By Hannah Wilcox for Daily Mail Australia

Published: 08:02 EST, March 7, 2024 | Updated: 2:05 PM EST, March 7, 2024

A football fan who said he hoped TV pundit Eni Aluko was ‘in hiding in the Gaza Strip’ after fleeing abroad because of online hate has said he ‘regrets’ the outburst – and admits his own son has labeled him a ‘troll’.

The man, a Chelsea fan in his 60s, appears anonymously on the BBC podcast Why do you hate me?told journalist Marianna Spring that he “got sucked in” and admits that he wouldn’t dare write such things with his real identity.

In the 28-minute podcast released last week, the reporter meets the troll, who uses the name James on air, in person at an undisclosed address to confront him about his attacks on the former England footballer.

Aluko, 37, revealed in January that attacks on X, formerly Twitter, by ex-footballer Joey Barton and dozens of others had caused her to escape abroad.

She told fans at the time: ‘I’ve been really scared this week. I only left home on Friday and am now abroad. Because it’s really important to say that online abuse has a direct impact on your safety and how you feel and how safe you feel in real life.”

During the BBC podcast, reporter Spring reveals that James, who used to live in London, has agreed to meet her in a car park near where he works before the pair drive to a nearby farm.

The troll, who is married with children, describes ‘football as my life’ and said he would ‘miss weddings’ when he was younger to watch Chelsea – but describes himself as ‘easy going’.

He told Spring that he started using social media during the lockdown to join the conversation about football.

Listeners are told that his content is sometimes racist and critical of women, and he tells them: ‘We men don’t really want women to be involved in men’s football. It just ruins the event, they have their own game, stick to it.”

One of the tweets James posted read: “If Alex Scott and Eni Aluko were white there is no way they would be on TV.”

Another message, posted in October when Israel retaliated against Palestine with heavy bombing, read: “Let’s hope Eni Aluko is hiding in the GAZASTRIP.”

When challenged as to why he wrote it, he tells the podcast: “No idea, I got sucked into it I guess” before saying: “It’s not nice, I shouldn’t have said it.” I think it’s quite funny. It’s not’.

He said he regretted the comments and “I won’t do it again,” but added: “It’s ironic, it’s a bit of a niggling thing for people to respond to.”

Spring tells listeners that he hasn’t posted about Aluko since their conversation, but has continued to post about other female experts.

Last week, Aluko spoke about the abuse she has suffered online and believes X – formerly known as Twitter – should do more to tackle ‘hate’.

‘This is a social issue for which we have a platform [X] That gives people the opportunity to spew out their hatred unchecked,” Aluko told the BBC.

“And besides, I think the idea is to make money and stir up more hate to promote a podcast.”

Aluko also claimed that trolls want to make women and black people in sports feel “inferior” and wait to see them make a mistake to fuel their agenda.

“It’s an attempt to really project inferiority onto women and onto black people. Because it’s not just specific to football, right? This is a common experience,” Aluko said.

“You may have a black woman in a position of power and influence. As soon as she does something wrong, it confirms that she was never meant to be there.”

“We call on everyone, especially the Hamas movement, to quickly finalize the deal so that we can protect our people and remove all obstacles,” Mr Abbas said. a statement This was reported by Wafa, the authority's official news agency. Mr Abbas heads Fatah, a political party that is a rival to Hamas.

With food, water and medicine in desperate short supply in Gaza, the Biden administration called on Israel on Wednesday to stop blocking flour shipments to UNRWA, the main UN aid agency for Palestinians in Gaza.

Israel's far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Tuesday he had issued a directive not to transfer flour to UNRWA, citing allegations that some of its employees had ties to Hamas, including 12 accused of a role in the attack of October 7. and its aftermath.

About 1,050 containers, most of them filled with flour, were stopped at Israel's port of Ashdod, Philippe Lazzarini, head of UNRWA, told reporters on Friday. That would be enough to feed 1.1 million Gazans for a month, he said.

On Wednesday, President Biden's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said at a news conference: “That flour has not been moved as we expected. We expect Israel to fulfill its promise to get that flour to Gaza.”

At Nasser Hospital, some medical workers were packing their belongings and preparing their families for the flight.

“We are all scared,” said Dr. Mohammad Abu Moussa, a radiologist.

But Dr. Moussa said that although he was concerned about an attack on the hospital, he and his wife decided to stay put for now. They and their two surviving children – a third was killed in an airstrike in October – have been hospitalized for weeks.

“I have no other choice,” said Dr. Abu Moussa. “I can't go anywhere in Rafah, and I have young children, and they can't walk such long distances.”

It was unclear where those leaving the complex could find safety, as the Israeli army has often bombed areas in Gaza that it had previously said were safe. Israeli leaders have also vowed to invade Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza, which is home to more than a million people.

At the hospital, a number of medical staff were packing their belongings and preparing their families for the flight.

“We are all afraid,” said Dr. Mohammad Abu Moussa, a radiologist at Nasser. He added that while he was concerned about an attack on the hospital, he and his wife had made the difficult decision to stay put for the time being. They and their two surviving children – a third was killed in an airstrike in October – have been hospitalized for weeks.

“I have no other choice,” said Dr. Abu Moussa. “I can't go anywhere in Rafah, and I have young children and they can't walk such long distances.”

Hanin Abu Tiba, 27, an English teacher sheltering in the hospital, described the dire conditions inside, with food running out and aid convoys virtually unable to deliver supplies. In text messages that night, she said she saw an Israeli military vehicle outside the hospital gate.

“I'm terrified of leaving the hospital and being shot,” she said. But inside the complex, she said, “the electricity is out and water and canned food are running low. We don't know what to do.”

According to the Health Ministry, the Israeli army has stormed other hospitals in Gaza and detained medical staff during the four-month war.

“We are very concerned about the situation developing at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis,” said medical aid group Doctors Without Borders. said on social media Wednesday. It called on the Israeli Defense Forces “to ensure the safety of all medical personnel, patients and displaced persons.”

Rawan Sheikh Ahmad And Aaron Bokserman reporting contributed.

Horrific details of Kim Jong-un’s gulags have emerged in a new documentary showing defectors desperately trying to flee from North Korea. 

In the gripping new documentary Beyond Utopia: Escape from North Korea, harrowing footage reveals the lengths desperate people will go to to leave Kim Jong-un’s regime full of famines, a developing economic crisis and crippling international sanctions. 

One defector said he didn’t make it out and was detained in North Korea during his escape attempt, where he was tortured for nine months and was starved to the point he only weighed 35kg (77lbs).

When he finally confessed to being a foreign spy – he wasn’t but hoped if he confessed the torture would end – he was brought to a camp, where he had to march up a hill every day to chop down trees.

The cut-down tree stumps would then tumble down into prisoners still climbing up the hill, leaving them with horrifying injuries or dead.

‘Their limbs were broken and intestines leaked out of their wounds […] when the bodies decomposed they fused together,’ he said. 

Among the stories featured in the film is that of Soyeon Lee, a desperate mother to be reunited with her 17-year-old son who she had to leave behind when she defected. 

The film by Madeleine Gavin also follows a family of five who fled through China, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand to finally find refuge in South Korea. Footage taken on their phones documents their perilous journey.

A prominent figure in the film is Pastor Kim Seongeun who has been helping those wanting to defect from the hermit country for 24 years after seeing several bloated dead bodies floating on the Tumen River after a failed escape attempt.

He is based in Seoul, South Korea, and has helped more than a thousand people escape from the totalitarian regime with his ‘underground railroad’ organisation the Caleb Mission Church.

He said that most defectors avoid crossing over directly to South Korea, as the border is lined with two million landmines to prevent anyone from leaving.

Instead, they have to cross the Yalu or Tumen rivers, which replace the border with neighbouring China, dodging North Korean military posts at night as well as spies trying to lead them straight into traps.

Pastor Kim himself has braced the rescue route several times, telling the documentary: ‘I feel emotionally exhausted just worrying about it. The most taxing part of the journey is us having to illegally cross through the jungle.’

At the border, defectors meet brokers who help guide them to freedom – but some of them have become untrustworthy after being swayed by higher rewards, according to Pastor Kim. 

He said that once the Chinese government is told about defectors crossing over from North Korea, it offers brokers six months’ wages to give those leaving the regime up.

Beyond Utopia follows defectors trying to leave North Korea just before the pandemic, making the documented escapes some of the last since after the hermit country closed off routes out of it. 

Soyeon Lee defected ten years prior, leaving behind her small son. She was part of the North Korean army and left her family in the search for better living conditions. 

On her escape, she was caught by the police and was sent to a prison camp, from where she successfully fled after two years. 

She wanted her son Han Jeong-Cheong, 17, to also defect to South Korea and organised his escape with Pastor Kim.

But the plan was thwarted when the untrustworthy brokers handed him in to the North Korean police.

The teenager was sent to a prison camp after being tortured, interrogated and severely beaten to the point he couldn’t even eat anything.

‘In North Korea, they will go so far as to kill him. Eventually, my son will beg them to end his life,’ she said in the film.

In an interview with Independent Lens, she said that her son has remained in the camp for political prisoners where he is ‘not given any food, forced to work and subjected to all kinds of beatings and assaults’ since.

Soyeon Lee said she was hesitant at first about taking part in the documentary, because she feared her son would suffer the consequences. 

‘I decided that if the voice of a mother trying to save her son became known to the international community […] and if more people came to my side, learned about North Korea’s human rights violations, and criticized North Korea with one voice, it would have an impact,’ the brave mother said.

She added that if she would have to escape again herself, she would pack poison, as it would be ‘better to die’ than live in a concentration camp. 

The Rohs, the family of five also featured in the film, fled through several countries before finding refuge in South Korea.

In terrifying footage from their escape they can be seen wading through a thick jungle while dogs searching for them with their military police handlers can be heard barking in the background.

‘I thought a lot about our neighbours on that mountain, I wondered about the path to survival when the price is abandoning our hometowns.

‘I miss our friends and our dog. We wouldn’t have lived if it wasn’t for the pastor,’ so-called Mama Roh, the mother from the family of five, said.

Their escape led them into China and from there into the Vietnamese jungle, before they went to Vientiane in Laos and finally Thailand, where they provided their identity as North Korean refugees.

After this, they were relocated to a resettlement facility in South Korea, where they were taught about what really is going on in the world after being fed by the regime’s propaganda machine and strict ban on outside information.

All defectors get taught about this to help them integrate into the South Korean Society. They also receive housing and other benefits to help them get on their feet.

Pastor Kim also established a community centre for defectors to help them adapt to life in a free country.

‘There they and South Koreans worship and farm together, share information, share food, and learn to live together. Caleb Mission is helping North Korean defectors become self-reliant,’ he told Independent Lens.

He added that many North Koreans have a thirst for education after they defect, like Mama Roh, who is now studying to be a social worker. 

Another protagonist of the film is Hyeonseo Lee, who fled 20 years ago after realising she was brainwashed while living under the oppressive regime. 

She said she had grown up thinking she was living in Utopia, an illusion that was eventually shattered as she realised everyone around her lived in misery and constant fear of public execution. 

‘Government officials come to houses with white gloves checking that pictures of the Supreme Leader past and present have no dust on them – and they are severely punished otherwise,’ she said in the film.

She is now an activist and a human rights campaigner living in South Korea and has revealed the extent of the brainwashing that is happening in North Korea. 

‘We are literally told that Kim’s dad is God, and Kim is son of God,’ she said.

‘We didn’t know another life existed besides the one we had. We were captured in a huge, virtual prison.’

North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un, who turned 40 earlier this month, is a ruthless dictator who executes his enemies and pushes a state nuclear weapons program – while allowing entire families to starve to death.

His birthday, believed to be on January 8, is a secretive affair in North Korea. The US government lists Kim’s birth year as 1984, making him 40 years old this year.

But there was no public announcement or celebrations at home as state media continued its decades of silence on the day – a contrast to the birth dates of Kim’s late father and North Korea-founding grandfather, who preceded him as ruler, both of which are national holidays in the authoritarian state. 

Instead he entered his 40th year with artillery barrages into the sea, vowing to expand his nuclear arsenal and increasingly close ties with Russia.

For most of his young life – much like the secrecy around his birthday – Kim had been hidden from view. He was the youngest son of North Korea’s second ruler Kim Jong Il, and few had even heard his name.

But all that changed a little over 13 years ago when – on December 17, 2011 – his 70-year-old father died and Kim – at just 27 years old – was thrust into the spotlight as the new ruler of one of the world’s most-repressive dictatorships.

He has been a ruthless leader ever since, with Pastor Kim saying in the film: ‘When Kim Jong -un came into power, he made defecting a traitorous act. 

‘After that, his soldiers began receiving awards and vacation time for killing people trying to escape.’

Kim has become one of the most recognisable faces on the planet for reasons that range from the terrifying to the ridiculous.

He carried out a bloody purge of top officials – thought to have included executions by anti-aircraft guns, mortar rounds, and flamethrowers – and had his own brother murdered with VX nerve agent in an elaborate fake prank.

He oversaw the construction of the country’s most-powerful nuclear weapons and missiles capable of launching them at the US – and then leveraged them to secure three meetings with Donald Trump – becoming the first North Korean leader in history to meet face-to-face with an American president. 

But he also struck up an unlikely friendship with basketball star Dennis Rodman, sparked endless jibes and internet memes with his ever-expanding waistline, and raised eyebrows with some questionable fashion choices – from a fedora, to his leather coat, and an ever-changing but always-mockable hairstyle. 

More recently, he has established closer ties with Russia and China, in particular providing Moscow with arms for its on-going invasion of Ukraine – and his country’s nuclear sabre-rattling has grown louder.

Kim was even rumoured to have died and been replaced by a body double after going missing for several weeks, with reports suggesting he underwent surgery – further raising questions over his seemingly ailing health.

Over the years, the leader has appeared more and more bloated, his skin losing colour. He is thought to be around 5ft 6in tall, and at his heaviest weighed 22 stone.

Analysts have suggested he takes steroid injections and is a heavy smoker, and suffers from health issues such as hypertension, diabetes and high cholesterol.

Others say talk about his ailing health is speculation, and perhaps wishful thinking among those who fear Kim having his finger on a nuclear button.

Beyond Utopia: Escape from North Korea is available on BBC iPlayer. 

Rita Ora has given fans a rare insight into her childhood as she adjusted to a new life in Britain, after recording a series of childhood home videos in a new video to mark the release of the brand new version of Shape Of Me to celebrate.

The song, which features her The Voice Australia co-star and country music icon Keith Urban, is a tribute to Rita's mother Vera in celebration of her 60th birthday.

The accompanying music video, created from a montage of home videos, features the 33-year-old singer in a series of throwback clips throughout her childhood.

Rita's mother Vera, her father Besnik, older sister Elena, 35, and younger brother Don, 25, can also be seen attending various family outings and special occasions.

Among the clips is a lovely montage showing Rita and her family adjusting to their new life in London after fleeing Kosovo for political reasons in 1991, when the singer was just a baby.

The family has a close relationship, with Elena also serving as the singer's manager and Vera often attending events.

Ahead of the release, Keith said: “When I did The Voice with Rita we hit it off straight away. She has a lot of energy and she is a bad singer.

'So when she sent me this song and asked if I wanted to sing with her on it, I said, “Can I play guitar too?” I love how it turned out!'

Rita revealed she had collaborated with Keith and shared a sneak peak of her latest single last week.

She shared a snippet of the new hit, a version of Shape Of Me, and revealed that the lyrics were inspired by her feelings for Vera.

Coinciding with the announcement of her mother's 60th birthday, Rita explained that she had wanted to write a song about Vera “for the longest time” and now feels like she could “finally share so much.”

Rita shared the teaser with her 16.1 million Instagram followers and revealed that the full version will be released on January 26.

She captioned the clip: “HAPPY BIRTHDAY MUM! We have been through everything together, you have always been such a beautiful inspiration in my life and in my music.

'I've wanted to write a song about you for a long time, so when Shape Of Me was written and released by me and the You & I writing team for my album, I was finally able to share so much of what I've been thinking about. You.'

Rita continued, “It really hit home how much love you have shown me and how much you have taught me over the years!!

“So, what better way to say HBD than by sharing a new version of it with the AMAZING @keithurban…

'He helped me make it even more special, because this song also shows appreciation for all the women in your life! So surprise mom, this one is for you! Happy 60th!

“Yes, my mother has that heart, she said don't let go of the parts that keep you younger…”

Rita previously talked about her family history in an interview with Louis Theroux.

She explained that her mother Vera was a psychiatrist, while her father, Besnik, was an economist in Kosovo, but he had to flee to avoid the risk of persecution.

During the decade-long war in the country, thousands of people were killed and more than a million people – including the Oras – were forced to flee to safety.

Once in Britain, Rita's father opened a pub, while Rita flourished in the arts.

Rita has also previously described what it was like growing up as a refugee in Britain, admitting that she often felt like an 'outsider' growing up.

Starring in a striking cover shoot for ELLE SpainRita reflected on her upbringing and the challenges she faced due to her background and how she used music to cope with growing up without a 'place of belonging'.

'I think the real challenge was that I felt like an outsider and that I didn't have a fixed place.

'Yes, that was the hardest thing for me, but as I have emphasized before, music has helped me enormously to deal with those feelings.

'Whether it was listening or acting, it was my way of being connected to the world. That is the ultimate power of music: it allows us to make connections with people we wouldn't otherwise have, it gives us a sense of community and that we are not alone on this planet.”

Rita also previously told Vogue Arabia that although there were a lot of “prejudices and judgments” during her upbringing, after connecting she made a lot of friends because they were “different.”

Recalling the event, she said: 'They left their whole lives behind and had to start all over again when they arrived in London as refugees. But keeping us safe was their number one priority and I count my blessings every day that they did what they did.”

Explaining her parents' choice of the city, Rita said: 'They chose London because Dad loved the music and the culture, but still, as you can imagine, starting a new life was extremely difficult.'

Rita went on to explain what life was like growing up in London, claiming she found it 'tough' because of the amount of prejudice surrounding refugees.

She revealed: 'I was often called a refugee in a derogatory way, but I had a lot of foreign friends and we all had a great time connecting by being different.'

Rita visits Kosovo – formally Yugoslavia – whenever she can with her family and is proud of the traditional dress and knows their dances.