--:-- Valerie Sanderson: This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Valerie Sanderson.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: In the early hours of Saturday the 5th of July, these are our main stories. Hamas says it submitted a positive response to the latest proposals for a ceasefire with Israel in Gaza. German and Dutch intelligence services accuse Russia of increasingly using chemical weapons in Ukraine. President Trump signs his flagship package of tax and spending cuts into law.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Also in this podcast. Mostly shock because of what happened and how it happened. Also, I can see like the contrary. I see support. When those stuff happen, people tend to be more connected, especially Portuguese people. Mourners gather in Portugal ahead of the funeral of the footballer Diogo Jota.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: President Trump said he'd hoped to hear from Hamas shortly about the latest ceasefire proposal for Gaza after 20 months of war. Now the Palestinian militants say they've delivered a positive response to mediators and in a statement say the group is seriously ready to enter immediately into a round of negotiations.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: I asked our correspondent in Jerusalem, Aini Wells, for more details about the Hamas position.
--:-- Aini Wells: They've responded saying that their response was positive. But one crucial thing to note is this doesn't mean that Hamas has accepted the proposal yet.
--:-- Aini Wells: In fact, a senior Palestinian official familiar with the talks has told the BBC that Hamas has asked for three key changes to the proposals as they currently stand.
--:-- Aini Wells: It's demanding, firstly, an immediate end to the operations of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which is the US and Israeli-backed aid provider in Gaza.
--:-- Aini Wells: This organisation has been mired in controversy after near-daily reports of Israeli troops opening fire on civilians near its site, something which Israel denies is deliberate.
--:-- Aini Wells: The official also said that Hamas has requested that aid be distributed exclusively through the UN and other international relief organisations.
--:-- Aini Wells: Now, it's also insisted that the Israeli military should withdraw to the positions that it held in Gaza before the last ceasefire collapsed in March.
--:-- Aini Wells: And finally, Hamas is also seeking a guarantee from the US that the bombardment will not resume if the ceasefire ends without a permanent agreement being reached.
--:-- Aini Wells: Essentially, that last point is touching on what has been the key sticking point throughout these negotiations, which is that Hamas wants from Israel a guarantee that the war will end.
--:-- Aini Wells: wants to see a path to the end of the war, something which Israel has so far refused to commit to as part of these negotiations.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: And meanwhile, of course, Israel is continuing its bombardment of Gaza even now, isn't it?
--:-- Aini Wells: That's right. There has been widespread evacuation orders issued around Gaza by the Israeli military throughout the week.
--:-- Aini Wells: On Friday in particular, the Israeli military issued an evacuation order for Khan Yunis in the south after evacuation orders earlier in the week for the north and for parts of gaza city that essentially suggests that airstrikes will be continuing in that area.
--:-- Aini Wells: It's significant too because han yunis is an area where nasa hospital is a major hospital in gaza which has been characterized by the world health organization as a trauma center for people who have been shot severely injured killed while seeking aid in particular.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: And key for them, obviously, are the hostages still in Gaza.
--:-- Aini Wells: And of course, Benjamin Netanyahu is meeting Donald Trump in Washington next week, isn't he?
--:-- Aini Wells: That's right. And as you say, from the Israeli perspective, the release of hostages is key here.
--:-- Aini Wells: But where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing conflicting domestic pressures is that despite the majority of the Israeli public wanting an end to the war, he has pressures from within his own coalition.
--:-- Aini Wells: The far-right members of his governing coalition do not want an end to the war. In fact, they want the war to continue until Hamas is eliminated, until Israel has total control over Gaza.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Ioni Wells in Jerusalem.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Now to the White House on the lawn, in fact, where Donald Trump has made good on his word to deliver what he calls his big, beautiful bill.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: It's the most popular bill ever signed in the history of our country, whether you're military or anybody else.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: This is the most single, most popular bill ever signed.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: And it includes the largest tax cut in American history, the largest spending cut, $1.7 trillion.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: And yet you won't even notice it.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Then, with a quick flourish of his trademark Sharpie pen, the president turned the bill into law.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: He signed the legislation bringing in permanent tax cuts for some, slashing support for others on America's Independence Day, a double celebration for the US president.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: I heard more from our North America correspondent, Peter Bose.
--:-- Peter Bose: The president likes to put on a show, and this could not have fallen better for him in terms of timing.
--:-- Peter Bose: Independence Day, it's what he sought all along, a resolution to this, a signing on the 4th of July, a celebration on the lawn at the White House, the president addressing people from the balcony with the first lady by his side.
--:-- Peter Bose: There was a military fly pass. Pilots in the audience involved in the bombing missions in Iran last month, despite security concerns expressed by some that their identities should not be made known.
--:-- Peter Bose: And as we've just heard, the president in a brilliant mood, the country is more proud now than ever before.
--:-- Peter Bose: He said he says he hasn't seen a spirit in this country like this for decades, the hottest country anywhere around the world.
--:-- Peter Bose: This is his conclusion of the impact of the one beautiful bill, promises made, promises kept.
--:-- Peter Bose: He says people are very happy. Military, civilians, he says, of all types, biggest tax cuts in the country's history.
--:-- Peter Bose: Something there, he said, for everyone.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Clearly that is disputed by many people around the country.
--:-- Peter Bose: Unhappy for many reasons.
--:-- Peter Bose: And as we saw during the agonizing process to get it through Congress, many Republicans had reservations and made those reservations well known.
--:-- Peter Bose: They eventually all or at least all but two fell into line in the House of Representatives.
--:-- Peter Bose: But this is a bill that financial experts say will add more than three trillion dollars to the U.S. national debt.
--:-- Peter Bose: There will be cuts to health care benefits for low income Americans. Food assistance programs will be cut.
--:-- Peter Bose: Now, the president says that these changes to the benefits are to root out waste and fraud and abuse of the system rather than to make life harder for those who legitimately claim the benefits.
--:-- Peter Bose: But there are many around the country who say that this bill will make life much more difficult for their family.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: The intelligence services in the Netherlands and Germany say that Russia is increasingly using chemical weapons in the war in Ukraine.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: They say the military has deployed tear gas and the choking agent chloropicrin to force Ukrainian soldiers out of shelters.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: I heard more from our Europe regional editor, Danny Eberhard.
--:-- Danny Eberhard: They're not the worst of all chemical weapons, Val, but they are nevertheless banned.
--:-- Danny Eberhard: Now tear gas usually is a riot control agent used by security forces and the effects of that often wear off quite quickly
--:-- Danny Eberhard: But the key thing is that although security forces can use them for riot control under the convention of the prohibition of chemical weapons they cannot be used in warfare.
--:-- Danny Eberhard: Now Russia and Ukraine have both ratified that convention.
--:-- Danny Eberhard: It's one of the most widely observed of all international agreements and it's been in force for nearly 30 years.
--:-- Danny Eberhard: Only a tiny handful of countries haven't joined.
--:-- Danny Eberhard: And then with chloropicrin it's a more serious toxin has some similar effects to tear gas but it's a dual use chemical so it can be used in agriculture as a fungicide or pesticide but it's also a choking agent and it can irritate lungs eyes and it can be fatal if it used in enclosed spaces
--:-- Danny Eberhard: It was used as you said in the first world war as a poison gas.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: So what do the Dutch and German authorities want to happen in response to this?
--:-- Danny Eberhard: Well, the Dutch intelligence agencies say they, through their own investigations, have evidence of the use of these things.
--:-- Danny Eberhard: And the US has also made similar allegations against Russia in the past.
--:-- Danny Eberhard: The Dutch defence minister, Ruben Brekelmans, says the Russian attacks are systematic and on a substantial scale.
--:-- Danny Eberhard: He calls them completely unacceptable.
--:-- Danny Eberhard: And he stresses that their use by Russia must not be normalised.
--:-- Danny Eberhard: He said that if the threshold for the use of such weapons is lowered, it's dangerous not just for Ukraine, but for Europe and the wider world.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: So he's calling for sanctions, he's calling for Russia to be isolated, and for there to be undiminished military support for Ukraine.
--:-- Danny Eberhard: He also says Russia should be blocked from seats on, for example, the Executive Council of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the key body that monitors this.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Interesting, isn't it, that Ukraine is saying this is an occasional use.
--:-- Danny Eberhard: The defence ministry there says Russia has carried out more than 9,000 chemical attacks since the start of the invasion back in 2022.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: What's Russia saying?
--:-- Danny Eberhard: Well, Russia has denied using any chemical weapons in the past.
--:-- Danny Eberhard: It hasn't responded to these particular allegations from the Dutch and the Germans.
--:-- Danny Eberhard: It actually accuses Ukraine of using chemical weapons, which Ukraine itself denies.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has not yet been asked to conduct a full investigation.
--:-- Danny Eberhard: But Ukraine says 9,000 attacks.
--:-- Danny Eberhard: It says it's only attributed three deaths to the direct use of chemical weapons.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: But the important thing is that by driving Ukrainian soldiers out of trenches and foxholes using these weapons by, for example, dropping them by drones, it allows soldiers to be killed with conventional arms.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Danny Eberhard.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: President Zelensky says Donald Trump has agreed to work with Ukraine to strengthen the country's air defences.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: The commitment comes days after the Pentagon halted shipments of US Patriot air defence systems to Ukraine over concerns that its stock was running low.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: The two leaders spoke on the phone earlier on Friday after Russia carried out the largest air assault of the war so far overnight, killing one person.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Moscow says it hit drone factories and military infrastructure.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Our correspondent Paul Adams sent us this report from Kiev.
--:-- Paul Adams: This was one of Kiev's worst nights in recent months, leaving one person dead, more than two dozen injured, and plenty of wreckage.
--:-- Paul Adams: So this is one of the areas that was hit overnight.
--:-- Paul Adams: It's a residential district just a few miles from the city centre.
--:-- Paul Adams: And there's a gaping hole here where a Shahed drone landed.
--:-- Paul Adams: We think around four o'clock in the morning,
--:-- Paul Adams: There are rescue teams inside propping up the building, which is clearly not in good shape.
--:-- Paul Adams: More reasons then for Ukraine's leader to repeat his plea for more help to protect his country's skies.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: A day after Donald Trump voiced his disappointment after a phone call with Vladimir Putin, President Zelensky called his conversation with Mr Trump important and fruitful, adding that he and the president had agreed to strengthen Ukraine's air defences.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: He didn't say how, and it's not immediately clear if the issue of Washington's suspension of critical military assistance has been fully resolved.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: John Bolton, who served as national security advisor during the first Trump administration, told the BBC he was still concerned.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: It is possible that this is the beginning of a cutoff of all American military assistance, but I don't see it yet from Trump, and I'm hoping that Zelensky and perhaps other European leaders might be persuasive in having Trump take a look at this again.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: For now, Kiev's European allies are concentrating on ways to bolster Ukraine's defences.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Discussions on the so-called coalition of the willing are planned for the sidelines of an Anglo-British summit next week.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: But deployment of what's been called a reassurance force for Ukraine can only happen when there's a ceasefire, and negotiations about that have ground to a halt.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Paul Adams.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Still to come on this podcast.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: No, it doesn't come easily. I don't even think about it. If I thought about multi-million dollar pictures and all the equipment and all the responsibility, I'd probably go bananas.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: How a 26-year-old Steven Spielberg made the iconic film Jaws.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: We'll be right back.
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--:-- Valerie Sanderson: According to a nationwide survey conducted by GeneSight, nearly 9 in 10 Americans who've been diagnosed with depression or anxiety believe that mental health medications are somewhat or very effective.
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--:-- Dr. Whitney Brown: It gives me insights and takes out some of the guesswork that can be associated with prescribing them.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: If you or someone you love is facing challenges with depression or anxiety, talk to your doctor about how genetic testing may help.
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--:-- Valerie Sanderson: It's not unusual for presidents and prime ministers to redecorate their official residence according to their taste.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: New wallpaper here a lick of paint there out with that portrait in with this
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: But the Kenyan president William Ruto is taking things a bit further
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: He building a whole church at his presidential palace in Nairobi
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: It's not small.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: With capacity for 8,000 people, it'll be about four times the size of London's famous Westminster Abbey.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: And it's not cheap.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: It's going to cost about $9 million.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: And it's certainly not popular, as our correspondent in Nairobi, Rhoda Odiambo, told me earlier.
--:-- Rhoda Odiambo: It's created a lot of pent-up anger and frustration that is already there with Kenyans, especially after many people not being happy with the style of leadership of the government and the president's or the government's lack of accountability when it comes to issues of police brutality.
--:-- Rhoda Odiambo: So when he acknowledged that he is building the church inside the statehouse, there was a lot of frustration and anger and disappointment to Kenyans because the way he was expressing himself in the clip that was widely shared by various media houses, a lot of people ended up questioning why he is doing that.
--:-- Rhoda Odiambo: There are other denominations in Kenya, such as Muslims and Hindus.
--:-- Rhoda Odiambo: Why wasn't that built in the state house by other leaders who were there?
--:-- Rhoda Odiambo: And the fact that he's also building it when he said by his own money, because when he has been repeatedly asked by various media houses on the status of his wealth and how he has been able to acquire it, he's not been able to fully open up on how he's been able to acquire his wealth.
--:-- Rhoda Odiambo: So a lot of people are just questioning the legality of being able to put up such a huge structure at the statehouse without getting the necessary government approvals.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: There is a group, isn't there, called Atheist Kenya Community.
--:-- Rhoda Odiambo: They're threatening to sue.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Can you tell us more about that?
--:-- Rhoda Odiambo: Yes, they are threatening to sue because according to the Kenyan constitution, everyone has the right to express themselves with any religious form that they would want to express themselves in.
--:-- Rhoda Odiambo: So it could be in the Muslim faith, in Christian faith or Hinduism, or there's also the traditional African society.
--:-- Rhoda Odiambo: So the atheists believe that when the president now wants to put up a church inside the statehouse, This is more giving the impression that Kenya is a Christian country, which also goes against the constitution because the constitution in Article 8 says that the state does not have to be in an entanglement with the church.
--:-- Rhoda Odiambo: They're supposed to operate as two separate institutions.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Rhoda, you've outlined a lot of the opposition to this plan.
--:-- Rhoda Odiambo: No one has come out to say that they are supporting the construction of the church inside the statehouse.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Coffins containing the bodies of the Liverpool player Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva who both died in a car crash on Thursday have been brought to a chapel in Gondomar in the Portuguese city of Porto ahead of their funeral on Saturday
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Family and friends, the Portuguese president and Diogo Jota's agent all attended the church
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Many people have left flowers and candles outside
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Our correspondent Guy Hedgco is there
--:-- Guy Hedgco: It has been a day of sombre tributes in Gondomar, the suburb of Porto, where Diogo Jota and his brother André grew up.
--:-- Guy Hedgco: In the morning, family and friends visited the chapel where the two men's bodies had been taken in their coffins.
--:-- Guy Hedgco: As the day went on, the wake became increasingly public, reflecting the stardom of Diogo Jota in his home country.
--:-- Guy Hedgco: The Prime Minister, Luis Montenegro, left the wreath and the president, Marcelo Rebelo de Souza, paid his respects.
--:-- Guy Hedgco: High-profile figures from Portuguese football also attended, such as André Villas-Boas, the former coach of Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur.
--:-- Guy Hedgco: The Portuguese parliament in Lisbon paid tribute to the two men.
--:-- Guy Hedgco: But it was the grief of ordinary people who have lost a hero that was most apparent.
--:-- Guy Hedgco: Mostly shock because of what happened and how it happened. Also, I can see the contrary. I see support, a lot of support.
--:-- Guy Hedgco: Many people are here with respect, humblity also.
--:-- Guy Hedgco: When those stuff happen, people tend to be more connected, especially Portuguese people.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Tomorrow, Gondomar will be the site of the two brothers' funeral, when Portugal bids them a final farewell.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Guy Hedgco.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Two female tourists from the UK and New Zealand have been killed by an elephant while in a walking safari in Zambia.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Police said the animal was with its calf when it ran at the two women in South Luanga National Park.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: The animal was shot and wounded as guides tried to stop it charging.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Alice Morrison is a writer and adventurer who herself narrowly survived after an elephant charged her in Zambia many years ago.
--:-- Alice Morrison: I was in a bike race cycling from Cairo to Cape Town and we were just near the border with Botswana.
--:-- Alice Morrison: So we're on the Zambia-Botswana border and I was brought up in Africa.
--:-- Alice Morrison: so I have a I know how dangerous elephants are every week in my childhood we'd hear about somebody being killed so we heard through the kind of the cyclist grapevine that there were elephants ahead so I thought right I'll just stop there was thick bush forest on either side and I thought I'll just stop I'll wait for the elephant to cross the road and then I'll carry on because as I say I'm frightened of elephants and I was just sitting on my bike you know standing there stationary when
--:-- Alice Morrison: And suddenly a bull elephant broke out of the undergrowth about 100 metres to my left and started charging me.
--:-- Alice Morrison: He was trumpeting and flapping his ears, both of which are a sign of aggression.
--:-- Alice Morrison: So I turned my bike around.
--:-- Alice Morrison: I started cycling faster than I've ever cycled before.
--:-- Alice Morrison: He was so close that I could feel the ground under my bike shaking with his footsteps.
--:-- Alice Morrison: Goodness me, you're clearly a fast peddler.
--:-- Alice Morrison: I mean, that must have been terrifying.
--:-- Alice Morrison: It truly was at that moment that I had three thoughts in my head.
--:-- Alice Morrison: One was I'm going to die.
--:-- Alice Morrison: The second was should I get off the bike and try and climb a tree?
--:-- Alice Morrison: But they were thorn trees, so I could never have done it.
--:-- Alice Morrison: And then really the third one, which is kind of horrible, was am I going to be gored to death or am I going to be trampled to death?
--:-- Alice Morrison: But what happened was he suddenly, I mean, he could have killed me.
--:-- Alice Morrison: They can go at 50 kilometres an hour an elephant.
--:-- Alice Morrison: But he just stopped.
--:-- Alice Morrison: and afterwards...
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: So once you were out of his territory, he was satisfied?
--:-- Alice Morrison: Exactly.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: It was just sheer luck.
--:-- Alice Morrison: Absolute luck.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: You then went on and wrote a book called Dodging Elephants, which is a very good title.
--:-- Alice Morrison: So what is the advice to people who might be going to the bush or on safari if you ever did encounter this sort of thing?
--:-- Alice Morrison: Well, my very first piece of advice is a very obvious one.
--:-- Alice Morrison: Please book for the very reputable travel companies.
--:-- Alice Morrison: My second piece of advice is if you're on a walking safari or a cycling safari, make sure there is car with you, some kind of transport, and that you're near enough to get in it.
--:-- Alice Morrison: The last thing I have to say is, you know, I am absolutely sure these guides did their very, very best for these very unlucky women.
--:-- Alice Morrison: And this is just a horrible accident.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: There were two elderly American women who died last year in separate incidents in Zambia.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Why do you think it keeps happening?
--:-- Alice Morrison: There are two things.
--:-- Alice Morrison: Number one, there is a fight for land between humans and animals in Africa, which the humans are winning.
--:-- Alice Morrison: I mean, overpopulation, the eradication of disease, which used to keep the population down.
--:-- Alice Morrison: Thank God people are not dying anymore.
--:-- Alice Morrison: But it means that there's a huge, huge growth in population now.
--:-- Alice Morrison: They need the land for food.
--:-- Alice Morrison: The animals are being squeezed and squeezed and squeezed.
--:-- Alice Morrison: And actually, these game reserves are absolutely crucial to maintaining some animal population in what used to be a continent that was just teeming with wildlife.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Alice Morrison talking there to Christian Fraser.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Next to Cardiff, the capital of Wales, where the first Oasis concert for 16 years has taken place.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: This is the moment the band took to the stage.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: The brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher and the rest of the band performed in front of a crowd of 74 people who gathered for the first night of their reunion tour on Friday which includes dates in the UK the United States South Korea Japan Australia and South America.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: They've been attracting their old fans, but also a whole new generation.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Today is what every superfan or any fan is waiting for.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: This is the pinnacle.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: This is the holy grail of Oasis.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: So very, very excited.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: This is massive.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: that'll be the biggest band then and often it'll be the biggest band again now.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: You know, our expectations are very, very high because we miss them a lot.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: I get emotional just thinking about it, mate.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Our correspondent Paul Glynn was at the concert.
--:-- Paul Glynn: One of the biggest reunion tours in living memory is underway in Cardiff this evening with a bang.
--:-- Paul Glynn: Liam Gallagher said to the crowd, was it worth it?
--:-- Paul Glynn: This was a reference to the ticketing debacle that we had.
--:-- Paul Glynn: A lot of people were unhappy with the dynamic pricing of the tickets.
--:-- Paul Glynn: When he said, was it worth it?
--:-- Paul Glynn: He might have been talking about money, but it might also have been talking about the 16 years that there's not been an Oasis gig.
--:-- Paul Glynn: We were treated to powerful performances of tracks like Champagne Supernova, Don't Look Back in Anger.
--:-- Paul Glynn: It was sang so loud by the fans that Noel Gallagher didn't even need to sing.
--:-- Paul Glynn: He let the fans sing it.
--:-- Paul Glynn: And Live Forever was a real moment.
--:-- Paul Glynn: Over the duration of time that Oasis had been a part, people have seen Liam perform and people have seen Noel perform.
--:-- Paul Glynn: But hearing them perform together with their harmonies and dueting on songs and backing each other up on songs like Live Forever, there was a beautiful, poignant moment at the end of the outro of Live Forever as well, where on the screen was an image of the Liverpool player Diogo Hota, who sadly died this week.
--:-- Paul Glynn: There was a big round of applause from the fans at that moment.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: In terms of Oasis, there was no real banter or chemistry between Noel and Liam, not verbally.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: We know they've had a love-hate relationship for years.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: But musically, they came together.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: The band sounded very big.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: They had an extra guitarist.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: It was kind of a mix of Oasis of the 90s with Oasis of the noughties because an old favourite bonehead was back in the band to join the last line-up.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: They had a new drummer in Joey Veronica.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: That was his debut.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: So Liam said, was it worth it?
--:-- Paul Glynn: From the people that I saw coming out, kind of old Oasis fans and new, younger ones, I think the answer was a yes.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: You say there wasn't much to-ing and fro-ing or much of a relationship apparently on stage between the two brothers.
--:-- Paul Glynn: I mean, why do you think they're doing this?
--:-- Paul Glynn: I mean, what's it about?
--:-- Paul Glynn: Is it about money?
--:-- Paul Glynn: I think there's certainly a huge element of that.
--:-- Paul Glynn: You can't deny, you see the sort of numbers that have been flying around with the tickets that they've been selling and also sponsorship deals attached to it.
--:-- Paul Glynn: This is one of the biggest tolls we've seen for a while, really.
--:-- Paul Glynn: But, you know, at the same time, the fan base of Oasis is so loyal.
--:-- Paul Glynn: And sometimes you could sense towards the end of the time that maybe music was moving on and people were perhaps going a little bit tired of it.
--:-- Paul Glynn: In that 16 years that's passed, they not only have the old fans really back on side, but they've got a legion of new fans as well that are coming to their music through all different means.
--:-- Paul Glynn: TikTok adverts that they've seen Oasis songs on.
--:-- Paul Glynn: So I think it's all come together for them nicely and if the first night is anything to go by maybe technically they're obviously older they're a bit greyer some of the higher notes that Liam used to sing perhaps maybe a few octaves lower but the power of the band is still there tonight's gig was under a roof in Cardiff and at certain points with the extra guitarist in there they nearly blew the roof off and as I say for some of the songs they didn't even need to sing because the fans have been waiting that long to sing some of these songs.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Paul Glynn at that Oasis concert in Wales.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Until 50 years ago, most big movies were launched at the end of the year.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: That all changed when an action film directed by a 26-year-old was released in June 1975, creating the summer blockbuster and launching a new business model for Hollywood.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: The movie was Jaws, the director was Steven Spielberg, and in the US, celebrations are underway to mark its 50th anniversary.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: From New York, here's Tom Brook.
--:-- Tom Brook: It may be 50 years old, but the thriller Jaws, the story of a great white shark terrorising a New England beach community, based on a bestseller by author Peter Benchley, is still impressing audiences.
--:-- Tom Brook: Love Jaws, very iconic.
--:-- Tom Brook: many great scenes and it's a great summer movie.
--:-- Tom Brook: It's fun to watch, it's high entertainment and also the craft is amazing.
--:-- Tom Brook: The cinematography is incredible.
--:-- Tom Brook: To mark the 50th anniversary of Jaws there are special TV presentations a re-release of the film in cinemas and a major forthcoming Jaws exhibition at the Academy Museum in Los Angeles.
--:-- Tom Brook: Hype may surround the Jaws anniversary but to many it is a truly great movie.
--:-- Tom Brook: For film critic Owen Gleiberman the film's strength lies in that it respects reality.
--:-- Tom Brook: What its legacy should be is movies should be based in reality because that's what's so great about Jaws.
--:-- Tom Brook: You believe every minute of it.
--:-- Tom Brook: The genius of the young Steven Spielberg is that he staged this pulp shark thriller as if it was really happening, every moment of it.
--:-- Tom Brook: You're going to need a bigger boat.
--:-- Tom Brook: Jaws is credited with launching the summer blockbuster.
--:-- Tom Brook: More correctly, it created a new business model for Hollywood.
--:-- Tom Brook: The film was given a simultaneous release in hundreds of cinemas, almost unheard of at the time, and promoted relentlessly.
--:-- Tom Brook: It convinced studio executives that a lot of money could be made in the summer months if movies were released that way.
--:-- Tom Brook: Paul de Garabedian is a box office analyst for Comscore.
--:-- Tom Brook: It just really changed the whole industry.
--:-- Tom Brook: Before Jaws, it wasn't really a well-defined summer movie season.
--:-- Tom Brook: You could have big movies coming out at any time of the year, but there was never a season that encapsulated what young people wanted to do in the summer, which was go to the movie theatre, and it really changed everything.
--:-- Tom Brook: Jaws broke new ground in other ways.
--:-- Tom Brook: It was the first major motion picture to be filmed on the ocean, and it ended up being a very troubled production because of the difficulties of shooting on water.
--:-- Tom Brook: Remarkably, Steven Spielberg was only 26 years old when he was directing the feature, and it was his second official film.
--:-- Tom Brook: Roll sound.
--:-- Tom Brook: In May 1974, when he was making Jaws, Steven Spielberg told a BBC film crew that taking on this major motion picture was a real challenge for him.
--:-- Tom Brook: No, it doesn't come easily. I don't even think about it. If I thought about multi-million dollar pictures and all the equipment and all the responsibility, I'd probably go bananas.
--:-- Tom Brook: You yell shark, we've got a panic on our hands on the 4th of July.
--:-- Tom Brook: Jaws has left its mark.
--:-- Tom Brook: At the time of its release, it reduced beach attendance in the US because people feared being attacked by a shark.
--:-- Tom Brook: The film has also been criticised for its overly negative depictions of the great white shark as a ferocious, man-eating predator.
--:-- Tom Brook: And the movie's 50th anniversary in the US is perhaps making some older moviegoers nostalgic for a time when their country was less divided politically and movies like Jaws had sufficient reach to bring everyone together under one big tent to enjoy being with one another and getting scared out of their wits.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Tom Brook on Jaws.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: And that's it from us for now, but there'll be a new edition of the Global News Podcast later.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, send us an email.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: You can also find us on X at BBC World Service.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Use the hashtag Global News Pod.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: This edition was mixed by Nick Randall.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: The producers were Richard Hamilton and Charles Sanctuary.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: The editor is Karen Martin.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: I'm Valerie Sanderson.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Until next time, bye-bye.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: America is changing.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: And so is the world.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: But what's happening in America isn't just a cause of global upheaval.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: I'm Tristan Redman in London,
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: and this is The Global Story.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from this intersection, where the world and America meet.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
