Global News Podcast - US is closely monitoring Israel to ensure aid deliveries reach northern Gaza

Episode Date: October 17, 2024

The US envoy to the UN has said Washington is watching Israel's actions in northern Gaza to ensure there is not “a policy of starvation" there. Also: former One Direction star Liam Payne dies in Argentina.

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. Deloitte's 2024 CXO Sustainability Report reveals 92% of executives believe their company can grow while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Nearly half are transforming their business models to address climate change, and 85% increased sustainability investments in the past year. Results show there is no retreat from sustainability efforts.

Instead, signs that climate action is moving to the heart of company strategies. If you're hearing this, you're probably already listening to BBC's award-winning news podcasts. But did you know that you can listen to them without ads? Get current affairs podcasts like Global News, Americast and The Global Story, plus other great BBC podcasts from history to comedy to true crime, all ad free. Simply subscribe to BBC Podcast Premium on Apple Podcasts or listen to Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC podcasts. This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Nick Miles and in the early hours of Thursday the 17th of October these are our main stories.

The United States says it's closely monitoring Israel to ensure that enough aid is allowed through to civilians in northern Gaza. Lebanon has accused Israel of deliberately targeting local officials in its latest wave of deadly airstrikes. Canada says India has made a horrific mistake by aggressively interfering in its sovereignty. Also in this podcast... If we knew how we can actually manipulate the skin from not aging. We will have fewer wrinkles. That may become a reality as scientists say they've discovered how human skin is created from a stem cell.

Aid agencies say it's nowhere near enough, but after two weeks when the UN says there was no aid delivered to Northern Gaza at all, Israel says 50 trucks carrying food and other essentials have entered the territory. There's been intense diplomatic pressure on Israel this week to allow more aid into Gaza from its key backer, America. It came in the form of a letter that was sent to Israel four days ago threatening to withhold military aid. Addressing the Security Council on Wednesday, the US ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, warned Israel not to make the humanitarian situation in Gaza worse.

Food and supplies must be surged into Gaza immediately and there must be humanitarian pauses across Gaza to allow for vaccinations and the delivery and distribution of humanitarian aid. A quote-unquote policy of starvation in northern Gaza would be horrific and unacceptable and would have implications under international law and US law. The government of Israel has said that this is not their policy, that food and other essential supplies will not be cut off. And we will be watching to see that Israel's actions on the ground match this statement. Britain's ambassador to the U.N., Barbara Woodward, warned of harsher conditions ahead

for Gazans. We expect October to see the least aid enter Gaza since the beginning of the conflict, lower even than September. Families in Gaza are facing a second winter with even less resilience and fewer resources. This is unconscionable. Israel must comply fully with international humanitarian law and ensure sufficient aid reaches all parts of Gaza. Israel's ambassador to the UN, Danny Denon, said his country is committed to allowing aid into Gaza, saying there was no shortage of it, but that Hamas is to blame for delays. Israel has flooded Gaza with as much aid as possible. This session has entirely missed the real issue at hand.

The issue in Gaza is not a lack of aid. More than enough aid has entered to sustain every civilian in Gaza is not a lack of aid. More than enough aid has entered to sustain every civilian in Gaza, with over one million tons delivered since the war began. And it's not due to Israel's efforts or failure to deliver humanitarian assistance. The real issue is Hamas. This terrorist organisation has hijacked the aid. I asked our correspondent in Jerusalem, where at Dav, what evidence if any there was that Hamas is hijacking the aid as claimed by Israel's ambassador to the UN, Mr Denon. I think actually some of the aid agencies would say that when there's a breakdown of law and order and aid is

very scarce then yes criminality come in. Nobody's denying that but that in itself is part of the problem. What the UN and the other aid industries are saying is that if there was enough aid, then the criminality that we are seeing now in parts wouldn't happen. Because there was so little aid coming through, particularly October was the worst month

for aid getting through in several months, perhaps during the entire conflict. And even today, in the last 24 hours, only 50 trucks of aid finally got through the Erez crossing on the northern border. But that is much, much less than the 500 trucks or so a day that are estimated to be needed, especially in northern Gaza, where we've got these 300,000 people who have had, according to the World Food Programme, have had no aid deliveries since the start of October. Now that has changed in the last three days since this letter was

sent from the Americans, basically urging action, but it's nowhere near enough. Indeed, the main humanitarian organisation for the UN that's working in Gaza, OCHA, says that 500,000 people are suffering from catastrophic food insecurity. These 50 trucks of aid that have got through, I mean to what extent will they make a dent in the humanitarian situation do you think? Well hardly any at all. This aid that got through today originated in Jordan. The Israelis say there was some stacked up waiting to go in, some on the inside, but

it's pretty clear what is stopping the aid getting from wherever it is, even if it's at the border fence. What's stopping it getting to Jabalia in northern Gaza is the intense nature of the Israeli military operation at the minute. Israel is doing what some people call this policy of trying to wipe the whole area clean, because that is where Israel believes that the remnants of Hamas are being based. The problem is there are 300,000, if not more, civilians there as well. They're not being given the opportunity to get out. That's pretty clear according to almost every agency you speak to. And even when they do get out, they're being marshaled towards areas that are declared

safe by Israel, but then those areas are getting hit as well well as we saw with the hospital compound two days ago when several people were killed so it's a pretty desperate situation. We're at Davis in Jerusalem. Lebanon's Prime Minister Najib Mikati has accused Israel of deliberately targeting local officials in airstrikes now known to have killed 16 people in the Lebanese city of Nabatea. The city's mayor was among those who died in the attacks, which struck Nabatea's municipal building. The council have been holding a crisis meeting to coordinate humanitarian help to the local population.

Tom Bateman reports. Lebanon's government has castigated Israel over the attack on a municipal building in the town of Nabatea, accusing it of deliberately targeting local officials. Israel says it was striking at what it called Hezbollah bases. The airstrike killed the mayor, who was affiliated with Hezbollah, but who locals say was a civilian. US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller declined to say whether the US, which arms Israel, regarded him as a legitimate target, saying the US didn't yet have enough information about the airstrike.

With state institutions in Lebanon now fragile and the economy weak, private individuals are helping one another. The BBC's Jonathan Head has been out and about in Beirut. So I'm strolling along Beirut's famous Corniche, the seaside promenade popular with joggers, fishermen and street vendors. But these days there are also tents and groups of families sitting around who have been displaced by the Israeli bombing campaign. More than a million people, one-fifth of Lebanon's population, has been uprooted by the conflict, tens of thousands of them, here in the capital in just the last few weeks. The

needs are enormous and the government is unable to meet them, so ordinary people have stepped in to help each other. We've come to a restaurant in Beirut's Hamra district. Like so many parts of the city, it's accommodating huge numbers of people who have been displaced by the conflict. And this restaurant, Mezian, is doing its bit to help. They're offering free meals to those who had to leave their homes. My name is Shad Hamdan. I'm the operations manager of Mezian. So what are you cooking here?

It's rice and meat with the sauce, like the pepper sauce, and we distribute it to the people. Tell me why you started this? As you know, it's always bad situations here in Lebanon. Now this is for displaced people from south, from Beirut suburbs. We are trying to do something, and as we are at the restaurant, we are preparing food for these people to just help them with at least one meal per day. Because, you know, the prices now are really high and maybe they're coming without their money and some of them, they lost already their houses, their job. So we are trying to do something. So now we reach like 500 meals daily.

You know, some apartments, four, five families, like 20 people, the same house. So we're trying our best to reach what we can do for them. And you're still running a normal restaurant business on top of this. Exactly, exactly. I'd say the business is going down, like 70% from before. But at the same time, we're trying to help

the space people here in Beirut. So we're zipping through Beirut's crazy traffic. I'm on the back of a bike with Jad, carrying food for the Saloum family. They've had to take in a lot of relatives in just one small apartment. Hello. So we've arrived. We've arrived.

Shukran. Ali, how many people are living in this apartment? Around 15. 15? Yeah. Very crowded. Yeah. We are like a family. A big family?

Yeah. You don't know how long this will last, do you? No, we don't know. But we are hoping to end this one. So no privacy for you here? No, everywhere no privacy. And there's no safety in everywhere. Maybe it's going to be bombing. No one knows.

We're going to go outside on the street and not know if we're going to come back or not. You never feel safe? No. Thanks God. We are still alive for life. That report was by Jonathan Head in Lebanon. The White House says the US is to announce a new security assistance package for Ukraine. That's following a phone call between President Biden and Volodymyr Zelensky.

A spokeswoman said much of Mr Biden's visit to Europe starting on Thursday would focus on support for Ukraine in its war against Russia. But the US President will not be meeting Mr Zelensky himself. The Ukrainian leader on Wednesday presented what he called a victory plan to win the war with Russia to his parliament. He said it must include an accelerated path to NATO membership and the end of restrictions on long-range strikes on Russia. The Kremlin dismissed the plan and warned it would push NATO towards direct conflict with Russia.

James Waterhouse reports from Kyiv. President Zelensky's conditions for peace are increasingly at odds with the situation he's in. In front of MPs he acknowledged the growing fatigue in his country. His own tiredness was etched across his face. National morale has gradually been crumbling, under the weight of the mounting number of deaths, a controversial mobilization law and never-ending Russian assaults. Instead of hinting at a territorial concession, President Zelensky doubled down on his demand to force Russia to completely withdraw from his country. If we don't strengthen our will, Putin will have time to step up next year in such a way

as to put an end to diplomacy forever. Russia must lose the war against Ukraine. And this is not freezing the conflict, and this is not a trade in the territory or sovereignty of Ukraine. We must implement the victory plan to force Russia to be at the peace summit and ready to end the war." His plan included an invitation for Ukraine to join NATO, as well as for a further strengthening of his country's military. Mr Zelensky said his proposals only required the support of his Western allies and not Russia. With Moscow continuing to occupy a fifth of his country and counting,

it will beg to differ. James Waterhouse in Ukraine. The Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said that India has made a horrific mistake by aggressively interfering in Canada's sovereignty. Mr Trudeau told an inquiry into foreign interference that while he did not want to pick a fight over the murder of the Sikh separatist and Canadian national, Harib Singh Ninja, he would stand up for his country's interests. India denied any involvement.

Rebecca Hartman reports. Prime Minister Trudeau accused the Indian government of enabling and in some cases directing violence against Canadian citizens. Mr Trudeau criticised the Indian government's response to the investigation into Hardeep Singh Najjar's murder, who was shot and killed in Vancouver in June 2023. The row between the two countries escalated earlier this week when Canada expelled six Indian diplomats saying they had ample, clear and concrete evidence identifying them as persons of interest in the investigation

into the murder. Rebecca Hartman, the authorities in Nigeria say that at least 147 people are now known to have died after a fuel tanker exploded after crashing in the northwestern state of Jigawa. The victims had been trying to recover leaking petrol, having overwhelmed officers trying to keep them away from the scene. Dozens more were injured in the blast. Nkechi Ogbonna reports from Lagos. Police say most of the victims were adult men with no women or children among those who died.

Fuel tanker explosions are not new in Nigeria where people rushed to broken down tankers conveying fuel with the slightest spark resulting in tragedy. The country is facing harsh economic times with the soaring inflation and recurrent fuel scarcities and price hikes forcing many to adopt desperate measures. Nkechi Ogbonna in Nigeria. Still to come, they are not plants, not animals, but they are getting special treatment. Find out what they are later in the podcast. Deloitte's 2024 CXO Sustainability Report reveals 92 percent of executives believe their company can grow while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Nearly half are transforming their business models to address climate change, and 85 percent increased sustainability investments in the past year. Results show there is no retreat from sustainability efforts. Instead, signs that climate action is moving to the heart of company strategies. Visit Deloitte.com forward slash CXO report to learn more. If you're hearing this, you're probably already listening to BBC's award-winning news podcasts. But did you know that you can listen to them without ads? Get current

affairs podcasts like Global News, AmeriCast and The Global Story plus other great BBC podcasts from history to comedy to true crime all ad free. Simply subscribe to BBC Podcast premium on Apple podcasts or listen to Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC podcasts. In Britain, a public inquiry into the death of a woman, Dawn Sturgis, who was poisoned by the nerve agent Novichok in 2018, has been hearing about the moment she and her boyfriend

opened the bottle that contained it. The inquiry was told the same bottle was likely to have been used in the assassination attempt of the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia several months earlier, in which they were both poisoned. Our correspondent Duncan Kennedy reports from the inquiry in Salisbury in southern England. The Nina Richie branded perfume bottle has become one of the key pieces of evidence of the public inquiry. Charlie Rowley had found the bottle and taken it home to give to Dawn Sturgis as a present. Today chilling details were given of when the couple removed the packaging, not knowing it contained the deadly nerve agent Novichok. Andrew O'connor Casey for the inquiry read Mister Roli

statement to police in which he said he used a knife to price off the plastic wrapping spilling the oily contents in the process. He says when I got it on my hands, I smelt it didn't spell of perfume it was oily that's not right I was quite covered in it so I washed it off. Dawn sprayed a bit on her wrist. After a minute, I went into the bathroom to see what she was doing and I found her lying in the bath with her clothes on, just lying in the bath, convulsing

and foaming at the mouth. Later, Commander Dominic Murphy, the head of the Met's counter-terrorism operation, said he believed it was likely that the bottle of perfume Charlie Rowley found was the same one used in the attack on Sergey and Julius Grapeau four months earlier but that it would never be known for sure. Duncan Kennedy, a former singer with the British pop band One Direction, Liam Payne has died in Argentina. The 31-year-old had been staying at a hotel in Buenos Aires. Police say he fell from an upper floor. Charlotte Gallagher reports. Emergency services say Liam Payne fell from the third floor of a hotel in the upmarket

suburb of Palermo. They say he suffered very serious injuries that were incompatible with life. The Argentine newspaper La Nacion reported that police had been called to the hotel earlier as the singer had been behaving erratically. He had posted on social media that it was a lovely day in Argentina. Liam Payne shot to fame when he was just a teenager after auditioning on X Factor and joining One Direction along with Harry Styles, Nile Horan, Zayn Malik and Louis Tomlinson. The group were hugely successful and became one of the best-selling boy bands of all time. They toured the world and had millions of fans before they announced an indefinite hiatus

in 2016. Liam Payne went on to launch a solo career. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Come on, strip that down for me Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Don't say nothing, girl, strip that down for me And had a child with the Girls Aloud singer Cheryl. He also spoke publicly about struggling with his mental health and addiction to alcohol.

Charlotte Gallagher. We will not rest. Those were the words chanted in Spain by protesters around the country after the death three years ago of Samuel Luis. The 23-year-old nursing assistant was beaten to death outside a nightclub, prompting anger and serious questions about homophobia in the country. Now five people have gone on trial charged with his killing. Our correspondent Guy Hedgego in Madrid told me more about the attack in which Mr Luis was killed. This took place in July of 2021 in the northern city of Acurrugna. This was just when bars and restaurants and other establishments were opening up after the pandemic. And Samuel Luis was out with a female friend in the evening and he was outside a bar and he was on his phone

on a video call with another friend. And a man came out of a nearby bar and seemed to think that Samuel was filming him with his phone, which appears not to be the case but the man who thought he was being filmed and started insulting somewhere loose and then attacked him and Was insulting him using homophobic slurs and other people then joined in other friends of this man in attacking

somewhere loose and they were kicking him and punching him and he managed to get away briefly but he was chased up the street by this group of people where they continued to attack him brutally. Eventually he ended up in hospital and the next day he was pronounced dead. Five people are accused of his killing in connection with his killing. What do we know about what happened in court and those five accused? Well the five are facing potentially, if they're found guilty of killing Samuel Luis, jail sentences of between 22 and 27 years. That's what the state

prosecutor's calling for. Two of them are facing the allegation that this was a hate crime, that not only were they involved in killing him, but this was motivated by their own homophobia because of the kind of language that they were using when they attacked him. Their defense teams appear to be using the defense that some of them had been drinking, and also that it's very difficult to identify the exact extent to which each of them was involved in the attack on Samuel Luis. You know, to what extent was it pushing and shoving or something much more serious. So they're saying that it's impossible with the evidence available to identify each person, what their role was in this this awful incident. Now Guy in the immediate

aftermath of the killing there was a lot of activity people condemning homophobia in general after that. How is this trial being viewed in Spain? That's right one of the the plaintiffs in this case is a local LGBTQ group which says it hopes that this case will make a big difference and they seem to see this potentially as a landmark. I think they want the judge in this case and the jury to take the view that this was very much driven by homophobia. So I think people were generally shaken by this attack, by the sheer brutality of it and that's why it drew this very strong reaction. Guy Hedsgoe in Madrid. Now you might think that mushrooms are just for cooking and

eating but along with other types of fungi they have a much more important role in our lives and the environment around us. That's why Britain and Chile have teamed up to sponsor a pledge for fungal conservation which they will propose at this year's UN Biodiversity Summit in Colombia next week. Sophie Smith has more details. In the depths of the Amazon rainforest, tiny brown mushrooms grow out of the side of a tree. They don't look like much, but these fungi are critical to the way the jungle and the rest of the world operates. Fungi help to rejuvenate soil, store over a third of global carbon emissions

each year and break down harmful plastics. In fact, scientists specialising in the organisms or mycologists say that without them most plants are unable to live outside of water and therefore life on earth as we know it would not exist. The fungus kingdom, which includes mushrooms, mould, mildew, yeast and lichen was only recently recognised as separate to animals and plants. But a new initiative by the UK and Chile is looking to change the way the world sees fungi. The two governments are co-sponsoring a pledge for fungal conservation in which they ask countries to acknowledge fungi as a separate entity in legislation, policies and agreements to encourage concrete

conservation measures around the so-called third kingdom. The plan will be submitted to the UN Conference on Biological Diversity, COP16, which starts next week in Cali in southwestern Colombia, not far from the Amazon rainforest, which scientists say is teeming with fungal life. Sophie Smith reporting there. Many people are worried about the effect that ageing will have on their skin. Researchers here in Britain have made a discovery now that could slow the process. The team has determined the process by which human skin is created from a stem cell.

They're cells that have not yet become specialised for a specific function. The scientists identified which genes are switched on and off during a person's development and ageing and were able to grow small amounts of skin tissue in a laboratory. This breakthrough could be used for skin transplants after burns or to help patients heal without scars after surgery. Here's our science correspondent, Pallabh Ghosh. The basic building blocks of humans are cells. When embryos are first fertilised, they're all the same. But after three weeks they begin to specialise and clump together to form the various bits of the body. The secret to learning how humans are built lie deep in the heart of these cells. Specifically, the Human Cell Atlas project aims to find out which genes are turned on at what times and in which

locations. Researchers have now published details of how this happens in skin. Professor Maslifa Hanifa of the Wellcome Sanger Institute just outside Cambridge explained the benefits of the project. If we knew how we can actually manipulate the skin from not ageing, we will have fewer wrinkles. If we knew how to kind of enhance the bone density, we will be having much better bones, enhance our heart, all of those things

that can rejuvenate organs. So if you knew and understand what happens during development at aging, you can then try to actually intervene and say, how do I make the heart younger? How do I make the skin younger? how do I make the skin younger. So it sounds like the human cell atlas was invented for someone like me. I think it was invented for all of us.

That vision though is some way off but there could be some more immediate applications such as growing skin artificially for transplantation for burns victims and to have scar-free healing after surgical procedures. Palabkos. And that's all from us for now. But before I go I just wanted to ask a favour. We're recording a special edition of the podcast ahead of this year's UN climate change conference which starts on November 11th. I'll be hosting the programme with two of the BBC's top climate change experts and we

want you to send us your questions for them right now, preferably as a voice note. How is the world changing? How are we adapting? Are nations reneging on their emissions targets? Anything you like. Yorgos Spanos from Greece has already got in touch. He wants to know what happens if our oceans stop being able to absorb more carbon dioxide. Great question. Please send yours to us at the usual address globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. This edition of the podcast was mixed by Nick

Randall. The producer was Liam McSheffrey. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Nick Miles and until next time, goodbye. your limit, their elite coaches will keep you on track to breaking past your goals. Whether you're looking to get stronger or faster, Peloton Tread has everything you need to become everything you want. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit OnePeloton.ca. Deloitte's 2024 CXO Sustainability Report reveals 92% of executives believe their company can grow while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Nearly half are transforming their business models to address climate change, and 85 percent increase sustainability investments in the past year. Results show there is no retreat from sustainability efforts. Instead, signs that climate action is moving to the heart of company strategies.

Visit Deloitte.com forward slash CXO report to learn more.