Up First from NPR
USAID Programs Halted, Netanyahu in Washington, Rubio Visits Panama, Cannabis Safety
Mon, 03 Feb 2025
Nearly all foreign aid programs delivered by the US Agency for International Development, or USAID, have been halted, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in Washington, D.C. and Sec. Marco Rubio is in Panama following up on President Trump's statements about the Panama Canal. Also, a new NPR series is helping consumers find safely-sourced cannabis products.Want more comprehensive analysis of the most important news of the day, plus a little fun? Subscribe to the Up First newsletter.Today's episode of Up First was edited by Dana Farrington, Nishant Dahiya, Sami Yenigun, Andrea De Leon, Janaya Williams and Alice Woelfle. It was produced by Lilly Quiroz, Nia Dumas, and Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Arthur Laurent. And our technical director is Neisha Heinis.A previous version of this episode included an error reported by the State Department, that Marco Rubio was the first Secretary of State in over a century to make Latin America the first visit of his tenure. Rubio is the first Secretary of State in over century to make Panama the first visit of his tenure. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
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Our lives today can feel like miniature versions of this relentless churn of activity. We find we're rushing around more crazily than ever. Somewhere, when we weren't looking, it's like busyness became a way of life.
Start listening to Oliver Berkman, Epidemics of Modern Life, available to purchase wherever you get your audiobooks.
This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Alex Ritson, and in the early hours of Monday, the 3rd of February, these are our main stories. The US Secretary of State has told Panama to reduce what he believes is Chinese influence on the canal or face the consequences, prompting outrage.
President Trump has said any pain brought by the tariffs he's imposed on America's biggest trade partners will be worth it in the long run.
Also in this podcast. Our decisions and the courage of our soldiers have redrawn the map. But I believe that working closely with President Trump, we can redraw it even further and for the better.
Israel's prime minister en route to being the first foreign leader to be received by President Trump since his inauguration. One of Donald Trump's key campaign pledges was of the United States to take back control of the Panama Canal, which connects the Caribbean to the Pacific. He claimed that China has too much influence over the waterway.
His top diplomat, Marco Rubio, has been in Panama for talks with the President, Jose Raul Molino. After the talks, the US Secretary of State said that China's influence threatened the canal and that immediate changes were needed or the US would act. The president of Panama, says the canal belongs to Panama, but he proposed technical level talks to resolve the issue.
There is no doubt that the canal is operated by our country and it will continue to be so. I do not think there's any discrepancy in that. President Trump has his opinion about the Chinese presence, which will be clarified at the appropriate time in the technical discussion of the canal.
I got more from our State Department correspondent Tom Bateman, who is in Panama.
We already had a diplomatic standoff here between the US and the Panamanian government, and after that two-hour meeting between Mr Rubio and Mr Molino, it only seems to have escalated. A statement that was put out by the State Department directly after or shortly after the meeting, not mincing its words, and we've had Mr Rubio now saying that... The U.S.
believes that Panama is allowing China's influence and control over the canal and basically says if they don't take immediate measures to change that, that the U.S. will take necessary measures, as they put it, to protect their rights. in a treaty that was signed decades ago between the U.S. and Panama, which basically says control of the Panama Canal by the Panamanians has to remain neutral.
So language, I think, that will be seen by most Panamanians as being threatening from the U.S. here and really deepening this diplomatic standoff, as I say, between these two countries.
So President Bolino has made some concessions, it appears.
He's made some concessions over the months, really ever since Donald Trump was elected in November, and it became clear that this may become a point of tension. We've seen the Panamanians start to ease off some of the contracts, or at least the proposed investments that they had from Chinese firms in some infrastructure here in Panama.
But the bigger issue about what the US alleges is Chinese control over the canal, which the Panamanians completely reject. They say this is a complete misinterpretation of the fact that a Hong Kong-based company has a majority control of two of the five ports close to the canal. They say that the US is basically turning this into an issue, which they say it is not.
The American position is that Beijing could sort of close the canal in the event of a trade war.
Tom Bateman in Panama. On Tuesday, President Trump will impose wide-ranging tariffs on the United States' three biggest trading partners, Canada, Mexico and China. All three countries have vowed to respond with retaliatory measures. Mexican and Canadian imports will be subject to a 25% tariff. Chinese imports face duties of 10%.
Defending his decision, Mr Trump said there may be some pain, but that it was a price worth paying. Speaking to the BBC, the former leader of Canada's Liberal Party, Michael Ignatieff, said that many Canadians were astonished by Mr Trump's move.
There's a kind of existential shock here, and there's also anger, a sense that we've been good neighbours, good friends, good allies for 150 years. And it cuts against our basic expectations of what our relations with our closest allies should be. So if he wants to make America great again this way, it's absolutely the wrong way to go about it.
A possible trade war could result in higher inflation in the US. Inflation and higher prices were a major issue during the US presidential campaign, but how much support is there for those tariffs across the country? A question for our correspondent in Washington, David Willis.
I think the strength of support, Alex, will depend really on the impact that these tariffs have on the United States economy. And economists are predicting that they could drive up prices here and thereby fuel inflation. And if that happens, then support could evaporate very quickly indeed. President Trump has warned that there might be, as you mentioned, some temporary economic pain.
But he believes that the American people will deal with it. And that it will be worth the price in the long run, as it were. But today, as news of the impending trade war was reverberating around the world, Mr. Trump took to his truth social social media platform to hail the dawn of what he called a golden age of America.
And he believes these tariffs will keep jobs in this country, will ease the trade deficits and will boost revenue, potentially bringing in, he said before, hundreds of billions of dollars to the U.S. Treasury, enough to fund his promised tax cuts for the American people.
And he maintained as well today, as he has before, that there is nothing that the United States' neighbours produce that the US itself couldn't make. That, Alex, despite the fact that around 60% of America's oil comes from Canada and some of it from Mexico as well.
So a difficult time ahead for exporters on both sides of the border.
That's right. Canada and Mexico have both promised to impose retaliatory taxes on American imports. Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that his government would impose 25% tariffs on more than $150 billion worth of exports from Tuesday. and extend them to cover additional goods in the weeks ahead.
And he's urging Canadians to buy local and to forego any vacations they might have been planning in the United States. He said they should travel somewhere else instead. Mexico's tariffs are expected to affect supplies of fruit and beer, amongst other things. And it's estimated, Alex, that 80% of both countries' exports go to the United States.
So the impact of these tariffs could be devastating for America's near neighbors. Crucial to all this is how long will Donald Trump hold? maintain this battle? And what will it take for him to change course? Economists are predicting here that prices will rise in the US as a result of all this.
And as a president who campaigned on a potential cut in the cost of living, that could ultimately be enough for him to change course. But as I say, in the meantime, the economic implications for all concerned could be quite significant.
David Willis To the Democratic Republic of Congo where shops and markets in Goma have begun to reopen following last week's capture of the city by the Rwandan-backed M23 rebels. Hospitals though remain overwhelmed. 400,000 people have fled their homes since the M23 attacked and seized Goma. which is capital of North Kivu Svet in the eastern DRC and the region's largest and wealthiest city.
Paul Njie was one of the first BBC team members to get into Goma since last week's violence. This is his report.
The border between Rwanda and Goma is a hive of activity. Sniffer dogs and policemen check and search men and women. Many of them arrive on foot, fleeing violence in Goma. Last week, the armed militia M23 overwhelmed government forces and seized control of the city. This raises a critical question. Who is in control now?
So we've crossed the Rwanda DRC border and driving through Goma town, I noticed that a key police post is now controlled by the M23, as well as the office of the governor of North Kivu. And to them, that suggests some form of control. The UN says at least 700 people have been killed as fighting gripped Goma. At the local hospital, doctors struggle to treat the large number of injured.
On the first day of fighting, we received 315 patients. There were children among them, and we treated them. We have received patients with gun wounds in the head, chest, stomach, hands and legs. Some were injured by flying objects caused by explosions.
The patients receiving care described the trauma they've endured over the past week.
I was in my house when the shooting started. Suddenly my hand felt cold and I realized I had been shot. My hand was shot and I screamed for help, but they continued firing.
Away from the emergency rooms, a new calm seems to have settled on Goma. I'm at Goma Town in the capital of North Kivu and there are signs of normality returning here. Commercial bike riders are out at work and business premises are open waiting for their customers. But as one of the residents told us, this new normal hides insidious dangers.
When M23 arrived here, they surrounded the Congolese army. Some of them removed their military uniforms and threw away their weapons. Inside these heaps of military leftovers, there are grenades and live ammo, which can be very dangerous. We request the government that has taken over to remove them from the streets.
The Congolese government refutes M23's claims of a total capture of Goma, but the perception here is that at least for now, the rebels are here to stay.
Paul Njia, who was part of a team from BBC Africa who gained access to the city of Goma in the DRC. The Spanish women's football team is celebrating winning the World Cup in Australia in 2023 after they beat England in the final. But it's not what happened on the winner's podium that night that has overshadowed the victory.
Today in Spain, the trial of the former president of the country's football federation, Luis Rubiales, is starting. He's facing charges of sexual assault on that day in 2023. Mr Rubiales sparked controversy in Spain and around the world when he kissed a member of that Spanish team on the lips after the final ended.
This is what the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, had to say about the incident at the time.
The behaviour of Mr Rubiales in this case shows that, in our country, there is still a long way to go when it comes to equality and respect between women and men.
Our Madrid correspondent, Guy Hedgcoe, told Julian Marshall what we can expect from the trial. First, the background.
Very soon after the kiss took place, there was a very strong backlash against Mr Rubiales back here in Spain. A social backlash. There were people taking to the streets to protest against him and to demand that he be removed as president of the federation. There were politicians who waded into this. We heard Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez speaking there.
But there were other politicians from across the political spectrum who also spoke out, almost all of them criticizing Mr. Rubiales. And overall, there was a feeling that this had really overshadowed a major achievement by the women's team. It was a controversy which dragged on for quite a long time and which obviously is now being talked about a lot again. Why has it come to trial?
It's come to trial because the public prosecutor decided there was a case here. There was an investigation carried out into this by the investigating judge to decide whether this could go to trial. The judge decided that there was enough evidence to put Mr. Rubialis on trial, not just for sexual assault, for that kiss that he gave Jenny Edmondson,
but also for coercion, for allegedly trying to force Jenny de Maussan to support his version of events, to try and make her say that there was consent when he kissed her, when she had said there wasn't.
So he's going on trial for those two charges, and there are also three other men, three other former members of the Federation, allies of Mr Rubialis, who will also be facing those coercion charges as well.
What has Mr Rubiales said in his defence?
He said that it was a consensual kiss. He said that there's no case here, he hasn't done anything wrong, that he actually asked Jenny El Morsoy if he could kiss her beforehand. He said she said that he could. So he said there's no case to be answered here as far as he's concerned. And when this whole controversy blew up, he in fact said that it was being stirred up by false feminists, as he put it.
So he has spoken out very strongly against the case being made against him with this trial. Guy Hedgcoe in Madrid.
Still to come... He was not a normal kid. He would, like, sit in his room and chew pencils down to the lead, which... Good for you.
We return to the childhood home of the tech billionaire Bill Gates in the company of his sister...
Discover how to lead a better life in our age of confusion.
Our lives today can feel like miniature versions of this relentless churn of activity. We find we're rushing around more crazily than ever. Somewhere, when we weren't looking, it's like busyness became a way of life.
Start listening to Oliver Berkman, Epidemics of Modern Life. Available to purchase wherever you get your audiobooks.
As we record this podcast, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is on his way to the United States, where he'll become the first foreign leader to meet President Trump since his return to the White House. They're expected to discuss the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire deal, which aims to establish a permanent truce between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas.
There's been no let-up in fighting in the occupied West Bank, where the Israeli military have blown up several buildings. Our correspondent Joe Inwood sent this report from Jerusalem.
For all the talk of the ceasefire holding in Gaza, in the West Bank the violence seems to be escalating. That was the sound of what Israel has called Iron Wall, its operation against armed groups in Jenin. Huge plumes of smoke rise in the air as what are said to be Palestinian homes are brought to the ground. The IDF said a tactical group had uncovered weapons.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said a 73-year-old man was killed by Israeli gunfire, with five other people killed in airstrikes.
I'm leaving for a very important meeting with President Trump in Washington.
Israel's Prime Minister flew to Washington for talks with President Trump.
Our decisions and the courage of our soldiers have redrawn the map. But I believe that working closely with President Trump, we can redraw it even further and for the better.
Before setting off, Benjamin Netanyahu made no direct mention of the ceasefire talks, but did say they would deal with issues including the release of all remaining hostages and what he called the Iranian terror axis. But the negotiations around the second phase of the ceasefire in Gaza will undoubtedly be on the agenda.
The truce has been holding so far, but the second phase, which would set out a permanent end to the fighting, is yet to be agreed. Key to any deal would be the Qataris who have mediated throughout. The Gulf state's prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, said there was no sign of progress yet.
These two negotiations should start. We started already engaging with the parties in order to define the agenda and to start engaging in those discussions. There is nothing... yet clear about who are, where are the delegations will come and when it's going to take place. But at least over the phone, these discussions has started.
The pause in the fighting in Gaza has been welcomed by almost all sides. But there are still those, including in the Israeli government, who want to see a return to arms.
What then is most likely to happen in this next phase of the ceasefire? The BBC's Julian Marshall sought the view of Frank Lowenstein, who was US Special Envoy for Middle East Peace from 2014 to the start of 2017. He put it to Mr Lowenstein that Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu have very different agendas for the future of the peace process.
Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. I mean, this meeting comes at a critical point for the ceasefire, the most difficult negotiations, which would be required to be resolved in order to really extend the ceasefire and permanently end the war. Those are going to begin after the meeting between Netanyahu and Trump. In fact, Netanyahu specifically delayed them until he returned.
And we may find that his agenda is really at odds with President Trump's agenda. I mean, both of these guys have long been committed to really advancing their own personal and political agendas first and foremost. And Trump's political agenda is to end the war and normalize relations with Saudi Arabia. And Netanyahu, I don't think, had any intention of doing that. extending the ceasefire.
He's apparently made promises to his coalition members that, in fact, he will resume the war. And that very much serves his own personal and political interests. So we'll see what happens. Traditionally, Netanyahu has tried to intimidate U.S. presidents and to bully them politically. But I think he fears President Trump in a way he's maybe never feared of U.S. president before.
So it'll be really interesting to see how this plays out.
So you do believe that Mr. Trump's view might prevail?
Well, I think that he's likely to prevail, at least in the rhetoric coming out of the meeting. I don't think Trump is going to want to have a fight with Netanyahu publicly on Tuesday or vice versa. The real challenge will come when the negotiations begin on resolving the issues that will be required to really end the war. Hamas is still a very powerful military force on the ground.
Netanyahu has promised that he's going to completely eliminate Hamas. He's talked about total victory. That is inconsistent with actually ending the war right now. So my guess is that Netanyahu will play for time and then he'll claim that the Hamas folks are being impossible in the negotiations and try to shift the blame to them over time.
Whether he moves back from that position will depend in large part on how much pressure Trump is willing to put on him politically.
Because, in fact, Mr Netanyahu hasn't yet spelled out his terms for the end of the war. I mean, he's spoken before of defeating Hamas. And as you've alluded to, we've seen Hamas militants as a startling presence on the streets of Gaza during the hostage handover.
Yeah, you're exactly right. And I think the only way that the war can actually end in accordance with the ceasefire is if the Israelis are willing to agree upon some kind of day after plan that involves an international peacekeeping force and some form of Palestinian governance inside of Gaza Strip. And that will really need to include the Palestinian Authority if the region is to get on board.
And Netanyahu has been adamant that he will never allow that to happen. And in fact, he's really done nothing in terms of suggesting what a post-war plan would look like. So he's really going to have to resolve some very difficult issues substantively and politically if he's going to be able to move this forward.
I mean, it seems to be a general consensus that the second phase of the ceasefire agreement is likely to be the most problematic. How do you see it collapsing, if indeed it does?
Yeah, that's a great question. So I think there's a fairly good chance that this first phase, lasting another 30 days or so, will be implemented in full and the Israelis will get about a third of the hostages back. The transition from phase one to phase two requires a permanent end to the war.
So you'll never even get to phase two unless there's agreement on ending the war for as far as the eye can see. And in order to do that, there just has to be this alternative to Hamas, which I don't think Netanyahu has any intention of really wrestling with that issue. So
You could get to the end of the 42-day period and Netanyahu would just say the Hamas has been impossible to deal with on all these negotiations. And then the ceasefire would slowly grind to a halt and the war would resume. I think that would be the easiest path for Netanyahu politically.
And as I said, I think the only way he'll do anything different than that is if he's feeling a lot of pressure from Trump.
Former US Special Envoy for Middle East Peace, Frank Lowenstein. A result of the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas has been a rise in anti-Semitic attacks against Jewish communities across the world. Sydney's Bondi Beach, one of Australia's most popular spots, has become the scene of what police suspect is another such attack in the country.
Officers believe that five women had eggs thrown at them and suffered verbal abuse because they were Jewish. Camilla Mills has this report.
Since the October 7th massacre, there has been an escalation in attacks on synagogues and buildings belonging to Australia's Jewish community. In December, worshippers were forced to flee Melbourne's oldest and largest synagogue after it was set on fire. The police believe that it was most probably an act of terrorism.
On Wednesday, police in New South Wales said they found explosives in a caravan which the authorities suspected could have been used in an anti-Semitic attack. causing mass casualties. This weekend, five young Jewish women in Sydney reportedly had eggs thrown at them. The police said it appeared they'd been targeted because of their clothing.
Also in Sydney, houses and cars in an area with a large Jewish community were defaced with anti-Semitic graffiti. Superintendent Darren Newman said that more police officers would be assigned to his team.
We will put all investigative resources into attempting to catch those offenders that are committing these offences. And as you can imagine, we're looking at hundreds and hundreds of hours of CCTV footage trying to track vehicles, persons for all of these matters. So I can tell you that we will make sure that we go after every single person involved in these offences.
There have been other lines of inquiry. Last month, police said they were investigating whether overseas actors or individuals paid local criminals to carry out anti-Semitic crimes. Whoever is to blame, the attacks have caused fear and alarm among Australia's Jewish population, which is more than 100,000 people. Security has been increased at Jewish schools.
Gina Ferrer's child is at one such school.
It actually makes me really, really sad that this is what it's come to. But at the end of the day, I'm not going to be scared and I'm not going to allow them to win. We're going to live our lives and we're proud. We're Australian, we're Jewish and there's nothing wrong with that. So we're going to continue to do what we do.
Israel has urged Australia to halt what it called an epidemic of anti-Semitism in the country. The Prime Minister, Antony Albanese, insisted that his government was doing all it could to combat attacks that he said included domestic terrorism.
Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, has taken a very different path to some of the other tech billionaires. The Gates Foundation is the biggest charitable organisation in the world, fighting poverty, disease and inequality. And Mr Gates is now seeking to further cement his legacy with a trilogy of memoirs.
The first, called Source Code, reveals that he thinks he would nowadays be diagnosed as neurodiverse. Our culture and media editor, Katie Brazel, met with him at his former family home in Seattle on the northwest coast of the US, together with his sister, Christy.
He was not a normal kid. He would, like, sit in his room and chew pencils down to the lead, which... Good for you.
As Bill Gates publishes a memoir, Source Code, about his beginnings, he's taken me back to his childhood home. He hasn't visited since it was sold after his father died, and it's bringing back memories.
My sisters lived down here. This was kind of ping-pong game type room. And then my room is down here. This is where I grew up.
The key thing about this bedroom, for me anyway, is that that is the window that you used to climb out of.
You know, computers, it was very hard to get access to them. And I wanted to spend as much time as I could, so at night I could sneak out and go up, use the computer, and then sneak back in without them knowing.
In the middle of the night?
Yeah.
Do you think you could still do it?
Well, it's not that hard.
And with that, he opens the window. Oh, my.
And climbs through. It's not hard at all.
That's it, he's out. And he's off to find a computer.
Yeah, that way.
Back then, young Bill and his increasingly tech-savvy school friends had a deal with a local company to check its one computer for problems in return for time on it. He'd first got access to a computer via his old school lakeside, where we're now heading.
The school deserves credit. It was their mother's club that had a rummage sale that put the money to this bizarre idea of having a terminal that you could call in to a big computer.
And you got hooked immediately.
So you see, this is me here in the computer room.
You look so lovely. We're walking towards what's archly referred to as the shrine. Behind glass doors, there are photos and other memorabilia, a homage to Gates and his Microsoft co-founder, Paul Allen, who was a school friend.
So this is the actual teletype That's not actually a computer, but it connects over a phone line to a computer. Computers were so expensive that you could never afford one, but we got a little bit of time. And so you would prepare your program and then call into the computer.
So this was the machine that you were first writing code on?
Yes. We would spend hour after hour sitting there at this machine.
Did it feel like an addiction?
It was an obsession.
You say now you think you would probably be diagnosed on the autism spectrum. Have you had a formal diagnosis?
No, I have not. Do you plan to? No, I mean, it's not like there's some medicine that, you know, when you get this diagnosis, you take it, then, you know, your social skills are fantastic. And, you know, I'm not sure I'd want that. I think I wouldn't because the positive characteristics for my career have been more beneficial than the deficits have been a problem for me.
Bill Gates. And that's all from us for now, but there'll be a new edition of the Global News Podcast later. If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email. The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X at Global News Pod. This edition was mixed by Caroline Driscoll. and the producer was Alison Davis. The editor is Karen Martin.
I'm Alex Ritson. 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 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 the 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.