UK expected to recognise Palestinian state

Host: This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

Host: Covering the US military fueling fears about press freedom. And a BBC investigation finds evidence of a covert Russian-backed disinformation campaign to swing Moldova's election. The Kremlin denies meddling. Also in this podcast... President Putin reboots the Soviet-era Intervision Song Contest, described as a mix of performance, politics and power. Britain is expected to take the unprecedented step of recognising a Palestinian state later today, Sunday. This would be a major shift in foreign policy for the UK, which has for decades stuck to the position that any such recognition should only happen as part of a peace deal with Israel. More on that in a moment. But first, since Hamas's attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank have witnessed record growth of illegal Israeli settlements and an aggressive erosion of Palestinian territory, as well as official government and military policies that threaten the sovereignty of a Palestinian state. Our Middle East correspondent Lucy Williamson reports from the West Bank.

Lucy Williamson: States are there to protect, but so are fathers. When Abdulaziz Majami buried his teenage son Islam in Janine this month, he had one question for the Israeli soldier who shot him. Why did that soldier pick on a 13-year-old boy? I'm standing right next to him. Shoot me instead. Why are you shooting at children? I'm here. Shoot at me. Islam was shot beside his father at the entrance to Janine's emptied refugee camp, occupied by Israeli forces since January, one of a group of displaced residents who'd been trying to reach their homes there. There's no investigation. No one for me to complain to. They control everything. And the Palestinian Authority just implements the decisions of the Jews. Israel's army said it fired at suspects who posed a threat and was examining the incident. It declined to clarify what threat Islam had posed. Cities like Janine, under the control of the Palestinian Authority, were meant to be the seeds of a new Palestinian state. But it's Israel that wields real military and financial control. The entrance to the camp, near where Islam was shot, is now blocked by an earthworm. The refugee camp is a five-minute drive from the office of Janine's mayor, Mohammed Jarrah. Inside, Israel has been using methods honed in Gaza to demolish what it says is terrorist infrastructure. Part of an Israeli plan, the mayor told me, to deal with armed opposition groups before annexing the West Bank. Israel is clearly moving towards greater occupation of the West Bank. But that won't change the fact that it is already an occupying power. The recognition of the Palestinian state is very important for us. It may harm us on the ground, but on the political and strategic levels, it will have a very significant impact. Israel's prime minister has built a career on promises to block a Palestinian state. He echoed claims made by far-right ministers this month that the West Bank belongs to them. We said that there will not be a Palestinian state, and indeed there will be no Palestinian state. This place is ours. We will see to our heritage, our land, and our security. Some Israelis say the occupied West Bank is like the Wild West. A place where statehood and sovereignty is decided not by laws and declarations, but by facts on the ground, sometimes with weapons in hand. Under the last peace accord signed by Israeli and Palestinian leaders 30 years ago, Israel was meant to hand over the land it occupied in 1967 to Palestinian control. Instead, human rights groups say more than 100 new settlement outposts have appeared across the West Bank in the last two years alone. From his house in the hills south of Nablus, Ayman Soufan watched an outpost appear on the next door hill a few months ago. Every day a settler comes, bangs on the house, shouting, leave, leave. I call the authorities. They tell me I'll send the army. But the army never comes. Ayman's grandchildren stare through the window at the corrugating iron shed up the hill. Who is supposed to protect me? The Palestinian police? They can't even protect the cities. Here, my security is in the hands of the people who occupy me. The Israeli organisation Peace Now says violence by settlers and soldiers has forced 2,500 Palestinians from their homes since the Gaza war began. Recognition is a signal from Israel's allies that Palestinian rights don't change, even if Palestinian territory is taken and Palestinian control is gone. Lucy Williamson.

Host: Well, the decision by the British Prime Minister, Sakhir Starmer, to recognise a Palestinian state has been strongly criticised by the families of the Israeli hostages who have accused him of rewarding Hamas. Harry Farley reports.

Harry Farley: Under mounting pressure from his own cabinet and MPs, in July the Prime Minister announced his plan to recognise a state of Palestine unless the situation on the ground improved. The government's view is that it has not improved, but worsened significantly. In a video statement, Sekir Starmer is expected to say the international community has a moral responsibility to act, to keep the hope of a peace deal alive. But critics argue this is a symbolic gesture that will not do that. The Conservative leader, Kemi Beidnok, echoed the views of Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in claiming that recognising a Palestinian state before all the hostages are released would reward terror. Families of some of the hostages have written to Sakhir, warning the announcement has dramatically complicated efforts to bring home their loved ones Government sources insist their demands on Hamas have not changed and say they will set out their next steps on sanctioning the group in the coming weeks

Host: As fears grow over press freedom in the United States, the Pentagon has placed restrictions on journalists accredited to cover the work of the US military. The new rules include making reporters sign a pledge not to disclose unauthorised information and limit their movement. 90 journalists will be affected. If they don't comply, they risk losing their media credentials. Politicians from both sides have criticised the move, with the Republican Congressman Don Bacon saying it's so dumb he had a hard time believing it was true. I asked Sarashki Rai, a journalist at the US political website The Hill, how the press is reacting.

Sarashki Rai: This has really struck a deep chord with a lot of journalists that cover the Pentagon. There's been a lot of pushback already on social media from journalists who've been covering the Pentagon for years. And it's also drawn very, very sharp criticism from news organisations saying that this has basically violated the main tenant of what makes a free press, right? Now, essentially, journalists must sign a pledge not to gather any information, including unclassified reports that haven't been authorized for release. Now, the whole point of journalists covering the Pentagon right now, especially in Washington, D.C., has always been unnamed sources because military sources do not like going on the record. They know they have high-level security clearance. They know their jobs on the line. And essentially, a lot of journalists that cover the Pentagon and cover the Department of Defense, now rebranded the Department of War, have always relied on unnamed military sources for their reporting. But the people who run the Pentagon know how it works. I mean, you have the official briefing and then you have the briefing on the side where you can't say where you got it, but we trust the reporter, we know where it came from. That means that whole system is over, doesn't it? It really does, because, you know, we know that the Department of Defence under the Trump administration has been slowly walking back a lot of the freedoms that the media enjoyed or was allowed to have while covering the Pentagon. He has basically said that on social media, he basically said that the press does not run the Pentagon. The people do. Earlier this year, Pete Hexit, who is now the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of War, as the Trump administration has renamed it, he limited reporters' ability to freely move through without an approved escort, which is basically a change from something that has always allowed reporters to walk freely through the halls of the Pentagon in both Democratic and Republican administrations. You do sound extremely worried about this from the perspective of in a democracy, you want a free press. 100 percent. And we heard from the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. It's an organisation that has had, you know, thousands of members. And he essentially said that this goes against what the press stands for. Look, reporters are still going to get scoops. They're still going to get information out because it's part of their job. They have a deep network if they've been covering the Pentagon for years, they're still going to get those stories. We just won't have access to the officials that we've always had access to. And in a way that limits freedom of speech, but also limits the ability of journalists in DC to do their jobs. Sarashki Rai.

Host: Staying in the US and just hours before the fee for H-1B visas for highly skilled workers was due to rise dramatically, the Trump administration clarified exactly who will be affected. It will be a one-off $100,000 fee and will only apply to new requests. US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the move was essential to protect American jobs. The whole idea is no more will these big tech companies or other big companies train foreign workers. They have to pay the government $100,000, then they have to pay the employee. So it's just not economic. If you're going to train somebody, you're going to train one of the recent graduates from one of the great universities across our land, train Americans, stop bringing in people to take our jobs. Our reporter Anbarasan Etirajan told Julia McFarlane about the changes.

Anbarasan Etirajan: On Friday evening, when President Trump signed this executive order, it talked about this massive hike from about $1,500 to $100,000 for these highly skilled workers, most of them coming from India, it triggered a lot of panic and confusion because there was not enough information whether it will apply to all those people already in the US with the existing visa or those who are in the process of renewing this visa. As a result of that, some of the companies then started sending out messages to their workforce, big companies like Microsoft and Amazon, saying those who want to travel outside the US should not travel now because there is a chance that you may be denied entry unless you pay the fees and also told people already outside the US to come back immediately. So this triggered a lot of panic among people. We see on social media people saying, I'm cancelling everything and returning back to the US. Also, at the same time, people from the US not wanting to travel. Now, it says that it is applicable only to those going to apply from next year. But even then, it is a massive fee for companies. If you have to pay $100,000 a year for a worker. That means you can as well imagine how much they have to pay them so that they can also add on to this visa fee hike as well. There is a wide impact, particularly on Indian nationals working for US companies. Why is it such a big deal for India and Indians? It's American dream. If you look at the H-1B visa numbers, more than 71% last year were given to Indian nationals. And if you go back for the last 20 years, you can as well imagine hundreds of thousands of people would have gone to the US. For any technical graduate coming out of the university, his only dream in India is to go to the US and settle down, send money back home, build a house. So this is a generational change. When I was in the university in the 80s, it used to be only the high-tech graduates from the IITs or the business management schools used to go to the US. This IT industry opened the gate, whereas people from rural areas who had a computer qualification, they were able to go to the US and they were sending money back home. For example, India gets about $125 billion, the highest money received by a country as remittances from the workers abroad and nearly a third of them coming from the US. So the US-India connection improved dramatically in the last 25 to 30 years because of this growth of tech industry. And that's why this H-1B visa is a household name in some cities in Hyderabad or Chennai and Bangalore. That's why it is so important because for anyone joining any Indian university, his next stop would be in the Silicon Valley or somewhere else in the US. It's so interesting you say that the US-India relationship improved massively as a result of this important aspect of their trading relationship because this policy has come out quite soon after we've started seeing little hints that there might be tensions between the Modi-Trump relationship. Is there any chance that this sudden change in policy might be a factor in that? This has taken everyone by surprise. What happened in the last six months, you have seen tariff hike for Indian goods for about 25%. Then Trump administration officials were accusing India of aiding the war in Ukraine by buying oil from Russia. And also during the brief India conflict President Trump repeatedly said that he stopped the war whereas India hates the word third mediation Many people thought U.S. was projecting India as a counterbalance with China, and all of a sudden, despite being a strategic partner, the Indians are feeling that they were being let down. Anbarasan Etta Rajan.

Host: Here in the UK, two newspapers have published an email said to have been sent by the Duchess of York to Geoffrey Epstein. In the message, Sarah Ferguson calls the late paedophile financier a supreme friend, despite his conviction for sex offences. A spokesperson for the Duchess, the former wife of Prince Andrew, said the email was to counter a threat. Simon Jones has the details.

Simon Jones: In an interview in 2011, Sarah Ferguson said her involvement with the financier Geoffrey Epstein had been a gigantic error of judgement. She promised she would never have anything to do with him again, saying, I abhor paedophilia and any sexual abuse of children. Epstein had been jailed three years earlier for soliciting prostitution from a minor. But The Sun and Mail on Sunday say shortly after giving the interview, she emailed Epstein, saying she had not used the word paedophilia about him, writing, I know you feel hellaciously let down by me. You have always been a steadfast, generous and supreme friend to me and my family. A spokesman for the Duchess said the email was sent after Epstein had threatened to sue her for defamation in an effort to assuage him. The spokesman added that she stood by her public condemnation of him. Simon Jones.

Host: Still to come, the World Road Cycling Championships start in Rwanda to accusations of sportswashing. Human Rights Watch documented summary executions of over 140 civilians. 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. I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. I'm Tristan Redman in London. And this is The Global Story. Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from this intersection, where the world and America meet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

Host: Ahead of next Sunday's Moldovan election, a BBC investigation has exposed a covert Russian-backed campaign of disinformation aimed at preventing a pro-EU party from winning. The World Service had an undercover reporter infiltrate and secretly film the network that one of the leaders said was being funded by Moscow. Moldova, formerly part of the USSR and bordering Ukraine, is still important to Russia as a zone of influence. BBCI's Seamus Miradan reports.

Seamus Miradan: Moldova, a country of 2.4 million on the edge of Europe. Now, the ruling party are facing a coalition of pro-Russian parties who want Moldova to stay out of the EU in the general election. A Moldovan oligarch called Ilan Shaw, who can be heard here in a political broadcast on Telegram, is offering payments to people who protest against the pro-EU government. He is currently in Russia, having fled house arrest just before he was convicted of playing a key role in Moldova's biggest ever bank fraud. Moldova's most senior police officer, Virel Cernatcianu, says this illegal election interference is set to get worse. This year I think we're going to see even more money to corrupt voters if we talk about the entire spectrum of this criminal organisation. We are talking about hundreds of millions. Throughout the campaign, BBCI reporter Anna was undercover inside a fake news network. She managed to gain access to a private Telegram channel called Electoral Hackathon, where she linked up with someone related to Ilan Shor's banned campaign group. There, Anna attended a meeting led by a speaker with a Russian voice. I'm glad to welcome you all. My name is Luca, and I'm one of those who will help us in this big campaign. Its goal is to increase the Moldova Mare party's visibility. Moldova Mare is a pro-Russian political party. As the faces of the party, you will be the ones to meet strangers in the street. This is a campaign where ordinary people are for normal values, like for a traditional family and against LGBT. Igor Hlopetsi is from the Moldova Mare party and rejects the links to shore. The narratives about an alleged link with the land shore are fabricated. Those in power are afraid of losing their positions and privileges. And for this reason, our political opponents promote such narratives. Anna was asked by one of the handlers to create burner social media profiles and to post daily. Many of the suggested requests talk down the current government or contain outright lies. For this, she was offered $170 a month. Regarding bonuses, we send them through the PSB debit card, or we can make you a PSB card or send the bonuses to you via crypto if you have it. It's an ordinary advert for a bank, but PSB is Russian state-owned, under sanctions, and linked to fugitive oligarch Ilan Shor. Moldovan President Maya Sandu spoke to the eye. The foreign financing is illegal when it comes to political parties and when it comes to campaigns, election campaigns. But what we have seen recently is unprecedented. Many people see me as the person who works hard for Moldova to become part of the EU, and when they attack me, they attack the EU. There is no doubt the posts are being seen. The BBC identified 90 TikTok accounts that appeared to be part of the same digital network as the one Anna was undercover in. There were 23 million views and over 860,000 likes in a country of less than 3 million. Shaw has not commented on the BBC's findings, and the Russian authorities deny meddling in this campaign. The election is next Sunday, and whoever wins, the results will be heavily disputed. Seamus Mirodan.

Host: Well, because of its invasion of Ukraine, Russia was banned from the Eurovision Song Contest by the European Broadcasting Union. Moscow's response was to take matters into its own hands and to reboot Intervision, a song contest conceived in the Soviet era. More than 20 countries, from Madagascar to Venezuela, signed up to take part in this year's competition. And on Saturday night, the winner was Vietnam. The relaunch of Intervision was the brainchild of one Vladimir Putin. In a televised address, President Putin said Intervision would become the most beloved such competition in the world. More now from our Russia editor Steve Rosenberg, who watched all four hours of it.

Steve Rosenberg: Exactly what, then, did he think of the competition? It was fascinating sitting here. I tell you that one of the similarities between Intervision and Eurovision, they both go on and on and on. One of the interesting things was how similar the two things are, the two contests are. Intervision, in many ways, is a Eurovision clone, from the staging the set the video postcards between the songs the whole structure of the thing and of course there voting at the end But in other ways it very different So the thing kind of began with a video message from Vladimir Putin quite a long video message. And that was followed by an interview in the hall with Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister. So that sets it up immediately as quite a political event. And it is a political project, Intervision, of the Kremlin. It was Vladimir Putin who signed an executive order to revive what had been a Soviet-era song contest. Then a couple of other things that I didn't expect at all. The singer, who was supposed to be singing for the United States, actually an Australian singer, Vassie, pulled out at the very last moment, just a few days after the original US entrant had also pulled out. So there was no US song, although the US jury member remained and took part. And then the Russian singer, a chap called Shaman, who was one of the favourites to win tonight, he sang his song, he belted it out, cheers in the hall, Then he took the microphone and said, I call on the members not to judge my song because Russian hospitality does not permit me from winning this competition. And so he took himself out of the contest. Why? He said, it wouldn't be right if I won the contest because Russian hospitality doesn't allow that. So it was very, very kind of unexpected and a bit odd. But then this is intervision. And Vietnam was the winner. Was it a deserving winner? If we push the politics aside for one moment, the Vietnamese song was very good, actually. The staging was good, the singer was good. So, objectively, I think, yes. This is an opportunity to show that Russia is not isolated. At the end of Intervision, you had all the singers on the stage together, singing a song, almost as if the message is to the West. Look, Russia has lots of friends, from China to India to Qatar to Saudi Arabia. And finally, I think, Intervision was a tool or an instrument to try to challenge Western domination. You hear a lot about a need for a new world order. And in a sense, Intervision was an attempt to kind of challenge Western-dominated culture. The interesting thing is, it looked just like Eurovision. So I'm not sure how successful that will be. But next year, they've already announced where it's going to take place next year, apparently in Saudi Arabia, so not in Vietnam. It'll be interesting to see if Intervision 2026 takes place. Steve, we talked about this when it was first announced, and it seemed at the time a bit of a joke. It's not, though, is it? It's actually become quite huge. Clearly, the Russians have put a lot of effort into making this a success. The show's over now, so we're back to the reality when Russians turn on their television sets, they're going to see the war again, and there's no end in sight of that. And the thing is that more and more Russians are being affected, the so-called special military operation in Ukraine. It's becoming more real for more and more Russians. And a song contest in Moscow is welcome relief for some people here, but doesn't move the world closer to peace. Steve Rosenberg.

Host: Russia has been blamed by a number of sources after several European airports saw cancellations and severe delays following a cyber attack which paralysed electronic check-in and boarding systems on Saturday. The US company that develops the software said they were hacked late on Friday night and were working to resolve the issue, but did not comment on reports the hackers were demanding money to unlock the systems. From London Heathrow, here's Ben King.

Ben King: Problems with an electronic check-in and bag drop system meant some airlines had to check people in by hand. One passenger was hoping to catch a flight to South Africa via Amsterdam. No information given. Then people only just got emails that they've been rebooked on some sort of random flights. We haven't been given any food vouchers. People who are here returning, for example, to the US, they have not been offered any hotel accommodation or anything. So it's been a great chaos and it's been quite, I would say, frustrating. For decades, Collins Aerospace... The affected systems are made by a company called Collins Aerospace. It said cyber-related disruption was affecting a software system called Muse. which lets multiple airlines share the same check-in systems. At Brussels Airport, airlines have been asked to cancel half their flights until Monday morning. It called the incident a cyber attack. Dublin and Berlin were also affected. Authorities are looking into how such an important system was taken offline a year after problems with a different IT system disrupted flights across Europe. Ben King.

Host: Ahead of today's launch of the first World Road Cycling Championships ever held in Africa, human rights activists have accused the hosts, Rwanda, of sports washing, as Richard Hamilton reports.

Richard Hamilton: Hundreds of the world's elite cyclists have been training on the streets of the capital Kigali. The sport's governing body, the UCI, is hailing the event as an historic moment. Rwanda has gone to great lengths to prepare for this prestigious race with new infrastructure and road improvements. Many people see the potential benefits as well as the chance to see the athletes up close. One of those who will be watching Sunday's race is Annie Niayama, who's a student. I'm so excited for this tournament. The famous players are going to come and it will be my first time seeing them. I will be so excited seeing those people, which is very nice. It's a good experience to see them here. But the event comes amid increasing scrutiny of Rwanda's human rights record and its alleged role in the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Activists say the UCI should not have allowed Rwanda to host the event, saying it gives the government an undeserved legitimacy. Clémentine de Monjoie is a researcher for Human Rights Watch. Organising big sporting events as part of a development strategy to promote tourism, to promote investment, there's nothing wrong with that in and of itself. The issue is what kind of association this sporting event will have by being held in Rwanda specifically. Human Rights Watch documented throughout the month of July how M23 fighters with the support of Rwandan forces carried out summary executions of over 140 civilians. So there's a real gap between the rhetoric on the international stage and then what's actually happening on the ground. As for the cyclists themselves, they are diplomatically steering away from politics, focusing only on the road ahead as it weaves its way through the rolling hills of Kigali. Richard Hamilton.

Host: And that's all from us for now, but there'll be a new edition of the Global News Podcast later. If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email. The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X at BBC World Service. Use the hashtag Global News Pod. This edition was mixed by Ricardo McCarthy and the producers were Alison Davis and Anna Aslam. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Alex Ritz and until next time, goodbye.

Host: 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. I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. I'm Tristan Redman in London, and this is The Global Story. Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from this intersection, where the world and America meet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.