Settlers attack Palestinian olive farmers in West Bank | Global News Podcast

Welcome to the Global News podcast from. the BBC World Service. Hello, I'm Oliver. Conway and this is what we have coming. up. We're in the occupied West Bank. where Jewish settlers are again. attacking Palestinian olive farmers. >> It's a stalemate, a standoff and it. could explode at any minute. >> The number of ships reporting attacks in. and around the Straight of Hormuz has. hit a record high and the cuttingedge. test that speeds up the diagnosis and. treatment of children in intensive care. The fact that they had a test there. available to her, I think [music] was.

paramount. It saved her life. >> Also in this podcast, why an. accelerating Earth is prompting. scientists to change how the world keeps. time. [music]. The olive harvest in the occupied West. Bank isn't just important to the. Palestinian economy, it's a huge part of. the local culture. It's also now become. a flash point for Israeli settler. violence. The UN says the number of. settler attacks over the past two weeks.

has overtaken the total from last year's. harvest at nearly 200. One Palestinian. has been killed and more than 120 others. injured. Abbas Milhelm from the. Palestinian Farmers Union says thousands. of families have already lost their. livelihoods because of the attacks. >> It's not just any a tree. It is you know. part of the heritage, part of the. culture, part of life, part of. existence, part of peace, part of love, part of connection between the farmer. and the land. You know, most of.

Palestinian farmers here, they deal and. treat that tree exactly like they do. with their daughters and their sons. So. when when a settler come and uproot that. tree, destroy that tree or burn out that. tree, they try to burn the historical. heritage and culture and life and. history of that family. >> The Israeli government says it deals. severely with such violence. Our Middle. East correspondent Lucy Williamson spent. the morning with a group of olive. farmers south of Nablas and witnessed. them coming under attack. The settlers.

have been moving slowly down this road. towards the olive grove and they've now. begun setting fire to trees on either. side of the road. Some of the. Palestinians have been moving up towards. them. It's a stalemate, a standoff, and. it could explode at any minute. Within. minutes, stones were being thrown. towards us. We saw settlers using. slingshots. Palestinians gathered here. today, hoping for safety in numbers. Some used fireworks to push the settlers.

back. But the settlers charged towards. them. >> They're kicking somebody. He's [ __ ]. down right now. >> An American journalist said she was. jumped on by settlers and attacked. >> I was on the ground and they were. kicking me and. for like 10 minutes and I was trying to. hold on to my cameras and to my bag. Israeli forces fired tear gas into the. Palestinian fields to end the. confrontation. But this pattern is being. repeated day after day as illegal.

settler outposts increase and the. harvest season is getting more violent. each year. Oil prices have been a politically. sensitive issue this year, spiking after. Iran closed the straight of Hormuz in. response to attacks by the US and. Israel. Nearly eight months after the. conflict started, attacks in the key. waterway have hit record levels. According to BBC Verify, I got the. details from Thomas Copeland. What we're seeing now is an increase in.

attacks in the street of Hormuz, even. greater than what we were seeing at the. very start of this conflict. A record. week last week, 12 strikes. The week. before that, 10. The highest in a single. day was last Sunday, the 11th of. October. Six strikes in a single day. Now, what's the reason for that? Well, over the last number of months, the US. has been increasing the number of oil. tankers that it has been escorting. through the street of Hormuz. The US has. been shephering tankers around this. narrow route around the coast of Aman. rather than taking ships through this.

northern Iranian route. Iran wants ships. to go through there and seek permission. The US instead is essentially shuttling. a fleet of about 70 tankers back and. forth and back and forth through that. narrow Omani southern route, providing. air support to try to protect as many of. those ships as possible from incoming. Iranian attacks. As those number of oil. tankers have been increasing towards the. last number of months, up by a third now. since September, up by 85% since August, Iran in the last two weeks has been. surging its attacks. And experts say.

that what Iran is trying to do is reduce. the number of tankers that the US is. escorting through, deter ships from. wanting to make that journey to take oil. from the street of Hormuz out into the. Gulf of Oman and out into the global. energy markets. A cuttingedge test that. can detect hidden and drugresistant. infections is helping speed up treatment. for critically ill children. The process. is called metagenomics and provides. results from a single sample. Our. medical editor, Fergus Walsh, reports.

>> I'm out. >> 10-year-old Willow is full of energy. now, but back in March, she was. dangerously ill with pneumonia. >> Oh my goodness. >> Which triggered a seizure and multiple. cardiac arrests. >> The consultant was very honest and he. said, "She has 50% chance of survival. and we have to take it hour by hour." He. also said, you know, bring your family. up to say goodbye to her. This is how. critical and in how much danger she was. of passing away. >> The team at London's Great Orman Street.

Hospital used metagenomics, a. cuttingedge test which identified that. Willow had a drugresistant bacterial. infection which needed a different. antibiotic to the one she'd been. prescribed. >> The fact that they had a test there. available to her I think was paramount. It's saved her life. >> and heaven knows, you know, it's a. miracle she's here now and we're. extremely grateful for that. >> Respiratory samples from more than 100.

critically ill children at Gosh were. sent for sameday metagenomic testing. using this machine. It works by. sequencing all genetic material present, detecting bacteria, viruses, and fungi. with high accuracy. In a quarter of. cases, the results influence the drugs. doctors were prescribing. >> Firstly, it we can find out what's. causing the problem for the child. Secondly, it might allow us to change. treatment. It allows us to stop.

antibiotics when they're not needed, and. that's incredibly important because of. the side effects of antibiotics, but. also resistance. The metagenomic tests also detected 50. organisms not identified by routine. diagnostics, meaning it could play an. early warning role against new. infections. More broadly across the UK, this test is being rolled out to about. 30 laboratories, which means that if we. were to get a new mystery, potentially.

pandemic pathogen, we would be able to. detect that quickly and put the right. measures in place for a new pandemic. >> Metagenomic testing will undoubtedly get. faster, cheaper, and more accurate. It. points to a future where this growing. bacteria in petry dishes which has been. done since Victorian times will finally. be consigned to medical history.

For Willow, metagenomic testing was. lifesaving and it will increasingly help. critically ill patients of all ages get. the right treatment. [music]. Still to come, >> a product launch with a difference as. Elon Musk unveils Tesla's latest car. >> I mean, I've seen a lot of things, but. I've never seen that before. [music]. >> Most of us probably didn't notice, but. in recent decades, an extra second has.

been added to the calendar every so. often to keep the world's clocks in. alignment with the Earth's rotation. But. scientists have now voted to get rid of. this so-called leap second because they. say our planet is spinning faster. So. the extra time is no longer needed. As. Richard Hamilton explains, >> the Earth's rotation has been slowing. down. So every few years, a minute will. last 61 seconds instead of 60. So since. 1972,

this has been done 27 times. The people. in charge of the world clocks, they add. what's called a leap second. It's a bit. like a leap year to what's called. coordinated universal time or UTC. So. this is done to keep the atomic clocks. uh in step with solar time which is time. based on the rotation of the earth. But. now for for some reason that the earth. is actually spinning faster. Now this. creates headache for scientists. They. could subtract a second. It's called.

adding a negative leap second. But this. might cause havoc for the world's. computer systems and cause them to. crash. >> Okay, so we don't need a leap second. Negative leap seconds have issues with. them. What have scientists decided to. do? >> So they want to introduce what's called. a leap hour. So instead of adding a leap. second every few years because world the. world time system has drifted away from. solar time by a second, instead of that.

letting that drift further apart uh by a. second, they're going to let it drift up. to an hour before applying this leap. hour. But it would be many thousands of. years before that drift. There are 3,600. seconds in an hour. So it would be. thousands of years before they'd have to. add that leap power. So we shouldn't. have to worry about it just now as long. as we leave a sort of post-it note for. future generations to add an hour. And.

we don't know what's going to happen to. the world in 3,600 years from now. I. mean, we might be living on Mars. >> Russia appears to have ignored President. Trump's call for an energy ceasefire. But rather than condemning Vladimir. Putin for continuing attacks, the US. leader has turned on Vladimir Zalinski, saying the Ukrainian leader is much. harder to deal with than the Russian. president. Mr. Zilinski was asked about. the comments as he met European allies. in Brussels.

>> It's more difficult to deal with me than. with Putin. >> So, it's either with him than with Putin. then. for me for me to get along with Trump. I had I had a couple of meetings with uh. the American president and we. we all we always find topics for. discussions and for making decisions.

I am standing up for Ukraine's interest. solely and the people of Ukraine. We. were attacked. We were occupied. Our. people were killed. >> It's only logical that we have a right. to defend ourselves. >> Relations between the US and Ukrainian. leaders had been improving but collapsed. after President Trump announced his. controversial plan to buy Russian. diesel. So what are they like now? I. asked Vitali Chevchenko, chief analyst. at BBC monitoring.

>> I think they are if not at their lowest. point ever than pretty close to it. Um, I think former Zalinski was becoming. increasingly more difficult to walk to. walk the tight rope between uh trying. not to upset uh Donald Trump and stating. the obvious. And the obvious fact is. that it's becoming increasingly more. difficult for Ukraine to defend itself.

without assistance from the United. States. And this is the the most. critical I've seen Zilinski speak about. Donald Trump. He's he said he's he feels. betrayed by the American president. He. has suggested that he's weak. And I. would be keen to see how he rose back. from that. How the two leaders um. rebuild their relationship, if that is. going to happen at all. >> They've been talked about for years, but. are flying cars now a reality? Yes, says.

Elon Musk, referring to his latest. Tesla, which can apparently do naugh to. 60 or nearly 100 km an hour in under a. second. The promotional video shows the. car using thrusters to leap into the. air, though there's some debate about. whether it is actually flying. And. anyway, will it be allowed on the roads? I asked our technology editor, Zoe. Kleinman. >> Not at the moment. It's got uh no. regulatory approval, which means it. can't be used on public highways, and.

that is a process that can take years. Now, Elon Musk reckons that it's going. to go into production in 2028. What we. saw last night was a prototype. So, that. means there's only one of these in the. world that's been built specifically uh. for that demonstration. So, there's also. going to be, I suspect, a lot of. engineering involved in looking at how. to scale that from one car to lots of. cars. And there there is another issue. as well, of course, which is w with. weight. You know, if you if you get in a. car with people and they've got clothes. and bags and other things, it's going to.

make the car heavier and that's going to. make it harder for it to not only get. airborne, but also to stay in the air. >> Yeah, I mean, it does look pretty. impressive. How did they manage to get. the car to do that in terms of. engineering? We only have Elon Musk's word for it, of. course, but what he says is that the car. is powered by um an ultra high-pressure. um air tank which self recharges and. also SpaceX rocket thrusters. Interestingly, there is quite a nent. market in uh flying cars. Um they're.

they're called EVOLs, which means they. take off vertically, more like sort of. helicopters or drones, and land that. way. But this car doesn't do that. It. seems to be able to kind of leap up and. over. So it's it's literally flying. forwards rather than going up and down. Um and uh it is interesting to see what. he's come up with, but you know, Elon. Musk and big tech in general make a lot. of promises about things that we're. still waiting to see delivered. Um we're. also haven't yet managed to colonize. Mars, which is another pet project of. Elon Musk. And he gave up on a.

high-speed underground passenger pod. that was supposed to take people between. LA and San Francisco. So what he says. and what he shows us and what actually. materializes aren't always the same. thing. But that said, it was a very cool. demo, wasn't it? >> Yeah. I mean, what might be the. practical uses of a car like that, or is. it all just about the marketing? >> That is a really interesting point. Like. he says, well, once you've got one of. these, it'll be able to do all of these. maneuvers for you whenever you want. So. what would you want it to do? Would you. want it to be leaprogging over the. traffic? Well, that would be great until.

everybody else starts leaprogging over. the traffic as well. And then you've got. a bit of a kind of air traffic problem, haven't you? Rather than a road traffic. problem. I think it's it's interesting. to see what use case it has once more. than one person has one in a way. But um. we do know that, you know, flying travel. is something that's captivated people. for so long. Flying cars has been part. of sci-fi for decades and there is a lot. of excitement around making it happen. But as you say, do we actually need it? Not sure that we do. And that is all. from this edition of the Global News.

podcast. If [music] you want to get in. touch, our contact details are below. I'm Oliver Conway. Until next time, goodbye. [music].