Global News Podcast UN Security Council calls emergency meeting on Gaza
The Global News Podcast brings you the breaking news you need to hear, as it happens. Listen for the latest headlines and current affairs from around the world. Politics, economics, climate, business, technology, health – we cover it all with expert analysis and insight. Get the news that matters, delivered twice a day on weekdays and daily at weekends, plus special bonus episodes reacting to urgent breaking stories. Follow or subscribe now and never miss a moment. Get in touch: globalpodcast@bbc.co.uk
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Reuters
25 minutes ago
- Reuters
Lula and Putin discuss peace in Ukraine before US summit
BRASILIA, Aug 9 (Reuters) - Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva spoke with Russia's President Vladimir Putin on Saturday for about 40 minutes, the Brazilian presidential palace said, adding that Putin shared information about his discussions with the United States and "recent peace efforts between Russia and Ukraine." The leaders also discussed their cooperation in the BRICS group of emerging countries and "discussed the current international political and economic scenario," according to the statement. The conversation with Lula is the latest of a flurry of calls between Putin and foreign leaders in recent days ahead of the Russian president's expected meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump next week. Putin spoke to the leaders of China and India, both also part of the BRICS group of developing nations, and other presidents from Central Asia and Europe on Friday to brief them on his contacts with the United States about the war in Ukraine. Lula has been in a public spat with Trump since the U.S. imposed a 50% tariff on the imports of Brazilian goods, which Trump linked to an alleged "witch hunt" against his ally and Brazil's former right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro. U.S. imports of some Brazilian products, such as orange juice and aircraft, received a lower rate. Lula told Reuters on Wednesday he planned to call the leaders of the BRICS countries, which also include South Africa, to discuss a joint response to Trump's tariffs on U.S. imports. The Brazilian leader spoke with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday. Trump has threatened BRICS nations with additional 10% tariffs last month, as the group gathered in a summit in Rio de Janeiro in July.
Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
The Nazis would have been proud of Hamas's vile propagandists
Desperate people clamouring around a truck begging for food. An emaciated child on death's door. Women, girls, children, babies: no innocent is immune from Israel's psychotically cruel campaign of bloodlust in Gaza. It is unbearable to see. Who can stand by and watch such crimes? This, at any rate, is what most of the world's media, from the most respectable broadcaster to the grimiest freesheet, is eager for you to think. It is also what Hamas wants you to think. As long-term masters of some of the most cynical propaganda the world has ever seen, Hamas is succeeding in its plan with resounding success. Keir Starmer last week appeared to speak for the whole of Britain when he said that scenes from Gaza fill us with 'revulsion' – against Israel, of course. Largely because of such images of suffering, Starmer wants to reward the forces of Palestinian terror with the recognition of a state. 'I think people are revolted at what they are seeing on their screen,' he said. The next day he spoke of 'starving babies, children too weak to stand, images that will stay with us for a lifetime'. Pictures. Images. Screens. These are what appear to be deciding Israel's – and the Palestinians' – legal status on the world stage. It is not that there isn't immense suffering in Gaza. There is. Hundreds of thousands of Gazans are in dire straits, have lost family members, are in pain, injured, hungry, homeless, desperate, scared, the terrorist group's blood-soaked grip always around their necks. It's a tragedy. But a lot of what sets the world alight is massaged, manipulated and in many cases downright fake. One of the most iconic images of the last few weeks, which helped consolidate the false worldwide consensus that Israel has become a rogue, genocidal state while the Palestinians deserve a state, was the skeletal boy allegedly nearly starved to death by an Israeli blockade, held in his mother's arms. What the great and the good left out in their haste to publish this picture, posed as a tableau reminiscent of Mary holding Jesus, was that the boy suffered from a congenital disease. It was later quietly acknowledged by The New York Times – way too late – that he had pre-existing health problems and they would have highlighted this if they had known before publication. We see lots of pictures of desperate people clamouring for food banging pots and pans. Some of these might represent the strangled reality on the ground. But as the German tabloid Bild bothered to discover, one of the most prominent pictures of such clamouring hunger in recent weeks has photographer Anas Zayed Fteiha, a freelance journalist commissioned by the Turkish news agency Anadolu, snapping the photos in the manner of a director. Fteiha, as Bild reveals, isn't quite the impartial documentarian suggested, but an activist whose agency answers straight to Turkey's Hamas-sympathising president, Recep Erdoğan. Fteiha's social media profile is informative. His Instagram page includes a video captioned 'F** Israel' plus a painting by an arch-anti-Semite. He is publicly committed to the 'free Palestine' end game. But his pictures, notable for their perfect lighting and close-ups of idealised suffering, especially of children and mothers, were swallowed without question, disseminated in New York Magazine, CNN, the BBC, plenty of German papers and more. The wildfire success of such lies tells you much less about people's gullible compassion than about how far Hamas now rules the global playbook of anti-Semitism, Israel-hating and Israel-blaming. Let us be clear. For the terrible suffering in Gaza, the blame falls squarely on Hamas's manifold crimes. Hamas invaded Israel, knowing that, with its tunnels, weaponry and soldiers embedded in homes, schools and hospitals and behind civilians, Gazan civilians would take the brunt of Israel's inevitable response. The terror group's continued stranglehold in the Strip and refusal to hand back the hostages is the only thing prolonging the war and suffering, all of which could have ended long ago. Aid distribution systems have been corrupted, smashed or perverted, keeping food from some who badly need it, and ensuring it goes to those with the right connections. None of this is because of Israeli cruelty. All of it is because of Hamas's cruelty and infinite scheming. The truth has never mattered, though. Hamas knew Israel would be blamed, ostracised, and punished on the world stage on a scale never seen before, its very legitimacy called into question amid irreparable diplomatic crises. It was easy; Hamas was just kicking at a door its own predecessors helped kick open. Hamas is finessing and darkening a tradition of propaganda built by Yasser Arafat, a master of the fabricated sympathetic picture, such as that during Israel's 2002 operation in the West Bank that showed him alone and besieged in his compound. He sat at his desk with only candlelight to see by – an image the world lapped right up – only for lights to go right back on after the shoot. As the historian Richard Landes describes in his essential book, Can the Whole World Be Wrong? Lethal Journalism, Antisemitism and Global Jihad, one of the defining images of the 21st century, the signal 'icon of hatred' against the Israel and the Jews, was the 'eyewitness' film apparently capturing Muhammad al-Dura, a defenceless 12-year-old boy, being shot in cold blood by the IDF, while held in his father's arms, on September 30 2000. It spread like wildfire. Analysis of the footage later contradicted this narrative. The IDF didn't kill the boy. But by the time it was corrected, the damage had been done. Nobody cared, then, or now. This laid down a grotesquely immoral media-age template that has been used ever since. Those of us who have followed media bias against Israel for many years are well versed in the absolutely central role of 'Pallywood' – the well-known industry in the Palestinian territories that oversees the staging of fake news footage of Palestinian children and women suffering at the hands of Israel, producing a stream of emotive imagery for the world's media. No true imagery produced by Israel, or even the true, boastful footage from Hamas of the Israeli hostages it has starved and murdered at close range, can even begin to counter Pallywood's work. The use of emotive imagery to peddle genocidal ideology is hardly new. Leni Riefenstahl, the director of the Third Reich's propaganda films (who lived to the age of 101), offers an interesting comparison. Whereas Pallywood stages suffering, Riefenstahl's art pretended that even those bound for Auschwitz were just fine and dandy. She cast gypsies as frolicking extras, then said they all survived the Holocaust. Not only were they sent to Auschwitz, Riefenstahl was thought, in some cases, to have helped them on their way though she denied it all. While people were tortured, executed after show trials, or sent to the gulag, the Soviet propaganda department ensured a constant flow of idealised images of healthy, happy, sturdy people: courageous, righteous, industrious, reproductive and the biggest lie of all: finally free. What makes the global hook, line and sinker acceptance of Hamas propaganda so surreal is that it comes a century after Stalin took power, and nearly a century after Hitler did. What has history taught us? Sadly, those in Israel who know the answer are ignored and vilified, and those outside Israel who know the answer are now too old to provide it.
Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
Would-be leaders of Palestinian state are extremists, Starmer warned
Sir Keir Starmer has been warned that recognition of a Palestinian state will 'lay the groundwork for the next Oct 7'. The Prime Minister is under pressure to reconsider the move amid concerns that Palestinian children are being radicalised. A report by an Israeli-founded non-profit organisation warned that the Palestinian Authority (PA), the current government in the territories, is 'indoctrinating' children with school textbooks that 'glorify terrorism'. It is expected that the UK would treat the PA as the sovereign government of a Palestinian state following recognition. But the report by Impact-se (the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education) is likely to raise fears about any move to recognise a state. Examples in the report include reading comprehension exercises describing terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians as 'heroism', maths exercises asking children to count the number of 'martyrs' who died in the First Intifada, and children's books circulated for National Reading Day depicting a suicide bomber who killed 21 Israeli civilians. It also draws attention to the PA's so-called 'pay-for-slay' scheme, an arrangement whereby convicted terrorists are given financial rewards in proportion to the severity of their prison sentences. The report notes that 316 convicted terrorists have become 'millionaires' under the scheme. Marcus Sheff, the chief executive of Impact-se, told The Telegraph: 'British recognition without urgent curriculum reform would embolden indoctrination, not peace – laying the groundwork for the next Oct 7.' He also warned that British aid is funding the distribution of such materials and 'indoctrinating another generation for jihad'. 'Curriculum fuels anti-Semitism' Mr Sheff said: 'UK taxpayers were told for years that the Palestinian Authority was reforming the radical curriculum that fuels anti-Semitism, violence and hate. 'Our forensic review of every single page, in every textbook, for every grade and subject shows these promises were empty. Not one substantive change has been made. 'The same material that glorifies murder of civilians, teaches maths by counting 'martyrs', and explains Newtonian physics through slingshot attacks is still in place. 'Even after pledging reform to the EU and UK in July 2024, the PA created a tailor-made curriculum for Gaza in January – a carbon copy of the hate-filled texts – spitting in the face of donor governments. 'Less than a year ago, a senior Palestinian ministry of education official told local media there would be no changes to the curriculum, in reaction to rumours that there might be changes, flatly rejecting even the idea of reform. 'To make matters worse, the UK has signed off over £100m in taxpayer funds under a new agreement that has stripped out previous clauses on removing incitement to violence and hate from the curriculum.' Figures in Sir Keir's own party have also joined calls for him to think again about recognising a Palestinian state, warning that 'the PA needs to undertake serious, meaningful and substantive reform'. Michael Rubin, director of Labour Friends of Israel (LFI), said: 'There's a reason Israelis and Palestinians alike are so distrustful of President Abbas' government. 'It incites violence and terrorism against Israelis, is authoritarian and riddled with corruption, and commits shocking human rights abuses against its own people. 'If we're going to recognise a Palestinian state, the PA needs to undertake serious, meaningful and substantive reform. 'To start, it must abolish the pernicious payment of 'salaries' to terrorists and stop poisoning young minds by glorifying suicide bombers in school books and naming schools after terrorists and Nazi collaborators.' The PA said in February it planned to abolish the so-called 'pay-for-slay' in what was widely seen as an olive branch to President Trump. However little progress on the issue has been reported since. Lord Walney, Sir Keir's former independent adviser on political violence and disruption, said: 'Those who are pushing the fallacy that a Palestinian state is just round the corner like to portray the Palestinian Authority as peace-loving moderates in contrast to the Islamist Hamas terrorists. 'But this important dossier highlights that a vein of extremism runs right through PA too, embedding intolerance with appalling education textbooks. 'The United Nations and the UK have long turned a blind eye to the indoctrination that they have been indirectly funding for many years – that must change if there is any hope of a fresh start for Israel and Palestine.' Mr Sheff is a British-Israeli former journalist who was serving as a reservist in the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) at the time of the Oct 7 attacks.
