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Egypt warns over Israel's support for Trump's Gaza 'takeover' plan
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Cairo said it undermined efforts to extend the current ceasefire
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Oscar Piastri
This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the uk. What does it take to go racing in the fastest cars in the world? Oscar Piastri. Your head's trying to get roofed one way, your body's trying to go another. Let's roll. It's very extreme in the sense of how close you're racing. Wheel to wheel. We've been given unprecedented access to two of the most famous names in Formula One, McLaren and Aston Martin. I'm Landon Arts. They build a beautiful bit of machinery that I get to then go and have fun in. They open the doors for their factories. As the 2024 season reached its peak. I'm this is Josh hartnett. This is F1 back at base. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Valerie Sanderson and in the early hours of Friday 7th February, these are our main stories. Egypt has warned that Israeli support for Donald Trump's proposal to displace Palestinians from Gaza undermines negotiations on a ceasefire and hostage release agreement. South Africa's president Cyril Ramaphosa has said his country will not be bullied after the Trump administration threatened to cut off funding in a row over land reforms. Islamist hardliners have forced the cancellation of a girls football match in Bangladesh as the women's game comes under attack from those who think it's un Islamic. Also in this podcast, I think kerrygold farmers have a great bond with the land. We are caretakers through the generations. Now many of these Irish dairy farmers are on the verge of an incredible windfall, thanks to a groundbreaking agreement that's been dubbed the Kerry Gold Rush. Egypt has warned that Israeli support for Donald Trump's plan to remove Palestinians from the Gaza Strip threatens to provoke a return to fighting. The Foreign Ministry in Cairo said Israel's position undermined negotiations to extend the current ceasefire between Hamas and Israel. Meanwhile, the Israeli Defense Minister, Israel Katz, has ordered the army to make a plan for what he calls the voluntary departure of people from Gaza. It was echoed by another member of the Israeli cabinet, the Foreign Minister, Gideon Sa. Everyone that is ready to immigrate wants to immigrate from his free will. It is moral to give him that option and not to put him in his power in prison. So everything must be based on the free will of individual and on the other hand of a will of a state that is ready to absorb. The UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, had this response to the Trump immoral and irresponsible. It's completely irresponsible because it will make the regional crisis even worse. And I truly hope that people will stay calm, will not panic, and will remember that the international community is made of 193 states and this is the time to give the US what it has been looking for. Isolation for his part, President Trump has defended his proposal, saying no American soldiers would be needed to take control of the Gaza Strip, which would be, he said, turned over to the US after the fighting was finished. Our North America correspondent John Sudworth reports from Washington. Shortly after President Trump made the comments in the White House, standing alongside Benjamin Netanyahu, US Officials seemed to be trying to soften their meaning with the new secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and the White House press secretary, Caroline Levitt, both suggesting that any relocation of Palestinians from Gaza would be temporary. But in an early morning social media post, Mr. Trump has doubled down, saying that Israel would hand control of Gaza to the US Once the fighting was over and that the Palestinians would have already been settled in new modern homes in the region. The plan, he insisted, would not need boots on the ground. When the visiting Israeli prime minister was himself asked by a US Reporter today if US Troops would be needed to make the plan work, his answer was to the point no. The plan, although cheered by many of Mr. Trump's loyal supporters, has been met with outrage elsewhere, not only for its violation of international law but also the sheer impracticality of its aim, relocating Gazans who don't want to leave to countries that don't want to take them. Even some senior Republican politicians have been expressing skepticism. There are a few kinks in that slinky, senator Thom Tillis reportedly told NBC News. Obviously it's not going to happen, he said. John Sadworth in Washington Sales of electric cars made by Tesla have fallen sharply in several European markets, most notably in Germany, the biggest market it's thought it's partly in response to the controversial involvement of the car company's owner, Elon Musk, in politics. Since becoming an advisor to Donald Trump, the world's richest man has made several controversial interventions in European politics, especially in Germany. I got more on the background to this story from our Europe regional editor, Warren Bull. First, the electric vehicle market in Europe took a big hit last year when Germany and France cut government subsidies. But in recent weeks, the market's been recovering across the continent. And, for example, in Germany, which is the biggest car market, EV sales grew in January more than 50% year on year. But that is not the case with Tesla. Trade figures from Germany show that just under 1300 Teslas were registered in January. That's a fall of 59% compared with the same month last year in France, Tesla was down 63%, Norway 38. And in fact, all the key European car markets except the UK where Tesla sales are only down 8%. Warren, what are the reasons for that? I mean, is this all about Elon Musk? No. The analysts of the industry say there are several reasons for the decline. One, as I mentioned, is the continuing effect of the reduction of government subsidies in Europe. Another is that consumers were waiting for the upgrade of the Tesla Y model. But there's a big feeling that the main contributor is Elon Musk himself. Now, if you're in an area where Teslas are driven, you might have seen this bumper sticker which says, I bought this before Elon went crazy. Now, that sticker has been very popular in Europe among people who saw Tesla as a projection of their credentials as a green, environmentally friendly person, dynamic, stylish. But since Elon Musk became a vocal advisor to Donald Trump, that credit has diminished for some Europeans who now want to disassociate from brands linked to him. And a big reason for that is that he's made several controversial interventions in European politics and particularly in Germany. There, he questioned the leadership of Chancellor Olaf Scholz. But more importantly, he's very vocally and repeatedly backed the far right AFD ahead of this month's elections. Now, that leaves a complicated picture for Tesla in Germany. Now, this is a man, Elon Musk, who's built the only Tesla factory in Europe, in Brandenburg. He created 12,000 jobs in a relatively poor part of Germany. But he also appears to espouse views many Germans consider toxic and that affects their choices when they buy cars. Warren Bull, the South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa has declared his country will not be bullied as he delivered a highly anticipated State of the Nation address. He mentioned no names, but President Trump has accused the government of unlawfully confiscating land. Mr. Ramaphosa told parliament that South Africa would stand up for its national and sovereignty. We are witnessing the rise of nationalism, protectionism, the pursuit of narrow interests and the decline of common cause. But we are not daunted to navigate our path through this world that constantly changes. We will not be deterred. We are, as South Africans, a resilient people and we will not be bullied. The annual address was the first since last year's landmark election, when Mr. Ramaphosa's ANC was replaced by a government of National Unity for The first time since the end of apartheid and staying in South Africa, the city of Johannesburg has long had a reputation for being one of the most dangerous places in the world. It's recently experienced some horrific events, including a fatal building fire, as well as chronic power and water shortages. But scratch the surface and there are remarkable people and organizations trying to make the city more livable and attractive to visitors from home and abroad. Ed Harperson reports. I'm at the base of the Ponte Tower, one of Johannesburg's most famous buildings, and it sort of represents what's happened to this city in recent years. It opened in 1975 and became one of the most exclusive addresses. Then in the mid-80s, it fell into disrepair as people fled the inner city for the suburbs. It's a huge cylindrical structure with a hollow centre, and people started throwing rubbish into the middle until it reached around the 15th floor. But it was renovated around the time South Africa hosted the World cup in 2010. And now, once again, it's seeing a renaissance. My name is Delight Sitole. I'm from an organization which is called Lalanje, which is Azuluat, which means just play. You said you do a lot for the children in the community. I know you also give tourists tours. What's the motive for that? Why do you want to show people this area? If you go to social media, you go, I mean, online and the news, and then you read about Hillpro. It only show you the bad things, right? So we're trying to challenge that perception as much as it's bad. But then there are also normal people living around here. It's not like everyone goes around here carrying guns or feeding people drugs and doing crimes. So what we do, you come here for a tour, we take you around, and then you decide later on whether Hillbrow is bad or not. At the end of the day, you will have your own judgment. I've just come to the top of a very steep street in Hillbrow. The change is quite remarkable. If I look back down the hill in the distance, I can see Ponty Tower and what's called a hijacked building. That's a building that's been taken over by criminals. But then if I look to my right, these streets are almost spotless. There's a street cleaner sweeping in the street. There are security cameras everywhere, very little litter. And I'm surrounded by lots of apartment blocks rising above me and they look almost brand new. And that's because of a property company called Etemba that is trying to turn around a Lot of the buildings in downtown Johannesburg, they buy up these old apartment blocks, do them up, renovate them and then rent them out. And for them, business is booming. We're in an area called Jewel City. In the heydays, it used to be the area where all the diamond dealers used to operate from. I've travelled south through the city to meet Alan Tate from Otemba. We launched Jewel City about five years ago just as Covid was hitting. So the timing was a little bit out, but as soon as Covid lifted, I mean, the buildings were filled up quite quickly. So currently 7200 flats that's under our management and we're going to double that in the next two years through acquisitions and also through additional development as well. So quite an exciting time to be working for. It is at odds with the streets nearby. Wonder not too far away and dangers do lurk. But there are also signs of improvement. So we've now reached the end of the precinct. We've passed all six blocks. If you look under the bridge, you'll see brand new white cabling and lighting. This is part of the Josie My Josie project. So Josie My Josie is an association? Well, Josie My Josie was formed just two years ago, a collaboration between some of the biggest companies in South Africa to improve the city. Generally, there's a much more vibrant atmosphere in the city with people. Bea Swarnopil is the CEO. The whole aim of Josima Josie is to bring hope back to the residents of the city. And by bringing hope back, we need to show some visible improvements and impactful projects so that they can see there's a way out of where we are currently and to live in the city of the future, where people can be safe and where they can thrive and where there are jobs. To be totally blunt, Johannesburg has a pretty bad reputation overseas. Can you ever see this city being spoken about in the same way that, say, London, New York, Paris is spoken about? Well, that is the intention. We have a long way to go. I mean, there's no doubt about that. But it's not impossible. BN Swaneypoul ending that report by Ed Hapeshon in Johannesburg in South Africa, officials in northern Bangladesh say they've been forced to cancel a women's football match because of objections from Islamist hardliners. It's the third such match to be abandoned in the past week after the extremists said it was un Islamic for women and girls to play football. Our South Asia regional editor and Barasan Etharajan has more details. Shortly before the match between two district women's football teams began. A religious group, the Islami Andol in Bangladesh, had announced a protest rally against the event in Rangpur's Tara Ganch area. After efforts to resolve the dispute failed, police imposed a restriction on gatherings of people and the women's teams that had arrived to play were forced to leave, analysts say. Previously, fringe Islamist groups have grown noticeably more prominent in the South Asian nation after the overthrow of the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, who fled to India in August. Last week, Islamists forced the cancellation of two women's football matches in northern Bangladesh. One of the protests led to a clash in which four people were injured. Local authorities have started an investigation into the vandalism of the football field where a match was scheduled to be played following the recent incidents. The Bangladesh Football Federation said the game was for everyone and urged the authorities to take necessary steps to ensure that women can play football and Barasan Etherajan A state of emergency has been declared on the Greek island of Santorini following a series of tremors which have led to thousands of people leaving a place known primarily for its idyllic setting, with rows of white houses perched above the harbour, blue domed churches and picturesque sunsets. But Santorini is also part of the Hellenic volcanic arc, a chain of islands created by volcanoes where the last major eruption occurred back in the 1950s. Dr. Gerasimos Papadopoulos, a seismologist and professor at Hellenic Mediterranean University in Crete, is monitoring the situation in Santorini and he gave us this update on Thursday. About 5,6000 people left, mainly Santorini, not so much amor work along with their families, kids, because they are afraid of something stronger to come. But I would like to clarify that certainly the level of seismic hazards has increased in the last days. The good news of the day is that all these earthquakes take place in submarine environment at distances which range from about 10km to 40km. From Amorgos and from Santorini, future earthquakes may occur, but for having an important impact on the island, we may consider large earthquake Magdalens we understand the schools are closed. Yes, of course. This is a decision of the central government to close the schools and this terminates tomorrow. But we expect tomorrow new decisions to be taken by the government. And on the other hand it is very important that rescue teams are already on the island. Of course, no casualties, no fatalities, nothing. People is not feeling very good because of the frequent earthquakes. They feel five, ten, maybe more earthquakes every day. They complain about that. Psychologically it's not the best for them, but myself and my team, we are working very intensively. And since last Sunday, we have announced publicly that these earthquakes are what we call in seismology, four shocks. They are four shocks, which means that a stronger earthquake is very likely to come. And I would say that this is the first time, not only in Greece, but internationally, that we try to clarify such issues during the ongoing seismic activity. Greek seismologist Dr. Grasimos Papadopoulos. Still to come, how 400 languages spoken across Asia and Europe have a common link. What does it take to go racing in the fastest cars in the world? Oscar Piastri. Your head's trying to get roofed one way, your body's trying to go another. Let's stroll. It's very extreme in the sense how close you're racing wheel to wheel. We've been given unprecedented access to two of the most famous names in Formula One, McLaren and Aston Martin. I'm London Arts. They build a beautiful bit of machinery that I get to then go and have fun in. They open the doors to their factories. As the 2024 season reached its peak. I'm Josh Hartnett. This is F1 back at base. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. The French birth rate has fallen to its lowest level for more than 100 years since just after the end of World War I in 1918. Government statistics show the rate now stands at 1.62 babies per woman. And in the southwest of the country, it's even lower. Chris Bachman has been to one town near the city of Toulouse to find out why. Colomier has recorded one of the sharpest falls in births across the whole country, down 31% since 2018. I head to a surgery near the town hall where two midwives are seeing newly born babies for regular checkups. Margot Biscay speaks to a lot of young women who come to her for contraceptive advice. There are more and more young women between the ages of 20 and 30 who I see for check ups and having children is not a priority or simply don't want any. Often because of the world we live in right now. It's not a very optimistic period. Maybe they will change their minds, but maybe not. They're pretty adamant they don't want children. Laurent Oiseau has been a midwife and Colomier for 30 years and seen the demographic changes. While the trend is clearly towards less kids, she still sees families with three or four children from poor and immigrant backgrounds. We still see a lot of families with lots of kids. They're more likely to be from immigrant backgrounds, but also people from more Economically deprived backgrounds. And another thing is that France provides a lot of support for families. The latest French government statistics underline her observations. Cultural factors and generous pro family tax breaks and child allowances may play a role. The number of primary schools children in Colombia has fallen by 10% in the past seven years. It's not surprising the birth rate here NOW stands at 1.53 per woman, compared to 1.62 nationally. Xavier Vouillier, father of one child, is in teaching management at the Victor Hugo School in the town. There's definitely been a falling number of kids in schools. We've had confirmations from the local authorities. It's mainly affecting primary schools, but of course there'll be a knock on effect on secondary schools within the next four to five years. Cologne is part of the administrative region of France known as Occitany, with just over 6 million residents. Government statistics show the region has the second biggest decline of the birth rate across France, except for the island of Corsica. Catherine Sourd is from inse, the French national statistics office, and studied the issue. People may choose to delay having children or have none at all for economic reasons. It can be due to inflation or like we saw with a sharp fall in births in 2008 with the Financial crisis. Some are deterred from starting a family by rising property prices. And there are other wider issues of uncertainty like international crises and climate change, which puts off some people from having kids. Early last year, French President Emmanuel Macron called for a demographic rearmament with reforms making it easier for people to have children. But a year on, there is no evidence the demographic decline is about to end. Chris Bachmann in France, teammates of the Spanish footballer Jenny Hermoso have been giving evidence in the sexual assault trial of the former National Federation president Luis Rubiales, who kissed her moments after Spain won the Women's World cup in 2023. He denies wrongdoing. Guy Hetchko has the latest from Madrid. Jenni Hermoso's teammates told the court about the pressure they say she was put under by Luis Rubialis and other officials to play down the kiss as the backlash against the federation president snowballed. Alexia Pultelias spoke of Ms. Hermoso's astonished reaction to the kiss itself. She also said that within hours of the World cup final, Ms. Hermoso was visibly upset by repeated efforts to persuade her to say in public that the kiss had been consensual. She wanted to have fun and we even tried to cheer her up, saying, forget about it, we're world champions. Let's celebrate. But Jenny wasn't her usual self. Another member of the World cup winning team, Laia Cordina, said that when the players went on holiday together to ibiza to celebrate, Ms. Hermoso's state of mind appeared to have deteriorated further due to the alleged harassment, and she broke down crying on more than one occasion. Mr. Rubiales, who is due to be questioned in court next week, could face a jail sentence of up to two and a half years. Three former colleagues are also on trial for coercion. All four men deny any wrongdoing. Guy Hedgco In Spain, a DNA study has solved a centuries old mystery about the origin of 400 languages spoken across Asia and Europe. Indo European languages all have a common link. This is what it might have sounded like until now. Tracing of the common ancestor of Indo European languages has been a challenge, but new genetic research is is shedding light on its origins. Evan Davis spoke to David Reich, a population geneticist at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts who co led the latest studies. There's a more than 200 year old problem of the origin of these languages known as Indo European. One of the first people who recognized this was William Jones, who was a British judge working in colonial India and Calcutta. He noticed that the Greek and the Latin that he learned in his schoolboy days was related to the the ancient liturgical languages of northern India, like Sanskrit. And he realized that they must descend from some common source. And since that time, people figured out that all sorts of languages are closely related, not just Greek, Latin and Sanskrit, but also the Germanic languages, which include English and Armenian and Persian and all sorts of languages. And so the question was where did the first people who spoke these languages speak them? And there's people been trying to figure this out for more than 200 years right now you're a geneticist and you have applied your methods to get an answer. Tell us what you've found. So genetics can't tell you what language people spoke. People of any ancestry can speak any language. But what genetics can do is document large scale movements of people and migrations and population mixtures that would be potential ways that language could spread. And what genetics has yielded in the last 10 years is a huge surprise. Prior to 2015, we did not think that there was a plausible movement of people from Far Eastern Europe into Central and Western Europe after 5,000 years ago. But beginning in 2015 with two papers, we found that there was a huge migration from the steppes north of the Black and Caspian Seas into Central Europe. These people are known as the Yamnaya. And they're the world's first extreme mobile pastoralists, people who didn't live in settled villages anymore. And what they had done was they took advantage of the newly invented wheel and probably the first domestication of the horse to move out into the open steppe lands and exploit the biomass of the steppe that hadn't been accessible before because they could now take out their supplies like water. Because of these innovations, they expanded explosively from what we show in this paper was just a few small villages about 5,500 years ago, all the way in the west to Hungary and in the east, eastern China. Yamnaya was the big spreader. But what we do here is we roll back to the group that gave rise to the Yamnaya, and that we show also gave rise to the ancestors of Anatolian speakers like Hittite. We find a common population that Contributed, that contributed 80% of the DNA of the Omnaya and also contributed to the ancestors of Hittites, who are different genetically than the people amongst whom they lived. And so we now have a common link. David Reich, a population geneticist at Harvard Medical School in the United States. Now to the lush green fields of County Kerry in Ireland, where more than 100 hard working farmers are on the verge of an incredible windfall. Thanks to a groundbreaking agreement, their dairy cooperative has sold its shares in the Kerry Group, one of the country's most prominent food giants. Liana Byrne explains. In 1973, dairy farmers in County Kerry formed a cooperative to sell their milk together and get a better deal. That co op set up a business to market milk under the name of Kerrygold, and that brand made Irish butter. I think Kerrygold farmers have a great bond with the land. We are caretakers through the generations. Kerrygold, which later became the Kerry Group, went on to become one of Ireland's biggest food companies. But now, over 50 years later, the cooperative and the food business are separating, with the proceeds from the sale going back to the descendants of some of the original farmers who set up the co op. We're actually producing butter now that's going all over the world. It's a lovely cycle of Life. More than 100 co op shareholders, including small farmers and their families, have each received shares worth more than $1 million. Not everyone is getting that much. But with an average payout of $1,400 for the 12,000 Kerry Co op shareholders, it's quite the Kerry gold rush. Well, Sam Fenwick spoke to Pat O'Toole, the editor of the Irish Farmers Journal and asked him for more background on the so called Kerry gold rush. In 1973, Kerry Coop was set up in a caravan and Dennis Brosnan actually cycled to farms. He had a car. But in order to coax farmers to sign up and to invest in the fledgling co op, he chose to cycle around to show just how grounded he was. And he remained grounded. He built a business which became a PLC in 1986, now has a market cap of 16.5 billion. And the co op is now separating, as you say, from the plc. But in an unusual way, what they're doing is they're actually buying the Irish dairy business back off the PLC. And in doing so, they're divesting about 350 million euros worth of PLC shares back into the PLC to pay for the purchase of 60% of the CO op. And the remaining shares, 1.6 billion at current value, are being shared out among the co OP shareholders. About 12,000 people, most of them dairy farmers or descendants of dairy farmers and like you say, some millionaires being created in this. And you've spoken to some of these farmers, haven't you? What have they told you? We'll share some of their personal stories and reactions. There's some amazing stories. I was at a meeting about six years ago, a co op meeting, when this was being floated first, and one co op member told me that his postman had come to him and said, we have a few shares in the drawer at home. My dad milked a few cows back in the day. Would you mind having a look at them? So the few shares were worth 800,000. They were sitting in an envelope in the drawer in the kitchen for 50 years. So the initial shares cost a pound, are now worth £100. Well, the initial co op shares were worth a pound. They were, are actually worth £500 in see through value because shareholders effectively got just under 5 shares in the PLC for each co op share they surrendered. So it's a phenomenal story. We're talking about over a billion in county carry alone. I would say that's a large concentration of millionaires in rural Ireland now. Yeah. And but being farmers, trust me, that money will be spent on land, on sheds, on equipment. There's been a huge amount of dairy expansion since the ending of milk quotas 10 years ago ago. Irish dairy production has expanded by 50% because farmers have been able to tap into Ireland's natural ability to grow grass, turn that into milk and sell it all over the world. Kerry have 21,000 employees and they sell product to 135 countries. So it's a global conglomerate, mainly based in America. Now the farmers are buying back the Irish business and cashing in. Pat O'Toole, the editor of the Irish Farmers Journal. Now let's end the global news podcast on another foodie topic, that of sausages. Croatian anti corruption police have arrested a former mayor on suspicion of using public money to buy a ton and a half of the meat product. Davar Milicevic is accused of purchasing large quantities of kulin, a popular spicy product. Here's our Balkans correspondent, Guy Delaunay. Police have been grilling Davor Milicevic since his arrest in an early morning raid. He was a long serving mayor of Zupania, a town in Croatia's Slavonia region famed for its production of kulin. That's a sought after sausage that can sell for more than €65 per kilogram. Anti corruption investigators believe Mr. Milicevic bought around one and a half tonnes over a three year period, spending at least €100,000. They allege the former mayor used public money for his sausage spree. Police are also investigating claims that he had a stake in the artisanal butcher's shop that crafted the kulin. Guy Delaunay. And that's it from us for now. But there will be a new edition of the Global News podcast later. If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, send us an email. The address is globalpodcastbc.co.uk you can also find us on X@ BBC World Service. Use the hashtag @global Newspod. This edition was mixed by Chris Hanson. The producer was Liam McSheffrey. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Valerie Sanderson. Until next time. Bye bye. What does it take to go racing in the fastest cars in the world? Oscar Piastri. Your head's trying to get ripped one way, your body's trying to go another. Let's roll. It's very extreme in the sense of how close you're racing. Wheel to wheel. We've been given unprecedented access to two of the most famous names in Formula One, McLaren and Aston Martin. I'm London Arts. They build a beautiful bit of machinery that I get to then go and have fun in. They opened the doors to their factories as the 2024 season reached its peak. I'm Josh Hartnett. This is F1 back at base. Listen, wherever you get your podcasts.