Iran and US trade strikes in the Gulf

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1:31attack on a wedding, killing children. Iran's Red Crescent says five people were killed at the event, with dozens more wounded. The Pentagon's denied targeting civilians. Iran responded by launching drone and missile attacks on US bases across the Middle East, including in Bahrain, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Iraq's Kurdistan region. In his latest post on the war, President Trump said Iran's economy was totally collapsing and asked, when are the Iranian people going to rise up and fight? So does all of this mark a shift in the way this six-month-long conflict is playing out? We'll explore that in detail in a moment.

2:13But first, let's get the very latest by joining our correspondent in Jerusalem, Katie Watson. Katie, what's the latest on the fighting at the moment? Well, you listed quite intense attacks on both sides in the last 24 hours. So especially in the south of the country, in Iran, along the coast, you mentioned the attack on a wedding. The number's been revised down. It was four people, but including a child. They were killed as well as around 50 injured when a US missile hit a home where the wedding celebration was taking place. And that was close to the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian state media say there were a number of other locations, civilian locations that were hit, including an airport, a fish meal factory, and a total of around a dozen people were reportedly killed.

3:01The US has responded to these reports saying that it doesn't intentionally target civilians, but we've seen Tehran as well then strike back. So the Jordanian Armed Forces said that it intercepted around 13 ballistic missiles. Kuwait said its air defences had been responding to some missile attacks and there were also some reports of explosions in Bahrain. We've seen this escalation and certainly this all comes after the US was imposing economic sanctions, saying that was the way it was going to put pressure on Iran. Is there a sense that there is a change of tactic both by the US and Iran? Yeah, indeed.

3:40I mean, we saw earlier this week, the US hit some rocket launchers used for laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz. It's been six months of war, despite attempts at finding ways forward. There was a memorandum of understanding in June, efforts by Pakistan trying to mediate the war continues. And I think, you know, what we saw with last week with this kind of switch to economic pain, a way of trying to weaken Iran as if, you know, the war has been six months on and still continues. But, you know, Iran has pushed back. They've had sanctions of various kinds imposed on Iran for decades. And they've stood firm saying it's really not going to make a difference.

4:17I think the US is almost kind of running out of options. It certainly feels like a bit of a power play. Okay, Katie Watson in Jerusalem. Thank you very much for that update. Well, let's explore this in a bit more detail. Where does this conflict go next as it's crossed the six-month mark. Hamid Reza Azizi is an Iran analyst with the International Crisis Group based in Berlin. What is clear is that both sides have lost hope that there could be any immediate diplomatic solution. And this is something that we have heard from the statements, you know, coming out from two sides. On the one hand, President Trump saying that he's not interested in a piece of paper signed by the Iranians.

4:59And on the other side, yesterday, the Iranian foreign Ministry spokesperson saying that Iran is now focused on defense and what he called resistance instead of reviving the memorandum of understanding. But at the same time, neither side has an interest in return to the full-scale war that we saw in end of February and March. So that's where we are now. This is a narrow space between the full-scale war and the diplomatic agreement where both sides are trying to push the red lines and trying to kind of use a combination of different measures. For the US, it is a combination of naval blockade, economic pressure, and these sporadic attacks.

5:43For the Iranians, it is continued pressure in the Strait of Hormuz. But the situation is, of course, unstable. You mentioned a post from President Trump, the president saying he's not trying to force Iran to the bargaining table. but he's also asked in one of his posts, when are the Iranian people going to rise up? Talking about the state of Iran's economy. What's your assessment of that? The system is now even more securitised, more risk-taking. So even if we assume that at some point, sooner or later, there is another round of uprising, for example, from within the country, we should expect even more massive use of force and another round of domestic violence in this case.

6:29Because, of course, in recent weeks, we've seen America try and apply more economic pressure on Iran. What's the state of the country's economy? And is there any sense that that American pressure could make any sort of difference? There is growing concern about the state of the economy. The statistics that are available, for example, are all suggesting that economic pressure and also, of course, the damages caused by the war are indeed having an impact. Maybe the most important factor here is the naval blockade, which has prevented the sell of oil by Iran, which is its main source of revenue. They still hope that the amount of oil that they shipped out of the blockade line when the ceasefire was still in place, which amounts to something around 80 million barrels, can compensate for the loss of revenue for a few months.

7:27But there is the understanding on the Iranian side as well that the situation is not sustainable. Where there is a disagreement is whether Iran should respond by escalating and trying to, for example, break the blockade by force or to go for an understanding. At the moment, President Trump is not offering any diplomatic off-ramp, which kind of pushes the system in Iran more and more towards the escalation option, even though they don't want to. And of course, just over six months ago, when the US and Israel launched those initial attacks on Iran, the goal was regime change. Who is in charge at the moment in Iran?

8:07What we have seen in Iran has been a transformation of the regime from a system which was a supreme leader on top, who was the final arbiter. And now what we are seeing is a more horizontal, consensual system of decision-making in a way, in which especially the Supreme National Security Council, so that has become the main center of decision-making. But at the same time, at the operational level and military side of things, we can see that the time between a decision is made and it is implemented, has reduced significantly. So there's a significant operational room for the military command of the country.

8:48So these are the main changes that we have seen so far in the country. Hamid Reza Azizi, an Iran analyst there. When the sailors on board the USS Abraham Lincoln departed from San Diego in November last year, it was meant to be a seven-month assignment but turned out to be a record-breaking time at sea, more than 250 days as the US war with Iran extended that. Now the carrier, with about 5 ,000 service members on board, has finally docked in Thailand in Pattaya, allowing the crew to relax on land for the next few days. The carrier, which is huge, we're talking 20 stories high and as long as three football fields, was dogged by reports of poor conditions and mental stress on board.

9:31So reaching dry land is surely a relief for those on board. This sailor spoke to reporters. First time visiting. Excited? Yeah. I'm excited to see around what the culture's like, go see some temples, go relax. Well, the BBC's Jonathan Head is in at the Thai resort of Patia, where those sailors are now. So I've come to Passia's walking street because they've literally just now in the evening blocked off all the traffic. The bars are cranking up, as you can hear. They've got everything from the traditional go-go bars with scantily, exotically dressed women dancing, probably a lot of other stuff as well.

10:11There are cannabis shops, there are restaurants, there's a Turkish ice cream man, don't know where he came from. There are women sitting in negligees where you can throw balls at them and if you hit a certain target, they fall into a bowl of water. I mean, it's an absolutely bizarre thing going on. You know, I think for a lot of the US sailors, many of whom probably haven't beaten someone like Thailand before, it will be pretty extraordinary. And in many ways, I suspect the commanders of the USS Abraham Lincoln figured, Look, this is probably what they need after this very stressful assignment in Iran that went on much longer than expected.

10:45There have been all these reports of real mental stress on board, of deteriorating conditions. Four days here in Patia, they really can decompress. Although I will say there have been some rules applied. There are certain notorious streets here in Patia where the sex industry, which is pretty much everywhere in the city, is much more visible. Where they've been told they can't go. But there's only a few places they can't go. We've seen them walking around looking a bit dazed, being very conspicuous in their sort of navy T-shirts and often carrying big backpacks. And they will be here for a while now.

11:19The city authorities are fairly confident. They've laid on a few extra police, lots of signs, big signs welcoming the aircraft carrier. I think they're fairly confident that this will be a productive and reasonably restful four days for these sailors, though I've no doubt a few of them might get a bit carried away. And what about the locals? You say warm welcome. Is that a widespread sentiment? Absolutely. Now, I mean, don't forget, I mean, this city is very closely tied to the US military. I mean, 70 years ago, this was just a little fishing village with a few palm thatched buildings. It was built up into this extraordinary neon lit party town, very much by US servicemen and men and women, mostly men in those days, coming on rest and relaxation from the Vietnam War, when the US had big air bases here in Thailand.

12:07So it's very used to having US servicemen and women coming. And also, it attracts such a diverse crowd. There are Russians here, there are Indians, there are Middle Eastern families walking around. There are lots of Europeans who've retired here. It's very, very diverse. It's very big. I think they can easily absorb even 5 ,000 fun-starved Americans who've been stuck at sea for about nine months. You talk about being stuck at sea, And, of course, there were many reports about the conditions that the sailors had to deal with as those days dragged on when they were stuck on the Lincoln. Yeah, and, you know, they're not talking about that here.

12:47They're obviously under instructions not to do that. We found they're a little bit cagey about chatting to us. Maybe as the night goes on and we, you know, if we bump into them in bars, they might loosen up a bit. But some of the family members are here and making it clear they were extremely worried about conditions on board. But morale was very, very low. The commander of the USS Abraham Lincoln has acknowledged tough conditions. He's praised the performance of his crew during the combat operations in Iran, but also acknowledged that the break they're having here is a really necessary break.

13:16As for the locals, look, this town is dependent on tourism, and ironically, the very Iran war that this aircraft carrier was a part of has really hurt tourism here. So they're actually delighted to have 5 ,000 Americans who have not been able to spend any of their salary for the last nine months on board ship. They're really hoping they spend quite a bit of it here. The BBC's Jonathan Head reporting there from the Thai resort of Pattaya. There's more on that story on the BBC News website. You can go to bbc.com forward slash news. You're listening to the BBC World Service and this is NewsHour.

14:06Coming up on NewsHour. Record-breaking sums of money change hands for footballers in England's Premier League. But are clubs getting value for money? We need the reinforcements. It's a lot of money. That's my only worry. It's too much money. We've got enough players in that position now. Obviously in the World Cup he produces wonders, especially that goal against England. But for 140 million, I don't think it's going to be worth it. More on that coming up. Some of the other headlines we've been looking at this hour. And as we mentioned, tensions remain high in the Gulf after the latest exchanges of missiles and drones by Iran and the United States.

14:41The European Commission president says recent attacks on European soil blamed on Russia mark a new escalation. We'll have more of that later in the program as well. and a court in South Korea has jailed the former head of a disabled care home for sexually assaulting multiple residents.

15:06This is Rajini Vaidyanathan with NewsHour. It's been a week since those deadly flash floods which struck a region on the Nepal-Tibet border. The number of people killed now stands at more than a thousand. And thousands remain missing. The UN says its response is now focused on relief and recovery rather than rescue. But authorities in Nepal, where hundreds of workers are still believed to be trapped in hydropower tunnels, are continuing their efforts to find and save people as they also bury unidentified bodies. Azadeh Mishiri is on the ground for us in the district of Rasuwa as some survivors return to what's left of their town.

15:48I'm in the village of Petravati and people who lived here tell me it looks nothing like before. There are barely any buildings standing. It's by the riverbed so it would have been extremely vulnerable to the flood. And there's this smell. It's pungent and it smells rotten. and if I keep walking on the ground which has hardened mud and a lot of debris from the houses that have been ripped apart there's also a school bus and it's been upturned. I can see a child's backpack inside. Imagine this being your home and coming back if you were able to survive the flood and seeing it look like this. Some of the villagers have come back to recover whatever they can find.

16:43I can also spot one older man who's crouching on the floor and smoking a pipe. So your home was over there, down there by the bus. And it's that area there? When I finally managed to get here, both my house and wife were gone. People told me she was still inside. No one has come here to help me yet, so I'm waiting here. The rescue teams pulled out a body from just up the road. I asked them to help, and they said they would come here, but they haven't shown up.

17:26Closer to the river, if I look down, I can see there are logs of wood that have been stacked up. And there's a group of people who are watching it burn. Someone just told me that that's the body of their neighbor, Ashish Banya. He was disabled and wasn't able to escape the floods. It's his body that they're burning right now. His mother had gone to the market to buy vegetables. When the flood came, she ran up the hill from here. Everyone tried escaping the floodwaters, but Ashish can't move without someone's help. He was trapped.

18:11We've reached a displacement camp near the town of Bitrabati. There are some tents and concrete buildings, no beds. But the children here seem happy. They may not be fully aware of what's happened to their families.

18:32The death toll keeps growing here, and there are thousands missing. People are living in makeshift rooms in this camp. It's concrete floors with just grey mats on the floor, ten people sharing a room. Ayseng Ali tells me he'd already lost his home in the 2015 earthquake that had killed thousands, and now he says that he's lost seven of his relatives, including his wife and his brother. Where I go, what I do, I don't know. I have lost my wife, my brother, my two sisters, my cousins, everything.

19:18That's survivor Aysan Gale ending that report from Nepal's Rasuwa district and the BBC's Azadeh Mishiri.

19:31now to a possible breakthrough in the treatment of one of the top 10 most common cancers worldwide in 2024 more than 636 000 people were diagnosed with bladder cancer worldwide with around a third of those dying from the disease now a new study from the uk suggests that a new at-home urine test can detect more than nine in ten cases. Well, let's speak live now to Professor Rick Bryan, the Director of the Bladder Cancer Research Centre at the University of Birmingham, and more crucially, the co-author of this study. Welcome to NewsHour, Professor. So tell us more about this study that you've done.

20:15Yes, good afternoon. So my colleagues and I at the University of Birmingham devised a urine test that accurately diagnoses bladder cancer by looking for the tumour-related DNA fingerprint in a urine sample. And a UK company called Nonicus further developed that test into the galleus bladder clinical test that we are discussing today. And the results that we have published today confirm a very high accuracy for diagnosing bladder cancer and also a very high accuracy for excluding bladder cancer. And this shows that the urine test can be used to identify a group of patients with a very, very low risk of bladder cancer who do not need urgent investigation.

21:07And so allow hospitals to prioritise patients at higher risk of bladder cancer for earlier diagnosis and treatment. It does beg the question, why hasn't this sort of test been used before? Yes, that is a very good question. The field has been trying to develop an accurate urine test for bladder cancer for over 50 years, but it has been very challenging to achieve the accuracy needed by hospitals and clinicians. Over the last 10 years, we have seen this accuracy improve considerably through tests based upon the DNA that can be extracted from a urine sample. and so other tests do also exist. However, I think our results over the last few years, including these today, are a major step forward for a number of reasons.

22:06And so how would it work if this was indeed rolled out? Yeah, that's a very good question. So a number of hospital trusts are already using the urine test. At least a dozen more are due to start using the test during the rest of this year. And potentially the publication today will mean that more will choose to use the test. And at the moment, we're focusing on patients who have blood in their urine that has been detected by a urine dipstick test, probably by their general practitioner. And blood in the urine is the main symptom experienced by patients who are diagnosed with bladder cancer. Patients who have blood in the urine that's only detected by a dipstick have a very low risk and if they're negative by the galleus bladder urine test then that risk of bladder cancer is incredibly low and suggests that they do not need to be investigated urgently.

23:19And just very briefly just in 10-15 seconds is this something that could be rolled out worldwide? Yes, it certainly could be. It relies on DNA sequencing, but DNA sequencing laboratories are increasingly commonplace across the world. OK, thank you so much for taking us through that study. A really interesting and important breakthrough there. That's Professor Rick Bryan, the director of the Bladder Cancer Research Centre at the University of Birmingham here in England.

24:09We'll be right back.

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25:09Welcome back to NewsHour. Let's bring you an update on Gaza. And more than 900 people in the territory have been killed in Israeli attacks since the start of the year. That's according to the Ministry of Health there. That's also despite a ceasefire being in place since October last year. Well, our team at BBC Verify have been looking at the monthly death tolls as well as verified videos to establish more about what's been happening. Emma Pengeli, a journalist with the BBC Verify team, is with me in the studio. So what have you found out, Emma? Yeah, so as you mentioned there, we've been analysing the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health figures.

25:47We've got their latest data, and as you said, we've got more than 900 Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks, according to them, since the start of the year. It actually takes the total figure of those killed since that 10th of October ceasefire to more than 1 ,300. And among that figure are 301 children, according to that ministry. now looking at the data we've got the month month by month figures and focusing on this year alone we saw that july was the most deadly year with 152 people killed then and it's worth noting that between april and august each of those months we saw more than 100 people killed in gaza that month so we've been looking at these figures and we've also been talking to external experts as well to find out about their reliability.

26:33And we say as well, and as has often been said, that the UN considers these figures reliable. We've also been speaking to independent researchers and analysts. They've been doing their own research and have said that patterns found in their research matches and is consistent with the Ministry of Health. So from what you've found out, this is a ceasefire in name in many senses because Israeli strikes are still killing people in Gaza. have we had any response from the Israeli authorities on this? Yes, we've been speaking to them and we've been putting these numbers to the IDF. They've told us there's no basis to assume that all those listed in this death toll all those were killed as a result of IDF activity.

27:15But it's worth noting as well at the start of this year we did see Israeli media reporting that an Israeli security official acknowledged more than 70 ,000 people had been killed in the Gaza war which was consistent at the time with the Gaza Ministry of Health's figure. So we have been talking to them. It's worth adding as well, the IDF told us they do operate in a precise manner, they said, to remove threats and protect its troops and Israeli civilians. When we talk to them about these strikes, we've been following. And do we have any more idea about who is being killed in these strikes? Who are the casualties?