Global News Podcast - Israel strikes Iran as US 'moves B-2 bombers'

Episode Date: June 22, 2025

Israel has been striking targets across Iran amid reports that the US is moving B-2 bombers to a base in the Pacific. Also: The science of revenge, and the healing power of video games.

This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Janet Jalil and in the early hours of Sunday, the 22nd of June, these are our main stories. Israel continues to strike targets across Iran amid reports that the US is moving long-range B-2 bombers towards a base in the Pacific. A day after his release from a US prison, the pro-Palestinian student activist Mahmoud Khalil says he'll continue to protest against the Gaza war. In Belarus, an opposition leader, Sergei Tikhanovsky, is unexpectedly freed from jail after a visit by a top Trump envoy.

Also in this podcast… …betrayal and humiliation, shame, these all trigger the same pain network inside your brain and the brain seeks out then a compensating pleasure to rebalance itself against this pain. We look at the science of revenge. Israel says it's launched more strikes on southern and central Iran targeting a weapons depot and military infrastructure. Iranian media says its air defences are being engaged in southern Iran as a result with Israeli drones being monitored and destroyed. Israel's military says it's killed three top Iranian military

officials including Saeed Izzadi described as being one of the architects of the 7th October attacks that sparked the Gaza war. Iran says at least 430 people have been killed since Israel began its attacks more than a week ago and the president Masoud Pezesk, has insisted his country will never halt all nuclear activities but is ready to cooperate on its civilian nuclear program. This comes as there are reports the US is moving long-range B-2 bombers towards a military base in the Pacific which would bring them within range of Iran. Kazran Najee from BBC Persian told me more about the situation in Iran itself. A very difficult situation and a good thing today is that

the internet is back or largely back at a very low speed but there is some connectivity so we are getting some reports from Iran and a lot of my colleagues are getting in touch with their loved ones in Iran so that's a new development and that we know more about what's going on. It looks as if the Israelis have been attacking Western Iran and southwest of Iran today mostly military targets from what we understand and that it seems that Israeli planes have more or less full control of a good part of Iran's airspace so they can come in and go almost freely. They attacked Iran's nuclear facility today in Isfahan for the third or fourth time

so far as we understand and the satellite pictures are showing it's a big devastation there and that's concerning because that's a uranium conversion plant A and B it houses Iran's stockpiles of highly enriched uranium but so far there are no reports of contamination spreading and so that's that. There were these attacks on top commanders of the Revolutionary Guard targeted. Three of them have been killed. Two of them were involved in smuggling weapons and money to Iran's proxies. And the third one was in charge of Iran's drone units.

We're hearing from Israel that they've managed to assassinate more top figures in Iran and that's clearly creating a great deal of paranoia there. We're hearing about more arrests being carried out. That's right. There's a lot of checkpoints, there are a lot of reports of arrests of people collaborating with Israel, spying for Israel, or propaganda against the regime, all that, which gives me the impression that the Iranian authorities are feeling pretty insecure. And the main issue, the main point of fear for them is that there might be an uprising of some sort

that we have seen before in the years before. But there is none of that at the moment. Qasr-e-Naji, one Tehran resident, university student Amir Dariyus Yushe, lives in the north of the Iranian capital. He remains in his home despite Donald Trump warning residents last week to evacuate as their city could come under attack. Has he not been tempted to leave? Not at all. Actually my situation is a little bit harder because I live with my mother and so the weight of the decisions rely on me. So the decision to leave or not to leave was in my shoulders and I'm happier than

ever to not not speaking ideologically because I'm not a religious person at all but I would truly rather die in my own home than to listen to the US president telling me what to do. Has it been frightening though, because your area was very close to some of the attacks? Yes, actually the strike on Iran's broadcast, which I think was the harshest one because I think they used their best stuff. That was pretty frightening and we were close to that. I can't tell you I'm afraid, I can't tell I'm anxious, you know, the tensions are high, but you know, at the end of the day, when you're like under Netanyahu's airstrikes,

you know that we won't be killed by these guys actually. This guy can't kill Iran, This guy can't damage Iran. Yes, if the US joins this, it's a different scenario. The Iranian state media is saying that more than 400 civilians have been killed across the country, which does seem quite a lot. We don't know that many more injured on top of that. Is that something that's having an impact on people?

Yes, it's making us more united. When Israel struck Iran, it is now personal. I now understand why that is very important, what was happening in Gaza and Lebanon and Syria, the crimes that he did. Why is that important now? And everybody who did not have a problem with Israel before this and like kind of despised the Iranian regime, that is all gone. It has got personal with Israel at this moment. There are not 400 IRGC officials. These are mostly civilians. These are women and children that are mostly being killed by Israel. So over the past few days, we've seen huge queues, people trying to get fuel, I guess,

many either for generators or for leaving the city. And I don't know whether there have been queues in the shops. Have you been out shopping trying to get supplies? There were long queues for gas stations, not for generators. Iran doesn't have electricity problem, but for leaving the capital because I think 6 million people left Tehran. Now it's okay. Now it's actually pretty empty. Thanks to Israeli airstrikes, Tehran is, the weather is great. The shops are okay. The supplies are here, but the vibe is different. Yeah, it must feel pretty weird to be in a city which is half empty by the sounds of it.

This has been like my best and worst experience in my life at the same time. The worst because it's airstrikes, it's your life. My mom might get affected because of my decision to remain in the city. But the other thing, I don't want to leave Tehran. It is very weird. I don't want to leave here. I can actually, I have like a Schengen visa. I can leave for Europe through the ground or whatever, but I just want to stay in my house. You want to be in your city when this happens. Many of my friends from America in Europe,

they say that, oh, I wish we were in Tehran right now. It is a very unifying moment, hard and unifying at the same time. Tehran resident Amir Daryush Yushe speaking to Rebecca Kesby. For a day after talks between Iran and European nations in Geneva failed to make a breakthrough, the Turkish president has lambasted Israel at a gathering of diplomats from Muslim-majority countries in Istanbul. Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Israel of state terrorism. With all these attacks, Benjamin Netanyahu's government has once again proven that it is

the biggest obstacle before regional peace. I curse the attacks conducted by Israel on Iran in the strongest way." With its attacks on June 13, the Netanyahu government has actually aimed to sabotage the negotiation process. What has been experienced also shows that Netanyahu and his network of murder does not want any issue to be resolved through diplomatic means. Iran's foreign minister, who was also at the meeting in Istanbul said US involvement in the conflict would be very very dangerous. Emre Temel from BBC Turkish explains why the Turkish leader is so concerned about the Israel-Iran

war. President Erdogan had multiple phone calls with world leaders in last nine days. He spoke with US President Trump twice and the Iranian President Pesaccio twice as well. Turkey seems to focus its diplomatic efforts by engaging with the United States and the regional powers compared to the European countries. And Turkey is extremely concerned about the potential spillover effect of the Israeli-Iranian conflict and doesn't want to see another wave of migration towards this border from Iran. NATO summit will be held in the Netherlands next week. Turkey is a NATO member as well.

And Turkey aims to target the message which will be with a statement from the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation tomorrow and convey this message to the NATO next week. Emre Temel, the husband of the Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya has been unexpectedly released from prison in Belarus, along with 13 other political prisoners. Sergei Tikhanovsky, a prominent opposition activist himself, has, after five years in prison, been moved to Lithuania and reunited with his wife, who is living in exile in the capital Vilnius. She announced her husband's release by posting a video of their first hug since 2020, saying it was hard to describe the joy in her heart.

The sudden release came as the US Special Envoy, Keith Kellogg, visited Belarus for talks with the authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko. Franek Vyachalka is chief advisor to Svetlana Tikhanovskaya. It's a big day. More than 10 political prisoners were released. Among them most are Belarusian citizens, some are citizens of other countries, Latvians, Poles, even Japanese. But the most, of course, visible figure is Sergei Tikhanovsky, the husband of Svetlana Tikhanovskaya. We didn't

expect his release, but we were struggling, fighting for his release, and it was a full surprise. Mr. Viachalka was speaking to our Eastern Europe correspondent, Sarah Rainsford. As you were just saying from Franak, a complete surprise for the Belarusian opposition in exile. Certainly, as he said, they have been campaigning for this for a very long time, as well as for the release of hundreds of political prisoners in Belarus,

but they didn't know that this was imminent. And I think particularly because Sergei Tikhonovsky is such a prominent member of the political opposition and such an obvious opponent of Alexander Lukashenko, the authoritarian leader of Belarus, that there were scant hopes that in fact he might be released. But it is certainly true that there's been a wave of releases over the past year of much lower profile figures as it's thought that Mr Lukashenko has been seeking to improve relations with the West. And I think it is obviously extremely significant that this has happened as Keith Kellogg,

Donald Trump's envoy, was in Belarus. That is a very, very rare high profile visit by an American official to Minsk. Belarus, of course, has been under Western sanctions since the mass repression of protests in 2020, but also since Belarus has played an important role helping Russia in its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. So this is a bit of a diplomatic breakthrough for Alexander Lukashenko, and it seems in return he has given up a number of political detainees. And Sergei Tikhonovsky and his wife are very big figures in the pro-democracy movement

in Belarus. Tell us more about them. Yeah, hugely important. I mean, Sergei Tikhonovsky was a blogger. He had a YouTube channel, very, very popular. He was very outspoken, very colorful figure before the 2020 presidential elections. He was trying to run for election, but instead he was arrested before he could even register as a candidate. And then his wife, Svetlana, stepped into his shoes. She was a housewife, a political novice. She had no experience whatsoever, but she went on to do extremely well.

And her supporters believe she won the election in 2020 but when Lukashenko declared he had won in a landslide her supporters took to the streets and those are the biggest protests that Belarus has seen in its modern history. They were crushed, repressed by the police and by Lukashenko's security forces and a whole wave of political repression and arrests then followed and that hasn't stopped. I think it's important to remember that although Sergei Tikhanovsky is a very high profile figure to be released, there are hundreds more political prisoners still in Belarus, still behind bars. And in fact, I've been speaking to people recently who've been talking about the KGB, the security services still coming, knocking at their doors, telling them

they have to collaborate or if not, they'll be arrested. So it's a very repressive regime even as this of course is a hugely joyous day for Svitlana Tikhanovskaya and for her husband. Sarah Rainsford, when you think of Japanese food you probably think of rice dishes like sushi and onigiri. But Japan is currently undergoing what's being called a rice crisis. The price of this staple of Japanese cuisine has skyrocketed since last year, partly because of a poor harvest. And as a result, some restaurants are now introducing more noodle dishes. Jay Seung Lee reports. Restaurants in Japan, known for their rice dishes, are being forced to diversify their business models.

The pork belly rice ball chain Tensasuno Sutadonia opened its first ramen noodle restaurant last month and is planning to open more branches next year. The major beef bowl restaurant operator Yoshinoya is also beefing up its ramen noodle offering. The price of rice in Japan has continued to hike in recent months because of supply shortages that began last year. To curb this, the government has released around 600,000 tons of the staple food from its emergency stockpiles since March, but its impacts so far have been rather limited.

Rice is considered a precious commodity in Japan, deeply ingrained in its culture, language and tradition. That's why most of the country's rice is homegrown, as its market is largely shielded from imports through high levies. So the soaring costs of the crop is a matter of national crisis, and it even cost the job of the Agriculture Minister, Taku Eto, who resigned last month after causing outrage by saying he never buys rice because he gets it free. J. Seung Lee. Still to come?

It's very hard to feel achievement in the hospital, but if you're able to get from level 4 to level 7, and then tomorrow you get from level 7 to level 10, it's just that little tiny engine of achievement and helps you hold on to hope. How video games are being used to help sick children deal with being in hospital. You're listening to the Global News Podcast. An activist in the US who became one of the most high-profile symbols of Donald Trump's crackdown on foreign students has been reunited with his wife and baby son a day after he was released on bail. Mahmoud Khalil, who had been detained

for three months in a Louisiana jail, flew back to New Jersey to meet them. Mr. Khalil, who played a prominent role in pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University, faces the threat of deportation despite being legally in the US. But he told reporters at the airport in Newark that he would continue to speak up against the war in Gaza. This is why I was protesting. This is why I will continue to protest with every one of you. Not only if they threaten me with detention, even if they would kill me, I would still

speak up for Palestine. Our North America correspondent, Nomiya Iqbal, was at the airport. Mahmood Khalil was one of the more prominent voices of the anti-war protest that we saw spread across US campuses. He was based at Columbia University and we interviewed him at the time. He was sort of a go-between the university and students who were making a list of demands in order to stop the encampment. But it was back in March when he was detained by agents at his home in New York and his wife had taped it and then since then he was in Louisiana, in a facility in Jenner and appealing his release constantly.

But the Trump administration never charged him with any crime. Instead, the Secretary of State Marco Rubio used a rare immigration law which basically said that his speech was a threat to foreign policy, the foreign policy being to combat anti-Semitism, which Mr. Khalil denied. He was understandably overjoyed when he arrived here at the airport. He had his wife by his side and they were pushing a pram carrying their newborn son, a son who was born whilst he was in detention. He was accompanied by the Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and when I asked him what was his message to President Trump, given that the Trump administration

wanted to keep him detained and they are continuing to appeal his release, he said that the Trump administration wanted to keep him detained and they are continuing to appeal his release, he said that the fact that he's here is the message. It's just worth remembering that it's not a case of this is all done now. There is another separate case involving Mahmood Khalil in terms of his immigration, his immigration status and whether or not he might be deported that is going through the courts. But his lawyers said to us the fact that he has been released and he's back with his wife and his son, they said makes it easier for him to take on that particular court case. Nomiya Iqbal, a female suicide bomber has killed at least 10 people at a crowded fish market in the northeast of Nigeria. It's believed to be the latest in a growing number of attacks by the Islamist group Boko

Haram. One official put the number of dead even higher, at 20. Funerals have been taking place, with photos showing rows of bodies wrapped in white sheets. Our Africa regional editor, Will Ross, told me more about the attack. Local officials are saying that a woman who had an improvised explosive device strapped to her body targeted a crowded market, a fish market, late at night on Friday in a place called Conduga, which is not far from the state capital, Maiduguri. There are sort of conflicting bits of information about exactly who was

there, but one local official said most of the victims were civilians who had joined what you could call a pro-government militia, a militia that's helping fight against the Islamist militants. And that kind of might point to why this particular place was targeted, but photos show, you know, lines of bodies wrapped up in white cloths and a burial for all of those victims taking place in Conduga earlier on Saturday. And this is believed to be just the latest in a series of attacks by the Islamist militant group Boko Haram. Yes, nobody knows exactly who carried out the attack in that there are splinter groups operating in Borno State.

But there have been quite a number of attacks near to Conduga in the villages around there in recent weeks. And across the state in general, there's been an increase in attacks and a kind of a real concern for the authorities in Maiduguri. The Borno State Governor, Babagana Zuloum, recently called on the Nigerian government and said basically the army wasn't managing to defend all these areas across the state. And he was saying the military needed extra help. And it has come in a kind of cycle of

violence because I can remember 2015, that was the sort of peak of the insurgency. And most of this state was then in the hands of the Islamist militants. And there was a lot of concern that the whole of northeast Nigeria was sort of slipping out of the hands of the Islamist militants. And there was a lot of concern that the whole of northeast Nigeria was sort of slipping out of the hands of the state authority. And then the army went on the offensive and they managed to take back a lot of land and many, many thousands of people managed to get back to their villages. And then we're now seeing people once again on the move, scared of further attacks by the Islamist militants and this sort of feeling that we're not safe

once again. So it's a real concern for Northeast Nigeria right now. Will Ross, an accident involving a hot air balloon in Brazil has killed eight people. The local fire department said 13 others survived, including the pilot. He told the authorities that after the fire broke out, he lowered the balloon and told passengers to jump. Those that didn't escape were lifted back into the air as the fire intensified. Leonardo Rocha has more details. The balloon caught fire and plunged into the ground in the southern state of Santa Catarina. Witnesses say the fire started in the basket and could have been caused by a blowtorch.

Some of the victims had their bodies totally burned. Others jumped in despair as the fire spread but didn't survive the fall from a high altitude. Survivors told Brazilian media that winds were very strong in the area and the balloon struggled to lift off. The area in Santa Catarina State is a major destination for hot air balloon rides because of its striking landscape. Leonardo Rocha We may not be proud to admit it, but all of us at some point are likely to have felt the urge to take revenge. It turns out that that drive to get back at someone who's wronged us is rooted in a chemical reaction in our brains. So how

can we stop ourselves from acting on these impulses? James Kimmel Jr, a lecturer in psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine, studies the science of revenge. He spoke to Anna Foster about his work. I have discovered through my research at Yale that our brains on revenge look like our brains on drugs, it turns out, that the grievances of life that we experience, things like betrayal and humiliation, shame, these all trigger the same pain network inside your brain, the anterior insula. And the brain seeks out then a compensating pleasure to rebalance itself against this pain. And we begin to crave this desire for revenge. And the last thing that holds us back is a different

area of the brain, the prefrontal cortex. And that's the part of your brain that gives you self-control and executive function and the ability to weigh costs and benefits. For you, a real motivating factor in all of this was your own childhood and your own story. So tell us a little bit, just enlighten our audience a little bit as to why you started thinking about this concept quite deeply in the first place. I had been bullied pretty significantly as a teenager in a rural area of central Pennsylvania. This ultimately led to the bullies one night staging an attack on our house and shooting

and killing my dog. And then two weeks later coming back and blowing up our mailbox. And at that point I lost whatever controls I had. And I grabbed a gun from my father's nightstand that he kept there. And I went after them and cornered them against a barn. And there were three or four of them unarmed. That as I was getting out of the car, I had sort of an insight at that point that if I went through with what I wanted to do, the price of that would be enormous and I really wouldn't be the same person that I

was when I arrived there. And it was just too high of a cost for me at that point in time. And I decided to back off and I put the gun back down and drove home. That thought process that you went through when you put down the gun, that's quite an adult decision to make for someone so young because people of considerably more advanced years through history haven't had that moment where they do decide to put it down. Right. You know, a lot of people do go through with that. And that's been the subject of most of my life's work and research. The number of people who are in jail today and the number of crimes that we see every day on the news, the potential deterrence of that punishment is not

sufficient and has never been sufficient to stop those people from going ahead and committing a violent act. And so now we're seeing with this new neuroscience and beginning to understand violence as an addictive process that we could prevent and treat that population of people. James Kimmel Jr. on the science of revenge. Having to be in hospital for long periods of time can be boring, lonely and frightening, especially for children. But a project at Seattle's Children's Hospital is using creative, immersive video games to help with very positive results, as Scott Miles reports.

My name is Maximilian Williams and I am one of the therapeutic gaming specialists here at Seattle Children's Hospital. The idea is simple. Use what children already love to help them cope with being in hospital. Max explains one way this works. It's very hard to feel achievement in the hospital because a lot of these treatments, you know, you're doing better. Everybody's telling you you're doing better, but you're feeling worse and feeling more side effects. And so feeling that journey is very difficult. But you know, if you were able to get from level four to level seven, and then tomorrow you get from level seven to level ten, it's just that little tiny engine of, you know, achievement and helps you hold on to hope in medical settings. Fourteen-year-old Aiden, who has spent most of his life in hospital, knows this firsthand.

Aiden is using a ventilator while I speak to him. I like to have the video games here because of all my procedures, surgeries, they get really stressful for me. So it just really helps me out. For Aiden's mom, Elsa, the gaming program has been a lifeline. I think it's absolutely amazing.

It has definitely helped Aiden through some really hard times. It's a great distraction, personally even for myself. And there's one ambitious part of this gaming program, which was started by one of the hospital's senior surgeons in his spare time. Dr. Henry Oh spent hundreds of hours building a complete virtual replica of the entire hospital inside the video game Minecraft. I wanted to make something that would make the hospital more familiar to kids and make it less scary. So I figured, okay, if they can actually go to where they are in the hospital

and see it or before they come to the hospital, ideally say, okay, I'm having surgery. Where is that going to be? What is that going to look like? For those unfamiliar, Minecraft is a video game where players build structures and worlds using virtual blocks. And importantly, other patients can appear in the virtual world alongside each other. So children who can't leave their rooms can still meet other kids and even become friends. Those kids who are able to move around the hospital get together once a month on game night. Max takes me downstairs, all around the airy space are carts and tables with video games, board games and art supplies. It's a great way for patients and staff alike to connect. It's a great opportunity for peer-to-peer connections, so patients that are on disparate

units tend not to have the opportunity to meet. And we've created lasting friendships and also knocked down barriers with new staff groups. You know, a staff member who may be just passing by and they see two of their patients and they're like, oh, you know, I love Mario Kart. And they're like, what? You love Mario Kart? And so now then those daily visits are so much easier, right? Max Williams ending that report by Scott Miles. And that's all from us for now. But there will be a new edition of the Global News podcast later. If you want to comment on this podcast, you can send us an email. The address is globalpodcast

at BBC.co.uk. This edition was mixed by Darcy O'Brie, the producers were Alison Davies and Ariane Cochy, the editor is Karen Martin. I'm Junaat Jalil, until next time, goodbye.