Netanyahu vehemently dismisses attempts to arrest him over Gaza war actions. GLOBAL NEWS PODCAST

This is the global news podcast from the BBC WorldService I'm Andrew Peach and in the early hours of Tuesday the 21st of May these are our main Storiesthe Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reacted furiously after the internationalcriminal courts Chief prosecutor said he was seeking his arrest for alleged crimes in theGaza War alongside leaders of Hamas here in the UK an inquiry has concluded there was a chillingcover up of Britain's biggest Health disaster in which 30,000 people were infected withcontaminated blood products the NHS and successive governments compounded the agonyby refusing to accept that wrong had been done also in this podcast in NewCaledonia the airport is closed and blockades continue after violence spreads inthe French overseas territory after a French.

Law to expand voting rights and we'llhear what could be the sound of Summer condemnation of the international criminal courtfrom Israel and Israel's allies has come thick and fast following its prosecutor Kareem Khan'srequest for the arrest warrants against the Israeli Prime Minister and the defense ministerover alleged war crimes committed in Gaza as you heard in our earlier podcast the ICC is alsoseeking arrest warrants for three Hamas leaders who are accused of being criminally responsiblefor the killing of more than a thousand civilians on the 7th of October our correspondent anahholigan is at the ha where the ICC sits I should say these uh allegations are devastating on bothsides and kareim KH says that the acts committed he says by Benjamin Netanyahu prime ministerand Y of Galan defense minister aren't Happening.

By accident but by Design part of a systematiccommon plan designed to starve and kill gaza's civilian population as a means to one eliminateHamas to secure the return of hostages and three collectively punish the civilian population ofGaza and then on the other side in terms of the allegations against the Hamas leadership he saidthat they were instrumental in instigating and planning the October 7th attacks and then justgoes through some of the the statements made by the witnesses by the survivors and says that nowis the time he he said in a statement he warned um that those who ignored him uh couldn't complainlater and he said this the time is now the other thing to watch here is is the The Diplomaticefforts on both sides to try to um prevent any future arrest warrants from actually being servedand it's a a very contentious issue because the.

IC any country that is a member of the ICC isobliged to arrest anyone who is is subject to an ICC arrest warrant but we expect some objectionsuh to that rule the coming days we will hear more from countries objecting as we have done today theIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacted angrily to the Court's decision the outrageousdecision by the IC prosecutor kareim Khan to seek arrest warrants against the democraticallyelected leaders of Israel is a moral outrage of historic proportions it will cast an everlastingMark of shame on the international Court Israel is waging a just war against Hamas a genocidalterrorist organization that perpetrated the worst attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaustthe US President Joe Biden echoed Mr netanyahu's comments and call the move outrageous both the UKand Israel have said the icc's decision will make.

It more difficult to achieve a Ceasar in Gazaand Safeguard the return of hostages even one of Benjamin netanyahu's most trenchant critics theformer prime minister Ehud alet disagreed with the Court's decision he's been talking to my colleagueTim Franks quite frankly I think that we probably may have made some mistakes during this last sevenmonths but there is nothing near to what the uh prosecutor is uh suggesting and particularlyI think the uh fact that he binds together the murderer and the terrorist and muhamad de whohas been responsible over the years for unlimited number of the most terrible terrorist actionsagainst innocent civilians is totally unacceptable by most Israelis including all those that areopposed in it the prosecutor was very clear that he he is not passing any judgment on Israel'suh right to self-defense or about the reasons for.

The conflict it is about the way in which the Warhas been waged the way it is been prosecuted but it is not a judgment on Israel's right to wage thewar itself they didn't have to wait seven months in order to prosecute and muhamad the atrociousactivities of Hamas were known from October 7th so why did they have to wait seven months in orderto bind them together with the prime minister of Israel I mean this is something that smells nofair and not honest when you heard the defense minister yoav Gallant just after October the 7thordering a Complete Siege of the Gaza Strip there will be no electricity no food no fuel everythingis closed were you worried then that that might be construed as being against the laws of War I thinkthe laws of war defend not to statements but to if there is an a firm evidence that Israel hascommitted as a matter of policy in purpose war.

Crimes or crimes against humanity this issomething that will have to be clarified and I'm sure that we have a very good answers for thisbecause I don't think that this is the policy of Israel I'm not talking about possible mistakeswhich were committed the former Israeli Prime Minister ehod alet with Tim Franks we know therequest for arrest warrants from the prosecutor at the ICC is just that a request judges at theinternational criminal court will now decide whether prosecutions will actually go ahead so Howlikely is that sha lay has been talking to Ryan Goodman a professor of law at NYU school of law inNew York extremely high to the point that one has to search for uh instances in which the pre-trialchamber would reject the application for an arrest warrant I do know of one uh case but even inthat case the uh prosecutor then resubmitted.

The application and got it approved it's a recordof something like 99% but it's not completely out of the question especially with a long listof crimes like this that some of them might be taken off and we heard about Israel saying itwill fight this diplomatically is that possible given that this is a court it's very difficult uhvery very difficult uh this really is a court of law U these are char charges that are going to bereviewed by judges uh the one thing that I think is important as a matter of perspective is thatit's a long drawn out process can Israel say well look this doesn't apply to us we're not membersof the ICC that argument doesn't work the United States recently gave up that argument when itapplied to the question of Russian forces inside Ukraine because Russia is not a party to the ICCeither but the United States now says of course.

The ICC has jurisdiction over Russia argumentis to try to argue that uh Palestine is not a state for the purposes of the ICC statute thathas being already decided by a by a pre-trial chamber of the court but they did say look we canrevisit this question in later proceedings what about the how this relates to the internationalcourt of justice hearing which is going on at the moment which has been brought by South Africaso today's um application does not include the offense of genocide and the South Africaproceedings are a claim of genocide there is another legal claim that the prosecutor is makingand he is saying that Israel is and has engaged in a crime against humanity including persecutionnow that's different than genocide genocide is a very hard crime to prove because it comes with anadditional element the the additional element is.

That the perpetrators have to be acting with thespecific purpose to try to destroy the group or whole and in part could this affect the conductof the war now in particular I suppose uh the the behavior of Israel's allies yes I do thinkthat governments that support Israel will have to do a legal analysis and consider for exampleif indeed there are war crimes being committed then there could be legalized liability and alegal prohibition on States supporting Israel with arms supplies and the like in fact underinternational criminal law there's another uh element of this which is that there's liabilityfor aiding and abetting another in the commission of War crime so I think they're going to have tolook at that hard as to where they stand Professor Ryan Goodman professor of law at NYU school oflaw in New York South Africa's constitutional.

Court has ruled that the former president JacobZumer is not eligible to run for Parliament next week's election Mr Zumer who was forced toquit as president in 2018 has fallen out with the governing ANC and has been campaigning insteadin support of his new MK party from Johannesburg here's an soy the court said that as part theConstitution having been convicted for a sentence that was longer than 12 months he is thereforeineligible to run for office for at least a period of 5 years however he had argued that he onlyserved three months of the 15 months sentence that was handed to him in 2021 for contempt ofcourt that was after he failed to appear before an inquiry into corruption allegations that hewas facing at the time during his tenure as a president and he argued that he served this foronly 3 months but the Court held that he had been.

Sentenced to a sentence that was longer than 12months and therefore that disqualified him next to Iran sounds from Central Teran as of peoplemany holding pictures of President ibraim RI chanting their support for Iran's supreme leaderAyatollah ham after the death of the president in a helicopter crash this was the view of one womanin Iran who wanted to remain anonymous I feel this Collective happiness is what we deserveafter all the suffering we went through as a nation listening to bad news Death News mourningwhen I think about how they treated us how they oppressed us this news gives me hope I hope thisis the beginning of the end of their dictatorship fish egi is a journalist in Teran the mood issomehow sober the streets are somehow quiet I saw two men they were talking with each other Ijust heard that they were discussing their Chopper.

Crash when I was walking I saw a middle-agedlady she was a religious one and suddenly she broke into crying she was very sad she wascrying and then then she was saying that I wor about the country nobody officially or openlytries to show any mood of Happiness funeral rides for Ibrahim RI and the other people whodied will begin later 5 days of mour are being held an investigation into the crash hasbeen ordered and the election to fine Mr R's replacement will be on June the 28th BaronAbassi from BBC Persian is following developments we have seen pictures of people mourningfor his death including some state organiz gatherings in large squares inside of Iran wherepeople have been holding up president R's pictures and expressing sadness for his death but um he wasa very divisive figure he was by no means popular.

Among the whole Iranian nation and those who wereshown on state TV are not the representatives of uh the majority of Iranians so that's one group ofpeople I mean that it's a Hardline Iranian regim he was a significant part of it um there might beall sorts of groups of people who are thinking is this some hope for a more liberal future whomight have mixed feelings about ry's death exactly a lot of people talked to Twitter and thesources that we talked to in Iran there were not shedding any tears for the president and some wereeven expressing happiness for his death because he was a Hardline figure who was elected as presidentin 2021 in elections that saw the lowest turnout in the history of the Islamic Republic uhand elections in Iran are not like elections in Democratic countries and his presidency wasovershadowed by mass protest in 2022 that were.

Sparked by the death in custody of Massa aminiand they brutal Crackdown that followed hundreds of people were killed and the people who arecelebrating or expressing some degree of pleasure that ryc has died are they just feeling some kindof sense of avenging what happened in the past or are they hopeful that things might change in anyway now when there will be a new president it is very unlikely for things to change uh Ibrahim RIalthough he was President he did not have much power in terms of decision making he uh executedand carried out the orders of the supreme leader it is expected that the new elections that willbe held within the next 50 days again will be dominated by hardliners and someone close tothe supreme leader will be allowed to run and elected especially since the supreme leader is 85years old and it seems that he wants to make sure.

That those who are holding the power and theyholding the keys of uh to the most important parts of the establishment are those who arethe most loyal to himself Baron Abassi of BBC Persian and still to come in this podcast theplaces where we used to go to fish have now mostly become islands and the is no water wecan't go by boat if there is no water there is no fish the Caspian Sea in Central Asiathe world's largest inland body of water is shrinking everyone's talking about brieta small Calgary mining company that struck gold half a world away they sold a $6 billiongold Discovery to the world they kept drilling they kept getting good results re had foundthe one we all hope to find investors jumped at the chance to buy up shares everybodywas getting in on it suddenly everybody.

In town was going to be rich but therewas a problem you see the gold well it didn't exist there's nothing there there'sno gold this is a scam the $6 billion gold scam from the BBC World Service and CBCfind it wherever you get your podcasts now the country knows and the world knows therewas a deliberate attempt to lie and conceal those the words of one campaigner responding to thepublication of the final report of the UK's infected blood inquiry it relates to Britain'sbiggest Health disaster in which 30,000 people were infected with contaminated blood productsbetween the 1970s and '90s the inquiry concluded there was a subtle pervasive and chilling coverupof the infected blood Scandal its chairman was s Brian langstaff the NHS and successivegovernments compounded the agony by refusing.

To accept that wrong had been done more thanthat the government repeatedly maintained that people received the best available treatmentand that testing of blood donations began as soon as the technology was available and bothclaims were untrue much of the blood came from the United States where donors were paid it wasoften collected in prisons there have been 3,000 deaths linked to contaminated blood so far andthousands more have debilitating conditions Andy Evans who has hemophilia was given contaminatedblood as a child by the time he was 13 he had eights we've been gas lit for Generationsum this report today brings an end to that and it looks to the Future as well and saysthat this cannot continue this this um ethos of uh denial and cover up Susan Lee found outshe'd been infected with hepatitis C when she.

Was 14 there was no acknowledgement that youknow these treatments were being given that had these risks of hepatitis and HIV and you knowhow can any parent walk into any facility now and have confidence in the treatment that theirchildren are given the victims have been calling for an apology and they got one from the Britishprime minister Rishi sunak today's report shows a decades long moral failure at the heart of ournational life from the National Health Service to the Civil Service to ministers in successivegovernments at every level the people and institutions in which we place our trust failedin the most harrowing and devastating way our science correspondent Kate Lamor told me moreabout the findings of the inquiry this public inquiry has spent more than 5 years looking atthese 30,000 infections of HIV and hepatitis.

And it found that they largely if not entirelycould and should have been avoided when we're talking about this cover up we don't necessarilyactually the person in charge of the inquiry said they preferred hiding the truth and they'resaying that because they're not saying this is a movie with someone in charge deciding what's seenand what's not it's partly the passage of time that documents were lost but it is true that theyfound today that some documents were deliberately destroyed and that over time politicians have usedinaccurate misleading and defensive lines to take time over this the blood that infected so manypeople where was it from yeah so it's a mix of things so part of it is these blood products it'sclotting factors used to treat people with blood clotting disorders like hemophilia and a lot ofit was imported from the United States and that's.

Where it was made by pooling together plasma fromtens of thousands of people and just one infected person feeding into that pool could affect theentire batch in terms of what happens now in many ways this is the end point that people have beencampaigning for decades have wanted next we get some compensation that that the British primeminister was pretty clear about that yeah they said that the details of that should be announcedtomorrow and and you talk about time there I think what's so interesting is the different responsesbecause this problem isn't unique to the UK other countries like Japan France and the US they allsaw these problems but a lot of it was settled in the 90s 1996 1997 it's taken this length oftime for compensation to be brought here but then there's also the reaction to these recommendationsfor further change within the UK system that's.

Been made our correspondent Kate lamble with methe Caspian SE in Central Asia is the world's largest inland body of water and it's shrinkingat an unprecedented speed it's the size of Germany it's bordered by five countries Kazakhstan RussiaIran Turkmenistan and aeran Antonio Bolingbrook Kent has been to Kazakhstan formerly part of theSoviet Union to find out why the Caspian Sea is in crisis I'm just climbing up some wooden stepsonto this old Pier the bottom few steps are missing because well it's not really apier anymore because it's nowhere near the sea as a m do you remember whenthis pier was in the sea as it should be well we were here in around 2006 2008there'd been uls and other young people you'd see lots of people sitting here andwalking along the pier azamat SV is a welln.

Social media influencer from the kazak port cityof actal he posts about environmental issues particularly what's happening to the Caspian Seait was a very popular place and from here would stand on the railings and jump into the water Asamat saying that as a teenager he used to stand on this pier and dive into the Clear Blue Waters ofthe Caspian Sea from where I'm standing at the end of this old wooden Pier it's at least 70 M towhere the waves are breaking along the shoreline the sea has receded that far in less than 20years there are very few scientists in Kazakhstan who are studying the Caspian Sea one is Aseltasma Gava the daughter of a former kazak prime minister who set up the Central Asian Institutefor ecological research she believes climate change is playing a major role in the shallowingof the sea which has fallen by around 4 MERS since.

The year 200000 plus there's the issue of theRussian rivers that feed the Caspian the influ of rivers into the Caspian Sea especially thevulga river has diminished over time extensive Dam construction on the vulgar rivm initiatedduring Soviet industrialization also greatly reduced water flow uh into the sea she alsomentions the impact of the offshore oil and gas industry on the seabed the removal of largevolumes of oil and natural gas from beneath the sea floor can cause compaction of the seabedpotentially affecting water devs we put this to kazakhstan's Ministry of energy but theydidn't respond we also contacted Russia's Ministry of natural resources and environmentregarding the vulgar they didn't reply either Daniel Akim janov is head of the regional fishingAssociation based in Balo further up the coast.

He describes how the shallowing of the CaspianSea is making things much harder for fishermen here the places where we used to go to fish havenow mostly become islands and there is no water we can't go by boat if there is no water there isno fish acti relies almost entirely on desalinated water and the more the Caspian shallows the moreprecarious this Supply becomes there are problems at actal Port too oil tankers Crossing tobaku andaaban now can't be fully loaded because of falling water levels German and Dutch scientists predictthat the Caspian Sea Could Fall by a further 18 M by the end of this Century which really worriesAsel tasara from the Central Asian Institute for ecological research I think it's a very seriousproblem it's very sad because we're losing time I guess we have to prepare the region for thesebig changes and to hear more about the Caspian.

Crisis go through bbcworld service.com assignmentor look for the documentary wherever you get your BBC podcasts here in the UK the high courthas temporarily blocked the extradition to the United States of the WikiLeaks founder JulianAssange he's been given permission to bring a new appeal the US want him to stand trial for leakingmilitary Secrets which prosecut to say endangered lives he wants assurances that he'd be ableto rely on the US constitutional right to free speech as a defense Mr Assange who's currentlyin belmarsh prison will now prepare his appeal argument about whether he'll begin a fair trial inthe US this from our legal correspondent Dominic kashani today's decision is a legal Lifeline forjulan Assange after a 5-year long fight that began when Donald Trump's Administration demandedhe be put on trial over events 14 years ago.

In March judges said us prosecutors must provideclearer assurances about how the Australian would be treated Mr Assange now has a guarantee fromthe US that he will never face the death penalty over the Wikileaks Saga but his loyal say hemay still be denied the right to argue in a trial that his leaks were legitimate journalismprotected by us free speech laws the high court says that question must now be fully explored asa full appeal hearing speaking outside Court Mr range's wife Stellar urged President Biden toabandon the prosecution how long can this go on the United States should bre the situation anddrop this case now now is the moment to do it here just abandon this shameful attack on journalistson the press and the public that has been going on for 14 years for weeks there's been speculationthat President Biden wants to end the affair after.

He confirmed he was considering an Australiangovernment plan relating to dropping the prosecution this new appeal will take months toprepare giving his administration time to consider their options in this extraord AR legal dramaat a military Air Base in France the interior Minister and French military police have honoredthe bodies of two je who died in the unrest in new calonia follows a week of violent protests inthe French territory in the South Pacific against a decision to reform voting laws the FrenchPresident Emanuel macron is meeting his sec Security Council to discuss the crisis they'vealready sent a th000 police reinforcements the main airport in New calonia has been closed tocommercial flights Australia is awaiting French permission to evacuate its citizens as is NewZealand's prime minister Christopher luxen what.

We have done is made sure that we are ready witha number of plans and scenarios uh and and what we need to wait for is the French authoritiesto say those roads are safe the airports safe and secure uh in order for that transportationof of kiwis to be able to get to the airport for for example uh we we've got to we've got to waitfor that advice uh we are we are having ongoing conversations with the French authorities in Parisand also in new Mia uh will'll continue to do so but the key thing is that we are ready to go mycolleague bernardet Kio asked our Europe Regional editor Danny aard what led up to the violenceyou need to have a little bit of context of the history of new calonia F first of all new caloniait's an archipelago it's about 1300 km off the eastern coast of Australia roughly um equidistancebetween Papu guini and New Zealand now this was it.

Was taken uh by France in the mid 19th century andthere have been ever since then there've been uh problems and clashes with the indigenous canakCommunity the indigenous melanesian Community there nowadays the canak community makes up about40% of the population about 300,000 people there and uh the pro- independent supporters amongstthe the canak indigenous Community are very upset about a new law in France that's been pushedthrough um basically it it would expand the voting rights for people who've settled in new caloniaand had their main residence there for at least 10 years um up to now the people who voted in innew calonia um have had to live there since 1998 that was a time where an agreement was reachedon a transition towards more autonomy greater Independence there and it also scheduled severalvotes on Independence those are all were two were.

Margin Ally rejected and the third one didn'thappen because of covid so there's a background to this of pro-independence support amongst achunk of the population of New calonia and the island is a French territory how big a problemis this for Emmanuel mcon well it's enough for him to to have called a meeting of his NationalSecurity Council there's a a nighttime curfew in the territory at the moment there's alsothings like a ban on Tik Tok because French fear that there's agitation um in favor of morerioting and obviously there's a wider backdrop to this so Emanuel macron is only a few weeksaway from uh European elections parliamentary elections and it's not a good look for him interms of security and Law and Order Our Europe Regional editor Danny aard now if you're lookingfor the sound of Summer one Contender this year.

Could be a drum and Bose tune called the sparkrather than coming from a big studio in La this one comes from Cork in Ireland and the artistsbehind it are all under 12 here's Isabella juel think you can stop what we do I doubt itwe got the energy it's loud high energy and it's lit up the internet this is thespark a song created by a group of more than 30 Irish and Refugee children they'reall between 9 and 12 years old and have shot to social media Fame after their wild musicvideo was viewed more than 8 million times the spark was made at cabin Studio which wascommissioned to create an Anthem for an Irish National Youth Arts day a team of musiciansthere host a weekly rap project to teach kids about songwriting and recording Gary McCarthyis the Studio's creative director it's all about.

Capturing the kids energy we're really reallylucky to work with a a really talented group of kids who are just like naturally funnythey're gifted they're great energy they're always up for a challenge and anytime they goon stage they absolutely Smash It the Irish kids collaborated with children at a refugee Center innearby County CLA to write the song both groups met in Cork to record the track and make themusic video before sharing it online and the response exceeded all expectations we filmed thevideo all in one day it started off at the cabin studio and we got everyone onto the local 202 businto the city center got some shots on top of the bus I had a feeling that a couple of thousandpeople might see it or something like that that it would just go a little bit locally viral ornationally viral but I was not expecting how.

Crazy it went on X indeed us-based newssite IrishCentral called it the song of the summer Dylan is one of the young artists behind the track it wasreally exciting because like it felt like I was doing something really professional I had versethat's my passion and I couldn't live without it you can do it like we do it don't doubt it anyobstacle we find a way around this if you're part of who you are and what you do sh this GaryMcCarthy is it going to be the sound of the summer I'm not sure our main focus is the young peopleand continuing to help them with their songw writing their recording and if it happens to bethe sound of the summer then that's that's a bonus Isabella jeel reporting and that's allfrom us for now there'll be a new edition of global news to download later if you'dlike to comment on this podcast drop us.

An email Global podcast bbc.co.uk oron X we are at Global newsp pod this Edition was mixed by Caroline Drisco theproducer was Marian straw and the editor is Karen Martin I'm Andrew Peach thanksfor listening and until next time goodbye everyone's talking about briet a smallCalgary mining company that struck gold half a world away they sold a $6 billion goldDiscovery to the world they kept drilling they kept getting good results re had found the onewe all hoped to find investors jumped at the chance to buy up shares everybody was gettingin on it suddenly everybody in town was going to be rich but there was a problem you see thegold well it didn't exist there's nothing there there's no gold this is a scam the $6 billiongold scam from the BBC World Service and CB.

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