This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Bernadette Kio and in the early hours of Monday the 25th of November these are our main stories. The authorities in the United Arab Emirates say they've arrested three suspects in connection with the killing of an Israeli Moldovan rabbi. Pakistani police have clashed with protesters supporting the jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan on the outskirts of the capital, Islamabad.
exit polls from the first round of Romania's presidential election suggest the radical nationalist, Kallen Georgescu, has edged ahead of the Social Democrat Prime Minister, Marcell Tuolaku. Also in this podcast, marking the legacy of South African jazz at the London Jazz Festival.
We begin in the United Arab Emirates. The authorities there have arrested three suspects in connection with the killing of a rabbi who went missing last Thursday. The body of Rabbi Svi Kogan, who was a joint Israeli Moldova National, was found on Sunday. Israelis have been able to work and live in the UAE
since the signing of the Abraham Peace Accords in 2022. The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged to bring the rabbis killers to justice. Julian Marshall spoke to the BBC's Frank Gardner, who's in Jerusalem, and began by asking him if there are any details about how Rabbi Kagan met his death.
He only went missing on Thursday. 24 hours later, there was an announcement that terrorism was suspected, that he had gone missing, and there were real concerns that Mossad Israel's external spy agency was looking into this and was taking charge of the investigation together with the Emirati authorities. And a few hours after that came the announcement that
His body had been found and his car was found about 90 minutes drive away from his home in Abu Dhabi. And quite a bit is known about him. He's a young rabbi, 28 years old. He was part of something called Khapad, which is a worldwide organization that helps or that caters to the social, humanitarian and religious needs of Jews around the world.
But it's very much an ultra-orthodox religious organisation. So he was a missionary, as it were, a Jewish missionary in the Emirates. And the suspicion in Israeli circles, government circles, is that this was an attempt by Iran to try and drive a wedge between Israel and the Arab countries that it's made peace with.
Obviously, the peace that Israel has made with these countries is somewhat strained because of the wars it's conducting in Gaza and Lebanon and the very high death toll in both countries. Had the Rabbi relocated from Moldova or from Israel? Well, he's a joint Israeli Moldovan citizen. So my understanding is that he had pretty much established himself in the UAE where he was managing a kosher supermarket.
The reaction here from Israeli government and the president is really pretty vitriolic. They're calling this an anti-Semitic attack. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that we're working closely with the Emirate authorities in the UAE, and that we will continue to develop those ties and work even closer with them, and that we will not let anybody sort of drive us asunder as it were.
But only a couple of weeks ago, I was at the Arab Islamic summit in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia. There was really, I wouldn't say exactly consensus, but certainly a strong feeling there amongst Arab and Muslim countries of condemnation of Israel's actions in Gaza, the very high death toll, the displacement of most of Gaza's two and a half million population. It's placing enormous strain on those Arab governments.
In the shorter term, though, Frank, is it likely to make Israelis less willing to visit the United Arab Emirates and indeed to do business there? Yes, I think it is. The Israeli government have raised the threat level to what's called level three, which is the third highest out of four, and warning against all but necessary travel to the UAE.
which is a step backwards because when the Abraham Accords first happened, there was a huge influx of Israeli tourism, particularly to Dubai, and there was a lot of technological transfer, there's a security accord between the two countries in terms of
surveillance technology and things like that, a lot of defence cooperation. But you're not hearing so much about that now and certainly this I think will send a chill through ordinary Israelis looking to travel to the Gulf.
Frank Gardner in Jerusalem. The Israeli military has apologized to the Lebanese army for an airstrike that hit a military post killing one Lebanese soldier and wounding 18 others. A spokesman said an investigation was underway. Israeli forces are fighting Hezbollah in the area. They say the group fired about 250 rockets into Israel from Lebanon on Sunday, causing some injuries and damage in both North and Central Israel.
The Lebanese Health Ministry says the number of people now known to have been killed in Saturday's Israeli airstrike on the Basta District of Central Beirut has risen to 29. Lena Sinjab, our Middle East correspondent in Beirut, gave us this update on the rescue operation there.
Digging and searching under rubble is still ongoing, looking for victims, probably survivors of this blast that took place at 4am on Saturday while people were asleep. There was no prior warning and many of them are civilians who were caught for an unsuccessful hunt for Hezbollah member according to some Israeli media. And unfortunately that's what the Lebanese are living with these days.
They don't know when the next hit will be. Sometimes there are warnings and people are evacuating, but sometimes they're just caught in fire and civilians are paying the high cost here. There hasn't been any official statement coming out from Hezbollah, but of course we've seen missiles that are still targeting Israel, whether to the north or closer to Tel Aviv. Messages coming out from both sides that any efforts for ceasefire are not moving forward, they're not successful.
Now the Israeli military has issued a rare apology for an airstrike in southern Lebanon which killed a Lebanese soldier at an army post. What more do we know about that attack? That happened close to the border in the south of Lebanon. There has been other attacks that targeted Lebanese army forces, but it's clear throughout this war that the Israelis are trying to send the message
that their war here is against Hezbollah, against any armed groups or resistance that are involved in any actions against Israel, but not the Lebanese army. And we're hearing that some of the negotiations, they want the Lebanese army to be in charge of the South. So probably this message came from the Israelis to reassure that they have no issue with the Lebanese government or with the Lebanese army and to move forward in their main focus of this war, which is Hezbollah.
Yet this is the 19th Lebanese soldier to be killed in Israeli attacks in the last two months. How long do you think the Lebanese army will be able to keep its neutral stance? It's a very difficult situation here. Lebanon is based on sectarian division. The Taif agreement that ended the 15 years of war in the 90s.
divided the country in a way that each sect has a share of the power and the Lebanese army is a combination of all these powers but they want to maintain their independence from this decision by Hezbollah and launching this war against Israel and getting Lebanon dragged into this war. The Lebanese army, the Lebanese government, they don't want a war, they want a peaceful solution, they want a ceasefire. The Lebanese army will not get involved in any
retaliation or reaction towards acts by the Israelis, otherwise all Lebanon could be on fire. Lena Sinjab Next to Pakistan, police in the country clashed with protesters from Imran Khan's PTI party on Sunday on the outskirts of the capital, Islamabad. Convoys of demonstrators converged on the city, calling for the release of the former Prime Minister from jail.
The PTI says police fired tear gas to disperse the crowds. It says its members were baton-charged. The police say officers were pelted with stones by the protesters. It's believed that several hundred PTI workers were detained. The security forces had placed the Pakistani capital under lockdown ahead of the march, which the Islamabad High Court had ruled unlawful. This protester explained why he took part in the demonstration.
Good-winning, we will stay on the streets and continue to struggle for our rights until the return of the rights of the people of Pakistan, who have been robbed of the mandate of the Pakistani people. Mr Khan was removed from power by a vote of no confidence in 2022 and has been in prison since last year, despite being granted bail in December. On Sunday, I spoke to the BBC reporter Farhat Javed in Islamabad.
Islamabad has been transformed into a fortress I mean literally it was all the roads leading to the capital were all blocked with containers shipping containers and even roads within the city are also blocked the latest that we are getting now is
There has been tear gas shelling by the police at protesters outside Islamabad in different other parts of the country. We have seen in the past that different government installations have been protesters set fire, set these installations on fire. So they get really violent. And that's what many are expecting would happen this time once again. But Imran Khan says that this is the final call and his protesters are saying that this is the final call and they would make sure that the government listens to them this time.
This heavy security, as you've said, what other things have the authorities done? In some areas, especially in the red zone, where all the important government buildings are located here in Sambaat, there is a deployment of Pakistan military troops as well. But overall, security has been given to police and paramilitary forces.
and internet services are being suspended in several areas where authorities think and believe that there would be protesters. Many supporters of Imran Khan, many of his party workers have already been arrested overnight and there have been several arrests made in the day to day. Tell us more about what the protesters are demanding.
This time, Imran Khan said he gave a call for a final protest and he says that his whole party, PTI, is demanding that Imran Khan should be released and other political workers of his party who have been arrested over a period of last two years, they should be released. They say that the charges they are facing are all politically motivated
it's an allegation that the government of course denies their top priority and their first most important demand is that their workers and their leader should be released. Farhad, tell us how much influence Imran Khan has in Pakistan. Imran Khan remains very influential despite the fact that he has been imprisoned. He holds quite a lot of significance in the political circle of Pakistan as well as among people.
Whenever Imran Khan gives a call for a protest or a political gathering, we see thousands of people coming out. We saw in general election in February earlier this year, there was massive turnout of voters who were voting for Imran Khan. And I think that is one reason that the present government, the ruling alliance, do fear that if Imran Khan comes out, if he joins politics the way he had joined earlier, actively in person, that would be too dangerous for the ruling alliance to rule the country in future.
Meanwhile, in a separate development, the authorities in northern India are reported to have ordered a 24-hour internet shutdown in an area where violence was triggered by a controversial survey at a mosque.
At least three people were killed in the clashes in Sambal district during a protest at the 500-year-old religious site. A court had ordered the survey following a complaint that the mosque in Uttar Pradesh was built on the ruins of a Hindu temple, demolished by the Mughals, who ruled India in the 16th century. Muslim community leaders opposed the survey. Next to Romania
As we record this podcast, with more than 80 per cent of the votes counted in the country's presidential election, the radical nationalist, Calin Georgescu, has edged ahead of the current Prime Minister, the centre-left Social Democrat, Marcell Tuolaku. A run-off vote will take place next month. On Sunday night, as counting was underway, I got an update from our Central Europe correspondent Nick Thorpe, who's monitoring events from Hungary.
this remarkable situation where Kalen Georgescu, who's a candidate, he's 62 years old, he's an expert in sustainable development, but with very radical nationalist views. He's been known to praise some of Romania's wartime neo-Nazi leaders, for example.
He's now edged ahead of Machal Cholaku, the Social Democrat Prime Minister. Of course, this is, although it's based on 80% of the votes so far, the million or so Romanians who live in the diaspora, their votes have not been counted yet,
So this first round could well still have some changes, though it's looking now pretty clear that these are the two men who will go through to the second round on the 8th of December.
And how long will that take to become clear? Well, you know, the votes are going pretty fast now. What's unclear is just how many of the diaspora votes, as I say, nearly a million from many countries coming in from Spain, Italy, from the United Kingdom and other countries to the United States. And in the past five years ago, the diaspora votes actually changed the result and gave victory to Claus Johannes.
But I think biting mid-morning, we will know. But it's looking pretty clear, in fact, that these two candidates will go through. I think it would be, you know, whoever comes actually first, they'll get a great boost ahead of that 8th of December runoff. And in the meantime, of course, next weekend, we have parliamentary elections in Romania, and this presidential result, or the final result, when we do know it,
will probably influence the parliamentary elections as well. So the sort of mammoth marathon really of elections now in Romania with already some pretty remarkable results.
And Nick, just fairly briefly, what issues dominated campaigning? Several issues, the economy in particular. Mr. Georgesco, for example, has been saying one of the things he said was that Ukrainian refugees, the children, the child benefit for Ukrainian refugees in Romania is actually higher than that for Romanian children, ordinary Romanian children, citizens of Romania. So issues like that, very divisive issues,
very strong, with a very strong patriotic or national issues. That's been one of the things. Another has been corruption. The established parties always accused of corruption, and that gives a chance to new parties or new figures like Mr. George Hescu and another national leader, George Simeon, to become more prominent.
Nick Thorpe Earlier this month, the Australian government announced plans to implement a social media ban on children under 16. Here in England, a recent survey of 8,000 school children found that one-third of them spend more time on social media on their phones than their lessons. Many schools in the UK already have restrictions. But do they go far enough? The BBC's Patio Connell visited the Central Foundation Girls' School in East London to gauge opinion.
I'm Atlas and I'm 15. My name is Pfizer and I'm also 15. I'm Jasmine, I'm 13. I'm Laura and I'm 13. I'm Laura and I'm 14. How interesting is this subject to you all? I think we're all very passionate. We're getting very into it. I feel like it's really popular, especially amongst young people, to explain ourselves and our use of social media. I feel like the social media does have a big impact on our lives.
I don't usually use my phone for social media. I only use it for music or for like inspiration for art. I really just watch like YouTube and listen to music on my phone. Can you show me how many hours you've used? My daily average is four hours for this week.
It's the end of the school day. There are some 1,500 pupils here aged between 13 and 18. The deputy head here is Kieran Mayhill and she told me how the school views smartphones in schools.
Phones have been a part of childhood and schools for a while now, but I'd say over the past four or five years I'm definitely noticing year seven and eight students, so age 11 and 12 have access to smartphones in a way that they didn't a couple of years ago. We have a see it, hear it, lose it, rule here,
which means that we acknowledge that young people will have mobile devices but they're not to be used in school unless they're for a learning purpose in which an adult is given permission for.
Some schools have a different policy, which is to lock them up. Do you think you could see yourself getting stricter here? School trusts have gone in that direction. We're watching to see if that's needed, but right now we feel that our balance of a seat here, it lose, it works for us. Can you ban something that's already there? Can you remove something that is a part of modern life? I'm not sure, but I do think
It is time that we take more notice of the potential harms to a childhood because it's not a part of the life that you ever get back. It's incredibly precious and I think actually society ought to be in that space of understanding the impact it is having on childhood. I spoke to two A-level students here, Labiba and Anika, on the changes they'd seen online.
Although, you know, younger people can be more susceptible to phone addiction, adults can be just as much addicted. Like, I've seen a lot of radicalized content for adults on Facebook. I mean, I know on YouTube there's a lot of children's regulation around what kind of content is allowed for them. Some comments are completely restricted on children's videos, so there's that.
If you could go back to my days of being a teenager, believe it or not, there was no mobile phone, no internet. Would you willingly go back to a world where there was no internet and no smartphone? I would trade it back, maybe not permanently, but it would be nice to experience it.
We know this is a fast, moving space for parents. Some schools are banning phones altogether, but the big question is these children leave the school today. Is what will the rules be the moment they get home? That report by Patti O'Connell.
It's known simply as 29155, a Russian cyber-military unit which goes after telecoms and energy infrastructure, but which also has media and political organisations in its sights. Britain warns that Russia is stepping up cyber attacks on NATO countries.
Wright's groups in Senegal have criticised the arrest of an opposition leader, who was detained after saying the Senegalese were accursed people for choosing Basarou DMI-Fi as president. Mustafa Di Akarti was arrested on Friday. Our Africa regional editor Will Ross reports.
Since Basirudiyomai-Fi was sworn in last April, at least four opposition politicians have been locked up for insulting the president. Mustafa Deiakate is the latest. Amnesty International said his arrest was a clear case of muzzling free speech in Senegal. During election campaigns, President Fai promised widespread reforms. After a national dialogue on the justice system, which took place in May, it was recommended that the crime of insulting the president be scrapped.
Africa's youngest leader and his political mentor, Prime Minister Usman Sanko, are now accused of copying the former President Maki Sal. Rights groups said he targeted opposition politicians using defamation laws.
Russia, it seems, is stepping up its attacks, and not just on the battlefield, but in cyberspace, and not just on Ukraine. The British Cabinet Minister in charge of cyber security, Pat McFadden, will tell a NATO conference in London on Monday. There's been a sharp increase in both the number and range of targets, sought out by Russian hackers, and that any country which helps Ukraine is potentially in the firing line. Here's our Europe regional editor, Paul Moss.
It's known simply as 29155, a Russian cyber military unit, which goes after telecoms and energy infrastructure, but which also has media and political organizations in its sights. The unit's aim, Pat McFadden, says, is to disrupt and degrade countries which support Ukraine. Monday, we'll see Mr McFadden address NATO's second-ever cyber security conference, warning his audience about what he calls Russia's exceptionally aggressive and reckless cyber threat.
That threat also comes from freelance criminal hackers. Allowed to operate in Russia, provided they follow the aims of Vladimir Putin. Mr McFadden's warning has now been echoed by David Omand, the former director of the UK's Intelligence Center, GCHQ.
The real victim of Russia's hybrid warfare so far has been Ukraine itself. Just think of all those cyber attacks against Ukrainian infrastructure, energy supply and so on. But what is happening hundreds of times a day are the probes and penetrations for espionage, for sabotage. And of course, the attackers are endlessly inventive.
Cyber attacks on infrastructure are at least all too visible. Power stations failing, hospitals brought to a standstill. But what many security experts say is more insidious is the effort Russia's cyber-army puts into disinformation campaigns, spreading propaganda which they hope will weaken global support for Ukraine. It's something Latvia's foreign minister, Biba Braj, has long been concerned about.
From what we are seeing, Russians are investing a lot, hundreds of millions in various countries. The whole propaganda that is being done is very much around anti-American, anti-Western, and Russia is trying to promote itself as some type of peace, envoy around the world and blaming us. So I think our societies, our populations have to be very, very aware of that.
The effects of Russian disinformation will form part of Pat McFadden's NATO speech on Monday, along with an insistence that support for Ukraine will not be compromised. But a British cabinet minister can only speak for British foreign policy. Mr McFadden acknowledges that, as well as the limits to cybersecurity, businesses and civil organisations everywhere, he says, must make sure they do everything to lock their digital doors.
Paul Moss. A British businessman caught on camera confessing to illegally selling millions of pounds of luxury perfume to Russia is not facing criminal charges the BBC has learned. David Crisp was arrested last year but his case was later dropped by HM Revenue and Customs, the tax collecting agency which is also responsible for enforcing sanctions.
Selling luxury goods to Russia is a serious offence, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, but campaigners say the UK is far behind other countries when it comes to punishing violators. Our correspondent, Bull Vernon reports.
I'm from London. Oh, no kidding. I live in Dubai. British businessman David Crisp doesn't know he's being secretly recorded by an undercover investigator. He's about to confess to violating sanctions against Russia. How's your Russian organ? Don't tell anyone. He's been doing really well. Oh, good for you. We ignore government addicts.
Government edicts is a reference to the sanctions. Mr. Crisp thought the man he was speaking to was a potential client, interested in buying his £1,000 bottle perfume. It speaks for itself really, doesn't it?
Watching the video with me in Central London, his former business partner, David Garifalo, he brought in investigators after a whistleblower came forward. He'd actually gone out of his way to disguise the fact that he'd continued selling to Russia by doctoring the management accounts.
He had deceived our in-house lawyer and misled our auditors. The BBC got access to both the undercover video and account documents which showed that Mr Crisp appeared to try to cover up sales to Russia.
The evidence was accepted by a judge in a civil case, brought by Mr Garifalo. In a provisional ruling, CRISP was removed from the management of the company. Do you know how much the total sales amount was? Approximately 1.7 million in goods that are dispatched from us, obviously, in the retail market. That would be considerably more.
Once he had full control of the company, Mr Garifalo immediately ceased trading with Russia. He also contacted the HMRC, the government agency that enforces trade sanctions in the UK. They opened an investigation into Mr Crisp. By the time we approached HMRC,
It was an open and sharp case. We had all of the documentary proof. They were disinterested and a few months went by and we learnt that stunningly HMRC had dropped the case. The government told the BBC they've implemented sanctions on Russia which are the most severe ever imposed on a major economy and they say they are finding companies for violations.
But they didn't tell us why they dropped the investigation into David Crisp, as they don't comment on individual cases. So you must feel pretty let down by HMRC? Well, I think it's utterly baffling. It does make one wonder whether the sanctions regime really was more of a PR stunt and whether there was ever any serious intention to follow up on sanctions breaking.
In a statement, David Crisp told us that he strongly refutes the allegations made against him by Mr Garifalo, and that at no point did he knowingly trade in breach of Russian sanctions, nor attempt to conceal those trades. We're sanctioning more banks. To cut off the funding for Putin's war machine in Iraq, we will impose new financial sanctions and the hardest possible sanctions.
The government has brought in more than 50 rounds of UK sanctions against Russia since the full-scale war began. But in that time, the BBC understands there hasn't been a single criminal conviction for breaching trade sanctions. That report by Will Vernon. The celebrated South African anti-apartheid activist, Brayton Bark, has died. He was 85 and had been living in Paris. Peter Hyatt looks back at his life.
Clayton Bach was an artist and writer, author of a long list of works in English and Afrikaans. Some Afrikaans speakers consider him their poet laureate, but he was a strong opponent of the apartheid policies of the ruling national party, and went into exile in Paris. There he married a French woman of Vietnamese origin, meaning he could not lawfully return to South Africa, but return he did, secretly, and was arrested in 1975 and jailed on treason charges. After international pressure, he was released and returned to Paris.
The end of apartheid saw him appointed a visiting professor in Cape Town.
The news of his death came on Sunday, the day the London Jazz Festival marked 30 years of post-apart hate democracy in South Africa by celebrating the country's jazz and avant-garde music scene. Just before the event, Kruper Patti spoke to Sia Bonga and Tembu, lead vocalist of the band The Brother Moves On. He began by talking about the performance of a piece called Ingoma and Sicolella.
Inwoma is the word for a song. Sigilella is the word to be blessed and is actually the first word from our national anthem, of course, Sigilella, which means God bless the Africa. So the name of Sunday's event, Sigilella, 30 years on, is to be blessed 30 years on in essence. We've got opening for us our amazing pianist, and in Julie, who's just released an amazing album.
So it's Keys and Vocal Dura to start us off. Then we're followed by a quartet which features doing the horosi on drums with soy to quench on tenor sax or kind of dia on synths and keys and kin and mayon keys. And then to close it is the collective which is the brothers on featuring doing the horosi, zoo and Charcy Carmichael.
And how would you describe the magical sound and music that you are going to create together? I think if you're accustomed to South African jazz, this is a break from it. This is the children of the jazz scene, in essence. It's something new, eight year times. It's showing you sort of the trajectory of where the jazz and avant-garde movement from Johannesburg and Cape Town has moved to. So how's your genre received by the more traditional South African jazz artists?
We were then received by the international audience an idea of jazz, then they were, but we're also adamantly very clear as that we don't play jazz music. If township music had a traditional music, this is where it would sort of sway to where it plays with jazz, it plays with folk, it plays with rock, but it's not really defined by the idea of being multi-genre, but rather being rooted in the idea and the feeling of what it is to be from Janice Burke.
That's really interesting. Well, let's get into that a bit more. How did the musical landscape in South Africa change when Nelson Mandela became president?
I think at that point there was this idea of music from outside of South Africa that was South African and music from inside South Africa that was South African. It's like the unification of Germany, I guess, in essence in a lot of ways where these music start meeting each other and they question the idea of being outside and inside. Post apartheid South Africa is sort of drilling with the idea that from the 1950s we've been a global country and we've lent our voice to the global idea of what it is to be jazzed, to be free, to be new, to be
Black music in essence, where it's sort of in the same way as the BRICS situation is created with equal players and realise our worth. You're playing on Sunday night? What are you most looking forward to? Being in a room with a lot of South Africans from across the world, because I feel like we're a global nation at times. We don't limit ourselves by the idea of nation-state.
and we have a world's baby, so a lot of people find sort of commonality in being with and from us. That's the thing, the room is more about the communion than some people forming, two people, but the idea of celebrating what it is to be a human in the post-apartheid South Africa. See a bonger and tempo on celebrating 30 years of democracy in South Africa through music.
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 Global NewsPod. This edition was mixed by Chris Hanson, the producer was Liam McChefry, the editor is Karen Martin. I'm Bernadette Keoh. Until next time, goodbye.
