Hopes of progress in Gaza peace talks

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

I'm Alex Ritson and at 17 hours GMT on Wednesday the 8th of October, these are our main stories.

Donald Trump's representatives have arrived in Egypt for the Gaza peace talks, with both sides being urged to find a deal.

A deadly firefight in Pakistan, the Pakistani Taliban take responsibility.

We speak to one of the joint winners of the Nobel Chemistry Prize for his work on metal organic frameworks.

But what are they precisely?

Also in this podcast.

A golden milestone, gold smashes through $4,000 for the first time.

The price of gold has hit a record high of more than $4,000 an ounce.

We hear why the price of gold is surging.

We start with the ongoing indirect peace talks in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

Now, in their third day, the talks between Israel and Hamas are examining President Trump's 20-point peace plan.

Two of Donald Trump's key aides, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, are in Egypt to join the negotiations.

It's the closest both sides have come to a deal since the war began two years ago.

After those two years of war, the UN estimates more than 90% of homes have been damaged or destroyed, with hundreds of thousands of people displaced.

Hamas have been significantly reduced as a fighting force, but not eliminated.

As they wait for developments in President Trump's peace plan, what are Palestinians in Gaza and beyond hoping for?

Israel doesn't allow international journalists, including the BBC, into Gaza.

So, our international editor, Jeremy Bowen, sent this report from Jerusalem.

Two years of war and more than 67,000 mostly civilians killed by Israel, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, means two million Gazans are following the talks in Egypt, hoping desperately for a ceasefire.

This is Suhed, displaced from his home, like most Gazans.

He says, we've been under this brutal occupation for nearly two years.

We're praying for a ceasefire and for success in the negotiations.

People are fed up with this.

They are tired of war.

This is Najoud, also displaced.

She says, I follow the news closely.

I tell myself there's progress.

Be optimistic.

Then when night comes, we have nothing more than increased shelling on the tents of displaced people in the areas they claim are safe.

On the street, Samas is trying to show it's still in charge.

A fortnight ago, it carried out a public execution of men it said had collaborated with Israel.

They were kicked over and moments later shot dead.

Hamas wants to keep some weapons, fearing revenge attacks.

From Jerusalem, I reached a human rights activist in Gaza, Halil Abu Shamala.

He accepts Hamas still has a significant following, but he's had enough.

So tell me, do you think Hamas is finished?

I think that it is too late.

This is my point of view.

It is too late for Hamas

to

renew or to call people or to ask people to accept them

again.

But what about the West Bank, where Jewish settlers attack Palestinians almost every day?

The West Bank, the biggest part of the land the UK and others recognize as Palestine, is not mentioned in the Trump peace plan, raising Palestinian suspicions.

Just outside Jerusalem, Israel has authorized a major expansion of Jewish settlements illegal under international law.

Its prime minister says this land is ours.

The Israeli government is very open about why it wants to build on these hills.

To stop the creation of a viable and independent Palestine.

Donald Trump says that he

can bring peace to the entire Middle East.

The talks in Egypt are not going to do that.

They can potentially, if they overcome a lot of obstacles, be an end game for the war in Gaza.

But the overall conflict will continue.

With Gaza in ruins, Israel wants to declare victory after the talks in Egypt.

Hamas wants to survive somehow and rebuild itself.

That sounds like an impossible circle to square.

Jeremy Bowen.

President Trump's plan proposes an immediate end to fighting and the release of 48 hostages, only 20 of whom are thought to be alive, in exchange for hundreds of detained Gazans.

Jan Egeland is the Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council.

He explained what needs to happen on the humanitarian front if any peace deal is agreed.

Point seven and eight of the Trump plan really basically says the flow of aid and the rehabilitation of services and infrastructure necessary for people to survive should start immediately.

We've come from with a list of concrete ideas that we've submitted to a number of governments that are involved in all of this from the Norwegian Refugee Council site on how the border crossings need to be opened, how they need to be monitored, how the Ashtod harbour can be used, how the direct line from Jordan and from Egypt can be used, how we can rotate aid workers, how we can can get in the flow of the most necessary aid.

All of that has been also submitted.

I hope that will be part of what will be agreed today in Cairo, because we have been held out from supplying the starving in Gaza since March.

There's only been a few actors that have been allowed to continue their lifelines.

We were blocked in March.

Jan Egeland of the Norwegian Refugee Council.

For the first time, gold has topped $4,000 $4,000 an ounce.

Over the past 12 months, its price has risen by 50%.

A golden milestone.

Gold smashes through $4,000 for the first time as the U.S.

shutdown fuels that rally.

The price of gold has hit a record high of more than $4,000 an ounce.

It's been the strongest yearly performance in nearly half a century.

What a momentum trade for the yellow medal.

Gold has now risen, Tom, over 20%.

All right, so go figure.

$4,000 gold.

All right.

We are a business show, and gold is a $4,000, and I have no way of explaining it.

To discuss what's driving gold's rally, I spoke to our business correspondent, Nick Marsh, in Singapore.

The cliché is that investors buy gold in times of uncertainty.

And as is the case, Alex, with a lot of clichés, it's largely true.

The last time we saw a rally in the price of gold like this was in the 1970s.

So during a massive energy crisis, global economic downturn, then people turn to gold, as they are now.

You know, this time around, we've got trade tensions, we've got a president in the White House regularly lambasting the head of the American Central Bank over things like interest rates, you've got conflicts, alliances being reshaped all around the world.

So investors are looking at that political picture, that economic picture, and saying, well, right now, I'd rather not put my money in stocks, shares, bonds.

I'd rather buy gold, which is traditionally seen as as reliable.

What's the attraction, though?

Because it doesn't pay you anything.

It just sits in your bedroom or your safe or wherever you keep it.

It's one of those things in economics that it only really works if everyone agrees on the principle.

So gold is pretty rare.

It's a durable metal.

It's real, which is very important.

It's not a currency or a share of a company.

So if everyone agrees that this metal has value, it's a commodity which is across the board board seen as being a very, very important hedge against things like inflation, so prices going up, stock market volatility, that sort of thing.

So, having gold for governments, for example, is seen as very, very important.

But plenty of ordinary people, retail investors as well, they see gold as the ultimate safe haven when things are appearing uncertain.

I've heard it said by the real fans of gold that the price of gold actually doesn't change.

It's the price of everything else else that changes.

What's your take on that?

Yeah, I think that's a pretty astute way of putting it.

It is the hedge against the volatility that all other sort of financial assets and instruments represent.

So, like I say, if interest rates are low, it doesn't make as much sense to put your money in the bank or in shares.

Maybe gold is an attractive proposition.

One thing that people do say about gold, though, is that you have to, because the price doesn't change, or at least it doesn't increase in value because essentially you are buying just a physical uh commodity, you might actually be losing money because of the price of storage.

So you have to factor in that aspect as well.

So not only does the big macroeconomic picture apply, it's the smaller things as well.

Nick Marsh in Singapore

There's been a bomb and gun attack on the Pakistani military during a security operation in the northwest of the country.

At least eleven soldiers are dead.

A number of other casualties are reported in the resulting firefight with militants.

The Pakistani Taliban have claimed responsibility, saying they ambushed the troops.

Global affairs reporter Anbarasan Etirajan is following the story and gave me the latest.

The Pakistani military says it was an intelligence-led operation because there have been clashes going on for several months between the security forces and Takraiki Taliban, or Pakistani Taliban militants who want to impose a Sharia law, Islamic Sharia law, in the northwest of the country.

And they are very active in the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

And this time the military says that they've lost several soldiers, including senior officers.

And at the same time, the forces have also managed to repel the attack and killed several militants.

Of course, we don't have any independent confirmation of what happened in Auraksa district where the clashes took place.

But it also shows the challenges faced by the Pakistani military as there have been increasing attacks on security forces in the past year or so.

Yeah, increasing, but how common are they?

Now, since the Taliban seized power in neighboring Afghanistan in 2021, we see an increasing in the number of attacks on Pakistani security forces by Pakistani Taliban militants.

Now, this issue has also triggered tensions between Islamabad and Kabul because Pakistan accuses Afghanistan of providing shelter to these militants who are having bases.

In fact, they also carried out some attacks inside the Afghan territory a few months ago.

And the Kabul, the administration there, they reject these accusations.

Then they say, we will not allow our territory to be used by anyone else.

But what several independent analysts and the local reporters have been saying, what these militants are using very sophisticated weapons.

And also, for the first time, we are seeing in the past few months the drones being used by both sides and you know when the Americans left Afghanistan in twenty one huge amount of arms were left in various kudons in various places and now the reports are suggesting that some of these American weapons have fallen into the hands of these TTP militants.

So it is a huge security worry for Pakistan.

On the one side, it is trying to you know establish itself as a bigger power, a military powerhouse, but also they are facing this security challenge.

So these increases in security problems do coincide with the takeover of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

That's what the Pakistani authorities are blaming.

And we also have to remember the ongoing insurgency in the Balochistan province.

So, these two areas where the security operations are going on, Pakistani security forces are taking on casualties, and that should be a cause of concern for the military leaders.

And Barasan Etirajan

still to come in this podcast.

The choice before us is very simple.

We either can shy away and watch Russian threats escalate, or we meet them with unity, deterrence, and resolve.

The President of the European Commission warns the EU is the target of a Russian hybrid war.

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It's Nobel Prize Week this week, and today's announcement was for work in the field of chemistry.

It's been awarded to Susumu Kitagawa from Japan, British-born Richard Robson, and the American Jordanian Omar Yagi.

The $1.2 million prize will be shared between the three of them for developing what are known as metal organic frameworks, which can potentially be used to capture carbon dioxide.

The Nobel Committee said the Laureates had provided chemists with new opportunities for solving some of the challenges facing science.

Professor Heine Linker is from the Swedish Academy of Sciences.

A small amount of such material can store huge amounts of gas in a tiny volume.

This type of materials, called metal organic frameworks, can be created with almost unlimited variations, creating unending possibilities for the greatest benefit to humankind.

Afterwards, we got through to one of the winners, a very modest 88-year-old Professor Richard Robson at his home in Melbourne, Australia.

The BBC's James Menendez began by congratulating him and asked him how he was feeling about winning the Nobel Prize.

It wasn't a big surprise.

Because

all sorts of sounds I've been hearing over the years.

So you felt sort of slightly prepared for it, but still.

Yeah, slightly prepared.

Slightly prepared, but must have come as very good news.

Oh, yeah, very, very

shattering in a way.

But anyhow, yeah.

Can you tell us about your work?

I mean, this is, you know, for people like me who aren't chemists, tell us about the materials that you've developed over the course of your career.

I've been at the University of Melbourne since 1966, and as a very young man I took it upon myself to base my research on the idea of pre-organised units doing special things.

In 1974 we got a new boss and he gave members of the department various jobs to do and my job was to build a new set of models for lecture demonstrations.

So I had to sort of calculate the angles that the workshop would have to drill into these very large numbers of wooden balls.

And once it was underway, it sort of became automatic.

And the thought arose with this idea of pre-organization at the back of my mind that

if we used molecules in place of balls, specially designed molecules,

and especially constructed

metal interact ligand interactions to represent the rods in the model, that maybe if you mixed these things together, they would spontaneously generate the

extended three-dimensional structure that we had in mind.

And that's what happened.

And it was 10 years before I actually started making things with the intention of doing this.

And it worked.

And what are the applications then of

these structures that you were designing?

There's talk about binding CO2 and solving the world's atmospheric problems and so on, which don't sound realistic to me, but these sorts of compounds could do that sort of job on a small scale.

They could capture carbon dioxide.

I mean, that's what some think it.

But, you know, this is on a grand scale.

You can imagine what scale you'd need to do anything significant on a world scale.

Professor Richard Robson, the winner of the Nobel Chemistry Prize.

Europe is the target of a Russian hybrid war and needs to ramp up its defences to deter future attacks.

That was the warning from the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, today.

She told the European Parliament that the recent series of air incursions were part of a campaign to divide EU member states and weaken their support for Ukraine.

This requires a completely new mindset for all of us.

We must be ready to leave our comfort zone.

We need to explore new ways of doing things and, most importantly, we must deter everyone who seeks to harm our territory and our people.

The choice before us is very simple.

We either can shy away

and watch Russian threats escalate,

or we meet them with unity, deterrence, and resolve.

While it was Russian jets that flew into Estonian airspace last month, the appearance of drones near airports in Denmark, Germany, and Belgium hasn't been definitively pinned on Russia.

But the working assumption seems to be that it's part of a broader strategy of disruption, including things like cyber attacks.

So, how should the EU respond?

Is a drone wall the answer, as some countries that border Russia are demanding?

Hannah Neumann is a member of the European Parliament for Germany's Green Party and sits on its Security and Defence Committee.

What is most important is that we send the clear signal that an attack on one of us, on an inch of European Union territory, is an attack on all of us, and that's how we will deal with it.

Because, frankly, if we don't keep up this idea, then the European project will die rather soon.

How we can do that?

A drone wall, I wouldn't call it a wall, I would call it more like a drone defense system, is part of it, but it can't be like the whole solution.

We also need to discuss cyber defense, we need to discuss air defense, we need to discuss rules of engagement, decision-making structures.

But the principle of shooting down drones that come into EU airspace, I mean, you'd go along with that.

And in fact, just as I walked into the studio to talk to you, a report came out from your country, Germany, saying that the police would be authorized to shoot drones down is that a good idea do you think that's two questions i mean the first question is if there are drones in our airspace we need to deal with that and we need to bring them down that can be done by spoofing that can be done by interfering with signals there are different ways and it also could be done by shooting them down but that's like the last step if the other ones don't work in germany we have this clear distinction that if we have threats in the inside the country it's the police who is interested and if it's threats outside of the country military threats at our borders that would be um the military what we've seen in the past is that these drones have been launched from already inside either german waters or inside germany so usually they are not coming from russia and flying into germany that's just i mean logistically impossible so the kind of threats that we see right now are clearly originating from within germany and that's how we deal with it I mean, we have already seen, you talked about the importance of EU unity over this.

I mean, there have already been divisions that have been appearing with some countries that are not on the front line, as it were,

you know, apparently

not so keen on spending money on these sorts of defenses.

But obviously, countries, you know, like the Baltics and Poland are much more keen to do so.

I mean, isn't it precisely those sorts of divisions that have emerged so quickly that Russia is trying to exploit?

I mean, that's what Putin is aiming for, and we shouldn't make him the gift of falling along these lines.

And I see over the course of recent days that there is a growing understanding that actually this is an attack on everyone and especially when we're talking about cyber attacks and so attacks that are less localized exactly in the border regions.

Also all the other countries will see that it could hit them very easily.

And we have seen in the past that for other situations, countries in the south asked for EU solidarity that was granted to them.

so it's like a give and take yes except that people you know individual countries I mean this is obviously you know that's been the case with the EU since its inception individual countries are very quick to make their own national case aren't they and and doing so publicly I guess doesn't really help in this situation which is a very fast-moving one Indeed, and that's why I think we really need to change the narrative and make everyone understand that these attacks are attacks to every European Union member member state's interests, economic ones, political ones, whatnot, and then in the end come to the conclusion that it's much better to stand together.

That's how I see my role, that's how many others see their role, and I'm telling you, we are moving ahead.

Hannah Neumann, a member of the European Parliament for Germany's Green Party, speaking to James Menendez.

The Cairo comedian Bassam Youssef is back on the screens in his homeland, making his first appearance since he went into exile in the United States just just over a decade ago.

He was forced to flee because his humour proved annoying for the country's leaders.

The funny man was once known for his political parodies, but he's become more well known internationally for his stance on the war in Gaza.

The newsroom's David Lewis is following the story.

Basam Yusuf's journey to show business was not a straight one.

A qualified doctor, he made the move into comedy.

And at the time, there was no shortage of material.

By 2011, the Arab Spring was sweeping across the Middle East and North Africa.

Governments were toppled and presidents fled.

He was treating the wounded in Cairo's Takhrir Square as the drumbeat grew louder to oust President Hosni Mubarak, Egypt's strongman at the top for 30 years.

He began uploading videos to YouTube, poking fun at those clinging to power.

And they blew up.

Within months, his shorts were attracting millions of views.

He was given his own program, Alberna Meg, The Show.

He parodied news journalists as well as Egyptian celebrities and politicians.

At the height of his fame, his comedy was being seen by 30 million viewers a week, a third of the population.

But he was stepping on toes.

Later, Egyptian governments arrested and threatened him.

He fled to America.

Fast forward to 2023, and he reached a new audience as a vocal critic of the war in Gaza.

In an infamous appearance on Piers Morgan's show after the October 7th attacks, his sardonic tone on Israel's military action went viral.

He was accused of anti-Semitism after mocking Jews as the chosen people.

He said it again on the BBC.

Why?

You know, that's the problem.

And now he's on the telly.

For four episodes, he'll appear on Kelema Akhera, The Last Word, where he'll recount his wild and often controversial times of living in the United States.

David Lewis.

Now to science and also perhaps a little religion.

In the beginning, the Bible tells us, was the word, meaning something, a creative force, or a divine presence.

Scientists generally agree that the universe sprang into existence with the Big Bang, but now a couple of researchers have suggested that we ought to look again at what caused the Big Bang in the first place.

Michelle Beloray is the co-author of God, the Science, the Evidence.

Our book is not a book of faith or religion, it's a book for the general public.

And we just try to give elements to answer to only one question.

Our universe is a wonderful clock.

Behind this clock, is there a clock maker or not?

Before the watch, is there a watchmaker or not?

This is a question of the philosophy.

So we don't want to answer any question of religion.

We just want to show to the general public, but all the book is very exact,

that today it is very difficult to keep the materialism philosophy because

science is pointing out into the necessity that we have a creator God to explain the universe.

But if you look simply at the Big Bang, is it your contention that

something must have created the Big Bang?

In other words, nothing can come from nothingness.

So there must have been something before, and that creation

can only be explained by God.

Is that what you're saying?

Yes, it's very important.

It's not me who is saying that.

It's a philosoph, a Greek philosopher 2500 years ago, Parmenides.

He said it was in Latin ex nilo nil, which means that from nothing nothing can come.

So there is only two possibilities.

The first possibility is our universe is eternal, then the problem does not arise.

Or if our universe has a beginning, then the question of the creation cannot be avoided.

But have you not hit on the issue then, that what other scientists might say is it goes through a cycle, a kind of eternal cycle of expansion and contraction.

That does explain the Big Bang, because universes explode and then gradually contract on themselves into a point of nothingness and then expand again.

And that has always been happening.

And for us, for our minds, that is actually, i mean literally impossible for us to comprehend but that doesn't mean it can't be true it's very interesting because it has been something that people have said for a very long time since the big bong until 20 years ago but in 2003 so it's really yesterday three top scientists american scientists gutbord and vilenkin they have made the demonstration that an infinite series of Big Bong before our Big Bong is impossible because the energies, the entropy of the universe is growing and it means the disorder is growing, the energy is declining.

So this is not possible anymore.

Michael Belore, who is speaking to Justin Webb.

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 globalnews pod.

This edition was mixed by Jack Wilfran, and the producer was David Lewis.

The editor is Karen Martin.

I'm Alex Ritz and until next time, goodbye.

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