Global News Podcast - Life in Yemen under Houthi sniper fire

Episode Date: October 6, 2026

As fighting surges again in Yemen, government forces supported by Saudi Arabia say they've been making significant gains in an offensive against the Iran-backed Houthis. We hear how the conflict is affecting people in one of the key battlegrounds - the southwestern city of Taiz, which is surrounded by the Houthis. Also: protesters and police clash in several French cities, as students, parents and unions join demonstrations across the country calling for more investment in schools. The space scientist Dame Dr Maggie Aderin on the remarkable story of the Hubble Space Telescope - the subject of a new podcast. Protests spread in Japan over the murder of a woman on the island of Okinawa, allegedly committed by a US marine. We hear tributes to Jeffrey Archer, the British politician and author who died on Monday, and look back at the rises and falls in his life. And a study finds that book bans are on the increase in US public schools. The Global News Podcast brings you the breaking news you need to hear, as it happens. Listen for the latest headlines and current affairs from around the world. Politics, economics, climate, business, technology, health – we cover it all with expert analysis and insight. Get the news that matters, delivered twice a day on weekdays and daily at weekends, plus special bonus episodes reacting to urgent breaking stories. Follow or subscribe now and never miss a moment. Get in touch: [e-mail] Photo: a mother with her 11-year-old injured son, Taiz, Yemen. Credit: BBC World Service

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. An observatory in space. This is the real deal. This is going to revolutionize astronomy. Capable of capturing light from the dawn of the universe. It could be real exciting for the astronomical community, I guess, and for the whole world to see what Hubble really can do. From the BBC World Service,

13 minutes, trouble with Hubble, the story of the Hubble Space Telescape. Listen now on BBC.com, the BBC app or wherever you get to your BBC podcasts. This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Celia Hatton and at 1300 GMT on Tuesday the 6th of October. These are our main stories. The BBC gains rare access to the front lines of the conflict inside Yemen, to the city of Taz that's surrounded by Houthi snipers.

More protests in France as students call for more money to be devoted to education. Some of those demonstrations are becoming violent. Also in this podcast, we'll speak to one of Britain's top space scientists, Dame Dr. Maddie Adairn. They effectively made Hubble some glasses. So they took one of the instruments out, replaced it with this optics that would actually focus the image, and then send it to the other instruments on board. the precarious mission to save the Hubble telescope. Let's begin with this situation in Yemen.

Over the last few days, fighting has surged there as government forces began an offensive aimed at recapturing territory from the Houthi rebels. Yemen is in a strategically important spot on the Arabian Peninsula, and its civil conflict is fueled by external interests. The Houthis are backed by Iran, and Yemen's government has support from Saudi Arabia. The government says it's been making significant gains against the Houthis, and we'll have more on that in a moment.

But let's get a picture first of how the conflict is affecting people in one of the key battlegrounds, the city of Taz in the southwest. Residents live with the threat of Houthi snipers and artillery around the city. Our senior international correspondent, Noal Al-Maghafi, has recently returned from Taz. A warning, her report contains distressing witness accounts. Dozens of children swarm this schoolyard in Ties city. They're smartly dressed in white and brown uniforms, smiling and laughing together before class. Every day, they risk their life for an education.

Beyond the school's perimeter is a no-man's land, and they're playing in the crosshairs of Houthi snipers. Abder Raqib is a maths teacher, but he's also in charge of the school's security. He leads me up onto the roof to show me where the Houthis are hiding. This is where snipers are located. They have military camps and barracks. They have heavy weapons in these areas.

The only thing between us and them is this valley. He's just telling me how the school is right on the line of fire. This is government-held territory, and here on my left is Houthi-held territory. And the only thing in the middle is the school. From the rooftop, we can see derelict buildings on the opposite hillside. It's clear just how exposed the school really is. These children have never known anything but war. Ten years old, Raph's arm is scarred by shrapnel.

There was a mortar and we were at home. Everyone was out except for me and my brother. Then a mortar came out of nowhere. They don't know where from. Did it hit your home, I ask her? No, right outside, but the shrapnel blew through the door and into the house. Just outside the school gates, bullet holes and shrapnel damage mark the street. Red signs warning of sniper fire are pinned to lampposts.

Mounds of dirt and debris are piled high at the end of each street, interrupting the potential view of a houthi marksman. Taz has long been a battlefield. Just five minutes away in the hospital's intensive care unit, 11-year-old Amjad is fighting for his life. His heavily bandaged torso is stained with blood. He was working in his uncle's mechanic shop when a mortar struck. At his bedside, his mother prays, hoping he will make it through the night. Another little boy, 3-year-old Ahmed, was killed in the same attack.

Nurse Akram holds his cream sandals. splattered with blood. We're always terrified. It's devastating to see children killed. What did they do? They haven't done anything. It's devastating. He's suddenly hit by a missile in the street,

a child who has gone out to play or gone to school. As the city marks the anniversary of Yemen becoming a republic, fireworks drown out the artillery echoing from the mountains. It's a day the Houthis reject. thousands of people turn out to celebrate. Taz may be a city surrounded by war, but its people refuse to be defeated by it. That report was by Noal Al-Maghafi.

Well, a short while ago, Noelle joined us. She told us why the city of Taz matters so much to both the Houthis and Yemen's government. Taz is significant for multiple reasons, and that's why when we went, we decided to go there, first of all. Firstly, it is the closest point inland to the city of Mokka, which sits on the Babel Mendeb Strait, and it's mountainous terrain. And so it's surrounded by these mountains.

The Houthis are really good at fighting at mountains. Whoever takes control of Taz, maintains control of Mokka and Babel Mendeb. Babel Mendeb and Mokka are flat terrain, coastal terrain. It's very easy to take it over, and that's why that front line keeps on shifting. Another thing about TAS is that it is densely populated. It's got about 4 million civilians living in Tars, and so you have control of a very heavily populated city. And it's also the direct road from Tars to Aden, and it's the closest point to the area that the Houthis control in the north. So if you take control of Tars, if the Houthis do, it gives them very easy access to carry on all the way to Aden and take control of the entire country.

Now, well, can you give us the latest on that bid by government forces to take back control that was recently won over by the Houthis? I've got to say for someone who follows what's happening in Yemen quite closely, it's been a shocking month all round to see what's happened. A month ago, we were reporting on the Houthis taking over Mokka and Babel Mandeb and what a shock that is that they've taken over this very important world waterway. And now, in what, the last 48 hours, the government have announced that. that they've retaken control of Babel Mendeb. When I was there last week, we embedded with government forces on the front line and they were telling us the Houthis are taking more and more ground every day. We need reinforcement. We need more support. We need the Saudis to show interest and to back us from the air. Otherwise, the Houthis are taking more ground. And it sounds like those calls

haven't fallen on deaf ears. You know, this weekend we saw the president of Yemen, Rashad al-Alemy, launched this new offensive and clearly the Saudis are backing him with full force 300 air strikes in the last 48 hours backing the government forces on the ground and they are taking control of more and more ground as we speak but as I said Taz is the critical point the Houthis they are fighters

their boots on the ground and they are formidable and they know how to fight in the mountains and they've been in control of those mountains for years now will the government be able to push them out of them? Like, we're just going to have to wait and see what happens in the next couple of days. It's really striking when you comment that there were four million people caught in the crossfires just in that one city. Is there any prospect for relief for the people there? Are they trying to figure out ways to get out of that main conflict area?

I've reported from across the country and I think, you know, and every time I come back with reports are absolutely harrowing and devastating. but I've got to say the situation in Taz is the worst I've ever seen to be entrapped surrounded by these mountains where snipers have taken positions and are shooting into the city on a daily basis. There is artillery mortar just sporadically being thrown in from those mountains into the people of the city every day.

And then you have the humanitarian situation. Food is not getting in. The Houthis are control of all three roads. There's only one road that the government is able to actually access. And it is a very difficult road. It's not as felt. You see lorries toppling over as they're trying to carry in supplies to the city. And so I really hope there is relief for the people of Taz soon. You've seen them over the last weekend on social media, you know, women, civilians, taking up arms, saying they're going to join the Yemeni government in fighting against the

Houthis on the front lines that surround the city. And so, you know, I hope that the situation opens up for them soon. Noal Al-Maghafi. To France now, where tens of thousands of demonstrators have gathered on the streets in what's being called a nationwide day of action in support of students demanding more investment in education. Students, parents, teachers, and trade unionists have joined the protests. But as peaceful protests continue, so has disorder. Protesters have clashed with police in Leone. In Strasbourg, in northeast France, there have been reports of firemen.

crackers being thrown at police officers. Our Europe correspondent Nick Beak sent as this report from Leal in northern France. A bin's been set a light. All the students here are protesting and this is a scene that's replicated in lots of parts of the country today. If you talk to these students, they say they want a lot more investment in their education. They say the classrooms are crumbling that there's far too many pupils crammed in and they want this to change. This fire has now been put out, but the fire is burning across this country. It's a nationwide day of action. Pupils here say they're willing to come out again, if needs be, because they really want this to change.

The government has acknowledged that there are legitimate concerns here, but there's been a lot of violence over the last week or so. Teachers attacked. Some schools have been set ablaze, and also the police have been accused of being heavy-handed towards some of the students. It looks like this will continue. As Nick mentioned there, protests are taking place across the country. Our correspondent Mark Lowen is in Marseille.

Here in Marseille in southern France, this is of course France's second city on the Mediterranean coast. Let's get a sense of the perspective from students because we have Colleen here, who is now 19 years old and is in higher education, but of course has just graduated from school. Colleen, just explain to me why you're here protesting today. Today we're protesting in support of high school blockades for students who are asking for a better education and for equal chances to access education. And regarding the events of last weeks, we're also protesting against police violence that is inflicted on children. There are 11 inquiries of police action underway which shows you the kind of seriousness with which this is taken. Just explain to me, Colleen, what are the conditions like in schools?

So there are massive inequalities between schools. Some have means and some don't. so they don't have teachers even though some people don't have class for an entire year, even though they have to prepare for graduation. The buildings are failing. It is way too hard in the summer and way to hold in the winter. We are also complaining that people don't have equal chances to access higher education based on their social backgrounds. A lot of people would say, well, these are all legitimate concerns, but France is also, like every country, trying to cut spending, trying to rein in debt and its deficit,

and students also have to see that there are constraints on the public finances. There are other means to find money other than cutting down on education, which is vital for us and for the entire country. How do you feel about the kind of violence scenes that we have seen here played out in the last two or so weeks with schools set a light, fire engines set a light, real running battles with the police? Is that the way to protest? I think that, well, we can pull out these things and say that sometimes it's going too far,

but I think that the violence is legitimate on the high schoolist part because it is a response to the violence that the government is inflicting upon us for years now. Well, that was Colleen, who you just heard from a French postgraduate student at age 19 now, just explaining why she is here protesting and giving us an insight into the conditions in French schools. Mark Lohen. And now, a look at a space invention that's changed the way we look at the universe around us. The BBC World Service has launched a new four-part series of its acclaimed 13 minutes podcast. 13 minutes, Trouble with Hubble, follows the Hubble Space Telescope from its final preparations for launch

through its deployment in orbit, the discovery of a devastating flaw, and then the nail-biting mission to repair the telescope in space. The podcast is presented by the high-profile space scientist Dame Dr. Maddie Adairn, who told us more about it. The Hubble Space Telescope was a crazy idea by a scientist called a Lyman Spitzer, and he thought, why not have a telescope up in space? Because we have telescopes here on the ground.

They work beautifully, but the atmosphere gets in the way. It causes turbulence, absorbs some of the wavelengths we couldn't otherwise see. So why not put a telescope up in space? And the Hubble Space Telescope was the culmination of that crazy dream. And with it, we were hoping to get new views of the universe, Firstly, it's a 2.4 meter mirror. So with this big mirror, we'll be able to see things in much more detail and also will be up above the atmospheric turbulence.

So such an elegant idea behind the Hubble Space Telescope, but things weren't quite so simple, were they, when the telescope was first launched into space? That's what your podcast is talking about. Can you take us to that moment when a problem was encountered? The Hubble Space Telescope had a bit of a roller coaster ride. So first of all, it was designed and built. But then there was a huge hiatus because of the Challenger disaster.

But eventually, 10 years later, it was launched into space. People were so excited, you know, getting those first images. But some people noticed that those images weren't as crisp as they could be. They noticed that the images were blurry. And they put it down to all sorts of things. But eventually they realized that the primary mirror of the telescope, the main bit of the telescope, had been mismanufactured. And so it was up there in space, but it wasn't getting good images.

A real team effort to try to fix that problem, right? Yes. And so the podcast does just that. It takes people through the roller coaster ride. And you see it from their personal perspective, you know, sitting there looking at the screens as the first images come through. Oh, my goodness. What's wrong with them? And then, yes, it's almost like solving a mystery.

What is wrong with the telescope? Why aren't we getting these images? And they got it down to sort of a problem with the mirror. But the problem was tiny, minuscule. I think the outer edge of the mirror was a 50th of a human hair out. But that was what was causing the blurring of the images. So the challenge was, you know, we can't replace the mirror. We can't bring the telescope back down to Earth.

So how do we fix it? And a number of scientists, engineers, worked together to come up. They effectively made Hubble some glasses. So they took one of the instruments out, replaced it with this optics that would actually focus the image, and then send it to the other instruments on board. So it was a challenge, but they succeeded. Absolutely incredible. So what can we get from the Hubble Space Telescope now back on Earth?

So Hubble has now been up in space for 36 years. And it lived up to expectations. So it had that sort of blip in the beginning. It was all fixed. And now it is giving us glorious images. I think many of us would have seen some of them. And they make my heart sing to see them. But on top of that, it started solving some of the challenging questions

we've been asking, like the size and scale of the universe. One of my favourite images from Hubble is the Hubble Deep Field. And this is sort of an image taken of a tiny bit of space about one millimeter square at arm's length. And it looked at it for 10 whole days to get a really long exposure. Now, it was assumed that this piece of space was empty, but when we got the details back, we realised it was full of galaxies from the early universe.

And we were able to understand that in the whole of the universe, there are around 200 billion galaxies. Our galaxy is the Milky Way and it contains 300 billion stars and our local star is the sun. So it really set the scale of the size of the cosmos. Amazing. I dig Dr. Maggie, you're a space scientist. So, of course, you're well acquainted with the Hubble telescope,

the story behind it and what we've been able to get from it since it was fixed. But I wonder, while making this podcast, was there anything that even surprised you or made you kind of sit back? And then, wow. Yeah, because I think with all these stories, you hear the headlines. And although I wasn't working as a space scientist when the challenges happened, I was hearing about it and so, oh, so it's not living up to expectations. Oh, so this is the problem. Oh, great. They're sort of seven astronauts up into space to fix it.

And so I'd heard that. But to hear it from the people who are actually making that happen. And the guy who had to do the press conference, they sort of come up and say, yeah, we have trouble with Hubble. The mirror isn't what we expect. And so to live it through that, you get the emotional right, as well as the scientific knowledge. And so that has been quite a game changer for me, hearing it from the people who made it happen. Dame Dr. Maddie Adairn,

and you can listen to 13 minutes, Trouble with Hubble, from the BBC World Service, wherever you get your podcasts. Still to come in this podcast, there's also been increasing restrictions of Japanese manga, and even Charlotte Bronte's classic Jane Eyre appeared on the list for the very first time.

The books that some schools don't want children to read. The Hubble Space Telescape was designed to peer deeper into the universe than ever before, unlocking some of its greatest secrets. But after launch, a devastating flaw emerged. A significant spherical aberration appears to be present in the optics. National disaster. Hubble launched with flawed mirror. The BBC Space Podcast 13 Minutes is telling the inside story of how NASA rescued Hubble.

The future of space astronomy depends on it. From the BBC World Service, 13 minutes, trouble with Hubble. Listen now on BBC.com, the BBC app, or wherever you get your BBC podcasts. This is the Global News podcast. Let's go to Japan now. We've been following the public anger sparked by the arrest of a US. Marine suspected of killing a Japanese woman. The body of Anayagi was found on Saturday in a hotel room in Okinawa. The Marine, who's 20 years old, has denied the accusations. He's one of 50,000

U.S. troops stationed in Japan. There have now been more protests in relation to the murder case, as we heard from our Japan correspondent Kurumimori. We've been seeing protests pop out in different parts of the country actually since Sunday. So the day, the day. of the arrest of this 20-year-old U.S. Marine in Naha, which is a city, the capital of Okinawa, our southmost island of Japan, there were protests around 100 or so gathered. I want to point out that when you look at the footage, you can see that the majority of the people protesting are Okinawa women. And that's because that there is a longstanding history of local women being involved in sexual crimes by U.S. servicemen.

It is a huge concentration of the U.S. military facilities are based in Okinawa, about 70% of all of them in Japan. So it has been a very long, long time, many, many instances of these crimes. So, yeah, a lot of protests happening all over the country. There was one in front of Shinjuku Station here in Tokyo, another one in front of the prime minister's office. yesterday. And again, tonight, there is one in front of the U.S. embassy in Tokyo. And Karemi, what are the protesters calling for? Do they want U.S. troops to leave Japan? Or is it something not as extreme as that?

You know, it's a mix. But yeah, one of the main things is that is for less presence of U.S. military in Japan, but also just to have some sort of justice. I mean, just the number of cases that have gone unreported or unaccounted for, they estimate is significant. And this is something that's been going on again for a very long time. One of the women, local women in Okinawa, I spoke to just yesterday to hear about what it's been like on the ground there. She told me her immediate reaction to hearing the news of this murder was not again. The sense that this keeps happening over and over capturing the sense of exhaustion and

the feeling that repeated promises. have not prevented another tragedy like this one. Kudrumi Mori. In our last edition, we brought you the news of the death of Jeffrey Archer, the British politician and author. After rising to fame as an MP for the Conservative Party, he sold hundreds of millions of books around the world. But his political career became mired in scandal,

and he spent two years in prison after being convicted of perjury. We want to bring you the perspective of our UK politics correspondent Rob Watson, He's at the Conservative Party conference in the city of Birmingham. I asked him how news of Geoffrey Archer's death had been received there. Well, there's great sadness. He was a massive favourite here at the Conservative Party because he was one of those larger-than-life characters, to put it mildly, Celia.

I think we'll get into more of that in a second. I'm going to give you a couple of bits of reactions. So the current Conservative Party leader, Kimmy Badenock, said she was heartbroken that she wouldn't be getting any more text messages from him. She got one on the day that he died just before coming here to the conference. The second one I'm going to quote from is John Major, again, a former prime minister, because I think it's fascinating. It gets to the heart of it. He says, we have lost a man who lived one of the most remarkable lives of our age.

And that's why we're talking about him and that's why people here are sad. He certainly did live a very long and eventful life, Rob. I mean, let's reflect on that for a moment. Jeffrey Archer started out as a politician. Where did he come from? So he came from kind of relatively humble origins, and there's all sorts of stories about his own father. But I think what makes him such an extraordinary figure,

and I think why John Major used the phrase that he did, is that, you know, most in life you're going to have a rise and fall, right? But in Jeffrey Archer's case, there were, by my reckoning Celia, three rises to fall. So he became an MP at a very young age. 29 in the 1960s. He then had to give up being a politician because he went broke and bankrupt. Then he started this amazing comeback career as an astonishing thriller writer, writing, selling 300 million books. He tried to make a political comeback,

but then he was accused of paying a sex worker. He then accused the newspapers of libel, won the case, but then a few years later was accused of lying in court on that libel case and went to prison for two years. He ended up writing about his time. in prison and reflecting on that time. He maintained notoriety even during that moment. Yes, he was not a man who had stopped writing at any price. So yes, he wrote his prison diaries and then came back out of prison and slowly rebuilt his reputation and his life and continued publishing and writing. So yeah, he had to come back from the sort of shame, of course. I mean,

I remember as a young reporter the kind of scandal that blew around the fact that he had that he'd paid a sex worker and then taken the newspapers to court and gone to prison himself. I mean, it was extraordinary. I mean, who on earth could come back from a blow like that? Rob, I mean, most of our people in our audience will know him because of his books. Why do you think his books were so successful around the world? So I make a small confession here that I haven't read Jeffrey Archer's books, but I have been talking to all of my colleagues and all the reviewers. I know. Well, it's better to be honest, right?

But I'm told by people who love his books that he's just the ultimate storyteller, whether that's the books that he wrote at the start of his career, whether it's his prison diaries, and also just in person and that bit I had experience, that he has, if you're in an audience where Jeffrey Archer was telling a story, you were going to pay attention. What a life that's come to an end. Rob Watson. And from the life of an author, let's end with a story about books in the US.

A study there has found there were nearly 12,000 book bans in American public schools over the past year. The group Pan America, which campaigns for freedom of expression, says that's the highest number since it began tracking removals five years ago. This report from Ella Bicknell. A year ago, Texas introduced a law giving parents and school boards more power to challenge and remove books from school libraries. More than 8,000 bans have since been recorded in Texas alone.

12,000 across the US. Pen America says themes of race, sexuality and gender identity remain the most common reasons why books are challenged. The most prohibited book was sold by Patricia McCormick. Stephen King was the most widely banned author. There's also been increasing restrictions of Japanese manga and even Charlotte Bronte's classic Jane Eyre appeared on the list for the very first time. Several people have spoken out against the trend, including the actor Sarah Jessica. I have great concerns about what happens to these kinds of public institutions. I think they're the gateway for safety and understanding. And I have enormous faith that if we allow our librarians to do their job and for people to calm down and listen, we have an opportunity to be wonderfully

different people. Pen America says its 12,000 figure is likely an underestimate because books can be quietly removed from shelves under the guise of routine weeding. It also says artificial intelligence is increasingly being used to identify books for removal. Supporters of the restrictions say they're intended to protect children from material they consider inappropriate for their age. Opponents say censorship limits independent thought and expression. Allibic Nell. And that's all from us for now. And before we go, we have a a special request for you. Did you know there are nearly 1,300 terms and phrases used by election officials in the United States? So with midterms fast approaching, the Global News podcast is joining

forces with AmeriCast. Together, we'll be offering you a one-off, jargon-busting special, and we want your suggestions, please, for words and phrases that could do with an explanation. Nothing is too simple. In our sites already, are Senate, caucus, and gerrymander. Please let us know what else to add. It's the usual address, global podcast at BBC.co.com. You can now also watch our episodes in full. Just search for the Global News podcast on YouTube. This edition was mixed by Chris Lovelock and the producer was Stephanie Tillotson.

The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Celia Hatton. Until next time, goodbye. An observatory in space. This is the real deal. This is going to revolutionize astronomy. capable of capturing light from the dawn of the universe. It could be real exciting for the astronomical community, I guess,

and for the whole world to see what Hubble really can do. From the BBC World Service, 13 minutes, Trouble with Hubble, the story of the Hubble Space Telescape. Listen now on BBC.com, the BBC app, or wherever you get your BBC podcasts.