US launches new strikes on Iran

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1:21We'll be right back. Denton.

1:26This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Charlotte Gallagher and in the early hours of the 26th of May, these are our main stories. The US launches what it's calling defensive strikes on southern Iran. We ask what it means for the ceasefire in place since April and the chances for a peace deal between the two countries. Also, will the internet finally be restored in Iran after months of a digital blackout?

1:58Also in this podcast, how climate whiplash is hitting more of us. What it means really is that our climate is becoming more volatile. So when we are seeing these swings between different weather patterns, they are just becoming more violent, more energetic. And we get the verdict on the enhanced games in Las Vegas.

2:23As Washington and Tehran claim they're inching closer to a peace deal, US forces say they've launched airstrikes on Iranian targets. The two sides had been observing a ceasefire since early April. Iran has not responded yet. I asked our North America correspondent, David Willis, what we know so far. Well, Charlotte, the U.S. has attacked missile sites in southern Iran and boats trying to lay mines. According to U.S. Central Command, a statement from them says that U.S. forces conducted self-defense strikes in southern Iran today to protect our troops from threats posed by Iranian forces. This is the target, but doesn't give any details of the attacks.

3:07And that statement concludes, US Central Command continues to defend our forces while using restraint during the ongoing ceasefire. Well, there are reports, unconfirmed reports, of explosions near Bandar Abbas, which is a key Iranian airbase near the Strait of Hormuz. Precisely what impact, if any, these strikes will have on that fragile ceasefire. It's been in place for more than six weeks, of course, since the 8th of April. Isn't entirely clear throughout that ceasefire, Iran has maintained control over shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and the US Navy has been blockading Iran's ports. Now, President Trump wrote earlier in the day that a deal with Iran would either be great and meaningful, as he put it, or there would be no deal at all.

3:59Has this come as a surprise to people, given that 24 hours ago we were saying it looked like a deal was getting there almost? Well, you're absolutely right. The US Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggested earlier that a deal could be reached within a day, as he put it. And although that was swiftly rebuffed by a spokesman for Iran's foreign ministry, who said that whilst progress had been made in talks between the two sides, no such agreement was imminent. Now, they are thought to be discussing, delegates from Iran and the United States, a memorandum of understanding which would involve a 60-day ceasefire extension, the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and further negotiations on Iran's nuclear program.

4:50That, of course, is not a final settlement. It leaves some of the thorniest issues still to be resolved, including the future of Iran's nuclear enrichment program, which this whole conflict was all about in the first place or supposed to be. The Trump administration almost seems to me to be willing a conclusion to this crisis. President Trump has made very little secret of his impatience, his desire to achieve a solution to this crisis with the, of course, midterm elections coming up less than six months away. That was David Willis. Meanwhile, Iranians are facing one of the longest running national Internet shutdowns in history.

5:33People there have been in digital darkness most of this year. first during a brutal crackdown on anti-government protests that shook the country, and then as the US and Israel went to war with Iran. Before the latest US strikes, the president, Massoud Peshachkihan, announced the internet blackout will end, with state media saying access could be restored in the coming hours. But BBC Persian's Bahman Kalbassi told me people are sceptical. The regime is intent on much more stringent control on the Internet, and it has taken major steps to make Internet as something of a privilege available to the few, available to those loyal to the regime, available to businesses that are close to the regime, or even students and professors who would have to go through regime channels.

6:31Are they suddenly prepared to give all that up? It very much remains to be seen. It's very hard to judge. There is a clear attempt by a lot of, especially the most hardline elements of the regime, to say Internet is not necessary for everyone. They have actually come out and said it publicly. So is the president overriding all of that, given that he's not a major player in the IRGC, the Revolutionary Guards are the ones who make these calls. That is a question that I will believe it when I see it. Because there have been times during this particular conflict where the president has come out and said something, and then he's been contradicted by the Revolutionary Guards.

7:17Throughout his entire tenure, that has been the case. And more so, obviously, since the war began and the power shifted even more than before to the hands of the generals. There's the reality, of course, that the economic impact of this internet shutdown is extremely grave. A lot of businesses are basically dying. Many young people who depend on internet connectivity can't do their basic work. So those pressures are boiling up. But is it enough or has it been enough for the entire government to recalculate and decide to not go forward with their plans of creating a North Korea style internet system.

8:07That really is the question right now. A lot of people are very sceptical of these announcements until they see real connectivity. And I imagine that even if the internet is restored, a lot of websites presumably are blocked. It's not totally free access? I mean, even before the war, internet in Iran was very much restricted, and many people accessed what they wanted to see or hear or listen to via VPNs. So that is the state of life in Iran has been for decades. But since the war, even that has gotten very, very difficult. Many of the VPNs don't work. People go through incredible hoops just to get connected to WhatsApp for a few minutes.

8:56So it is as if you create a major mass digital jail and put 90 million people in it. That was Bachman Kalbassi from BBC Persian. There have been more cross-border strikes between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. A ceasefire between the governments has largely been ignored as both sides exchange fire on a near daily basis. Ahead of the latest barrage, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he wanted to crush the Iranian-backed group.

9:32We are in a war with Hezbollah. Only in recent weeks, our heroic fighters have eliminated more than 600 terrorists. I want you to know this, more than 600 terrorists. But we are not taking our foot off the pedal. On the contrary, I said to press on the pedal even more. We will hit them. Lebanese officials say more than 400 people have been killed in Israeli airstrikes since the ceasefire began last month. Israel says 10 soldiers have been killed. Here's our Middle East correspondent Lucy Williamson. Any pretense of a genuine ceasefire in Lebanon disappeared tonight with that statement by the Israeli prime minister.

10:11Benjamin Netanyahu said, we are at war with Hezbollah, he said. And he talked about the need to increase strikes and deal them a crushing blow. Now, the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, as you say, has continued through the five or six weeks that the ceasefire there has been in place. But I think people across Lebanon tonight will be wondering what this new announcement means. And certainly the Israeli military tonight said it had carried out more than 70 strikes across the country, including in areas such as the Beqar Valley in the east, also in Tia. I think what's interesting tonight to look at is U.S.

10:49officials appear to be briefing support for Israel's right to attack Hezbollah. They've been talking about how Hezbollah has repeatedly resisted requests to stop firing at Israel. And Israel, the U.S. officials said, will never be expected to passively absorb attacks. So I think all of that does point to some very delicate timing. The U.S. is currently negotiating the terms of a potential ceasefire deal with Iran. And any Israeli escalation in Lebanon could certainly complicate those negotiations. But it could also signal that Israel has been given a window to press ahead in Lebanon and that it may shortly find itself under pressure to limit its attacks.

11:33That was Lucy Williamson. Nearly a decade ago in Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman launched Vision 2030, an estimated trillion dollar programme of infrastructure and tourism projects designed to wean the kingdom off its dependence on oil. It's the second largest oil producer in the world and currently under pressure as a result of the Iran war. But as our global affairs reporter Sebastian Usher explains, some of the biggest projects are already being scaled back or shelved. The world needs neon because the world needs change. That's what we mean when we say... Made to change. To great fanfare back in 2017, the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman made a surprise announcement intended to thrust Saudi Arabia forward into a new uncharted future, which was dubbed Vision 2030.

12:30Today, as the chairman of the board of directors of NEOM, I present you The Line, a city of a million residents, 170 kilometres long, with zero cars, zero streets and zero carbon emissions. You can fulfill your daily requirements with a five-minute walk. Other extraordinary giga projects were touted, such as the Cube in Riyadh, a futuristic city within a city with the capacity of 20 empire state buildings. In the country's northwestern mountains, Trajana, an all-year-round ski resort. But a recalibration in recent months in response to both financial and logistical limitations has meant that such jaw-dropping ambitions have been scaled back.

13:12Abdullah al-Alda, a Saudi human rights activist, says they're now going for smaller wins with more achievable projects like luxury resorts in the Red Sea. A lot of the ministers are trying to say that, oh, we didn't fail, but we knew all along that we're going to rethink, curate as the market needs. I think loser number one is the Saudi people because it's their money at the end. Vision 2030's aim was to finally wrench Saudi Arabia away from its dependence on oil and generate unprecedented tourism. Some of this has been achieved, but the war in Iran has exacerbated uncertainty. Oil is still the main draw for foreign investors and the biggest influx of foreign visitors is once again Hajj, the annual Muslim pilgrimage which started today under the furnace of the Saudi sun and the threat of renewed conflict.

14:07That was Sebastian Usher. Shameless blackmail, that's the verdict of the Ukrainian government on Russia's threat to launch large strikes against Kiev. Moscow said the attacks would be aimed at targets linked to the Ukrainian army. Earlier, it advised foreign nationals to leave the Ukrainian capital. Our Russia editor Steve Rosenberg has the latest. In a statement, the foreign ministry said Russia would carry out what it called systematic strikes against Ukrainian military industrial facilities in Kiev, including locations where Moscow says Ukraine is designing, producing, programming and preparing drones for use.

14:46Decision-making centres and command posts would be targeted too, it said. It called on foreign diplomats and staff of international organisations to leave Kiev as soon as possible, and on the city's residents not to go near military and administrative buildings. Moscow is framing this as a response to what it claims was a deliberate Ukrainian drone attack last Friday on a college and student dorm in Storobilsk, a town in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian military has denied deliberately targeting civilians. It says that that night it struck an elite Russian drone unit in the area.

15:23That was Steve Rosenberg. Still to come in this podcast, how a tiny community in Sierra Leone was transformed when a teenager found a massive diamond.

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17:16This is the Global News Podcast. The head of the World Health Organization says it's a race against time to try and stop the spread of Ebola and that initial detection of the disease was too slow. More than 200 people have died and more than 900 cases are suspected in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Cases have also been rising in neighbouring Uganda. Insecurity in the region is hampering efforts to curb the outbreak, which began in the northeast of the country, where thousands of people are displaced. Awareness campaigns have been telling people to wash regularly with soap and clean with ash.

17:54But those there say it's not always possible.

18:02we don't even have anything to wash our hands with or soap to protect us from disease we're appealing for the authorities to help we're in the midst of an epidemic but we don't even have soap if we don't get help we're all going to die here we clean the insides of our jerry cans with ash but finding ash is becoming difficult because we can't find any coal anymore and unfortunately we don't have the money to buy it. Please help us to buy coal so we can get ash. Declan Walsh is the chief Africa correspondent for the New York Times. He's been reporting from the epicentre of the current outbreak in Ettore province.

18:41It was where the first cases were detected 11 days ago. He spoke to the BBC's James Kumasamy. On the surface, shops are open, traffic is circulating, But it doesn't take you very long to realise that there is this deep current of apprehension and even fear among many residents who've really just been starting to come to terms with the amplitude of this outbreak. What kind of testing is going on there now? It's not great, to be honest. There is one government testing laboratory in Bonne. It's testing perhaps at most 40 or 50 tests a day. And that is entirely insufficient. Nearly all of the suspected patients are being kept in public health facilities that are under-resourced, under-equipped.

19:30What that means is that you've got people who are probably not, in fact, mingled in with people who are, and that's almost certainly spreading the data further. And to make matters worse, there have been these attacks on health facilities. Some of the handful of isolation tents that have been erected, at least three of them have been burned in recent days. And then last night, a group of perhaps over 100 young men gathered outside the hospital, demanding the body of a Christian leader who had just died. And there were running battles outside that hospital. there are many people in some of the worst affected areas who unfortunately don't believe the virus is real, or they believe that it is somehow the responsibility or has been caused by the people who are trying to treat it.

20:19And to be clear, the reason these bodies are not being given over to relatives is because it is during the preparations for the burial during the funerals themselves that Ebola is often spread. That's right. When someone dies, their body is almost at its most contagious. Usually mourners come to view the body of the deceased and they will hug them or touch them. And unfortunately, that is a disastrous practice. It effectively turned the funeral into a super spreader event. Declan, what about the precautions you're taking? Yeah, I mean, look, but nothing really prepares you for coming into an environment like this.

20:58You know, you just really have to be very disciplined in following practices, particularly of washing your hands. You know, you see people wearing face masks here, which certainly do play some role, but the experts will tell you that it's not a disease that's spread by respiratory means, it's spread by touch. It's spread by touching someone who is contagious, or it's spread by touching a surface that they have touched. We are extremely conscious about maintaining our safety protocols in that regard. That was Declan Walsh from the New York Times. Parts of Europe have been experiencing extreme heat for this time of year, with the UK breaking a record for the highest temperature in May since 1944.

21:42The UK's Met Office recorded a temperature of 34.8 degrees Celsius in London. Greg Dewhurst is a scientist there. Normally records are broken by less than a degree, a couple of points of a degree, but see the UK record beaten by a whole two degrees and also the Wales record beaten by a whole two degrees. It's a good indication of climate change in action. The world is warming. We're seeing more extremes and the records prove it. The record high follows a period of cold weather, torrential rain and even hailstones in parts of the UK two weeks ago. Experts call this climate whiplash and it's also been seen recently in France and Belgium.

22:28Hannah Cloak is a climate professor at the University of Reading in England. What it means really is that our climate is becoming more volatile. So when we are seeing these swings between different weather patterns, they are just becoming more violent, more energetic. So if we see heavier rainfall, we see perhaps really hot temperatures, those are the things that are extremely swinging between two different things. We do have kind of variable weather in the UK and that's really important to understand. It is just that superchargedness that is being injected into these weather systems. And that is what we can really feel.

23:05This weather is not caused by climate change. It's just supercharged and made worse. The temperatures are higher. Our rainfall becomes heavier. And I would like to say to everyone listening, you know, this is really what climate change feels like. France's weather agency has also said that new monthly highs for May were recorded at more than 350 weather stations. Our correspondent Hugh Schofield is in Paris and sent this report late on Monday. These exceptional temperatures are being felt across France but particularly in the west. Remarkably, as the sun came up this morning, it was hotter in the Brittany port of Brest than it was in Corsica.

23:4418 departments or counties are on the first alert level for heat, including the capital Paris, where this afternoon it's been in the early 30s Celsius and people are venturing out with caution. It's really hot. I'm pregnant, so it's kind of difficult. So I have a water spray and I have hats, sunscreen and everything. And I try to find a shadow. So actually we had a kind of cold May, so I was quite happy. But yeah, I need more water now. We have to plan things like having water, having sunscreen. It's just like we have to be very careful. Next, the Enhanced Games have taken place in Las Vegas. They're essentially the Olympics, but on steroids.

24:28The athletes competing were all allowed to take performance-enhancing substances, and huge cash prizes were on offer. Three clean athletes also won their events. Ross Tucker is a South African sports scientist. The entire thing was an advertisement. It was a platform for an anti-aging drugs campaign. It seemed like a thinly veiled attempt on the part of its backers to use elite athletes to promote the idea that healthy, otherwise healthy people, older people should use drugs for off-label use. That's really what it boiled down to, the Enhanced Games. They spoke about transparency and they spoke about redefining sport.

25:05I don't think any of that happened. But whether those billionaire backers continue to think that there's a market will determine whether we see another enhanced Games. Our correspondent, Shima Khalil, was there and I asked her what it was like. I think it was everything that you would expect from a Las Vegas spectacle. It felt like a sporting event slash rock concert slash this big launching pad for all sorts of performance enhancing drugs sold to the general public, not just to elite sports. There was booming music, flashing lights. There was a concert in the end. And of course, there were the competitions in swimming, in track, in weightlifting.

25:46and there were many athletes, former Olympians, that got another shot at their sport after retiring. Many walked away with big money. There was one world record that was broken, and that was Christian Golomyev, the Greek swimmer. He walked away with a million dollars. What's important, of course, to say is that this world record will be recognized only in the enhanced games because the games themselves have been dismissed and condemned by world bodies, including world aquatics and world athletics. They all see this as an affront to fair play. They also see that this is a dangerous precedent because the health implications, the long-term health implications, they say, are dangerous, that at the heart of this are the banned substances.

26:35What the organizers say is that this has existed for years in elite sport, and they're bringing it out in the open. And I think it's important to say that, again, this is also a business. They're selling this to the general public, and it is widely considered this event to be a launchpad for their big business. That was Shaima Khalil. Nine years ago, one of the most remote and underdeveloped communities in one of Africa's poorest economies, Sierra Leone, received an unexpected windfall. Villagers unearthed one of the biggest rough diamonds ever discovered. Ed Butler was there after the discovery and has just returned to see how the sale of the diamond has affected those involved.