US blocks another UN Gaza ceasefire attempt

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

I'm Alex Ritson, and at 5 hours GMT on Friday, the 19th of September, these are our main stories.

As Israel presses on with its assault in Gaza City, the U.S.

has again blocked the UN Security Council from adopting a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire.

Donald Trump has floated the idea of removing broadcasting licenses from TV networks that show programs which criticise him.

France's former president, François Hollande, tells the BBC about his fears for France and for Europe.

Also in this podcast,

there's something rather unusual happening in Moscow.

Our Russia editor is backstage at Intervision, President Putin's answer to Eurovision.

For the sixth time during the two-year war in Gaza, the United States has vetoed a draft resolution at the UN Security Council demanding an immediate, unconditional, and permanent ceasefire in the Palestinian territory.

As before, the text also called for the lifting of all restrictions on the delivery of aid and the release of all hostages still held in Gaza.

Morgan Ortegas, President Trump's special envoy to the Middle East, said the resolution failed to recognize Israel's right to defend itself as well as condemn Hamas.

It wrongly legitimizes the false narratives benefiting Hamas, which have sadly found currency in this Council.

Council members ignored when the United States made clear that this resolution was unacceptable.

The Council instead adopted for performative action designed to draw a veto that extends Hamas terrorists and those who fund them and support them and gives them a lifeline.

The U.S.

veto comes as the Israeli army continues its ground offensive into Gaza City in the north of the territory.

The UN says more than a quarter of a million people have been displaced in the last month.

But not everyone is leaving.

Sarah, a student in Gaza City, sent us this message explaining why she isn't heading south.

We are staying

We are dealing with hunger and prices that are completely insane.

We cannot even live.

There is no tent waiting for us there in the south and the cost of getting to the south it's over 2,000 shekels.

Can you imagine that?

That's just impossible for us.

Israel's far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich said the army had done the demolition phase, and after the war, the Gaza Strip could be a real estate bonanza for Israel.

He also said that a business plan was on President Trump's table.

For the latest on the ground, my colleague Nick Miles spoke to John Donerson in Jerusalem.

First of all, journalists like myself are not allowed into Gaza to report freely by Israel, but also now you've got a situation where the phone communications and internet communications in Gaza City and the north of of the Gaza Strip have gone down because the main telecoms company has been damaged.

So it's very difficult to speak to people there to find out what's going on.

What we do know is that tens of thousands of people continue to flee Gaza City and head south.

But as you heard from your interviewee there, there are many others who are staying put.

Firstly, because they think, well, there's nowhere safe to go.

the journey is difficult and expensive and long to get down to the south and others simply want to stay by their homes.

But you've got a United Nations official in Gaza today saying that the situation is cataclysmic.

Another UN agency saying that mothers are having to give birth in the streets, such as the lack of medical facilities.

And, John, I hear that the Israeli Finance Minister has been making some controversial remarks about Gaza.

What's he been saying?

Yes, this is the far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, and he was speaking at a real estate conference.

And his comments, really, when you contrast them with the images that are coming out of Gaza, so he was talking about the potential for there to be a real estate bonanza, as he put it in Gaza.

He said he was already talking to the Americans and that the war in Gaza had cost Israel a lot, he said, and it was now time to make some money back.

Now, Mr.

Smotrich is someone who has said that all the Palestinians in Gaza should leave to neighboring countries, drawing accusations of ethnic cleansing.

And these comments, given that President Trump himself has also talked about having some sort of Riviera in Gaza will frankly outrage Palestinians.

And John I gather that two Israeli soldiers were shot and killed in an attack at the crossing between Jordan and the occupied West Bank and the reaction from Israel?

Well this was at the Allenby crossing one of the main crossings between Jordan into the West Bank and the Israelis have said that someone who was driving a truck delivering aid to the crossing then opened fire, killing two Israelis.

The truck driver was killed.

We don't have many more details than that, but that crossing has been closed, and obviously, that affects people wanting to travel between Jordan and the West Bank, but also the supplies of humanitarian aid destined for Gaza coming across the border.

Not that that much is getting into Gaza at the moment, anyway.

John Donason.

President Trump has suggested that television networks which repeatedly criticise him should maybe have their broadcasting licenses revoked.

He said that he had been told that the networks were 97% against him.

Mr.

Trump was speaking after ABC indefinitely suspended Jimmy Kimmel's late-night show.

It had come under pressure after he suggested that the man charged with killing the right-wing influencer, Charlie Kirk, was aligned with Mr.

Trump's MAGA movement.

The former American President Barack Obama described the suspension as a new and dangerous level of cancel culture.

President Trump has been speaking to Fox News.

Since returning to office, he's given most major interviews to the right-wing broadcaster, which often doesn't press him.

Mr.

Trump also promised to designate the U.S.

anti-fascist movement, Antifa, as a terrorist organization.

It's a sick group.

I mean, very, very sick group.

We have a lot of things.

They love burning the American flag.

I think it's terrible that they burn the American flag.

We're going in and we're saying it incites riots and therefore you go to to jail for one year if you burn the American flag.

Because as you know, the free speech got us on the American flag.

The courts have ruled free speech, so we're going to go on an incitement of riots.

I spoke to our North America correspondent, Peter Bose, and I began by asking, can President Trump label Antifa a terrorist organization?

Well, he can say it, but whether it has legal standing is open to question.

He wrote on social media that he was designating Antifa, which he said was a sick, dangerous, radical left disaster, as a major terrorist organization.

And that he would also strongly recommend that whoever funds the actions of Antifa groups should be investigated in accordance with the highest legal standards and practices.

Then on Fox News, he said it should have been done a long time ago.

However, in this country, the federal government cannot officially designate a domestic group as a terrorist organization in the way that it can with foreign groups like ISIS or al-Qaeda.

He can, as part of his social media posts seems to suggest, direct federal law enforcement agencies like the FBI to treat criminals' acts by people who claim an affiliation with Antifa as domestic terrorism.

So if he calls such individuals terrorists, that is a political label.

It's not legally binding.

He's also put troops on the ground in multiple states, and critics say he's now trying to take control over what's on the airwaves.

What's the reaction?

Well, the overall reaction to both the deployment of troops and the ongoing debate over freedom of speech is largely divided along ideological lines.

We've heard much about opposition from Chicago, for example, about the prospect of troops being sent to that city.

There's been a very vocal opposition from the TV unions, for example, and others to the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel, something that the President welcomed.

But now he's gone a step further.

Speaking on Air Force One, returning to Washington from the UK, he bemoaned the fact that, as he saw it, that TV coverage of him by the networks, the television networks, here was 97%

negative.

And then he suggested maybe their license should be taken away.

And he added that it would be up to Brendan Carr, who he appointed to be in charge of the body that regulates TV stations.

So, really, this creeping control of the airwaves is a fair fear, as has been expressed by some people.

Some people believe it is a real possibility, and something that, should it happen in an extreme way, could have quite a chilling effect on free speech in this country.

He would probably see it, though, as what he said over the last day or two as simply him exercising his right to free speech.

He, I think most people would agree, even his opponents, that he has a right to free speech, but whether he has a right to impose restrictions on others for expressing their freedom of speech, that is questioned.

And I think that really goes to the heart of the issue.

Peter Bose.

The French Interior Minister has said that just over 300 people were arrested during Thursday's demonstrations against President Macron's austerity plans.

Trade union organisers said that one million people turned out to protest, while the Interior Ministry put the number at half of that.

In central Paris, police in riot gear used tear gas to disperse crowds after some protesters damaged a small number of businesses and buildings.

Scuffles were reported elsewhere, including in Lyon and Nantes.

The former French President François Hollande spoke to the BBC's Andrew Harding about this tumultuous period in French politics.

He also touched on the role of the United States and criticised what he said was President Trump's weakness on the global stage.

France is experiencing a political crisis like Britain and many other countries.

There's the rise of the far right, parties fragmenting.

We're in political and parliamentary deadlock, and so there will be demonstrations, but not a revolution.

People are angry about different things that add up to doubts about democracy itself.

That's the biggest danger.

And now the far right could come to power here.

The defenses we've built against that are collapsing because of foreign meddling, social media, and the issue of migration.

Do you see a way through the next not just years but months and weeks for France and a way out of this total political deadlock?

There are two options.

It is still too early to say which one will win.

If the government makes the rich contribute more and protects the poor, then a compromise could allow it to survive until the presidential election in twenty twenty seven.

The second option is no compromise from the government, and it's overthrown.

If that happens, the president will surely have to call new parliamentary elections.

And if the result of that is the status quo or a win by the far right, then the crisis deepens and the danger is at its greatest.

And do you see President Macron completing his term?

There is already pressure growing for President Macron's dismissal or for his resignation.

I want to believe he understands how dangerous that would be.

So I believe he will seek, as is his duty, to promote

But it's a possibility.

Will you?

Yes.

The President, his Prime Minister, and the Socialists need to understand that they have nothing to gain from this crisis.

Those who will gain are the far right.

They are provoking it and trying to exploit it.

And they're winning.

They can win.

Do you get the sense in France and across Europe that the public understand

and are ready to accept the price of securing both Ukraine and Europe?

Donald Trump is the one person who can exert exert the necessary pressure on Putin, and he's not doing it.

That's why the Russians continue.

Despite the image the American president wants to convey, Trump is the weakest figure in the world right now.

He is to blame for these global problems.

Because when the US sets Putin an ultimatum and he ignores it, then Putin gains.

And when Trump doesn't even condemn an intervention by Israel's Netanyahu in Qatar, it means America is powerless.

Or rather, not the U.S., but its president is powerless.

The former French President François Hollande.

With gold prices nearing record highs, the precious metal is increasingly becoming a target for thieves.

In France, this week, gold samples with a street value of $700,000 were stolen from the Natural History Museum in Paris, which is one of several French museums to have been robbed over the last year or so, with the clever money pointing to organized crime.

Paddy Maguire has this report.

The French media are there reporting the break-in, which happened in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

The well-planned heist targeted the museum's geology and mineral gallery.

The thieves are believed to have used angle grinders and a blowtorch to force their way in, making off with four to six pieces of native gold, an alloy containing gold and silver.

This is the museum's director, Emmanuel Scuglios.

This was a perfectly professional team, perfectly aware of where they had to go and using professional equipment.

It was absolutely not a coincidence that they went to these specimens.

One police source said the museum's alarm and surveillance systems had been taken down by a cyber attack in July, and that the thieves had been aware of the museum's vulnerability.

Arthur Brand is an art detective based in Amsterdam.

In the last couple of months, several public collections in France have been targeted.

Earlier this month, there was a robbery in Limoges in France.

A museum, porcelain, was stolen, Chinese porcelain from the 14th century, with a combined value of 9.5 million Euros.

Less than a year ago, snuff boxes were stolen from a museum in Paris with a value of around 1 million Euro.

So it seems that the last year, France has been targeted.

But these things are happening in the last decade more and more in Europe.

But it's not just Europe.

In Egypt this week, it emerged that an ancient ancient gold bracelet linked to the pharaohs had gone missing from a museum in Cairo.

In this case, it was taken by a conservation worker who had sold it to a local jeweler for nearly $4,000.

So is it just the price of gold that is fueling this surge?

Back to Arthur Brand.

Why they target precious metals like gold and silver and diamonds and stuff like that.

You know, you can melt it down.

If you steal a vancoch, you have to shop around, you know, you have to offer it.

And people know this vancoch has been stolen.

But but with gold with silver you can melt it down the biggest gold coin was in a museum in berlin it had been stolen like seven eight years ago it has been melted down so it's the price of gold of course but also there are no traces with the price of gold continuing to rise museums will perhaps be nervous that their security may need updating paddy maguire

Still to come in this podcast.

The doctor said, it doesn't look too good.

It's going to be a fight in the future.

And I hope I'm going to be okay.

I might be okay.

I might not be okay.

Tennis champion Bjorn Borg says that he's battling cancer like a Wimbledon final.

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A momentous peace deal ended the civil war in Colombia a decade ago, but the country is still trying to deal with its legacy.

One of the biggest challenges is bringing justice to victims without jeopardizing peace.

With that in mind, this week a judge ordered seven members of the former rebel group to make reparations to the victims instead of going to prison.

But But not everyone is happy about that.

Our global affairs reporter Paul Moss explains.

It was a remarkable moment in Colombia's history.

In 2016, after a decades-long civil war, the leaders of the country's left-wing guerrillas, the FARC as they were called, signed a peace deal with the country's government.

A key aspect of the peace agreement was that the FARC guerrillas and those they fought against would be tried in special courts and those convicted would not be sent to prison rather they'd be given the opportunity to carry out reparation work in the communities where they'd operated on Tuesday the first batch of these restorative justice sentences was handed down

seven FARC leaders were ordered to carry out work which includes building roads, planting trees and also helping clear landmines.

But this wasn't enough for some of the FARC's victims.

Like Ingrid Bettencourt, she was kidnapped and held captive by the FARC for six years.

I felt indignant.

I felt humiliated, mocked.

We have been waiting for justice to be served for many years.

We have not had justice in any of its forms.

It's rarely easy for any country to emerge from conflict.

Peace deals often require messy compromise.

Crimes may go unpunished.

Those who committed them sometimes are given political power.

The judge who handed down those restorative sentences in Colombia, Camilo Suarez, said he understood the pain this caused to victims.

There's an aspect that's absolutely undeniable and that we acknowledge.

We're in a scenario where there are crimes that are impossible to repair because they are irreparable.

The loss of a person, the loss of life, lost time is absolutely irreparable.

Ingrid Bettencourt and other victims of the FARC have said they'll try to challenge the sentences handed down at an international court.

Meanwhile, more than two hundred other participants in Colombia's civil war are still due to face their own trials, each of which could potentially be as controversial as this first one.

Paul Moss

Vladimir Putin likes nothing better than to show the West that attempts to isolate Russia have failed.

Sometimes he does that through summits with Xi Jinping or Donald Trump.

This weekend, he's doing it with music.

On Saturday night, 23 countries from Qatar to Cuba will be taking part in Intervision.

Our Russia editor, Steve Rosenberg, went behind the scenes of a competition conceived as a political project of the Kremlin.

There's something rather unusual happening in Moscow.

A singer from Uzbekistan, Shokhrukh Mirzo Ganyev, is rehearsing for an international song contest.

But it's not Eurovision.

Put your legs together like a man, the choreographer says, and arms out wide.

Shokhrukh Mirzo sings about love and his motherland while beating the Doira, the ancient drum of Central Asia.

He's excited to be here.

My mother's very proud, Shokrukh Mirzov tells me later.

I've come to Moscow, to Russia, to compete in the Intervision Song Contest.

Intervision was a Soviet-era song fest, Eurovision's Cold War rival.

Now it's back, summoned from the grave of song contests past.

But why?

And how will Intervision be different from Eurovision?

Well, for a start, less kitsch,

more Kremlin.

Vladimir Putin revived Intervision by presidential decree, officially to encourage international cultural cooperation.

Now Russia has a song contest it can actually take part in.

Russia was banned from Eurovision over its war in Ukraine.

To learn more about the contest, I attend an Intervision press conference given by President Putin's Deputy Chief of Staff, the Russian Foreign Minister, and by the Deputy Prime Minister.

That's a lot of politicians for a few pop songs.

Steve Rosenberg, BBC News.

I ask Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov: the fact that you're here with someone from the Kremlin and the government, doesn't that prove that Intervision is a purely political project?

If the governments of some countries make no effort to create mechanisms for supporting culture, that's their choice, Mr.

Lavrov replies.

In our country, the state is engaged in the promotion of arts.

Your question is rooted in the fear of competition.

Something else Russia has been engaged in promoting is the idea of a new world order, challenging the political power of the West.

Intervision fits into that as an attempt to challenge Western-dominated culture.

At Intervision, you'll hear ballads from China and India.

Cuban rumbas and Vietnamese rap.

And the emphasis is on cultural identity and national traditions.

South African group Mazan Si Ikalele explain their entry.

It's a newly composed song, brand new, brand new.

We're all from different races and cultures, and we wanted to show you how we are united as a country and how we embrace each other culturally and we embrace other people's cultures as well.

We were comforted saying that just come, guys, nothing's wrong, we're just gonna have a good time.

But Ukraine can take no comfort from a song contest in Russia.

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has dubbed Intervision an instrument of hostile propaganda, an attempt by Russia to whitewash its aggressive policy.

But welcome to Russia has limits.

Unlike at Eurovision, LGBTQ themes are not welcome here.

Russia has criminalized public expressions of LGBTQ identity.

Russian officials point out that the 23 participating countries have a combined population of more than 4 billion people.

That's hardly isolation.

In any case, Russia will use Intervision to try to amplify its role on the world stage, whether the world watches the contest or not.

Steve Rosenberg.

Neuroscientists in Scotland say they've discovered a mileage clock inside the brain which helps us navigate.

It's hoped their findings, based on the brains of rats, could help in the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease.

More from our science correspondent, Victoria Gill.

Scientists found this internal mileage clock by recording from a part of the rats' brains known to be important in navigation and memory as they moved around a small rat-scaled arena, essentially a rectangular box with no lid.

They trained the animals to run a set distance and then return to the start for a food reward, and found that cells in their brains fired or ticked almost like a pedometer with every 30 centimeters they traveled.

But when the scientists changed the shape of that box, moving the walls, that regular ticking pattern stopped, and the rats were no longer able to work out how far they'd moved.

The scientists then asked human volunteers to do the same distance estimation task in a much larger 12-meter by 6-meter box.

And when they moved the walls, the volunteers started making mistakes.

Professor James Ainge from the University of St.

Andrews said the experiment suggested that our own brains have this same internal mileage clock.

So we had people start at one end of the arena, we'd have them walk to a specific point in the arena, and we'd do a bunch of training trials where that point was specified for them.

And then over time, we'd run trials where the specification point, the marker for where they should go, that that was removed.

And we'd ask, okay, first of all, can people estimate distance?

And it turns out that yes, they can, not very surprising.

But then when we do the same manipulation that we did with the rats, so when we change the shape of the room, we see exactly the same pattern of behaviour.

The scientists say the findings could also help in the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease.

The cells they're recorded from are in part of the brain that is one of the first areas to be affected in Alzheimer's, which could explain why people with the disease sometimes start losing their way before they lose their memory.

Victoria Gill.

Bjorn Borg, the Swedish tennis ace whose ice-cool image, long blonde hair, and winning streak made him one of the sport's greatest ever stars, is fighting one of his toughest ever battles, prostate cancer.

Borg, who was a Wimbledon champion five times in a row and won the French Open six times, was idolized like a rock star in the 1970s.

Now 69, he's been opening up about his struggles with alcohol and drugs after he quit the sport at such a young age, and his cancer diagnosis in a new memoir, Heartbeats.

Borg is in remission following an operation last year.

Tim Muffet went to Stockholm to meet him.

That's it!

Swedish Jim Borg dominated tennis in the late 70s.

Org arrived last year at Wimbledon for the first time to scenes of near riot.

Org's arrival in Britain in the early 70s had a huge impact on and off the court.

I've never seen this before in my life.

And they were running out from the stands.

Maybe I can be Swede, come with a blonde hair.

I have no idea what happened.

Something happened in tennis during that time.

There were five consecutive men's singles titles at Wimbledon.

And then in 1983, a decision that stunned the sport.

Org announced he was quitting tennis, aged just 26.

Do you regret that?

I had enough.

I lost the interest in that way, the motivation.

If I knew what's going to happen the years after, I would continue to play tennis, of course.

In the book, you describe how at times your life was a dangerous mix of drugs, pills, and alcohol.

Yes.

How bad did things get?

I had no plan.

This was a huge problem.

People today, for instance, they have guidance.

I had nothing.

I didn't know what to do.

I was lost in the world.

It was more drugs, it was pills, it was alcohol.

I was close to dying many times.

In the book, you reveal that you've been diagnosed with prostate cancer.

I've always been checking myself for prostate cancer.

2023, checked myself again, and the doctor said, it doesn't look too good.

And in the book, you describe it as extremely aggressive and at its most advanced stage.

And you also say that you're gonna fight every day, like I said, Wimbleson final.

I spoke to the doctor, and he said it's really, really bad, okay?

But it's done.

And he said, But you have this sleeping cancer cells in your body.

It's gonna be a fight in the future.

Uh, and and I hope I'm gonna be okay.

I might be okay, I might not be okay.

So every six months, I go and test myself.

And right now, I did my my last test uh two weeks ago.

So I'm okay.

I take

day by day, year by year.

Hopefully, it's the thing I have to live with.

Tim Mufford.

And that's all from us for now.

But there'll be a new edition of the Global News Podcast later.

If you want to comment on this podcast or 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 global newspod.

This edition was mixed by Zubihala Karush and produced by Daniel Mann and Wendy Urquhart.

The editor is Karen Martin.

I'm Alex Ritzen until next time, goodbye.

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