--:-- Asma Khalid: This is The Global Story. I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, DC, and Tristan Redman is in London.
--:-- Tristan Redman: That's right, Asma. Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from the intersection where the world and America meet. Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: I'm Julia McFarlane, and this is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: In the early hours of Sunday the 27th of July, these are our main stories. Israel says it will open up humanitarian corridors into Gaza and resume airdrops. President Trump puts pressure on Cambodia and Thailand to reach a ceasefire. And the Supreme Court in India tries to tackle a rise in student suicides.
--:-- Hugo Pachega: After intense international pressure to allow more aid into Gaza, the Israeli military appears to have significantly changed its approach. In a statement released late on Saturday, the IDF said it would implement a series of actions aimed at improving the humanitarian response and refuting the false claim of deliberate starvation in the Gaza Strip.
--:-- Hugo Pachega: According to the Hamas-run health ministry, five people have died in Gaza due to malnutrition since Friday, taking the total number to 127. It says that two-thirds of them are children.
--:-- Hugo Pachega: Our Middle East correspondent Hugo Pachega is in Jerusalem. It is quite significant because not only these airdrops of aid, they are controversial because a lot of people say that they are very limited in terms of the number of people they affect or help.
--:-- Hugo Pachega: But I think, you know, more significant here is that the military also announced that humanitarian corridors are going to be created to allow the safe movement of UN convoys to deliver food and medicine.
--:-- Hugo Pachega: And this has been, you know, a concern, a point that has been raised by a number of aid organizations and UN officials that it was simply too dangerous for these groups to pick up the food, waiting at the border and distribute this aid across Gaza.
--:-- Hugo Pachega: So it seems that this is, you know, the Israeli response to these concerns. And another measure is that the Israeli military said it was prepared to implement humanitarian pauses in densely populated areas of Gaza.
--:-- Hugo Pachega: So, again, this appears to be Israel's response to growing pressure from the UN, aid agencies, and even some of the country's closest allies who have been blaming Israel for this crisis, something that Israel has denied.
--:-- Hugo Pachega: Yeah, humanitarian corridors and humanitarian pauses. It's clear to see how that in theory could help allow more aid in. But in its statement, Israel says its combat operations have not ceased.
--:-- Hugo Pachega: So will the UN and others be able to move that aid, get it to where it's needed? Well, I think this is the key question here, how these measures are going to work on the ground.
--:-- Hugo Pachega: Will there be a significant increase in the number of aid getting to those who are in desperate need across Gaza? Don't forget that this is coming after days and days of warnings from aid organisations of mass starvation in Gaza because of these restrictions on the entry and delivery of aid that have been imposed by Israel.
--:-- Hugo Pachega: You know, there have been more reports of more Palestinians starving to death. So I think the Israeli authorities are now, you know, trying to show that they are taking significant, meaningful measures to try to contain this crisis that is only getting worse.
--:-- Hugo Pachega: But at the same time, the IDF says there is no starvation in the Gaza Strip. Will this change in approach, will that basically help Israel get on the front foot diplomatically?
--:-- Hugo Pachega: Well, I think this is clearly a response to international pressure. I think a lot of people will probably say, well, it's not enough. Aid agencies, the UN have been calling for the unrestricted entry and distribution of aid.
--:-- Hugo Pachega: And don't forget that a number of Israeli officials have been saying that the restrictions on aid are part of a strategy to put pressure on Hamas to engage in negotiations for a ceasefire and hostage release deal.
--:-- Hugo Pachega: And they've been saying that in public. So a lot of people say that, well, look, it's not by accident that we're seeing these images in Gaza. It is possibly by design or at least some people have been defending this policy.
--:-- Hugo Pachega: The Israeli authorities have been rejecting all these accusations. It was part of the statement that was released by the Israeli military. It said that these measures were aimed at dismissing, rejecting the allegations that starvation in Gaza was orchestrated, if you like.
--:-- Hugo Pachega: But again, we heard from the head of the World Health Organization and many others saying that this is a man-made crisis, that there is a lot of aid waiting to be allowed into Gaza and a lot of people waiting to be allowed to enter Gaza to help those Palestinians who are again in desperate need.
--:-- Jonathan Head: Cambodia and Thailand have accused each other of extending the conflict at their border with fighting spreading into new areas.
--:-- Jonathan Head: Long-running tensions over the neighbor's disputed frontier, which have been simmering for several months, escalated suddenly on Thursday.
--:-- Jonathan Head: More than 30 people have been killed in the recent clashes. President Trump has intervened, telling reporters that he's been speaking with both countries' leaders, pushing them for a ceasefire and saying he won't make a trade deal with either nation whilst fighting continues.
--:-- Jonathan Head: Our Southeast Asia correspondent Jonathan Head sent this report from the Thai border. Thailand views its military operation against Cambodia as unfinished.
--:-- Jonathan Head: Once again, its artillery, visible from the main road, fired thundering salvos of shells at Cambodian positions along the disputed border.
--:-- Jonathan Head: Thai fighter jets were also used to bomb them from the air. We saw several large convoys of tanks, armoured vehicles and trucks full of soldiers moving along a front line that stretches for hundreds of miles.
--:-- Jonathan Head: At the UN, Cambodia requested a ceasefire, but Thailand is not yet ready. Its objective is to drive Cambodian forces well back from the border to reduce the threat of rocket attacks like those that caused so many civilian casualties on Thursday.
--:-- Jonathan Head: Neither government wants a full-scale war, yet the conditions are not yet conducive for diplomacy to succeed.
--:-- Barisar Netarajan: India has a huge system of higher education, including more than a thousand universities. But it's highly competitive and many students struggle to deal with the pressures.
--:-- Barisar Netarajan: Official figures show more than 13,000 students took their own lives in 2022.
--:-- Barisar Netarajan: Now, the Indian Supreme Court has issued new guidelines to try to tackle the problem.
--:-- Barisar Netarajan: If you go to any average Indian family, middle class, the parents' aspirations would be to make their son or daughter a doctor, a medical doctor or an engineer.
--:-- Barisar Netarajan: So that has been like imbibed or even to some other professional qualifications like engineering in IT or in some of the elite institutions.
--:-- Barisar Netarajan: So it is a badge of honour for the family if they get qualified for any of these professional courses highly sought after courses in reputable universities across India.
--:-- Barisar Netarajan: And what they do, you have to go through an entrance exam before you get qualified for these, apart from your academic record, apart from what you get in A-level.
--:-- Barisar Netarajan: So there are various entrance exams. And first, you need to get the required marks. And then you go through these entrance tests for these professional courses.
--:-- Barisar Netarajan: There is intense competition. For example, just for the medical examination alone, probably about 2.2 million students appeared for the exam and nearly half of them qualified.
--:-- Barisar Netarajan: But then there are a number of seats are just about over 100,000 seats. So you can as well imagine, you know, for every seat, there are 12 to 15 people competing for that medical seat.
--:-- Barisar Netarajan: So that is putting a lot of pressure on the students. You see them going through various coaching classes. You see them going, getting up early in the morning to go to the private tuitions.
--:-- Barisar Netarajan: And that puts enormous amount of pressure on these young students when they don't get through or when they feel that, oh my God, this is too much.
--:-- Barisar Netarajan: That is when the problem comes. So it is also about how an aspiring middle class where education is everything.
--:-- Barisar Netarajan: So, Anbarasan, how has the Supreme Court set about trying to tackle this issue?
--:-- Barisar Netarajan: Now, the Supreme Court has given a guideline, a directive, which is called 15 points.
--:-- Barisar Netarajan: And one of the important thing is if any educational institution has more than 100 students, then they should have a mental health counsellor.
--:-- Barisar Netarajan: And second thing is access to various hospitals and urging the universities to set a small group of students where they can talk about these problems, to highlight this problem.
--:-- Barisar Netarajan: Because it's a huge issue, mental health, a silent epidemic, which no one wants to talk about among young people.
--:-- Barisar Netarajan: If you're young, if you're very dashing, if you're going to tell about, oh, I'm depressed, then you'll be looked down upon your peers.
--:-- Barisar Netarajan: So the Supreme Court is now talking about it. is the responsibility of the various universities and education institutions to appoint these health counsellors and also talking to their families and give them connections with helplines and various hospitals and referrals and most importantly telling the parents and students success is not determined only by what you get in exams.
--:-- Barisar Netarajan: One health expert was very nicely putting it basically saying the children are not taught how to handle failure, disappointment or uncertainty.
--:-- Barisar Netarajan: We prepare them for exams, not for the challenges in life.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: Mobile phone theft has long been a problem in many of the world's major cities. But new data suggests there's been a massive surge in phone snatching over the past three years and that the UK is the worst place for it in Europe.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: An American insurance firm analysed 12 European markets and found that two out of every five phone thefts in Europe happened in the UK, and almost half of those were in London.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: This data was based on people making insurance claims after their phone had been stolen. And perhaps the most shocking statistic was a 425% surge in claims in the UK since 2021, with London a massive hotspot.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: Separate data from London's Met Police estimate it's a $70 million industry in London alone.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: And anyone living in London or visiting London will probably not be surprised by this. The general pattern for anyone that isn't aware is people on electric bikes swerve onto pavements and they snatch phones out of people's hands.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: After that, the best case scenario is they're sold on. The worst case, if it's unlocked, when it's taken, the thieves can access things like banking apps, email and personal documents.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: It actually happened to me and my phone ended up in Tunisia. A man was messaging me in my Facebook Messenger account, where he was also logged in.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: And he was actually asking for money in return for my passwords. So anyone you speak to in London will have some kind of story like this.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: There is a sense it isn't really safe to take your phone out in any busy place. And there are a lot of snatchings every day.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: Yeah, it's interesting because only recently one of our friends from New York, we warned them, be careful with your phone.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: They said, Oh, I'm from New York. I'm streetwise. Don't worry. It happened to them minutes later.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: Everyone seems to have a story about this. So what's driving the issue? Yeah, you can be aware and then they come out of nowhere.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: But in short, it's been driven by demand. So the phones seem to be immediately shipped abroad, sold on the black market with China, Algeria, Dubai, highlighted as the end destination for many of them.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: And this sort of crime seems to sit within extended criminal networks. One trend is that gangs recruit young people to do the snatching because they would face shorter sentences if caught.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: But actually, the conviction rates for phone snatching in London, at least, are estimated at less than 1%.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: So it's high profit, relatively low risk. And right now, nobody in power seems to know what to do about it.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: So my last question to you is what can be done about it? Well the only way to avoid the risk entirely is to just not take your phone out whatsoever.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: So go into a shop, buy somewhere safe to use it but on a more official level police forces in the UK are calling on tech firms like Apple and Google to install a kill switch.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: We spoke to Rachel Percival earlier, she's a cyber security expert and told us how a kill switch would work.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: It's effectively built into the phone and it's just so that it can be remotely switched off from a phone provider.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: So in the instance where a phone is stolen, you would contact the phone provider and they would deactivate it so that nothing can be done with that phone.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: It's effectively dead. And she also said it's worth everyone being really across their security settings.
--:-- Chris Stockel-Walker: Two women's international football tournaments have been reaching their climax this weekend, the Africa Cup of Nations and the Euros.
--:-- Chris Stockel-Walker: Many fans have been hoping they won't have to go through the emotional rollercoaster of the dreaded penalty shootout.
--:-- Chris Stockel-Walker: But could artificial intelligence give teams a helping hand? New research suggests that AI is more accurate than goalkeepers at predicting which way a penalty taker will shoot.
--:-- Chris Stockel-Walker: Technology journalist Chris Stockel-Walker has been telling Isabella Jewell more about the findings.
--:-- Chris Stockel-Walker: This is a really fascinating study by researchers at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in Spain, which basically looked at a little over 1,000 clips of penalty kicks in football matches.
--:-- Chris Stockel-Walker: Now, around about a third of those were not actually useful for this study, but two thirds were.
--:-- Chris Stockel-Walker: So around about 640 clips were analysed using AI to try and decide whether you could discern which way a football shot would go before the penalty kick was actually taken.
--:-- Chris Stockel-Walker: Whether it would go to the left of the goalkeeper, to the right of the goalkeeper or down the centre.
--:-- Chris Stockel-Walker: And it turns out that actually in that split second of the run-up to the penalty kick, you can infer an awful lot of information about where that shot will go.
--:-- Chris Stockel-Walker: So the AI system was able to guess around about 52% of the time correctly, whether it would go left, right or centre.
--:-- Chris Stockel-Walker: Now, many footballers choose not really to try and kick it directly at the goalkeeper. It takes an awful lot of courage to do that.
--:-- Chris Stockel-Walker: So once you discount that middle route and just pick left or right, as many goalkeepers do, it was correct 64% of the time, which is importantly around about 10 percentage points higher than the actual human goalkeepers were able to decide which way the goal was going.
--:-- Chris Stockel-Walker: How useful can this actually be, this research? Because presumably goalkeepers won't actually be able to use AI on the pitch during a match.
--:-- Chris Stockel-Walker: No unfortunately not unless we allow I suppose rapid automation of the analysis of this stuff And then some sort of earpiece for goalkeepers to be told quick go left or right in the kind of split second before the run starts and the shot is taken i think what this will probably be used for more is in training of goalkeepers of showing them the nuanced movements that a striker or a penalty taker might take before they actually kick the ball and then trying to actually understand how a goalkeeper can put that into practice in a real match situation.
--:-- Chris Stockel-Walker: And do you think that there's potential for further similar research using AI in football and other sports?
--:-- Chris Stockel-Walker: Yeah, we're both seeing this in terms of the minute movements that sports people make before they actually take an action.
--:-- Chris Stockel-Walker: And you can imagine that perhaps this could be the same for tennis, where you have someone either playing down the left of the court or the right of the court or straight down the middle.
--:-- Chris Stockel-Walker: But actually, this speaks to a kind of increasing incursion of AI into sports more generally.
--:-- Chris Stockel-Walker: Football teams around the world are trying to use AI to pass through the vast volumes of data that they gather in every single match.
--:-- Chris Stockel-Walker: And I think we will start to see even more personalised and professionalised teams setting out their formations and playing out these matches in ways that perhaps we hadn't seen before that was more innate in an earlier era of sports.
--:-- Martin McLaughlin: President Donald Trump kept a relatively low profile on his Scottish golf course on Saturday, ahead of meetings with British and European leaders.
--:-- Martin McLaughlin: The US president arrived on Friday on a visit that has triggered protests, with hundreds lining the streets of Edinburgh, waving placards saying, not my president.
--:-- Martin McLaughlin: Scotland's First Minister, John Swinney, is due to meet Mr Trump early next week.
--:-- Martin McLaughlin: He says he will raise the issue of people suffering in Gaza directly with him.
--:-- Martin McLaughlin: Martin McLaughlin from the Scotsman newspaper has reported on Donald Trump's complex relationship with Scotland for many years.
--:-- Martin McLaughlin: The White House has characterised Mr Trump's visit as a working trip.
--:-- Martin McLaughlin: And although he's due to meet the British Prime Minister and Scotland's First Minister and indeed the President of the European Commission.
--:-- Martin McLaughlin: The purpose of this trip is really quite blunt and brazen.
--:-- Martin McLaughlin: It's an opportunity for Mr Trump to use the extraordinary profile of his public office to promote his private businesses.
--:-- Martin McLaughlin: His golf courses in Scotland have run up significant losses over the years, yet so too they've received hundreds of thousands of pounds from the US government to accommodate Mr Trump, his children and the Secret Service teams tasked with protecting them.
--:-- Martin McLaughlin: That's the kind of arrangement that continues to play fast and loose with ethical norms and it's only going to intensify and Mr Trump is due to open a second course at his inaugural resort in Aberdeenshire and you know the vast majority of his time here is going to be spent promoting those businesses.
--:-- Martin McLaughlin: And we know that he's got he is supposed to be here in a private capacity but he's going to be holding all sorts of meetings including with the Scottish First Minister John Swinney.
--:-- Martin McLaughlin: And I mentioned those protests that are happening in Edinburgh today.
--:-- Martin McLaughlin: There's a lot of concern in Scotland and within the SNP, the ruling party in Scotland, about what's happening in Gaza and the American stance on that.
--:-- Martin McLaughlin: Is that likely to be on the agenda at that meeting, do you think? Mr Swinney has certainly said in advance of his meeting with Trump that he intends to raise these issues with him.
--:-- Martin McLaughlin: The extent to which Mr Trump will take Mr Swinney's view seriously, I'm not sure.
--:-- Martin McLaughlin: I don't think he has the greatest of respect for Scottish political leaders.
--:-- Martin McLaughlin: That has been shown over the years where he has just as quickly fallen out with them as he has befriended them, depending on whether they can be advantageous to Mr Trump's companies.
--:-- Martin McLaughlin: You know that he's railed against Scotland's renewable energy industry simply because there is an offshore wind development by his course in Aberdeenshire.
--:-- Martin McLaughlin: So I think Mr Swinney will certainly be swinging the bat for Scotland and no doubt trying to look at tariffs and discussing how that can be advantageous for Scotland.
--:-- Martin McLaughlin: But the extent to which Mr Trump will treat his remarks with any kind of respect, I very much doubt.
--:-- Martin McLaughlin: Well, I mean, you raised the issue of tariffs there and that is a concern for the Scottish economy, isn't it?
--:-- Martin McLaughlin: Because obviously, whisky is a huge export product for Scotland. also salmon, I guess tourism too, obviously, not least in the golf kind of tourism way.
--:-- Martin McLaughlin: And the USA is a huge market for Scotland in that regard.
--:-- Martin McLaughlin: It absolutely is.
--:-- Martin McLaughlin: And, you know, the fact that Mr Trump's golf courses are so high profile is undoubtedly part of that tourism offering for Scotland.
--:-- Martin McLaughlin: You know, Scotland's prestigious golf courses are hugely reliant on US visitors for revenue, not just Mr Trump's courses, but famous courses such as St Andrew's.
--:-- Martin McLaughlin: So these are all issues that I'm sure will be on Mr Swinney's agenda when he's meeting with Mr Trump.
--:-- Martin McLaughlin: Interestingly, the Scottish government announced that they were going to be providing nearly £200,000 of public money for a golf tournament due to take place at Mr Trump's course.
--:-- Martin McLaughlin: So that in itself indicates that they're trying to appease Mr Trump.
--:-- Martin McLaughlin: But past history shows that he can just as quickly be your enemy as your friend.
--:-- Martin McLaughlin: So there's a lot of disquiet in Scottish political circles about this development this morning and questions as to whether the SNP should be getting into bed with Mr Trump.
--:-- Helena Burke: When a German backpacker, Carolina Vilger, went missing in the Australian outback earlier this month, many feared the worst.
--:-- Helena Burke: But miraculously, after 12 days lost in the wild, the 26-year-old was found alive and well.
--:-- Helena Burke: Helena Burke reports.
--:-- Helena Burke: When Carolina Vilge disappeared into the outback, more than 300 kilometres from Perth, the country held its breath for bad news.
--:-- Helena Burke: The expansive wilderness of Western Australia has claimed many lives over the years, with its intense sun, harsh conditions and dangerous animals.
--:-- Helena Burke: The state is larger than the entire country of Mexico, and 85% of it is uninhabited.
--:-- Helena Burke: Carolina was on a solo road trip across the state when her van was found abandoned in the remote bushland of the Corun Hill Nature Reserve.
--:-- Helena Burke: A large rescue operation was launched to try to find her, but several days of searching proved fruitless.
--:-- Helena Burke: That was until a local farmer driving down a bush track stumbled on an unexpected sight.
--:-- Helena Burke: When you see a person standing on the road waving and you realise straight away and she's very thin and fragile, I just, I stopped and got out of the car and gave her a hug.
--:-- Helena Burke: I just couldn't think of anything else to do. She was crying. She was very upset. She was really in disbelief that someone had actually come along.
--:-- Helena Burke: That's Tanya Henley speaking to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
--:-- Helena Burke: She said the road up to her farm was so remote that it was a miracle she bumped into the German One way goes to my property which is well the house is 40 kilometres from there If you gone south back to Beacon before she would have got to any house, there's probably 60 kilometres.
--:-- Helena Burke: So yeah, everything lined up that day for her to be found.
--:-- Helena Burke: But lovely person, like I gave her a drink and then she, oh, it's quite incredible, really.
--:-- Helena Burke: She just had maybe a third of a cup or something. Then she said, oh, Do you want some? And I thought, gosh, if someone's been out in the bush for that long and you really haven't had a lot to drink, but yeah, just an amazing girl.
--:-- Helena Burke: After her rescue, the 26-year-old shared the details of how she survived for 12 days in the outback.
--:-- Helena Burke: Carolina said she'd lost control of her van and it got stuck on some rocky terrain.
--:-- Helena Burke: Dazed and confused after hitting her head in the crash, the backpacker eventually walked away from the vehicle into the wilderness with no shoes on.
--:-- Helena Burke: She ate the small amounts of food she had carried with her and drank rainwater, even from puddles.
--:-- Helena Burke: During the 11 freezing cold nights she spent outside, Carolina sought shelter, including in a cave.
--:-- Helena Burke: In a statement posted online, the backpacker described Tanya as her guardian angel.
--:-- Helena Burke: There was something, obviously, because the timing was incredible, but angel? Well, yes, I'm not sure about that.
--:-- Helena Burke: But, oh no, just desperation and true grit, I think, just got her through in the end.
--:-- Helena Burke: Carolina was ravaged by insect bites and suffered a minor injury to her foot during the ordeal, but is now doing well.
--:-- Helena Burke: The backpacker says she now wants to continue her trip around Australia.
--:-- Rami Ruhayem: The trailblazing Lebanese composer and playwright Ziad Rahbani has died in Beirut at the age of 69.
--:-- Rami Ruhayem: He came from musical royalty. His mother was the legendary Arab singer Fayrouz, and his father Asi was also a composer and playwright.
--:-- Rami Ruhayem: Ziyad Rahbani popularised and modernised Arabic music by blending classical Western pieces with Middle Eastern melodies and rhythms.
--:-- Rami Ruhayem: He was also fiercely political, and his plays offered biting criticism of Lebanon's fractious and divided society.
--:-- Rami Ruhayem: The BBC's Rami Ruhayem told me more about his work.
--:-- Rami Ruhayem: He was very successful. He had a different style. He waded into political art, plays with political themes and songs with political themes.
--:-- Rami Ruhayem: He wrote during the civil war, he was very critical of Lebanese society and the Lebanese political system and sectarianism in Lebanon.
--:-- Rami Ruhayem: He was opposed to the view which came across in many of the plays of his mother, Fayrouz, and his father, that Lebanon is this just beautiful place where everybody loves each other.
--:-- Rami Ruhayem: One of his plays after the civil war, it basically starts off with a declaration that all the events in this play take place after all foreign armies have withdrawn from Lebanon.
--:-- Rami Ruhayem: And he makes it a point to say that before he paints this intensely dystopian smear about the gradual disintegration of Lebanese society.
--:-- Rami Ruhayem: So the point he's trying to make is that even in a world where there's no foreign intervention, nobody on the outside, you know, messing with Lebanese political life.
--:-- Rami Ruhayem: There's enough corruption within Lebanese society to lead to this dystopian nightmare in which people break down not only into warring tribes and chaos, but at the end of the play, they actually grow horns, both, you know, tragic and like funny, but in a very, very dark way.
--:-- Rami Ruhayem: And Ziad was also known for being the pioneer of what we now call oriental jazz.
--:-- Rami Ruhayem: Yes, indeed. He has composed music, which, first of all, was a departure from what we had heard before.
--:-- Rami Ruhayem: Fayrouz sang songs without lyrics. That was like unheard of. Before, there's this song he wrote for her, and it's just her voice going, like humming to the tune.
--:-- Rami Ruhayem: And it's in an album, which also has many of these songs which were later described possibly as fitting that category of Oriental jazz.
--:-- Rami Ruhayem: So yes, he innovated. He did new things with his music and also with his mother, this legendary icon.
--:-- Rami Ruhayem: I've just had a look at his YouTube channel and his videos are already being absolutely thronged with so many posts of people absolutely devastated at the news and writing all kinds of beautiful tributes to him.
--:-- Rami Ruhayem: And this is really causing heartache in Lebanon today.
--:-- Rami Ruhayem: He has become part of Lebanese culture as a character, as a musician, as a playwright, as Fayrouz's son, as everything.
--:-- Rami Ruhayem: And people feel his loss. You know, they feel as if they've lost something very dear, very precious, part of them, really.
--:-- Ella Bicknell: The world is going green, matcha green. The finely ground Japanese tea is now a global sensation, popping up in lattes, doughnuts and even skincare routines from Singapore to San Francisco.
--:-- Ella Bicknell: But as the demand surges, driven by influences and post-pandemic tourism to Japan, the supply is struggling to keep up.
--:-- Ella Bicknell: Ella Bicknell reports.
--:-- Ella Bicknell: Matcha has been part of ancient Japanese and Chinese tea culture for centuries. But now, thanks to social media, the vivid green powder is a worldwide phenomenon.
--:-- Ella Bicknell: I start my day off with matcha green lattes. It looks like you'll be hitting different and it gives me energy.
--:-- Ella Bicknell: Today I'm going to show you the top five matcha brands you should try in 2025.
--:-- Ella Bicknell: Japan is where you get the best matcha in the world. This is where matcha originated from.
--:-- Ella Bicknell: Why is everyone obsessed with matcha all of a sudden? It's Gen Z in particular who are embracing its earthy flavor, caffeine kick and its long list of supposed health benefits.
--:-- Ella Bicknell: But matcha mania is taking a toll on the global supply chain.
--:-- Ella Bicknell: US-based tea importers have told the BBC that what used to be a month's supply now sells out in just days.
--:-- Ella Bicknell: That pressure comes at a tough time for growers. Tencha, the shaded green leaf used to make matcha, can take up to eight years to grow.
--:-- Ella Bicknell: And recent heat waves in Japan have hammered harvest.
--:-- Ella Bicknell: There's another problem, the country's aging population. Fewer young people in Japan are entering farming, leaving many tea fields under threat.
--:-- Ella Bicknell: American matcha-obsessed consumers can expect prices to increase even further.
--:-- Ella Bicknell: This week, Washington and Tokyo agreed 15% tariffs on Japanese goods, including tea, entering the United States.
--:-- Ella Bicknell: With premium matcha harder to find, the Global Japanese Tea Association is urging people to consume it more mindfully.
--:-- Ella Bicknell: They say high-grade matcha should be savoured in its purest form, not drowned in lattes or baked into muffins.
--:-- Ella Bicknell: It says promoting awareness of these distinctions will help ensure Japanese tea is enjoyed with respect, while supporting its craft and tradition.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: And that's all from us for now, but there will be a new edition of the Global News podcast later.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: If you want to comment on this podcast or any of the topics covered in it, you can send us an email.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: You can also find us on X at BBC World Service.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Use the hashtag Global News Pod.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: This edition was mixed by Rob Fanner and the producers were Richard Hamilton and Stephen Jensen.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: The editor is Karen Martin.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: I'm Julia McFarlane.
--:-- Julia McFarlane: Until next time, goodbye.
--:-- Asma Khalid: America is changing. And so is the world. But what's happening in America isn't just a cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.
--:-- Asma Khalid: I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, DC, and Tristan Redman is in London.
--:-- Tristan Redman: That's right, Asma. Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from the intersection where the world and America meet.
--:-- Tristan Redman: Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
