Iran attacks energy facilities in the Gulf

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1:12Iran attacks energy facilities across the Gulf after the country's largest gas field is hit by Israel. America's top spies testify that after almost three weeks of war, the Iranian leadership remains largely intact if weakened. and Iran's women's football team returns home to an uncertain future after protest and asylum bid in Australia. Also in this podcast. I mean, the old process was you fire off a CV, wait four weeks and then hear a yes or a no. But now you get a chance to get AI to replicate a face-to-face interview. We explore job hunting in the age of artificial intelligence.

1:57The US and Israel's war with Iran has entered a new and volatile phase after Israeli missiles fell on the world's biggest natural gas field on Wednesday. Tehran promised to respond and within hours it launched its own missiles into Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. The move prompted strong criticism from President Trump, who warned that any further retaliation would result in US military action, threatening to blow up the Iranian gas field. Our Middle East correspondent, Sebastian Usher, is following developments from Jerusalem. He told Nick Miles why the attack on the South Pars gas field was so significant.

2:37It provides around three quarters of the country's natural gas production. Now that's all pretty much consumed domestically because of sanctions, etc. And so it has a real knock-on effect if that were to be put out of action, which is not what's happened. But it would seriously impinge even further on the regime's ability to meet the needs of its people, who even before this conflict started were already in dire financial straits. I mean, one of the key reasons that they went out onto the streets to protest back in January. I mean, Israel, just to say, hasn't officially confirmed this, but the Israeli media here is quoting sources saying 100 % that Israel carried out the attack.

3:23And they're also kind of briefing these sources that this was a warning shot to Iran. It wasn't taking out the facility, but it was essentially saying to Iran, this is what we could do if there's no movement from your side. No movement from Iran, apart from the fact that it has been responding in kind, isn't it? Yes. I mean, it immediately said that it would mount attacks on a number of key oil installations, gas installations of its Gulf neighbours. That's Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE. Saudi Arabia said that four missiles were directed towards Riyadh, its capital, and that they were all intercepted.

4:04people heard very loud booms above them, the first time that this has happened in Riyadh during this conflict. And more significantly in Qatar, again, they are saying the authorities there, that about five missiles were fired towards them. All were intercepted, but one, and that that hit the Raz Lafane industrial city. Now, that is absolutely key to Qatar. It's where its liquid natural gas main production facility is. Qatar is the main supplier of this around the world and it's absolutely key to its extraordinary wealth. But it is important to say that a lot of what Qatar would normally be doing, the operations there, have been suspended for a couple of weeks now.

4:58So it may not have an immediate huge knock-on effect. But of course, it's a real signal of how much further this could escalate. Sebastian Usher. And since we heard from Seb, Qatar State Energy Company has confirmed that gas facilities at its main site have been hit by another round of rockets overnight. It said they'd caused fires and further significant damage. Global oil prices have surged again after that attack on South Pars. The market volatility is affecting people around the globe in how much they pay for petrol and everyday goods. China is a big importer of oil from the Gulf, including Iran.

5:41So how concerned is it? Our correspondent in Beijing is Laura Bicker. China is not feeling the shock of this war like many others may be doing. And that is because China has been stockpiling oil since around January. So it does have enough oil, considering it's the biggest consumer of oil in the world. It imports more crude oil than any other country. It has about three to four months of stocks to go through. So then that is the case when you look at how many business ties China has right across the Middle East. And that is where China will be concerned. China is trying to export its way out of economic trouble.

6:22And the way it does this is trade. So it needs all of those shipping lanes, all of those connections to come through the Strait of Hormuz. China will be concerned, thinking of its own interests when it comes to this conflict, whether or not it will spread, whether or not it will affect its global growth, and whether or not it will affect its overall economy in the long term. What you were saying there about the concern being about stability, that was very much mirrored, wasn't it, by people that you spoke to on the streets of Beijing? What did they tell you? It's quite rare to hear Chinese voices, but they were eager to speak to us because this is a source of concern for them.

7:04I reckon if the war escalates to nuclear level, it may trigger third world war. The China-Iran relationship is a strategic partnership. No matter what decision the Chinese government and military make, we as Chinese citizens will support it. Many people are worried about this. China, we should support for the peace. We want to protect our own development and to keep our economy improvement. Our normal life should not be impacted by the war. Chinese people are worried about their own interests and their own kind of cost of living. And that's why they're worried about this war spiraling out of control.

7:43And that's why stability is so important to them. So a stable economy is hugely important. But what about diplomatically? There are obviously opportunities here in a time of conflict. So I think when it comes to Washington, there's always been this view that Iran and China are very close. The reality is that alliance, if you want to call it that, is mostly transactional from China's point of view. When it comes to China and the US and this great global struggle, I think China will see a huge opportunity here. Globally, what you've seen since January is a parade of world leaders coming to do deals with China, where you see a President Xi who is now looking like a tower and a beacon of stability in comparison to Washington.

8:25And that is music to Beijing's ears. That is what they've hoped for all along. Is it the case, do you think, that the longer this goes on, there are more benefits for Beijing than there are our problems? For China, the geopolitical benefits are certainly there. But for President Xi, the economy is all. I think when it comes to whether or not the party will continue to have faith in them, the people will continue to have faith in them, all of that depends on the economy. I think in the long term, China will want this wrapped up. Laura Bickert speaking to Nick Miles. And we have more on this on our YouTube channel.

9:01Search for BBC News on YouTube. and you'll find Global News Podcast in Surprise Surprise, the podcast section. There's a new story available every weekday. As the US-Israeli war on Iran continues, divisions within the Trump administration are becoming starker. On Tuesday, the US counterterrorism chief resigned, saying he could no longer support the White House policy. On Wednesday, America's most senior spies appeared before a Senate committee and were asked whether they could confirm President Trump's assertion that Iran had been weeks away from producing a nuclear bomb. Here's Democratic Senator John Ossoff from Georgia pressing the National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard on what was known ahead of the first strikes on Iran at the end of February.

9:45Was it the assessment of the intelligence community that as the White House claimed on March 1st, there was a quote, imminent nuclear threat posed by the Iranian regime? Yes or no? Once again, Senator, the intelligence community has provided the inputs that make up this annual threat assessment. You won't answer the question. It is the nature of the imminent threat that the president has to make that determination based on a collection and volume of information and intelligence that he is provided with. You're here to be timely, objective, and independent of political considerations. Exactly what I'm doing.

10:21No, you're evading a question because to provide a candid response to the committee would contradict a statement from the White House. Senator John Ossoff and Tulsi Gabbard there. When I asked our Washington correspondent, Bert DeBoosman, whether the hearing had provided clarity on the conflicting intelligence assessments. There was very few answers as to the Trump administration's actual rationale for war and whether the intelligence community gave an assessment that supported it. I thought it was very notable. In a written statement that was published online, Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, she said unequivocally that in last year's strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, those facilities were obliterated and Iran had made no effort to kind of rebuild that manufacturing capacity.

11:12That's directly contrary to what the Trump administration said in the days immediately following the beginning of Operation Epic Fury. And she didn't actually say it verbally in the committee hearing, which kind of led to accusations that she was covering for the Trump administration. She also made the assertion that only the president can really make the assessment whether Iran was or wasn't an imminent threat. But many lawmakers, and I think large portions of the American public, would argue that that's precisely what the intelligence community is for, to make those assessments and pass them to lawmakers in Washington.

11:45So it was quite combative at times. And I think there's very few questions that were actually answered to a degree that'll kind of settle the public debate about this war. Questions also whether everybody's singing from the same hymn sheet. The intelligence official said that the Iranian leadership remains largely intact, which is an assessment that clashes with President Trump's framing of the war and how, in his words, how strong and successful they are and how much they're winning. Certainly. I think that's the other main question is, you know, the Trump administration has had kind of shifting justifications for why this war began and what led up to it.

12:22I think also it's very notable that in Joe Kent, the former counterterrorism advisor who resigned yesterday, he said that the intelligence assessment did not prove that Iran was an imminent threat and that there was very little room for debate. I think most Americans would feel more comfortable if there was at least a debate about whether a military campaign is a good idea or not, at least internally within the White House. But in his view, that didn't happen. And certainly nothing that Tulsi Gabbard said or John Ratcliffe, the director of the CIA, kind of seemed to back up the Trump administration's rationale for launching this war, which there's really quite heated public debate, not only in the American public.

13:05But I think increasingly we're seeing that among Trump's own supporters. So cracks are starting to form, would you say, in the Trump administration and across the MAGA base? Because it's not been a popular war. A lot of that core supporter base do not want war and they want the focus to be on U.S. domestic policies. Certainly. I think a lot of, at least a significant chunk of Trump's MAGA base was very drawn to his promise on the campaign trail that the United States wouldn't become involved in protracted conflicts overseas or any sort of messy regime change exercise. And I think the resignation of Joe Kent, the counterterrorism advisor, he kind of solidified that viewpoint for a lot of people.

13:46This is a man who has for years been a staunch, staunch Trump supporter. He very much kind of embodied a certain MAGA mindset in terms of foreign policy and avoiding those sorts of wars in which he himself had a very distinguished war record. And then in his interview this evening with Tucker Carlson, he kind of made the argument that Israel had pushed the U.S. to war, and he used the Trump administration's own comments from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, for example, that Israel informed the U.S. it was going to strike, and therefore the U.S. felt compelled it had to strike as well. So I think certainly, especially when there's very public figures who are kind of darlings in the magosphere, as some would call it, such as Mr.

14:32Kent, whose wife also is kind of regarded as a war hero. She was killed in Syria. When a figure like that starts to verbalize those sorts of concerns about the way the U.S. military is being used and why and the justifications for this conflict, I think that's something that will spread, at the very least, a very heated debate among Trump's own supporters, whether this war actually serves them and serves that America First agenda that they were promised on the campaign trail. Ben DeBoosman reporting from Washington. As the US and Israel were launching their air attacks on Iran, the country's women's football team were in Australia, taking part in the Asia Cup.

15:13When the Iranian national anthem was played ahead of kickoff, the players refused to sing along. And that defiant gesture led to a state broadcast presenter labelling the players as wartime traitors. As a result, the Australian government offered the team humanitarian visas, which initially seven team members accepted. But heavy pressure from the Islamic regime led five of the seven to withdraw their asylum claims. The team has now arrived back in Iran to wait what could be an uncertain future. Nassim Khadem is a journalist with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation ABC and has been following the Iranian team's progress.

15:51We've seen posters come out that, you know, suggest that they'll be celebrated when they get home. But what I would say is just what happens thereafter. So there might be a big celebration, there might be a big song and dance. You know, our players have come home, but what happens thereafter? And we also have to keep in mind that, you know, the reason they went back is a lot of the diaspora that I've spoken to journalists in Iran International, a former football player, have said these players who wanted to stay but then changed their minds were basically being played voice messages from family members in Iran who were under threat, that the intelligence arm of the IRGC was threatening the families, you know, to pressure them to tell these players to return home.

16:42So, you know, with all this going in the background, you have to question whether what happens publicly is in sync with what happens privately under this regime. Yeah, because there's a lot of speculation that they could face arrest or be banned from playing football in the future or representing Iran in the future. Exactly. And then there's also, I mean, look, these are things that we'll never know. But a lot of athletes that have in the past sort of taken a stance against the regime in solidarity with protesters have gone missing. There's been accidents, you know, so there's all sorts of things that go on and we don't know exactly kind of what happens.

17:19But people mustn't forget that what these women did when they were in Australia, this act of not singing the national anthem, this is a really massive thing. And it's why Iranian state TV then ran a segment calling them traitors and basically saying they, you know, in wartime conditions, they should face a revolutionary court and be brought to justice for what they've done, things like that. So, you know, have to understand that it is in the regime's eyes a major crime for them, for that small act, what we see as a small act is a massive, massive act of solidarity with the protesters. ABC's Nassim Khadem.

17:59Still to come. We quantified the length of dresses, hemlines, waistlines, and necklines, and we were able to show that fashion actually does come back every 20 years. The math behind style trends.

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21:45European leaders have warned that an expanded Israeli ground offensive in Lebanon could lead to devastating humanitarian consequences. Israel recently issued evacuation orders all the way to the Zahrani River, almost 40 kilometers into the country. On Wednesday, Israel said it destroyed two bridges crossing the Litani River, which it said was being used by the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group to transport fighters and weapons. Lebanon says nearly 970 people have been killed since the latest round of fighting broke out. Over one million people have been forced out of their homes. Rua Davies reports from Nabatea, a region where civilians have been told to leave and where the consequences of staying behind can be fatal.

22:31This is a part of southern Lebanon where Israel has now expanded its exclusion zone. So there aren't too many people in this town of Zifta. But we're now at the site of an explosion, a missile strike last night. There were three shops here. We're not clear how many people were here at the time, but they're all saying that no warning was given before this building was hit. No, there was no warning. It suddenly hit, but didn't explode for five more minutes. There is no one here related to a political party. We are all civilians. We aren't affiliated with anyone. We've now been stopped from filming and recording by not Hezbollah, but Amal, who sometimes are pretty close to Hezbollah.

23:14But for whatever reason, they clearly don't want us filming and recording here. It's pretty kinetic around here at the minute. There's lots of explosions and we've just heard another boom in the distance. We're now walking across the road. Buildings all around here have taken hits from Israeli airstrikes. Many of them are destroyed or badly damaged. We were just sitting here together. We thought the area was safe because most of the people have evacuated. There is no one here. Then the missile hit. There have been so many rocket attacks, missile strikes here. The Israelis have told everybody to leave.

23:49Why do you stay here? There is nothing here for the Israelis to hit. No rockets or weapons. This building is mostly empty. They are just doing this to harm us. We were upstairs at the hospital and we heard sirens that came rolling down. This was an airstrike about 12 minutes further south along the road from the hospital where we are. There's one injured person, as you can hear behind me, being treated now. It's obviously really stressful for the medical staff here as well. We don't know the extent of this man's injuries, but a nurse has just come out of the room clearly quite emotional because of what she's having to deal with in there.

24:32who trying to deal with all this is Hassan Fakir. He's the head of the civil defence unit here in the Nabatea region. Another airstrike going off. That's exactly what these guys are having to deal with. He said in the strike last night near the headquarters, 11 of his own crew were injured. They're not being targeted directly, but it's clear they're in danger. Yesterday, the building right next to the civil defence headquarters, only about 10 metres away was targeted and destroyed. 11 of our team members were injured, staff and volunteers. You've seen the damage to our station, but this does not lessen our determination.

25:12The Lebanese army, the Lebanese police and the civil defence, they're not belligerents in this conflict, but they're clearly also victims. We've seen what has happened to the civil defence headquarters. Several members of that unit were injured in that Israeli airstrike and also now a group of police have just come in here. One of them is very, very distraught. It looks like one of her colleagues has been caught up in an airstrike. We don't know what his condition is, but it's clear that the emergency services are victims of this war. We're a Davies reporting from southern Lebanon. Across the world, these can be tough times if you're looking for a job, especially as a young graduate.

25:52With low levels of economic growth in many countries, it's not unusual to find many times more candidates than vacancies. And artificial intelligence is changing the game on both sides of the recruitment process. Our business editor Simon Jack has been speaking to job seekers and hiring companies in London. One big challenge these days is getting past a machine to get a job. Bhuvana Chilikuri is practising her interview skills with a simulated employer for when she has to talk to a computer which will screen her job application for real. It did get a little robotic throughout the process of applying.

26:28Ivana Chilicuri is a third-year business student at Queen Mary University and has applied for over 100 jobs and been rejected every time. There were moments actually where I applied and I got a rejection in less than two minutes, which is really, really horrible. A flat rejection within that short period of time makes you feel that this is not a human being looking at this. Definitely. I think that's where most of the students kind of can tell that. I'm Denis Mashuel. I'm the CEO of the ADECO Group. The boss of one of the world's biggest recruitment companies acknowledges the process can get demoralising.

27:02People need to send, on average, like sort of 200 applications to get a job offer. What AI brings is scale. Before, you would reach out to 50 people. And out of that, you would select one, so you would have 49 possibly frustrated. OK, now if you reach out to 500 candidates, you create 499 people frustrated. So I'm here in central London, part of the morning commuter crush. And for many young people, that's the golden ticket, a place at one of these palaces of commerce around me. And employers are inundated with hundreds, sometimes thousands of applications for every place. It's one reason why companies are turning to AI to screen, to sort, to sift, to be the gatekeeper to get into these places.