Israel to open humanitarian corridors into Gaza

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This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.

I'm Julia McFarlane, and in the early hours of Sunday, the 27th of July, these are our main stories.

Israel says it will open up humanitarian corridors into Gaza and resume airdrops.

President Trump puts pressure on Cambodia and Thailand to reach a ceasefire.

And the Supreme Court in India tries to tackle a rise in student suicides.

Also, in this podcast, how AI can predict which way a penalty taker will shoot.

It was correct 64% of the time, which is importantly around about 10 percentage points higher than the actual human goalkeepers were able to decide which way the goal was going.

After intense international pressure to allow more aid into Gaza, the Israeli military appears to have significantly changed its approach.

In a statement released late on Saturday, the IDF said it would implement a series of actions aimed at improving the humanitarian response and, it says, refuting the false claim of deliberate starvation in the Gaza Strip.

According to the Hamas run Health Ministry, five people have died in Gaza due to malnutrition since Friday, taking the total number number to 127.

It says that two-thirds of them are children.

Our Middle East correspondent, Hugo Pochega, is in Jerusalem.

It is quite significant because not only these airdrops of aid are controversial, because a lot of people say that they are very limited in terms of the number of people they affect or help.

But I think

more significant here is that the military also announced that humanitarian corridors are going to be created to allow the safe movement of UN convoys to deliver food and medicine.

And this has been

a concern, a point that has been raised by a number of aid organizations and UN officials, that it was simply too dangerous for these groups to pick up the food waiting at the border and distribute this aid across Gaza.

So it seems that this is the Israeli response to these concerns.

And another measure is that the Israeli military said it was prepared to implement humanitarian pauses in densely populated areas of Gaza.

So, again, this appears to be Israel's response to growing pressure from the UN, aid agencies, and even some of the country's closest allies who have been blaming Israel for this crisis, something that Israel has denied.

Yeah, humanitarian corridors and humanitarian pauses.

It's clear to see how that, in theory, could help allow more aid in.

But in its statement, Israel says its combat operations have not ceased.

So will the UN and others be able to move that aid, get it to where it's needed?

Well, I think this is the key question here.

How these measures are going to work on the ground.

Will there be a significant increase in the number of aid getting to those who are in desperate need across Gaza?

Don't forget that this is coming after days and days of warnings from aid organizations of mass starvation in Gaza because of these restrictions on the entry and delivery of aid that have been imposed by Israel.

You know, there have been more reports of more Palestinians starving to death.

So I think the Israeli authorities are now trying to show that they are taking significant, meaningful measures to try to contain this crisis that is only getting worse.

But at the same time, the IDF says there is no starvation in the Gaza Strip.

Will this change in approach, will that basically help Israel get on the front foot diplomatically?

Well, I think this is clearly a response to international pressure.

I think a lot of people will probably say, well, it's not enough.

Aid agencies, the UN have been calling for the unrestricted entry and distribution of aid.

And don't forget that a number of Israeli officials have been saying that

the restrictions on aid are part of a strategy to put pressure on Hamas to engage in negotiations for a ceasefire and hostage release deal.

And they've been saying that in public.

So a lot of people say that, well, look, it's not by accident that we're seeing these images in Gaza.

It is possibly by design, or at least some people have been defending this policy.

The Israeli authorities have been rejecting all these accusations.

It was part of the statement that was released.

by the Israeli military.

It said that these measures were aimed at dismissing, rejecting the allegations that starvation in Gaza was orchestrated, if you like.

But again, we heard from the head of the World Health Organization and many others saying that this is a man-made crisis, that there is a lot of aid waiting to be allowed into Gaza and a lot of people waiting to be allowed to enter Gaza to help those Palestinians who are again in desperate need.

Hugo Bochega talking to Oliver Conway.

Cambodia and Thailand have accused each other of extending the conflict at their border, with fighting spreading into new areas.

Long-running tensions over the neighbour's disputed frontier, which have been simmering for several months, escalated suddenly on Thursday.

More than 30 people have been killed in the recent clashes.

President Trump has intervened, telling reporters that he's been speaking with both countries' leaders, pushing them for a ceasefire, and saying he won't make a trade deal with either nation whilst fighting continues.

Our Southeast Asia correspondent Jonathan Head sent this report from the Thai border.

Thailand views its military operation against Cambodia as unfinished.

Once again, its artillery, visible from the main road, fired thundering salvos of shells at Cambodian positions along the disputed border.

Thai fighter jets were also used to bomb them from the air.

We saw several large convoys of tanks, armoured vehicles, and trucks full of soldiers moving along a front line that stretches for hundreds of miles.

At the UN, Cambodia requested a ceasefire, but Thailand is not yet ready.

Its objective is to drive Cambodian forces well back from the border, to reduce the threat of rocket attacks, like those that caused so many civilian casualties on Thursday.

Neither government wants a full-scale war, yet the conditions are not yet conducive for diplomacy to succeed.

Jonathan Head on the Thai-Cambodia border.

India has a huge system of higher education, including more than a thousand universities.

But it's highly competitive and many students struggle to deal with the pressures.

Official figures show more than 13,000 students took their own lives in 2022.

Now the Indian Supreme Court has issued new guidelines to try to tackle the problem.

Our South Asia regional editor and Barrisa Netarajan told me about the sort of pressures that students face.

If you go to any average Indian family, middle class, the parents' aspirations would be to make their son or daughter a doctor, a medical doctor, or an engineer.

So that has been like imbibed, or even to some other professional qualifications like engineering in IT or in some of the elite institutions.

So it is a badge of honor for the family if they get qualified for any of these professional courses, highly sought-after courses in reputable universities across India.

And what they do, you have to go through an entrance exam before you get qualified for these, apart from your academic record, apart from what you get in A-level.

So there are various entrance exams.

And first you need to get the required marks, and then you go through these entrance tests for these professional courses.

There is intense competition.

For example, just for the medical examination alone,

probably about two point two million students appeared for the exam and nearly half of them qualified.

And but then there are number of seats are just about over 100,000 seats.

So you can as well imagine, you know, for every seat there are twelve to fifteen people competing for that medical seat.

So that is putting a lot of pressure on the students.

You see them going through various coaching classes.

You see them going getting up early in the morning to go to the private tuitions.

And that puts enormous amount of pressure on these young students.

When they don't get through or when they feel that, oh my god, this is too much, I'm not even getting enough marks in the preparatory exams, that is when the problem comes.

So it is also about how an aspiring middle class, where education is everything.

So, and Barasan, how has the Supreme Court set about trying to tackle this issue?

Now, the Supreme Court has given a guideline, a directive.

It is called 15 points.

And one of the important thing is: if any educational institution has more than 100 students, then they should have a mental health counselor.

And the second thing is access to various hospitals and urging the universities to set up a small group of students where they can talk about these problems, to highlight this problem.

Because it's a huge issue, mental health, a silent epidemic which no one wants to talk about among young people.

If you're young, if you are very dashing, if you're going to tell about, oh, I'm depressed, then you'll be looked down upon your peers.

So the Supreme Court is now talking about it is the responsibility of the various universities and educational institutions to appoint these health counselors and also talking to their families and give them connections with helplines and various hospitals and referrals, and most importantly, telling the parents and students: success is not determined only by what you get in exams.

One health expert was very nicely putting it: basically, saying the children are not taught how to handle failure, disappointment, or uncertainty.

We prepare them for exams, not for the challenges in life.

And Barasan Etarajan.

Mobile phone theft has long been a problem in many of the world's major cities, but new data suggests there's been a massive surge in phone snatching over the past three years, and that the UK is the worst place for it in Europe.

An American insurance firm analyzed 12 European markets and found that two out of every five phone thefts in Europe happened in the UK, and almost half of those were in London.

Stephanie Prentice told us more.

This data was based on people making insurance claims after their phone had been stolen.

And perhaps the most shocking statistic was a 425% surge in claims in the UK since 2021, with London a massive hotspot.

Separate data from London's Met Police estimate it's a $70 million industry in London alone.

And anyone living in London or visiting London will probably not be surprised by this.

The general pattern, for anyone that isn't aware, is people on electric bikes swerve onto pavements and they snatch phones out of people's hands.

After that, the best case scenario is they're sold on.

The worst case, if it's unlocked, when it's taken, the thieves can access things like banking apps, email, and personal documents.

It actually happened to me, and my phone ended up in Tunisia.

A man was messaging me in my Facebook Messenger account where he was also logged in.

And he was actually asking for money in return for my passwords.

So anyone you speak to in London will have some kind of story like this.

There is a sense it isn't really safe to take your phone out in any busy place.

And there are a lot of snatchings every day.

Yeah, it's interesting because only recently one of our friends from New York, we warned them, be careful with your phone.

They said, oh, I'm from New York.

I'm street-wise.

Don't worry.

It happened to them minutes later.

Everyone seems to have a story about this.

So what's driving the issue?

Yeah, you can be aware, and then they come out of nowhere.

But in short, it's been driven by demand.

So the phones seem to be immediately shipped abroad, sold on the black market, with China, Algeria, Dubai highlighted as the end destination for many of them.

And this sort of crime seems to sit within extended criminal networks.

One trend is that gangs recruit young people to do the snatching because they would face shorter sentences if caught.

But actually, the conviction rates for phone snatching in London, at least, are estimated at less than 1%.

So it's high profit, relatively low risk.

And right now, nobody in power seems to know what to do about it.

So, my last question to you is: what can be done about it?

Well, the only way to avoid the risk entirely is to just not take your phone out whatsoever.

So, go into a shop or somewhere safe to use it.

But on a more official level, police forces in the UK are calling on tech firms like Apple and Google to install a kill switch.

We spoke to Rachel Percival earlier.

She's a cyber security expert and told us how a kill switch would work.

It's effectively built into the phone, and it's just so that it can be remotely switched off on the phone provider.

So, in the instance where a phone is stolen, you would contact the phone provider and they would deactivate it so that nothing can be done with that phone.

It's effectively dead.

And she also said it's worth everyone being really across their security settings.

Stephanie Prentiss.

Two women's international football tournaments have been reaching their climax this weekend, the Africa Cup of Nations and the Euros.

Many fans have been hoping they won't have to go through the emotional roller coaster of the dreaded penalty shootout.

But could artificial intelligence give teams a helping hand?

New research suggests that AI is more accurate than goalkeepers at predicting which way a penalty taker will shoot.

Technology journalist Chris Stockel Walker has been telling Isabella Jewell more about the findings.

This is a really fascinating study by researchers at the University of Las Palmas de Groancanaria in Spain, which basically looked at a little over 1,000 clips of penalty kicks in football matches.

Now, around about a third of those were not actually useful for this study, but two-thirds were.

So, around about 640 clips were analysed using AI to try and decide whether you could discern which way a football shot would go before the penalty kick was actually taken, whether it would go to the left of the goalkeeper, to the right of the goalkeeper, or down the center.

And it turns out that actually, in that split second of the run-up to the penalty kick, you can infer an awful lot of information about where that shot will go.

So, the AI system was able to guess around about 52% of the time correctly whether it would go left, right, or center.

Now, many footballers choose not really to try and kick it directly at the goalkeeper.

It takes an awful lot of courage to do that.

So, once you discount that middle route and just pick left or right, as many goalkeepers do, it was correct 64% of the time, which is importantly around about 10 percentage points higher than the actual human goalkeepers were able to decide which way the goal was going.

How useful can this actually be, this research?

Because presumably goalkeepers won't actually be able to use AI on the pitch during a match.

No, unfortunately not, unless we allow, I suppose, rapid automation of the analysis of this stuff and then some sort of earpiece for goalkeepers to be told quick, go left or right in the kind of split second before the run-up starts and the shot is taken.

I think what this will probably be used for more is in training of goalkeepers, of showing them the nuanced movements that a striker or a penalty taker might take before they actually kick the ball, and then trying to actually understand how a goalkeeper can put that into practice in a real match situation.

And do you think that there's potential for further similar research using AI in football and other sports?

Yeah, we're both seeing this in terms of the minute movements that sports people make before they actually take an action.

And you can imagine that perhaps this could be the same for tennis, where you have someone either playing down the left of the court or the right of the court or straight down the middle.

But actually, this speaks to a kind of increasing incursion of AI into sports more generally.

Football teams around the world are trying to use AI to pass through the vast volumes of data that they gather in every single match.

And I think we will start to see even more personalized and professionalized teams setting out their formations and playing out these matches in ways that perhaps we hadn't seen before that was more innate in an earlier era of sports.

Tech journalist Chris Stokel Walker speaking to the newsroom's Isabella Jewell.

Still to come on this podcast.

Lovely person, like, I gave her a drink and then she, oh, it's quite incredible, really.

She just had maybe a third of a cup or something.

And then she said, oh, do you want some?

And I thought, gosh.

The German backpacker who survived for 12 days in the Australian Outback.

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President Donald Trump kept a relatively low profile on his Scottish golf on Saturday, ahead of meetings with British and European leaders.

The US President arrived on Friday on a visit that has triggered protests, with hundreds lining the streets of Edinburgh waving placards saying, Not my president.

Scotland's First Minister, John Swinney, is due to meet Mr.

Trump early next week.

He says he will raise the issue of people suffering in Gaza directly with him.

Martin McLaughlin from the Scotsman newspaper has reported on Donald Trump's complex relationship with Scotland for many years.

The White House has characterised Mr.

Trump's visit as a working trip.

And although he's due to meet the British Prime Minister and Scotland's First Minister, and indeed the President of the European Commission, the purpose of this trip is really quite blunt and brazen.

It's an opportunity for Mr.

Trump to use the extraordinary profile of his public office to promote his private businesses.

His golf courses in Scotland have run up significant losses over the years, yet so too.

They've received hundreds of thousands of pounds from the US government to accommodate Mr.

Trump, his children and the secret service teams tasked with protecting them.

That's a kind of arrangement that continues to play fast and loose with ethical norms and it's only going to intensify.

Mr.

Trump is due to open a second course at his inaugural resort in Aberdeenshire.

And, you know, the vast majority of his time here is going to be spent promoting those businesses.

And we know that he's got, he is supposed to be here in a private capacity, but he's going to be holding all sorts of meetings including with the scottish first minister john swinney and i mentioned those protests that are happening in edinburgh today there's a lot of concern in scotland and within the snp the the ruling party in scotland about what's happening in gaza and the american stance on that is that likely to be on the agenda at that meeting do you think mr swinney has certainly said in advance of his meeting with trump that he intends to raise these issues with him the extent to which mr trump will take mr Swinney's views seriously, I'm not sure.

I don't think he has the greatest of respect for Scottish political leaders that has been shown over the years where he has just as quickly fallen out with them as he has befriended them, depending on whether they can be advantageous to Mr.

Trump's companies.

You know, that he's railed against Scotland's renewable energy industry simply because there is an offshore wind development by his course in Aberdeenshire.

So I think Mr.

Swinney will certainly be swinging the bat for Scotland and no doubt trying to look at tariffs and discussing how that can be advantageous for Scotland.

But the extent to which Mr.

Trump will treat his remarks with any kind of respect, I very much doubt.

Well, I mean, you raised the issue of tariffs there, and that is a concern for the Scottish economy, isn't it?

Because obviously, whiskey is a huge export product for Scotland, also salmon, I guess, tourism too, obviously, not least in the Gulf kind of tourism way.

And the USA is a huge market for Scotland in that regard.

It absolutely is.

And, you know, the fact that Mr.

Trump's golf courses are so high-profile is undoubtedly part of that tourism offering for Scotland.

You know, Scotland's prestigious golf courses are hugely reliant on US visitors for revenue.

Not just Mr.

Trump's courses, but you know, famous courses such as St Andrews.

So these are all issues that I'm sure will be on Mr.

Swinney's agenda when he's meeting with Mr.

Trump.

Interestingly, the Scottish Government announced that they were going to be providing nearly £200,000 of public money for a golf tournament due to take place at Mr.

Trump's course.

So that in itself indicates that they're trying to appease Mr.

Trump.

But past history shows that he can just as quickly be your enemy as your friend.

So there was a lot of disquiet in Scottish political circles about this development this morning and questions as to whether the SNP should be getting into bed with Mr.

Trump.

Martin McLachlan speaking to Rebecca Cesby.

When a German backpacker, Carolina Wilger, went missing in the Australian outback earlier this month, many feared the worst.

But miraculously, after 12 days lost in the wild, the 26-year-old was found alive and well.

Helena Burke reports.

Concerns are growing for the safety of a 26-year-old German backpacker.

Carolina Wilger hasn't been seen or heard from for almost a fortnight and may have been when Carolina Wilger disappeared

operation was launched to try to find her, but several days of searching proved fruitless.

That was until a local farmer driving down a bush track stumbled on an unexpected sight.

When you see a person standing on the road waving and you realise straight away, and she's very thin and fragile, I just stopped and put out of the car and gave her a hug.

I just couldn't think of anything else to do.

She was crying.

She was very upset.

She was really in disbelief that someone had actually come along.

That's Tanya Henley speaking to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

She said the road up to her farm was so remote that it was a miracle she'd bumped into the German.

One way goes to my property which is, well, the house is 40 kilometres from there.

If you'd gone south back to Beacon, before she would have got to any house, there's probably 60 kilometres.

So yeah, everything lined up that day for her to be found.

But lovely person, like, I gave her a drink and then she, oh, it's quite incredible, really.

She just had maybe a third of a cup or something.

And then she said, odd, do you want some?

And I thought, gosh, if someone's been out in the bush for that long and you really haven't had a lot to drink, but yeah, just an amazing girl.

After her rescue, the 26-year-old shared the details of how she survived for 12 days in the outback.

Carolina said she'd lost control of her van and it got stuck on some rocky terrain.

Dazed and confused after hitting her head in the crash, the backpacker eventually walked away from the vehicle into the wilderness with no shoes on.

She ate the small amounts of food she had carried with her and drank rainwater, even from puddles.

During the 11 freezing cold nights she spent outside, Carolina sought shelter, including in a cave.

In a statement posted online, the backpacker described Tanya as her guardian angel.

There was something, obviously, because the timing was incredible, but angel, well,

yes, I'm not sure about that.

But I know, just desperation and true grit, I think, just got her through in the end.

Carolina was ravaged by insect bites and suffered a minor injury to her foot during the ordeal, but is now doing well.

The backpacker says she now wants to continue her trip around Australia.

Helena Burke reporting

The trailblazing Lebanese composer and playwright Ziad Rahbani has died in Beirut at the age of 69.

He came from musical royalty.

His mother was the legendary Arab singer Feyruz, and his father Asi was also a composer and playwright.

Ziad Rahbani popularized and modernized Arabic music by blending classical Western pieces with Middle Eastern melodies and rhythms.

He was also fiercely political, and his plays offered biting criticism of Lebanon's fractious and divided society.

The BBC's Rami Ruhayim told me more about his work.

He was very successful.

He had a different style.

He waded into political art, plays with political themes and songs with political themes.

He wrote during the Civil War.

He was very critical of Lebanese society and the Lebanese political system and sectarianism in Lebanon.

He was opposed to the view which came across in many of the plays of his mother, Feyrouz, and his father, that Lebanon is this just beautiful place where everybody loves each other.

One of his plays after the civil war

basically starts off with a declaration that all the events in this play take place after all foreign armies have withdrawn from Lebanon.

And he makes it a point to say that before he paints this intensely dystopian nightmare about the gradual disintegration of Lebanese society.

So the point he's trying to make is that even in a world where there's no foreign intervention, nobody on the outside, you know, messing with with Lebanese political life, there's enough corruption within Lebanese society to lead to this dystopian nightmare in which people break down not only into warring tribes and chaos, but at the end of the play, they actually grow horns, both tragic and

funny, but in a very, very dark way.

And Ziad was also known for being the pioneer of what we now call Oriental jazz.

Yes, indeed, he has composed music which, first of all, was a departure from what we had heard before.

Feyrouz sang songs without lyrics.

That was like unheard of.

Before, there's this song he wrote for her, and it's just her voice going

like humming to the tune.

And it's in an album which also

has many of these songs, which were later described possibly as fitting that category of Oriental jazz.

So, yes, he innovated.

He did new things with his music and also with his mother, this legendary icon.

I've just had a look at his YouTube channel, and his videos are already being absolutely thronged with so many posts of people absolutely devastated at the news and writing all kinds of beautiful tributes to him.

This is really

causing heartache in Lebanon today.

He has become part of Lebanese culture as a character, as a musician, as a playwright, as Feyruz's son, as everything.

And people feel his loss.

You know, they feel as if it's they've lost something very dear, very precious part of them, really.

Rami Ruhayam on the life of Ziad Rahbani.

The world is going green, matcha green.

The finely ground Japanese tea is now a global sensation, popping up in lattes, doughnuts, and even skincare routines from Singapore to San Francisco.

But as the demand surges, driven by influences influences and post-pandemic tourism to Japan, the supply is struggling to keep up.

Ella Bicknell reports.

Matcha has been part of ancient Japanese and Chinese tea culture for centuries.

But now, thanks to social media, the vivid green powder is a worldwide phenomenon.

I start my day off with matcha green lattes.

It low-key be hitting different and it gives me energy.

Today I'm going to show you the top five matcha brands you should try in 2025.

Japan is where you get the best matcha in the world.

It is where matcha originated from.

Why is everyone obsessed with matcha all of a sudden?

It's Gen Z in particular who are embracing its earthy flavor, caffeine kick, and its long list of supposed health benefits.

But matcha mania is taking a toll on the global supply chain.

US-based tea importers have told the BBC that what used to be a month's supply now sells out in just days.

That pressure comes at a tough time for growers.

Tensha, the shaded green leaf used to make matcha, can take up to eight years to grow, and recent heat waves in Japan have hammered harvests.

There's another problem, the country's aging population.

Fewer young people in Japan are entering farming, leaving many tea fields under threat.

American matcha obsessed consumers can expect prices to increase even further.

This week, Washington and Tokyo agreed 15% tariffs on Japanese goods, including tea, entering the United States.

With premium matcha harder to find, the Global Japanese Tea Association is urging people to consume it more mindfully.

They say high-grade matcha should be savoured in its purest form, not drowned in lattes or baked into muffins.

It says promoting awareness of these distinctions will help ensure Japanese tea is enjoyed with respect while supporting its craft and tradition.

Ella Bicknell Reporting

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 globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk.

You can also find us on X at BBC World Service.

Use the hashtag globalnewspod.

This edition was mixed by Rob Fanner, and the producers were Richard Hamilton and Stephen Jensen.

The editor is Karen Martin.

I'm Julia McFarlane.

Until next time, goodbye.

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