Hello, im lewis vaughanjones. Welcome to The Programme. We start in the middle east, where the palestinian president says only the us can prevent an Israeli Attack on rafah, where more than a million have fled. Mahmoud abbas is at the World Economic forum summit in riyadh. He will be joined there on monday by the us Secretary Of State, Antony Blinken. Other Key International figures are expected in the saudi city and Sideline Meetings are expected to discuss the war in gaza and the way forward. That could include further Ceasefire Talks a hamas delegation is reportedly in cairo for discussions there on monday. This is the appeal from palestinian president , mahmoud abbas, to the us, urging it convince israel to reconsider any offensive in rafah. Translation and i say here whats happening now in gaza, | and what will happen in the coming few days, and what israel will do by invading the city of rafah, all the palestinians from gaza are gathered in rafah and its only one small strike tha
a revolution is rising across myanmar. hidden from the world by its remoteness and the military s determination to keep journalists out. we arrive by river under a haze of wood smoke from burning crop fires. the journey ahead is long. there s no easy way to reach this conflict. we re entering dangerous waters. the river traffic thins out. not farfrom here, the boats will be in range of the army s mortars. so everything that s needed is ferried across. a bridgejust upriver is too risky for most. the tide is turning here, and it s the young carrying the burden. they are the power behind the insurgency. their effort is to drive out the military here in karenni state, and across myanmar. it s tough going. we spent a month with the insurgents. they are pushing back against the army. they ve forced them out of most of their territory, but main roads are still in range of the military s guns and warplanes. so we take the long way round. it s a gruelling wilderness. myanmar s been un
mickey bergman, welcome to hardtalk. thank you. now, let s go back to october the 7th and the days after, when your phone started ringing. tell us what happened. well, like the rest of the world, i woke up in the united states on october 7th to kind of get the news and start understanding what is happening. but very soon after, i started getting phone calls, initially from the mother of an israeli soldier who s been killed and kidnapped in gaza years ago, leah goldin, who i ve worked with over the years, to let me know that there s a lot of hostages families that are seeking help. she started organising and listing their names, and i started receiving a lot of phone calls from what ended up being about 67 different families asking us to help. now, just. we should be clear, you are not involved in the formal negotiations, either now or then. so what was it that you were doing? so that is correct. we are a not for profit, non government organisation. we work on behalf of famil
we helped with some of the activities for them in the transition to democracy. we managed to get that invitation around august, and then the us state department was very reluctant in. ..in being positive about our visit, not because they were bad, not because they didn t want him back. they really wanted him back. but i believe they were worried that if we go and meet with the general, the head of the military government, and ask for danny fenster, that he will ask for something in return from the us government that the us government was not willing to give. 0k. but instead, so. but that was not our approach there. so when you say we, that is you and the former new mexico governor, bill richardson. correct. what was it.? so you re in the meetings with the myanmar military. how do you secure his release? the main objective there was danny fenster. look, this is at the heart of what i do. i studied the leader, the general in myanmar. i watched his speeches.
in which we realise maduro is willing to do anything to stay in power. the only way through which we can confront and defeat him is building a huge, unprecedented social movement, citizen movement that is right now arousing and growing. finally, the world has to understand that this is a criminal system, much worse than a conventional dictatorship, and the only way we can stop migration, we can stop this totalisation of democratic systems in other countries in the region is by transition to democracy. that requires strength, certainly, as well as a company and support from democratic nations throughout the world. i m still puzzled as to why you think it is going to be possible for you to run in an election while maduro is still in power. you ve just described what you see is all of the massive negatives about maduro s control