Huge turnout in Israeli election

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Israel has a population of just 10 million people. But given its place in a volatile region, when it holds general elections, the world often watches intently. And that is particularly the case now. As we record this podcast, Israelis are still flooding to the polls in numbers not seen for more than 40 years. Their urgency is not surprising. Since the last election, we've had the Hamas attack, the attacks of October the 7th, and Israel's military campaigns in Gaza, Lebanon, and perhaps most consequentially for the world, Iran. For some, this election is a referendum on Benjamin Netanyahu himself, Israel's longest serving prime minister, still being criticised for perceived security failures ahead of the October the 7th attacks. His rival, Gadi Eisenkot, has been urging voters to oust what he called the worst government in Israel's history. I heard more about the turnout, from our Middle East correspondent, Yolande Nell, in Jerusalem. The latest we've just heard from the Central Elections Committee is that it's up to 44.9% and it's still some time to go before 10 o'clock local time when the polling stations will be closed. And I've been speaking to people going into this polling station in Jerusalem, a steady stream of voters have been going and a real mix of people, you know, people who are religious, people who are more secular, families and elderly people. The one thing that they all tell you is that they do see this as being a crucial, critical vote. I've met people who are from across the political spectrum, those who are more on the left, those who are in the centre and some who are on the far right. And I have spoken to people. One man told me he'd come from Los Angeles to vote in this election. Others said they had also flown in and weren't giving so many details away. But, you know, that really does give you a sense of how people see that this is not just about the direction of the country. One man said to me he felt it was about the spirit of the country also. For the past four years, it's been, the most right-wing ever government that Israel has had in charge. And it's taken the country along a religious, nationalist, hardline course. And many people would like to see that change and take a more moderate direction. They say this has led to Israel's global isolation and have a lot of questions about what this means for Israel's democracy. But then there are other Israelis who I've been talking to here who think that this government, those who've been in charge, Benjamin Netanyahu, with his far-right and ultra-Orthodox Jewish partners, that they are preserving Israel's nature as a Jewish state. And that, you know, they should be allowed to continue the work that they have started. Yolande, from an outsider's point of view, the two men you've mentioned, Mr. Eisenkot and, of course, Benjamin Netanyahu, if they were to lead a future government, what impact would it have internationally on the wars in Gaza, Lebanon, and attitudes towards Iran? Why should the rest of the world be concerned? I mean, what people have been saying to me is, you know, what will also happen if the current coalition continues? Because those policies that it has been pursuing are ones that do concern Israel's allies around the world. And if it continues, it will pursue a course of trying to annex parts of the occupied West Bank, potentially, provocative actions against the Israeli Arab minority in the north and the south of the country. It's been made clear by Benjamin Netanyahu that he would almost certainly be going back to war with Iran. There would be an overhaul of the judicial system to allow the government more autonomy to act. There have been calls for mass migration from Gaza, even from the West Bank. And there would be no state commission of inquiry, which is what the opposition bloc has been demanding into the events that led up to the 7th of October attacks. Yolande Nell, ordinary people trying to get by have so often been caught up in Sudan's civil war. And here's what seems to be a problem. A particularly blatant example of that. The paramilitary rapid support forces say around 100 people have been killed in a drone strike on the city of Nayala in South Darfur state. Eyewitnesses said a market in the north of the city was hit on Monday evening. This is a place that's been a stronghold of the paramilitary RSF and is regularly attacked by the Sudanese armed forces. Since it began more than three years ago, the war is thought to have killed at least 200,000 people. I heard more about the war and more about this latest attack from our Africa correspondent, Barbara Pletasha, who's in Nairobi. What we understand is that there was a drone strike or maybe a number of drone strikes in the north of Nayala on Monday night. Now, Nayala is essentially the stronghold of the RSF, but it's also their de facto capital. They have a civilian government that is aligned to them and they also have training centres there for their soldiers. So it's very much an RSF space. And as you mentioned, the Sudanese armed forces have been regularly attacking it. One report said was that the strike on the market killed at least 21 people and injured 40. Not clear how many were civilians and how many may have been RSF fighters because it was apparently an area where young men who fight with the RSF hung out. I spoke to the health minister who's in the RSF-aligned government and he has put out a statement saying, in actual fact, more than 100 people were killed and another 100 injured in something he called a humanitarian tragedy, calling it civilianism. Civilians dead. Pro-army social media posts have suggested that, in fact, the drones also struck an RSF training camp, killing fighters. So, as usual, the picture is not entirely clear, but definitely what is clear is that drone attacks by both sides have stepped up and they have made war much deadlier for civilians. What about the general state of the war? Nayala is just one of numerous places where the fighting is as severe as ever. That's right. The war has shifted to the central south part of Sudan. Sudan in an area known as the Kordofan State. It's a strategic area because it links RSF-held territory in the west with army-held territory in the center and the east, including Khartoum. And so the fighting has been very intense there. The RSF and its local allies have also made inroads into another state in the south that is close to the Ethiopian border. As I mentioned, a lot of this is being fought with drones. Last week, nearly, I think, more than 300 people were reported killed in strikes that were attributed to the Sudanese army, although the foreign ministry denied that. So you can see, as you mentioned, that ordinary people are often caught up in this increasingly deadly war. The RSF has said it is open to peace talks, which the U.S. is pushing, but that has never been tested because the Sudanese army has said it will not enter any sort of humanitarian truce or some such unless the RSF pulls out of territory that it has taken. Barbara Pletosha. A truce between Ukraine and Russia. aimed at allowing humanitarian aid into the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky in southern Ukraine has come into effect. Oleshky was seized by Russia during the first days of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine back in February of 2022. Over 1,500 people remain trapped in the city. They haven't been able to get out because of mines and drone attacks in the area, and there are shortages of food and medicine. The White House says that the ceasefire was brokered last week by the U.S. First Lady, Melania Trump, Dmitry Peskov is the Kremlin spokesperson. For humanitarian purposes, it can be a precedent, especially when we are talking about the direct, very positive intervention by the American side. We highly appreciate these efforts. We hope that the Ukrainian side will fulfill all the agreements that we reached with the direct participation of American negotiators, including Melania Trump. One line. man who escaped from Oleshki some time ago gave his perspective on the current ceasefire. We're not identifying him because he fears for his safety. What I think regarding a truce is that I'm very sceptical about all of this. Having lived for four and a half years among the Russian military, you realise that almost everything they say is all a lie. I respect US First Lady Melania Trump very much, but she has absolutely no influence on Vladimir Putin. What should be done with those people who cannot move on their own, the severely ill people, the elderly people? What will happen to them? Our correspondent in Kiev, Dan Johnson, told me more about the current state of the ceasefire. The early signs from Oleshki are positive. It's about eight hours since this ceasefire was supposed to come into force and both sides say they are respecting it so far. The aim here is to get some aid supplies. into the town so that people can get food, proper clean water, some medicine, the sort of thing they've been desperately short of for months, if not years, because this place has been occupied and surrounded. It is effectively cut off by the river. There's been no escape route for Ukrainians who wanted to leave and they've been surviving there in desperate circumstances. So the plan is now that a team will go in to try to clear an escape route, to try to clear the mines and shells and that with a ceasefire, the drone attacks will stop so that there is time for people who want to get out to leave. That evacuation effort's not due to start until Thursday. They're going to take a bit of time to see if this ceasefire does hold and to give them time to clear a safe evacuation route. But there is, as you heard, a lot of scepticism amongst the population. They've been offered this sort of thing before and it's not really materialised. So they're deeply sceptical about the Russians respecting this. And there's a fear that even if the ceasefire does hold, Russia may use it either to win advantage with the Americans or at the same time to reinforce and resupply its military units in that area so that when the fighting commences, they're in a stronger position to take on the Ukrainians on the front line. Dan, it's pretty clear that elsewhere the fighting is, if anything, intensifying. What do we know? What's been happening overnight? Yeah, it's important to say this is. It's a very much a localised ceasefire. So even if it is successful, it only applies to Aleshky and a very tight area around that town. In terms of the rest of Ukraine, there's been quite an intense night of attacks. Kyiv particularly came under missile attack last night. Parts of the city's energy network were again targeted. The city's southern bridge across the Dnipro River was hit again. That's done serious damage to that bridge from the pictures that we're seeing. The traffic can't flow over that bridge. The metro trains also use it and are suspended on that route. So that is causing traffic problems. One of the city's universities was hit last night and there were reports of students having been wounded there and one person was killed in the city. There have been attacks in Kharkiv and many other places. So at the same time, as we're talking about a ceasefire in one particular place for one particular humanitarian reason, Russia's attacks against Ukraine continue. It is applying pressure again on the population and on the energy network of Ukraine, right across the country. Dan Johnson. Investigative journalism at its best holds people in power to account by reporting accurate, verifiable facts. But how much would actually get to air or be published on websites if reporters had to seek consent from the people they write about? That is what a government law in India proposes. A group of news publishers there are opposed to it, and they've been petitioning the Supreme Court. The Digital News Publishers Association said the law would challenge the whole country. I heard more from our global affairs reporter, Ambrasan Etarajan. The government is following up on a Supreme Court verdict about 10 years ago where it declared privacy is a fundamental right in India. So India previously had an information and technology rule that was passed in 2000 before the advent of social media and the growth of internet and the web. So they needed a new law where people's personal data can be protected and they are properly used and they are not abused. In fact, that is a huge issue with these big social media companies with Meta and Google, how your personal data is being processed. So they needed a law where all these companies, all these digital websites, how they can protect that. That has been the logic of the government. But there has been exemption to certain categories like newsrooms or journalism from these digital news data protection laws. But that is what this digital news publisher, are telling that now this is quite, you know, far reaching, literally stopping us to do any investigative journalism, because the government can ask us to provide all the information. Number one. Number two, if you are doing an investigative journalism against any individual, you need to seek his consent before you start working on that. In that case, like he can destroy the evidence, intimidate witnesses. So basically, it stops you from doing journalism. That is the main argument of these digital news publishers. What about other people? People, journalists, many journalists are obviously opposed to this. In India, is this making waves? It is a huge concern for the journalists, especially for digital news websites. They had previous rounds of talks with the government. It is going to come into effect from May next year. And they did not get any positive response as they sought an exemption for journalism newsrooms. That did not happen. That's why now they're reaching the court so that the court can look into this and give them some remedy. Ambrosan Etirajan. Still to come in this podcast. And when she started torturing you, something snapped in a way I couldn't explain. Only that seeing you pleading and screaming undid me, it broke me at last. We explore the global publishing phenomenon, romantasy. Choiceology, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. Is a show about the psychology and economics behind our decisions. Join host Katie Milkman, an award-winning behavioral scientist and author of the best-selling book, How to Change, as she shares true stories from Nobel laureates, authors, athletes, and everyday people about why we make the choices we do and how to make better ones to help avoid costly mistakes. Listen to Choiceology at schwab.com slash podcast or wherever you listen. Sometimes we all need an extra helping hand. Especially with a tricky business problem you've been putting off. Claude is the AI for just that. It's the collaborator that understands your entire workflow and thinks with you, not for you. And Claude isn't just for quick questions. 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The US Justice Department has moved to file new charges against the former FBI Director James Comey, accusing him of leaking national security information to a journalist a decade ago. It is the third time in just over a year that the Trump administration has tried to prosecute Mr. Comey, who Mr. Trump fired back in 2017. Since then, he's been an outspoken critic of the president. Mr. Comey responded to the new charges in a short video. They're back again. It would almost be funny if it weren't such an appalling abuse of the Department of Justice, one that we cannot become numb to. Nothing's changed with me. I'm still innocent. I'm still not afraid of these people. And I still believe in the independent federal judiciary. And I'm still lucky to have an amazing family and an incredible group of lawyers. We'll stand up in court and fight the latest and whatever comes after this. Yes, and Mr. Comey's lawyers have filed a motion to dismiss the charges, as they may have exceeded the 10-year statute of limitations. Another case against him is still set to go to trial next year. That centres on a photograph of seashells on a beach that Mr. Comey shared on social media last year, which prosecutors deemed to be a threat against Mr. Trump. Glenn Kirchner is a former US federal prosecutor. He told us more about the new charges. Any time your own government accuses you of mishandling national defence information, which is a charge that falls under our espionage laws, it is something that feels deadly seriously, of course, when we see the track record of the current administration going after the former director of the FBI over and over again unsuccessfully. You have to wonder if this is just more of the same. There is a statute of limitations problem, and really at light speed, James Comey's legal team filed a motion to dismiss these two charges because. on reviewing the pleadings in the case, it does appear that they were filed beyond a 10-year statute of limitations that required an indictment to be filed within 10 years of the time of the alleged crime, which was October 5, 2016. It looks like this motion to dismiss has a very good chance of being granted. It's beginning to feel like for Donald Trump's administration, the process is the punishment, not the prospect of a successful prosecution, because I think with each case this DOJ brings against Mr. Comey, it is less and less and less likely they will be successful. But they are putting him through a very difficult time. He is now facing 10 years on each of the two charges that have been brought. It requires him to hire counsel. It probably results in sleepless nights for he and his family. And it feels like this administration is using the process as the punishment. Former U.S. federal prosecutor Glenn Kirchner. Now, what began as a joke has quickly escalated into a major row involving China and one of the world's best footballers, Kylian Mbappe, who plays for the top Spanish club, Real Madrid. A video has emerged that appears to show the striker making fun of China's revolutionary hero, Mao Zedong. It's not gone down well in China. Two of the footballer's Chinese sponsors dropped him. Now, state media says, the football games from the Spanish league known as La Liga will not be broadcast on TV. La Liga has responded by apologising, issuing a statement that said it deeply regretted Mbappe's comments. It started with an internet meme in which Mbappe is known as the dictator. Our China correspondent Stephen McDonald told me how that began. It's because he's so dominant and powerful on the field, like single-handedly determining results. And apparently also, even off the field, is such a presence at Real Madrid and with the French team that he's jokingly been referred to as the dictator. Now, what this prompted were fans sort of superimposing his face on the bodies of all sorts of strongman leaders, including, as it turns out, China's chairman Mao. Now, a video has emerged of an interview with him in which he says that the funniest meme he's ever seen was his face photoshopped onto that and, quote, some guy, I think he's a Chinese dictator. And so it's both a sort of, it's a double whammy hit for Chinese nationalists, if you like, because sort of dismissing this huge historic figure as some guy, then also referring to Mao as a dictator. Well, of course, it was going to stir things up here. And so you've had this outcry on social media. And then other companies and others have followed. This is all over a man, Mao Zedong, who died decades ago. In other countries, if a former leader was mocked relatively gently in this way, it might not cause such a big issue. Why so in China? No, look, in most countries, even supporters of a political figure would understand jokes about them. And in China, it would probably be the case with even other leaders. But for some here, Mao is seen as the father of modern China. I mean, his painting is above the Tiananmen Gate, his mausoleum is in the middle of Tiananmen Square. So, you know, he is elevated above those other leaders in terms of his place in Chinese society. Now, that said, he was also responsible for the famine with the Great Leap Forward, killing millions of people with all the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, in which there was death and destruction held the back. So a lot of people here, especially older people, know what a flawed figure he was. But I think sometimes the younger people, they have not, they don't focus on that so much, potentially, because certainly their schooling doesn't focus on it. So you can understand why they sort of see this as not so much, they're not thinking it through in terms of, gee, is Mao really a dictator or anything like that? I think they just see it as a slight on the country by making a joke about the founding father. Stephen McDonnell and Kylian Mbappe have since apologized for their ill-judged comments. He said he now understood that his remarks had hurt the feelings of many people in China. Now, many of us remember the unprecedented global phenomenon created by the Harry Potter books in the early 2000s. But now that franchise may have a rival, ACOTAR. After a five-year wait, readers around the world can buy the sixth installment in the best-selling book series by Sarah J. Maas. Many people queued through the night to be there, when bookshops opened. Fans also marked the release by dressing up as their favorite characters and taking part in book quizzes. Maas's books have sold more than 75 million copies and been published in 40 languages. The series gets its name from its first book, A Court of Thorns and Roses, and is part of the romanticist genre. But what is it and why is it so popular? I asked the newsroom's Ira Khan, who is herself something of a fan. Romanticist is the blend of two genres, romance and fantasy. And it gained a lot of traction on the reading community on TikTok, known as BookTok. They're set in these fantasy worlds. There's fairies and magic, but there's also a huge romantic plot. There's also typically a large-scale conflict that's happening in this fantasy world, like wars or rebellion. And what stands out about romantasy compared to other genres is that you have both the romance and this heavy plot existing together. And because it's this world-ending theme and this big romance that's happening, the stakes when you're reading these books feel a lot higher. So how does Akatar fit into that genre's story? Akatar is one of the main pioneers of this romantasy genre. I remember when the first book came out when I was 14. The first three books in this series follow the main female character called Feyre. And she's originally human, but she gets taken to this magical realm called Prithian. And she's a woman who's a woman of color. And this fantasy world, it features these seven courts, which are all ruled by a powerful Feylord. The people who are in this fantasy world are not human. They're these immortal, magical species. This is an audiobook of one of the key love confessions in the series between Feyre and her love interest. When she started torturing you, something snapped in a way I couldn't explain. I knew right then what you were. I knew that you were my mate. And you were in love with another male and had destroyed yourself to save him. And that, that I didn't care. If you were going to die, I was going to die with you. Then she snapped your neck. I felt you die. And this beautiful, wonderful thing that had come into my life, this gift from the cauldron, it was gone. So that's just a taster of the audiobook there. She sold 75 million books. Why do you think it's so popular? It's pure escapism. BookTok, which is this community of readers on TikTok, they share rankings of the book series, theories of what might happen, their favourite quotes. The fantasy world in these books are so complex, they're so descriptive, and people use AI to make characters, to set the scenes. There's also podcasts that are devoted to dissecting these books. One of my favourites is called Fantasy Fangirls. It has over 15 million downloads. There's even people who have read A Court of Splendour. That's the new title. And I've posted their reviews, even though it only came out at midnight. My colleague and Romanticist superfan, Ira Kahn there. And finally, to New York, where a dinosaur skeleton will be auctioned later. The two metre tall skeleton is of a smaller relative of the more fearsome T-Rex. Smaller in statue, it may be, but it has giant sized price tags attached. It's expected to sell at Sotheby's for $9 million. Megan, thank you so much for joining us. And Jacob's is a paleontologist at the University of Portsmouth here in the UK. She's been explaining more about the Nanotyrannus to Justin Webb. The Nanotyrannus was, for a very long time, believed to be sort of a teenager of T-Rex. But it's a lot smaller, and it's a lot more gracile. So it's very sort of slender. It's a blade-like teeth for slicing through meat. So it had been a pursuit predator. It wasn't small. It's still, we think, about a tonne in weight and about 18 foot long. 18 foot long. Okay, so it's not a tiny thing. And the parts of it that are going on sale today, is it intact? What is a potential buyer buying? So it's about around 70% of the skeleton is the one at the Sotheby's auction, which is about 190 bones within their complete skull. Yeah, exactly. So, and it's going on for quite a good price as well. The price tag is potentially $9 million. So it's not cheap either, is it? Does it distress you and other paleontologists that it could just disappear from view then? Because if someone wealthy buys it and sticks it on their private island, that's the end of it. There's two sides to this. There's people that really are against the private sale of dinosaurs. But these sort of dinosaurs, there are quite a few of them. And there's a lot of time and effort and goes into excavating these things, preparing them. mounting them to these skeletons so i don't begrudge the people involved for wanting to sell it and for such a large amount of money that's interesting so if it's well kept by its new owner potentially it's not a bad thing because obviously you have to be incredibly to purchase a dinosaur like this and in the recent years actually they've gone into um trusts or actually to there's a museum in in the abbey that's been buying them so although it's a scary prospect that actually a lot of them have ended up in the public eye if that makes sense um we you know people have been able to look at it and do some research on it so and these things without a doubt will end up in a museum at some point my logic is it's been in the ground for 70 million years um if it's then in someone's house for the next 20 or 30 it doesn't make it's for the next generation to work on megan jacobs and that is all from us for now but if you want to get in touch you can email us at global podcast at 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 nick randall and the producer was richard hamilton the editor is karen martin i'm nick miles and until next time goodbye