The US and Iran continue to trade attacks

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0:06How did the United States build the largest soft power empire in the world with the help of some tiny metal objects? I'm Tristan Redmond, one of the hosts of the Global Story podcast from the BBC. To mark 250 years of the United States, we speak to Roman Mars of 99 % invisible. This soft power, this influence was an incredible invention. For more, listen to The Global Story on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:04Hello and welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service, coming to you live from London. I'm James Kamarasamy. And we begin in the Middle East, where the list of targets being struck by the United States and Iran is growing longer, as their week-long resumption of fighting shows no sign of coming to an end. The Iranians have accused the Americans of hitting civilian infrastructure. State media there said that bridges, a railway station and an airport were hit. A White House spokesperson told the BBC that the United States had carried out strikes exclusively on military targets, including military logistics infrastructure.

1:39Well, this Iranian man described a bridge being struck in the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas.

1:47Look, this is Gaiwe Bridge. It's spitting two and collapsed. The first missile hit the middle of the truck, a tanker truck. The truck was carrying gasoline. The driver's been killed. Oh, my God. The Garraway Bridge has been destroyed. Garraway Bridge, completely destroyed. In response, Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps said it has struck US maritime surveillance radar sites in Oman, as well as targets in Kuwait and Bahrain. The Kuwaiti government says that Iranian drone strikes have injured several soldiers, as well as hitting a power plant and a water desalination facility. The UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, said that attacks on civilian infrastructure were unacceptable.

2:26Badal Saif is a professor of history at Kuwait University, and he's been telling me what the situation has been like there over the past few days. We've been hearing strikes for the past four nights. Let me tell you, we've had a total of 96 attacks in three days. The numbers for yesterday or for earlier today hasn't been cleared yet, but today was quite challenging in the sense that the target was critical infrastructure, power generation, water desal plants. And I think Iran here is trying to respond to the US strikes on their own infrastructure. Since the war started, Jamie, it's been around 1 ,300 hits.

3:05As well as infrastructure, there are reports that Kuwaiti soldiers have been wounded by Iranian drones today. Not only soldiers, but we also had, because of their attack on an offshore rig a few days ago, we had even workers, energy workers. We had people from all walks of life being impacted. Really, this is an unnecessary conflict. Both sides, the Iranians, the Americans, need to put their cool heads on and need to understand that this is beyond their own initiatives and prerogatives and they need to think of the bigger picture and everyone's needs in this conflict. Well, the bigger picture, as you say, is that Kuwaitis are caught in the middle at the moment.

3:44What kind of impact is all of this having on the people there? Look, we're not strangers to conflict. I mean, of all countries in the region, Jamie, we were the ones that were occupied back in 1990-91. And what the Iranians are trying to do with these attacks is break our resolve. But we're not going to be broken. We were not broken back in 1990, and we fought very hard to maintain our independence. And we'll do the same right now for our security. Life continues normally. Measures have been placed for the emergency backup plans concerning the energy needs, the electricity for today, basic goods and services, everything has been activated and backed up.

4:22And as it should be, war is not the answer. And that's why they need to go back to the negotiating table as soon as possible and honour their words. And that's what we in the Gulf states are trying to also support in the process. What do you think is going to change the dynamic then? Look, both sides are trying to change the reality on the ground so that they can go back to negotiating with a stronger arm from their end. And we've seen how this has been quite an interesting battle with the U.S. bringing in all of its reserves and all of its capabilities and military assets, while the Iranians have been using all cards at their disposal.

5:00The Strait of Hormuz has come out as a card in this conflict. We're hearing about them bringing about their network of groups into the game. We've seen the Houthis in Yemen with Bab al-Mandeb and with attacks on Saudi Arabia. We've seen their militia networks in Iraq come in handy for them. At the end of the day, it's a give and take kind of scenario in which both sides feel that they're getting something out of it. And both sides need to understand that they can come out of this with something to offer to their own people. That was Badr al-Saif, a professor of history at Kuwait University. So how do the two sides get back to the negotiating table?

5:38Richard Nephew was one of the US negotiators for the multilateral JCPOA, commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal of 2015, which President Trump unilaterally left three years later. He is now Bernstein adjunct fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. I asked him how serious he thinks the current escalation is. Pretty serious. You know, I think if you go back several months ago, there was a decided choice by both Iran and the United States and then partners not to target some of these areas of civilian infrastructure, mostly because they were worried about how they could be the subject of retaliation.

6:18Particularly the United States was concerned about energy production facilities on the western side of the Persian Gulf and Iran was concerned about its civilian infrastructure. We're seeing that change now. And I think that suggests that there is a lot more anxiety and certainly a lot more willingness to try and push each other to try and get to some kind of sustainable deal. Both sides pushing each other, both sides then what, thinking they can get something out of this? That's right. You know, if you push me pretty hard, then maybe I'll make concessions that, you know, you desperately want and vice versa.

6:48But the problem is when both sides have got that logic, that's the kind of logic that feeds into a vicious cycle, not into something that is calming the situation down. Well, quite. I mean, the opposite, isn't it? I mean, clearly a warning from the UN Secretary General from others not to hit civilian targets. Are we getting to a position where, you know, both sides potentially could be accused of war crimes? I think it's certainly plausible. You know, I think both sides are now using as justification the strikes that were, you know, launched by the other side as a way of saying, well, I have to even things up.

7:21And that's not the kind of retaliatory cycle that is likely to calm things down. You know, of course, that can always change. The United States Senator President Trump has been willing to do pretty radical changes in posture. But if you're just looking at the straight facts of escalation today, you wouldn't suggest so. What might change things? Yes, as you say, you know, 24 hour periods have seen, you know, 180 degree changes when it came came to the 20 % toll, for example, in the straight-of-form moves. So we often try to sort of get into the head of the president of the United States, but what are your thoughts on what might change the dynamic?

8:00Look, I think that the president is still incredibly concerned about the domestic economic blowback that would come from sustained conflict in the region. And I think the Iranians understand that as well. It's part of the reason why you're seeing them targeting energy workers in energy infrastructure on the western side of the Gulf. I think from an Iranian perspective, there are fewer de-escalatory options in terms of strikes. I think the United States might believe that by eliminating the leadership of the IRGC, the Revolutionary Guard Corps, you could perhaps change their decision making. That's why it's not proven likely.

8:33And I actually think that people in charge in Iran are much more likely to believe that they need to be aggressive and escalate since they think their previous leadership was too passive. So in the background, what do you think is going on? Are there, you know, talks, but a channel must still be open, presumably? Yeah, I mean, everybody has each other's cell phone numbers. And, you know, we've seen over the course of the last couple of years that, you know, there are means of passing messages, you know, both directly, you know, through that capacity, as well as through, you know, mediators like Pakistan or Qatar.

9:07I think they probably are exchanging messages to the effect of we're ready to come back to the table if you'll, you know, either implement the original MOU or make concessions or, you know, so on and so forth. It's just not been sufficient to date. I've lost track a bit of where we are with the timescale. It was 60 days, wasn't it? We're not far off that, aren't we? No, that was supposed to be around August 17th, August 18th. But I think at this point, we should more or less assume the MOU is dead. So any attempt to get back to the table is likely to take that as a basis. It'll be a starting point, but would presumably try and build on or correct some of the misimpressions that were created by the sloppy language that was used in that deal.

9:46And that was the assessment of Richard Nevue, one of the US negotiators for the multilateral JCPOA, commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal, which Donald Trump left in 2018.

10:05We return to President Trump but in a different context because he used a primetime televised address on Thursday to repeat without proof his claims of election fraud in 2020 and his administration has now indicated it is doubling down on claims of voter irregularity ahead of November's midterm elections. The US Homeland Security Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen has asked election officials in four states, the states of California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Nevada, to check voter rolls for people who are not US citizens. Earlier I spoke to the BBC's White House reporter, Bernd DeBoosman, and I asked him what the main takeaways were from the president's speech.

10:44The headline points for most people in America were his allegations that China accessed the private voter data of about 220 million Americans, Although there was no suggestion or even really assertion from him that that in any way led to fraudulent votes or changed any outcomes of previous elections, which is something that people had been very concerned about before his speech. There was also kind of other allegations, many of which had been made in the past to some degree, including the vulnerability of voting machines, which various investigations have found to be very rare, and that hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants in the United States are registered to vote.

11:27Again, something that courts in the past have found to be very, very rare. Well, what of the future? Because this news conference given by the Homeland Security Secretary indicated that the administration clearly is out to find what they believe are fraudulent voters out there. The main point there is that Mark Wayne Mullen, the director of Homeland Security, made it very clear that he said there would be a price to pay for state election officials if they refused to cooperate with that effort. even though that's something courts have said several times, the federal government is denied from. President Trump had even opened up the possibility last night in his remarks that this could lead to prosecutions.

12:09I think that's done very little to quell concerns from Democrats who think this effort is more aimed at the subsequent November midterms and at sowing doubt into the security of future elections. And the president has been insisting on this Save America Act being passed. It's been stalled for some time, hasn't it? Just remind us what it is and where we are with that. The Save America Act is something that President Trump pushes for very hard and very often. Essentially, what it would do is mandate proof of citizenship for voters. And that ties directly into that question of how many undocumented people were actually signed up or not to vote and are on voter rolls.

12:51It would also really clamp down on mail-in voting, which Trump and the White House see as something that's very open to manipulation. But so far, there's been very not enough support from senators, even Republican senators have said it doesn't have enough support to pass on the floor. And the Senate Majority Leader, John Thune, said that there really isn't the appetite to kind of change the 60 vote filibuster rule that exists in the Senate to push it through despite that lack of support. So as of now, that sort of seems to have gone nowhere. But I think all this can be seen broadly as the president making a case for that legislation.

13:32And that was the BBC's White House reporter, Bernd de Boosman. Just a reminder, if you miss any live editions of the programme, you can always catch up with our podcast. We update it twice a day, seven days a week. Just look for BBC NewsHour podcast in your search engine. You're listening to the BBC World Service and this is NewsHour, coming to you live from London with James Kamarasamy.

14:01Coming up later on, the first night of the proms is underway at the Royal Albert Hall with American music taking centre stage.

14:11American music that we roughly identify as classical is very much like the country itself. It borrows from all the cultures that came prior and continue to come to the country. So we're a kind of melting pot of all the sounds and styles that existed. We'll hear more from conductor Leonard Slatkin in about five minutes' time. Headlines at this hour, the Trump administration has asked election officials to check voter rolls in four states a day after the president repeated unsubstantiated claims of widespread electoral fraud. And one of America's key allies in the Middle East, Kuwait, says Iranian drone attacks have injured several of its soldiers.

15:01You're listening to the BBC World Service. This is NewsHour, coming to you live from London with James Kamarasamy. Here in the UK, Andy Burnham has been elected unopposed as the new leader of the ruling Labour Party. On Monday, he will officially succeed Sir Keir Starmer as Britain's Prime Minister. The former mayor of Greater Manchester in the north of England is yet to name the members of his cabinet and has only given the broadest of outlines about his plans for government. So what do we know about the politics and the personality of the man who will be the UK's seventh Prime Minister in ten years?

15:32Here's our political correspondent, Rob Watson.

15:38The charming to his fans, at any rate, Andy Burnham, is a bit trendier than recent British Prime Ministers. The Liverpool-born 56-year-old dresses fashionably, loves Britpop, has a season ticket to Everton Football Club and plays the guitar. As to his politics, he recently posted on TikTok, where else, that they come from his teenage dislike of the Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her privatising government and its effect on the industrial north of his youth. It was growing up in and around these streets that I saw what Thatcher's government did to places like this, the draining away of economic, social and political power.

16:18Andy Burnham is both an outsider and insider. An outsider thanks to his working-class upbringing in the North, an insider because after attending the prestigious Cambridge University, he quickly got into politics as one of the bright young talents in the new Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Despite not being that well-known, he even tried for the Labour leadership in 2010, campaigning on themes we recognise today, including a claim to be more normal than most politicians. I can give Labour something that the Tories haven't got, and that's a leader that people can relate to, whose background looks like their own, but also who has the ability to inspire.

17:01He failed to win the leadership in 2010 and again in 2015, so he gave up being an MP and headed back up north to run for mayor of Greater Manchester. I am standing in this election as Labour's candidate To make our politics more accountable than it is today, to break the London-centric nature of politics in this country, I will be a grassroots mayor for all of Greater Manchester. He quickly found himself, once elected, having to rally the city after the bombing of a rock concert in 2017 by an Islamic extremist. This was an act of extremism. It certainly doesn't represent Greater Manchester. The spirit of Greater Manchester was those people throwing their doors open last night.

17:43at that moment of maximum panic, welcoming people in, driving people away from danger. That is the spirit of this place. Despite that, and despite confronting central government over lockdowns during Covid, something earning him the title King of the North, he's not massively well known in Britain. And having been crowned as Labour leader rather than challenged in debate, little is known about his politics. beyond his general left-of-centre approval of state intervention and emphasis on the less well-off in society. His only big idea so far, and it's a vague one, is for the transfer of power and money out of London to the regions.

18:22And, of course, a plea for a bit more optimism. Imagine what things could be like if we succeed. Imagine if we could bring down the cost of energy for people and businesses and the good things that would come from that. Imagine good growth in every postcode and hope in every heart. Rarely, though, has someone come to high office with so little really known about them, leaving many unsure as to whether he's a likeable lightweight or Labour's great northern hope. Rob Watson looking ahead to Britain's next Prime Minister. Coming up next, we'll be going to Canada to hear how the First Nations there are coping with the current wildfires.

19:06But first, prostate cancer is the most common form of cancer in men in more than 100 countries. A major new study by Britain's National Health Service, the NHS, has found that a minimally invasive treatment called focal therapy is as effective as surgery or radiotherapy, but with far fewer side effects. The BBC's medical editor Fergus Walsh has this report. The research, led by Imperial College London, followed nearly 3 ,500 men who received focal therapy, a targeted treatment using high-intensity ultrasound to heat or cryotherapy to freeze cancerous tissue. Nearly all had intermediate or high-risk prostate cancer, Yet only two men died from the disease over 10 years.

19:55Those long-term outcomes are as good as surgery or radiotherapy, but with less than half the risk of side effects, such as urine leakage or loss of sexual function. Professor Hashim Ahmed of Imperial College London helped lead the trial. We've been waiting two decades for this moment. thousands of men will be able to have a treatment that is effective in treating their cancer in the long term but with far fewer side effects than traditional surgery and radiotherapy. This is the long-term survival data that regulators have needed. At present, only around a thousand men in the UK receive focal therapy each year, even though up to 15 ,000 could benefit.

20:43The government has recently committed up to£2.8 million to expand focal therapy provision by creating several new NHS centres in England. But Amy Rylance from Prostate Cancer UK says there will still be none in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. Right now, focal therapy is mostly available in London and the south-east of England. We need to see an end to the postcode lottery. We need to see that men across the UK can access this treatment so they have the best chance of cancer control with the fewest side effects. For many men who've had focal therapy, the benefits are clear. Rob Huxford was diagnosed with prostate cancer when he was just 44.

21:31For me, my outcomes have been fantastic. It was six years ago and I have no long-term issues at all. and it actually feels pretty unfair that this isn't offered freely to men across the whole country. It's the fact that I live in London that I was offered that treatment. I feel incredibly fortunate. The findings come as a major national study is testing new ways of screening for prostate cancer, including rapid MRI scans. Men diagnosed through the trial will be offered focal therapy if appropriate and the results could help pave the way for a future NHS screening programme. And that report on a promising new treatment for prostate cancer came from the BBC's medical editor, Fergus Walsh.

22:28How did the United States build the largest soft power empire in the world with the help of some tiny metal objects? I'm Tristan Redmond, one of the hosts of the Global Story podcast from the BBC. to mark 250 years of the United States, we speak to Roman Mars of 99 % invisible. This soft power, this influence, was an incredible invention. For more, listen to The Global Story on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

23:21The 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.

23:55You're listening to the BBC World Service. This is NewsHour, coming to you live from London with James Kamarasamy. The wildfires which have been raging across Canada for the past few days have brought air pollution to the United States and now calls for retribution. In the past hour or so, President Trump has blamed Canada for the pollution. On his true social platform, he wrote that the cost of the pollution must be added to the cost of tariffs that Canada is currently paying. The Premier of the Canadian province of Ontario, Doug Ford, had previously urged US politicians who were, in his words, chirping away to send support rather than complain.