UK sanctions Israeli settlements in occupied West Bank

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1:00Sheep is one more awards over its lifetime than any other SUV branch, even the Jeep Grill or Registered Trademarks of FCAUS LLC. This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Alex Ritson and at 14 hours GMT on Tuesday, the 8th of September, these are our main stories. The UK Government announced its sanctions over Israeli settlements and the occupied West Bank. Canadian tariffs on a range of US goods come into effect. And thieves steal Renoir paintings worth millions of dollars from a French museum. Also in this podcast. More importantly, you'll find a cure for cancer that today, you and I, other humans, not in our lifetimes. I believe in our lifetime AI will help cure cancer. Boss of a leading computer chip maker predicts AI will create a revolution in healthcare. The British Government has announced a ban on goods from Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank as part of what it calls a comprehensive reset of policy.

2:09Settlements are illegal under international law. Speaking in Parliament, the Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said his commitment to the two-state solution had led him to a deep sense of shame about what has been happening in Palestine. He also said plans to build thousands of new homes in Jewish settlements in the West Bank were unacceptable. Today I announce that the official view of the British Government is that the occupation is unlawful. Because of Israel's entrenchment of its control, its intention to extend permanent sovereignty and its expansionist agenda via illegal settlements. Madam Deputy Speaker, our position is not just an overdue statement of reality. The Government believes the unlawfulness of the occupation should be reflected in the economic relationships we choose to have with the occupied territories. I do not believe the British people want us supporting the occupation by accepting products from settlements in our shops and supermarkets. So I can announce today that we will introduce an import ban on goods from illegal settlements in the occupied territories.

3:15The British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband. Mr Miliband also said Canada and France are joining the UK in banning these goods and services from Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. A number of other European countries, including Poland, Portugal and Sweden, are planning to limit trade with the settlements according to a statement from their foreign ministries. Our diplomatic correspondent Paul Adams was listening to the UK Foreign Secretary's speech. He gave us his assessment of what Mr Miliband had to say. I think this is very significant and clearly the tone of and content of Ed Miliband's speech made it clear that he feels that too. This was a speech clearly highly personal, perhaps a speech that only a Jewish foreign secretary could make. And he spoke of his commitment to Israel, of his fond memories of visiting Israel. He was keen to draw a distinction between criticism of Israel and the relationship of this government and the Jewish population of the UK.

4:21But at the same time he made it clear that the government is going to depart very significantly from the policies of previous governments when it comes to the measures that you just mentioned. Not just a ban on the products from settlements, something that many MPs have called for for a long time, but also on services, two settlements, on the advertising of settlements in the UK. And he used language that frankly would have been unthinkable only a couple of years ago. He talked about his agreement with an Israeli former Brigadier general who said that ethnic cleansing was going on in the West Bank. So this was I think both in tone and content, an absolutely fundamental departure with the policies of previous governments. Paul, what did he say about some of the criticisms that he heard from the shadow foreign secretary Tom Tuganhat, which had been raised by others, including the board of deputies here in the UK, that this action will fuel anti-Semitism in the UK?

5:27He anticipated much of that at the beginning of his address in talking about anti-Semitism in the United Kingdom and about his own relationship with the Jewish people. He is Jewish and with the state of Israel. He said he described himself as a proud British Jew and he said that there was absolutely in his words no contradiction between the support for Israel and the support for a state of Palestine. When it comes to some of the other things that Tom Tuganhat was highlighting, the threats to important exports of medical supplies to the United Kingdom from Israel, to the issue of security cooperation. And of course also the fact that Israel is about to go into elections and these measures announced by Britain and other governments could bolster the hard right in Israel. I think clearly Mr. Miller-Band responded in a way that suggested that he had thought through these issues very carefully and had decided that notwithstanding these dangers, some of which he dismissed, the important and the right moral thing to do.

6:32Paul Adams. The settlements in the occupied West Bank have expanded rapidly under the current Israeli government, which its far right finance minister, Basil L. Smotrich, has said will bury the idea of a Palestinian state. At the same time, Settler violence against Palestinians has surged to what the UN says is an all-time high. Our Middle East correspondent, Yolanda Nell, reports from the Jordan Valley on what a settlement good span could mean. On a sweltering day, Israeli settlers splash in a pool at a Jordan Valley archaeological site. It was filled this summer by diverting the water supply for a nearby Palestinian village in the occupied West Bank. At the start of the year, the last of some 600 Palestinian Bedouins packed up their belongings and fled from nearby Ras'i Nalogha. They'd endured years of attacks by violent settlers.

7:33The UK calls what's happening across the West Bank a pauling settler terrorism. The Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband says new Israeli plans to expand settlements illegal under international law mark the crossing of a red line. He plans to reset policy. This government will not acquiesce the destruction of the two state solution. We will act and I will set out a comprehensive set of measures in the coming weeks. I'm in the Jordan Valley to find out if one expected measure a British ban on settlement produce could make a difference. The main road here is dotted with date palms. Their juicy fruits are the main export crop from this region for Israeli settlers and Palestinians. About half the palms have no fruits, complaints Abdul Halim Abul Omar in Al-Awjav village. It's because we lack water. Palestinians say Israel denies them a fair share of resources.

8:34This year the farmer has few dates that are fit to show local exporter Mum and Synokrot who sells to the UK. Mum and believes ending trade with settlements could curb settlement growth. Settlers are very active in the Jordan Valley and increasingly active. And they are not obeying any laws or rules or anything even from the Israel army itself. They are going to the fields of the growers. They are stealing from them and they are controlling more land. Palestinians want this wide swath of fertile land along the West Bank's border with Jordan as part of their own hoped for state. But Israeli date farmer Avigdo Arbel is competent that Israel will never give it up. He's lived in a settlement here for more than 50 years and dismisses the impact of any UK ban on his goods. As soon as we have a situation of pressure and boycotts, we always break out and look for other markets.

9:36So I believe that if we get to a situation where there's no place to sell my fruits in Europe, we'll find other markets. Already Israel's foreign secretary Gideon Saar is threatening retaliation for any UK ban. I want to say just one thing. If Britain acts against the state of Israel, the state of Israel will act against Britain. Several other European countries have already banned trade with settlements, saying it's illegal obligation. But Britain's expected action is now putting a heavy strain on relations with Israel. Yoland Nell. Fighting has escalated between Saudi Arabia and the Iran-backed Houthi group. Attacks on Saudi energy facilities and infrastructure have left more than 70 people wounded. The Houthi's military spokesperson Yaya Sarri gave this statement after the attack. The Yemeni armed forces carried out a broad and extensive military operation targeting the Aramco company and the King Khalid airbase,

10:41with tens of ballistic missiles and drones. Thanks to God, the strikes were accurate and direct, causing significant damage to those facilities. The Yemeni armed forces hold the criminal Saudi enemy responsible for the escalation. Saudi Arabia has been supporting Yemen's internationally recognized government against the Houthis. Saudi authorities and official media said the strikes caused fires and temporary shutdowns. So, how significant is this attack? I asked our Global Affairs reporter Sebastian Asher. It's significant within the terms of what goes on between the Saudis and the Houthis and the Yemeni conflict. It's very difficult to gauge quite where that's going. I'll have to see how the Saudis respond to this. They will respond firmly when it assumes that will be the case. But this has happened just as there's been very heavy fighting in Yemen over the past few days. It's all really the contagion essentially from the Iran War. The Houthis are semi-independent. They're not just the poor of the Iranians.

11:45But the way they have tried to close off this second major waterway, the Babelman-Deb-Straight, which is off the coast of Yemen, to Saudi vessels which are using it as an alternative to the sort of Hormuz, has been significant. It has led to both the showdown with the Saudis again, which I think we will see obviously that develop. But also, it's destabilized for situation in Yemen. And oil prices already on the up as a result? Absolutely, because I mean this is very much as far as the Houthis are concerned, the key element of it with the Saudis is to close down that oil export route. Now, the Saudis do have other ways of getting oil out if that were to be the case. But nervousness, of course in the oil markets, will increase every time you see something like this. And part of the thing that has led to this latest escalation inside Yemen was an assault that the Houthis launched last Thursday towards coastal areas, which if they took control of that, of course it would give them greater control of the Babelman-Deb-Straight.

12:46And essentially they could possibly close the whole thing down. So there's that element. But within the fighting in Yemen, what we're hearing at the moment, of course there isn't that much independent reporting. But the pro-government forces backed by Saudi Arabia are staging quite a strong response to the Houthis, but they have taken towns that there is momentum behind at the moment. The big question is whether that will continue, whether that will change the equation in Yemen. And one other thing, there was a defense pat that the Saudis assigned, called the Mecca Alliance, with Turkey and Pakistan. Now essentially Turkey and Pakistan should be coming to the Saudis aid if they're in this kind of situation. That would change things, of course, enormously at the moment. That does seem unlikely. Sebastian Asher. Still to come in this podcast. I just don't see myself on stage with Liam. I really want to be gone back with the tension. Will it fall apart again? Looking back in anger, unseen footage about what life was really like during the Oasis reunion.

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14:56Book your next day with Furbo now. You're listening to the Global News Podcast. The boss of one of the world's leading computer chip makers is predicting artificial intelligence is poised to cause a revolution in healthcare. Renate House of Arm Holdings has been speaking to our economic senator, Faisal Islam. Drugs can take 20 years to be developed. 95% of those R&D efforts fail. AI is going to not only shorten the amount of time that those drugs can be invented. It's going to shorten the amount of time that you test them. You'll start to replace some human trials with AI. But more importantly, you'll find a cure for cancer that today, you and I, other humans, not in our lifetimes. I believe in our lifetime AI will help cure cancer. So this is your company that builds on science but it will transform science as well. Absolutely. I want to start pretty big, right? What does the world look like in tenious time because of AI?

15:58I do think in ten years we will see physical AI robotics in a very large way, whether it's around manufacturing, cleaning services, security, infrastructure, remaining building bridges, doing repairs. People talk about robots and they're not going to be able to do the sci-fi future of actual robots. Absolutely. 100% robots prior to AI were built for a certain purpose. You see them in factors today. They install a tire and a factory or inside a distribution area. They're the forklifts that move up and down. With artificial intelligence, these robots can see, learn, and essentially be reprogrammed for new tasks. So in the service industry, the robot that was programmed to make a bed can now make a bed. But can also learn how to arrange the towels in a room or clean the dust bins or whatever you want to go up and do. We need to get the costs down. We need to be able to get them to be lighter, faster.

17:01But that's just an engineering cost issue that we're going to get our hands around. And what about in your home life? How would you advise people use it with their children and some concerns as well as some opportunities there? For people who say, gosh, AI is going to replace humans and replace jobs and knowledge work. AI is going to be there, period. We know that. And that's for all things we're talking about. So I would tell anyone who's talking to their kids or my case grandkids, learn it, embrace it, and become comfortable with it. Because ultimately, AI is a utility that's going to allow us to be more productive and effective. So don't be afraid of it. Renate has a tech giant arm holdings. The United Nations has called the war in Sudan the world's largest humanitarian crisis. Tens of thousands of people have died and millions have fled their homes. The Civil War has been ongoing for more than three years as the Sudanese armed forces and the paramilitary rapid support forces fight for control.

18:01And now people are facing a severe healthcare crisis. The medical charity, Medisand San Fronteur warns that international funding cuts are contributing to the collapse of the fragile health system. Cuts have closed medical clinics, hospitals are losing their capacity to function, and medicine supplies are running low. Our Africa correspondent Barbara Plett-Asha told me more. Last year the US shut down its maiden aid agency. So what we're seeing right now is the continuing impact of that because the existing grants that USAID had given to organizations operating in Sudan ran out in June. Those organizations have not been able to find alternative funding so they've had to pull out. And where it comes to health that means local clinics have either shut down or severely downsized. And that has put more pressure on hospitals. MSF, the medical charity gave specific examples. For example, they said in a refugee camp in the eastern state of Gaddaf, the maternity and surgical wards have been closed. In another refugee camp in the same state, they said that the aid organizations are down to 10 from a high of 35 years ago.

19:08And central Darfur 45 health centers have lost support. Many of them have closed. One of them in particular, a large one has stayed open. But with vast the reduced services, no vaccinations only able to see 40 patients a day down from 200. And so this is compounding and already quite severe health crisis in Sudan. This presumably humanitarian terms means it could yet get a lot worse. Yes, definitely. And that is the warning. Now, I mean, we are talking about specific funding withdrawals and program closures at a local level. There is still money coming in. The Americans are still the largest donor to Sudan. Some European governments are prioritizing their Sudan funding, even though they are cutting their international assistance overall. But already 37% of Sudan's health care facilities are estimated to be out of service. And now, with these local clinics being shut, that's putting extra pressure on hospitals that are still open. MSF is calling them at the breaking point. The truth is that this conflict is not a priority for the international community.

20:13You're right. I mean, there is some attention on the conflict. You've had more UN reports lately talking about the war, highlighting the international and especially transnational networks that are supplying weapons to the warring parties, especially the paramilitary rapid support forces. The U.S. is joining calls to extend the arms embargo. There is one already on Darfur has been for many years, but there are calls to extend it to the rest of the country. There's going to be a vote on that in the Security Council Thursday. There have been sanctions put on both warring parties. But the bottom line is there just hasn't been the political will to really put pressure on the main players, the national ones and especially the international ones, or to hold them to account. And in the meantime, we are in an environment of international aid decreasing. So I don't really expect that we will see a reversal in that. The U.S. is a number of pled usher. Following the collapse of trade negotiations between the U.S. and Canada last month, Canadian retaliatory tariffs on various American goods have come into effect.

21:13Ottawa says it's matching Washington's latest tariffs, dollar to dollar, and the dispute may be widening. President Trump has now threatened to stop Canadian aircraft maker Bombardier selling planes in the U.S. unless it manufactures them there. And they asked our international business correspondent Theo Legat what products could be affected by the new Canadian tariffs. Oh, gamut of products really. I mean, we're looking at American milk, perfume, video games, machine goods, washing machines, fridges, jackets, t-shirts, all sorts of things. But the way that the Canadians have done their retaliation is it's innocence is deliberately unprovocative. It's retaliation, but it's proportional retaliation. So as they say, they're going dollar to dollar rate for rate with the tariffs on 20 billion dollars worth of Canadian exports that the White House imposed tariffs on a couple of weeks ago. So at the moment, you have the standoff, which is the latest salvo in an ongoing trade war that's been going on for about 18 months.

22:16The were negotiations, as you say, through the summer, which would design to put an end to all of that. Those negotiations were coming close to an end. It was thought that a deal would be reached at the last moment they broke down. And what we have now is retaliation and an escalation of rhetoric that seems to show no sign of ending. Yeah, Donald Trump making these threats against the Canadian aircraft maker Bombardier will kind of be matching those dollar for dollar. Well, you have to ask whether the Americans will actually impose tariffs or any other sort of sanctions on Bombardier. Bombardier is not the company at once was that used to build regional jets and even at one point was trying to take on the lights of Boeing and Airbus with its C-series aircraft. It's smaller than that now. It predominantly makes regional and business jets and also some military hardware. Now, it doesn't make the planes in America, but it does make a lot of components there and a lot of US jobs do actually rely on Bombardier. So whether it would be in the US interest to sanction Bombardier is very much open to question.

23:19Despite the rhetoric, though, most trade between the two countries, which are enormous trading partners, I still tariff with. Yeah, I mean Canada does 70% of its trade with the United States. That trade is worth about $411 billion US dollars. The tariffs are on less than 5% of that. Lightwise going the other way, US exports to Canada, the tariffs will affect about 6%. So yes, in overall terms, it's pretty small beer and if you look at the average tariff rates that Canada pays, they're about level with what the UK is being charged by the US. That kind of level, but it's where the effect of these tariffs will fall. Who's likely to be affected? And it is, you know, in the case of US tariffs on Canada, it's Canadian manufacturers. And in the case of Canadian tariffs on the US, it targets people in Midwestern states that may turn out to be crucial in November's midterm elections. Theo Legut. In the latest high profile art theft to hit French museums, a number of paintings worth millions of dollars have been stolen from the former home of the Impressionist painter Pierre Auguste Renoir.

24:27It flows are heist at the Louvre Museum last year when historic jewelry dubbed as the French crown jewels were stolen and most of the items remain missing. Our Paris correspondent Hugh Scofield is on the case of this latest theft. This is a museum near Nice, Ken Sumer, the last home of Renoir. He died in 1919. He's been a museum since the 60s contains a number of his paintings. And very early in the morning, between five and six o'clock in the morning, two men broke in. They apparently were well equipped in gloves and in fatigue combat fatigue. They knew what they were doing. Says the mayor. They broke into the museum immediately. The alarm went off. They had to make a very quick getaway. They took four paintings, but abandoned in their heist to them in the grounds of the museum. And two are still missing and they are a regional Renoir paintings. They're worth an awful lot of money, but will not be sellable on the open market because they're very famous pictures.

25:28What is it about museum security in France? Well, I think you could distinguish perhaps between the Louvre. It's possibly the most famous museum in the world where everyone expects it to be an extremely high standard of security, which was clearly lacking for the heist a year ago. And this very, very rich and extensive network of smaller museums around the country. I would class the Renoir museums, the kind of middle ranking museum, but I mean below that there are hundreds, thousands of small museums in France, which are very, very exposed and which are now being targeted more and more by unscrupulous thieves. Here, quite clearly the place was targeted, but they will argue that their system of security actually functioned and I think they're fairly confident that they will catch these people because they really only had five minutes in there before the police were on their tail. As you say, hard to sell, but perhaps they were stolen to order. Well, I think that must be the case. I mean, you can't sell these things. They're famous pictures. So it must be in a kind of prestigious thing ordered by some high up gangsta who wants to be able to boast to his cronies because there's not much else he's going to be able to do with them.

26:39You scoffield to the English rock band Oasis now who after 16 years of not performing took to the stage again last year and were about to see how it all unfolded behind the scenes in a new documentary. The way it finished when acceptable. It didn't sit right with me, man. I just don't see myself on stage with Liam. I really want to be going back with the tension. Will it fall apart again? Stephen Knight is the writer and producer of the film Oasis don't look back in anger and a foster asked him how it all worked out. It's the first documentary I've ever made. So I'm not in charge of it. I'm not in control. I don't know where it's heading. But as an act of faith, sort of said to everybody involved, we have to assume this is going to work. We have to assume they're going to come together that this is going to be about reconciliation. Because that was never a guarantee. Never a guarantee. But that's what we set out to tell that story. Fortunately, that's what happened. But when I met Nolan Liam at the very beginning of this.

27:47They had such a burning desire for this to work that I sort of had no doubt that they were going to see it through. But I had no idea how emotional and profound this journey was going to be because it's not just about these two brothers. It's about a lot more than that. One of the reasons I'm really excited to see it is because when they first announced the tour, I thought, I'm not sure, do I want to go back to my teenage years? And I think they almost in the same way they didn't realize what it would become in the end, that journey. That is absolutely true. When I first met Nolan, and I'm sort of looking for, because I've been invited to do this. And I was sort of quite shocked to be asked to do it. But Liam and Nolan wanted me to do it. So I said, yes. And then when I met Nolan, he said that they were not expecting the tidal wave of interest in buying tickets. And so what they realized was, this isn't just the people who loved it originally. There's a whole new generation that for whatever reason, I found this music and found the words and found the feeling that Oasis give.

28:50And so my question then for the documentary was, let's find out why that has happened. And that's what this film is about. Documentary maker Stephen Knight. And that's all from us for now. If you want to get in touch, you can email us at globalpodcast.bbc.co.uk. You can also now watch our episodes in full, just search for the Global News podcast on YouTube. This edition was mixed by Chris Lovelock, and the producer was Richard Hamilton. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Alex Ritson, until next time, goodbye. Get more with BBC podcasts wherever you listen. Be the first to listen to your favourite shows, like Evil Genius, Good Bad Billionaire and Your Dead To Me, with a subscription to BBC Podcasts Premium on Apple Podcasts. You can also enjoy a range of our podcasts, Add Free, with an Amazon Music subscription.