Israel to hold direct talks with Lebanon

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0:30Banner to learn more. Exclusions and terms apply. Visit dix.com slash scorecard plus for details. Why don't you just meet me in the middle? ¿Te has fijado que lo mejor de todo está justo en el medio? Ven a descubrirlo por ti mismo en Illinois, donde puedes pasear por la Magnificent Mile de Chicago, saborear delicias irresistibles en barrios llenos de vida y hasta remar en kayak entre un reluciente cañón de rascacielos. Todo está aquí mismo, en el medio de todo. Empieza a planear en enjoyillinois.com. This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Paul Moss and in the early hours of Friday the 10th of April, these are our main stories.

1:19President Trump has said Iran better not be charging fees for ships to pass the Strait of Hormuz as a shaky ceasefire continues. With Israel and Hezbollah continuing to exchange fire, what's prompted Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to peace talks? Did Donald Trump push him to the negotiating table? And why Cuba's missionary doctors abroad are being sent home? Also in this podcast... The lies linking me with the disgraceful Jeffrey Epstein need to end today. Why has Melania Trump suddenly denied having a relationship with Jeffrey Epstein?

2:04We begin with the ceasefire between the US, Israel and Iran and the attacks which threaten to destabilise it. Fresh Israeli strikes have been reported across Lebanon, despite international pleas for the country to be included in this week's ceasefire. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has agreed to talks between the two countries. The plan is for these to take place in Washington next week. But what are the chances of success given the ongoing bloodshed? Wednesday's attack saw Israel kill more than 300 people. The Israeli government insisted it was targeting Hezbollah, the Shia-led militant group, which has itself fired rockets across the border.

2:44But as always, many civilians also died. Mohammed lives near a building which he says was turned to rubble. This is crazy. There's children's toys, there's Winnie the Pooh, there's a piglet, you know, and so it's terrible. It's terrible because these are war crimes. These are civilians. They're probably cooking, cleaning, and it's so sad to see what's happened. In the immediate aftermath of this attack, Benjamin Netanyahu certainly didn't sound in the mood for talks. He described the airstrike on Lebanon as the greatest yet. And there were further exchanges of fire between Israel and Hezbollah on Thursday.

3:21And yet amidst the fighting, we then had this statement from the Israeli Prime Minister. In light of Lebanon's repeated requests to open direct negotiations with Israel, I instructed the cabinet yesterday to start direct negotiations with Lebanon as soon as possible. The negotiations will focus on disarming Hezbollah and establishing peaceful relations between Israel and Lebanon. So what happened in the meantime? Well, nobody can be sure, but it would certainly be an educated guess to suggest that the White House put pressure on Mr Netanyahu to come to the negotiating table. Donald Trump and his administration have been touting their success in reaching that ceasefire with Iran, and the ceasefire was clearly threatened by the attack on Lebanon.

4:06And yet any peace deal between Israel and Lebanon is going to require the Lebanese government to rein in Hezbollah, something Israel has always demanded, but which our Middle East analyst Sebastian Usher told me has never been achieved. The Lebanese government has been unable in any form over the years to take on Hezbollah, because in doing that, in trying to disarm Hezbollah, it would lead to the collapse of what exists of a Lebanese state, potentially a full-out civil war again. That's why it hasn't happened. Netanyahu knows that. Israel knows that. Anybody who has any understanding of a situation knows that.

4:44But it's in Netanyahu's interest and the Israeli government's interest to kind of pretend that isn't so, that it's the Lebanese government who for some reason is holding out on trying to disarm Hezbollah. And it could have done. It just isn't the case. So if he's still putting the onus essentially on the Lebanese government to do that, that won't go anywhere. And the announcements that Mr Netanyahu made that his defensemen, Israel Katz, have made over the past week or two about their plans for Lebanon are extreme, essentially occupying the south of Lebanon again, as they did between 1985 and 2000.

5:21The attacks they carried out on Wednesday were in places that hadn't seen any kind of threat like that in the past month or so of this conflict, or even really back in 2024 when Israel launched its major campaign against Hezbollah then. So, you know, I'm not sure that this is really going to go that far, but it's a holding position, I guess, that Washington wants because it doesn't want the talks that are due to take place in Islamabad with Iran to be overturned before they started. And Iran has reacted very, very negatively to this. You know, the Strait of Hormuz essentially saying that that's now going to remain closed.

6:03We've seen Hezbollah fire some missiles again into Israel. The whole thing could collapse on this one issue. The arguments continue about whether Lebanon was included in the ceasefire agreement that was reached between Iran and the United States and Israel. Some people will be scratching their heads at this and thinking, well, surely a major ceasefire agreement like this would be put into writing so that we could see very clearly whether Hezbollah and Lebanon were indeed included. I mean, I think there's two things. One, I don't think there's really is as such a ceasefire agreement at the moment.

6:40I mean, there is a ceasefire of some kind that's in place waiting for negotiations to begin on the two positions of the US and Iran, which, as far as we know and can see at the moment, are still very far away from each other. As far as was Lebanon involved in this or not, I mean, from everything that Israel had been saying, that Mr Netanyahu had been saying, There was no sense that Lebanon was going to be included in this. It now may become the case because the risks to that ceasefire being sustained and building into an actual resolution to this crisis that President Trump is facing, you know, as a political crisis that the Iranian leadership is facing as an existential crisis, you know, that has to be resolved.

7:26And if Israel's ambitions to try and obliterate Hezbollah, which they've tried before and they've failed before, whether that interferes with that, then that will be taken into account. And, you know, Washington will try to ensure that it doesn't interfere. I don't think that will prevent Israel and Mr. Netanyahu continuing with their offensive against Hezbollah at some point with some great intensity later. but they may suspend it for now in order to give these talks a chance. Sebastian Asher. Well, so much for the peace between Israel and Hezbollah. What of the attempt to end the wider hostilities between Iran, the US and Israel?

8:09Passage through the Strait of Hormuz has, as we heard there, become one of the main bones of contention between them. Indeed, new bones of contention have arisen since the conflict broke out, with Iran suggesting it could charge ships to pass through this crucial waterway. Donald Trump warned that they'd better not. But as the wrangling goes on, the strait remains closed to almost all shipping. Here's our diplomatic correspondent, Caroline Hawley. Before Israel and the US launched their war on Iran, 130 to 140 ships would pass through the Strait of Hormuz every day. Now it's become for Tehran both a weapon and a source of leverage.

8:47Iran's powerful IRGC has published a map with a big circle just north of Oman, labelled Area of Danger, where mines are said to have been laid. Ships are being instructed instead to sail much closer to Iran's shores. The country's Deputy Foreign Minister, Saeed Khatibzadeh, says tankers and ships need to coordinate with its military. This Strait of Hormuz is purely in Iran's territorial water, Oman and Iran. It is not international water. Definitely we are going to provide security for safe passage and it is going to happen after the United States actually withdraw this aggression. Since the war began, only vessels from countries deemed friendly to Iran have been allowed to transit the crucial waterway after negotiating safe passage.

9:33Opening up the shipping lanes was supposed to have been part of the ceasefire, but only a trickle of vessels has passed through the strait since then. Iran now wants to impose a toll for using it. Niels Haupt of the shipping firm Hapag Lloyd was asked if companies would pay. If there is no other alternative, you probably would need to, right? But if this means that for the coming years there will be a fee for the Strait of Hormuz of millions, which is double, triple the price of crossing the Panama Canal or the Suez Canal, that would be quite ridiculous for the entire industry. Already, Iran's stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz has come at an enormous cost to the global economy.

10:16Shipping companies, world leaders and consumers all have a stake in what happens next.

10:40But analysis of shipping data by the BBC suggests just nine vessels have passed through the strait since the ceasefire was announced. And this has affected countries in Asia more than anywhere else. 90 % of the oil and gas passing through the strait is bound for Asia. Much of it for China, of course. But another country badly hit is Thailand. People there have been told to cut back on energy use. And Thailand's farmers are particularly feeling the effects from the rising cost of fuel. I want the whole country to stop growing rice so the government has no rice to eat and then they could feel the hardship.

11:18The hardship is indescribable. You're ready to harvest rice, so you load a container onto your truck to buy fuel. But no one sold fuel to you. I waited for three days to buy fuel so that I can harvest my paddy field. On the fourth day, I protested at the gas station until they finally sold fuel to us. And what was the result? Our rice became too dry and too brittle. We could only sell at a discount because they claimed the rice was too dry. Why didn't they ask the reason we didn't harvest earlier? We didn't harvest because we couldn't get fuel.

11:56What will be left for us? The government announced that they will help with this and that, but no aid came. I've never seen it. I only hear words that they will help. We don't burn rice straw, we plant other crops after we harvest rice We do everything, but we have never received any support or help from the government Now, fuel is available, but the price has gone up so much that we can't afford it anymore If you ask whether there's fuel to be bought, it is available, but we don't have the money to buy it Because when we sold our rice, the money we got back was not enough

12:38whatever the government tells us to do we follow all growing rice now will lead to a loss so i find odd jobs making 100 to 200 baht a day just to get by for now if we do farming and lose money what's the point in doing it why keep doing it our expenses don't decrease only our income keeps dropping the voices of farmers in thailand now an awful lot of high profile people have found themselves in the firing line over their alleged links to Jeffrey Epstein, Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, Britain's one-time prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. They all denied any wrongdoing. But one person who's rarely been linked with the late sex offender outside of the wilder fringes of the internet is Melania Trump.

13:24So it came to say the least as a surprise when on Thursday afternoon local time, the first lady came out with this. To be clear, I never had a release with Epstein or his accomplice, Maxwell. I'm not a witness or a name witness in connection with any of Epstein's crimes. My name has never appeared in court documents, depositions, victim statements, or FBI interviews surrounding the Epstein matter. I have never had any knowledge of Epstein abuse of his victims. Ms Trump's statement was all the more surprising given that she's rarely spoken about anything. Indeed, apart from her appearance in the carefully curated documentary released earlier this year, Ms Trump has been one of the least prominent First Ladies of modern times.

14:24But then that may already have been changing, as Mary Jordan explains. She's the author of a book called The Art of Her Deal, the untold story of Melania Trump. I've watched her now over seven or eight years, and her independence is growing by the minute. When she just did her big documentary, her movie, she barely mentioned her husband. Every time she has an interview, which is very infrequently, she talks about being independent. So I'm not surprised at all. I think she was boiling over and she said very little about her husband. I think she's just sick of being dragged online about this. Well, our North America correspondent Simi Joloso is in Washington and told me more.

15:09The topic of her statement was a total surprise. There was no indication from the White House that it would be on Epstein and it's still unclear what prompted it. It's particularly surprising because no one at the White House brings up Epstein voluntarily. It's considered, I think my colleague put it, as a politically toxic topic for this administration. But there were rumours on social media linking her to Jeffrey Epstein, and they had been swirling for a while, even though they weren't hugely widespread. It wasn't in the traditional press. But there is speculation that perhaps a big story is about to break.

15:43And this is the White House sort of getting their denial out there first. Has there been any reaction from Washington, from anyone else? Yeah, there has been. There's been a lot of surprise here, even amongst the press, including Fox News, which is a favorite of President Trump's. And also amongst lawmakers. We've heard from members of the Congress that are part of the committee investigating Epstein's crimes. One congressman said that they agreed with the First Lady's call for a public hearing with the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein. But another congressman said it should be the government, the Department of Justice, speaking to Epstein survivors for their testimonies and not Congress, and also said that there should be more prosecutions.

16:25Now, there have been reports that Donald Trump didn't actually know that his wife was going to make this statement. I mean, is that possible? And if so, I suppose I wonder what it tells us. Yeah, so that report comes from one journalist from a media outlet called MS Now. She said that she spoke to President Trump on the phone and that he told her he didn't know anything about the first lady's statement beforehand. That is indeed possible. It could be down to something simple as them having separate communications teams. We know Melania Trump has at times maintained a more independent public posture than typical political spouses.

17:01this could reflect a decision to speak on her own terms strategically to protect herself especially on a topic that she knows Donald Trump is not a fan of and this is kind of her way of keeping him distance from that topic of Jeffrey Epstein. Also what President Trump is describing is him not knowing about it could just mean that he wasn't directly involved in the details of the statement and how it was put out not that he wasn't aware at all that she would speak about it.

17:33Still to come in this podcast...

17:41A wake-up call from conservationists.

17:51Can King Charles' trip to Washington save this special relationship with the US? I'm Osama Khalid. And I'm Tristan Redmond, and we're the hosts of the Global Story podcast from the BBC. The British monarch is slated to visit the UK's closest ally later this month. Now, normally, this would be utterly uncontroversial, except Donald Trump has repeatedly lashed out at the UK. For more, listen to the Global Story on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

18:25If I were to ask you what Cuba's main export was, you might suggest sugar, rum or perhaps the country's famous cigars. But another response would be to suggest that it's doctors. Cuba has for more than half a century sent medics abroad, partly as a way of earning cash for the country, but also to help build good international relations. Now, though it seems this era of doctor diplomacy may be coming to an end. Several countries have cancelled the programme, and Cuba is blaming the United States, as I heard from Luis Fajardo, a Latin America analyst at the BBC's monitoring service. The foreign minister of Cuba, Bruno Rodriguez, is saying that the US government is applying pressure on several countries, mostly in the Western Hemisphere, in Latin America, saying that good relations with the Trump administration would require them to move away from this program of Cuban doctors being sent to their countries.

19:22Cuba, according to some reports, has something like 24 ,000 medical professionals working abroad, many of them in the Western Hemisphere, in countries like Venezuela and many others. And several countries recently have said that they are moving away from this scheme, countries like Guatemala, like Honduras. Now, I gather that Washington has hit back on Cuba's claim, and they're suggesting that the Cuban doctors who work abroad may not be doing so entirely willingly. There's strong evidence that the government of Cuba keeps most of the money that it gets from the countries that receive this doctor.

20:00So it's not like the doctors are receiving the money directly when they go overseas to perform those duties. Usually it's through government schemes in which the Cuban doctors get a relatively small portion of that money. However, others argue that it is still in some cases a good deal for Cuban doctors who move there because they managed to save at least some money. Still, the US government is saying that this is something similar to forced labor. And this is part of the argument that they are using against the continuity of this program. Now, we know that Cuba is already in desperate economic straits because of a tightening US embargo.

20:42Presumably, if it does lose the income from these doctors, That leaves the country in further economic trouble and also further isolated. Certainly, the Cuban Doctors' Programme is the main source of foreign revenue for Cuba. There's hundreds of millions of dollars coming to Cuba via this programme. And this also adds to a very, very dire situation, as you described, in which the US has been undercutting a lot of conditions that the Cuban government needs to survive economically. It is also a bad political situation because Cuba was getting and has been obtaining through all these years a lot of political goodwill from this program, sending doctors to developing countries that did not have access to these doctors.

21:26So the fact that they might be losing access to this way of exerting influence throughout this program is also certainly a reason for political concern for the Cuban government right now. Luis Fajardo. When he was elected Pope, much was made of Leo XIV's earlier work in some of the poorer countries of the world. He spent 20 years in Peru, but also visited Kenya, Nigeria, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. And the Pope is now turning his attention once again to Africa, setting off this Monday for a tour which will take him to four countries, Angola, Cameroon, and Equatorial Guinea, and also Algeria.

22:06Algeria is, of course, a majority Muslim country, but the Pope has special reason to call there, as our correspondent Nomsimaseko reports.

22:20Outside Algeria's Basilica of Our Lady of Africa, workmen are busy preparing for the Pope's visit, putting a fresh coat of paint on lampposts and monuments. algeria is a country with only a tiny catholic community but a towering place in christian history it's the birthplace of saint augustine whose legacy is woven deeply into the pope's own augustinian order this will be the first papal visit to algeria since independence in 1962 The theme of the three-day visit is the Muslim greeting, Assalamu alaikum, peace be upon you, to demonstrate the Vatican's message of unity. And that's what Marwa Melki, a resident of Algiers, is hoping for.

23:12It's so nice. It helps strengthen the ties between the two religions, which share a common history, especially in North Africa and particularly in Algeria.

23:25The Pope will be visiting the Basilica of Our Lady of Africa during his three-day visit. It's known as a place of pilgrimage for both Christians and Muslims. An inscription outside says, Our Lady of Africa, pray for us and for the Muslims. Father Peter Klavier Kaur is the rector. What I'm expecting from the Pope is a man who will once again encourage us in our faith and in our mission to build a new world, a world where there is peace and where people live together in harmony. As a sign of his commitment to interfaith dialogue, the Pope will also visit the Great Mosque of Algiers. In Cameroon, anticipation is mixed with some unease The Pope plans to travel to Bamenda The heart of the Anglophone-separatist conflict in a predominantly Francophone nation Security will be tight But church leaders hope his presence might help push both sides towards dialogue And that the visit will indeed be what the Vatican is calling a pilgrimage of peace I am hoping that when the Pope comes, everyone will be at peace and drop their weapons and anger.

24:52The third country on the tour is Angola, which has one of the largest Catholic populations in Africa, estimated to be around 15 million. And finally, Equatorial Guinea, also a majority Christian country. The Pope is coming to Africa with a simple message, peace, unity and dialogue. And the sense of anticipation is unmistakable as the four countries prepare for this historic moment. Nomser Maseku reporting and we end this podcast on a distinctive sound from the natural world.

25:35Well, that is, should you not know, the song of the emperor penguin, the one that could soon be a swan song, as conservationists are warning that climate change is pushing emperor penguins towards extinction. The International Union for Conservation of Nature now says loss of sea ice and shrinking food availability have caused their populations and those of Antarctic fur seals to plummet. Martin Harper is chief executive of BirdLife International, which coordinated the new assessment. He spoke about it to Tim Franks. Very few of us have a chance to see them in the wild, but most of us have seen them on television.