Hostages' families call Netanyahu 'obstacle to peace'

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

I'm Rachel Wright, and in the early hours of Sunday, the 14th of September, these are our main stories.

The main group advocating for Israeli hostages says the strike on Qatar shows the only obstacle to their return is Benjamin Netanyahu.

President Trump says he will impose fresh sanctions on Russia only when NATO members agree to stop buying Russian oil.

Up to 150,000 people have taken part in a far-right march in London, featuring violent clashes, calls to send migrants home, and a message of support from Elon Musk.

Also in this podcast, on the West Bank, how Israeli forces seize Palestinian homes for military bases and interrogation centers and leave them vandalized. I become pregnant and we

make a very beautiful room for him and now it's destroyed. I can't express even it's destroyed, it's disgusting.
We hear from the families left to pick up the pieces.

We start in Israel.

Sounds from the streets of Tel Aviv as protesters and relatives of the Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza staged their weekly rally demanding a halt to Israel's Gaza offensive and a comprehensive deal to release the remaining captives.

The hostages and missing families forum has said Israel's strike on Qatar earlier this week proves that the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is the only obstacle to their return and the end of the war.

Mr. Netanyahu has defended the attack, arguing the Hamas leaders in Qatar are the main obstacles to a deal.
The U.S. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, is heading to Israel amid the heightened tensions.

He spoke to reporters before boarding his flight. I'm going to get a much better understanding of what their plans are moving forward.
What's happened has happened.

Obviously, we were not happy about it. The president was not happy about it.
Now we need to move forward and figure out what comes next.

Because at the end of the day, when all is said and done, there is still a group called Hamas which is an evil group that still has weapons and is terrorizing.

There are still 48 hostages that deserve to be released immediately all at once and there is still the hard work ahead of once this ends of rebuilding Gaza in a way that provides people the quality of life that they all want.

Qatar has announced that it'll host a summit of Arab and Muslim leaders on Monday to discuss Israel's strike on its capital Doha.

Jane Kinneimont, who heads the campaign group United Nations Association in the UK and is a long-time watcher of Gulf politics, told my colleague Sean Lay what she made of the Qatari government's response to Israel's attacks.

Qatar has been increasingly frustrated at the failure to get a ceasefire in Gaza, and as you've heard, it thinks that this was a deliberate attempt to sabotage the talks, killing the son of the chief negotiator while Hamas was literally considering a ceasefire proposal that would have got the hostages out.

But it now speaks to also a deep concern about Gulf security. The Gulf countries have been living with this concern about the US for longer.

Since they saw the US talk of pivoting to Asia, they've wondered would their main security ally protect them? Mainly they were thinking about attacks from Iran.

Today they see that the US didn't protect them from an attack by a country that the US has so much influence over.

And they wonder then

who can they rely on for their security? How much closer should they get to China and Russia in the future?

How much effort had the Qatari government invested into building a relationship with Donald Trump?

Qatar and other Gulf countries felt that they understood Trump and the transactionalism that Europeans complain about. It doesn't go down so badly in the Gulf.

They feel they know what they're dealing with. In May, Trump went round the Gulf and he was fated lavishly.
Qatar promised billions of dollars of arms purchases from the US.

It promised to spend another 10 billion on the US air base in Qatar, which Qatar pays for, plus a whole load of investment and deals. And they thought, we will pay for our security.

Now all of that is thrown into question. It seems like a bad bargain to them.
The Prime Minister had dinner with the President in the White House on Friday night. To what extent

is there a willingness, willingness, do you think, on the American side to recognise how destabilising this has been? It's a fast-changing situation.

Trump has said that he feels bad, but he seems indecisive when it comes to Israel. Perhaps the best case scenario would be if the US would now push for a ceasefire.

We've just seen more than 140 countries at the UN General Assembly endorse a peace plan that includes the Arab states saying Hamas should be disarmed and should leave power.

That is something the US should see as a huge win. But because it is linked to also recognising a Palestinian state and ensuring Palestinian rights, so far they haven't bought into it.

If Trump could be persuaded to train this course, it would help to end one of the world's worst conflicts. Jane Kinneimont.

Staying in the Middle East and amid the mass destruction of homes and lives in Gaza and the violence of Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, another aspect of the conflict goes for the most part unremarked.

Israeli forces in the West Bank routinely seize Palestinian homes for use as temporary military bases and interrogation centers, sometimes for hours, often for days on end.

Many of the homes are left vandalized when the troops leave, but the Israeli authorities very rarely pay any compensation.

Six months ago, soldiers moved into a Palestinian businessman's home in Tolkaram in the north of the West Bank.

Our Middle East correspondent, Yoland Nell, went to visit Nasser Faratawi at his premises the day after he was told he could go back.

So here you've got the colourful Ramadan lanterns, traditional ones, all burnt and charred.

Back in March, Israeli troops gave the Faratawi family an hour and a half to leave their party store and home upstairs. Then, for three months, they turned the property into an army base.

They destroyed everything, they destroyed my life, my business.

Not long before the soldiers moved out, Nassaf Faratawi saw from a distance that his warehouse and shop, popular for wedding celebrations, was on fire.

All of this is plastic flowers, and so because of the fire, it became like this.

Wow, so everything went like this. It's like big piles of solidified ash.

The Israeli army told the BBC it's not aware of any arson committed by its troops at the site. It says it's reviewing the complaint.

So we've just come around the side. This is where you can see the door has been smashed open.

The Israelis they said they have the right to stay where they want because of the conflict area,

because of the situation. Nassau takes me upstairs to what was his luxurious home.
It was immaculately clean and tidy, but now most of the furniture is broken and it's been vandalized.

Nasser's son lived in the first-floor apartment with his wife, Isra, and son named after his grandfather. Isra misses her home here.

I make it with love with my husband,

and now it's destroyed. And how did you feel when you came back and you saw what had happened in the house? I can't express it, even

it's destroyed, it's disgusting.

As the war rages on in Gaza, and with tensions high here in the West Bank, Nasser believes the soldiers punished him simply for being Palestinian.

So on the walls, you've got green graffiti,

the Israeli flag in a few locations.

I thought at the beginning they are like an army with rules and

with orders, and they stay in a place and they will keep it clean. But I shocked.

The Israeli army says that the destruction of civilian property by soldiers is contrary to its values, and that incidents deviating from military orders will be investigated and addressed.

Meanwhile, Nasser doesn't know how he will rebuild. He says he's lost about $700,000 and doesn't expect any compensation.

He and his family may be home, but they remain with their finances in ruins and their lives on hold. That report by Yolandnell.

In London, as many as 150,000 people have joined a Unite the Kingdom rally organized by the far-right activist known as Tommy Robinson.

Police officers said they faced significant aggression from protesters and nine people were arrested.

Supporters, the majority of them male, were wrapped in or carrying England flags, some with slogans such as stop the boats, referring to the migrant boat crossings from France to England.

These were the views of some of those attending the rally. I'm worried about the influx of the illegals coming over on the boats.

Just the state of the country, the way it's going. I've felt over the last 10-15 years that the culture in our country is changing dramatically.

And I personally would like to see my family, my children, grandchildren, grow up in what I would call traditional English way of life.

Included in the list of speakers were European populist politicians, President Trump's former strategist Steve Bannon, and via video message, Elon Musk, as well as Tommy Robinson himself.

Real name, Stephen Yaksley-Lennon. Our correspondent, John Sudworth, told me more about this controversial figure.

Well, Tommy Robinson, the organiser of this protest, is a far-right activist, Rachel.

He's been associated with the far-right for a long time, once a member of the British National Party, founder of the English Defence League.

Nowadays, he has left those organisations behind and calls himself a journalist. But using social media, he has large followings on social media.
He is focused on anti-immigration messages. messages.

And this rally, of course, comes after a summer of highly charged protests across the UK focused on immigration, some of them outside hotels that house migrants.

Tommy Robinson has been very vocal about that, and this demonstration today in London clearly is some demonstration of a level of support. More than 100,000 people, Mr.

Robinson calling this one of the biggest exercises in free speech.

But of course, there were counter-protesters out there as well, smaller in number, they said, to make their voices heard and stand up against what they said was a message of hate.

Now, Tommy Robinson said it was a large demonstration. It was larger than pretty much ever before of this type of demonstration and had a very international flavour.
I think.

Yeah, I think more than 100,000 people, probably bigger than they expected, maybe even bigger than Tommy Robinson himself expected.

But yes, an international dimension to

a surprise guest, if you like, a video appearance by Elon Musk, who had this to say. I realized there's got to be a change of government in Britain.

We don't have another four years or whatever the next election is. It's too long.
Something's got to be done. There's got to be a dissolution of parliament and a new vote held.

And what was the reaction to Elon Musk? Well, obviously, you know, he's preaching to the converted here.

These were people there in support of the far-right politics of Tommy Robinson, people chanting Elon Musk's name, for example. The most sort of controversial, perhaps even provocative part of what Mr.

Musk had to say is he suggested that political violence is the province of left-wing politics.

And he told the crowd, he said, the violence is coming, whether they like it or not, and they had to fight back or die. And was that the overall mood of the protest? Was there a lot of violence?

The Home Secretary speaking tonight accepted, with more than 100,000 people on the streets, it had been overwhelmingly peaceful, but there were pockets of violence, sometimes extreme violence.

A number of police officers injured, and the police made it very clear that they felt that this violence, unacceptable violence, as they called it, largely as a result of significant aggression from the Unite the Kingdom supporters.

And we heard from the Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, in her view, the right to peaceful protest is fundamental, Rachel, she said.

But she said, Those responsible, and there have been a number of arrests, as you know, those who are responsible will face the full force of the law. John Subworth.

Cries that will echo around the world. Those are the words of the widow of Charlie Kirk, the American right-wing activist and influencer shot dead at a campus university event in Utah on Wednesday.

In her first words spoken publicly since his killing, Erica Kirk said she would never let her husband's legacy die and pledged that his voice would endure. On Friday, U.S.

officials in the state of Utah detained 22-year-old Tyler Robinson in connection with the shooting at a university event. Our North America correspondent Neda Taufik reports.

After 33 hours on the run, Tyler Robinson is now in custody, convinced by his father to turn himself in after admitting he was responsible for Charlie Kirk's death.

The 22-year-old's family told investigators he had become more political in recent years and believed the conservative activist was spreading hate.

Now, for the first time since Charlie Kirk, a father of two, was shot while debating gun violence, his widow Erica Kirk has spoken publicly.

You have no idea the fire that you have ignited within this wife?

The cries of this widow will echo around the world like a battle cry.

She was tearful and defiant as she delivered this message to what she called the evildoers responsible for his death. They should all know this.

If you thought that my husband's mission was powerful before,

you have no idea.

You have no idea what you just have unleashed across this entire country.

Herself a conservative Christian activist, she promised to continue his campus tours and urged more young people to join his turning point USA movement. Back in Utah, the investigation continues.

Tyler Robinson is currently being held on suspected aggravated murder, but Utah's prosecutors have until Tuesday to file formal charges on what happened here.

Utah's governor already promising the death penalty. Neda Taufiq.

Two young women are forming Finland's first same-sex ice dancing team after the country's skating federation changed its rules.

19-year-old Emma Alto and 20-year-old Millie Koenig will be able to compete together in domestic competitions. The Federation's rules now refer to skater A and skater B instead of man and woman.

The change was made earlier this year after the duo submitted a request to compete together. They told Caroline Wyatt how their skating partnership began.

We started our, I don't know, skating journey together in solo dance, solo ice dance, and we competed against each other and we became friends.

We have a really similar way of like projecting ourselves out to the audience on ice, performance that was really important to both of us. And so we sort of bonded over that.

After competing together for a while, Emma sent me a message like, hey, there's this thing, would you like to try out?

I had this idea, this kind of crazy idea, nobody had ever done it before, at least in Finland, that I would really like to try this new kind of partnership.

I felt like Millie was the perfect person to ask about that.

And I think we were kind of inspired by Gabriella Papadakis and Madison Hubble, who the autumn before posted some like videos on social media about them skating together.

And previous to that, I don't think anyone had really thought about the same gender rights stance as like a possibility.

But through that, I think then this little idea sort of rooted itself in both of our minds.

How different is it in terms of things like lifting your partner if you have two women skating together rather than a man and a woman skating together?

Well of course we are quite similar in our heights and weights so it is kind of different but then again every partnership is different and every couple do lifts that are the best for them and there are a lot of lifts that work really well with people who are the same height.

so we have a lot of possibilities it's all just a question of getting to know our new roles yeah and and a lot of ice dance is technique based instead like it's not so much a sport about like brute strength so it i think we've found stuff that really works for us yes and what what's the difference do you both find in skating together as a team as a partnership rather than on your own which which do you prefer i love this question um

it's just when you're skating with a partner, you're not alone. You always have someone doing it with you and sharing the feelings when you skate.
It's sort of like your own little bubble. Yes.

It's lovely. Like alone, sometimes it can be a bit scary to put yourself out there.
But also, I think with a partner, you get immediate feedback. It's like, okay, that went well.
That felt good.

That didn't go so well. Let's do it again.
You know, it's way easier to know. Yes, it's so much easier and so much more fun than you have.

Emma Alto and 20-year-old Millie Colling.

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It's not entirely clear what Donald Trump's policy on Russia and the Ukraine war is at the moment.

Just days after his administration declined to hold Moscow accountable for an incident in which 20 Russian drones crossed the Polish border and were shot down by NATO members, he now says he wants to impose major sanctions on Moscow if NATO members stop buying Russian oil.

In a lengthy social media post, the US president said NATO's commitment to win had been far less than 100%,

and the purchase of Russian oil by some had been shocking. In a moment, we'll hear from our Washington correspondent on how President Trump currently views his relationship with Vladimir Putin.

But first, just how much Russian oil are NATO's 32 member states still buying? Here's our world news correspondent, Joe Inward.

Europe's reliance on Russian energy has fallen dramatically, but it's not fast enough for many. Vladimir Zelensky said any countries buying Russian oil and gas were making money out of blood.

So, what are the numbers? Before the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the EU got about 45% of its gas from Russia. That's expected to fall to about 13% this year.

But even those reduced levels add up.

According to the ThinkTank, the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air, since 2022, the EU has handed over almost $250 billion to Russia in directly funding the war in Ukraine.

Tom Keating is from the Royal United Services Institute. He says there are two countries in particular who pose a problem.

The big problem when it comes to oil are Hungary and Slovakia, obviously the two countries in the EU that are closest to Donald Trump and countries over which Donald Trump certainly has influence.

The EU has previously committed to phasing out all Russian oil and gas by 2028.

The United States wants that to happen faster, partly by buying supplies from them instead. But it's worth remembering, President Trump was speaking to NATO, not just the EU.

Turkey is one of the biggest buyers of Russian energy, and persuading them to turn off the taps may be a far harder task.

So what does President Trump currently think of his relationship with President Putin? Our correspondent in Washington is Arunadeh Mukherjee.

Well, there is an expression of impatience or frustration on the part of President Trump for sure.

He had really thrown his weight behind the summit in Alaska last month, where he had hosted President Putin for talks. He had rolled out that red carpet.
There were smiles, warm handshakes.

It ended with no deal as such, but President Trump had then said that great progress had been made.

Now, a month on, whatever that progress was, seems to be in tatters, in a sense, as Russia has pressed on with its offensive in Ukraine.

You've had government buildings in Kiev being targeted and drone incursions in Polish airspace.

There would be a feeling among critics that President Trump does not have full control over the situation, or even President Putin for that matter.

Do you think this letter then is more about his view of NATO and the fact that he wants other members of the alliance, especially European nations, to take more responsibility for what's happening?

It appears to be exactly that. And what's interesting is that President Trump has just stopped short of actually imposing sanctions against Russia.

After repeatedly threatening that he would do so, he's issued yet another threat.

But this time he has put the onus, it seems, on other NATO members, saying him imposing sanctions would be contingent on other countries having to stop buying Russian oil.

He feels that this has weakened NATO countries' negotiating hand. He wants them to take the lead, and only then he says that he would follow suit.

And in fairly strong words in that post, President Trump appears to berate NATO members in many ways, saying if they don't agree to his terms, then they are only wasting his time and American money.

And Trump has also proposed that NATO put more tariffs on China. Tell us a bit about that.
Well, Well, he's been talking about secondary tariffs against Russia for a while now.

He has done this in the past with India, for instance, where he imposed an additional 25%

on Delhi for buying Russian oil. President Trump feels this is one way perhaps to squeeze Russia's ability to continue financing its war.

With countries like China and India buying large amounts of oil from Russia, it means Moscow continues to have a steady flow of money, which President Trump feels is being used to fuel President Putin's war.

Now he's talking about China and how it has a strong grip, according to him, and influence over Russia.

If NATO countries, he says, impose 50 to 100% tariffs on Beijing, President Trump feels it may just help break their hold on Russia and bring the war to an end. Arunadeh Mukherjee.

Meanwhile, Romania has become the second NATO country to report an incursion into its airspace by a Russian drone. Fighter jets were scrambled in response.

Romania's defense minister said the breach occurred during a Russian drone attack on neighboring Ukraine.

On the day after she was sworn in, the interim Prime Minister of Nepal, Shushila Kharki, visited injured protesters in hospital.

At least 51 people were killed and more than 1,300 injured last week in protests, which forced her predecessor from office. Ms.

Kharki is the country's first female head of government and a former Chief Justice. On Friday, Parliament was dissolved and fresh elections scheduled for March.

The countrywide protests were sparked by a social media ban, which has since been reversed. Our South Asia correspondent, Samira Hussain, has this assessment of Nepal's interim leader.

Sushila Kharki is 73 years old, and she was the former Chief Justice of Nepal's Supreme Court.

Her name was put forward by some members of the Gen Z protest group, and she enjoys quite a lot of popularity because she has been a vocal critic of the corruption that a lot of these Gen Zers have been calling out.

And she has been advocating for government reforms and really believes that the voices of young people should really be included in decision-making with regards to Nepal.

So it's easy to see why a lot of Gen Zers believe that she would be fit to sort of take the country from this position of turmoil and sort of bring it back into some kind of government normalcy.

Samira Hussain.

Three Austrian nuns in their 80s have run away from the old people's home where they'd been relocated and returned to the abandoned convent in the Alps where they'd previously lived.

This seems to have come as a surprise to the local church authorities, and as Bethany Bell reports from Salzburg, they're not happy.

The three nuns say they were taken out of the convent against their will. Their order was officially dissolved a year and a half ago because of dwindling numbers.

Sister Bernadette, Sister Regina, and Sister Rita say they were granted lifelong right of residence at the convent as long as their health and mental capacity allowed.

However, in December 2023, they were moved to a care home. This month they'd had enough and moved back to their abandoned convent, helped by a group of former students and a locksmith.

Sister Rita says she's full of joy and thankfulness. Provost Marcus Grassel from Reichsberg Abbey, who's now responsible for the nuns, said their decision to return was completely incomprehensible.

He said the rooms at the convent were no longer usable for nuns in delicate health. But Sister Bernadette says she's determined to stay.

Electricity and water connections at the convent have now been partially restored, and supporters are bringing food and groceries.

One of them, a former pupil, said it was impossible to imagine Goldenstein without the nuns. Bethany Bell.
Now it's happy birthday to a gaming icon.

The Super Mario video game is 40 years old this weekend. The Japanese company Nintendo has celebrated the landmark by announcing new games as well as a film, the Super Mario Galaxy Movie.

Richard Hamilton looks at the game's enduring appeal.

The soundtrack to many a misspent youth. But who would have predicted that a chubby Italian guy with a moustache would still be on our screens 40 years later?

For those that don't know, the games are set in the fictional mushroom kingdom and involve Mario running and jumping across platforms and on top of his enemies.

More than 430 million copies of Super Mario games have been sold worldwide, and the franchise is thought to be worth nearly $40 billion dollars.

Mario's been Nintendo's icon since the start and they made a game with him and because it was such a simple fun game everyone kind of latched onto it because there weren't many games back then.

Helen Throop is a lecturer in games design at Telford College in England. She explains why Super Mario is still as popular as ever.
I think it's the enjoyment from all ages.

They're very fun and easy to play. Parents are having their kids play it or their kids playing it and showing it to their parents like it's new.

It's this wonderful cycle where you get to bond with everyone. That's kind of the beauty of Mario.
It hasn't really changed. It's only the graphics that have been updated.

It's a very simple, all the games are very simple concepts that young kids can grasp.

And you can just pick them up and put them down wherever, and now you've got the switch where you can take it everywhere. It really is something you can just play constantly.

There seems to be no let-up in the inexorable rise of computer games. Currently, it's estimated that the global industry is worth nearly $200 billion,

with predictions that it could reach $600 billion by the year 2030. And by that time, Mario may still be running, jumping and laughing all the way to the bank.
Richard Hamilton.

And that's all from us for now. 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, 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 Paul Mason, and the producers were Alison Davis and Chas Geiger. The editor is Karen Martin.
I'm Rachel Wright. Until next time, goodbye.

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