Global News Podcast - Israeli airstrikes have hit several targets inside Yemen

Episode Date: December 27, 2024

Israeli airstrikes have hit a number of sites in Yemen, after Houthi militants have been targeting Israel and vessels in the Red Sea. Also: Bald eagle officially declared US national bird after nearly 250 years.

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Follow or subscribe and never miss an episode. This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Nick Myers and in the early hours of Friday, the 27th of December, these are our main stories. Israel has launched a wave of airstrikes on Houthi targets in Yemen, including the main international airport, where the attack narrowly missed the head of the World Health Organisation. The European Commission has threatened further sanctions against Russia, following the alleged sabotage of another cable under the Baltic Sea. India's first Sikh Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, has died at the ageic Sea. India's first Sikh Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has died at the age of 92.

Also in this podcast, good news for the American bald eagle. I'm soaring with the eagles. I'm absolutely excited. I'm ecstatic that finally after 248 some odd years that the bald eagle is now our national bird. that the bald eagle is now our national bird. Israel will strike Huthis until the job is done. The words of the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after his defence forces said they'd launched strikes across Yemen. One of the places targeted was the international airport in the capital Sana'a. Inside the departure lounge there was panic as

people tried to flee the building. Also there was the director general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who was about to board a flight. Israel says it was attacking sites used by the Houthi armed group that controls part of Yemen. They're backed by Iran and they've repeatedly hit Israel with drones and missiles since the first months of the Gaza war. I asked our correspondent in Jerusalem, Shyma Khalil, how much damage the strikes on Yemen have caused. What we do know from footage that has appeared was from inside Sanaa International Airport you could see people running in a panic,

rushing out, some with their trolleys not really knowing where to go, and others rushing out of the building. Another showed, from outside the airport, showed smoke rising from the site. And we do know from the IDF that they did target the Sanaa Airport and its surrounding area. They say they struck military targets used by the Iran-backed Houthis to smuggle Iranian weapons into the region. We also know that the strikes happened not only in Sana'a and different parts of the capital, but also in the port city of Hadaida. And it's not the first time that these two sites have been struck. This is the second Israeli strike on Yemen in less than a week. The last one was on Thursday. Now we understand from Houthi officials that several people were killed, others were injured with the targets of power stations of several ports and port cities.

And we heard from a Houthi official who said that the strikes were a crime against the people of Yemen. The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has just said, we will strike until the job is done. What is that job and is it achievable? It's very interesting because these strikes are very much in line with what's been coming out from the Israeli leadership, whether it's the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and he did say this on more than one occasion, but also from the Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz. And one particular comment that

he made earlier really is quite telling because he promised to decapitate the leadership of the Houthi movement the same way that Israel did with Hamas and Hezbollah. And it kind of tells you that these intensified attacks by the Houthis at the moment, and this month has seen a significant rise in these attacks in the missile launches into Israeli territory, some of them not intercepted, remember, is now being responded to in a more focused way.

So if you ask what the job is, I think the job for the Israeli leadership at the moment and for the Israeli military is to stop these attacks from happening and to not only target military and energy infrastructure in Yemen, but they did mention the leadership as well. Shima, it's worth mentioning, I said in the introduction that the head of the World Health Organization was at Sana'a Airport when these attacks happened. It's worth mentioning the humanitarian situation in Yemen is and has been for many years horrendous, hasn't it? And it's

not likely to get any better with these kind of attacks. That's right. The humanitarian situation in Yemen has been dire for many years now because this country has been struggling and has been enthralled in a conflict for many years. Aid is very difficult to come by in Yemen. Many people have been struggling with malnutrition. There have been many warnings by the UN, by other humanitarian agencies, that more food needs to get to Yemen. But the problem has been that there are different areas controlled by different groups in this country, and that the access to aid has been very difficult. So in addition to these strikes that are happening now by Israeli forces, Yemen itself has been reeling from years and years of conflict

and a very difficult humanitarian situation. Shyamak Eliel. The authorities in Finland have seized a ship believed to be linked to Russia because of suspicions that it severed an underwater cable in the Baltic Sea. The S-Link 2 carries electricity between Finland and Estonia but stopped working on Wednesday. Finnish police who boarded the Eagle S, a vessel they suspect as being part of a Russian so-called shadow fleet, say they found evidence that the anchor had been used to cut the cable in two. The Finnish National Police Commissioner is Ilkka Koskimäki. There is reason to suspect that the vessel registered in the Cook Islands has caused damage to the Essling power cable. But in addition, we also suspect that

other cables have been damaged. These investigations are currently ongoing. We are in a very good situation as the authorities have detained the vessel and it's within Finnish territorial waters, meaning the conditions for the preliminary investigations are excellent. Ervin Davis heard more from The Economist's defence editor, Shashank Joshi. I must say there are accidental cable cuttings. There's, you know, it's a hundred cable faults each year on average. Many of those are anchor draggings, fishing vessels. But what makes these cases more interesting is, of course, the year we've just had of

continual Russian sabotage across Europe, the fact that these ships appear to be taking slightly irregular routes over these cables, and of course the fact that in this particular case the ship in question, the Eagle S, seems to have a connection to Russia's so-called shadow fleet of tankers. All of that together means, I think, there will be strong grounds to suspect a degree of Russian involvement here. Right. And the difference to the others I've heard about is that this is the first time I can remember following the news that one of the government's Coast Guard agencies or navies has got on board a suspect vessel.

That's the other thing. Yeah, we did see a case a few weeks ago, the Yipeng, the Chinese flagship which was taken into Swedish waters. There were investigators on board, but they were highly constrained by what they could see by the permission of the Chinese. They didn't give full permissions, and they didn't board the ship in international waters in the way that's been done now. So this is a clearly more aggressive approach by Finland,

which thinks, hang on a minute, this ship has clearly done something. We need to investigate. The problem, of course, is you can get on board, you can talk to the crew. It's very, very difficult to prove malign intent unless you have some kind of other intelligence indicating what the instructions given to the captain were. It's very hard to prove that they dragged their anchor on purpose to cut the cable rather

than by accident. Can I ask about the UK in the most sort of unsensational way, and no one at The Economist wants to sensationalise this, the UK uses cables under the sea. Are ours any less or any more vulnerable? As vulnerable as others. Of course, the Baltic cables lie in different depths, different geographies. Russia has a maybe an easier time there. But if you look at our geography, we have many, many energy, power, electricity data cables connecting us not only to the continent, but also across the Atlantic. Russian submarines, particularly a unit of the Russian Ministry of Defence called Gugi, a deep sea water activity unit, has been active in those areas as well, including with their

submarines. It would be difficult to cut the UK off. There's far too many data cables connecting us to too many different places. But you could cause localised disruption to power or data with well-targeted action. And of course, that's the point of this kind of sabotage. That was The Economist defence editor, Shashank Joshi. Russia and Kazakhstan are seeking to downplay speculation that Moscow was behind the crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines plane on Wednesday, which killed 38 people.

The Kremlin said it was wrong to speculate on the cause before the outcome of an investigation. The speaker of the Kazakh Senate said it wasn't possible to conclude from photographic evidence that the plane had been hit by a Russian miss-up. A number of military experts have accused Russia of shooting down the plane, mistaking it for a Ukrainian drone. Jonathan Josephs has this report. Video released by Russia's government shows nine of its citizens being stretchered onto a plane to be taken back to Moscow for further medical treatment.

They're among 29 survivors of Wednesday's crash. The Azerbaijan Airlines plane was supposed to be flying from Baku to Grozny in southern Russia but was diverted to Aktoob in Kazakhstan. The force of impact split the plane in two, with the front half destroyed by fire. The key question is why. The military expert Justin Crump said suggestions that a bird strike caused the crash were unlikely. Evidence is still coming out, but the most likely hypothesis we see is that it was struck by an air defence missile in the area over Grozny where the plane was holding. Ukrainian

drones were active at the time and this is commensurate with everything we've seen in the pilot's communication with air traffic control. Currently it's the only thing that fully fits the facts that we know. Unusual holes litter the rear part of the airplane, which survived largely intact. They will be closely examined by investigators. The Embraer E190 airplane that came down has a good safety record and the pilot should have been able to land it safely if there had been a bird strike. The Kremlin spokesman is Dmitry Peskov. The investigation is underway. Any aviation incident should be investigated by special

aviation authorities and until investigators make their conclusions it would be incorrect to make any kind of hypothesis. So we cannot do it and nobody should do it. We must await the end of this investigation." Cars blared their horns in the Azeri capital, Baku, as people stopped to remember the victims. A day of national mourning also saw large crowds lay flowers at Baku's airport in memory of the dead. Jonathan Josephs. The death has been announced of India's former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. He was 92. Mr Singh was the first Prime Minister in India from the Sikh faith

and was praised by many for boosting economic growth there. Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid tribute to Singh writing on social media that India mourns the loss of one of its most distinguished leaders. Jill McGivrey looks back at his life. In 2004 Manmohan Singh took office as Prime Minister. He was an unlikely choice. I, Manmohan Singh, do swear in the name of God that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of India. He was a small, mild-mannered man, seen as a political outsider, even described as too honest to be a good operator. From the start, he appealed for political unity and said tackling poverty was a top priority. The war against poverty, ignorance and disease has to be carried on relentlessly.

And I pledge our government to remain steadfast in our commitment in the words of Jawaharlal Nehru to build an India free from the fear of war, want and exploitation. These are the priorities of our nation. He promised an ambitious programme of social reform, which aimed to help tens of millions of India's poor. In fact, many promises went unrealised, suffocated partly by coalition politics. He did succeed though in another controversial area

in forging a landmark deal on nuclear technology with the United States. That new strategic partnership with Washington saw India opening up civilian nuclear facilities to inspection in return for access to American technology. When then President George W Bush visited India in 2006, opposition to the deal was clear. The two leaders did reach agreement though, the first step in a lengthy process. President Bush praised Mr Singh for his political courage. We concluded a historic agreement on nuclear power.

It's not an easy job for the Prime Minister to achieve this agreement. I understand it's not easy for the American president to achieve this agreement, but it's a necessary agreement." While Mr Singh was prime minister, India saw a string of major bomb attacks. One of the bloodiest came in November last year, the series of attacks on Mumbai. The government faced angry criticism from those who said it had failed to protect them, but Mr Singh was praised for a calm and decisive response. In a special televised address, he condemned the violence and promised he would take the

strongest possible measures to make sure nothing similar happened again. His allegations that Pakistan's establishment was complicit in the violence, something Pakistan denies, added to rising tension between the two neighbours after several years of relative harmony. Perhaps his greatest achievement had come much earlier, when he served as finance minister in the early 1990s. Then he was the driving force behind India's programme of sweeping economic reform, which helped the country see years of high growth. was the driving force behind India's programme of sweeping economic reform, which helped

the country see years of high growth. In all, Mr Singh will be remembered by many as a man of integrity who tried to tackle India's poverty and bureaucracy but saw only limited success. Jill McGivering on the life of India's former Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, who's died at the age of 92. Now, name this bird. Any idea? Here's another clue. Greetings as an American eagle. That is Sam the Eagle from the American television puppet show The Muppets. The American or bald eagle has been the symbol of the United States for centuries with its image across the country's coins and stamps.

But it was only officially named the national bird earlier this week. Preston Cook spent years campaigning for this recognition and even penned a draft of the legislation that he sent to lawmakers on Capitol Hill. John Donison asked him for his reaction now that the bald eagle has been named as the national bird of the US. Well I'm soaring with the Eagles. I'm absolutely excited. I'm ecstatic that finally after 248 some odd years that the bald eagle is now our national bird. And why have you campaigned for so many years to get it done? This started about 15 years ago when I was preparing a chronology for a book on the American eagle that I was writing. And I was looking for an entry that would designate

the bald eagle as our national bird. And I couldn't find it. So I went back to the minutes of the meeting on June 20th, 1782. And that was the date when America decided the bald eagle should be our national symbol on the Great Seal. And there was no mention whatsoever about it becoming a national bird. Of course at that time we had other things on our mind. They had a revolution to fight so it was something that just they did not think about and they did not act on it. I have to say though as someone who's lived in America quite a long time, my partner is American. I just thought the bald eagle already was the national bird.

Well, you and 100% of other Americans, everybody is startled by this, that we'd never had a national bird and the bald eagle has never officially been designated either legislatively or by a proclamation of the president. You know, we do have a national mammal and that's the bison, and we have a national tree, which is the oak, and we have a national flower, which is the rose. So now it's time for, and we do now have, the bald eagle as our national bird. And that's after 248 years and 118 Congresses that no one ever took action on until now.

How prevalent is the bald eagle in America? Is it under threat at all? Well the bald eagle has had its ups and downs. We love the symbolism of the bird as we have for 248 years, but it was not liked as a bird. They thought it was taking babies, and they thought it was taking fish, and they thought it was taking young animals. So they didn't like it and they shot it. They shot over a hundred thousand bald eagles up in Alaska from 1917 to 1953. And then DDT came along in the late 1940s,

the chemical DDT. So in the 40s, we went from some 500,000 birds down to 412 birds, a nesting pair in the lower 48 states. And then when DDT was banned, the population came back and now it's a healthy 300,000 or so. And now they're off the endangered species list and doing very well with some exceptions. You know, now we have loss of land for the eagle. So that's an issue. And we have lead poisoning, which is an issue. And now we have avian flu, which is an issue. So what this bill does, I think it raises the height of the bird and it raises the awareness of the bird and realizing that if the bird is healthy,

then humans are healthy, but if the bird is not healthy, then we are not healthy. Preston Cook, who campaigned for the bald eagle to be recognized as America's national bird. Still to come. It's kind of a nostalgia, right? If we can see him performing live, that's amusing. I think it's a sign of India's soft power. Being in the market for such things is what gives us the power. We look at a nation that's fast becoming a hotspot for international music tours. Do you ever find yourself missing out on episodes of your favourite podcast because you didn't know a new one's out? Well, here's an easy way to get new episodes automatically. Whether

it's World of Secrets or any of your other favourite BBC World Service podcasts, just find a show on your podcast app and click follow or subscribe. And if you switch on notifications, you'll get a reminder too. It's that easy. Follow or subscribe and never miss an episode. Next to Syria. The new administration in the country say they've arrested a senior military officer from the former Assad regime who's believed to have been involved in abuses at the notorious Sadnaya prison. Mohammed Kanjo Hassan was captured after clashes between forces from the new government and Assad loyalists. Thousands of people were tortured and executed at that prison since

the Syrian civil war began in 2011. It's the first big test for the new leadership, HTS, which says it will stamp out attempts to undermine Syria's security. On Wednesday, a number of HTS were killed in attacks. Our Middle East regional editor, Sebastian Asher, has more. What we're hearing from the HTS side, from the new authorities in Syria, is that they've launched a big operation in Tartus after the killing of 14 police security officers on Wednesday. And they're saying that these are remnants of the Assad regime and they're hunting them down in the woods and the valleys of Tartus, so not just in the port city but in the province as a whole.

And from the other side, from the Anahuat side, I mean, you know, one can only go by some of the protests that there have been, which suggest that there is at least still quite a hard core of, at best, people who are worried and unsettled by what's happened because obviously President Assad belonged to the Alawite community and his future and their future very much seem to be bound up for years. I mean, the change very particularly is of this Islamist-led government that is now in place. And whether it was self-serving or not that was what President Assad had said for years and years he was acting as a bulwark against and I'm sure that many Alawites believe that and we have had reports of attacks on Alawites in Damascus and elsewhere. We had big protests in Homs, there was a curfew that was put in place there. Again, that is seen specifically

to be in relation to the Alawites and their concerns and their fears and potentially their anger and the violence that might come out on the streets. And Sebastian, there seems to be a realisation from HTS that Syria's continued security in the future relies on sending out feelers to its neighbours as well. And we've seen that over the last day or so with regards to Iraq and Lebanon, haven't we? We have, yeah. And we've had a variety of officials from Lebanon, for example, becoming the veteran. Druze leader Wali Jumblatt was in Damascus just a few days ago. And, you know, the signals are, we want a different relationship. This is from a new

leadership in Syria. We want a relationship where we are not at odds, where we're not in conflict. As far as Lebanon is concerned, what I'm hearing from a lot of people here, the events, both of the fall of President Assad, but also what's happened with Hezbollah, all of these things kind of coming to a climax in the past few weeks of sort of the recognition amongst many people, much more openly expressed than it had been, that they feel that it's Syria that was at the root of so many of their problems. Yes, Israel launched these attacks. Yes, Israel has done that in the past. But I've heard from many people from different groups, different, I mean not factions, but different communities saying that it was Syria that did far worse to Lebanon as a country over the years in its influence than anyone else. So there's an appetite certainly here for a complete realignment and for Syria under its new leadership

not to get involved, not to interfere in Lebanese internal politics which it did for many, many years. Sebastien Usher. Throughout the year there have been reports of many advances and potential advances in healthcare in the treatment of obesity, dementia and personalised vaccines for cancer. So what can we expect as the new year beckons? Johnny Diamond spoke to Kate Bingham, managing partner at SV Health Investors and the former chair of the UK government's Covid Vaccine Task Force. So what are her thoughts on the possible advances in such areas as obesity, dementia and those personalised vaccines? These are innovations that weren't even contemplated really 10 years ago. So that the fact that we've now vaccinated billions of people with mRNA vaccines during the pandemic

and now we have the potential for the first mRNA cancer vaccine to get approval at the end of next year. That is something that is just beyond what we would have ever contemplated. Second, on dementia, we've now seen the first two drugs get approved that actually alter the course of the disease. Now the drugs aren't perfect, but they at least prove the concept that we can actually alter the course

of these devastating diseases. And then you think about obesity. And again, 10 years ago, we weren't thinking about these Glip1 agonists. The Wego Vs and the Malangaroes. Exactly. And what we're seeing now with these drugs is it's not just about appetite suppression, but there are clear clinical benefits well beyond just obesity. So in terms of cardiovascular benefits, those are, the data there is very strong. But actually what we haven't yet seen again is the potential benefits to dementia. And again, I would expect that these drugs

will have a positive effect on the treatment of dementia. Does it feel to you that it is taking less time, that the pace of innovation is picking up or is it is it impossible to tell? No unquestionably the pace of innovation is taking picking up. 90% of drugs that go into clinical trials will fail. With the use of AI you can reduce that failure rate. Is it your belief or faith that the new drugs about which people are concerned over cost will relatively swiftly bring down associated costs of all these conditions and therefore pay for themselves?

Or do you think there's going to be a very difficult balancing act in the years to come? Currently our system is set up that you wait till people have severe symptoms by and large and then you start treating them with new medicines. What we need to do is to get diagnosed earlier and treat ahead of time before you start having the severe symptoms. So my expertise in vaccines is something that I'm very keen on continuing to push because there is no question that preventative vaccines is ultimately where we need to get to. But supposing we all went into the chemist in our 40s and we had a blood test in the same way as we get our cholesterol tested and they say, hmm, we found a little bit of

this cancer. If you could then take off the shelf a vaccine and say, right, we'll vaccinate you against that particular cancer type that we can find. That should help prime your immune system to say when you see a cell that's expressing this, take it out because we don't want any tumors to form. And then you would take that further and say well why can't we do that for Alzheimer's disease? Why can't we vaccinate ahead of time so you don't wait for neuronal damage and cognitive dysfunction? Why can't we intervene earlier and prevent that neuronal loss from even happening? Kate Bingham, managing partner of SV Health Investors.

Now to a resolution of a row over crustaceans. China has again started allowing imports of lobsters from Australia, marking the end of a political argument that spilled over into trade. Our Asia Pacific editor, Mickey Bristow, reports. Beijing banned lobsters four years ago, along with other Australian products including coal and wine. That followed a diplomatic dispute between the two nations, partly over Canberra's call for an independent inquiry into the origins of COVID. China has gradually lifted the sanctions following an improvement in relations.

The restriction on lobsters is the last to be removed. It comes just a month before the Lunar New Year holiday when lobsters are in great demand in China. Mickey Bristow, India is the world's most populous nation. There's a growing middle class with money to spend and more interest in western pop music. So it is fast becoming a hot spot for international music tours. The BBC's Divina Gupta reports. I've spent a fair bit of time in India.

From Dua Lipa to Brian Adams, international music icons have graced Indian stages, electrifying audiences in cities across the country. I'm in Gurgaon near the capital city, Delhi. It's evening and even though it's a bit cold outside, that hasn't dampened the spirits of people around me. They're walking towards a large open air sports ground where Bryan Adams is going to play shortly.

It's a mix of proud, young and old. So is this your first concert? Yes, I'm 52. It's kind of a nostalgia, right? We've come from Chandigarh. Long journey, isn't it? Six hours, yeah. We've grown up listening to him

and we still dance to the tune, so we could not miss this chance of being here. And they're paying big bucks for these moments. Tickets range from a hundred dollars to five hundred dollars, a sign of a shift in Indian consumers' spending behavior. Our study is on the basis of the spending boost that it is going to put towards Indian economy. We estimate a push of around 400 to 420 US dollar billion. That's economist, Tipanita Mazumdar. The major chunk of it is going to come from the ticket spending.

There is going to be a major push from food and beverages and hotels and transport. So demand is there. Tej Bharar, head of festivals at Nordwind Gaming, which organizes the popular NH7 Weekender, agrees. About 65% of the population is below the age of 35. Unlike the Chinese market, we have a very large population that speaks English already. We have about 600 million smartphone users right now. Now what that means is that you're going to have India be a destination where you can have artists that are globally relevant right now, like Dua Lipa, who are breaking singles at the same time globally as they're breaking here in India.

But then you're also going to have nostalgia artists like Brian Adams have an opportunity to continue to visit India. But as this market grows, there's a shadow of concern. Does India have the infrastructure to keep up? Diljit dosanjh a prominent Punjabi musician on tour in India recently expressed his disappointment during a concert in northern city of Chandigarh. I want to tell the authorities that we don't have a proper infrastructure for live shows here despite the fact that it's a big revenue stream with so many people who get jobs here. The state says this is a real challenge especially in smaller cities. We still have to build everything from staging, bathrooms, parking. It's all very capital intensive up front and then of course there are uncertainties when it comes to licensing and permissions which can complicate

things at the 11th hour. So while the authorities are promising to do better and fans hope for a seamless experience, for now as the music plays, India is definitely turning up the volume on the global concert map. That report was by Divina Gupta. And that is 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 or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email. The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk.

You can also find us on X at Global News Pod. This edition was mixed by Darcy O'Brie. The producer was Liam McSheffrey. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Nick Miles. And until next time, goodbye. For just as long as Hollywood has been Tinseltown, there have been suspicions about what lurks behind the glitz and glamour. Concerns about radical propaganda in the motion pictures. And for a while, those suspicions grew into something much bigger and much darker.

Are you a member of the Communist Party? Or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party? I'm Una Chaplin, and this is Hollywood Exiles. It's about a battle for the political soul of America and the battlefield was Hollywood. All episodes of Hollywood Exiles from the BBC World Service and CBC are available now. Search for Hollywood Exiles wherever you get your podcasts.