BBC

What's the connection between a teacher, a driver and a presenter? We explain.

FIND BBC LEARNING ENGLISH HERE:

Visit our website ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish

Follow us ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/followus

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER:

✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/newsletters

LIKE PODCASTS? Try some of our other popular podcasts including:

✔️ Learning English for Work

✔️ Learning English from the News

✔️ Learning English Stories

They're all available by searching in your podcast app.

President Trump says the ceasefire in Gaza is still in place after Israeli airstrikes killed more than 40 people and aid deliveries were suspended - as Israel and Hamas blame each other. Also: twenty years of socialist dominance comes to an end in Bolivia as the centrist politician, Rodrigo Paz, is elected president. Thieves loot the Louvre in a daring daylight raid, escaping with priceless jewels from the famous French museum. China's top leaders are gathering in Beijing this week to decide on the country's key goals and aspirations for the rest of the decade, and the scandal surrounding Prince Andrew and his relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein continues as police investigate new allegations concerning Virginia Giuffre.

The Global News Podcast brings you the breaking news you need to hear, as it happens. Listen for the latest headlines and current affairs from around the world. Politics, economics, climate, business, technology, health – we cover it all with expert analysis and insight.

Get the news that matters, delivered twice a day on weekdays and daily at weekends, plus special bonus episodes reacting to urgent breaking stories. Follow or subscribe now and never miss a moment.

Get in touch: [email protected]

Art historian Carl Brandon Stehlke is a world expert on the great 15th Century Florentine painter Fra Angelico, and this is his dream project: a historic, once-in-a-lifetime exhibition of the artist's work at the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi and the Museo di San Marco in Florence. The show brings together more than 140 works from 70 different lenders and reunites the sections of Angelico's great altarpieces, scattered when Napoleon closed the city's churches and convents in the late 18th and early 19th Centuries, now fully restored and seen together for the first time in 200 years. Carl takes Maria Margaronis through the process of mounting such a massive exhibition from conception to grand opening. In the restorers' studios she hears how new technologies are revealing the limpid colours of paintings once thought beyond repair. And in the stillness of the San Marco convent Carl explains how Angelico's intimate, deeply humane frescos guided the friars' meditation and spiritual life, and how he fell in love with the artist's work nearly 50 years ago.

Israel has carried out renewed strikes against Hamas in Gaza and says it's suspending all aid deliveries into the territory. Both sides have accused each other of breaching the ceasefire.

Also in the programme: thieves have stolen valuables from one of the world's most famous museums -- the Louvre in Paris -- but dropped a priceless crown while making their escape; and Donald Trump says he's stopping all payments to Colombia, accusing its president of encouraging the nationwide production of drugs.

(Photo: The Khan Younis skyline following Israeli air strikes. Credit: Reuters)

It's clash of the titans at The Bull, and Josh makes a friend.

Israel has carried out an airstrike on the Gazan city of Rafah in response to what it said was Hamas breaking their ceasefire agreement. Hamas says it is committed to the ceasefire and alleges that Israel "continues to breach the agreement".

Also on the programme: thieves have broken into the Louvre Museum in Paris and stolen jewellery that France's interior minister described as priceless; and Afghanistan and Pakistan have agreed to stop fighting so that talks can take place to end their cross-border dispute.

(Photo: A drone view shows tents of displaced Palestinians in Gaza City on 18 October. Credit: Reuters)

Reporting on the war in Gaza has only been possible because of the work of Palestinian journalists, because the Israeli government will not let foreign broadcasters – including the BBC – inside the territory to report freely, even now a ceasefire is in place.

One month ago, freelance journalist Ghada Al-Kurd began sharing voice notes with us, talking about her life, her hopes, her family, and her days reporting in Gaza City. Her job is dangerous – almost 200 journalists have been killed in Gaza in the past two years – and even with a ceasefire in place, safety is far from reach.

Ghada has continued to report for us through her displacements, sharing her treasured memories of pre-war Gaza, and her fears and hopes for its future.

Image: Ghada Al Kurd

In the United States hundreds of thousands of people have taken part in nationwide demonstrations against President Trump's policies; the so-called No Kings protests want to send the message that Donald Trump is not a king and to stand against his crackdown on undocumented migrants, the deployment of National Guard troops, and cuts to federal jobs. Also, the remains of two Israeli hostages are back in the country after being handed over by Hamas to the International Red Cross, thousands of people in Kenya have attended the final public send-off for Raila Odinga, one of the country's most influential political leaders; and the man who discovered his father had once been the heir to one of the richest Jewish families in Germany, before their fortune was stolen by the Nazis.

The back-story of Gaza, from the 1940s to the 2010s, told through the personal experiences of a wide variety of ordinary people - a teacher, a smuggler, a bird-watcher, musicians, doctors and others. Tim Whewell finds out how the tiny territory was created, how it first filled with refugees, how people lived, worked and died, how they survived invasions, wars and blockade, how hopes for peace rose and fell - under the rule of Egypt, Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and Hamas. How did refugees arrive in Gaza in 1948? Why is the Strip so important to Palestinian identity - and the wider Palestinian-Israeli conflict? How did living conditions gradually improve? How did the 1967 Six Day War change people's lives? Why did the two intifadas of 1987 and 2000 break out? When were the best times for Gazans in recent history? What changed for them after Hamas took control in 2007? Tim asks these and many other questions in this journey through the recent history of a sliver of land that has often dominated world news.

Afghanistan and Pakistan are in Qatar's capital Doha for peace negotiations. Pakistani jets conducted a series of airstrikes on Afghanistan's border province of Paktika on Friday, ending a brief lull in the intense fighting that broke out last week. Pakistan has accused Afghanistan of harbouring militants, which Kabul has denied.

Also in the programme: a new study shows how a blood test for more than 50 types of cancer could help speed up diagnosis; and thousands of people have attended a final public send-off for Kenya's former prime minister Raila Odinga who died earlier this week.

(File Picture: Vehicles loaded with the belongings of Afghan citizens at the border crossing in Chaman, Balochistan Province on October 16, 2025. Credit: Reuters/Saeed Ali Achakzai)