Highest daily strike total on Iran, says US

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1:08Like, how about that for a tagline for the show? From the BBC, this is The Interface, the show that explores how tech is rewiring your week and your world. This isn't about quarterly earnings or about tech reviews. It's about what technology is actually doing to your work and your politics, your everyday life. And all the bizarre ways people are using the internet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:39This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. Hello, I'm Ankur Desai and at 16 hours GMT on Friday the 13th of March, these are our main stories. As the bombardment of Iran continues, the American Defense Secretary has said the U.S. plans to carry out more strikes today than on any other day so far. There's growing criticism in Europe of Washington's decision to ease sanctions on Russian oil in a bid to counter rising prices linked to the war with Iran. Also in this podcast... Hi there, how are you today? Good. What's something you love to see? A unicorn. Unicorns are magical creatures.

2:22Calls for tighter regulation around children's toys powered by AI. And Fred Warburton, who's a visually impaired skier, described the conditions on his run earlier in the week as like a slush puppy. So it is causing some difficulties on the slopes. Concern as a lack of snow impacts this year's Winter Paralympics.

2:45As the war with Iran reaches the two-week mark, The U.S. says it and its ally Israel are carrying out their busiest day of missile strikes on the country, including the capital Tehran.

3:03The latest strikes coincide with a pro-government rally marking Quds Day, the last Friday of Ramadan, during which thousands chanted Allahu Akbar and death to America.

3:19Speaking at the Pentagon, the U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was defiant. The United States is decimating the radical Iranian regime's military in a way the world has never seen before. Never before has a modern, capable military, which Iran used to have, been so quickly destroyed and made combat ineffective, devastated. We said it would not be a fair fight, and it has not been. As I stated during our first press conference on day two, that was 10 short days ago, the combination of the world's two most powerful air forces is unprecedented and unbeatable. Frederick Pleitgen is CNN's senior international correspondent who has just been to Tehran.

4:03One of the things that really stood out is that when you were in Tehran, even in the hotel that we stayed in, I would say there was never a time of more than two hours without hearing an airstrike. And a lot of them were big. They were heavy. Some of them shook the walls. And then you could see those big plumes of smoke over the city. And I think one of the things that we felt when we were on the ground is that there was really no time and no place where you felt safe. We went to one strike site where the strike was less than 24 hours ago. And there, there was a lot of anger towards us. There were people still clearing the debris.

4:39There were people trying to salvage their belongings from a residential building. And there, there was definitely a lot of anger for us, sort of them feeling that we represented Western media and the West in general. And of course, being US media made it even more difficult. So, yeah, I mean, there's a lot of fear, I would say, right now amongst many people. And there's that feeling of never being able to calm down because there really isn't any place in the city right now that feels totally safe. There's no air raid sirens. There's no real bunkers, no real shelters. So that definitely makes it difficult.

5:12Fred, what seems to be happening now is a greater targeting of the kind of repressive abilities of the state, both the individuals and perhaps the fixed posts as well. Did you get any sense of how feasible that is when it comes to properly destroying the ability of the regime to carry on? I think it's certainly something that poses a major challenge. I mean, one of the things that stood out to us was the amount of security forces that were deployed on the ground. And, you know, these aren't people who are necessarily in uniform. You have that as well. You have checkpoints that pop up very quickly, heavily armed people searching cars, groups on motorcycles going around.

5:54But what you also have is a lot of people who mingle in the crowds in plain clothes. And especially when you went to some of the larger events that were organized by the government, the amount of security forces that were on the ground there and that were really inside the crowd was huge. And it did stand out the amount of security forces that they still have, the layers of security forces that they have, the amount of checkpoints that they can put up, the intelligence services that they have. It's a gigantic apparatus. And it certainly seemed to us as though that apparatus was still very much functioning and very much in control.

6:28Frederick Pleitgen speaking to Justin Webb. Israel is clearly hoping that the war provides an opportunity to permanently damage the armed group Hezbollah, which is based in Lebanon and attacks Israel from there. The cost for Lebanese civilians has been huge and is getting bigger. The Lebanese authorities say Israel has killed more than 600 people and displaced more than 800 ,000 since the latest conflict began. And overnight, Israel told people in a new part of southern Lebanon to leave their homes. Khilina Khatib is a Middle East analyst at Chatham House. What's her view of Israel's approach?

7:04This is a strategic campaign by Israel. They want to get rid of the threat of Hezbollah once and for all. And they're not going to stop until Hezbollah's military capability is basically eradicated. And actually, When Hezbollah and Israel signed a ceasefire in November 2024, Hezbollah did not abide by the terms of the ceasefire. It continued to try to smuggle weapons into Lebanon. It continued to refurbish the weapons that had been damaged by Israel. And it continued to move its fighters inside Lebanon. And that's why Israel was striking these Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, where these activities were happening over almost a year and a half.

7:54And what is happening now is that Israel has accelerated the campaign that it was doing more or less gradually during that period of time. The Lebanese government wanted to implement the terms of the ceasefire fully and therefore called on Hezbollah to disarm. But Hezbollah, as I said, had been refusing. And that's why recently the Lebanese government took a further step, which is to ban all of Hezbollah's military activities. But Hezbollah is still not complying. So currently the Lebanese government has a rogue actor inside Lebanon. But the problem is the Lebanese government itself, the Lebanese state, is not strong enough to be able to prevent Hezbollah from conducting these military activities.

8:43And so even though the government will not want Israel to be attacking all over Lebanon, at the same time, they themselves do not have the capacity to be able to stop Hezbollah. So it's a very de facto scenario that we're seeing. Middle East analyst Lina Khatib. Despite the US claiming that Iran's military is being decimated, Iran has still been able to strike at targets in neighbouring Gulf countries. As we heard from our correspondent in Dubai, Nick Beek. A number of countries in the Gulf say that they've still been subject to attack from the Iranians from across the water. I can tell you what happened here in Dubai.

9:24There was an alert early this morning, around sort of seven-ish, and what we saw was the drone trying to strike the financial district for a second time in two days. There was an interception, there was debris that fell, but the authorities are saying that no one was injured and this was the same case as yesterday. But across the border to our east in Oman, two people were reported to have been killed by a drone attack there where there was debris again falling to the ground, two people dying as a result of that And Saudi Arabia saying that they stopped more than 20 drones today that were on their way to different parts of the country.

10:02That at a time when the British Foreign Secretary, Yvette Cooper, was making a visit there, showing solidarity with the Saudis, she said, and also the wider region. What's the position, Nick, of the Gulf countries towards the war at the moment? Because it feels as though they haven't retaliated in an aggressive manner just yet. You're absolutely right. I think they've been absorbing all that Iran has been throwing at them. And, of course, worth pointing out that these are countries which have links with the United States, whether it's through commerce or, in particular, through hosting military bases or allowing the Americans at times to use their facilities.

10:37And what the Iranians have done is hit back at them. So far, there hasn't been any explicit criticism from the Gulf states of, A, the Americans for starting this war and dragging them into it, But there certainly has been criticism for Iran, saying that what they're doing is completely destabilising the whole region. But they haven't gone one step further or many steps further in launching their own over-military operations. I think they're trying to keep their head down and hoping that this can sort of be stopped in some way without them having to escalate and start hitting out at Iran. Nick Beak reporting.

11:11A decision by the United States to temporarily lift sanctions on Russian oil exports has caused consternation among many of Washington's allies. The U.S. said the move was designed to bring down global oil prices, which have soared in reaction to Iran's decision to close the vital Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 % of the world's oil passes. The lifting of sanctions has been criticised by Ukraine and has featured in President Zelensky's talks with his French counterpart in Paris today. Our diplomatic correspondent, James Landell, is following developments from the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv. Their talks have been dominated by the war in the Middle East and the potential impact on the war in Ukraine.

11:53And very specifically, both leaders making it very, very clear that they opposed the U.S. decision to ease temporarily some sanctions on Russian oil sales. President Macron emphasized that the American decision, the waiver, was temporary and limited. But he said very explicitly there was no justification for lifting sanctions on Russia. As for President Zelensky, he made it very, very clear that this would have a negative impact on Ukraine, saying this one concession by the US would, in his estimation, give Russia about$10 billion worth of revenue. And he said, quote, this certainly does not help peace.

12:32In terms of the US proposals for new three-way talks then between the US, Russia and Ukraine, how likely are these to go ahead in a meaningful way because Ukraine will not want to feel left out again and have their conflict put on the back burner, so to speak? Well, there are proposals for these talks to resume sometime in the next couple of weeks, but there's nothing definitive nailed down in the diary as yet. Occasionally, dates get suggested and then they tend to slip. There was a meeting earlier this week between key Donald Trump officials in Miami with a key Russian official. But what was interesting about that was that there was very little briefing that came out of that meeting to get a sense of what was being discussed.

13:11I think, yes, there is a fear, a general fear here in Kiev that the war in the Middle East is overshadowing efforts to find peace in this part of the world after Russia's invasion. But there's also just a fear that potentially American interest bandwidth could be squeezed and that might have an impact as well. But at the same time, those talks need to continue. But so far, they've all been pretty technical and largely by analysts considered to be essentially performative, because at the moment, most analysts conclude that Russia at the moment has no intention of ending its conflict without any kind of resolution apart from Ukraine's capitulation.

13:53And that's very, very unlikely to happen. James Landale. And you can hear more from James on our YouTube channel. Search for BBC News on YouTube and you'll find Global News Podcast in the podcast section. And there's a new interview out every weekday. So far, most polls have showed that broadly the majority of Americans do not support US strikes on Iran. But clearly as the war goes on and as the picture of the impact and consequences evolves, so too will public opinion about the merits of Operation Epic Fury. The military action has already been given a bombastic name by the Trump administration.

14:29But the White House is also trying to sell it to voters through social media videos that splice real footage of the war with clips from blockbuster action movies and video games. They've been viewed millions of times on platforms like TikTok and X. Wake up, Daddy Sean. Welcome home, sir. Strength and honour. Strength and honour. What will you do without freedom? Mavericks inbound.

14:58You can't conceive of what I'm capable of. Roger Stahl is professor of communication studies at the University of Georgia and director of the documentary Theatres of War. Leila Nathu asked him for his first impressions of those social media videos. They're a mixture of AI slop, rah-rah sizzle reels of missile strike footage with meme references to video games and Hollywood movies. one-liners from various people ranging from Walter White to Superman to Iron Man and Transformers. I mean, my initial reaction is this is the most stupid and profoundly juvenile thing that I can imagine coming from the White House itself, which has not happened before.

15:40We kind of expect this kind of thing to be floating around the ethernet, but not coming from official sources. The White House does have form in terms of promoting their policies in this way. They did videos on the ICE immigration raids, didn't they, that tried to promote them in this way, use popular music. It's clearly something they think is resonating with people in terms of a way to get their message out there. Yeah, the Department of Homeland Security pioneered this way of communicating with the public. Highly stylized stuff, often references to popular culture, the use of even colloquial language and even profanity, highly bombastic, designed to make its way around the internet as fast as possible with as much collateral damage in the information space as possible and generating as much chatter as possible as well.

16:26This is the product of Stephen Chung, who runs the White House Communications, and he is really good at this method that they're developing, which is to shock the conscience of the nation and to get as many views as possible. I mean, these things have really gotten a lot of attention. And I think that's the point. Consider that only 25 % of Americans, and maybe that's ticking up a little bit initially, at least, supported this conflict. So you've got just a fraction, really, of the mega base that is on board with this. The economy is tanking. Gas prices are up. Schoolchildren are being killed.

17:01They're spending a billion dollars a day. None of this looks great. And the White House is really backpedaling. And I think this is part of the strategy, which is distract, distract, distract, put out these videos as fast as possible, get as much chatter going about the videos as possible. But I think the main strategy is to get people to take their eye off the ball, which is this disastrous policy. Professor Roger Starr from the University of Georgia in the US. Still to come in this podcast, we hear from the two contenders in France looking to become the next mayor of Paris. We've come a long way.

17:36Pollution is done by 40 percent in 10 years. What the city needs is organization. It needs the right mix of transport, not chaos.

17:52This is not the future we were promised. Like, how about that for a tagline for the show? From the BBC, this is The Interface, the show that explores how tech is rewiring your week and your world. This isn't about quarterly earnings or about tech reviews. It's about what technology is actually doing to your work and your politics, your everyday life. And all the bizarre ways people are using the internet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

18:26Researchers at Cambridge University in the UK are calling for tighter regulation of AI-powered toys after conducting one of the first tests in the world to investigate how under fives interact with the tech. Here's an example of the kind of toy we're talking about. Maya, who's three, is testing the AI-powered toy named Gabbo. Hi there. How are you today? Good. What's something you love to see? A unicorn. Unicorns are magical creatures. If you could imagine riding on a unicorn, where would you go? I can't imagine. That's OK. There are other, perhaps less impressive examples. Here's a toy's response voiced by a producer to a child saying I love you.

19:07As a friendly reminder, please ensure interactions adhere to the guidelines provided. Let me know how you would like to proceed. And to a child saying I'm sad, this is how an AI toy responded. Don't worry, I'm a happy little bot. Let's keep the fun going. What shall we talk about next? I've been speaking to our technology editor, Zoe Kleinman. I began by asking her what exactly are AI toys. Essentially, they're cuddly toys. So this one, Gabbo, looks a bit like a cuddly Nintendo Game Boy, if you remember those, and I'm sure toddlers don't. And inside is a sort of mini computer, if you like, that contains access to a chatbot.

19:44So you speak to it and the chatbot responds, as you heard there. It's designed to be very upbeat. The only thing it can do is talk to you. It doesn't have a screen and it doesn't move. And while it is programmed to try and encourage imaginative play, as you heard there, it is quite full on. I spent a bit of time with it and within a couple of minutes, I was sort of exhausted by having to think so hard about all of these very random questions it was throwing at me. But the point is that there really isn't a lot of research at the moment into how little children interact with AI, even though these toys are already on the market and they're aimed at children aged three and above.

20:22And what the researchers said they found was the parents were quite interested in its potential to help children develop their communication and language skills. But as you heard there, because the interactions were not always very natural, the children got a bit confused and a bit frustrated by it in the end. So what the researchers are saying is that actually we need to look at these toys now. We need a bit of regulation around, you know, what is and is not helpful for children of that age in terms of the experience that they're getting from this toy. And they've also suggested that if parents want to buy them, that they keep a close eye on what their children are doing with them, how often they're using them, what they're saying to them and what it's saying back to them.

21:00You touched upon it there as well. In terms of harms, what could they have beyond the frustration of not getting the response you want? And furthermore, are there any recommendations for what should be done about it? Under five is quite a critical developmental age for children in terms of how they're learning to interact with the world around them. and that includes adults. And so the idea is that, obviously, if you tell an adult, a parent, that you love them, you don't expect them to come back to you and say, you know, please stick within my guidelines. That's just not a natural response. And I suppose the concerns are that what it's teaching them at this crucial stage is not actually how humans interact with each other in the real world.

21:35And there are also some concerns. And again, this is what research needs to find out about, you know, how addictive these toys are. Would children choose to play with them rather than play with humans? What is the balance between having a toy that you like and having a toy that becomes something that's a little bit of an obsession? And I guess also a dilemma for the makers of the toys is this thing about affection. You can't really have AI telling it it loves you. But on the other hand, saying that to a four-year-old just means nothing, does it? Feels like a modern-day version of the Tamagotchi, if you remember one of those.

22:05Yeah, I do remember that. It's as exhausting, actually. The BBC's technology editor, Zoe Kleinman. France votes on Sunday in its six yearly city and town elections. And as ever, eyes are on the capital to see who will be the next mayor of Paris. The socialists have led a left-wing alliance for the past 25 years, during which perhaps their most eye-catching achievement has been to bring down the level of car use in Paris. But will that be enough to see off the challenge from the right? Hugh Schofield reports.

22:38On what used to be Paris' Riverside Drive, a jazz band is playing in the late winter sun. People are out strolling. There are a few bikes and scooters. It's hard now to recall the time, just a few years ago, in fact, when this was one of the city's main east-west thoroughfares and clogged with traffic. The outgoing mayor, Anne Hidalgo's, war on the car has produced some very visible results. A proliferation of bike lanes, the old rat runs that drivers used to take through the side streets all closed off. For many Parisians, it's been a boon. The city is designed for people, not for cars. So I don't mind her making the city more walkable, even if it involves removing cars out of the roads.

23:25Before, there were cars everywhere. Now we're walking on the roads. It's lovely, so calm.