Iran and US continue to exchange blows for seventh night

24:44And welcome back to NewsHour. The former West Indies all-rounder Sir Garfield Sobers, regarded as one of the greatest cricketers of all time, has died at the age of 89. A national hero in Barbados, he played 93 test matches between 1954 and 1974 he scored over 8 ,000 runs and took 235 wickets and, probably most famously of all, back in 1968 he became the first player to hit six sixes in an over in a first class match the current editor of Wisdom, Lawrence Booth told Jamie Kumarasami about Gary Sober's dazzling skills He was a master of all trades, wasn't he? A jack of none I mean, that vote back in 2000 in Wisdom Don Bradman got 100 out of 100, the great Australian batsman.

25:34Sobers was second with 90. And third, a long way back, was Jack Hobbs, the England batsman, on 30. So that tells you a bit about his standing in the game. Bradman was a freakish batsman, but Sobers was arguably the greatest all-round cricketer that's ever lived. And that was quite an accolade. He didn't just bat beautifully, but he bowled in all kinds of ways. He was a left-arm seamer at times. He could also bowl orthodox finger spin and wrist spin. So he's three bowlers in one. and he held over 100 catches in test cricket. So everything he turned his hand to, it worked out for West Indies and he was just a joy to watch.

26:05And he held the world record for the biggest innings, 365, for some time, didn't he? He did, yes. That was actually his first test century in true Sobers fashion. I think he was 21 and he turned his first Test 100 into 365 not out against Pakistan and Jamaica. And that record stood until 1994 when Brian Lara passed it against England and who was the guy marching out to the middle to give him a warm hug but Gary Sobers. He was an extremely generous man as well as a talented one. And a hero in Barbados. Absolutely. He followed a long line of famous Barbados cricketers, the three Ws, and produced lots of cricketers after him, Malcolm Marshall, Joel Garner, but he stood head and shoulders above them all, really, and probably the second greatest cricket ever to have lived and the best all-rounder.

26:50And a left-hander. A few of the great batsmen have been, haven't they? Yes, he was a left-hander, which it's funny, left-handers always seem to look more elegant when they hit the ball through the covers. There's something about the aesthetics of it that's particularly pleasing. He played one innings in Melbourne in 1971-72 for the rest of the world against Australia. He made 254, and Bradman was watching, and Bradman reckoned that was the best innings he'd ever seen in Australia, and I'm assuming he was including his own knocks in that. And Sobers reckoned that was the best he'd ever played. That was a shame.

27:19It wasn't an official Test match, but his numbers in Test cricket were sensational anyway. you know he averaged 57 58 with the bat which would have got him into any team in the history of the of the game just as a specialist batsman it took 235 test wickets so it's ridiculous now to look at the numbers that he racked up over a 20-year period and to keep going for so long as well he was fit you know in that in those days wasn't always taken for granted just just in 30 seconds that uh that knock in Swansea in 1968 6-6 is Malcolm Nash of Glamorgan usually a left arm seamer decided to bowl some spin and sobersaw hang on I'm gonna have a bit of fun here there There was a short boundary on the leg side for the left-handers, and he went after him.

27:57He was briefly, he thought he was out court on the fifth ball, but the guy on the boundary, Roger Davies, trod on the rope, carried it back over, so that gave him the chance to go for all six. All six, and that's Sir Garfield Sober's greatest moment. You're listening to NewsHour.

28:14Ukraine has once again deployed drones to strike deep inside Russia. The latest target was well away from Moscow, And once again, oil infrastructure was hit. That's why there are petrol shortages across Russia. The BBC's Paul Adams is in Kiev and he joins us live. What can you tell us about what the Ukrainians are saying about the attacks? Well, I think what was interesting about this, Owen, was that I think for the first time, the Ukrainians have hit what is essentially Russia's version of Amazon, two huge warehouses owned by the company Wildberries, the postal online retailer. And those warehouses, according to President Zelensky, have been used in the supply of what he calls sanctioned components for drone production and navigation equipment.

29:06I've been talking to some experts who say that a whole range of things pass through those warehouses, electronics, fiber optic cables, cameras, drone components. and that members of the Russian military use wildberries a lot for their own supply of equipment. So I think in Ukraine's view, even though there were civilians present in both of these facilities, and we think that at least seven people have been killed, and the scenes from inside the warehouses suggest that there was real panic among the staff there, Ukraine regards these as very much legitimate targets, and also says that, you know, essentially Russia has been doing the same thing with Ukrainian postal delivery companies ever since the start of the full-scale invasion.

29:54That's interesting because I thought there was some question about whether that was deliberate, but you're saying clearly it was deliberate to hit that retailer. Oh, yes, there's absolutely no doubt about it. I mean, President Zelensky would not have put out a statement if he did not think that these were legitimate targets. And if you look at the videos that have been coming out, and there are many, many of them, The attack started at night and continued into the day. So there were we don't know how many drones were involved, but multiple drones. There was no doubt that Wildberries was the target.

30:24So I wanted to ask you about the sacking of the defense minister, Mikhailo Fedorov, just to give a bit of background on this. You know, he's 35 years old. He was seen as the man who advanced Ukraine's drone capability. And he's got and he's gone. And a lot of people are wondering why. And I think there have been protests today, haven't there, about this? There are protests every day, Owen, every day since the news of his... He wasn't exactly sacked. He was not reappointed as part of a government reshuffle, but essentially pushed aside. A lot of young people on the streets of many Ukrainian cities have been protesting.

31:04There's another one due at 8 o 'clock tonight. It's likely to happen all over the country. These people think that essentially President Zelensky, faced with a choice between Mr. Fedorov and the head of the army, General Siersky, a product of the kind of Soviet-era military system, that President Zelensky chose to keep the wrong man. Clearly, these two men were not getting on. They couldn't function together. President Zelensky felt he had to get rid of one of them. And in the eyes of many protesters, he got rid of the wrong one, because they credit Mr. Fedorov with much of the kind of technological innovation that has given Ukraine the ability to fight back and in some cases given Ukraine an edge over Russia.

31:50For example, the kind of attacks that we saw just last night. So they feel that this was very much the wrong choice and they are determined to stay on the streets in the hope that President Zelensky changes his mind. There's no sign of that happening yet. Thank you very much. That was the BBC's Paul Adams in Kiev. Let's just get a bit more on this row over the defence minister now. We can get a view from within the Ukrainian defence ministry because Yuri Gudimenko is the chairman of the Anti-Corruption Council. It's based in the defence ministry in Kiev. It's a unit which reviews military contracts and tries to tackle corruption.

32:29And Paul Henley has been speaking with Yuri Gudimenko and asked him why people, in his view, are so unhappy about the removal of Mr Fedorov. It's the first time in all the Ukrainian history when the people go into protests, not about, OK, government fires this minister, but for the stop the firing of the minister. It's really a unique situation. Ukrainian society really do not understand what happens next days Because you can't find any important person inside the Ukrainian society who firing off the Minister of Defence is fine. It's a great idea. Nobody, nobody, nobody understands what's happening.

33:19Why was this minister so popular? A simple answer is because he made a lot of reforms and transformations inside the Ukraine. he became a symbol of transformation. He is a symbol of changes inside army and changes inside the Ukrainian society. Was he the mastermind of possibly turning the war in Ukraine's favour? That's what some people say. Mr Fedorov is an important part of changes. But of course, the main role is on Ukrainian soldiers, officers, coronals, generals, thousands of them. But Mr. Fedorov, he is providing these transforms. He has opened the doors for the new reforms. And the head of the armed forces, Alexander Sirsky, was a much older man.

34:12He is a much older man. He was Soviet trained in Moscow. There was a clear clash between the two, a difference, wasn't there? Yeah, old army. But to be clear and to be frank, he is a good general. He is a very good general. This conflict is not about the personal conflict. People on the streets, on our squares, don't talk about just persons. We talk about our future. And Sierski became a symbol of yesterday, yesterday's army. And today we're talking not about the conflict about persons. We're talking about conflict of philosophies, philosophy of yesterday and philosophy of tomorrow. Has President Zelensky picked the wrong side in that conflict?

35:00Yes, yes, he did. What will happen because of that? Nobody knows. But last half of year, Ukrainian society again believes in our victory. We just don't understand what happens. Could President Zelensky have another motive for getting rid of Mr Fedorov, which is that his political light was shining too brightly, he was becoming a rival? I think it could be because Mr. Fedorov is very popular. He's young and a lot of people believe in he. And Mr. Sirsky never, ever could be a president or a favorite in presidential elections because he's not a popular person. That's it. And Mr. Fedorov really can have a winning in any elections if he wanted.

35:57But I believe and my opinion is that Mr. Fedorov just two days ago doesn't have any thought about elections. And he thinks only about the war. And that was Yuri Gudimenko. Budimenko on what may be going on behind the scenes in the politics of Kiev. He's based in the defence ministry in Ukraine.

36:30To Hungary now, where a deadline set by the government for the country's president, Tomasz Szujok, to step aside runs out today. The still pretty new prime minister, Petr Mergiat, wants Shuiok out. He considers him too loyal to the former Prime Minister Viktor Orban. And if the president doesn't go of his own accord, the government says it will impeach him. Well, Julia Perzer is a researcher at the Centre for European Policy in Brussels, a constitutional law expert. Does she think the president will step down today? I think it's one of the likely outcomes that he resigns as a form of protest. And the other, let's say scenario that I can see happening is that he just refuses to sign the amendment and turns to the constitutional court.

37:17Right, so you're saying it's genuinely uncertain even at this stage with a few hours to go what he'll decide to do? Yes, because you know over the past couple of weeks and months he gave pretty much mixed signals to the public about his decision to resign as asked by Peter Magyar as early as the day of the election. First it seemed like he would resign. And then he said no. And then he turned to the constitutional court once more. So it's pretty hard to tell what he's going to do. Is it clear to you that Viktor Orban wants him to stay on? For sure. I mean, he put him there as president. And it's also very clear where his allegiance is in terms of political alignment.

37:56He's still loyal to Orban. Now then, there must arise the question, does he have an independent support base? In the polls, in public opinion, where does he stand? He is one of the most unpopular presidents ever. He has a very high rate of dissatisfaction among the population. Most people don't like him and feel like that he does not represent the unity of the nation as he should be as president. Tell us more about that. He's just seen as too divisive, is he? That's why people don't like him. I don't necessarily think that he was seen as too divisive. It's more like he does not have charisma and he does not appear to be a strong character that stands for certain values.

38:38A lot of people perceive him as a puppet to the previous government and that he was put there specifically to just sign everything that is handed to him by the Orbán government. There was a lot of coverage on the BBC and elsewhere when Petr Magyar won. Just tell us, what's he done in the first few months? I mean, there's this row with the president, but what else has he actually been doing? There's a lot of things that happened. They are moving with lightning speed. Parliament is in session every week, essentially. One of the first things that he did is, of course, set up a couple of meetings with the European Commission here in Brussels, trying to get most of the money that's being blocked, EU funds unblocked again, which was a fairly tall order.

39:20And he was also successful in getting the promise of the Commission to unblock most of the funds so far. He also made good on his promise to let Hungary become a member of the European Public Prosecutor's Office, which can investigate crimes against EU budget corruption. That already happened. There was already, you know, this is the second constitutional amendment. They are in the first one. I think that's a very symbolic gesture. He limited the term of premiership to eight years, meaning that he will not be able to run again once eight years are up. So those are just some of the things that he has done so far that resonated very well with the population.

39:57Right. So it is seen as a real break with the Orbán years. Very much so, yes. Just thinking, if Soya does actually refuse to step down, it stays on, what would impeachment look like? How would that process work? And is it certain that the government can get rid of him? It is certain that they can get rid of him, and precisely because they would not be going through with the entire impeachment process. They would just start it. And once the impeachment process starts, his powers as president would be immediately suspended until the conclusion of the impeachment process. And in the interim, it's the Speaker of the House, Agnieszda Rysztof, who would take on the role of acting president.

40:38and she would just immediately sign the constitutional amendment, which would effectively end his tenure anyway. So it would not come to the actual conclusion of the impeachment process, which would have to go through the constitutional court. It would take a while. So they would just essentially put, through the impeachment, an interim president in place who would sign the amendment as a first thing and Sriyuk would have to leave anyway. So there is no scenario in this where he would stay. And that was Julia Putzer, researcher at the Centre for European Policy Studies.

41:13Back in April, the US Supreme Court made a major decision impacting the Voting Rights Act. Now, that was a law passed in 1965 meant to ensure that the right to vote was not denied because of race. The Supreme Court decision allows Republican-led states to redraw congressional maps and erase Democratic-leaning majority black districts. Alabama is one of the states that could see its black elected officials lose their seats ahead of the midterm elections in November. The BBC's Brandon Drennan has visited Alabama to see what this means for people living there. Butler Chapel Methodist has been at the center of the African-American community in Tuskegee for decades.

42:01When I arrive, members of the congregation are spending a misty Alabama morning socializing on the steps outside. But 70 years ago, it served a far more pressing purpose. When black people could not vote in this area, in Alabama. We're in a gerrymandering. Yeah, it was part of that. They used to have secret meetings right here at this church, and my father was a part of that. In 1957, the Alabama legislature redrew the boundaries of the city of Tuskegee, carving out many black majority areas, denying them the right to vote in civic elections. Butler Chapel served as an organizing center for a campaign that led to a landmark Supreme Court decision against racial gerrymandering, the redrawing of electoral maps to deny black people elected representation.

42:52Now Tuskegee and dozens of communities like it find themselves at the center of a new debate over black voting rights. Supreme Court flip-flop. What we see now, I never thought that I would see this happen in my lifetime. In 2023, a federal court struck down a congressional district map drawn by the state's Republican legislature. They ruled at the time that it violated a key clause of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, dividing black voters in Southern Alabama across three different districts, leaving them a minority in each. A new map was forced on the legislature, which created two seats where African Americans ran the majority, or close to it.

43:34This is the district that gave America the Tuskegee Airmen, Rosa Parks. In 2024, Shamari Figures was elected as the first African American to represent Alabama's second congressional district in modern history. And it is the birthplace of the civil rights movement in Montgomery, Alabama. But in April, the Supreme Court issued a new ruling that makes it significantly more difficult to challenge maps based on racial discrimination, leaving Alabama clear to change their map. Figures now goes into the midterms defending a redrawn white majority seat. Montgomery, the state capital, is over 60 percent African-American, like Tuskegee.

44:19it will become part of the newly redrawn 2nd District. But not all African Americans here oppose the move. It has definitely seen the shadow of the civil rights movement here, the Assembly of the Montgomery March. We're walking on generations and generations of history. Cedric Coley, a Republican Party member, backs his party state government over the interference of federal judges. I would rather have family disputes with the people of Alabama instead of federal judges stepping in and saying, because your past is racist, we must be racist in the future and create racial maps and box people in racial quotas.

45:02I just don't believe that. State Republicans reject outright the allegation that race was a factor in their new map. The run-up to the midterms has seen state governments on both sides rush to redraw districts to give their party the edge. Back in Tuskegee, the congregants of Butler Chapel Methodists tell me the Supreme Court decision has eroded their right to representation. But they remain determined to exercise the voting rights they still possess. What are we going to do? We just got to get up and go vote. On a day that we have to vote, make your way to that poll and you vote. And that was Brandon Drennan with that report.

45:42Amongst many other things, Elon Musk has pioneered private sector involvement in the US space program, and it seems that that model is now being replicated in India. Private companies are playing a growing role in building satellites there, and today India became the third country in the world after China and the US to successfully launch a privately built orbital rocket. The rocket, built by Skyroot Aerospace, carried six payloads. Well, here to help us understand the significance of the launch is Dr. Shomak Ray Chowdhury, Vice-Chancellor and Professor of Physics at Ashoka University in Delhi.

46:21So thank you very much, Professor, for joining us. What do you think of this private sector involvement? I'm very excited by it. So far, Indian launches in the space sector, as well as mostly the manufacture has been done in the public sector by ISRO, the Indian government-owned organization, which has grown over the last 40, 50 years. However, in the last five years, the sector opened up to the private space. And now there are about 100 or so startups which have come up doing various kinds of things. And we believe that this is the future of the space industry in India, particularly in the small satellite sector.

47:08And this is the first time a private enterprise has actually built, designed and launched an orbital class rocket and put satellites into orbit. You mentioned the last five years. That's because there was deregulation, wasn't there, in what, 2022? That's right. 22, 23, yes. Over 22, 23, there was deregulation. The Indian Space Act came into being where the Indian Space Organization created an interface company in step, which would interface with the private industry, but also opened up its own facilities for launch, as well as payload integration to private space. And that's where it's all started.

47:54So does that mean that Skyroot Aerospace, the private engine company, will now be competing with, let's say, SpaceX to provide services? I think they would. And it's not just Skyroot. Skyroot is the first unicorn that's come out of this whole thing. It's a billion-dollar industry right now. and then there are many others who are competing to become players in the various activities that there is. It's not just launching, it's also building satellites and building the technology that goes into maintaining these satellites in space. All of this is being done by various companies. A lot of people who have experience in the government system in ISRO, as well as abroad have come and joined these private companies.

48:45And it's now growing. India now accounts for about 2 % of the entire global space industry. And it's very rapidly growing. And the ambition is good to go much higher. Thank you so much. That was Dr. Shomak Ray Chowdhury there speaking from Delhi. And he brings us to an end of this edition of NewsHour. So thanks for listening. And from Owen Bennett-Jones here in London, goodbye.

49:31Good Bad Billionaire