US fighter plane comes down in southern Iran

BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts. Hello and welcome to News After The BBC World Service. We're coming to you live from London. I'm James Menendez. And we're going to begin straight away today with those reports that an American fighter plane has come down over southern Iran. It was an F-15E, which normally has a crew of two. US media is saying that one of those crew members has been rescued. But we don't know about a second. The Iranian authorities say that their military shot down the plane and they've been offering a reward to anyone who captures a crew member. Here's what they've been saying on Iranian state TV. Attention, dear viewers, residents of Kohkiliyev and Boyar Ahmad province, brave and honorable people. If you capture an enemy pilot or pilots and hand them over alive to law enforcement or military forces, you will receive a valuable reward and bounty. Let's talk to Ioni Wells, our correspondent in Washington, D.C., who joins us now. Ioni, I mean, this did happen a few hours ago. Has there been any word from either the White House or the Pentagon about what has happened and what is happening now? No, we haven't had any official comment yet from either. Donald Trump was briefly stopped for questions by NBC here in the United States, asking if today's news would impact negotiations with Iran. He simply said no, but we haven't heard any direct comments so far from either the Pentagon and the White House. We have, though, had updates from unnamed US officials, including that the fallout from this incident seems to be worse than initially thought and reported. Not only did those US officials say that this F-15E plane was shot down this morning, but also that another aircraft that was part of the search and rescue mission for the down jet was also then shot and damaged. The pilot from that, which was an A-10 Warthog aircraft, ejected and was also successfully recovered. But then two helicopters that also took part in the rescue mission and retrieved the F-15E pilot who had ejected were continuing their search and rescue mission. One of them, who was carrying the rescued pilot, was then itself hit by a small arms fire, wounding the crew members on board. Now, we understand those involved are receiving medical treatment. There is still this ongoing search for the other crew member of that initial jet, but it certainly seems like the fallout of this was a much bigger incident than perhaps initially thought this morning. Yes, so from those sources, two planes have been downed, one helicopter has been hit, several of the crew have been wounded. And this is the first time any of this has happened during this conflict, isn't it? Yes, this is the first known case of a US aircraft allegedly being shot down over a run. We still, as I say, had that official confirmation from the White House that it was shot down, but in the conflict so far, the three other aircraft that had been brought down from the US's side was simply by accidental friendly fire in Kuwait. I think if it is confirmed, as is expected by some of these US officials, then this is certainly a significantly worrying moment for the US, given that this has happened after repeated claims from Donald Trump and his defence secretary and army officials that the US has air superiority, that it's so degraded Iran's air defences that it doesn't have that capability to fight back. And Mr. Trump even claiming that Iran can't do a thing about US planes flying over its country. That rhetoric, given incidents today, now does seem a little overconfident. And what we can gather, I think, from today's events is that while Iran may have a very reduced capacity to defend its skies, it still does maintain the ability to some extent to do so. Interesting and briefly, I only interesting that he mentioned, as you said, when he was talking to NBC, that it wouldn't affect negotiations with Iran. I mean, from the outside, I suppose they seem to have stalled. I mean, is that right? I mean, as far as we know, they haven't even started, to be honest. We've heard conflicting accounts from both sides about whether these talks are even ongoing. The US have claimed that privately they are having these conversations. Iran have always denied that. And the US have said that they're having constructive conversations, that it's all going pretty well from their point and urged Iran to make a deal. But the Iranians have always denied that those talks have even taken place. And in fact, they've been clear that they don't want negotiations to go on while hostilities continue. And given that we know there are still missiles being fired back and forth from both sides, certainly the conditions from Iran's perspective haven't been met yet. I only thank you very much indeed. I only well, so I'll cross bonnet in Washington, DC. I've also been speaking to Gonshay Habibi-Azad of BBC Persian. And I asked her with the usual caveats, what else has been coming out of official Iranian channels? The most prominent one that I've seen so far is by Iranian parliament speaker on his account on X. And he has mocked the US over what has happened. And that's what he has said, that the US has downgraded from regime change to, that's what Qadib al-Fassad on X, hey, can anyone find our pilots, please? Qadib al-Fassad's account has been very active on X, posting memes occasionally as well. But him himself hasn't been seen on state TV since 17 March, which could be a security measure, as we've seen that Israel and the US have targeted Iranian officials since the war started. But there was our unconfirmed reports about him, that he was the person that Iran was negotiating with the US with. But we don't have any confirmations yet. And also, what I'm seeing on state TV and on outlets is that some people in those provinces that are supposedly the fighter jet has crashed down there, they're looking for it, following the reports that there is a bounty for it. Some people are going out with guns and trying to find the jets. But this has been the case so far. We are not seeing much, I mean, it's night at the moment in Iran, and we're not seeing much going on there. But all we have seen so far was mostly from local media outlets. Yeah. There's also been these images of the wreckage. They've been disseminated on social media. And I think BBC Verify has said that it looks likely that that would be the wreckage of the jet. Yeah, they have said that it could be likely off that. Also, on the topic of like memes and everything that has been posted, Iran is currently on their internet outage at the moment. Some officials have access to the internet, some journalists, some pro-government users as well. And so far, I've been contacting some of my contacts inside Iran who have access to Starlink and they can connect to satellite internet. I was asking them, what do you think and what do you feel about the crash? And they were like, this is just something so weird. And one of them was very worried that this could give a reason to the US for a ground invasion. Another one was saying that this could lead to like a hostage. I think everyone was creating scenarios because there's so much unknown about what's going on right now. We don't know. Yeah. Just very, very briefly, what can you tell us about the part of Iran where it's thought that it came down? So it is in southern Iran, southern Western Iran. The video that BBC Verify has verified has been recorded in Uzestan, which is in southwestern Iran. It's a very oil-rich province and lots of companies are located there. Uzestan Steel Company, which was targeted in the strikes as well, is located there. There is another province near it, Koki Ljue and Boyer Ahmad. And that one we have seen, the Bound Teep is announced there and some people are looking for the death there. And these two are the ones, there are tribes there. There are people who are lor there, who speak their own language, lori, which is an ethnic minority in Iran. And that's all we know so far. That was Gonche Habibi Azad of BBC Pershing. Well, assuming that one crew member is still missing, what happens now? How does the US military plan for a rescue mission in hostile territory? Jonathan Hackett is a retired US Marine Corps Special Operations Specialist. Things like rescue missions. He's also written extensively about Iran's covert operations. And he provides commentary for the British Israel Communications and Research Centre or BICOM. I asked him what the crew would do first, assuming they had managed to eject safely. So the first thing they're going to try to do is seek cover and also get water. Because you have to think about the weather in this area. It's very warm during the day, about 37 degrees Celsius and then it gets a little chilly at night. So they're going to look for a place to find shelter, not to sleep overnight, but to get an idea of where they're at. They're going to break out a map and start trying to figure out where do they move to next. How do they make contact with base? Can they? Yes, they have multiple ways to communicate with the outside world. The typically they have at least four methods. And the problem here is that the better communication quality, the easier it will be to be discovered. So the pilot is going to have to make a decision there on the ground, whether it's the pilot or the weapons officer that's still there on the ground. He's going to have to decide how much do I want to expose myself right now to let the United States know where I am. If he uses a very good signal, then the Iranian government can also see that signal. If he uses something a little bit more primitive, it'll be harder for the US to see it, but it's a little bit safer for him to use. Would the Air Force, the US military more widely too? I mean, would they have a pretty good idea where they are? Yes. So before the pilots launch, they always have a flight plan that they brief to their team. The unit specifically that he launched from or she launched from will actually have access to that plan. And basically they'll follow that plan throughout the flight path. We don't know exactly how they went down or why they went down, but it would be in the general vicinity of the area that they had preplanned in advance. The challenge here is this is a very mountainous, rugged area, very low population. So even if they're on one section of that path, it may be divided by a very deep valley from the other part that they had briefed their commander on where they were supposed to be flying. Yeah. And we've seen this footage of a couple of helicopters and perhaps a surveillance plane flying over some of that mountainous region. I mean, getting them out once their location has been found. I mean, how risky is that? So it's exceptionally risky. And there are several options. There's a kind of a conventional way to get them out, which is those aircraft that you see where the US military will come in and actually take them in various ways. The other options are much riskier, but a little bit safer for the other US forces that would be in the area. And that's using locals who already have agreed in advance to work with the United States in something called a nonstandard assisted recovery mission that has been built very long in the past for years and has existed in this area for exactly this type of rescue mission. It's riskier, but there's a higher chance that the US person on the ground would be able to be rescued with less US footprint in Iran. Right. So there are people who will be working with the US military. I mean, Iran's a very big country. I mean, how many are there? So in this area, you've only a few hundred thousand people in the province that the pilot likely went down or the weapons officer went down. This area in the west is a typically restive area, especially the Lorry people and the Bahtiari people have long resisted the central government in terror. And they also have other people called Akhvazi, which are southwestern Iranian people, more aligned with the Arab speaking population in eastern Iraq. So there's already some areas that are a little more amenable to US interests, especially as far as recovery pathways are concerned. Yeah. But just briefly, I mean, presumably speed is of the essence because the Iranian military will also be trying to find them, right? Right. And actually the person on the ground is going to be going through four things in their mind. That's the weather, the enemy, terrain and time. And they're going to be balancing those four considerations at all times as they're moving throughout the mountains and then eventually into the desert areas where they try to be evacuated. They're going to have to make decisions about, do I move now or do I wait? And that decision could be life or death. That was Jonathan Hackett. There is a live page up and running with all the latest updates on this situation. It is at bbc.com forward slash news, but we will, of course, bring you any updates during this program. You're listening to Nusa. Coming up later with the Artemis Space Mission now set on course for the moon, we'll hear about plans for the minerals that may be found there at some future date. Why sending everything to Earth, which is so extremely expensive? Why not use what you have there? This is the living of the land concept. Use the water, use the oxygen, use the metals for construction, for landing pad, for habitats, for humans. That's the real value of the resources on the moon. More on that coming up in 20 minutes. Let's just recap our main news at the moment. Iran has shot down a US fighter jet over the southwest of the country. American forces have rescued one of the two crew, but a second plane involved in the rescue mission is reported to have crashed after being hit. The US losses come on a day of continued violence across the region, with Iran hitting critical infrastructure in Kuwait and in the UAE in response to the US Israeli bombing campaign. This is James Menendez with news live from the BBC. Now after five years of harsh military rule, Myanmar got a new president today. Only he's not really new. General Ming Ong Lai, the man who led the 2021 coup against the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, has been selected to lead the new notionally civilian administration by a parliament packed with military men and loyalists. The move is widely seen as an attempt by the military, which has been internationally ostracised to win more legitimacy. However, the civil war ignited by the coup continues, with daily airstrikes carried out against the large areas of Myanmar under the control of opposition forces. While Southeast Asia correspondent Jonathan Head has just been to Myanmar to watch, the last military parade presided over by Min Ong Lang before he gave up his command. On a vast parade ground overlooked by towering statues, thousands of soldiers march with impressive precision in front of their commander-in-chief. He's an unprepossessing figure, short and stout with blinking bespectacled eyes. Yet today General Min Ong Lai is by far the most powerful man in Myanmar, despite having led a catastrophic coup that tipped his country into civil war and being accused in international courts of genocide and crimes against humanity. They hold this parade every year in the strange, citadel-like capital of Nipidor. It's a reminder to the people of Myanmar of the tenacious holds the military has had over their country for most of its modern history. The formidable weaponry on display, also a reminder of how much this regime has been propped up by support from Russia and China. But this is the last time Min Ong Lai will preside over this. Five years after his coup, he's hanging up his uniform to become a civilian president. His final speech to the troops was as unyielding and unapologetic as all the others he's given here. The military has a constitutional right to get involved in politics, he said, and he dismissed those who've taken up arms against his regime as terrorists, led on by what he called foreign aggressors. There wasn't a hint of regret over the thousands of lives lost because of the coup. Jo Wynne, not his real name, was a student when he was arrested for taking part in a small flash mob protest in Yangon three years ago. He described days of torture in the interrogation centre. They beat me with iron bars, he told me. They burnt me with cigarettes, slashed my leg with a knife and sexually assaulted me. Only recently released from prison, he said he's had enough and wants to leave Myanmar. Thousands of other young people have already gone. If I stay in this country, I will always face all kinds of oppression. There is force in the country, and I will never be able to go back to the country. There are all kinds of oppression. There is forced conscription that really worries me. We are under constant surveillance. I love my family. I want to stay with them. But going overseas is now the best option for me. Dinsar Chunlei Yi made that decision a few months after the coup. As an organiser of the movement resisting military rule, there was already an arrest warrant out for her. From exile, she's kept up her campaign to restore democracy, and she's not impressed by Minong Line in civilian guise. He cannot credibly present himself as a legitimate president. He is not my president. He is not our president. For many people in Myanmar, this is not a transition to democracy, but simply an attempt to normalise impunity. They have long been enjoying in Myanmar. Dinsar Chunlei Yi ending that report by the BBC's Jonathan Hatt. Now, I think we can all agree that the octopus is one of the most fascinating creatures in the sea. Fascinating and mysterious. Among its mysteries has been its reproductive process. To put it more crudely, how it has sex. Well, now scientists at Harvard University in the US think they've unlocked part of the enigma about how the male is successful. Professor Nicholas Bellono, the senior author of the study published in the Journal of Science, has been talking to news hours Tim Franks. So what does the process actually involve with these many tentacle creatures? The male has one specialised arm. It's the third arm from the right. And it uses this arm not only to identify the female, but then it inserts the arm into the female mantle and then the arm searches around the internal organs and finds the overduct. And then once it finds the overduct, both the male and the female freeze. And then the male passes a spermatophore, which is a package of sperm from its mantle down the length of the specialised arm to the overduct and then that's when fertilisation happens. Right. And just to be clear, the mantle is this sort of bulbous structure behind the eyes. Head. Yes, the head. How does the male know when it sort of hit the right part as it were? And what have you discovered on that? We discovered this kind of by accident. So they don't mate often and octopuses actually don't interact often. They're solitary. When they do interact, they're very aggressive. And so we wanted to observe mating in the lab. And so our idea was to put two octopuses into one tank, but be mindful that they are aggressive together. So we put a barrier between them and then we put little holes in that barrier so that they could sort of get used to one another and recognise that there is an octopus in the tank. And then our plan was to remove the barrier so they could mate. However, the male octopus was able to put the specialised mating arm through one of those holes, find the female and initiate mating. So this told us already that they were able to mate without visual information because they were blocked by this barrier and they could do the same thing in complete darkness. So the discovery even at that point is that this specialised arm for mating is actually a sensor of the female. And that led to the rest of the study, which is to define how it serves as a sensory organ, which was unknown. Your research, and I'm not in any way sort of downplaying it, but it's essentially it's all about sort of trying to work out how the male is, you know, responds to stimuli and is satisfied and decides where he's going to stick his third tentacle. Is there any suggestion or interest in how female octopuses decide that they're going to allow a male to mate with them? Yeah, definitely. This is a really interesting part of the system. So there's two things that the female does that contributes to selection of a mate. One is the behavioural aspect that we watched with this barrier, where she will accept or not accept the male to find her with the hectic collar and initiate mating so she can swim away if she doesn't like that particular male. And then the other part that's really interesting to me is that she also can select which sperm she uses to fertilise the eggs. So even from wild caught females can look in the oviduct, find a different sperm from different octopuses of the same species. Also even some octopuses of different species will try to cross mate. And she can save the sperm for a really long time and then decide not only when to fertilise the eggs, but which sperm to select. Professor Nicholas Bellono of Harvard University, yeah, unlocking some of the secrets of the mysterious octopus. You're listening to News Hour from the BBC World Service. Do stay with us. We've got lots more coming up, including the latest on the Artemis II mission that's coming up in a few moments time. Welcome back to News Hour. We're going to turn to Ukraine now because there's been no let up in the intensity of Russian attacks over the past few days. And today was no exception. Our correspondent in Kiev, Sarah Rainsford, has been telling me about those recent attacks. It was another large scale attack. So this was a combination of hundreds of drones and three dozen missiles that were launched by Russia across Ukraine starting overnight, but then coming in waves and continuing into the middle of this morning, which I think is a bit of a shift in tactics by Russia because daytime attacks, big attacks, haven't been common, but there have been two now in just over a week. Seven days ago, there was a really large attack using hundreds and hundreds of drones and missiles. So this has followed on. There are six people that we know so far have been killed around about 40 people injured across the country in various places. And we've seen very dramatic pictures, one of them in particular of a Russian drone slamming into the side of a block of flats and of course bursting into flames and another series of pictures from rescue workers showing them digging through the rubble of people's homes, multiple residential buildings, which were just reduced to ruins and people trapped under that and injured in that particular incident. So really a large scale attack. And it came even as President Zelensky here had been calling on Russia to agree to a truce for the Easter period. And he said that this was proof that they were not interested in that. He said that they wanted an Easter escalation and intensification of their attacks rather than a pause in the hostilities. And Sarah, what about the fact that lots of the world's attention is now on what's going on in Iran? I mean, what impact is that having, I guess, both militarily and diplomatically as far as the Ukraine war is concerned? I mean, I think the first big impact it's having is that the efforts to come to some kind of peace deal that were mediated by the United States, those efforts have pretty much stalled. There have been two postponements of planned meetings and they're just not happening at the moment. So Russia says they're on hold. President Zelensky says he's happy for the US mediators to come here to meet him and then to shuttle to Moscow to talk to them. But at the moment that's just not happening. And then in the meantime, there's lots of concerns here in Ukraine linked to the war in the Middle East because it means it's pushing up energy prices and diesel in particular is what Ukraine needs in large amounts to keep its tanks rolling and to keep its vehicles on the road. So that's a big worry for the troops. But it also is a worry that the US is sending so many of its anti defense missiles to the Middle East because Ukraine needs to buy those to protect its cities and its civilian infrastructure here in the country and its military sites too. So it's a big worry that going forward there is going to be an even greater shortage of those vital Patriot air defense missile systems for here in Ukraine. And that was correspondent Sarah Rainsford speaking to me there from the Ukrainian capital key. If you're listening to NewsHour from the BBC. This is the BBC World Service in London. You're listening to NewsHour and I'm James Menendez. The four astronauts on board Artemis 2 have been talking about the thrilling experience of leaving the Earth's orbit and heading out into space towards the far side of the moon. All went to plan when they fired up their capsule's engines to leave orbit and begin their four-day journey to the mysterious dark side. Watching Earth as it so slowly shrinks into the distance. Now within the past hour, NASA officials have been giving an update on the mission. Here's a short flavor of what they said. Beginning with a glimpse of one of the first photographic images the crew have sent home. This first one we got to the ground shows the unique vantage point of the crew as they look back at the Earth. It shows a backlit Earth revealing auroras as the crew heads towards the moon. This morning when the crew woke up they had their normal planning conferences and then they were able to do their family conferences so they ever talked to their family. We had planned today a trajectory correction burn for OTC-1 is what it's called orbiter trajectory correction. The systems are doing so well navigation and propulsion systems together that that was not needed so we'll roll that in to the next plan trajectory correction tomorrow. It's just awesome to see from our spaceship out the window our beautiful home planet the Earth and it just brings a lot of great emotion to me to see that picture being taken. I know there's a lot of other pictures that we're going to see that are just going to be outstanding and fantastic. Space journalist Kate Arkless Gray has been telling me more about the next steps in their journey. They've got a few days yet to get to the moon it's a very long way away. They've just passed over about 100,000 miles from Earth they've still got about another 150,000 miles to go and just a small correction for you they're not going to see the dark side it's actually the far side. Ah well I got the two confused so what's the difference? It's an easy mistake to make I've made that same mistake while talking to Jim Lovell of Apollo 13 so the far side is the part of the moon that we never see from Earth. The moon always shows the same face to us but while some parts of the moon are dark at certain times very much like they are on Earth that changes so you can't say the dark side as a location that would be like saying like currently I'm on the dark side of Earth because it's night time in London but I'll still be in London tomorrow when the sun is shining. Yes I know I've now realised what an incredibly stupid thing that that was to say. I mean how comfortable are they in their capsule? Well it's there's not a huge amount of space for them but I don't think that comfort is really their their main concern they all seem absolutely delighted to be up there looking out of those windows and what what of you to see the Earth to see the whole of the Earth so few people have ever seen that nobody in my generation in my lifetime has ever been so far away from the Earth and even when you're on the International Space Station there's something called the overview effect you know that idea that once you're so far from Earth you get to see you see it as a planet not not as a country not as a town not as a village it's a whole planet and I think the words that Vixxig Lover used to describe it you know actually really quite moving you know up here from up here you all look like one thing home and sapiens it's all of us no matter where you're from or what you look like we're all one people and with so much destruction and division around the world it is such a privilege to be able to talk about you know a really inspirational best of humanity kind of mission. Kate Arkless Gray well the current focus on the moon and the prospect of humans landing there again in the next couple of years is also renewing attention on what is actually up there first in terms of resources that could be used to sustain a moon base and help astronauts return to Earth and second whether there are valuable metals and minerals that could be mined and brought back I've been talking to Angel Aboud Madrid who's director of the Center for Space Resources at the Colorado School of Mines in Denver in the US first off what is up there. If you look at it it's not just minerals you have a possibility of water on the craters on the lunar poles and if you have water you have water for human consumables and also to make fuel hydrogen and oxygen on the minerals and rocks and there's 45 percent of the mononist oxygen that is locked on these minerals and you can extract them by heating it up and then you do have some metals titanium you have iron you have aluminum all of those that can be utilized for a variety of applications. Tell us about helium-3 because there's a lot of interest in that what is it and why is it so valuable? The interest on helium-3 is because it's probably the only element that it's in larger abundance on the moon that you find it on earth this material was discovered during the Apollo missions more than 50 years ago and the interest was immediately as a fuel for fusion this is when you bring together in this case two isotopes of helium helium-3 you put them together energies release as electricity and also the result is non-radioactive waste it's just helium and so the thought was once we have fusion this could be a great fuel for this. Is it ever going to be feasible and and indeed economical to bring any of this back to earth given the huge costs at the moment in launching space missions? The cheapest that you have you can have things on the surface of the moon is about a hundred thousand dollars per kilogram and that's in the low end so it really doesn't make sense the only element that has been of interest is helium-3 just because of the abundance that you get on on the moon. Who owns all the stuff on the moon I mean does anyone own it? Nobody according to our the outer space treaty of 1967 it belongs to humankind and that's why as we start looking at resources from the moon and asteroids and Mars the legal aspects have also been moving quite rapidly how do we interpret the outer space treaty? Maybe you don't own it but can you have a use a certain area of the moon to extract certain things and utilize them for your lunar base or whatever it is but not own it and it's mostly for uses on the moon I mean that's where the value of these resources are if you're going to have a base on the moon why sending everything to earth which is so extremely expensive why not use what you have there this is the living of the land concept use the water use the oxygen use the metals for construction for landing path for habitats for humans that's the real value of the resources on the moon. And what about the sort of ethical and environmental concerns about exploiting the moon's resources where do you stand on that? One must be conscious first of all of scientific interest and utilization interest scientists will like to keep certain areas pristine in order to have scientific information at the same time that all these activities happening there's a way for both of them to come together and some of the activities to extract resources can have important scientific implications and vice versa but there's concern about for example we extract all the water from the moon it's a non-renewable resource the moon has been an object of adoration for every civilization on earth since the beginning of times so some of them have connections you know religious connections or emotional attachment to that and they wouldn't like to have that disturbed so this is a conversation that we must have and it's actually ongoing now from various communities cultures countries on how is to best utilize the moon for things that will help us just like we're utilizing space for satellites without disturbing or any kind of conflict. That was Angel Abu Madri director of the center for space resources at the Colorado School of Mines. Now Pope Leo will give his first Easter blessing on Sunday traditionally an opportunity to appeal for an end to conflict and strife something there's no shortage of right now indeed he's already made plain his feelings about President Trump's attack on Iran describing it as a scandal to the whole human family but it's just one bone of contention between the Vatican and the White House with immigration policy the oil blockade of Cuba the assault on Venezuela all driving a wedge between them and yet to the administration's most powerful figures the vice president JD Vance and secretary of state Marco Rubio Rubio are both Roman Catholics and the defense secretary Pete Hegses invoked religious language during the war calling for overwhelming violence against those who deserve no mercy Mattia Ferraresi writes for the left-leaning Italian daily Domani he's also writing a book about Trumpism how unusual is it for a pope to be so critical of a particular government has been uncommon in the past to be so critical although we have to say that we had Pope Francis for 13 years that was a long time of a very comparatively outspoken pope so in a way there is a signal of continuity in that and we have to say also that Pope Leo so far did not address openly the Trump administration except in one situation which was like very mild and not adversarial but implicitly has been very very clear about who is talking to when it comes to the masses especially regarding the war in Iran do you think that some of the sort of religious language that in particular the defense secretary Pete Hegses has used talking about the war I mean do you think some of the criticism might be a response to that I'm personally convinced that it triggered something the pope has been very explicit in condemning whoever uses the name of God for waging war so the short answer is yes because I think the Pentagon and especially as you mentioned secretary accept raised up the volume of those kind of religious calling in the past few weeks and months do you think there are those in the administration that will heed what the pope has to say I mean we you know JD Vance is a Catholic Marco Rubio's a Catholic these are people with influence in the administration so do you think the fact that he has spoken in the way he has will make any difference I think we should put things in context the relationship between the holy sea and this administration it's formally good but in truth is not particularly good and this has been going on for months actually from the very beginning after the pope Leo election so even with people like Marco Rubio and especially the vice president JD Vance relationship has not being particularly good so what didn't work in the past year it's hard for me to see that this is going to work right now and how do you explain that I mean the pope is the head of the Catholic church surely someone like JD Vance has to listen to what he has to say I think in a way they have to in another way they don't meaning they consider I think themselves as elected official and so they have a duty toward their people their electors and their president too so I think they are caught a little bit between two opposing forces Marco Rubio the other day gave again a new rationale for the war and it sounds like more reasonable and the reasons they are political and not moral or spiritual I think they're handling in that way they're separating the two spheres tell us about the tech billionaire Peter Teal I mean he's a big supporter of the Trump administration and he came to Rome didn't he to talk about the Antichrist and I mean I'm just paraphrasing but essentially I think he thinks the Antichrist is the opponent of technological progress I mean how did that go down with the Vatican it was probably hoping to have an audience of like respected theologians and people from the Vatican taking his theories and his theological views seriously and the opposite probably happened there was like a pretty significant campaign that churches media and Catholic influencers did against them but still I think there was an apoplectic type of reaction from the church making sure that he wasn't particularly welcome in Rome and that the Catholic intelligentsia would not engage with his ideas that was a Mattia Ferra Rezzi journalist with the Italian newspaper Dom Marni you're listening to News Hour from the BBC This is James Menendez with News Hour Holy Week the lead up to Easter has been a subdued affair this year in Jerusalem as the war against Iran and Israel's assault on Hezbollah in Lebanon continue it's been the same story for Muslims with Eid and now for Israeli Jews with Passover pilgrims and tourists have largely stayed away from the old city where sacred sites with immense significance for billions of Christians Muslims and Jews around the world have been closed earlier today there were a few people out on the streets Sonia Attulla lives in the old city she was with her friend Teresa visiting from Spain they told the BBC they were frustrated they weren't able to get to religious sites associated with the crucifixion I'm actually from here from the old city it happened here so everyone focuses on here you know and everyone comes here so it's normally very busy so this year we are seeing the difference I'm not from here but I've lived here for 10 years and it's true that today we're not only seeing less people like this week but also we are seeing like all the restrictions and we are kind of like stopped at every point Kelly Rice is a pilgrim who traveled from the United States even though we can't go into the churches right now it doesn't stop us still from walking in the presence of the Lord walking in the spirit it still goes what the good works so it's not about what you can do inside of a church it's about what you can do to bring the message of peace out to everybody else and Jacob was trying to get to the western war where Jews gather to pray this is a holy place the people of Israel is the people that don't like to do the wars you want peace you want shalom from world to world and this is the place that you want to pray unfortunately we're doing the war but this is the way and it's hard in spite of all this the spirit of Jerusalem persists as our correspondent Sebastian Uschanow reports welcome back thank you it's good to be back yes very quiet old friends meeting up again in the christian quarter in the old city lamenting events that have made holy week leading up to Easter a shadow of itself is a Jerusalem resident whose family has lived here for generations tries to be hopeful as befits the man known as the city's one and only Santa Claus whatever happened still Jerusalem you can feel the heart yes with him a toman Samantha an american couple who've been coming here for Easter for the past eight years and we're not going to be put off this year it's so powerful to be in the place where where jesus walked where all of the holy week events literally took place so that is so moving to us we felt like this is something we're supposed to do so we were feeling a little frustrated because we did try to come and the flights got canceled and we felt really strongly because we come to pray the events need prayer so for Samantha and I felt like something very important to do right now but yeah it feels different our families definitely felt more trepidation about it i'm standing here in what is normally especially during holy week the week leading up to Easter one of the busiest parts of the old city of Jerusalem very very unlike any time that i've seen here before in the old city just looking to my left i see the gateway which leads into the church of a holy sepulchre that's closed there are two guards who are stopping people from going in there this is a very very different sense of what the city normally represents for christians around the world three weeks ago a fragment from an iranian missile made impact on the edge of the old city just a few hundred meters from the church of a holy sepulchre alaksa and the western wall all closed for fear of mass casualties where a missile to strike during mass religious gatherings so on palm sunday the church of beth page up on the mount of olives held a mass for local christians the joyous procession with thousands of worshipers from near and far holding palms that normally sets off from there was cancelled the destination is traditionally the church of a holy sepulchre at the same time that mass was being held in beth page the latin patriarch cardinal pier batista pizza baller was denied entry to jewsland's most revered church by israeli police the incident sparked an international outcry the break in centuries old tradition was also felt deeply by local christians like isa let's make me feel sad first as a patriarch because he is a leader of the head church of jr. like he's this is like his house it's like my house and also this is his house he's more important person for jr. this is like he's going home you cannot tell someone don't go to your home good afternoon and welcome to this conference two days later inside the latin patriarchate cardinal pizza baller played the incident down as a misunderstanding the limited mass he was due to hold on palm sunday the church of a holy sepulchre is now being allowed to go ahead on Easter sunday and he reiterated how he and other religious leaders accepted the wartime restrictions but grieved that holy week felt bereft the jr. is not complete you see it's almost almost dead unfortunately a place of life but without life in this moment which is very safe that report from jewsland by our middle east correspondent sabastian asher now a sweeter ending to the program because it's fair to say that marmalade is a big part of british culture at least it is when it comes to paddington bear um perhaps you would like a marmalade sandwich i always keep one for emergencies so do i i keep mine in here sharing his love of marmalade alongside the late queen elizabeth who seemed to love it too to some it may come as a bit of a shock then that the orange spread full of peel may have to be renamed this comes as a result of the uk government's planned e-u food deal the renaming might mean that marmalade would have to be called wait for it citrus marmalade as the uk would have to acknowledge the presence of similar fruit based spread saying continental europe um annie grazer food historian and radio presenter here she is talking about its place on the british breakfast table we were making orange marmalades from the late 16th century and gradually they started to take over but i mean we still had other forms of marmalade right up until the 19th century and marmalade just meant a sort of very stiff paste and by that point we'd got the word jam so gradually marmalade became orange marmalade and the reason it was called orange marmalade within the e-u or rather just marmalade meant orange within the e-u for so long is precisely because of british lobbying in the 1970s to recognize marmalade as only orange so it's all about the british version of what marmalade is and kind of does ignore the fact that elsewhere the original word is still used much more widely and the word marmalade comes from the portuguese for quince indeed marmalo uh dr ani grazer food historian bringing us to the end of this edition of news out from me and the rest of the team thanks so much for listening until the next time bye bye