Global News Podcast: Gaza father 'waited six hours for bread to feed family'

BBC BBC 10/31/23 - Episode Page - 33m - PDF Transcript

Unexpected Elements is all about finding the surprising science angles to everyday news.

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That's Unexpected Elements from the BBC World Service.

Find it wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

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

I'm Nick Miles and at 14 hours GMT on Tuesday the 31st of October, these are our main stories.

Israel says its forces are striking Hamas targets in all parts of Gaza.

But as people in Gaza await more aid, our correspondent there tells us even getting bread is a struggle.

Also in this podcast, striking clothing factory workers have blocked roads and smashed up factories in Bangladesh.

King Charles is in Kenya where he's expected to acknowledge the painful aspects of colonial rule.

So if your goal is to perform well at work and you become angry at obstacles to that performance,

it can actually motivate you to help overcome whatever those obstacles are and do better.

The benefits of losing your call.

We are making slow and meticulous progress.

Those are the latest guarded comments from the Israeli authorities about the gradual forward movements of its troops inside Gaza.

What's clear now is that at least some Israeli troops seem to be remaining in the strip rather than returning to Israel between raids.

Israeli war jets have struck hundreds of targets in Gaza and Israeli Defence Forces spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus

stressed the military focus was on Hamas, not the civilian Palestinian population.

We will focus our activities on the northern part of Gaza.

That is the center of gravity of Hamas and that is where we are attacking now.

We continue to strike in other parts of Gaza.

We are hunting their commanders.

We're attacking their infrastructure.

And whenever there is an important target that is related to Hamas, we strike it.

Now we do so with professionalism.

Hamas is the enemy, not the civilian population.

And we focus our military efforts on Hamas.

I got an update on the military activities from our correspondent in Jerusalem, Yolanda.

We've actually been able to see from the south of Israel footage coming in live pictures of Israeli war planes bombing the north of the Gaza Strip.

Plumes of gray smoke growing up from there.

The Israeli military says it's hit 300 targets in the last day.

And the Israeli military spokesman also saying that there have been strikes elsewhere in the Gaza Strip

and that ground troops who are now being for four nights inside Gaza,

that they're slowly and meticulously moving on.

Meanwhile, we heard from Hamas fighters that he said they'd ambushed three Israeli vehicles firing anti-tank missiles.

At the same time, conditions in Gaza are deteriorating fast.

Washington says its hope for the number of aid trucks entering Gaza will soon increase to around 100 a day.

But aid agencies say the humanitarian situation is already catastrophic.

Our correspondent Rushdie Aboualouf is in Khan Yunis in southern Gaza.

Overnight and this morning, the fighting was intensified in the northwest of Gaza Strip.

It's one of the four areas that Israel started the ground incursion into the northern and Gaza city part.

We understand from people still live in the area that there was a heavy fighting, heavy gunfire.

Israel was shilling the place from sea, air, and land from the ground troops.

This is one direction of the fighting.

The rest of Gaza Strip, there was continuous Israeli airstrike over Khan Yunis.

After one of the quietest nights last night, this morning, the Israeli airstrike resumed

and they have targeted four areas around the Khan Yunis.

But the main focus of the Israeli operation is in Gaza city and north where Israel announced the expanding its military operation.

Also this morning, airstrikes were around the Al-Quds Hospital.

It's the hospital that Israel insist and keep calling the director that they have to evacuate the place.

There is about 14,000 people.

They are taking the hospital as shelter and about 100 patients are being treated there.

8 or 10 of them, according to the director of the hospital, are connected to the life-saving machines.

And they said it's impossible to move all of this refugee and the patient and the people who are critically injured to other places.

In terms of getting water and basic food, how are people getting that now and where do they get it from?

Well look, the Khan Yunis, they have some agricultural area where they still can harvest some tomatoes and some cucumber.

I saw them selling in the market this morning.

The real issue is the bread.

People are queuing for six, eight hours to get very little amount of bread.

A father who lived next to me in a tin told me yesterday he waited six and a half hours.

A very long queue under the sun.

It's 32 degrees and he has waited six and a half hours to get five bread.

That isn't enough for one meal for his tin members of his family.

And the water is a real, real struggle.

We send people to nearby villages to find any shop that sell a little water.

Water and food, a real issue here.

People are struggling to get clean water and struggling to get food.

Rushdie Aboulouf in Gaza.

It's become even more difficult in recent days to find out exactly what is going on in the midst of war in Gaza.

Much of what we do know comes from journalists living there, often with their families and continuing to work in the face of great personal danger.

At least 31 journalists have been killed in the conflict so far,

which according to the US Committee to Protect Journalists,

makes it the deadliest period for the profession in the past three decades.

Fergal Keane sent this report from Jerusalem.

All of this they record every day and night, whether they've slept or not,

with no safe place to go back to.

It is journalism in extremis and without them the world would be ignorant of the true cost of war in Gaza.

Mahmoud Basam has been filming since the war broke out more than three weeks ago,

constantly updating the BBC with images and information from refugee camps and hospitals.

From our base in Jerusalem, I reached Mahmoud by telephone in the south of Gaza where hundreds of thousands have sought refuge.

I'm just wondering what it is like to witness this every day and to live in the kind of danger that you're living in.

I am a journalist and my mission is to deliver what I am seeing,

but sometimes I have to stop and sit with these kids that I see and try to give them water, try to provide them with what they need.

Journalists go to work in Gaza knowing their families are under threat from air attack.

This is the funeral for the family of Wahel al-Daghdua, the Al Jazeera bureau chief in Gaza.

He lost his wife, son, daughter and infant grandson.

A day later he went back to work saying it was his duty.

Sharif Mansour is the Middle East expert of the Committee to Protect Journalists.

We have seen more journalists killed in the last close to three weeks than have been killed over 21 years of covering this conflict.

A lot of journalists have lost colleagues, family, homes and they were forced to flee where there is no safe haven or exit.

My name is Yara Eid. I'm a Palestinian journalist. I lived my whole life in Gaza until I was 16

and I now have been living in the UK for the last seven years.

I lost my best friend Ibrahim who was a Palestinian journalist, but he wasn't just a journalist.

He was 21 years old. He was a brother. He was a best friend. He was a dreamer.

He was a photographer and he loved life very much.

He really had many dreams and he really wanted to be a photographer that chose the whole world, the beauty of Gaza.

But he was killed doing what he loved most, you know, journalism and reporting and sharing our suffering and our truth.

This was Mahmoud Bassan's recording of two little sisters being treated in Al-Najjar Hospital yesterday.

They survived, but their six-month-old cousin was killed. Mahmoud has an 11-month-old child himself.

There are times he admits when he's overcome by the trauma he witnesses.

As hard as it is to see what I see and as much as I am trying to deliver this message, sometimes from behind the camera, I just stand and cry.

And the only thing I can do is be silent.

It's dusk and the evening call to prayer here in Jerusalem.

We've been editing in the safety, security of a hotel room.

My colleagues just 83 kilometres down the road will be spending this night as they've spent so many previous nights under bombardment.

Fergal Keen reporting.

To Bangladesh now, where tens of thousands of clothing factory workers are protesting, calling for higher wages.

The authorities had huge crowds of block roads and smashed up factories that produced clothes for major Western brands outside the capital, Dhaka.

Police were out to confront them.

As you can hear, they fired tear gas and then later water cannon to disperse the people on the streets.

I also South Asia editor Ambrasan Ataraja, what triggered these protests?

It's a classic debate between cheap clothes and what are the wages for the workers who are making these in countries like Bangladesh.

As you know, Bangladesh is the second biggest exporter of ready-to-wear clothes to Western countries,

especially if you go down to Oxford Street here in London, you walk into any shop like Zara, H&M.

You'll find clothes made in Bangladesh.

But these cheap clothes also has become an issue because what kind of pay they're getting.

Now, Bangladesh is among the countries where they pay the lowest in the world according to the trade unions.

Now, tens of thousands of workers took to the streets outside the capital, Dhaka.

I've been there several times and every five years they have this protest demanding better wages

because by the time they get these wages, then the local inflation, for example,

due to reasons in war in Ukraine or in Israel Gaza, then prices go up, then they are getting affected.

So now they say they're getting only $75 a month.

That is a minimum wage.

Of course, they can get more if they do overtime.

So they want more than $200.

That has been the demand.

So this is a way to put pressure on the government and the factory owners to accept the demands.

Now, the government has to set up a panel to look into the demands.

But this has been going on for years in Bangladesh where the factory workers are demanding better wages.

It seems unlikely perhaps that the factory owners will capitulate and give that big increase in wages.

But I suppose conditions in these factories have improved to a certain extent, haven't they, over the years?

After several accidents in which hundreds of workers were killed in Bangladesh,

all the western brands and the authorities got together to improve safety standards in Bangladesh

as a result, fire safety, worker safety and also working hours,

they have improved in many of the factories being inspected by the western fashion brands.

But there are also, you know, behind the scenes factories where some of them are subcontracted

and that is where the issue is whether these factories are following the rules

and whether they are giving the minimum wage to the workers

and that is why activists are calling for better inspection

and better monitoring from various agencies as well as the government.

Next, the United States has announced that it's going to bulk buy Japanese scallops to supply its military in Japan.

This comes in response to China banning Japanese seafood on food safety grounds.

Our business correspondent Katie Silver told us about this geopolitical seafood spat.

Beijing first announced this measure earlier this year and that came after Japan got the all clear

to start releasing wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific.

And to give you an idea, of course, this power plant was damaged back in the 2011 tsunami

and more than a million tons of treated wastewater had accumulated during that time.

Now China, which previously was the biggest buyer of Japanese seafood,

said that it was going to ban any imports due to safety fears.

In fact, Russia followed suit.

Japan at the time said that the water was safe, pointed to similar releases of treated nuclear wastewater in China and France.

And many scientists agreed, including, for example, the United Nations nuclear watchdog, who also approved the plan.

But in order to counter this seafood ban, we've heard from Washington's ambassador to Tokyo, Ram Emanuel,

who says the U.S. sorry, will bulk buy Japanese seafood in order to feed the military there and to sell in shops on military bases.

And he says this is in response to China waging what he called, quote, economic wars.

Is this likely to make a difference, though?

Well, as I say, China was the biggest buyer of seafood, and it is being seen as some quite token gesture at the moment.

To give you an idea, Japan used to export about 100,000 tons of scallops to China.

Now it's only expected to be about 1,000 tons, so only less than 1%, basically.

The first purchase under the scheme, a fraction of that.

But speaking to Reuters news agency, we heard from Ram Emanuel.

He said that it's going to be expanded.

It's likely the start of a long-term contract that's going to extend to all different types of seafood.

And he said that this is the best way that they have proven in instances where China wages what they call this economic coercion

to aid and come to the assistance of these targeted countries.

Now, China, as you can imagine, is not happy.

It's responded.

A spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry said that the responsibility of diplomats is to promote friendship between countries

rather than smearing and stirring up travel.

And we also heard on this issue from the trade ministers from the Group of Seven or the G7 Nations,

which of course is an organization of the world's largest so-called advanced economies.

And they called over the weekend for an immediate repeal of these bans on Japanese food.

Katie Silver.

Police in Britain are investigating the death of an American ice hockey player

who died after his neck was cut by a skate blade during a game in the English city of Sheffield.

Adam Johnson was fatally injured in a collision while playing for the Nottingham Panthers on Saturday.

As a result, net guards are going to be made mandatory in ice hockey in England from next year.

Shane Moore from Rival Club Oxford City Stars explained why the change was needed.

We do have armour all over the front of the bodies for players.

And there's some armour in the back of the bodies as well.

The skates are sharp, absolutely.

And I think this is why the net guard piece is really important.

Let's be really clear, this was an absolute freak accident that happened.

But if a net guard could prevent that happening again just once

then it's absolutely worth us mandating this to our players.

So how common are net guards in the sport, in the UK and globally?

A question for our sports reporter, Isaac Flanagan.

It is compulsory in Scotland and for those playing for the Great Britain team internationally

but it isn't compulsory elsewhere.

I mean, if you're under 18, you do have to wear a net guard

and you have to wear a full face visor.

Look at the NHL, you see the players with the half face visors.

Now the English Ice Hockey Association which looks after all levels of ice hockey in England

below the top division which is where Adam Johnson played for the Nottingham Panthers.

They said that they are going to mandate net guards after what happened.

They say that supply issues is the reason why it won't happen immediately.

They don't think they'll be able to get enough net guards around the league

but the rules do differ depending on where you're playing in the world.

So Finland and Sweden, they're compulsory, you do have to wear it there.

In the German top flight hockey league you have to wear a net guard.

Now the NHL which is a national hockey league in the United States and Canada,

that is the world's top hockey league and net guards aren't mandatory there

and they haven't shared yet whether they're going to change their stance on it.

I think what we've seen with what's happened to Adam Johnson is a lot of soul searching

and I think it is a fluid situation and I wouldn't be surprised to hear

something from the NHL over the coming days.

You would have thought that people and players would have welcomed the use of a net guard

but not everybody wants to wear one.

Well I think the reason why people don't want to wear one is there's a stigma around the net guard.

As you become an adult you see most players ditching the full face visor and the net guard

and Abi Kalshaw who plays for Great Britain,

she's talked about the need to change the mentality around net guards

sportsmen and women they're creatures of comfort and some players have complained

that it's not comfortable wearing a net guard but she says that attitudes need to change

she says that players tend to wind up other players if you're wearing a net guard

and full face masks.

I mean I watched a tribute being paid to Adam Johnson by his former club the Pittsburgh Penguins

in the NHL and despite this horrific incident I didn't see many other players wearing a net guard.

I think the conversation will definitely continue after what has happened.

Isaac Fannin.

Still to come.

It's time to vote for the BBC Women's Footballer of the Year 2023 and the global shortlist is out.

We'll hear about the five footballers on that shortlist.

Physically, mentally and emotionally.

It's about the risk takers.

I decided to climb the Himalayas with all 14 picks.

And the game changers.

I want to play like my brother. I want what he has.

Amazing sports stories from the BBC World Service.

The rules were holding her back so she would have to rewrite them.

Search for amazing sports stories wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

King Charles and Queen Camilla have begun a four day state visit to Kenya.

They're first to one of Britain's former colonies.

The visit coincides with celebrations of 60 years of independence for the East African nation.

But the King is also facing growing calls to apologise for abuses during Britain's colonial rule.

Our senior Africa correspondent Ann Soy reports.

A war song sung by Agnes Muthoni.

It's still fresh in her mind decades later.

The 90 year old says she was a major in the outlawed Maumau organisation

during Kenya's most brutal uprising against the colonial government.

She fought alongside her husband, General Bahati.

Agnes says he never lived to realise the main goal of his role in Maumau. Land.

We were not compensated.

The land we fought for was taken by others.

We became useless people.

She shows us the grave where he's buried at their home in Shamata, Central Kenya.

Across the valley are picturesque hills.

These are some of Kenya's most fertile lands.

For half a century, they belonged exclusively to colonial settlers

and were part of what were called the White Highlands.

Locals like Agnes had been pushed to the fringes and that brewed the rebellion.

The Maumau were brutal but the colonial government's response to the insurrection

made the conflict one of the bloodiest in the empire.

More than a thousand people were executed by hanging.

Thousands were killed and many more detained and tortured.

I've come to downtown Nairobi. It's very busy.

As usual, there's a characteristic traffic in front of me, lots of buses.

And right in the middle of Kimathi Street is the statue of Field Marshal Dedan Kimathi.

He was the leader of Maumau but this statue was erected in 2007

and that's because for decades after independence, the Maumau remained an underground group.

It was proscribed by law but that law changed in 2003

and that's when the Maumau members came out of the shadows

and they sued the British government and won an out-of-court settlement.

Kenyan lawyer Paul Muite says the compensation which was paid to just over 5,200 victims wasn't enough.

That case was hedged on narrow perspectives in law,

namely people who were still alive and who could be examined by doctors

and the doctors could confirm that these people were tortured years ago.

It leaves out many people who were in detention, many people who were killed,

women who were risking their lives cooking for the Maumau.

The king will be acknowledging that painful past.

Surely, doesn't it cover what you're talking about?

Without a commission of inquiry, without addressing the plight of those who have never been acknowledged,

giving them a bit of compensation will never bring a closure to this issue.

Historian Caroline Elkins says the acknowledgement would be an extraordinary step.

It's extraordinary but the right thing to do is to change history books,

to change museums in Britain, to provide funding in Kenya for those who suffered through these periods of time

and also to help the Kenyan government in terms of even establishing its own museums.

Back in Shamatha, Agnes offers a prayer by her husband's gravesite.

Many have not lived to hear the acknowledgement from the monarchy of the pain they endured.

Agnes welcomes it, but also hopes she'll finally receive land she and many of her peers fought for.

And so, on Monday the government of Haiti suspended all flights to Nicaragua

in an attempt to limit the number of migrants trying to reach the United States.

The decision left hundreds of people stranded at the International Airport in the capital, Porto Prince.

Robin Brandt found out more from our America's editor, Leonardo Rosha.

Nicaragua and the government of Daniel Othega has eased visa restrictions for many countries,

including Haiti, Cuba and some African countries.

So with that, you have charter flights being booked.

On Monday, the day this decision was announced in Haiti, there were six charter flights booked from Porto Prince to Managua.

And what's been said is that the Nicaraguan government is doing that because of sanctions imposed by the United States

for alleged human rights violations.

There's been a surge in the number of people arriving from Haiti and Cuba, mainly to Nicaragua, and they don't stay there.

Nicaragua is one of the poorest countries in the region.

What they do is they immediately go north towards the Mexico border with the United States.

Can you tell us a bit as well about the numbers of people in Haiti who are seeking to travel this route?

What we have this year is a record number of migrants arriving on the U.S. border with Mexico, and the U.S. is trying to stop that.

One of the measures that the United States has done, and that's why I think it has put pressure on Haiti.

We don't know for sure, but I think they put pressure on the Asian government, is that they are giving 30,000 visas a month

to people from those four countries that are seen as particularly vulnerable, Haiti, Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua.

So they say, we're giving those visas, we want some action for you to stop or to try to stop illegal migration.

And just finally, in terms of the relationship between the U.S., the Biden administration and Daniel Ortega's government in Nicaragua,

what's the politics at play here?

I mean, is there a view that the Ortega government is trying to weaponize this, is trying to seek further concessions from Washington, D.C.?

Yes, that's what people have been saying, that he will use that as a bargaining chip to tell him, look, if I can stop that,

I can control that if you ease some of the sanctions, because the situation has escalated in the past two, three years,

in the same way that the repression in Nicaragua has gone up.

So the United States has put sanctions against individuals, his family, his children, his wife.

So I think what people are saying is that he would be using that to get the United States to negotiate easing those sanctions.

Leonardo Rosha.

Now, if you're a fan of women's football, you have another few days to vote for the 2023 BBC Women's Football of the Year.

Previous winners have been England's Beth Mead and Lucy Bronze, the Netherlands, Viviana Medema and Nigeria's Assisat Oshoala.

I've been speaking to BBC Sports Maz Farouki, who will be presenting the award this year.

Every year with this award, it becomes harder and harder to whittle the shortlist down to just five contenders for a panel.

I do not envy them, they're tasked particularly in the World Cup year, and when the sport seems to be growing and growing and getting more competitive each year.

But our five nominees this year are Barcelona and Spain, midfielder Atana Bonmati, Manchester United and England's goalkeeper Mary Earps,

Chelsea and Australia's Sam Kerr, Wolfsburg and Germany's Alexandra Popp and another Barcelona player and the Sweden defender Fridelina Rolfers.

So we have players representing plenty of different positions on the pitch within our shortlist of five, but also I think as well truly five players who have been at the very top

and so consistent at the very highest level for both club and country over the last 12 months.

And this year's award comes in the same year that the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand was the best attended to date.

What impact has it had on the sport do you think?

It was a huge success I think the World Cup, the biggest women's World Cup I can remember in terms of all the records broken as you mentioned.

And also the standard of the football we saw in the pitches as well across both Australia and New Zealand.

And each of our five nominees shone in different ways at the tournament as well.

For the co-host, their biggest moment of the tournament when the Matilda's captain Sam Kerr scored that memorable goal against England in the semi-finals.

The goals Alexandra Popp scored for Germany who even though they had a disappointing tournament by their high standards,

she still finished as the joint second highest goal scorer at the World Cup.

Mary Earps pulling off that penalty save in the final that kept England in that game in the second half.

Atana Bonmati of course went all the way to lift the trophy with Spain and was awarded player of the tournament as well.

And FridaLina Rolfa making the last four with Sweden scoring to help them secure the bronze medal as well.

And also scoring a vital penalty in that shootout against the USA which early on in the tournament knocked the holders out in the last 16.

Again, one of the huge, huge moments of that World Cup.

Mads, before you go, remind us how people can vote for the BBC Women's Football of the Year.

Well, remember what makes this award different from others in the game is that it's decided by you, our listeners,

you get to vote for who you believe should be the BBC Women's Football of the Year 2023.

So please, please make sure to have your say.

You can head to bbc.com slash women's football to vote and you've got until 9 GMT on Friday, the 3rd of November to have your say.

That was Mads Verruchy and the winner will be announced on Tuesday, the 28th of November.

Now, if you end up getting more tricks than treats this Halloween, don't worry,

new research suggests that getting wound up or angry could actually have its benefits,

making you more productive and even help with achieving goals.

It goes against the common idea that anger clouds thinking and that being happy or level-headed is a more useful state for getting things done.

The not very angry but very productive Stephanie Prentice told me more.

As you sort of alluded to there, these findings have surprised people.

They found that anger can help people overcome challenges or obstacles in quite a wide variety of situations.

So it was a sample size of a thousand people and they were triggered into experiencing different emotions like joy, anger, sadness,

and then given a series of tasks like a word puzzle or a video game.

So the angry people, they were more likely to persevere.

They showed a greater sense of determination.

They're also more likely to cheat to get prizes.

That was one of the drivers in the study, basically achieving their goals no matter what it took.

In one anagram test, actually the angry people scored 39% higher.

Then generally, researchers saw shorter response times and higher scores from them.

Now, other emotions did help with performance including desire, not sure how they triggered that,

and amusement but anger came out top every time.

It's very interesting is it because anger has a very bad reputation.

Think of all the phrases like seeing red, your blood is boiling, you're losing your rag.

All these kind of things suggest somebody who's a bit of a headless chicken when they're angry but not the case.

You're absolutely right.

It has a bad reputation generally.

That sense it will cloud your judgment and socially we're kind of conditioned on to pursue happiness as a life goal.

Conversely, this study suggests anger could help us get to some of our life goals.

Professor Heather Lynch is the lead author of this study.

She spoke to us earlier and said work is one area where anger can be useful.

I think it depends on what your goal is and the obstacle that you're trying to overcome.

If your goal is to perform well at work and you become angry at obstacles to that performance,

it can actually motivate you to help overcome whatever those obstacles are and do better.

So Heather Lynch there concluded going through life experiencing an array of emotions

including anger will get the best overall outcomes.

But surely anger will be more useful or appropriate in some circumstances.

Absolutely. So Heather we just heard she calls that the functionalist theory of emotion meaning quite simply

all emotions are useful but it's crucial to tap into the correct one at the correct time.

She actually calls that the Swiss army knife theory with all its different tools.

Basically the advice is try to choose the best one for the job at hand.

Stephanie Prentice there.

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

But before we go, here's a message from Jackie Leonard.

Hello, this is a request for your questions about events in Gaza and Israel.

We are once again getting together with our colleagues from the Conflict Podcast.

So anything that you would like explaining about what led to this point or international responses and alliances

or anything that you've heard and thought, hang on, why did that happen?

Record us a voice message or simply write an email and send it to the usual address

GlobalPodcast at bbc.co.uk

and we will put it to our Chief International Correspondent Lee's Doucet

and other colleagues with decades of experience covering the region.

And don't forget you can find the first three special Gaza-Israel Q&A editions

of the Global News Podcast wherever you found this one.

This edition was mixed by Pat Sissons and the producer was Judy Frankel.

The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Nick Miles and until next time, goodbye.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.

The US says it hopes around 100 trucks of aid will soon enter Gaza. Also: striking clothing factory workers in Bangladesh block roads and smash up factories; and King Charles is expected to acknowledge the painful aspects of colonial rule during a visit to Kenya.