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From Our Own Correspondent

Israel's culture war over the Supreme Court

From Our Own Correspondent

BBC

News, News Commentary

4.41.3K Ratings

🗓️ 29 July 2023

⏱️ 29 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Kate Adie introduces correspondents' and reporters' stories from Israel, Ukraine, Lebanon, the Czech Republic and Ghana This year has seen the streets of Jerusalem thronged with protests and demonstrations over the Netanyahu government's plans for legal and constitutional reforms, limiting the powers of Israel's Supreme Court. Paul Adams examines the wider social chasms underlying political divides over the Court's role. The Russian missile attack on the Ria pizzeria in Kramatorsk on Tuesday the 27th of June 2023 killed thirteen people and injured over 60 more. Colin Freeman had been waiting to eat there that evening - but was called away less than an hour before the place was hit. He reflects on what Russia targets in Ukraine - and how. With wildfires ripping through forested hillsides all around the Mediterranean, Lebanon is watching nervously. Its own woodlands - oak, cedar and pine - were badly burnt by forest fires in 2021, but experts hope that enlisting the help of local goat and sheep herders might prevent worse outbreaks this year. Lemma Shehadi explains. Frank Gardner, the BBC's Security Correspondent, has visited Prague many times over the past 40 years - and was recently there to hear the head of Britain's MI6 speak in public about the modern world's security concerns. He remembers scenes from 1983 and 1990 - and an entirely different Europe. And in Ghana, Naomi Grimley goes on a flight of fancy - with some of the species of bats to be found in and around Accra. As a global health reporter, she used to see them more as a reserve for possible disease outbreaks, but some of the passionate bat researchers and academics at the University of Accra opened her eyes to the animals' more appealing qualities. Producer: Polly Hope Editor: Bridget Harney Production Co-ordinator: Sabine Schereck

Transcript

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0:00.0

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts

0:05.6

Today why Russia argues of pizza restaurant Ukraine was a military target, and how Lebanon

0:12.2

has tried recruiting sheep herders to reduce the risk of forest fires.

0:17.0

One correspondent leaves through layers of personal and cold war history in Prague, and another

0:23.2

joins the scientists in Ghana who are tracking down bats to understand how viruses jump

0:28.9

between species.

0:31.2

First in Israel, where this week the political and constitutional crisis, which has been

0:35.8

simmering for months, exploded in angry protests outside Parliament, the Knesset in Jerusalem.

0:43.4

Huge demonstrations against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's proposed legal reforms

0:48.4

have been held in the city since January.

0:51.4

On Monday the coalition government, which he leads, the most right-wing in Israel's history,

0:57.0

managed to get one of those reforms voted into law, but only after opposition MPs angrily

1:03.1

walked out of the chamber.

1:05.1

The new law weakens the authority of Israel's Supreme Court, and the government's opponents

1:10.3

fear that there's more of this to come.

1:13.2

Our former Middle East correspondent Paul Adams arrived back in Jerusalem earlier this week,

1:18.7

just as the crisis came to a head.

1:21.7

Because of the sound and fury of Monday night's protests, a kind of gloomy, pessimistic

1:26.5

calm settled over Jerusalem.

1:29.1

In Saka Park, just below the Knesset, the demonstrators' tents, which sprang up last weekend,

1:34.5

were suddenly gone, leaving flocks of hooded crows to peck over piles of rubbish.

1:39.7

Like exhausted festival goers, the protesters loaded their belongings onto trolleys and

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