This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.

I'm Nick Miles and in the early hours of Monday the 23rd of September, these are our main stories.

World leaders are expressing growing concern about the dangers of a regional war in the Middle East.

Sri Lanka's presidential election has been won by a left-wing anti-corruption candidate,

Anura-Kumara de Sennanaya. Voting in regional elections in the German state of Brandenburg

has ended with provisional results showing Chancellor Olaf Schultz's Social Democrats

are slightly ahead of the far right AFD.

Also in this podcast we meet the man who discovered this. An unknown piece by one of the world's greatest composers, find out who later.

We begin in the Middle East.

Both Israel and Hezbollah have threatened to intensify their cross-border attacks, as fears grow that the

worsening violence could erupt into an all-out war. The two sides are exchanging heavy rocket

fire which has killed at least three people in Lebanon and sent

hundreds of thousands of Israelis to bomb shelters.

Hezbollah says the confrontation has entered a new phase becoming an open-ended

battle of reckoning.

The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists his troops landed a series of blows on the

group and warns that if it hasn't got the message yet, then it will.

President Joe Biden says the United States will do everything in its power

to prevent an escalation of the conflict.

Egypt had already warned that intensifying fighting between Israel and Lebanon's Iranian-backed

Hezbollah risks igniting a regional conflict.

Our diplomatic correspondent Paul Adams, who's Jerusalem sent this report on Sunday's developments.

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