Gaza peace talks to begin

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

Among Kodesan in the early hours of Monday, the 6th of October, these are our main stories.

President Trump has urged everyone involved in the Gaza peace efforts to move fast as delegations from Hamas and Israel prepare for indirect talks in Egypt.

A BBC investigation has spoken to the perpetrators and victims of the fast-growing crime of online sexual extortion.

Also, in this podcast, Giselle Pellico, drugged by her husband and raped by dozens of men, is back in court.

But what has changed in France since the original trial?

Very little, actually.

It means that rape culture is something very deeply rooted in our society.

We ask what's behind the seemingly unstoppable rise of Bitcoin and the nuttiness, the texture, and the creaminess of that oat is very special.

So I think I owe a lot to the oat I brought with me.

How an oat made popular by the Vikings in the 1800s won the World Porridge Championship.

Delegations from Hamas, Israel and the United States are due to convene in Egypt for talks later today, with the US President urging negotiators to to move fast to end the nearly two-year-long war in Gaza.

Donald Trump's words were echoed by his top diplomat to the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio.

through and that's not easy in the middle of an active war zone that has to be de-escalated.

Ahead of the meeting scheduled on the eve of the two-year anniversary of the October 7th Hamas attacks, both Mr.

Rubio and Mr.

Trump had called on Israel to stop bombing the territory, but so far to no avail, with more deadly airstrikes throughout the weekend.

Tala El Mughrabi, a teenager in Gaza, sent us some of her reflections after two years of war.

When I lost my home in 10th November 2023, I am trified by the sound of this explosion, starving every day.

Oh my God.

We live life like miserable, hopeless, homeless, dreamless, jobless.

And the sound of ambulances doesn't stop.

The diplomatic push to end the fighting is focused around implementing Mr.

Trump's 20-point peace plan.

But after many failed attempts to secure a lasting ceasefire, is it still achievable?

We asked our international editor, Jeremy Bowen.

It looks like it could be a good moment because all sides, for their own different reasons, are pushing in that direction.

There's war weariness in Israel, there's a big appetite for an end to the war there.

Of course, in Gaza, there's a humanitarian catastrophe.

There's famine, according to the Hamasran Health Ministry, whose figures are generally regarded as pretty reliable, perhaps an underestimate.

More than 66,000 dead, mostly civilians, more than 18,000 children among those.

So they clearly need a respite from everything that's going on.

But there are loads of obstacles.

Things like Netanyahu wants to be able to claim victory, the annihilation of Hamas, the return of the hostages.

Hamas, from their own statements, seem to suggest that they can, in their own words,

become full contributors to a Palestinian national framework.

Now, that does not sound to me like having no role in Gaza after all this is over.

What about weapons?

Hamas wants to keep weapons.

Israel says there should be complete demilitarization.

What about governance?

Hamas says they're prepared to hand over to a panel of Palestinian technocrats.

They are against this idea of a council of peace led by Donald Trump and Britain's former Prime Minister Tony Blair, which for a lot of Palestinians and others smacks of old style colonialism.

There's Israeli politics.

What about those very hardlined nationalist extremists inside Netanyahu's own cabinet who are very against any kind of a deal with Hamas.

And what about Trump himself?

Will he change his tune?

Will he adopt Israel's world view, or will he continue to put pressure on Netanyahu, who he's been very unpredictable in other foreign policy ventures, for example, Ukraine?

Could this be another one?

So there's a lot of deal to get through.

There is an opportunity, but there's an awful lot that could go wrong.

Our international editor Jeremy Bowen

Next, a BBC investigation into the rising number of cases of online sexual extortion.

Sextortion, as it's commonly known, is a fast-growing crime where victims, many of them teenagers in the US and Europe, are tricked into sending nude or sexual images.

The scammers then threaten to publish these unless they are paid.

The BBC has spoken to some of the perpetrators face to face to challenge them about their crimes and the devastating impact they can have on victims.

Our reporter, Tyr Dondi, has also met families who know this firsthand.

I don't come up a ton.

It's hard.

I'm in Aurora, Missouri, where Carrie and Brad are showing me the bedroom of their late son, Evan.

These are things that would kind of showcase who he was and we just haven't put them up.

Everything's just kind of left.

It's become something of a shrine to remember his short life.

Evan loves sport, fishing and being outdoors.

But then, at the same time, remind you of the loss.

He was 16 when he took his own life less than two hours after being targeted by a sexual extorter.

The account, which pretended to be a teenage girl, manipulated him to sending naked pictures before unmasking itself as a scam demanding hundreds of dollars.

And he told him he didn't have any money, and then it was just message after message of demands.

Sadly, his parents did not know what was happening until it was too late.

However, the extorter left a clue, their IP address.

And I've tracked it down to a bustling market on Lagos Island.

It's not a place I like to come to because you have to be very smart to survive on the island.

I'm here with Professor Adedeji Oyanuga.

He's a criminologist and has been studying Nigerian cybercrime for decades.

So he could be

anywhere here, yeah.

It's going to be impossible for us to find a guy with just the IP address.

We need a phone number.

In Nigerian laws for tackling cybercrime, telecom companies are legally required to keep user records for two years.

I've secured an official request for the telecom company Glow World to hand them over.

For the vast majority of cases, sextortion is a faceless crime.

Convictions do happen, but they are rare.

During my time in Lagos, I questioned a perpetrator face to face.

We talk to young kids also.

Why do you target young boys?

Because their sex drive is so high.

He covered his face and spoke to me anonymously.

Young guys are scared of the pictures being released to their class groups, their parents, and their friends.

Once they have completed the amount agreed, you can say to them, I am not satisfied with the amount you paid, so I need a certain amount again.

You could tell them $4,000.

If you don't have the money in full, you can pay the money weekly.

Sounds like you're pretty ruthless.

You carry on for a long period of time.

In many cases, that could ruin someone's life.

I don't feel bad.

Sex daughters, like the one I spoke to, showed no empathy for their victims.

Their threats of widely releasing pictures to friends and family are terrifying for victims.

However, support exists for victims affected.

The Internet Watch Foundation has a tool available worldwide which can remove nude or sexual images of of children from the internet and can even block them from being re-uploaded.

In data shared exclusively with the BBC, they have told us that in the UK alone, over 200 reports involving sexual extortion were actioned this year between January and the end of August.

These services can give hope to victims, but it is still very difficult to catch the scammers.

When we eventually heard back from the Nigerian telecom company Glowworld about tracking the scammer who targeted Evan Bettler, They told us that they did not have a record of the user's phone number since he had used a public IP address.

The consequences of sextortion live out in Missouri, where Evan Bettler is painfully missed.

I joined his dad at a lake where the two of them used to go fishing.

It wasn't hard to parent him because it was in his nature to be

a good person.

Loved the outdoors,

loved his friends, loved his family, and I know that he loved me.

And

I couldn't even put it to words how much I loved him.

Brad Bettler, father of Evan, ending that report by Tear Dondi.

For years, Donald Trump has pushed the narrative that Portland in the U.S.

state of Oregon is a war-ravaged city with anarchists engaging in chaos and unlawful behavior.

Now, the governor of neighboring California, Gavin Newsom, has announced that he's suing the president over his decision to deploy 300 California National Guard personnel to Oregon, which is controlled by Democrats.

Speaking on the White House lawn before flying to Virginia, President Trump justified his actions.

Portland is burning to the ground.

It's insurrectionists all over the place.

It's Antifa.

And the politicians are afraid for their lives.

That's the only reason they say like this, nothing happening.

The place is burning down.

Mr.

Trump's comments come after a federal judge temporarily blocked his deployment of National Guard troops from Oregon itself.

I heard more from our North America correspondent, Peter Bose.

What's happened now is that National Guard members from California, who were already under the control of the federal government, they had been, to use the phrase, federalised, they were brought into service earlier this year when there were protests in California over immigration issues.

We understand now that it is those National Guard members who are being sent to Oregon and this is what has so annoyed Gavin Newsom, the state governor, prompted him to threaten legal action because he doesn't believe that the conditions on the ground justify the deployment of troops to keep the peace in Oregon.

And as you alluded to, the California governor Gavin Newsom has some strong opinions on this and it's fair to say he's also never really seen eye to eye with President Trump in the past.

They've been at loggerheads over many, many issues over the last few months.

They disagreed over the tactics and what happened during the fires in Los Angeles earlier this year.

And again, when those National Guard members were brought in, to essentially, as far as the federal government and as far as Donald Trump was concerned, to bring peace back to the city of Los Angeles.

Donald Trump made statements like LA would have otherwise burned to the ground.

He's saying very similar things now about Portland, Oregon.

So the governor threatening to take legal action and suggesting that this is an unprecedented move for the President not only to bring those federalized National Guard members onto the streets of California, but now to attempt to transfer them to Oregon in this way.

And this, the latest episode, I guess, in a string of similar interventions by the Trump administration across the U.S.

Yes, we're hearing, of course, about other cities, Chicago, Illinois, where again there's been a very strong kickback by local officials saying that the Illinois National Guard troops shouldn't be deployed to the streets, that they're not needed.

But it seems as if that is on the cards.

We had a similar situation in Washington, D.C., also Memphis in Tennessee.

A deployment is expected there.

People are seeing troops now alongside their local law enforcement, and they believe that this is simply making matters worse.

And they believe that what people on the streets who are protesting are being accused of doing in terms of attacking immigration and customs enforcement agents, they say those claims are being exaggerated by the federal government to justify the bringing in of the National Guard members to patrol the streets.

Peter Bowes reporting.

There are some who still predict the cryptocurrencies are just bubbles that will inevitably burst.

But Bitcoin, the world's largest cryptocurrency, is for the time being still growing in value.

On Sunday, it rose to an all-time high, briefly going above $125,000.

Simon Nixon publishes the Wealth of Nations newsletter on the online platform Substack.

He's been explaining the whole Bitcoin phenomenon to Tim Franks.

It's an artificial digital currency that has been created on the internet.

It's unlike any national currency in that it's not backed by any government.

It has no legal status, but there's a finite number of Bitcoins in existence and people can buy them, hold them them and trade them, as you would any other currency.

Why is it going up in value so strongly at the moment?

The best way to look at it is to look at the gold price.

The gold price and Bitcoin have risen almost exactly in lockstep since about the beginning of 2023.

And I think what's driving it is the same thing, same phenomenon, which is a loss of trust amongst investors in the value of government currencies, fiat currencies as they're known.

And that reflects, in part, concern amongst investors that governments are unable to manage their finances.

It's amazing to hear you say Bitcoin and gold in the same breath in that way, because traditionally, of course, gold is seen as an absolutely a safe haven when maybe traditional currencies and economies are in trouble.

Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, quite the reverse.

I mean that they've been seen as this is probably an oxymoron, but uh havens of volatility.

Maybe it underscores how far we've gone.

Yeah, I think that's right.

So historically, Bitcoin has been highly volatile, and that in part reflects the fact that it's a new asset, and the sector itself has been sort of plagued by scandals and bankruptcies.

On the other hand, in the same way that gold is valued because it's not dependent on the promises of government, people look at Bitcoin increasingly in the same way.

And there have been regulatory changes in the last few years that have enabled mainstream investors to start buying Bitcoin or ordinary investors to be able to get access through regulated exchanges to Bitcoin.

So it's becoming more mainstream.

There are different sorts of crypto from Bitcoin, which isn't backed by anything, through to stable coins, which are backed one-to-one by short-term U.S.

government bonds.

And so in a sense, they operate closer to traditional money.

And the U.S.

government is adopting a more permissive arrangement.

But I think it's easy to get hung up on the technology.

What we're seeing is a sort of revolution in the financial system.

We're in the early stages of it.

In the same way that technologies transformed industry after industry, we're now starting to see these technologies transform the financial system.

There are some people, Simon, who still say, look, Bitcoin and maybe some of the other crypto currencies as well, it still could be a bit of a bubble and that people should be very cautious about buying into that.

What's your view of that pessimism?

Clearly this is still a fairly new industry and sector with a pretty new

investor base and clearly there's an element of wild west about parts of the crypto universe and Bitcoin itself is clearly vulnerable to volatility just because it depends on who's buying and selling at any given moment.

And I think also that these are new business models and so there will be successes and failures.

But But I think that technology itself is here to stay and we're in the early stages and that will continue to be adopted and change the way that the financial system operates.

Cryptocurrency expert Simon Nixon.

Still ahead in this podcast, some good news.

Hundreds of hikers stranded by heavy snow on the Chinese side of Mount Everest have been guided to safety.

That story and plenty more coming up shortly.

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Giselle Pelico, who was drugged by her husband and then raped by dozens of men, is being forced to relive her ordeal in in a French court today.

That's because one of the 51 men found guilty last year of raping her is appealing against the verdict.

Our Paris correspondent, Andrew Harding, has this special report.

I've come back to Mazon, the picturesque little town in southern France, where, of course, Giselle Pellico and her husband Dominique used to live.

It's a year now since that trial got underway, and I I guess we're trying to work out whether France, French society, has really changed since then.

France is evolving with Madame Pelicou's help.

Yes, it's been a boost for women to speak freely.

No one talks about it anymore.

Even here in Mazon,

it's as if it never happened.

I know someone experiencing domestic violence right now, but women hide it.

They're afraid of the men who do these things.

Remember those scenes last December outside the courtroom in nearby Avenue at the end of the Pelico trial?

Giselle emerging as a global icon, insisting that victims should not feel shame.

Every time that there is such a trial that raises consciousness in the public opinion, it is a step forward.

However, the picture is bleak.

This is Alisa Arabari from a leading French women's rights coalition.

We are facing nowadays with a backlash, and we can see this with the masculinist movement very rising in popularity,

especially with young boys and teenagers.

We can see that also in pornography consumption, also with the use of the artificial intelligence and the deepfake pornography.

So that's a very worrying trend.

Can you get it, Jerry?

There are hints of progress.

Remember this voice of France's most famous actor, Gérard de Pardieu?

Jean Persei Galemo to the others victims of Gérard de Pardieu.

Earlier this year, he was found guilty of assaulting two women.

Céline Peake is a prominent feminist campaigner.

The conviction of Gerard de Pardieu for sexual assault sends a good signal, the signal that everybody can be sued for rape or sexual assault, whatever powerful or popular you are.

And yet she too argues that the bigger picture is much less encouraging.

The complaints of rapes have tripled, showing that victims, women and girls, they speak, they speak up and they want justice.

But after that, the convictions are stable at very, very, very low levels.

So women aren't getting justice.

They don't obtain justice.

The French government is currently currently in disarray and looking for ways to slash spending.

It's not an encouraging environment for those looking for systemic change.

We hoped,

we really hoped that something was about to change, but it's not the case, unfortunately.

This is Elodie Tuayon Ybou, a French lawyer specialising in prosecuting cases of sexual violence.

To fight against rape and rapists, we have to get more money, more budget for the police, but also for the justice.

And that's not happening yet?

No, that's not happening.

That's nonsense actually because rape is a war against women and children every day.

Would you say then that the Pellika trial changed nothing?

Very little, actually, very little.

How do you feel about that?

Surprised?

No, not surprised at all because it's France.

It means that rape culture is something very deeply rooted in our society.

It's France, a phrase that seems to crop up often here with a shrug of frustration, capturing the sense of a society not changing fast enough, despite me too.

Despite Madame Pellico's best efforts.

Andrew Harding reporting from France.

Two Ghanaian families have been embroiled in ongoing legal action against boarding schools they accuse of negligence in the deaths of their children.

Just over a year ago, in a landmark ruling, the country's high court agreed that the death of one of the children, 15-year-old Kevin Moses, could have been prevented.

It's a verdict that the school is now appealing against, as Anita Nkonge reports from the Ghanaian capital, Accra.

How do you feel being here?

So sad.

Joseph Ansa is visiting his son's grave for the first time.

Theophilus died in boarding school last year.

On the 28th of June, it was my birthday.

He sent me a message wishing me a birthday,

and I also replied.

And there and then said that he am sick.

He went to the infirmary.

There was nobody there to look after him.

Joseph says it took three days before his son received any medicine, and by then, it was too late.

His loss has impacted on me so much.

A six-hour drive away from Joseph's place is another home still grieving yes please come in sonia moses welcomes us into her home she shows us a photo of her son kevin a bright student just admitted to achimota high school when he fell ill the first time kevin went to school kevin did not come back sonia says the school ignored her repeated calls and messages after kevin told her he felt unwell that fateful friday afternoon I had a call from the housemaster that Kevin has been rushed to Achimota Hospital.

When she got there, doctors told her Kevin had been in a coma for two days.

He died from cerebral malaria.

In July 2024, Ghana's High Court ruled that Achimota High School was negligent in Kevin's case.

The school is appealing the ruling.

In a statement, Achimota High School said it is the school's firm belief that the judgment of the court was not supported by any evidence provided by Kevin's mother.

The judgment is also not supported in law, hence the appeal, as advised by the school's legal counsel.

Marcelinus Bayer, the lawyer handling the case, believes that this case sets precedents in the way schools manage illnesses.

I think it's a wake-up call to secondary schools to put in policies that would enable them to better manage six students.

Some individuals who ought to be accountable must be held accountable at the end of the day.

Joseph is taking a similar legal route to seek justice for his son.

The BBC contacted Ghana National College for comment.

They did not respond.

But in the official court documents, the college states that Theophilus' parents were negligent for failing to inform the school of his illness.

Education expert Kofi Asare warns that many boarding schools lack clear protocols for handling emergencies.

Many times, the discretion of the school authorities, their discretion is what comes into play in managing cases.

Dr.

Yawe Ose Adutum was the education minister at the time of Theophilus' death.

He says enrollment increased by more than 60% following the introduction of the free senior high school policy, putting considerable measure on school infrastructure.

I think we need to graduate from infirmaries to school-based health centers for schools with a large population.

Despite multiple attempts, our efforts to secure an interview with the current Minister for Education, Honourable Haruna Idrisu, proved unsuccessful.

Between May 2023 and February 2024, six students died in Ghanaian boarding schools.

For parents like Sonia and Joseph, the fight for justice continues.

Anita and Gongay in the Ghanaian capital, Accra.

Hundreds of hikers stranded by a blizzard on the Tibetan slopes of Mount Everest have been guided to safety by rescuers, according to Chinese state media.

Two days of unusually heavy snow and rainfall in the Himalayas trapped hikers eager to see the eastern face of the world's highest mountain.

Our China correspondent Laura Bicker reports.

Heavy snow trapped hundreds of tourists trekking in the Tibetan Valley leading to Mount Everest's eastern face over the weekend.

Social media posts showed tents tents buried in what one guide described as unusually high snowfall for this time of year, as rescuers guided tourist groups through blizzards, around blocked paths and roads.

This is an area popular with visitors, especially during the eight-day national Chinese holiday.

Around 350 people have now reached a local township, according to Chinese state media.

The report said contact has also been made with the remaining hiking groups who will be led to safety in stages.

Over the border in Nepal, heavy rain triggered landslides and flash floods that have swept away bridges and killed at least 47 people since Friday.

Laura Bicker reporting.

And finally to a coveted prize in the world of food, a Norwegian competitor has been crowned the winner at this year's World Porridge Championship in Scotland and the champion added a Scandinavian twist to the delicacy.

The newsroom Stephanie Zacherson spills the secrets of the winning recipe.

For more than three

But it was Sven Seljom, a care technology consultant from Norway, who took home the trophy, a golden spurtle, a Scottish kitchen tool from the 15th century used to serve porridge or soups.

Sven had been wanting to join the competition ever since he heard about its existence on Norwegian radio many years ago and did not expect to win at first go.

You're only allowed to use three ingredients: oatmeal, salt, and water.

So, what was his secret?

I owe it all to the oats I brought with me.

It's an ancient grain, actually called black oats.

It was quite common back in the Viking days, but then it sort of disappeared from everywhere all over Europe.

And then, a few years back, a Norwegian farmer took it up and started growing black oats again.

And I think the nuttiness, the texture, and the creaminess of that oat is very special.

So, I think I owe a lot to the oat I brought with me.

Sven also brought the salt, Norwegian sea salt, of course, and water from home.

Now, if you're not too keen on porridge, there is an additional price for the best specialty porridge, where oatmeal can be combined with any other ingredients.

This section has been attracting a great deal of attention as the dishes have become more and more creative.

How about a sticky toffee chocolate brulee porridge?

Or perhaps a fish and cheese porridge?

I quite like the sound of an oat milk ice cream sundae, the winning entry in 2021.

This year it was another international contestant who took home this award, the Australian food stylist Caroline Bellick.

She made porridge jaffles, a yogurt flatbread filled with rum bananas, completed with banana toffee rum liqueur, more bananas, oatmeal, and waffle seeds, all tossed in Davidson plum sugar.

She suggests serving it with some ice cream.

Sounds delicious.

Sounds delicious indeed.

Stephanie Zacherson reporting.

And that's all from us for now, but there will be a new edition of the Global News podcast a little later.

If you want to comment on this episode or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email.

The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk.

and you can also find us on X at BBC World Service.

You can use the hashtag global newspod.

This edition was mixed by Martin Baker and the producers were Stephanie Zacherson and Paul Day.

The editor is Karen Martin.

I'm Uncredits I.

Until next time, goodbye.

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