This BBC Podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. No fluff, no guessing. When CFA Charter Holders on that resume, it means something real. Intensive study, tough exams, relentless drive, true grit, a strong network. Hiring managers get it instantly. The CFA Charter is more than letters after a name. It's proof of discipline, resilience, and integrity under pressure. It shows who you are before you even walk in the room. Explore what the Charter Holder advantage looks like at CFAInstitute.org. What are you doing here? It's time to leave. This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Alex Ritson, and in the early hours of Wednesday, the 24th of December, these are our main stories. New laws on gun ownership in Australia's New South Wales after the deadly Bondi-Beach attacks. We're not going to be done to have done everything possible to keep the people of this state safe, and we're prepared to take action and steps to keep the community safe. Pressure on the UK government grows as hunger strikers from the band group Palestine Action continue their protest. I love ones are deteriorating in their health, and it is vital that the government responds. They have chosen to ignore us and continue to decline any meeting with us. In Bethlehem, Palestinians celebrate Christmas for the first time since the beginning of the war in Gaza. Also in this podcast, the Italian theatre company transforming the lives of people with mental disabilities. Very often, we are forced to be not ourselves. Maybe you are a bit weird, you show your fragilities. It's the best thing. 10 days after the Bondi-Beach Hanukkah attack in New South Wales, the Australian status passed new laws on gun ownership and protests. Among the measures are limiting the number of guns anyone can own to four, though for farmers it's 10. Officials are claiming that the new laws are the toughest of that kind in Australia. The New South Wales Premier Chris Minnes said the state government would bring in more reforms. We're not going to be done to have done everything possible to keep the people of this state safe, and there's a recognition from this government that hate speech leads to hateful actions. That's what happens in even civilised communities like ours, and we're prepared to take action and steps to keep the community safe. Police powers to curb public protests will also be strengthened. A pro-Palestine group and other activist groups have said that they will mount a legal challenge. 15 people were killed in the shooting in Sydney where Jewish people had gathered. The Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he had requested that a special honours list be drawn up for the heroes of the 14th of December. The attack did show us the worst of humanity, hatred, anti-Semitism, violence. It also showed us the best of humanity, extraordinary acts of bravery and courage, acts of kindness for what fellow Australians. These special honours lists have been used previously to recognise individuals for other significant events like the Bali bombings and MH-17, and these awards would be announced in 2026. Police believe the gunmen who carried out the attack were inspired by the Islamic State Group. My colleague, Vanta Barn, heard more from the BBC's Phil Mercer in Sydney. Well, the state government here says these new laws are the toughest gun reforms Australia has ever seen. There will be a limit on the number of firearms an individual can own. There will also be a raft of other restrictions including far more stringent screening and licensing regulations for firearms owners. There was also an amendment made that will make it very difficult if not impossible for anyone who has associations with people suspected of terrorism from ever owning a firearm. So, all of this brought in, of course, after the attacks at Bondi Beach just over a week ago. The New South Wales State Premier is a man called Chris Minnes. He's also brought in these protest laws. Essentially, they give the police more powers to crack down on protesters and shut them down. And also, they ban any protests in the months after a terrorist incident. And the state government here has been worried that mass pro-Palestinian rallies may well have fermented anti-Semitism in this country. So, some broad reforms being brought in by the New South Wales State Government. But as you say, a broad alliance of activists, political and community groups are mounting or are likely to mount a constitutional challenge saying that the laws are unfair and undemocratic. And as far as the gun reforms are concerned, there are politicians in the New South Wales State Parliament who say that they won't do anything to protect against future atrocities and target simply law-abiding firearms owners. Phil, I also want to talk about this new award that will be created to honour the heroes from the Bondi attack. What more do we know about that? I think the atrocity 10 days ago really showed, of course, the worst and the best in humanity, the savagery and the brutality of the attack was counted to some degree from the immense heroism we saw. There were at least four people who risked their lives to try to disarm and wrestle with the government. And we know that two of the victims, Boris and Sophia German, died after trying to wrestle the firearm from one of the attackers. So, it's these sorts of heroic acts that the Australian government really has at the forefront as it creates a new award. It will also include heroism from bystanders who rushed to give first aid to people who were literally under fire at the time, medical staff, the police, many, many heroic actions, big and small being considered by the government. And we are expected to find out the recipients of these bravery awards in the new year. Phil Mercer. Not since the hunger strike in Northern Ireland in 1981, which led to the deaths of 10 Republican prisoners, including the MP Bobby Sands, have so many prisoners in UK jails put their lives at risk. Four people facing trials related to break-ins or criminal damage by the group Palestine Action continue to refuse food with two prisoners reaching their 52nd day of hunger on Tuesday. Palestine Action has become prominent in demonstrations against Israel's military operations in Gaza. The UK government prescribed Palestine Action as a terrorist organization in July this year making any demonstration of support for it a criminal offense. So far, more than 2,000 people have been arrested for this. Among them was the Swedish activist Greta Tunberg, who on Tuesday was arrested for holding up a sign reading "I support the Palestine Action Prisoners" I oppose genocide. Cameron Armerd is one of the hunger strikers. His sister, Sharmina Alam, sent the BBC this voice note about his condition. Cameron is on day 44 of his hunger strike. Since the start of his hunger strike, he has been hospitalised for time with the last two hospitalisations occurring in the last three days. His health has deteriorated to the point that the prison have moved him closer down to cells which are near the nurses station to ensure he is able to have his vitals manage and respond to any emergency situations that can occur now as he is past day 30 of his hunger strike. Being past this point means that there can be sudden changes to the health as the body starts to eat away at the organs as it tries to sustain itself. Our loved ones are deteriorating in their health and it is vital that the government responds. This could be resolved very quickly and ensure the health and well-being of all of our loved ones. They are not asking for any exceptional treatment. They are asking for their basic rights as British citizens in this country. Lawyers representing Palestine action have called on the British government to meet them and hear their concerns about their treatment in custody but so far no meeting has taken place. So just how dangerous are hunger strikes? Dr Mike Strude is a professor of medicine and nutrition and a specialist on treating prisoners who are refusing food. My colleague Evan Davis asked him how long the human body can survive not eating? As long as you are getting liquids you can withstand usually a minimum of 40 days you might die then if you have started off very thin. Perhaps more usually it is 50 to 60 days and occasionally longer as you started off overweight although being overweight doesn't protect you quite as much as you might think. And what is happening in those let's say 40, 50, 60 days as the body adapts to having no nutritional intake? The body struggles to survive by shutting systems down and it starts doing that within three or four days actually but only at a slow rate and sort of choosing things that aren't essential. But all systems are affected so your liver will stop processing things properly, your kidneys will begin to fail slowly, your heart will weaken, your immune system weakens so that you become increasingly vulnerable to getting infections and we kind of all carry infections around with us all the time so that they can get you in the end. And your brain begins to shut down too and you progress towards becoming well you may be delirious or confused or actually laps into a coma. Yeah right but Mike what do they do in prisons? Because they have, I mean we've got these well publicised hunger strikes underwear at the moment but there are quite a number of hunger strikes in any year. What's the general approach? Are they force-feeding people? Are people put onto drips of those nutritional drips or just liquid drips? What's the normal practice? You first established that the striker understands what they are doing and you want them to know that they are putting their lives at risk and assuming that they are competent which most certainly will be at the outset of hunger strike, you can't actually overrule their desire and put up a drip or force-feeding them with a tube put into their stomach because that would be considered assault and against their human right. Now some might accept some measure of a drip or force-feeding but in general if they're serious about their cause and their strike they're not going to accept that and there's very little you can do. Dr Mike Strude speaking to Evan Davis. Bethlehem is marking Christmas for the first time since the beginning of the war in Gaza. Public celebrations had been cancelled for two years but after a ceasefire was announced on October 10th the Holy City where Christians believed Jesus was born decided to bring them back starting with the lighting of its traditional Christmas tree outside the Church of the Nativity a few weeks ago. Bethlehem's economy which is heavily reliant on tourism has been battered by two years of war. While festivities return in the occupied West Bank, suffering continues in Gaza including for its tiny Christian community. According to UN report citing the Gaza Ministry of Health, more than 400 Palestinians were killed by the Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip since the October ceasefire came into effect. Shima Khalil sent us this report from Bethlehem. I've been here in Bethlehem for the past two Christmases and for those two years, major square felt empty, felt quiet, almost hollow to be honest. Now it's different. I'm standing near Santa who's ringing his bell and their children gathered around him for toys and it's so nice to see the smiles on their faces. One of the biggest things that was missing was the city's famous giant Christmas tree which I'm looking at right now for the first time. It stands proudly at the center with its golden and red ornaments and the nativity scene at the bottom. A group of tourists are taking selfies in the courtyard outside the nativity church ready to go in and yet despite the buzz and the limited presence of pilgrims and visitors, the shadow of the war lingers heavily over the holy city. The city is a different vibe but it's better. Last year there was nothing, no people, no movement. Now there's more of a festive atmosphere. The city is blossoming a bit. We're happy people have started to come back again. It's where you fuck that story. When I come here there is a war and that make me feel sad about what happened to Palestine. We cannot forget our people in Gaza and we have a different situation for them and this war will inshallah end soon as possible for them. An hour's drive from major square, the sound of drones hover about the holy family church in Gaza. Outside the church, a man finishes off the wire framing of the Christmas tree, the first in more than two years. The only space that I attend that I sleep on the night, there's no privacy. Inside, almost 300 people have sought refuge in what was once only their place of worship. Even after the ceasefire death is always near. We can't hear the sounds of pumping or the sounds of shells. I can see the pumping are very close and near to us. Hilda Joseph Ayad is a 20-year-old Christian Palestinian sheltering in the church school with her parents and two siblings. She used to be able to go to Bethlehem and describes Christmas before the war. We used to create the tree inside our home, to put an activity sense under the tree. Also, what do you miss most about Christmas before the war? My home, to be honest, my home, my memories with my family inside our home. All of us joined the table of the dinner, our meals, the gifts we used to give to each other. Do you miss Bethlehem? For sure, that's right. We used to go to Bethlehem and separating the birth of Jesus Christ there on the land of church, but now we can't go anywhere. If you have one wish this Christmas or one message for the world, what would that be? We asked them to keep us and their prayers. What do you wish for yourself? There's no personal thing. The only thing we need is the love and peace and gas and all the word. That's the only thing we are learning, we really need. Back in Bethlehem, Reverend Jack Sauer, president of the Bible College here, explains why celebrating Christmas is so important. I think this is more about hope, it's more about resilience and more about telling we exist, we are here. Christians and Muslims and everyone who lives here wants to declare that we are people who love life. When every three lighting Gaza was present, whether it is in the prayers or the mentioning. What is your message to Christians around the world and what is your personal wish this Christmas? We want peace for our people, our people need their dignity, but this is my prayer for my people. I want them to live life and life in its abundance. They're fleeting moments of joy here as light fills Bethlehem, a fragile hope resting on a fragile ceasefire and a Christmas still being shaped by loss and grief. Still to come in this podcast, Egypt starts the process of restoring a boat buried 4,000 years ago near the great Pyramid of Giza. In a unique first for the Grand Egyptian Museum, visitors will have a live experience of the ship's assembly. The ship's ship is moving to the idea park. It's been a year since the ship has been opened, where the boat is located in this great area. The ship is located in the north and west of the city, the area is located in the west. It is also known as the "Hottokeylauksen Parissa" park in Perheen. The idea park is where the island is located. What is it? I think it's a bit too far. Parvix, my name is Kyszy Miks. Now, you are now a local and famous man of the century. If you are interested in this, you can find the link in the description box below. You can find the link in the description box below. But you can find the link in the description box below. We have a plan to take four years to assemble the ship. Last Thursday, on the cobbled shores of a landsuit major in Ogmo by the sea, these appeared. A shore of shoes, hundreds of them, found as a beach clean-up team, were restoring the rock pools. It's unusual to see a shoe, but when there's so many, it does make you, it's quite unnerving. It's a little, it's a little bit strange through fair, because you just don't know where they've come from. So you're trying to figure out the story behind them and how long they've been there. We're finding so many marine litters that have been there for hundreds of years already. The overwhelming majority are men's and children's. So the question now is how did these black leather shoes from yesterday arrive in 2025? One of the most likely scenarios probably linked to Tesco Rock that found to meet a stretch of land in a distance about three kilometres west of the beach here. It's also known as a graveyard of ships having claimed a number of vessels over the years. Many years ago, that rock out there was a true hazard for ships. There's definitely a ship wreck out there that these shoes have come from. If that is the case, attention will not doubt in to who actually made the mysterious footwear. Summer suggesting online the source may be an Italian shoemaker linked possibly to a down ship from the 19th century. Thomas Morgan In 1978, Italy passed a radical law to close state run of silence, making it the first country in the world to do so. The law made way for community-based treatment of people with mental disorders and learning difficulties, rather than the social segregation that they'd faced beforehand. More than 50 years on, a theatre company in Rome is continuing to embrace that ethos, training actors with psychiatric problems and learning disabilities to perform classic Italian plays. The BBC's Isabella Jewel went to see one of their performances in London. In a dark room lit only by candles in London's Italian Embassy, a medieval poet stumbles into a terrifying hellscape. His name is Dante, and this is a performance of his divine comedy, one of Italy's most famous works of literature. The piece originally written in the 1300s is an imagined vision of the afterlife and traces a man's journey through hell to purgatory and then to paradise. But the theatre company on stage is far from a traditional one. It's called the Teatro Patelogico, literally the pathological theatre, and all the actors have learning difficulties or mental health problems, ranging from depression to anorexia. Just after the play, I caught up with Dante himself, played by Paolo Vaselli. He's been part of Teatro Patelogico since 2012 and told me about his experience. It's important because it represents the possibility of people with this disability to be happy, to improve their lives with theatre and with art, and be part of a great project. Dario D'Ambrozi is the mastermind behind the project, which has been going since 1992. Everyone, most of them is autistic and bolder-line, so they have really serious psychiatric problems. I hope theatre therapy can be a therapy for the psychiatric case, because I think when mental illness feels sick, it's like they have not the control of the emotional. And theatre helps you to put in the right play your emotional. In many places, there is still a stigma attached to people with mental disorders and learning difficulties. But by putting these actors on stage, the audience is encouraged to celebrate their talents, and they've taken their plays across the world. We went in Tokyo, we went in Johannesburg, we went in Toronto, in Chile, South America, so they can see how they feel these people, how they connect with the audience. So it's like to go again, it's a stigma. In recent years, the theatre company has even created a university course for people with mental illnesses. A point of pride for Dario D'Ambrozi, who hopes this project could inspire theatre groups in other countries. He tells me that the impact of helping just one person who's struggling has huge ripple effects in their community. When one boy, one girl, mental illness, feels good, doesn't feel good one person, but feels good to thousands of people, the mother, the father, the brothers, the grandfather, the people in the building. The theatre pathological have taken on many classics, from Pinocchio to Medea. But this play, a journey from darkness to light, has particular resonance for its lead actor, Paolo Vaselli. It's a journey that is very personal, the search for hope, some sort of light in our lives, to be happy, and to be ourselves, because in society, very often, we are forced to be not ourselves. Maybe you are a bit weird, you show your fragilities, but you are yourself, and it's the best thing. That report by Isabella Jewel. And that's all from us. Plenow, 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
[email protected]. You can also find us on X, but BBC World Service, use the hashtag #globalnewspod. This edition was mixed by Rebecca Miller, and the producer was Muzafa Shakir. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Alex Richardson, until next time, goodbye. (upbeat music)
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