President Trump says the US to 'takeover' Gaza. His comments have caused anger and dismay across the region and beyond. Also: the first glimpse inside a burnt scroll after 2,000 years.
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This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Janet Jalil and at 14 hours GMT on Wednesday the 5th of February, these are our main stories. Donald Trump's declaration that the US will take over Gaza sparks widespread condemnation. We'll have reaction from around the world.
Lawmakers in the Philippines vote to impeach the Vice President, Sarah Duterte, following complaints about alleged corruption and an assassination threat.
Also in this podcast... The enormous responsibility which had come to me. I didn't feel prepared for it. It was a very, very heavy burden to take over from a man of such status as my grandfather.
We look back on the life of the billionaire spiritual leader, the Aga Khan, who has died at the age of 88. There's been widespread condemnation of Donald Trump's plan for the US to take over Gaza and move out the Palestinians living there so that he can, in his words, turn it into the Riviera of the Middle East.
Mr Trump made the announcement at a joint news conference with the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. saying he thought Jordan and Egypt would take in the more than two million Palestinians who currently live in Gaza. This despite their previous statements refuting the idea when he first floated it last month.
At the White House news conference, Mr Trump put forward his vision for how Gaza, much of which lies in ruins, should be rebuilt.
The only reason the Palestinians want to go back to Gaza is they have no alternative option. It's right now a demolition site. They can live out their lives in peace and harmony instead of having to go back and do it again. The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it, too.
We'll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site, and get rid of the destroyed buildings.
Mr Trump's plan to occupy Gaza seems to amount to an abandonment of decades of US policy to find a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Mr Netanyahu praised it as an idea worth paying attention to, calling Mr Trump the greatest friend Israel has ever had in the White House. But these Palestinians in Gaza said they would resist any attempt to remove them.
We reject the decision to displace the Palestinians from Gaza and Palestine. We'll not leave our land. As for me, I'll not leave Gaza. None of us will leave our country and we'll not kneel to anyone.
We were surprised by Trump's decision to displace the entire Gaza Strip to Egypt and Jordan, and we categorically reject this decision. We refused to leave Gaza during the war, and we are staying here. We will not leave at all.
I got more on the Palestinian and Israeli reaction from our Middle East correspondent, Yolanda Nell.
Well, we had a senior Israeli official being quoted in the news this morning saying that this visit surpassed all of our expectations and dreams. Trump raised ingenious solutions to problems that have been with Israel ever since it was established.
The conventional wisdom prior to Mr. Netanyahu going to Washington for this trip was that President Trump might well try to push this idea of paving the way for an independent Palestinian state because the U.S. has been working very much on trying to get a normalization deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
On the far right in Israel, you have the key political figure, Itamar Ben-Gavir, really welcoming this proposal to remove Palestinians from Gaza and rebuild it, saying that if the prime minister was going to act on that plan, then the chances were good that he would rejoin his coalition government.
This statement from Donald Trump comes as negotiations are beginning for the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire. Are people not worried about the impact that his words could have on their hopes of securing the release of the hostages?
Certainly, the families of the hostages who remain in Gaza worry that this could undermine negotiations. The existing ceasefire, which is bringing some of their loved ones home, and these discussions now taking place on the next stage.
And just to remind people that the second stage of the ceasefire is supposed to see a full end to the fighting in Gaza, and the remaining Israeli hostages, about 60 of them, not all of whom are alive, being returned.
And evidently, this is yet more bad news for Palestinians who have suffered so much.
Yeah, so we had, you know, Palestinians in general sort of expressing bewilderment at all of this and saying, you know, not only does it upend decades of international policy, they question its legality under international law. They believe this is a fundamental sort of misunderstanding of their connection to the land and indeed, you know,
It's competing claims to the land that is at the heart of the decades-old Israel-Palestinian conflict. And we've had Hamas also speaking very strongly against this, as you would expect. One figure, Sami Abu Zuhri, saying this was ridiculous and absurd, what's been put on the table. Ideas of this kind, he said, were capable of igniting the region.
And that is something that is reflected actually quite widely, this idea that this could cause broader instability in the region if President Trump presses ahead with it.
Yolande Nell in Jerusalem. So what's the reaction been in the U.S. itself to Donald Trump's plan? Dennis Ross is former U.S. ambassador to Israel.
Very clear that one of the things he wants to do is kind of create a whole new reality by challenging the conventional wisdom. You could say he has done that, but he still has to have Arab states who are prepared to go along. And this is clearly very difficult.
for Arab states to go along, because whether he intends it this way, and I'm not sure that he does, I really think he seems to intend this more as we're going to transform an area, a land area that has always been impoverished. It's a real estate building problem. It's not a political problem. The problem, I think, for President Trump is that in the region, it's looked at as a political issue.
With more reaction, here's CBS correspondent Naomi Ruckam.
Most analysts and expert we were hearing from this morning believe this entire plan of a U.S. takeover of Gaza is just not based in reality to begin with. So we can start with that. In a word, it is shock across the country. There are very few concrete details to the proposal so far. And there has been a lot of shock and pushback from Arab nations, allies and, yes, local politicians.
Even fellow Republicans are skeptical. especially given their general reluctance for American resources to be used in foreign conflicts. Senator Lindsey Graham, for example, said that most people in his district would not be excited about sending Americans over to Gaza, but that he'd keep an open mind.
And Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut simply said he believes the president has completely lost it, calling the plan sick.
Naomi Ruckerman, it's not just in the US. Turkey has called Mr Trump's Gaza plan unacceptable. Brazil's President Lula said it made no sense. France and Germany said expelling Gazans would be contrary to international law. The UN's Chief of Human Rights, Volker Turk, said any deportation of people from occupied territory was strictly prohibited.
And the British Foreign Secretary, David Lamy, said there had to be a two-state solution.
We've always been clear in our belief that we must see two states, we must see Palestinians able to live and prosper in their homelands, in Gaza, in the West Bank. That is what we want to get to.
Saudi Arabia has led the condemnation in the Arab world amid fears the plans could further destabilise the Middle East. Mr Trump has criticised previous US presidents for sending troops into Afghanistan and Iraq. But since being re-elected, he has talked about the United States taking over Canada, Greenland, the Panama Canal and now Gaza.
Here's the BBC's chief international correspondent, Lise Doucette.
Well, the last thing that countries in the region want is more instability. And I can imagine they are now reeling from this latest proposal from President Trump. It was so startling that Saudi Arabia felt that it had to release a press statement in the middle of the night saying,
when it heard President Trump saying to questions, well, that Saudi Arabia wouldn't insist on a Palestinian state for a normalization deal. Its statement absolutely underlined, and I heard it myself when I was in Riyadh in January, that unless there is a pathway to a Palestinian state,
They will not engage with the Israelis and the Americans on that normalization deal that the Abraham Accords, as it was called in President Trump's first term, that is also on President Trump's mind. The King Abdullah of Jordan will be the next leader from the region to see President Trump face to face.
No doubt he will make clear his views and they will be the same views, Jonath, that he made clear. I remember so clearly that in President Trump's first term, that even before he was invited, King Abdullah of Jordan flew to Washington to see President Trump. That is how crucial it is for Jordan that there not be the kind of measures that President Trump is talking about now.
moving what would be forcibly displacing. President Trump says, oh, they wouldn't be forced, but there is a sense in which there's going to be a temporary shift of Palestinians. That would be destabilizing for Jordan, destabilizing for Egypt. We haven't heard a statement yet in response to President Trump's latest intervention, but at the weekend.
A number of Arab leaders, all of whom are expected to play a role in this fragile Gaza ceasefire, is that they reject any moves to forcibly remove Palestinians from Gaza.
But it seems that Mr. Trump thinks he can force Palestinians. Jordan and Egypt, which have already expressed their opposition to such a move, to do this. And it's not only stunning what he said, but it's also shocking that he's so vague in talking about something that could potentially uproot so many lives.
This is the big question now. What we have seen is how President Trump prides himself on his transactional approach to dealmaking. He started his second term talking about being a peacemaker. But what we have seen in the first term, it's very much in the sort of a property developer that he is real estate man. You give me this and I'll give you that.
Jordan and Egypt are so dependent on the United States for aid, they don't really have much to give in return. But the wealthy Gulf states do, and that's where the bargaining may be.
Lise Doucette, turning now to other news. Lawmakers in the Philippines have voted to impeach the vice president. Sara Duterte has been accused of misusing millions of dollars in public funds and of threatening President Ferdinand Marcos with assassination. Vicky Bristow reports.
For several weeks, there have been petitions in the Philippines calling for the impeachment of Ms Duterte, the daughter of the controversial former President Rodrigo Duterte. On Wednesday, the lower house of Congress decided to look at the issue.
Impeachment complaint against Vice President Sara Z. Duterte.
The Vice President has been accused of misusing public funds. She also made the extraordinary claim that she'd arranged for a hitman to kill the President, Ferdinand Marcos, if she herself was killed. Some see the impeachment as part of the ongoing feud between Mr Marcos and the Vice President. The pair were allies at the last election, but have since had a very public falling out.
having been filed by more than one-third of the membership of the House... In the end, legislators endorsed the motion to impeach and applauded the decision. The Philippine Senate will now decide Ms Duterte's fate at a date yet to be fixed. The outcome is uncertain.
Mickey Bristow, the billionaire spiritual leader of the Ismaili Muslims, the Aga Khan, has died in Portugal. He was 88. For more than 60 years, he was the hereditary imam of the 15 million strong branch of Shia Islam. His followers saw him as a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad. He was known for his love of horse racing, his dazzling wealth and his development work around the world.
Doreen Walton looks back at his life. Kareem Aga Khan IV was a religious leader who governed no territory but owned numerous estates, houses, farms, a private island, a jet and hundreds of racehorses, including the 1981 Derby winner Shergar.
There's only one horse in it. You need a telescope to see the rest. They have a column to go and Shergar is galloping them into the ground.
The ease with which that horse moved. During the finishing straight, he just kept going away, going away, going away. That was remarkable.
Shergar was kidnapped by gunmen in Ireland two years later and never seen again. The Aga Khan inherited his title at the age of 20 and while studying at Harvard. The title skipped a generation. His father was renowned for being something of a playboy, although the old Aga Khan had said he wanted his successor to be of the modern world. The new prince told the BBC of his feelings at his appointment.
The first one was the enormous responsibility which had come to me. I didn't feel prepared for it. It was a very, very heavy burden to take over from a man of such status as my grandfather. Had you in fact known before that evening that you were going to carry this burden? No, I didn't. No, I had no idea about that.
The Aga Khan was a competitive downhill skier representing Iran in the 1964 Olympics. He dismissed criticism that he was westernised. As a young man, he told the BBC he preferred ballet or theatre to nightclubs, although he might go occasionally. He was shy of publicity about his private life. A ten-year legal battle with his second wife over a €60 million divorce made headlines he did not relish.
The Aga Khan could pull strings at the highest levels. When, in 1972, people of South Asian origin were expelled from Uganda, the Aga Khan called his friend, the then Prime Minister of Canada, Pierre Trudeau, and asked him to do something.
My close ties with Canada go back almost four decades, to the time when many thousands of Asian refugees from Uganda, including many Ismailis... were welcomed so generously in this society.
He was once asked if the Ismaili community worshipped him.
No, they certainly don't. For any Muslim, it would be about the greatest sin you could do. You ought to remember what the Quran says about this.
Ismailis follow a branch of Shia Islam. They regard the Aga Khan as a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad. Most of his wealth came from tithes or voluntary cash donations by community members, but much of it went to charitable causes.
A surrender class in the Aga Khan Music School in Kabul, helping ensure Afghanistan's cultural traditions are continued, part of what the Aga Khan may best be remembered for, his development network. Khufran Umar is one of the young musicians.
It is my country's own instrument. It's my country's music. I'm learning it because it's good for our future.
The Aga Khan Development Network runs hundreds of hospitals and education, cultural and economic projects, mainly in low- and middle-income countries.
That report by Doreen Walton.
Still to come... This might be the most exciting Herculaneum scroll we've ever scanned. We're confident we will be able to read pretty much the scroll in its entirety is what it looks like we're going to be able to do.
A 2,000-year-old scroll that was too frail to open after being burnt in the volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius has been digitally unwrapped. Police in Sweden are continuing to investigate what's been described as the deadliest mass shooting in the country's history. Ten people were killed and six others were wounded by a gunman at an adult education centre in the city of Örebro on Tuesday.
This student, Marwa, described how she tried to help the victims.
A guy next to me got shot in the shoulder.
A guy next to me was shot in the shoulder. He was bleeding a lot. When I looked behind me, I saw three people on the floor bleeding. Everyone was shocked. They said, go out, get out. My friend and I tried to save the life of this person. But people were very shocked. The police were not on site and neither was the ambulance. So we had to help.
Police say the attacker is also dead and that he acted alone as they try to establish his motive. Our correspondent Nick Beek is at the site of the shooting in Ouroboru.
We've just arrived at the school complex. It's a big site with lots of different schools. What happened yesterday was that one particular centre that was for adult learning was the epicentre of this attack. And this morning, I'm just looking, there are still lots of police here. Flowers and candles have been left and a few of them are alight at the moment. Lots and lots of press as well.
There is this vacuum of information at the moment because we haven't really learnt a huge amount in the past 12 hours. The police are saying that they haven't named the attacker yet. They do say that he is among the 11 people dead. The police are also saying that they believe he acted alone, didn't seem to be part of a gang. Detectives say they don't believe this was an act of terror.
Swedish media reporting that this was a 35-year-old man, the perpetrator, who's described as a local recluse and someone who legally had a gun. But worth stressing, this is unconfirmed for now.
And do we have any idea why he might have targeted this particular school, a school for adults? Do we have any information about the victims?
No, we don't. So no information about their backgrounds, who they were, whether this was a targeted or random in terms of the classroom and locations within the complex that the gunman chose. This is a centre which, like others here in Sweden... are for people who haven't finished their secondary school education, so people typically 20 years old and above.
Within that, you do see a lot of people who arrive in Sweden who learn the language and further their studies, but there's no suggestion at the moment, no evidence, that this was a central part of the gunman's thinking. But clearly, along with lots of other things, it's something that detectives will be looking at, and there are reports that they searched the gunman's house yesterday.
And a huge sense of shock in Sweden at this killing, which has been described as the deadliest mass shooting in Sweden's history.
That's right. The prime minister, Ulf Kristersen, said it was an act of brutal and lethal violence, saying that it was difficult to take in the magnitude of what had happened. And I think for Swedes this morning, it's something which clearly has shocked so many people. The flags are at half-mast. But it is something that is very, very rare, this sort of school shooting. The number's dead.
It's unprecedented. It does, though, come within the context of growing violence, it would seem, within the country. Because just last week, the Prime Minister admitted the government had basically lost control over a spiralling wave of violence... Worth pointing out, this is specifically linked to gang violence, and we've seen a lot of bombings last month.
Actually, it averaged about one a month, different rival gangs targeting each other with bombs and other sort of attacks.
Nick Beek in Sweden. What's thought to be the first United States military deportation flight to India has landed in Punjab, carrying about 100 Indians who'd entered the US illegally or overstayed visas. President Trump has made the mass deportation of undocumented foreign nationals a key policy pledge. Samira Hussain reports from Amritsar.
The Indian nationals aboard the US military aircraft are believed to have entered the United States illegally. Once processed by the Indian government, they will board buses and be sent back to their home states. Deportation flights are not new, but this may be the first time a US military aircraft was used to return individuals to India.
India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump enjoy a friendly relationship. But illegal immigration could become a contentious issue between the two.
Samira Hussain, historic buildings in the Iraqi city of Mosul, including churches and mosques, are being reopened after years of reconstruction in the aftermath of the devastation wrought by the so-called Islamic State. The fierce battle to defeat and drive the group from the city ended in 2017. The project began a year later in Mosul. It has been organised and funded by UNESCO.
Our Middle East regional editor, Sebastian Usher, reports.
The bells of Altahera Church ring out across Mosul, a symbol of the rebirth of the old city that was left devastated eight years ago after the battle to drive ISIS out.
It was like a ghost town, dead bodies around, sickening smell and horrible scenes of the city and the skyline without the Hadba Minaret. The cityscape is full of rubble And the River of Tigris, one of the most joyous places around town.
A Mosul photographer, Ali Al-Baroudi, recalls the horror that greeted him when he first entered the old city shortly after the street-by-street battle was over in 2017, with the gloriously skewed Al-Hadba minaret, known as the hunchback that had been emblematic of Mosul for hundreds of years, in ruins.
It was not the city that we knew. It was like a metamorphosis. of not even, we never imagined that, not even in our worst nightmares.
80% of the old city of Mosul and the West Bank of the Tigris was destroyed. It was not just the churches, mosques and old houses that needed to be repaired, but the community spirit of those who'd lived there for so long in relative harmony between religions and ethnicities.
A year later, the huge task of rebuilding began under the auspices of UNESCO, with a budget of $115 million that the UN Cultural Agency had managed to drum up, much of it from the UAE and the European Union.
Father Olivier Poquillon, a Dominican priest, returned to Mosul to help oversee the restoration of the convent of Notre-Dame-de-L'Heure, known locally as Alsace, which was founded nearly 200 years ago.
We started by the beginning, trying first to gather a team, a team composed of people from old Mosul, from different denominations, Christians, Muslims, working all together. That was the first challenge we had to face. And that was probably the greatest achievement. Because if you want to rebuild a building, you've got first to rebuild trust.
In charge of the entire project, which included the restoration of 124 old houses, has been the architect Maria Rita Acatoso, who came to Mosul straight from restoration work for UNESCO in Afghanistan.
I hope the reconstruction can bring back hope in the affected communities and can favour the recovery of their cultural identity and memories.
Eight years on, the major landmarks of Mosul are restored. The wriggling minaret of al-Hadba, the convent, the church of al-Tahira and the complex of al-Nuri Mosque. And people have been able to return to the houses that have in some cases been home to their families for centuries.
My house was built in 1864. Unfortunately, my house was destroyed partially during the Mosul Parole Liberation and it was unsuitable to live, especially with my children. So I decided to move to my parents' house. I was very pleased and excited to see my house rebuilt again.
The scars of what the people of Mosul endured are yet to heal, just as much of Iraq remains in a fragile state. But the rebirth from the rubble of the old city represents hope for a better future.
That report by Sebastian Usher. A study suggests that banning the use of mobile phones in schools does not lead to pupils getting higher grades or having better mental health. Instead, researchers in Britain found that it was the amount of time spent on smartphones and social media that had an impact. Bramwyn Jeffries reports.
The researchers compared the habits of more than 1,200 teenagers in 20 schools which banned smartphones, with 10 that allowed some use at break times. They found modest differences in the use of phones, but none in measures of mental well-being, anxiety and depression. Grades in maths and English appeared to be the same.
This study suggests that regardless of what schools do, the biggest impact comes from how teenagers use smartphones... in their spare time. Branwen Jeffries.
X-ray scans and artificial intelligence have been used to reveal the contents of an ancient, badly burnt scroll from the Roman town of Herculaneum. The document was charred by the volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius nearly 2,000 years ago, meaning it would have been destroyed by any attempt to physically unroll it. Our science editor, Rebecca Murrell, has more.
The ancient scroll held by the Bodleian Library at Oxford University was thought to be unreadable. It looks like a lump of charcoal and any attempts to prise it open would see it crumble to dust. But now scientists have turned to technology. Powerful X-ray scans have enabled the team to locate every layer inside the scroll. There are about 10 metres of tightly rolled papyrus.
And AI has been used to detect any ink. The result is a digitally unrolled scroll showing columns and rows of text... with some letters clearly visible. More work is to be done to make all the text legible, but Stephen Parsons from the Vesuvius Challenge says it looks extremely promising.
It's still pretty early with this scroll, but so far from what we've found, this might be the most exciting Herculaneum scroll we've ever scanned. We're confident we will be able to read pretty much the scroll in its entirety, is what it looks like we're going to be able to do.
But by all appearances today, this will be the first scroll from Herculaneum that is virtually unwrapped in its entirety and made legible.
The team believes it will be a work of Greek Epicurean philosophy, which teaches that fulfilment can be found through the pleasure of simple everyday things. Rebecca Morrell.
Now, if you find it hard to go to sleep, this next item may help. And the secret is, no, not listening to this podcast, I hope, but wearing socks in bed. A video on TikTok from a doctor in America saying people who wear socks in bed fall asleep faster has been viewed more than three million times. Dr. Lindsay Browning is a sleep psychologist.
So the reality is as we fall asleep, our core body temperature needs to drop along with our melatonin. We start producing melatonin to help us feel sleepy and our core temperature, our body temperature needs to drop a bit. Now, if we are too cold or too hot, we find it harder to sleep.
So wearing socks in bed in the winter, especially if you're finding it hard to pay the electricity to warm your house enough, wearing socks in bed can really help with you to regulate the temperature because if you're too cold, you're not going to fall asleep.
But also if you wear socks, then what can happen, a small effect really, but it'll increase the vasodilation, the dilation of the blood vessels, which means there'll be more blood flowing to your extremities, which can help with that sort of that heat loss process.
So there is a little bit of science to suggest that wearing socks in bed might help you to speed up that sort of core body temperature drop.
If you make it part of your bedtime routine, for example, we all know that if you do the same kind of things before bed, if you use the same lavender pillow spray before bed, or you read the same kind of book, or you listen to the same music, doing the same thing before bed can help signal psychologically to your brain that sleep is coming.
All good tips there, Dr. Lindsay Browning, sleep psychologist. And that's all from us for now, but there will be a new edition of the Global News Podcast later. If you want to comment on this podcast or topics covered, you can send us an email. The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X at Global News Pod. This edition was mixed by Mark Pickett.
The producer was Tracy Gordon. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Janet Jalil. Until next time, goodbye.
Yoga is more than just exercise. It's the spiritual practice that millions swear by. And in 2017, Miranda, a university tutor from London, joins a yoga school that promises profound transformation.
It felt a really safe and welcoming space. After the yoga classes, I felt amazing.
But soon, that calm, welcoming atmosphere leads to something far darker, a journey that leads to allegations of grooming, trafficking and exploitation across international borders.
I don't have my passport, I don't have my phone, I don't have my bank cards, I have nothing. The passport being taken, the being in a house and not feeling like they can leave.
World of Secrets is where untold stories are unveiled and hidden realities are exposed. In this new series, we're confronting the dark side of the wellness industry with a hope of a spiritual breakthrough gives way to disturbing accusations. You just get sucked in so gradually.
And it's done so skillfully that you don't realize. And it's like this, the secret that's there. I wanted to believe that, you know, that. Whatever they were doing, even if it seemed gross to me, was for some spiritual reason that I couldn't yet understand. Revealing the hidden secrets of a global yoga network. I feel that I have no other choice.
The only thing I can do is to speak about this and to put my reputation and everything else on the line. I want truth and justice. And for other people to not be hurt, for things to be different in the future. To bring it into the light and almost alchemise some of that evil stuff that went on and take back the power.
World of Secrets, Season 6, The Bad Guru. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.