Gazans 'stockpiling food' in case ceasefire breaks down

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This is the global news podcast from the BBC World Service.

I'm Charlotte Gallagher and at 1530 hours GMT, these are our main stories.

Palestinians in Gaza are reported to be stockpiling food amid anxiety that the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas will unravel and the flow of aid will stop.

Kenya has declared a week of national mourning for the former Prime Minister Raila Adinga, who's died at the age of 80.

Vladimir Putin is hosting Syria's new president in Moscow, who's expected to press for the handover of the former dictator Bashar al-Assad.

Also in this podcast.

The most surprising element is that we are surprised that we reach a new peak.

A new high for carbon dioxide levels.

China detains the head of one of its biggest biggest underground church networks.

We'll hear from his daughter.

I think as a Christian, like we believe in miracles and so I believe, I hope that my dad would be released unconditionally and immediately.

We begin in Gaza, where humanitarian aid and imported food is becoming available, but prices in the markets are said to be soaring because of fears the fragile ceasefire may not hold.

Israel has threatened to reduce the number of aid trucks because of Hamas's delay in locating and returning the bodies of Israeli hostages.

We'll have more on that in a moment, but first let's hear more about what's happening in Gaza.

Mahmoud Emma Rostam is a student and journalist living in Khan Yunus, while Gada Al-Khurd is a journalist in central Gaza.

We finally found some different food supplies.

We found different products like vegetables and fruits.

We couldn't get any kind of fruits like two or three months ago, but now we could find it now also

some eggs,

some snacks and biscuits.

And tomorrow I think we could get access to chicken and meat, but the prices will be high because it would be the first time to have a meat and chicken and such products at the market since like six or eight months ago.

We can see or witness some slight improvement in the situation, especially here in central Gaza.

And we can see also trucks of Himitranian aid are coming through the crossing.

But this amount of trucks are not enough for two million people here in Gaza.

We need more and more of food and diversity in the kind of food that we are eating.

I asked our Gaza correspondent, Rushdie Abu Alouf, who's currently based in Istanbul, how much aid is getting through.

More aid are getting into Gaza in the last three, four days.

Yesterday, up to six hundred trucks were transferred into Gaza.

Not all of them are aid, some of them are just local vendors in Gaza bought more food from Israel.

So we have seen

an increase in the number of trucks coming in, and for the first time, fuel and cooking gas was allowed.

You know, the hospitals and the other essential operations in Gaza needs fuel, and Israel was not allowing fuel for a very long time.

So there is some sense of relief, but it's still far from enough and far from what is needed, which is about six hundred trucks every day for at least two months, according to UN agencies, to create some sort of food stability and overcome the crisis.

And what are people in Gaza telling you about the situation now and and how they are feeling?

Well, it's a mixed feeling, and people is still people who receive the Palestinian prisoners from jail, they are still in

celebrating mood.

I've seen a lot of heavy videos from the people welcoming their sons, and others were worried about the Hamas delaying the handover of the hostages because they can't locate them, or they're deliberately delaying this process.

But this is create some negative mood in Gaza because they believe Israel might respond by force, maybe stopping the plan to open Rafah crossing.

And other people are still, you know, in a shock when they see how the scale of destruction in some of the places, about 90%

of Gaza City, the main city, was completely destroyed.

People keep like posting videos and pictures of before and after

their homes, and even before and after their loved ones died during the war.

So it's a mix of feeling, you know, hoping that this ceasefire would bring a permanent end to the war and feel that this obstacle of the second phase might end the ceasefire.

And what about the security security situation?

What's that like at the moment?

Because we've heard, you know, in the last few days, people are still being killed inside Gaza.

And what more do we know about that?

Yesterday, there were seven Palestinians killed by Israeli gunfire in two different places.

Israel said that they were trying to approach the yellow area.

It's the line that both Hamas and Israel agreed that the Israeli troops would reposition

within Gaza.

Hamas said that this is a serious violation to the ceasefire and the mediators will have to talk to

Israel to stop any what they call aggression against the people of Gaza.

The security situation is a little bit better than during the war, especially after Hamas militants launched this campaign against what they said gangs and criminal activity and people who collaborate with Israel.

But this is also trigger a big fear with among Palestinians as internal fighting would be resumed and they experienced this this internal fighting a couple of times, especially in 2007, when fighting between Hamas and its rival Fatah was close to a civil war.

So people do fear about this, and many of them also were criticizing Hamas doing the public execution of some of the people, saying that this will damage the image of the Palestinian internationally, and Hamas should be treating people

a better way and put them in a prison or give them a fair trial before they kill them in the streets.

That was Rushdie Abu Aloof.

So, what do we know about those claims of delays and the wrong body being sent back to Israel?

Israel says one of four returned on Tuesday night definitely wasn't an Israeli hostage.

In a statement, it reiterated that Hamas had to make all efforts to return the remains of those taken on October the 7th, two years ago.

This was a key part of Donald Trump's peace deal.

Currently, all 20 living hostages and seven bodies have been returned.

Our global affairs reporter, Sebastian Usher, told me more about those who've returned.

These are again young Israeli men who had been kept since the start of war.

Some of them from the Nova Festival, the famous music festival, where some of the worst atrocities were committed by Hamas and other factions.

We're beginning to hear more and more stories.

I think because the hostages were living, hostages have now been released.

We're hearing both from those who are coming out, but also from those who have been out for for some time, much more detail about what they actually went through and the horrific conditions that they were held in.

And what can Hamas do?

If it can't find all the bodies, obviously the ceasefire is kind of dependent on them returning all the hostages dead and alive.

I mean, can they even find all these deceased hostages?

Because Gaza is in ruins.

Well, it's not just Hamas.

I mean, the Red Cross said that they didn't believe that it was possible to find all the hostages in the situation that Gaza is in.

So, I mean, Hamas has made that point.

I mean, I'm not sure that the dead hostages will be the breaking point.

I think it's the disarmament of Hamas, which is really what President Trump and the Israeli government is zeroing in on.

But you will certainly have far-right voices like Ben Gavir and Smodrich who will use the fact that those hostages aren't being returned, for whatever reason, as the impetus for resuming the war.

So in a highly combustible situation, that's adding more fuel.

And on the other side, the remains of 45 deceased Palestinians who've been held in Israel have been returned to Gaza.

And what do we know about them?

They have.

I mean, in Israel, you had the four bodies, as we've seen before, were given forensic tests, and it was quite quickly established who they were, and that one wasn't a hostage.

In Gaza, it's a far more difficult situation.

I mean, the bodies have been taken to Nassau Hospital, one of a few hospitals that still has the ability to actually do these kind of forensic tests.

Families are waiting to find out.

I mean, it's not even known quite in what circumstances these Palestinians died.

Was it in Palestinian jails, or was it that they died on the battlefield?

I mean, Israel, in its search for hostages, took bodies, and now these are presumably some of those bodies that are being returned.

But it just gives a sense of the difficulties, the emotional issues facing people on both sides.

I mean, families are waiting in Gaza to know whether these bodies belong to their relatives or not.

And it may take a while for them to find that that out.

Sebastian usher reporting.

The UN's climate agency says there was a record increase in carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere last year.

It says the rate of the increase has tripled since the 1960s.

The director of the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service is Carlo Biantempo.

The most surprising element is that we are surprised that we reach a new peak.

The main factor has been our additional influx of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

If we continue on this path, we are very likely to see the exceedance of the one point five degrees.

Well, to tell us more about what that means, here's our climate editor, Justin Rowlitz.

What it means is that the concentration of this really important global warming gas is increasing more rapidly than before.

It's a really significant increase in the rate of increase of concentration in the atmosphere.

Back in the sixties, it was about 0.8 parts per million in addition every year.

In the last year that the WMO, the World Meteorological Office has looked at 2023 to 2024 it was 3.5 parts per million in addition.

Now what the World Meteorological Organization says it thinks is happening is not only are man-made emissions of CO2 continued to increase, but at the same time there's been an upsurge in emissions from wildfires.

in 2024 and at the same time the carbon sinks, the processes on earth that absorb carbon dioxide, so the oceans, the soils, the plants, and forests, have become less effective.

Now, they're saying that's a function, they think, of our warming world.

So, the unpleasant conclusion that you can draw from this is that concentrations of the gas are likely to increase, the rate of increase of concentration, I should say, is likely to speed up yet further.

And they describe this as a vicious climate cycle, driving up concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere and thereby increasing global temperature.

And one last kind of depressing word of warning I should say.

I mean this is not just an issue for today or tomorrow.

CO2 stays around in the atmosphere for hundreds sometimes thousands of years.

So the gases that we release now, the gases that are concentrating in the atmosphere now will continue to warm the planet for hundreds, if not thousands of years to come.

So fundamental changes in the global climate as a result of this increasing concentration of CO2.

Justin Rowlett.

Kenya has declared seven days of national mourning for the former Prime Minister Rayla Odinga, who's died at the age of 80.

President William Ruto described him as a giant of democracy and a fearless freedom fighter.

Mr.

Odinga ran for president unsuccessfully five times, but was hugely influential across sub-Saharan Africa.

Salim Lone was a a confidant and spokesman for Mr.

Odinga.

He was an astonishing person.

He continued to challenge election outcomes.

But the reality is not that he challenged them.

For two elections, we know for sure.

Like in 2007, the international community helped make him prime minister because they knew he had won.

Our reporter, Richard Kagoye, told me how significant a politician he was.

One of the most significant political leaders, not only in Kenya, but also even, as you pointed out, across sub-Saharan Africa.

He'd contested the presidency five times and never won.

He was also very controversial at the same time, I should say that, because even at one point when he lost one election, he saw himself as the people's president.

So he inspired a generation of politicians across the continent, more so those who are really keen on pushing for political reforms, defending human rights, and also ensuring that there's equality when it comes to distribution of wealth and basically national resources.

So that's largely how people view Rylaudinger.

But of course, there's also a controversial side of him because he made political parks with people that he contested or vied against.

But all he said is the basis of this was really just to bring about political stability and just a semblance of normalcy in some of those very hotly contested elections and post-election periods.

Yes, because he was the prime minister, wasn't he, for the president who beat him essentially in the presidential race?

Yes, and that was between 2008 and 2013.

And I think that's one of the most fiercest political campaigns that we'd experienced and really plunged the country near a situation which would be considered to be civil war.

And because of talks which are mediated by the former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, he became prime minister in that government.

And through that, he was able actually to introduce a new constitutional order.

because we had a new constitution, a new system, and electoral governance.

That really altered Kenya's political landscape since 2013.

And what do you think his legacy will be, not just in Kenyan politics, but obviously the influence he had beyond Kenya as well?

He had a lot of

strong international connections, I should say that.

And if you look even at how our political

governance is done in countries, say, like in Zimbabwe, we saw part-shooting agreements, you know, just after what he did in Kenya.

When the courts annullified the controversial elections in 2017, we saw the same also happening in Malawi.

So he has a lot of admiration also abroad because of the way that he was able to conduct himself and just basically his staying power.

You know, for years, despite election setbacks, he was able really to push and just to inspire and to challenge a lot of people.

And that's why we saw him losing the position of Africa Union chairmanship, because that's what we really wanted to do to push for a lot of integration across the continent.

That was Richard Cagoye.

Coming up on this podcast, OpenAI plans to allow Erotica as part of plans for a wider range of content to treat adult users like adults, as it says.

This is the story of the one.

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Your global campaign just launched.

But wait, the logo's cropped.

The colors are off.

And did Legal clear that image?

When teams create without guardrails, mistakes slip through.

But not with Adobe Express, the quick and easy app to create on-brand content.

Brand kits and lock templates make following design guidelines a no-brainer for HR sales and marketing teams.

And commercially safe AI powered by Firefly lets them create confidently so your brand always shows up polished, protected, and consistent everywhere.

Learn more at adobe.com/slash go/slash express.

This is the story of the one.

As a custodial supervisor at a high school, he knows that during cold and flu season, germs spread fast.

It's why he partners with Granger to stay fully stocked on the products and supplies he needs, from tissues to disinfectants to floor scrubbers.

Also, that he can help students, staff, and teachers stay healthy and focused.

Call 1-800-GRANGER, clickgranger.com, or just stop by.

Granger for the ones who get it done.

Syria's interim president is meeting Vladimir Putin in Moscow, where he's expected to ask the Russian leader to hand over the former dictator, Bashar al-Assad.

It's the first time since coming to power that Ahmed Al-Shara has visited Russia.

The Kremlin is a long-term supporter of Mr.

Assad, who fled to Moscow when his regime was overthrown 10 months ago.

Our Middle East correspondent Lena Sinjab reports.

This visit marks a turning point in relations between Russia and the new Islamist-led government in Syria following the fall of Bashar al-Assad, who is under Moscow's protection.

President Shara is expected to call for the handover of Mr.

Assad to face prosecution, something that will be difficult for Russia to do.

It is thought that hundreds of Syrian officers with blood on their hands are also under the protection of Russia.

For its part, the Kremlin will want to discuss the future of the military bases it has in Syria.

Russia was also granted investment projects by the Assad regime and wants to explore how to protect its interest in the country.

Lina Sinjab.

There's been criticism of a mass crackdown on underground churches in China after authorities detained dozens of pastors in one of the larger ones, according to a spokesperson.

The U.S., in particular, has condemned the move, and human rights organizations and advocacy groups are calling for the immediate release of detained pastors and church leaders.

One of the most successful of these new partially online churches was the Zion Church, which has thousands of followers across China.

Its pastor, Jin Mingri, was reportedly detained by the authorities but hasn't been charged.

Celia Hatton spoke with his daughter, Grace Jin.

My mom had called me to tell me that they were no longer able to contact my dad or anyone around him.

So around like Friday morning in DC time was probably when they've started to detain or house arrest my father at first.

But later on, we have confirmation now that he is also detained with the 21 other people in this detention center in Bay High.

Did your father know or sense perhaps that this kind of crackdown was coming?

I think so.

Around six months prior to this, there's been a level of harassment by the police towards a lot of the members of our church congregation from all across the country.

And they were collecting information on the church, on the leaders of the church, on the organization structure and financial structure.

And we also heard from other churches around that there's also a similar uptick of harassment.

There was already a sense that this was going to be another wave of persecution that was going to come that was going to be a widespread across China type of a persecution of churches.

And perhaps, like Zion Church is now currently looking like it's one of the first ones.

But I think they were expecting something, but they just weren't sure when it would be.

And I think it happened quicker than we all expected.

But when Pastor Wanglin was taken, I think other people had already thought it's possible that this would be the beginning of the actual crackdown.

Why is Beijing targeting churches like your dad's?

First of all, we have to see this as like a bigger wave, and it's not just a particular church.

So it's not part like because, like, my dad had said something, or someone in the church had, like, made a statement that drew like the anger of a particular person in the CCP.

We see that oftentimes when there are tensions with the US or just in general, or or if there are internal economic pressures, then they usually look for some sort of like a tightening of control of everything else that is organized or has a voice in the society.

Aaron Ross Powell, I mean, it's interesting, isn't it?

Because on the one hand, the Chinese Constitution protects freedom of religion for quote-unquote normal religious activities.

And on the other hand, we're seeing this widening crackdown, especially targeting your dad's church, a huge church with very well-publicized links to the United States.

Do you really think it might have something to do with worsening U.S.-Chinese relations?

My dad's case is now well-publicized because he has connections in the U.S.

I think part of it is just this tightening of control, especially at a time where they might be going through difficult economic situations.

The Zion church is unusual, isn't it?

Your dad really pioneered this hybrid model where some prayer sessions are held online, others are held in person.

Can you tell me about that?

The government had made it so that no other place would ever rent out even a small room to the Zion Church or anyone associated with Zion.

They had placed facial recognition cameras in the lobby of our church to be able to know every single member was of our church.

Like every single 1,500 people who who have attended our church were on their list.

Staying in China, because 60,000 maps that were being shipped out have been seized by customs officers who claimed the way the documents represented the world threaten China's territorial integrity, particularly their portrayal of areas in the South China Sea, the border with Japan, and the labeling of Taiwan.

China correspondent Stephen McDonnell has this report from Beijing.

These were, in the words of China's Customs Administration, problematic maps, and as such, the export of all 60,000 of them has been blocked.

According to officials in the eastern province of Shandong, the maps left out important islands in disputed parts of the South China Sea and mislabeled Taiwan province without explaining just how the self-governed island claimed by the mainland was actually labeled.

Crucially, the documents omitted the line using nine thick dashes placed on all Beijing-approved maps to justify its claims to vast areas of the South China Sea, even shoals and reefs far from its shores.

China Customs didn't say which country will now not be receiving its maps, but a video of them showed that at least some were published in English.

Maps, globes, and other documents printed in China have been blocked from export in the past, but not on such a large scale.

The Chinese government has tried to strengthen its hand in territorial disputes with neighbours like Vietnam, the Philippines and Japan by pressuring other countries to accept boundaries drawn up on its own maps.

But Beijing's claims to nearly all of the South China Sea have not gained much acceptance beyond the Chinese mainland.

Stephen McDonnell.

The makers of the advanced chatbot, ChatGPT, have announced a major policy shift, saying they will soon allow Erotica on the platform as part of a wave of tweaks due to land before the end of the year.

The AI platform that can answer questions, hold conversations, and create images, claims that it has around 800 million weekly users around the world.

Stephanie Prentice is following this and told me more.

Well, Charlotte, this has all come from a social media post from San Altman.

He's the CEO of OpenAI, which makes ChatGPT.

And he's saying the platform's safety restrictions are generally being relaxed.

So he starts by saying they'll be more personalised, have more personality, be more human-like, do things like use more emojis.

Then at the end, he drops in that it intends to treat adult users like adults, in his words, and allow erotica for people that have verified their age, and he calls that age gating.

His general messaging is that the platform is currently less useful or enjoyable than it could be, as they've been cautious with it so far.

And I guess one of the big concerns will be the safety of users on this platform.

Absolutely, and safety generally is something OpenAI has been dealing with.

So on that adult content side of things, Sam Altman did say that users will have to be age verified.

He didn't give any details of how that would be managed.

But a major concern for a more personalized or friendly chatbot is the impact it could have on mental health, particularly as more and more people report using it as a best friend or a therapist.

There's actually already a term called AI sycophancy, and that reflects a tendency for chatbots to just agree with users.

We have seen a few high-profile cases where that has taken a dark turn.

So the parents of a teenager sued OpenAI just a few months ago, alleging that they assisted him in taking his own life.

In another recent case, a Canadian man became convinced he was a mass genius and he could save the world from the internet.

So OpenAI has indicated its latest model, that's ChatGPT-5, shows lower rates of that sort of sycophancy and is better at flagging concerning behavior.

I mean, a lot of people will say you can't trust tech companies, though.

They're going to put their business before the safety of their users.

Yeah, so I think we've come a long way since that famous early meta-mantra of move fast and break things when it comes to the internet.

There is a lot more accountability on a policy level generally.

But just like social media suddenly took off and then the negative repercussions became clearer in time, AI is potentially on an even faster track.

Major markets are pushing full steam ahead with it.

And all of these major tech companies are in a race with each other.

So for some people, this does just feel like a giant experiment with potentially extremely high risks for some users.

Also worth reflecting, though, that some users posting online since this OpenAI announcement are saying they're extremely happy with these proposed changes.

That was Stephanie Prentiss.

Finally, who is Cyrus the Great?

Let's be honest, it's not necessarily a question in the front of our mind normally, but banners in Israel depicting Donald Trump as the ancient Persian Emperor have been put up since the Gaza ceasefire and the return of living hostages.

So why has the comparison been made?

Edith Hall, who's the professor of classics at Durham University in the UK, spoke to my colleague Emma Barnett.

Cyrus the Great was the greatest ever emperor of the Medo-Persian Empire.

He was born in the early 6th century BCE

and he conquered practically every other kingdom from Anatolia, that's the western seaboard of Turkey, what's now Turkey, all the way to Central Asia and called himself Lord of of the Four Kingdoms.

And why this comparison?

Why is there a celebration and a link with Jews and Jewish history?

So Cyrus is huge if you are Jewish.

He is a star of the Old Testament.

What he did was he conquered Neo-Babylon.

of which the emperor was Nebuchadnezzar II.

And Nebuchadnezzar had been very nasty.

He had driven all the Jews out of Israel and sent them to Babylon, kept kept them in captivity, and demolished the worst, the first temple of the Jews, which actually housed the Ark of the Covenant and stole everything in it.

Cyrus said, no, you guys can go back.

Please go back.

Not only can you go back, you can take a lot of these objects with you, and I will give you loads of money to rebuild your temple.

So he's regarded as the great restorer, the first return of the Jews to Israel in their whole terrible long history of exile.

So

in 1947, when the Jewish state, sorry, just after the Second World War, I can't remember the precise date when the Jewish state is founded, it was seen as

another return and so Cyrus' name was very current.

It's incredible for Donald Trump because Cyrus is the only non-Jew who is named a Messiah, a Savior, in the whole Old Testament.

He's actually named Messiah because he's restored the kingdom of Judah.

It's certainly not.

I mean, if people don't understand quite that significance, when you say it's quite, you know, it's quite big praise from those who feel like that.

It's astonishing to me.

Don, say why it's astonishing.

Well, because it's an emperor 2,600 years ago.

It's got,

it could not be a bigger compliment to Donald Trump.

to be likened to Cyrus the Great, actually saviour of the nation.

And it's as if it's been shown that the Jews had somehow been displaced again

by something and have been restored again, as if they'd been in such an incredible exile as they were before.

And the other undercurrent, which is...

Well, I suppose it's for those who have made the comparison,

the return of those hostages who are still alive would be...

I haven't interviewed those people who put these banners up, but that would be presumably the link.

Yes, exactly.

People, individuals have been restored, but the symbolism is far far greater than that.

It's a restoration of the sort of whole idea of Israel and the Jews' right to Jerusalem and to their temple there.

So now we know who is, don't we?

That was Edith Hall speaking to Emma Barnett.

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 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 Vlodimir Muzetchka.

The editor is Karen Martin.

I'm Charlotte Gallagher.

Until next time, goodbye.

This is the story of the one.

As a custodial supervisor at a high school, he knows that during cold and flu season, germs spread fast.

It's why he partners with Granger to stay fully stocked on the products and supplies he needs, from tissues to disinfectants to floor scrubbers.

Also, that he can help students, staff, and teachers stay healthy and focused.

Call 1-800-GRA, clickgranger.com, or just stop by.

Granger for the ones who get it done.