Israel and Hezbollah agree to ceasefire

24:58Listen at schwab.com slash Washington Wise. That's schwab.com slash Washington Wise.

25:09Welcome back to New Zealand. The mother of Cape Verde's now globally celebrated goalkeeper, Vosinha, is travelling to the US to watch the tiny country's next World Cup match in Miami. The veteran keeper's epic saves helped Cape Verde hold European champion Spain to a draw in their first match of the tournament. Well, the BBC's Paul Nguyen has travelled to Vozinha's home island, Sao Vicente, to try and find out more about the keeper and met Vozinha's mother, who's now secured an American visa after her fees were waived. We've travelled all the way because the island has been making global headlines.

25:47Not for music or art, but for Vozinha, the man who's making the country proud. We've just left the airport and are heading to the city centre. From there we'll go to the family home of Vozinia. South Cent is a very small island, so we are eager to see what the mood and ambience would be like outside this family residence. It used to be crowded with excited residents, but not today, just robust canine surveillance. Hello, ma 'am. Hello. What's up? I meet Vozinia's mother, Anna Evora, and his siblings, who are still overjoyed by the recognition he's getting for his performance at the World Cup. Anna shows me pictures of the now-veteran gold keeper in his youth.

26:35She was unable to travel to the U.S. for his first ever World Cup match, leaving her 40-year-old son and millions of his newly gained followers emotional. Anna tells me she felt discouraged to even apply for a U.S. visa because she could not afford the bond required to obtain it. They were asking for about$15 ,000, so I didn't even mention that to my son. Although I had someone who could host me in the US, I didn't make any arrangements. I just didn't bother. That's why I didn't go. But while we were having our interview, her other son Davidson said he'd just received a call from the Football Federation asking her to travel urgently to the capital prior that same night.

27:16The goal was to arrange for her to fly to the United States so she could fulfil her son Vosinia's dream of watching him play. I'm very happy. This is happening so fast, but I'm quite happy anyway. I'm going to see my son playing in the World Cup, God willing. The news may have felt unreal, but her struggle to hold back tears was no joke. Vosinia means everything to everyone here. Our day in South Vicente was over, so we hit the road for the airport to catch our night flight back to Praia. To our surprise, we met Vosinia's mother preparing to fly to Praia on the same plane. She seemed upbeat about the prospects of meeting her celebrity son.

28:03I'm happy. God willing, everything will go smoothly. I'm taking special energy to the Cape Verdeans there. We're going to fight and shine on that pitch. As she serves loved ones with warm hugs, one can only imagine how much more Vosinia will get when they are finally reunited thousands of miles away. And that was Paul and Gia reporting there from Cape Verge. You're listening to the BBC.

28:37This is the BBC World Service in London. You're listening to NewsHour and I'm James Menendez. Now, sometimes a by-election or special election throws up a result that causes a storm of coverage and analysis into what it means for the big national picture. Then a few weeks later, the fuss dies down and everyone forgets what happened. Well, not today in the UK. An election win for the governing Labour Party in the constituency of Makerfield near Manchester will have huge consequences for that party, who leads it as Prime Minister and potentially, therefore, the country's future direction. And that's because Andy Burnham, the man who won, stood for Parliament explicitly so that he'd become eligible to contest the leadership of the party and replace Keir Starmer as Prime Minister.

29:22While speaking this morning, Mr Burnham said the cost of living had been a crucial issue for voters. We've got to now take this moment to answer the challenges that have been laid down. I think that's how people here kind of saw it when I was talking to them on the doorsteps. And they said, well, Andy, you have to do something to make life more affordable, to put more money in people's pockets, to give people more breathing space again so that they can have a better life. That's what people were saying. Let's talk to our UK politics correspondent, Rob Watson, who can tell us what it all means.

30:01Andy Burnham won by a substantial margin, Rob, didn't he? What does that mean for his ambitions, do you think? Oh, it's a huge boost for his ambitions in a couple of ways. The first is that he can turn around to a very, very frightened Labour Party trailing massively in the polls and say, hey, I am the guy from up north who managed to beat the populists of reform. It can be done. It can be me. And the second point that he's been making is that he is, if you like, a sort of a clean skin, James, that he's had nothing to do with the Labour government and Keir Starmer for the last two years. While they were becoming unpopular since winning the general election in 2024, he's been up north in Manchester busily running that city.

30:44So that's his pitch to the Labour Party. So what happens next? Will Keir Starmer simply step aside and make way? Not if he can help it, that's for sure. I mean, Keir Starmer is absolutely determined not to leave Downing Street unless he has to. And that's for a couple of reasons. I mean, we understand at the BBC that he has a pretty low opinion of Andy Burnham, that the two men don't particularly like each other. And he also thinks, secondly, that it would just cause chaos, be bad for the country, bad for the Labour Party, and that the Labour Party would quickly find out that things wouldn't be much better for them.

31:23But, so that's what he'd like to do, but really whether he survives now depends on those 402 Labour MPs. I mean, he wants to stay, but if they don't want him and if over the next, I don't know, 24, 48, 72 hours, James, it starts to be clear that support is draining away. Well, you know, he'd be like someone trying to fight when you've taken away all their weapons. If there is a formal party leadership contest, though, I mean, how unpredictable could that be? well it would be unpredictable in the sense that the entire Labour Party membership would have a vote if the rules are followed so that basically the way it would go is if you could get 20 % of Labour MPs to nominate you you'd be on the paper that ballot paper would then go out to the country and at the moment the names that people are talking about of course are Keir Starmer himself, Wes Streeting used to be the health minister Andy Burnham but maybe the Labour Party would think maybe we should have a woman somewhere on the ballot paper but actually I think there's an awareness, James, in the Labour Party that the biggest danger they face is, you know, if they look like they're having some incredible squabble over who should be the leader, the danger is the country says, hang on a minute, this lot, they look just like the Conservatives.

32:36Weren't they always squabbling over who ought to be party leader? So a huge moment of peril for the Labour Party, despite, of course, Mr Burnham saying that he represents, you know, the possibility of hope and unity. We heard him talking about the cost of living clearly, you know, right at the top of the agenda for voters. How different a prime minister would Andy Burnham be to Keir Starmer? And are the problems that he'd face in terms of, you know, the economic challenges the UK is facing? I mean, they're not going to go away, are they? No, there's an awful lot in that question, James. Let me try and do it as fast and as concisely as possible.

33:18I mean, you're absolutely right. You know, there's a reason why Britain has been through six prime ministers in 10 years, and that's because the challenge is a huge economic, social questions about immigration. I mean, as the first bit of your question, I mean, personality-wise, absolutely he would be different. He's a much more relatable kind of guy. He finds it easier to deal with people. He sort of sounds and looks a bit sunnier and more hopeful. Policy-wise, I think there is a huge question there. I mean, Keir Starmer also talks about prioritising cost of living. The question is, are there really any profound differences in these two left of centre men in terms of the role of the state, how it should be funded, or indeed something like British foreign policy?

34:01I mean, it's not obvious, James, that there is. Rob, thank you very much indeed. Our UK politics correspondent Rob Watson there. Well, the reverberations of Brexit are still being felt in elections like the one in Makerfield yesterday, mostly in the shape of the anti-immigrant reform party led by Nigel Farage, who was the leading voice of the campaign to leave the European Union. It is almost exactly 10 years since the UK voted to leave the EU, heralding a decade of political turbulence that is still playing out. It's also had a significant economic impact, according to analysis today. Based on Bank of England data, that suggests the UK economy is 6 % smaller than if the country had stayed in the EU.

34:46Anam Menon is Professor of European Politics and Foreign Affairs at King's College London, and he's been a close watcher of Brexit since the very beginning. First of all, if Andy Burnham were to become Prime Minister, could he try to take the UK back into the European Union? I mean, as in so many other areas of policy, we really don't know what to expect from Andy Burnham. He said contradictory things on that in the past. He obviously at Labour conference last year said he wanted to rejoin. During this by-election, he said he doesn't want to talk about the EU issue. His focus has been on domestic stuff, which makes me wonder whether Europe will be such a priority.

35:21What is definitely the case, though, is there's a new debate starting inside the Labour Party, and some of his colleagues in Parliament certainly think that the government should adopt a more ambitious line. But we'll have to wait and see what he decides to do. Let me ask you about today's report on the economic effects of Brexit. This is company data compiled by the Bank of England. A 6 % hit to the economy. It sounds like a big hit. Is that better or worse than was feared? If you go back to the forecast economic organisations came up with around the time of the referendum, the broad range was around 2 % to 7%, so it fits within the range.

35:59It's very, very hard to get precise numbers on this, so I'm always a bit leery of people putting an exact number, partly because you're dealing with hypotheticals. And one of the things about this paper is it seems to me to paint a very rosy picture of what would have happened had we stayed in. But what I think we are absolutely certain about now, and this paper helps us to understand this, is there has been a significant impact on trade and there's been an impact on investment. And both those things will have had a significant impact on growth in this country. For many Leave voters, though, was it about the economics or was it more about immigration?

36:33Well, it was about immigration and more generally about control. On immigration specifically, there is no doubt that a lot of people who voted leave are disappointed because they'd expected immigration numbers to go down. And of course, under Boris Johnson, immigration numbers went up quite significantly. That being said, numbers are falling again now. But also bear in mind that that issue of control really mattered to voters. And even in the polling nowadays, you can see that voters are reluctant to countenance closer relations with the European Union if that means that the UK becomes a rule taker.

37:04So there are all sorts of trade-offs involved, as ever, with Brexit. Indeed. So you've got Leave voters who are disappointed about that. You've got this economic hit. You've obviously got people who voted to stay within the European Union, still perhaps dreaming of rejoining. How has public opinion more broadly shifted then in the last 10 years? I think what's happened in the last 10 years is we've seen a growing number of people who are willing to say that Brexit was the wrong decision, a growing number of people willing to say they'll rejoin. This isn't necessarily because loads of Leave voters have changed their minds.

37:36The swing has been brought about by three broad factors, I think. One is the combination of people who didn't vote in 2016 or who were too young to vote in 2016 are now being polled and coming out in favour of rejoin. The other thing, of course, is the age profile of people in the referendum. Leave voters tended to be older. And of course, several of those have passed on now. So the demographics have changed. So, yes, public opinion has moved, but that shouldn't be read as a whole scale changing of minds on the part of Leave voters. Why then, for whoever becomes Prime Minister, if there is a change in the next few weeks, why is it not a political no-brainer to start campaigning to rejoin?

38:15Well, I think for several reasons. Firstly, we don't know how soft those numbers are in public opinion. That is to say, just because the public think on balance it might have been a mistake to leave doesn't mean they want to go through the whole Brexit debate again. And secondly, I think the fear on some people's part is rejoining will be a messy, complicated process with a lot of hard negotiation. And would a new prime minister want to come into office and say, I'm going to dedicate so much of my time to the EU and to rejoining? Because it will automatically mean you can dedicate less time to some of the domestic reforms that Burnham's been talking about.

38:50So would the EU take the UK back at the point at which it left? We've had some comments today from the former Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier saying that shouldn't be a problem. I think the simple answer to that is there is no go back to 2016 button we can push to go back to where we were before. And there's two things worth saying. Firstly, the EU itself has changed quite profoundly since we left. And in many ways is an organisation that is even more foreign to us than it once was. It's more protectionist. It does more stuff for itself on defence. all things Britain historically didn't like.

39:26And the second thing is the EU will negotiate hard if we apply to rejoin. And I suspect that things like the rebate Mrs Thatcher got will simply not be on offer again. That was Anand Menon of King's College London.

39:49now let me just tell you briefly about well quite a diplomatic spat between president trump and his former close ally italy's prime minister georgia maloney the reason well president trump's comments to an italian tv channel about the g7 summit in france this week where he said that the italian Premier had begged him for a picture of them together and that he had agreed because he said he felt sorry for her. Well, Mrs Maloney gave her reaction on social media today.

40:22So some things deserve an immediate reply. Donald Trump's comments are completely made up. I'm frankly appalled. I don't know why the President of the United States behaves that way with his own allies, not that it's the first time it's happened. I can only say that it's a pity he doesn't have the same resolve when dealing with the enemies of the West, with the enemies of the United States and with their leaders, with whom instead he shows himself to be much more amenable. But he needs to bear one thing in mind. I never beg, and nor does Italy. Giorgia Maloney. Incidentally, the Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, who was due to go to the US this weekend, has cancelled his trip because of the comments which he called grave and offensive.

41:04Let me just recap our breaking news. At the beginning of the program, a senior U.S. official has confirmed to the BBC that Israel and Hezbollah have agreed to a ceasefire. It was meant to come into effect about 45 minutes ago. An Israeli military spokesman has said that a ceasefire was now in place, but that the army would resume hostilities if called upon. You're listening to NewsHour.

41:34Well, let's return to the agreement between the US and Iran and what it means for shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, that crucial waterway between Iran and the Gulf states for exports such as oil, gas, fertiliser and much else. The economic impact of the closure is, many would argue, what's driving the agreement. Well, let's talk to Dr Philip Belscher, who's Marine Director at InterTanko. That's the International Association of Independent Tanker Owners. Philip, good to have you with us here on the programme. Hundreds of tankers, they've been stuck in the strait for weeks. Are they beginning to leave?

42:08Yeah, thanks, James. They are starting to at the moment. There's always been a couple of routes in and out of the Gulf, one controlled by Iran and the other one facilitated by the US off Oman. I mean, last night, the team in Bahrain from the US managed to get nine ships in and 16 ships out through the Omani Channel. So they are moving, but it's still only a fraction of what we had prior to the war, where we had about 130 ships transits every day. Is it safe? That's a difficult question. It's a lot safer now that we've got the MOU signed and in place. Prior to that, ships were getting drones thrown towards them, particularly on the Imani route, on a near daily basis.

42:55There hasn't been any attacks in the last two nights. And so it's certainly getting safer. There's a navigational risk, there's a mine risk, but they're starting to be mitigated now. How long do you think it'll take to clear the backlog? Well, at the moment, unless the routes are widened, we had the maximum number last night through the Omani route, and through the Iranian route it's slightly less, but they may step up soon. If we're moving on those volumes, it's going to take a long time. But if we can widen the routes, get the mines cleared out of the main route in the centre of the traffic separation scheme, in the main sort of highway through the area.

43:30Then we can get back to normal levels very, very quickly. But we need the mines out. Right. And when you say very quickly, I mean, are we talking weeks then rather than months? We're certainly talking weeks before we get this whole backlog out and in. There's 550 ships or so in the Gulf which need to come out. At the rate we're doing now, that's going to take a while. And that's just taking the oil that's already, oil, grain, fertiliser, etc., that's already on board those ships out. We then need the empty ships to come back in to load and take that out as well. So it's going to take a bit of time, particularly to get the oil and gas of entries going again from the Gulf.

44:07And what are your concerns and the concerns of your members about sort of future arrangements? I mean, there's a report in the Financial Times today that Iran may ask for what it calls insurance fees for ships passing through the strait. I mean, are there going to be additional controls, blocks, money that needs to be paid for ships to pass through, do you think? Yeah, thanks. This is a great question. I mean, in paragraph five of the MAU, it talks about how Iran will define the future arrangements and traffic going through following dialogue and discussions with other states. So it's down to the final arbiter of being Iran on this.

44:46This has been published today from the Persian Gulf Straits Authority, a newly organised thing which actually has some sanctions on it as well. And in that, it's got this requirement that they will be waiving the fee for any new insurance until the 60 days effectively is up. So we then have to see it. For us, it's got to be freedom of navigation. Freedom of navigation has to be free. And that's a key point in this. And it should be within any agreement here. Thank you very much indeed. That was Philip Belsher, Marine Director at InterTanker, that association of independent tanker owners.

45:25Now in the South Asian film community, a British co-production, a gay romance set in India, has become one of the more talked about movies of recent times. Called Cactus Pears, it is a low-budget feature portraying a gay romance in a conservative rural farming community. It arrives in UK cinemas this week after a long run on the festival circuit, including in the US, where it picked up a major award. From New York, Tom Brook reports. It's the story of Anand from Mumbai visiting his ancestral home to observe the mourning ritual following the death of his father. While there, he develops a close bond with a local farmer, an old childhood friend.

46:14For director Rohan Kunawade, this partly autobiographical story is an attempt to depict a relationship often stigmatised in Indian cinema. I don't look at it as a queer romance. I want to show these characters as human beings, to show men in a more authentic way than how they are usually depicted in films. There was this one audience member who messaged me saying, you know what, I was so close-minded before. After watching your film, it really helped me open my mind. For the film's London-based producer Kaushik Ray, what was significant with this picture was that it shines a light on relationships within a traditional culture that are often overlooked.

46:55In India, like in many countries, so many queer stories remain hidden and there are an absolute multitude of stories that really we felt need to be told.

47:10There's also an American dimension to this rural Indian story. It became the first Indian fiction feature film to win the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize when it was launched at the Sundance Film Festival. Then it won the influential endorsement of the mother of Zohar Mamdani, the mayor of New York, who happens to be acclaimed filmmaker Mira Nair, who's a big fan of Cactus Pears director Rowan Kunuwade. I just loved how Rohan approached it. And I come from Cinema Vaite, I come from the cinema of truth in the street, and he has made a quietly told, pretty rigorous fiction feature film, but in that completely life as it is lived kind of space, you know.

47:55But for the South Asian diaspora and others, what's most significant about this feature film is its rural Indian setting for a gay-themed film. Kaushik Ray again. In queer cinema generally, so much centres around an urban life and very often centres around a white Western life. So the fact that we can set this authentically in India in a rural setting is hugely important. And its supporters think Cactus Pears represents an evolution in how gay characters have been portrayed in Indian cinema. Miranaya. If you had gay characters at all, it was much more flamboyant, sometimes parodies. It was never the most tender, normal human being like we are.

48:41Cactus Pears is a small, unhurried Indian film that's achieved quite a lot, not just by way of its many accolades, but because for the South Asian LGBTQ community, it's seen as an authentic and respectful portrayal rarely seen in cinema. And that was the BBC's Tom Brook reporting there from New York. You can get all the latest updates on the situation between Israel and Hezbollah, that ceasefire that was agreed while we were on the air. There is a live page now up and running with updates on that story and, of course, reaction. at bbc.com forward slash news. But that is it for this edition of News Hour from me and the rest of the team.

49:18Thanks so much for listening. Until the next time. Bye-bye.