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Global News Podcast
Netanyahu meets Trump at White House amid Gaza ceasefire talks
00:32:57
The Israeli PM has nominated President Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize
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Julia McFarlane
This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the uk. Trip Planner by Expedia. You were made to have strong opinions about sand. We were made to help you and your friends find a place on the beach with a pool and a marina and a waterfall and a soaking tub. Expedia made to Travel. This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. Julia I'm Julia McFarlane and in the early hours of Tuesday, the 8th of July, these are our main stories. The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in Washington where he's holding his third meeting this year with President Trump. Details are emerging of the tariffs President Trump is planning to impose on major trading partners, which are now due to come into force at the beginning of August. And Kenyan officials say 11 people have been killed during big anti government protests. Also in this podcast, the much loved Olufsen Hotel was built in the late 19th century originally as a private home and featured under a different name in a 1960s novel by the British writer Graham Greene. Haiti's most famous and historic hotel has been burned down by criminal gangs who control most of the capital, Port au Prince. The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in Washington where he's held his third meeting this year with President Trump. Earlier in the day, the Israeli Prime Minister also met US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Before this recent meeting with the Israeli Prime Minister, President Trump said he'd been very firm with Mr. Netanyahu about ending the conflict in Gaza and that he thought there would be a ceasefire deal this week. Meanwhile, in Qatar, the latest round of indirect talks between Israel, Israel and Hamas over a potential 60 day ceasefire ended without results. After Monday's evening meeting in the White House, both leaders had dinner together. Before dining, President Trump had this to say. We've worked together for a long time and we've done well together. We had a great, we had a great time. I would say it's a lot of work, but we had a great result recently and we're going to have a lot of great results. So it's great to have you. Thank you very much. And Benjamin Netanyahu said this. I want to express the appreciation and admiration not only of all Israelis, but of the Jewish people and many, many admirers around the world for your leadership pursuit of peace and security, which you are leading in many lands, but now, especially in the Middle east, he's forging peace as we speak, in one country, in one region after the other. So I want to present to you, Mr. President, the letter I sent to the Nobel Prize Committee. It's nominating you for the Peace Prize, which is well deserved and you should get it. Thank you very much. This I didn't know. Well, thank you very much. Well, just moments before the Israeli prime Minister arrived at the White House and standing a short distance from the building, Sumi Somaskander spoke to our State Department correspondent, Tom Bateman. Normally we'd have the Marines and the honour guard and, you know, the armored car prime minister arriving here at the West Wing and a very public display between these two men. None of that this time. As far as the plans go so far, no kind of Oval Office moment from a president who loves to platform his positions in front of foreign leaders and the world's media. And I think that points to the way in which President Trump is signaling he intends to apply some pressure on Mr. Netanyahu. He has said that he's going to be very firm with him. He basically wants this deal to get pushed over the line and I think in the end to take whatever is on, whatever is available that comes out of these talks in Doha. That said, there are very significant stumbling blocks really from both sides still in the way of this deal. Now, in relation to that, over the road, I bumped into Mike Huckabee, who's the US Ambassador to Israel, will be part of the delegation here for the White House. And I put to him the issue of some of the domestic criticisms of Mr. Netanyahu in Israel, including among some hostage families and those who accuse the Israeli prime minister of basically prolonging the war for the survival of his own governing coalition. And I ask Mr. Huckabee if the US administration shared any of those concerns. That is utter nonsense. To say that anyone would want to see a war continue, I think is an insult to the intelligence of any civilized person. There are plenty of Israelis that have argued that, including hostage. From that, that is a very unfortunate assessment, one that I would not ascribe to any legitimate government and I certainly wouldn't ascribe it the government of Israel. Really interesting to hear that from the US Ambassador to Israel, the Trump administration, President Trump has said this is the final offer, cease fire deal. What is the administration said it would do if there is an agreement? For example, what, what pressure is it saying it would put on Hamas? Well, I mean, as you hear from Mike Huckabee, and you know, it's the long standing position of the administration and the previous one actually, that they put all of the blame for the obstacles at the door of Hamas, I think behind the scenes, obviously, things are a bit more realistic and they realize this is a two way street. Perhaps that's why we're seeing Mr. Trump allude to pressure on the Israeli Prime Minister as well in terms of what they can do if there is no agreement. That takes us right back to, you know, the February meeting between these two men where we got that extraordinary moment where Mr. Trump suddenly stood up and said, the US is going to take over the Gaza Strip. We're going to, you know, in his words, you know, we talked about moving out Palestinians. Basically what they're talking about is the expulsion of the population and building a Riviera of the Middle east, something that flies in the face of international law. Of course. It's interesting that we haven't heard as much about that from the administration since then, really, and particularly since Mr. Trump's visit to Saudi Arabia, his first foreign tour. That has sort of been put on the back burner, I think. But that sort of threat, if you want to call it that, I think remains. And that will also have been uppermost in the minds of Hamas that they know Mr. Trump. Trump is an entirely unpredictable president and character. So that also applies pressure. But in the end, the stumbling blocks of this deal come back to the same fundamental issues they have always been. Hamas wants a guarantee that the war will end, that there will be a continuation of the 60 day cease fire period if negotiations continue in good faith. The Israelis don't want the Americans to give that pledge. And so we still see that as a remaining stumbling block over these talks. Tom Bateman at the White House. Since October 2023, more than 55,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza. Among them are the mother and sister of a 28 year old nurse called Rewa, who now works with the medical charity msf. When she spoke to the BBC in January last year, just a few months into the latest war between Israel and Hamas, she had very little hope that the situation would improve anytime soon. Any moment we may die. We just sometimes wish to die because it's easier than this life. So I can't see any future for Tuqa. Now, more than 20 months into the latest conflict, the BBC's Caroline Hawley talked to Rawa again just as the Israeli Prime Minister set off for his trip to Washington to meet President Trump. Rua's feeding her one year old girl, Toka, born two days before the war began, and her three year old, Asma. It's a meal from a charity kitchen. Pasta and a bit of sauce. Rua has a job And a salary luxuries in Gaza right now, but she can't get cash out of the bank and fresh food is almost impossible to come by anyway. There is nothing in the market but the items or the food from the American aids like some biscuit. And it's very, very expensive for like a small pocket. It costs a lot of money. So what do you most wish for when the war ends? When the war ends, I will fill my house with all items from the market. You know, we can't trust what will happen next. How do you guys talk about the war if at all? We're trying to avoid talking about the war, actually ignore what happened outside, just focusing on the inside of the house. Let them dance all the day, play games. Rua sent me a video of Asma in a white top and shorts and little green shoes singing. She says she's now so used to the sound of bombing and Toka, she only gets scared if it's very close. Then she even say no, Mommy. Gunshot. So yeah, she ran across the house to come sit with me when she hears something like this. So even at the age of one in her vocabulary she has the word gunshot. Yes, Exactly. Back in October 2023, Rua's family home in Khan Younis was hit in an airstrike, killing her mother and sister who died in terrible pain from their burns. Her niece and nephew are still badly scarred. Asma Rua says is aware of everything she know that her grandmother and her auntie at heaven. She always said that I wish I could go to sit with them, play with them. Every day Rua has to leave her kids to commute to work in Gaza City. It's a two hour journey each way from Deir El Bala where she lives. Every day she passes rubble and sewage and the tents on the beach where people who've lost their homes live. She holds her breath to avoid the acrid black smoke from plastic and clothes being burnt to make fuel. And every day she says she's scared she'll be killed on the road. But she can't ignore her patients needs. It is very bad for all children. There are children who less than six months complain of malnutrition and the severe acute malnourished cases are increasing. There's no word that can describe what's happening here. Caroline Hawley speaking to the Palestinian nurse Rewah in Gaza, the White House has confirmed that President Trump's so called Liberation Day tariffs have again been deferred until the start of next month. Letters have been sent to several major trading partners confirming a tax of between 25 and 40% on goods. More are expected for countries who failed to agree a trade deal with the U.S. the White House press secretary is Caroline Levitt. The reciprocal tariff rate, or these new rates that will be provided in this correspondence to these foreign leaders will be going out the door within the next month or deals will be made and those countries continue to negotiate with the United States. We've seen a lot of positive developments in the right direction, but the administration, the president and his trade team want to cut the best deals for the American people and the American worker. That's what they're focused on. For more details on the US Tariffs, here's our business reporter, Jonathan Josephs. It was at the start of April that President Trump announced these plans to address what he thinks are other countries unfair trade practices. A failure to agree a solution means an initial 12 countries can expect letters informing them of new taxes on the goods they sell in the US More will follow in the days ahead. The tariffs are due to come into force at the start of August with an executive order signed to push back this week's deadline. Trade deals normally take years to agree, and President Trump has reached just 2. Jonathan Josephs, Catastrophic Flash Floods which hit the American state of Texas on Friday are now known to have killed more than 100 people. Search and rescue efforts have continued into a fifth day as dozens remain missing. Organizers of a girls summer camp which was badly hit by the disaster, have said 27 children and counselors are now known to have died. The Guadalupe river swelled more than 7 meters in an hour after heavy rain, the waters rising fast and in the dead of night. Our chief North America correspondent, Gary o' Donohue reports now from Kerrville on the continuing operation by the rescue teams. Time is against the rescuers, but they're not giving up. Scouring the banks of the Guadalupe river and the trails around it, one group have been searching for Alicia Olvera after finding her husband Jose, alive. The couple in their 70s, were holding hands as she was swept away. We believe she's still here in the area. We had a great group of people show up, about 40 to 50 volunteers just looking through rummage and digging up as much as we can, all shouted from the mountaintops. Praise God. I want my world to know. Hundreds have been rescued, including these girls from Camp mystic who bore the brunt of the flood. But it's now been confirmed that 27 girls and counselors from mystic did not survive. In a statement, the camp said their hearts were broken as they and their families endure this unimaginable tragedy. Ted Cruz, a Republican senator from Texas, says the whole state is reeling from the disaster. Texas is grieving right now. The pain, the shock of what has transpired these last few days has broken the heart of our state. The children and little girls who were lost at Camp mystic, that's every parent's nightmare. Questions, though, are being asked about the warning systems in the area. One local campaigner, Nicole Wilson, has already set up a petition calling for flood sirens to be installed as they have been in neighbouring areas, to have camps, to have RV camps, to have houses that close to a river and it flood like that. I don't understand why Kerrville and Kerr county hadn't invested in flood sirens. This tragedy is not over. A number of people are still missing and the weather remains unpredictable, making the rescue and recovery efforts even harder. Gary O' Donohue in Texas. Next to Kenya, police say 11 people have been killed during another day of anti government protests across the country. This was the scene in the capital Nairobi. The sound of police firing tear gas to disperse protesters. A statement said dozens of police officers had been injured. The main state funded human rights organization has been highly critical of the police response, accusing it of using excessive force. The former prime minister, Raila Odinga complained that Kenya's police had gone rogue and needed urgent reform. I propose that the country urgently turns to the agenda of comprehensive police reforms focusing on enhancing accountability, transparency and improving police to people relationship. Your rogue police force that shoots people with impunity. Anne Soy is the BBC's reporter in Nairobi. Paul Henley asked her for more on Monday's events on the ground. A lot of chaos everywhere. There were running battles between police and protesters in different parts of the country. And overnight police set up roadblocks on all roads leading into the city, the capital. As the day broke, people were trying to get to the city, they couldn't. People who were going to work as well as protesters who are trying to get to the central business district just found all the roads had been blocked. No vehicles were allowed to go through, so transport was paralyzed. And so the groups that were able to gather, that's where the conference with police were. And as you heard there, they were dispersed using tear gas and in some cases gunfire. Police have confirmed that 11 people were killed and dozens were injured, including more than 50 security officers. What were the protests about? The protests, as you said, there were meant to commemorate 35 years since the clamor for multiparty democracy. 35 years ago, Kenya was a one party state. And so people went to the streets to protest against an unpopular government. And that led, led to the changing of the constitution and the first multi party elections in a while in, in the year 1992. And so people went to the streets today to, to commemorate that. But you know, it would be a different generation on the streets today. But also it, it is a buildup following recent protests in which protesters were killed by police. There were accusations that armed gang members were operating alongside the police. Can you tell us anything about that? The National Commission on Human Rights has monitors all over the country and it has been monitoring in human rights violations and it says that it accuses the police of some violations including working side by side with people they identified as criminal gangs who are armed with crude weapons, clubs, machetes and in some cases bows and arrows. And they seemed to be, you know, working alongside the police. Now the police have not responded to this particular statement, but previously they said they were not working with any criminal elements. And SOY in Kenya. Still to come on this podcast, most people spend their whole careers trying to get a world record or even try to get better. There's so much work that goes into it. But why did a South African cricketer turn down the chance to set a world record for the most runs scored in a test match? Find out later. Russia's former transport minister has been found dead in his car on the outskirts of Moscow, just hours after it was announced that he had been sacked. Russian officials on Monday said Roman Starovoit was found apparently with a self inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Earlier, the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, refused to explain why he was removed from his post. Mr. Sarevoijt's dismissal followed a weekend of chaos at Russian airports when hundreds of flights were delayed or cancelled because of Ukrainian drone attacks. Russian media suggest Mr. Starovoit may have been under investigation for corruption, but there's been no official confirmation. I spoke to our Russia editor, Steve Rosenberg and asked him what details we know about his death. This is all we know so far that this morning the Kremlin announced that Roman Staravoyt was being sacked from the post of Russia's Transport Minister. No reason was given by the Kremlin for that, but a decree appeared on the Kremlin website signed by President Putin to that effect. And then a short while after that, Vladimir Putin was shown meeting the new acting Transport Minister of Russia, Andrei Nikitin, on Russian state television. This afternoon, the News broke that Mr. Starovoit, the former Transport Minister, had been found dead in his car that had emerged. He was found dead next to his car in a park on the edge of Moscow. Russian Investigative Committee reported that there was a gunshot wound. His pistol was found by his side, and investigators said this was a suspected suicide. So a dramatic turn of events in the morning news that he was being sacked. In the afternoon, it emerged that he was dead. Curious indeed. And who was Roman Starovoit? Well, he was 53. He'd been Russia's minister for transport for just over a year. Before that, he was actually the governor of Russia's Kursk region, one of the regions that borders Ukraine. He was the governor there for more than five years. What's interesting is that the man who succeeded him as governor in Kursk, Alexei Smirnov, he wasn't in the job very long at all. And he was recently arrested and accused of large scale fraud in connection with a case about the construction of defensive fortifications on the border of Kursk region with Ukraine. Now, what we don't know, there's a lot of speculation here. What we don't know is whether Mr. Stalovojt's sacking this morning by the Kremlin has anything to do with the big case, the criminal case regarding corruption and fraud in Kursk region. All we know is that this morning he was fired and this afternoon he was found dead. Steve Rosenberg in Moscow. Ukraine says Russia has stepped up attacks on Ukraine's military recruitment centers after two separate drone attacks targeted draft officers in the regional capitals of Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia. It comes a day after another Russian drone attack struck a recruitment center in the central Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk. Paul Adams reports now from the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. These are not the first such attacks since Russia launched its full scale invasion in 2022, but they do suggest a renewed focus on interfering with Kyiv's recruitment effort. A spokesman for Ukraine's ground forces said that Russia feared what he called the steady flow of new service members into the Ukrainian army. Mobilizing sufficient troops to fight off Russia's invasion remains a major challenge for the government in Kyiv, especially because it continues to resist calls to conscript men under the age of 25. Paul Adams in Ukraine to Australia now. And as we heard in the earlier podcast, that mushroom murder trial that shocked a nation and the wider world has drawn to a close. Erin Patterson was found guilty on Monday of murdering several relatives by poisoning them at a lunch two years ago. She had served them all a home cooked beef Wellington, which unbeknownst to them, she had Laced with death cap mushrooms, killing the parents of her estranged husband Don and Gail Patterson, as well as her mother in law's sister Heather. The sole survivor of the lunch besides Patterson, was Heather's husband, who recovered after spending several weeks receiving treatment in hospital. The story captivated audiences around the world. So what does it say about society these days that so many of us have been gripped by this macabre story? Tim Franks considers this with Candace Fox, an Australian crime novelist. I think it's the level of participation that this case requires from the audience. From that very first moment when we saw Erin outside of her house crying in front of the cameras, immediately everyone who was watching turned to the person next to them and said, do you think that's real? And just invited so many opinions because this case doesn't make any sense. The level of premeditation, all of the planning that went into this murderous luncheon does not make sense against the complete lack of planning afterwards. So there's so much discussion from everyone on how this came together. When you say the lack of planning afterwards, are you talking about the slipshod way in which she tried to conceal what had happened? Yeah, it just, I mean it just seems as though she, she planned this so meticulously. She gathered the mushrooms, she chose the meal, she cooked it all together. She protected herself and she protected her own children. But what was she planning to say afterwards when, you know, if, if she had been successful, five people would have died? What was she going to say to the police to account for the fact that these people had died at her lunch table and, and the ham fisted way in which she disposed of the evidence by, you know, leaving the hospital and, and driving to a, a landfill and dumping the dehydrator on full cameras and everything. It, it doesn't make any sense. I guess the other thing that will mystify people, and maybe it's been part of the reason also why people have been gripped by this, is the lack of an obvious motive. I mean she, yes, she was estranged from her husband and I think I'm right in saying that her school age kids testified that their parents did have a very bad relationship. But it doesn't, beyond that, it doesn't seem as if, you know, there was obvious animus towards the people she invited to lunch. No, I mean if you look at all those text messages, Erin and her ex husband seem to have not liked each other very much. But at the worst their text messages were stern and, you know, bordering on rude and, and the worst that she ever described her in laws in her private messages were that they were lost causes. And the saddest part about it is that by all accounts, you know, these people have been absolutely accepting of her and warm towards her and they've tried to maintain the relationship even after the breakdown. They've. Right. On paper, these were not vindictive or awful people who you could, you know, you could relate to that angst of having in laws that you hate. But this doesn't make any sense in that regard either. Candice, can I just ask, I mean, listen, we're doing the interview, we're leading the news program on this, but is there also a danger that we're all engaged in a, in a bit of prurience here that, I mean, in the, in your very first answer to me, you talked about the audience for this trial, that we're seeing it as perhaps as entertainment and losing sight of the people who died here, the victims. The line is getting very blurry between the true crime world and the entertainment world because true crime has just had a huge upswell. And there are podcasts where people are talking about their favorite murders or their favorite serial killers. And the fact is, having written 22 novels myself, I know how often it's almost every single novel that I write, it's inspired in some way by a true crime. And what I'm trying to do when I write my crime fiction novels is provide entertainment, but it comes from someone else's pain. And I think that in this case, in particular the mushroom poisoning case with Aaron Patterson, it seems so completely unreal that it's hard to ground yourself in the idea that this actually did happen, that somebody set out to do this. The Australian crime novelist Candace Fox, Haiti's most famous and historic hotel has been burned down by criminal gangs who control most of the capital, Port au Prince. Our America's regional editor Leonardo Russia reports. The much loved Olufsen Hotel was built in the late 19th century originally as a private home and featured under a different name in a 1960s novel by the British writer Graham Greene. The arson attack was attributed to a coalition of gangs known as Vivancin. The group has targeted many other buildings in recent months, including radio stations and public hospitals. Local media say they thrive on chaos and intimidation, demanding money from businesses to spare them from attacks. The incident is further evidence of the shortcomings of Haiti's transitional government. Leonardo Rocha, next to tennis and officials at the Wimbledon championships in London have made changes to the electronic line calling system after it recently failed to notify players of shots that were Out. Human error was to blame for the incident which happened at a crucial stage of Sunday's fourth round match between the British player Sone Kartal and the Russian Anastasia Pavliachenkova. Here's our sports correspondent, Laura Scott. You took the game away from me. Anastasia Pavlyachenkova's fury was unsurprising. In her words, a crucial game had been stolen from her in the fourth round of Wimbledon, no less. The new electronic line calling technology, which replaced line judges at the championships this year, hadn't detected that a backhand from Sonne Cartel had landed long. The chief executive of the All England Club, Sally Bolton, told me that was because an operator had accidentally switched the system off. We apologised to the players and we've now put in place the amendments to the system to ensure it doesn't happen again. Can you explain how it goes about being turned off? I think a lot of people would assume it was on for an entire match, so the system is activated and deactivated in between matches and in this case it was inadvertently turned off. So effectively someone unchecked a box. A repeat should now be impossible, as one of the changes Wimbledon has made in light of the incident is to remove the ability of the operators to manually deactivate the ball. Tracking the umpire, Nico Helworth, who was criticised by pundits and players for not overruling the call and instead replaying the point, was given a rest day. One tool that wasn't in his armoury but might be in future is the chance to watch slow motion replays, something that is in place at other Grand Slams. Laura Scott at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships. Now, what athlete would purposely turn down the chance to get a world record? Isn't that what everyone would want to go down in sporting history? Well, one South African cricketer did just that, deliberately opting not to score a record for the most runs in a Test match. Vian Mulde was within touching distance of breaking the old record, but he stopped batting, even though he could have continued. What was all that about? I asked the BBC's Mickey Bristow, who knows a thing or two about cricket. You're right, it is amazing. Most people spend their whole careers trying to get a world record or even try to get better. There's so much work that goes into it. They want more goals, they want more points, they want to run faster, jump higher. But here is a cricketer who is in touching distance so close to a world record and that's the most rooms scored in a Test match. The record currently is held by Brian Larry, a West Indian cricketer. He scored 400 runs. Vian Mulder, who scored 367 runs. So it was well within his reach to get to that 400 total. And then suddenly he stopped. He decided for the good of the team, that he wouldn't go in any further. Quite remarkable when you consider, as you mentioned there, so many people would have just gone on and got the record for themselves. And can you explain why he might have done that? And bear in mind, not all of our listeners may be as well versed into cricket as you are. That's a great question. I mean, that's the only question, isn't it? And you don't really need to know the rules of cricket to sort of like, want to know. Why is it somebody gives up the opportunity for immortality? The reason he did it is because in cricket, in order to win a match, you not only have to score the most runs, you have to get the other team out twice. And what Vian Muldo was worried about was that he wasn't going to leave enough time to do that. So he stopped batting. His whole team stopped batting just to give them the opportunity. The really funny thing about this is this match is going on for five days. We're only on day two and already the South Africans have got Zimbabwe out once. So it looks very much as though he would have had enough time both to win the match and gain the record. So perhaps he was a little bit silly in deciding not to continue batting so early before getting the record. Mickey Bristow. And that's all 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 any of the topics covered in it, you can send us an email. The address is globalpodcastbc.co.uk. you can also find us on XBCWorldService. Use the hashtag globalnewspod. This edition was mixed by Caroline Driscoll and the producers were Liam McSheffrey and Oliver Bellao. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Julia McFarlane. Until next time. Goodbye.