Global News Podcast
UN Secretary-General warns US against 'ethnic cleansing' in Gaza
Thu, 06 Feb 2025
UN Secretary-General warns US against ethnic cleansing in Gaza, after President Trump proposes taking ownership of the territory. Also: rebels capture mining town in DR Congo, and how often should you wash your clothes?
This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. This podcast is sponsored by Wise, the app for doing things in other currencies. If you're sending or spending money abroad, you should use Wise. You'll have up to 40 currencies in the palm of your hand. Wise gives you the real exchange rate, which means you'll spend less on fees and more of your money gets where you need it to be.
Download the Wise app today or visit wise.com. T's and C's apply.
Bobby Bones here.
Join me on the new Top Shelf Country Cruise. It sails February 2026 aboard the luxury Celebrity Reflection, stopping at St. Kitts and Nevis and also St. Martin. There'll be live music with top-tier country artists, and I'll be performing as well. Go to TopShelfCountryCruise.com before January 30th and register for the free Friends of Bobby pre-sale.
No deposits required, and you get early access to the best staterooms.
This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Jackie Leonard and in the early hours of Thursday, the 6th of February, these are our main stories. The UN Secretary General has warned against ethnic cleansing in Gaza following President Trump's proposal to take control of the territory and displace its entire population.
Beijing has filed a formal complaint against Washington at the World Trade Organization, dismissing claims by Mr. Trump that China's fueling an illegal drugs emergency in the US and a row in Italy over the decision to free and repatriate a Libyan war crime suspect wanted by the International Criminal Court.
Also in this podcast, there's a really clear time of day that many people feel better. And that's the first thing in the morning. typically between about 6 o'clock and 10 o'clock in the morning. People also have a little bit of a peek towards the early evening.
So do you find you're in a good mood in the mornings or the evenings? The UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has warned the US against ethnic cleansing in Gaza. He was responding to President Trump's plan for the US to take ownership of the territory and for Palestinians to leave.
Mr Guterres told a meeting in New York that the world was seeing the chilling, systematic demonisation of an entire people.
In the search for solutions, we must not make the problem worse. It is vital to stay true to the bedrock of international law. It is essential to avoid any form of ethnic cleansing.
The idea that the US could take over Gaza and more than 2 million people be permanently displaced has sparked condemnation around the world. Hamas has described the proposals as ridiculous and absurd. But President Trump insists that everybody loves his plan for Gaza, which would see it become the Riviera of the Middle East.
and some members of Israel's government have called for the plan to be adopted as official policy. Our first report comes from Jerusalem and our Middle East correspondent, Lucy Williamson.
What had been dismissed as off-the-cuff remarks by the new US president last week appear to have evolved into concrete goals of forced relocation and a new American presence in the region. There's scepticism over whether Mr Trump fully intends to pursue the plan he set out, but the Palestinian representative to the UN, Riyad Mansour, was clear.
The Palestinian people, at the end, will make the determination. Their determination, they want to clean the destruction in Gaza. They want to rebuild Gaza. This is where they belong, and they love to live there. And I think that leaders and people should respect the wishes of the Palestinian people.
Any question over the presence of Palestinians in Gaza touches sensitive nerves. Many Gazans already identify as refugees from towns and villages now in Israel, and promises of a future Palestinian state have stalled. Donald Trump's comments have delighted Israel's government and the far-right nationalists it relies on.
some of whom want to see Israeli settlements re-established in Gaza in the wake of the war. Gideon Saar is the Israeli foreign minister.
I think that it is crucial today to consider and examine ideas that are out of the box. After all, Gaza is a failed experiment. Anyone with their eyes open understands that Gaza, in its current state, has no future.
More than half a million Gazans have so far returned to northern areas devastated by the war, searching for past lives in the rubble and looking at a future where the visions of a US president meet the realities of the Middle East.
Egypt and Jordan have rejected Mr Trump's suggestion that they should house displaced Palestinians. For more now on how Gazans themselves feel about Donald Trump's proposals, here's our Gaza correspondent, Rushdie Abu-Aloof, who fled the territory with his family. He spoke to us from Cairo.
A state of confusion, because they don't know exactly what that means for them. I mean, they were, despite the destruction everywhere in Gaza City, some of them, they go back to, they went back to Gaza City, and they live in a half-destroyed building. They are setting up tents behind their destroyed houses. So they insisted that we want to return, we want to stay in our land.
This widespread rejection, people are strongly rejecting the idea that In the official level, the president, Mahmoud Abbas, Hamas, all of the Palestinian factions, all of the key players are rejecting this idea. On the ground, people are rejecting the idea.
I've been talking to many people in Gaza City who returned back after a year of displacement in the south, and they said, we are not going to leave our house under any circumstances. There is no electricity, there is no water, there is no sewage system, no internet, no communication. So all elements of life in Gaza City is not there.
People are queuing for hours just to get one or two liters of water in Gaza. And despite this, they insisted that they want to remain in their land. And for the first time, the Palestinians who have been divided for a very long time, they are now united to say one word, that we are rejecting the idea of leaving Gaza.
That was our Gaza correspondent, Rushdie Abu-Aloof. Well, Tuesday's announcement from Mr Trump was his first major policy intervention on the Middle East since returning to the White House. The plan has been discussed further by Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and senior Republicans in Washington. Meanwhile, members of the Trump administration have been questioned about the details.
The US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, while on a trip to Guatemala, insisted that President Trump's idea wasn't meant to be hostile, saying he only wanted Palestinians to leave the territory temporarily while Gaza was rebuilt.
What President Trump announced yesterday is the offer, the willingness of the United States to become responsible for the reconstruction of that area. And while you are rebuilding, while you're clearing debris, by the way, there are unexploded munitions, there are all kinds of Hamas weaponry still buried underground. For people to be able to live in a place safely, all of that has to be removed.
It's an enormous undertaking.
We heard more from our correspondent Tom Bateman on Capitol Hill.
There's been a series of meetings, actually, as Benjamin Netanyahu has been with senior White House officials, including Mike Waltz, the national security adviser. We've also had the press briefing here in the White House. I was sitting inside as Caroline Levitt updated the press on
The details of Mr Trump's plan, although I have to say we didn't really learn anything new, but one of the striking things was, astride her she had two big screens where she repeatedly displayed images of the destruction, widespread destruction inside Gaza.
Now there will be a very specific irony there felt by Palestinians and rights groups who have repeatedly used such images to show that in their view the destruction by Israel was in breach of international law has gone way beyond its military objectives. And this, of course, is being carried out using American munitions in the vast majority of cases.
Now, those images are being used by the Americans themselves as part of a sort of justification for why they say or Mr. Trump says Palestinians should leave Gaza. And, you know, he will rebuild it, as he says, for people of the world, as he puts it, over a period of 15 years. So one of the issues that came up, and I pressed Caroline Levitt.
Can you confirm that under the president's plans for Gaza, any and all Palestinians who want to stay in Gaza on their land will be allowed to do so?
I can confirm that the president is committed to rebuilding Gaza and to temporarily relocating those who are there, because as I've showed you repeatedly, it is a demolition site. There is no running water. There is no electricity. The president wants these individuals to live in peace.
He is committed to doing that with this very bold new plan and we will continue to keep you apprised of updates as we receive them.
And was there a direct answer to the suggestion that U.S. soldiers might find themselves in Gaza?
This question was asked repeatedly, particularly by the American journalists in the room, because Donald Trump was asked that question and said that basically he was not ruling anything out, that they would do whatever was necessary in terms of the use of US forces to take over Gaza, as he put it. Now, the reason that is...
such a an important issue is because remember donald trump campaigned to become president on a promise of ending so-called forever wars foreign entanglements an america first foreign policy now caroline levitt said that you know nothing was ruled out sort of echoing president trump's words, but that they're not committing to the use of American forces.
And one of the reasons for that is even some Republican allies of Mr. Trump on Capitol Hill have questioned the plan, even criticized it because of that very element. They don't want to see American boots on the ground. So that in itself causing problems for Mr. Trump with his own party when it comes to his Gaza plan.
That was Tom Bateman. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, has issued a statement warning that any proposal that involves deporting people from occupied territory would be against international law. So could the plans be legal? A question for our diplomatic correspondent, Paul Adams.
Well, it doesn't appear to be, no. Gaza is regarded as occupied territory under international law. Now, that is something that Israelis dispute. They say their occupation ended in 2005. But for various reasons, the broad sweep of opinion today is that it is still occupied. And as such, Israel does not have the right to remove or transfer civilians from areas under its control.
And frankly, no one has that right. It is simply a violation of international law to deport civilians against their will. The Palestinians also regard Gaza as sovereign territory. So any changes to the status of that territory would obviously be the subject of Palestinian rejection. For a number of reasons, this does not seem to be a feasible proposal.
And I don't frankly think that it is what Donald Trump is suggesting. I think what he wants is to create a set of circumstances in which Palestinian civilians decide to leave of their own accord, as probably upwards of 150,000 people already have.
And what impact might all of this have on the ceasefire, which is at a very, very delicate stage?
It is. I mean, the negotiations on phase two of this protracted ceasefire have yet to really begin. And it is hard to see how Mr. Trump's intervention is likely to increase the chances of success. If you are in Hamas's shoes right now, you're thinking, what exactly are we negotiating about? If the end result of all of this is that Gaza is to be simply destroyed,
depopulated, not just Hamas losing its political and military control, but the entire population removed, then what incentive is there for Hamas to release the remaining hostages, dead or alive, that it still has? And so that is going to be a I think, on the other hand, Donald Trump has made it easier for Benjamin Netanyahu to proceed because he's given Israel a bit of a gift here.
It's something that has caused Benjamin Netanyahu's hardline right-wing colleagues to say that they're not planning on leaving the government just yet. So it's given him a bit of political breathing room on his own side. But it's hard to see the negotiations working with this prospect looming in the distance.
That was Paul Adams. Beijing has strongly denied claims by the Trump administration that illegal drug shipments from China constitute a national emergency in the US. In a formal complaint to the World Trade Organization about tariffs imposed by Washington, China describes the American allegations as unfounded and false. Jonathan Josephs reports.
China's complaint about Donald Trump's latest tariffs has been filed unusually quickly. Possibly even more surprising is the blunt language in it, describing US claims about illegal drugs as unfounded and false allegations. The world's two biggest economies now have 60 days to resolve their dispute through consultations at the World Trade Organization.
It's unlikely either that or the next stages of the process will be successful. The ultimate body of the Geneva-based arbiter for solving disputes has been unable to function since Donald Trump blocked the appointment of new judges in his first term as president.
That was Jonathan Josephs. Just two days after the M23 rebel group, which is backed by Rwanda, said it was declaring a ceasefire in the Democratic Republic of Congo. They have resumed fighting and captured a mining town in the east of the country.
The UN says almost 3,000 people are thought to have been killed in recent fighting in and around Goma, DR Congo's largest eastern city, after it was seized by the rebels. We heard more from our correspondent Paul Njie, who's on the Rwandan border with the DRC.
The M23 had said that they had declared that ceasefire for humanitarian reasons, but people were shocked when there were reports that they attacked Nyabibwe in South Kivu Province earlier today. And, of course, the government reacted to that saying that they were, of course, violating their own ceasefire and it showed that the announcement was merely a ploy.
It's raising key questions about the intentions of the group. After they captured Goma, they were intending to cross over to South Kivu to capture Bukavu, which is the capital of South Kivu, just a few kilometers away from Ruzizi on the Rwandan side of the border where I'm speaking to you from. But then they said that they had no intentions to capture Bukavu or other territories.
But today's fighting in Nyabibwe just showed that, of course, they might have just had other plans for the future. So what does it appear that they want? What are they after? Basically, they are seeking an expansionist agenda because after they conquered Goma, they believe that it's time for them to capture more territories.
And their leader said that they have plans to even reach the capital Kinshasa. They say they are fighting to protect the rights of minority groups, the minority Tutsi which they belong to. So they say that the Congolese government has not been treating the minorities well, so they are fighting to protect their rights and also improve governance in the country.
Now, meanwhile, I know it's very hard to verify all the information that's coming out. We know that there was a jailbreak in recent days in Goma. And we have heard horrific reports that women prisoners have been raped and murdered. What can you tell us?
Yeah, basically, that incident came to most people as some sort of shock. Because when the reports that Goma had been taken over by the rebels last week, there was a massive jailbreak, which of course led to the escape of thousands of inmates. But then there were these reports that in the midst of those who were there, there were women.
who were raped, allegedly, of course, by some male inmates there, and that's also attributable to the UN. Basically, people were not able to understand how this could have happened. At this time, verifying information is difficult also because of the fact that in terms of international recognition, there is no recognisable authority in Goma now.
Even though the rebels believe that they are a legitimate institution, global organizations and countries have not recognized the M23 as the legitimate government of the areas.
That was Paul Ndiaye on the Rwandan border with the Democratic Republic of Congo. Argentina has announced its withdrawing from the World Health Organization. President Javier Mele is an admirer of Donald Trump, who pulled the U.S. from the U.N. health agency last month. Imogen Folks reports from Geneva.
Argentina's decision to leave, though nowhere near as financially damaging as Washington's, is still a slap in the face for the World Health Organization. Just two days ago, the WHO Director General urged member states to persuade the US to reconsider, pointing to global successes against polio and life-saving programs on HIV-AIDS, TB and malaria. But the WHO has become a political football.
That was Imogen, folks. Now, it might not surprise you to hear that sunshine seems to make people generally feel better. Perhaps more surprising is that mornings tend to be a good time for your mood. A large-scale new study carried out by researchers at University College London shows that people feel that they're best during certain times of the day and on certain days of the week.
One of those researchers, Daisy Fancourt, explained to Celia Hatton what they uncovered.
We've been looking at data from over 50,000 people who've contributed over a million observations between them. And what we found is that there's a really clear time of day that many people feel better. And that's first thing in the morning, typically between about 6 o'clock and 10 o'clock in the morning. People also have a little bit of a peak towards the early evening.
But after about eight o'clock in the evening, I'm afraid it's a bit of a downhill.
And were your findings affected at all by the day of the week or the month of the year? Or was it really just focused on the time of day? Is it always mornings that are better?
We found that this pattern is pretty consistent across all the days of the week and times of the year. But we actually found that on the weekends, these effects are really heightened. So people are even happier, even fewer depressive and anxiety symptoms first thing in the morning.
And we also found that during the summer months, the overall levels of all of these results are better across the day.
That certainly makes sense that, you know, you're just naturally happier when it's sunnier. Can you tell me more about the people who took part in this study? Did you find any variations in age? Were retired people just as likely to feel happier in the mornings, for instance?
So this was a really interesting sample because it was people who were actually taking part in research during the COVID-19 pandemic. So they were contributing data every single week throughout the first two years of the pandemic, which is why we've got such rich follow-up data on them.
It also meant that we had a really clean period when people were in lockdown, so not necessarily going to work, and there was a disruption of their usual patterns. And in fact, we were still seeing the same variation across the day, what we call a diurnal variation, even in those periods when people's lives were very disrupted and even when people weren't actually working in those periods.
And noticeably, We were finding that this result isn't actually affected by daylight. It's not to do with when the day is getting lighter or darker. It seems to be a more embedded difference in people's responses across the day.
What practical implications can we take away from this survey?
I think one of the clear takeaways is that in the evenings, people can be aware that their mood is likely to get worse. They're likely to have higher symptoms of low mood or anxiety, lower levels of happiness. and less satisfaction with things in their lives.
But it can also just be a good reminder for all of us sometimes about the benefits of an early morning and getting up and making the most of that time when we are probably more likely to be reporting better mental health.
Any surprises for you in the results of this study?
One of the things that was quite surprising was that Tuesdays and Wednesdays, that midweek period, we actually don't tend to see as greater benefits for mental health in the early hours of the day. And this could be that because if people are working by that time in the week, you are quite into the rhythm of things and perhaps not feeling quite so optimistic.
There's still a while to go before you get to the weekend. So that can be another thing people can be aware of is that Tuesdays and Wednesday mornings they might not feel quite as good as other days of the week.
That was Daisy Fancourt from University College London.
Still to come... It's good advice to wash your clothes less, but you have to be able to think about what you do in your clothes. You can't apply that advice to, let's say, a toddler that's three who needs to be changed multiple times a day.
So will you be following the latest advice on your laundry?
This podcast is sponsored by Wise, the app for doing things in other currencies. If you're sending or spending money abroad, you should use Wise. You'll have up to 40 currencies in the palm of your hand. Wise gives you the real exchange rate, which means you'll spend less on fees and more of your money gets where you need it to be. Download the Wise app today or visit wise.com. T's and C's apply.
Bobby Bones here. Join me on the new Top Shelf Country Cruise.
It sails February 2026 aboard the luxury Celebrity Reflection, stopping at St. Kitts and Nevis and also St. Martin. There'll be live music with top-tier country artists, and I'll be performing as well. Go to topshelfcountrycruise.com before January 30th and register for the free Friends of Bobby pre-sale. No deposits required, and you get early access to the best staterooms.
What does it take to go racing in the fastest cars in the world? Oscar Piastri. Your head's trying to get one way, your body's trying to go another. Lance Stroll. It's very extreme in the sense of how close you're racing wheel to wheel. We've been given unprecedented access to two of the most famous names in Formula One, McLaren and Aston Martin. I'm Landon Harris.
They build a beautiful bit of machinery that I get to then go and have fun in. They open the doors to their factories as the 2024 season reached its peak. I'm Josh Hartnett. This is F1 Back at Base. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.
Italy's Justice Minister has said that his country had no choice but to free a Libyan military officer wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court because of flaws in the arrest warrant. Osama Najim, also known as al-Masri, was released and flown to Libya two days after being detained in Turin last month. Davide Chiglioni reports from Rome.
The request to the Prosecutor General to the Court of Appeal
The Justice Minister, Carlo Nordio, said the ICC warrant was filled with inaccuracies, omissions and discrepancies. Addressed in Parliament, he described the document as a huge, hasty mess, adding that the court had later issued a corrected version.
The interior minister, Matteo Piantedosi, who spoke after him, said Osama Najim was expelled from Italy after being set free because he was viewed as dangerous. Opposition MPs dismissed both explanations and urged Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to personally clarify the government's decision.
The leader of the Democratic Party, Elish Line, accused the government of damaging Italy's international standing by freeing someone she called a Libyan torturer. Despite procedural flaws being cited as the official reason for sending Najib back to Libya, observers suggest the decision may have been influenced by Rome's complex relationship with Tripoli.
In addition to paying the Libyan coast guard to stop migrant boats, Italy has substantial political and business interests in the country, giving Libya considerable leverage.
The conditions of migrants in Libyan detention centres, extensively covered by the BBC over the years, have long been a source of concern for human rights groups, which report widespread torture, rape and other forms of abuse.
David Iambio, a 27-year-old from South Sudan who says he was abused in Tripoli's Mitiga prison by Najimy himself and is now an activist for migrant rights, has accused Italy of being complicit in the atrocities taking place in Libya.
I was imprisoned in an official detention center in Misrata Kararin in 2019. After I was captured at sea and brought back to Libya, I stayed there for all the period between January 21 and the 1st of August 2019, which is more than seven months under incarceration and being forced to work as a slave, to construct houses and to cultivate in those agricultural sections. And I tried again.
I was captured. I was brought back to Libya, which was then my encounter with al-Masri himself in late 2019, where I found myself again being enslaved. And from being enslaved, I was forced to become a mercenary, to work alongside the mercenary, to carry munition, to fire the howitzer, and to do all sorts of different inhuman activities.
Former migrant David Yambio ending that report by Davide Ghiglioni. In Georgia, a journalist who's been on hunger strike in jail for the past three weeks has been taken to hospital. Amzia Moghlobeli, the founder of two independent online news publications, was arrested last month and charged with assaulting a police officer. There's been a strong international reaction.
The EU Human Rights Commissioner and 14 foreign embassies in Georgia have called for her release. Critics say the journalist's detention highlights Georgia's rapid democratic decline. The BBC's Rehan Dimitri travelled to her hometown of Batumi in western Georgia and sent this report.
No justice, no peace. Police is everywhere. Justice nowhere. A group of protesters are shouting outside the constitutional court in the black sea town of Batumi, western Georgia. Here, just as in the capital Tbilisi, anti-government protests have been going on for over two months, demanding fresh elections. Now they want freedom for a local journalist. Freedom to Mzia, they chant.
Mzia Moghlebeli, whose large photo is printed on a banner at the rally, is the founder of the leading independent online media here, Batu Melebi. She is currently in pre-trial detention, accused of assaulting a police officer. In protest, she has gone on hunger strike. I've come to the offices of Batu Melebi where I'm meeting one of his journalists, Irma Dimitradze.
Yeah, this is about when we got the international prize.
Irma tells me how the newspaper was founded in 2001 by Mzia Amaglabeli and her friend Eter Turadze, both in their 20s at the time. Later, they launched a nationwide online platform called NetGazeti. Today, these two publications are among the most trusted and reliable news sources in Georgia's highly polarized mediascape. Irma explains what happened on the day of Mzia's arrest.
It was just yet another day of protest. Mzia doesn't attend the protests. As a CEO of the organization, she's always busy. She's spending most of her time in here, in this very office where we are right now.
On January the 11th, several people were detained in Batumi for putting up posters calling for a general strike. Among the detained was a friend of Mzia's, so she went to the police station to find her. In footage from that time, Mzia is seen sticking a poster to a police building and immediately police detain her.
Later, after being released, something happens between her and the chief of the Batumi police. She grabs him by his sleeve and appears to lightly touch his face. This time she is detained and charged with assaulting a police officer. It's punishable by up to seven years in prison. Her lawyers allege while in detention, the police chief spat in her face, denied her access to water and a toilet.
Several days later, the Batumi City Court remands Amoghlebele in pretrial custody. The case has become national news. The country's prime minister, Irakli Kobakhidze, personally got involved describing Amoghlebele's action as a crime against the state.
Raising a hand against a policeman should be punished as severely as possible. What's the intention of people who conduct this type of violence against police officers? They want to destroy the state.
In Batu Melebi's office, Irma reads out the letter which Mzia sent from prison, announcing her hunger strike.
The reason I stand accused today is the direct consequence of the repressive, treacherous and violent processes unfolding over the past year. Processes that seek to silence individuals, suppress free speech. I will not bow to this regime. I will not play by its rules. I'm on a hunger strike. There is something greater than life itself. Freedom.
Protesters in Batumi sing Georgia's national anthem, which glorifies freedom. Mziya Mokhlebeli's hunger strike is a reminder to many here how fragile their democracy has become.
We are free!
That report by Rehan Dimitri in Georgia. A team of American researchers have finally discovered what baby turtles do after entering the sea, answering a question that has puzzled scientists for decades. Jacob Evans has the details.
From the moment a sea turtle hatches on the beach and makes the frantic journey to the ocean, to its first return to coastal waters when it's nearly grown, scientists don't really know what happens. In fact, they call this period the Lost Years because there simply isn't enough data.
But for over a decade, a team from the University of Central Florida have been tracking more than 100 young turtles, as well as comparing their journeys with that of flotation devices. They've found that infant turtles independently swim and navigate the vast oceans, dispelling the long-held theory that they simply float with the current.
It's hoped understanding how these young turtles behave and where they go will boost conservation efforts.
That was Jacob Evans. Now, Global News podcast listeners are hygienic and fragrant people. Of course you are. So how often should you wash your clothes so that they stay clean? In France, a government ecological agency, ADEME, has suggested that households are doing laundry too often, using extra water and powder, and clothes sometimes shed residue microplastics.
Its advice has prompted a conversation in France about the right frequency to wash. Here are some of their suggestions. Underwear, wear once and wash. A cotton top, four to five times. A dress, four to six times. And jeans, between 15 and 30 times. Evan Davis spoke to Laura de Barra, the author of Garment Goddess, a book about looking after and increasing the lifespan of clothes.
So what does she think of the French advice?
I think what they may have missed here is applying it to individuals. It's good advice to wash your clothes less, but you have to be able to think about what you do in your clothes. You can't apply that advice to, let's say, a toddler that's three who needs to be changed multiple times a day. And also, you know, everyone's different.
Like the reason they say cotton doesn't need to be washed as often is because cotton has...
different characteristics it's breathable it wicks sweat away from the body it doesn't hold on to odor it doesn't hold on to moisture in the same way as the synthetic they haven't described that so it's not really allowing us to kind of look under the hood and see what we can apply to our lifestyle okay let's just take some specifics though a t-shirt yes t-shirt how how often would you wear a t-shirt how many days would you wear a t-shirt before washing it
It honestly depends what the T-shirt's made out of and if it is feeling like it is unclean to you. If it doesn't, I'll put it this way. This is the easiest way to say it, right? When you, I always say, undress and assess. Every time you wash your garments... Sniff under the arms.
Is that what you're saying? Have a quick sniff under the arms. Oh, it's all right. I can put it back in the cupboard.
Or you can spot clean. Like every time you put a garment into a washing machine, it reduces its lifetime fiber loss. It's also got agitation. Think of a pair of jeans rubbing against something. So before you put it in for a full wash, think, does every single bit of the garment need it? Instead of throwing it straight into the drum, you can put it into a laundry bag.
Then the temperature affects it. Temperatures fade, dies. If you've got gym gear and you put them on a hot wash, it'll reduce the elastane in them. So you just have to think about what the garment's going to endure. Don't avoid washing your clothes. the ones that make you feel uncomfortable to keep wearing.
Last year, we tried putting the jeans in the sun a bit. It only works in the summer, of course, but we thought we're washing these things too much and sort of put them outside in the sun. Do you believe in sort of nature washing clothes that way?
Yeah, the sun's a brilliant deodoriser, but in this month right now, you can just use a steamer. You can use a steamer and you can use vinegar with water, mix 50-50. It's a brilliant deodoriser. Some people use vodka, I prefer vinegar, it's cheaper. What about...
Just giving them much shorter washes. So I really am not going to wear a T-shirt. Occasionally I might be lazy and wear one two days in a row. I'm not going to wear one more than that. But a 15 minute, just a quick cold 15 minute wash does seem to get all the kind of get it back to where you need it.
Yeah, I mean, a fast wash usually has more agitation. You're better off putting on a synthetic wash. Lower temperature, slower pace of the machine. Oh, is that right? It's going to use less water. Yeah, yeah. Like, it's not really about the speed of time it's being washed. If you think about a fast wash, it's all about agitating the clothes as quickly as possible off each other.
So the rubbing is frantic. So you're better off just choosing synthetic and choosing a lower temperature.
Oh.
I think people overcomplicate this stuff. Throw it on a synthetic wash, much kinder on the clothes. If it's something special, like it's viscose, which falls apart every time you wash it, put it into a pillowcase with a hair tie on it or buy a laundry bag.
But you've really taught me something. So the synthetic wash is better than the very quick wash?
Yeah, low and slow. Everyone loves everything a bit low and slow, in my opinion. Treat your clothes like you treat yourself.
Low and slow, you heard her. Laura de Barra, the author of Garment Goddess. And that's it from us for now, but there will be a new edition of the Global News Podcast later. If you would like to comment on this edition or the topics covered in it, or indeed you have any thoughts about the frequency of laundry, do please 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 Chris Hansen. The producer was Liam McSheffrey. Our editor is Karen Martin. I'm Jackie Leonard and until next time, goodbye.
This podcast is sponsored by Wise, the app for doing things in other currencies. If you're sending or spending money abroad, you should use Wise. You'll have up to 40 currencies in the palm of your hand. Wise gives you the real exchange rate, which means you'll spend less on fees and more of your money gets where you need it to be. Download the Wise app today or visit wise.com. T's and C's apply.