US military launches wave of attacks against Iran

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1:01Listen to The Global Story on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:09This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. Hello, I'm Oliver Conway. We're recording this at 15 Hours GMT on Wednesday the 15th of July. The US says it's launched another wave of strikes against Iran as they battle for control of the Strait of Hormuz. Australia announces wide-ranging plans to regulate AI, including restrictions on data centres, and Bolivia investigates the alleged recruitment of Bolivian men to fight for Russia. Also in the podcast... By some kind of miracle, the diameter of that plastic tip fit perfectly in that hole and armed the engine and saved their lives.

1:49The pen that helped rescue the Apollo moon mission.

1:57Are the US and Iran getting closer to a resumption of all-out war in their battle for control of the Strait of Hormuz? The American military says it's launched another wave of daytime strikes today, after a fourth night of attacks. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps said it had targeted American military sites in Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan. Media tally suggests 35 people have been killed in Iran in the past week. The US says Iran has attacked seven ships, leaving nearly a dozen crew dead, injured or missing. At the same time, the two nations are stepping up their rhetoric. President Trump renewed his threats to destroy Iran's bridges and power plants, while Iran says it could cut off other transit routes beyond the Strait of Hormuz.

2:42So what happens now? Hossam Zaki is a veteran Arab diplomat. We often condemn the Iranians, rightly so, but we also need to understand where the US is going with all of this. It is understood that the US does not want to have the Iranians dictate any terms not related to the Strait of Hormuz, but also not related to the region in general. But Kirsten Fontenrose, a Gulf expert in the first Trump administration, says the memorandum of understanding between the two countries is not yet dead. You've seen rhetoric about this is over, or the Deputy Foreign Minister of Iran said yesterday that we hold ourselves to no commitments on the MOU, but they have not formally exited, and neither has the US.

3:28And you also see the mediating countries really active. They've been meeting in Moskhet, they've been talking to both sides, so the mediation is still alive. I spoke to our chief international correspondent, Lise Doucette, and asked her first what Iran is referring to when it says it could cut off other export corridors. It would mean the other choke point close by in the Red Sea, Bab al-Mendeb. And the world has seen that before when one of Iran's allies in the region, the Houthis of Yemen, also disrupted commercial traffic through that vital waterway that went on for many, many months. And that threat has been hanging over this war, where the focus is the other choke point, the Strait of Hormuzer, many months.

4:17But the Houthis have been reluctant to get drawn into this war. They suffered significant military damage during the last one. And in some ways, Iran seemed to want to keep them for the moment when they would have to escalate. And I should emphasize that Iran's relationship with the Houthis is not the same as it is with Hizballah in Lebanon. The relationship between Iran, in particular the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and Hizballah goes right back to its creation in 1982. The ties between the Houthis and Iran are very close. Iran has provided them with absolutely critical training and equipments.

4:57But the Houthis also have their own agency. President Trump has also threatened to destroy Iran's bridges and power plants before in comments that were widely condemned at the time. Might he do it this time? He has used this phrase many times to destroy every last bridge, every last power plant. This, of course, is a potential war crime. A similar kind of phrasing has been used by Israel before. Both of them have talked about bombing Iran back to the Stone Ages. Israel, particularly Prime Minister Netanyahu, would like to have another military go. And there is an argument in some circles that you have to go in and you have to really, really make Iran suffer.

5:38But the question is whether even that would make Iran capitulate. And it's whether or not President Trump has the stomach to engage in that kind of a war. He is months away from the absolutely crucial November midterm elections. He knows the war is not popular, even among his supporters. He knows that oil prices go up every time there is this kinetic activity in the Strait of Hormuz. It's just that he doesn't have any good options. Yeah, very hard to see a way out of this. Might we just see this sort of low-level attacks continuing without the two sides resulting to all-out war? A whole new lexicon has developed with this war.

6:19A ceasefire became a lesser fire. A memorandum of understanding became a memorandum of misunderstanding signed last month, which has a paragraph which has allowed Iran and the United States to read whatever they want into it concerning the future management of the Strait of Hormuz. The best solution will lie in regional management of that strait, but what they need most of all, both sides, is an off-ramp. Lise Doucette, our chief international correspondent. And we have more on the economic impact of the conflict on the BBC News YouTube channel. You'll find the Global News podcast in the podcast section there.

7:00As it struggles with manpower shortages for its war on Ukraine, Russia has recruited fighters from many different parts of the world, many by dubious means. Now, prosecutors in Bolivia are investigating reports that Bolivian citizens are being tricked into joining Russian forces. Our global affairs reporter Mimi Swaby told me more about the alleged trafficking. So this investigation follows reports that individuals were lured abroad with false job advertisements. Now the foreign ministry, Bolivia's foreign ministry, has activated assistance protocol after receiving reports from family members concerned about their loved ones.

7:36They believe that 16 Bolivian nationals are still fighting on the front lines in Russia. Now this inquiry also comes after footage circulated online showing Bolivians in Russian military uniforms describing life on the front line. In one video you can see a 29-year-old Bolivian describing what he has witnessed and what he's experiencing again on that front line. There are also lots of testimonies in place with one mother from Santa Cruz saying that her son told her that they were made to sign a contract in Russian for a year before they lost contact in May. So lots of testimonies coming together, building evidence and prosecutors in Bolivia, putting it forward to Russia.

8:16However, the Russian embassy in Bolivia has denied any wrongdoing and any connection between its diplomatic mission and the alleged recruitment. And is this different from people just going to act as mercenaries in other countries? It is. It's very different. This is deceptive recruitment. It is a form of trafficking. So individuals are lured in with promises of well-paid jobs, private security contracts, or possibly even getting residency in Europe. However, they find themselves in very different situations, in this case, on the front lines. It is not what they're signed up to. And like we heard from that testimony, they could be forced to sign a contract.

8:54It could be in a language they don't understand. They might not know what exactly they're getting themselves into. But the key thing here is they are deceived. They do not wish and do not know in many cases that they will end up fighting for, in this case, allegedly Russia against Ukraine. And is this happening in other Latin American countries as well? It is. Latin America is reportedly one of the main regions where its citizens are being lured to fight in this war between Russia and Ukraine. And it's one of the newer ones. A report by the International Federation for Human Rights said that up to 27 foreign fighters may be fighting in the Russian army.

9:31Now, those include Peru, Cuba, Colombia, and now more recently, Bolivia, around 600 citizens in Peru, but nearly 10 ,000 Cubans, it's thought. So a lot of disparity between numbers, but yet an area which the Russians are seemingly trying to delve more into and recruit more heavily from. Mimi Swaby. The Australian government has announced plans to regulate the growing AI sector, particularly the impact of data centres and abuse of copyright. Both issues have caused controversy in other parts of the world too, with New York on Tuesday becoming the first US state to impose a ban on the construction of large data centres.

10:10The Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, said data centres there would be made to minimise their use of water and to safeguard power supplies. Our government will establish a set of Australian standards for AI. In March this year, we announced a set of expectations for large AI data centres. This will bring them into one regulatory framework. Clear, consistent and mandatory. James Menendez spoke to Rita Matuloniti, Associate Professor in Law at Macquarie University in Sydney. We have seen in Australia very strong growth of data centres. We have them in hundreds and more are planned in a few years and a lot of them are growing in big cities like Sydney and Melbourne and people really start getting concerned about the fact that they're taking space, of course, using electricity, which is likely to increase prices, using water resources.

11:08And as you might know, Australia is the driest continent, so we don't have that much water. And also actually taking builders, taking away from building houses, they then occupied building data centres. So there was a bit of increasing concern among communities and actually even suggestions to establish moratorium. But the prime minister took a different position and said we will keep building them, but we will legislate. We will require them to feed electricity back into the grid. He talked about that we have a lot of solar energy, we should be using it. We have a lot of space across our big Australia, so we maybe have to think about developing them outside the cities and so on.

11:48And what about the issue of copyright? Because, I mean, countries are really struggling with this, aren't they? That AI companies are using, you know, music books and so on to train their models, but the artists aren't getting the compensation they want. I mean, how would that work under law? I mean, would it work just simply by enforcing existing copyright laws, do you think? That's indeed another very controversial question in Australia. So government so far was actually quite strong on this. And despite of a lot of lobbying from AI industry to introduce an exception like text and data mining that exists in UK and Europe, the government said, no, last year, we're not going to do that.

12:31you will have to essentially license the content. And the prime minister today again reiterated that, that they will respect the copyright industry's choices. And it's not only about remuneration. It's sort of asking their permission as well. But they didn't provide no details how it's going to work. So I think the government doesn't yet know how to make it happen. There have been proposals by Antropic, for instance, that there could be a single fund to sort of where some compensation could be paid to ride holders in exchange of tax and data mine exception. But the government said we won't introduce such exception.

13:09So I think they see licensing as a way to go. But we don't know how this exactly licensing will look like. Rita Matuloniti. A pen that helped save the Apollo 11 moon mission in 1969, has sold at auction for more than$850 ,000. It helped bring Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin home safely after they became the first men to walk on the lunar surface. Richard Hamilton takes up the story. This is the first moon landing in July 1969, when Neil Armstrong famously said, that's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. And on that day, the 20th July, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were collecting rock and dust samples from the surface of the moon for about three hours.

13:56And after that, they made their way back to the lunar module, which had landed with a large engine for its descent. And then it had a smaller engine for them to lift off and return to the moon's orbit. And as they were climbing back into this lunar module, Buzz Aldrin bumped into a circuit breaker with his backpack. And he bumped into this circuit breaker, which controls the engine of the lunar module and broke the switch. So effectively, they were stranded on the moon and it would have taken months for another crew to come and rescue them. But Buzz Aldrin had a felt tip pen in his pocket. And at that moment, he made an instinctive and what many people would say is an inspired act of improvisation.

14:45Now, this pen last went up for auction with Sotheby's back in 2022, and Cassandra Hatton from Sotheby's explained the dilemma that Buzz Aldrin was facing. Buzz is looking at the circuit breaker panel, and he thinks, OK, maybe I could put my little finger in there, but I might get electrocuted, and maybe I'll take a little piece of metal, but maybe I'll blow out the entire circuit breaker panel and then we're really dead, right? And then he realises he's got this pen in his pocket that has a plastic tip at the end. And by some kind of miracle, the diameter of that plastic tip was the same as the diameter of the switch and it fit perfectly in that hole and armed the engine and saved their lives.

15:31That was Cassandra Hatton. And the pen itself costs 69 cents. And the story behind the pen is that one of the astronauts had bought a felt tip marker pen on his way to work. And then NASA found out that these pens actually worked when there's no gravity, which would enable astronauts to write in space. So NASA bought several hundred of these marker pens. and one article that I've found said it was one small writing instrument for man, one giant life-saving marker pen for Apollo. Yeah, very good. But looking back, history would have been very different if Buzz Aldrin hadn't intervened. Exactly.

16:12So the success of Apollo 11 demonstrated that America had won the space race and that US technological advances were superior to the Soviets And the pen then got placed in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. And after Apollo 11, there were further six missions with crews, although, of course, Apollo 13 was aborted after an explosion. And then in April this year, we had the Artemis II mission, which completed a successful lunar flyby going around the far side of the moon. But if it wasn't for that pen, many historians of space would say that a lot of this would never have happened and effectively the astronauts might still be on the surface of the moon.

17:01Richard Hamilton. Still to come on the podcast... For those that don't know the venue, it's a really great way to promote these unique concert halls and really blend the heritage with the technology. The new tool that allows you to hear how a concert will sound in different parts of a music venue.

17:38We'll be right back.

17:53Your app store today. Wireless plans require the purchase of a SIM card. Visit textnow.com for terms and conditions. The United States is about to mark its 250th anniversary. And so on the Global Story podcast from the BBC, we're telling surprising tales of American influence on the world stage and in ordinary people's lives all across the globe. We have this ability to export our story and a lot of people have bought it. I feel like the American dream is alive but not well. From the BBC, it's the United States at 2.50. Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

18:52police officers. Here's our global affairs reporter Anbarasan Eti Rajan. This is a region controlled by Pakistan. About 4.5 million people live here in the Kashmir region. Now, various civil society groups have been protesting for weeks, asking for reforms in the regional legislative assembly, for the regional assembly, saying 12 seats allocated for those who migrated from the Indian side. And they should not be given to them because these people live outside the Kashmir region in other parts of Pakistan. And it gives them overwhelming influence in the affairs of the running of the legislative assembly, and also being exploited by the mainstream Pakistan political party.

19:34So the region is scheduled to go for elections end of the month. So they want more local representation. Basically, they want reforms to the legislative assembly, they can be better represented. But this has now become a big political issue. All these groups are operating under the name of Joint Awami Action Committee. And this group was banned by the Pakistani government in June. And more than 25 people have been killed in the violence. And the latest round was last evening. As we speak now, thousands of people are gathering near the town of Ravlakot in Kashmir. They want to conduct a march towards the regional capital of Mossafir and there is a tense situation.

20:16More than 4 ,000 police officers and paramilitary soldiers have been deployed there. Yeah, so what happens next? Can the tensions be reduced? Now, the supporters or the protesters, they are saying that they cannot withdraw this agitation. They are conducting this blockade. That has resulted in a shortage of food and medicine in that particular region. But the government says, they are quoting a court order which says that these changes to the assembly composition cannot be done without a constitutional amendment. That was the court's decision. But what it shows, the continuing security issues being faced by Pakistan.

20:51On the one side, they have, on the northwestern side, you have Islamist militants targeting Pakistani security forces. On Balochistan, in the southwestern province, where there is an insurgency going on with separatist Baloch rebels attacking Pakistani forces. And now, this is another protest. It is a huge headache for Pakistani officials, and they are trying to stop these people from marching towards the Musabharabad city. Amrassan Etirajan. Hundreds of people crossed from Spain into Gibraltar overnight as border checks ended after more than a century. It followed the signing of a UK-EU treaty on the status of the British Overseas Territory.

21:31The deal is designed to facilitate the movement of people and goods and avoid lengthy delays for the roughly 15 ,000 workers who cross the border each day. There was excitement as the last remaining stretch of fence came down.

21:50Gibraltar's business minister is Gemma Arias Vásquez. What the frontier has done is, on occasion, made lives very, very difficult because you've had to queue for three, four, five hours on occasions. So it means that businesses, for the first time, know exactly what to expect when to move to Gibraltar. So I think that the Gibraltar economy will go from strength to strength as a result of this treaty. Our Madrid correspondent Guy Hedgco told us about the significance of this moment. This is something which had to be resolved in the wake of the UK's exit from the European Union because Gibraltar has had a land border with the EU and somehow that had to be resolved.

22:29Gibraltar also has very close economic relations with the EU and financial services and online gaming and so on. So this new arrangement, which is seen as a massive change, is a way of keeping Gibraltar aligned with the EU, but maintaining British sovereignty over Gibraltar. And it means that people will now, as of today, be able to walk back and forth into Gibraltar and out of Gibraltar completely freely. Until midnight last night, there was a border check there between the two. And you mentioned those workers. There are 15 ,000 Spanish workers who have been crossing over from nearby Spanish towns into Gibraltar each day to go and work for Gibraltarian businesses.

23:17Now things are much easier for them because they don't have to go through border checks. They can simply walk or cycle or drive into Gibraltar as they wish. People arriving from outside the Schengen free travel zone into Gibraltar will face a border check which has been moved to Gibraltar's airport. There's also a border check at the port, but most people would be arriving at the airport. So, for example, if you're arriving from the UK to Gibraltar, you will show your passport to Gibraltarian officials or police and also to Spanish officials as well before you arrive at the territory. So now this Schengen and EU border has been moved to the airport.

24:00Guy Hedgco in Madrid. England and Argentina have a bitter footballing rivalry made worse by the 1982 Falklands War, which left more than 900 people dead. Ahead of their World Cup semi-final later on Wednesday, the Argentine manager sought to play down the politics, saying it's no more than a football match. But locker room videos showed his players chanting they would win for Las Malvinas, the Argentine name for the Falklands, Diego Maradona and Lionel Messi in probably his last World Cup.

24:36Tension ahead of the match was ramped up by Argentina's vice president directly linking it to the war, branding the English pirates and usurpers. But how relevant is the history today? Martin Mazur is an Argentine journalist. Malvinas is a national cause in Argentina, but that doesn't mean that the game itself is about Malvinas. The national cause is there. It's one of the reasons why the popularity of the candidate for president that in the end won the presidency almost was put in risk because he said he admired Margaret Thatcher. I think the game is, of course, part of this generation, but what Scaloni said, I think it's very important.

25:17And he said, well, hold on, this is a football game. Don't try to bring everything on the table. Well, the US authorities have increased security in Atlanta ahead of the game, which was classed as the highest risk match of the World Cup. Paul Heywood is a sports writer at The Observer. There is a particular friction and tension and animosity about these games, and not just because of the Falklands War. I don't actually think that infects the game itself, But there is a current and there's a feeling about these games, going back mainly to the Hand of God goal in Mexico in 1986. Diego Maradona, of course.

25:57These are modern teams and these players know each other from the Champions League. They're not carrying the baggage of history on their shoulders. But nevertheless, some games have a particular flavor. And this one is true to that tradition. It's also, I think, embellished by the fact that this will probably be Lionel Messi's last international game if Argentina lose. Possibly the greatest player we've ever seen. And I think that adds a great deal of sort of sporting energy to it. Sports writer Paul Hayward. Finally, when booking tickets for a play or musical, you might have come across one of those websites that helps identify the best seats, with photos of the view of the stage.