the Pakistani society. But now the president has signed the bill, it will become a law. And Rasan Et a Rajan. Now is France falling out of love with smoking? Cigarettes can be a bit of a cliché in French culture, particularly cinema. But now the French government is banning smoking in public spaces where children could be present.

As Isabella Jewel explains. So this new law will ban smoking in areas accessed by children. So that means from the 1st July people in France will no longer be allowed to smoke in public places. So that means beaches, public parks and gardens, areas around schools, bus shelters and sports facilities. So how will this all be enforced? According to the initial announcement, the French police will have the power to issue a fine of 135 euros, so that's around 150 dollars, to anyone smoking in places designated as smoke-free zones. The restrictions won't apply, however, to those iconic outdoor bar and café areas known

as terrasses in French. Anyone who's visited France will have noticed that smoking in these spots, often along with a coffee or a drink, is incredibly common. So that's one area that won't be affected by this new legislation. France has a comparatively high rate of smoking compared to lots of other countries, with data from the French Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction showing that 23% of the population smokes on a daily basis. So there will be a lot of people who won't

be pleased with this decision. Smoking is also very closely associated with French culture. Think of iconic singers of the past like Saoirse Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot. And more recently, the French League Against Cancer found that nine in 10 French films from 2015 to 2019 featured characters smoking. But there's also a big public health push against smoking. In France, more than 75,000 smokers die each year of tobacco-related illnesses, which costs French society billions of euros. And some municipalities have already issued their own local bans. This law would extend that to the rest of the country. Isabella Jewel. Finally, a familiar message for many airline passengers.

But as you may know, not everyone obeys the instructions. And now those who leap up to get their bag down and push down the aisle could be in for a rude awakening. Regulators in Turkey say passengers will be fined if they stand up before the seatbelt sign is switched off after landing. Becky Rutherford worked for a decade as a senior crew member with British Airways and now trains staff. She told Sean Lay there were important reasons why passengers needed to stay put.

The difficult thing is trying to get passengers to understand that their seatbelt signs are on for a reason, which is always quite difficult because passengers don't tend to understand that the nuances of the critical times of an aircraft and at that point the aircraft is maybe two to three yards from its final parking stand. And all it takes is for it to need to break quickly. And you've probably got the weight of up to what, 200 tons of an aircraft that could come to a stop

very, very quickly, which is why the seatbelt signs remain on. Also from the cabin crew's perspective, at that point, they still have one vital thing to do, which is to disarm their doors. Because those doors won't be disarmed until the aircraft comes to a stop, the pilot will make a call for the doors to be disarmed and then the park brake will be applied. So if they are at the same time being bombarded by passengers trying to get bags off, trying to get to the door, then that can take away from that ability to have the safety focus period on disarming their doors. When people do it, when you call out and say please sit down, the seatbelt signs are still on,

what sort of reactions do you get? It varies route to route, it varies on what the passengers are expecting at the time, have they been delayed, are they desperate to get off the aircraft. Have you built a really good rapport with your customers during the flight because that will make a difference as well. If you look at the IATA figures, there has definitely been an increase in disruptive passengers. That has increased steadily since COVID, but that has always been there. Passengers are in a foreign environment where it's easy to become frazzled. It's not unusual for anyone who works in the general public, be it pubs, bars, restaurants, retail, to deal with the general public when they become agitated.

Agitated is one way of putting it. I mean, presumably the sum of it is people actually underestimate things like, you know, the effects of alcohol if they've been drinking on a flight thousands of feet up in the air. They perhaps are more tired than they thought they were going to be, maybe even slightly disorientated at times? Those are all contributing factors as are mixing alcohol with description drugs, which they may not have known the effect of. One of the big, big influencing factors can be tiredness. Alcohol is one of the biggest factors, but there's also mental health issues. I wonder though, from your own experience, would you have welcomed fines? Is it something that would be helpful or could it be counterproductive? I personally think it's counterproductive. I think there are better ways of getting our

customers to understand why those standard operating procedures are in place. I think having these kind of conversations will go a long way to help for people to understand why we ask them to do certain things. I don't think necessarily fining is the right way about it. Aircrew trainer Becky Rutherford. And that is all from us for now, but the Global News podcast will be back very soon. If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics in it, send an email to globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. This edition was mixed by Jack Wilfan and

produced by Alfie Habershon, our editors Karen Martin. I'm Oliver Conway. Until next time, goodbye. American prom culture has spread around the world and in Uganda, some students get to their school prom in helicopters and luxury cars but not everyone's impressed. The government says it's gone too far and it's brought in new rules for school proms. Today we're explaining what students make of this and how prom got to be so big

in the first place. I'm Hannah Gelbart, I'm the host of What's in the World, an award-winning podcast from the BBC World Service. You can listen to us wherever you get your BBC podcasts. American prom culture has spread around the world and in Uganda, some students get to their school prom in helicopters and luxury cars, but not everyone's impressed. The government says it's gone too far and it's brought in new rules for school proms.

Today, we're explaining what students make of this and how prom got to be so big in the first place. I'm Hannah Gelbart. I'm the host of What in the World, an award-winning podcast from the BBC World Service. You can listen to us wherever you get your BBC podcasts.