This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. It's time to see what you can accomplish with Shopify by your side. This is not the future we were promised. Like, how about that for a tagline for the show? From the BBC, this is The Interface, the show that explores how tech is rewiring your week and your world. This isn't about quarterly earnings or about tech reviews. It's about what technology is actually doing to your work and your politics, your everyday life. and all the bizarre ways people are using the internet. Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts. This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Emily Thomas and at 16 GMT on Wednesday the 11th of March, we bring you the latest on the conflict in the Middle East. Iran launches more strikes on its neighbours after again coming under attack. Three commercial ships are hit in the Gulf, and member countries of the International Energy Agency agree to make their biggest ever intervention in the oil market. Also in this podcast, exploding parcels. Our correspondent investigates a sabotage attack coordinated by Russian military intelligence. And conversations with hedgehogs. Hedgehogs? Imagine that they're actually blabbering all the time and we just couldn't hear it. Scientists identify the full range of hedgehogs hearing, a discovery which could help save their lives. There's been no let up in the conflict in the Middle East, with US and Israeli strikes continuing in Iran and Lebanon. Iran continues to fight back and striking targets in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait. Israeli territory has also been hit. The US says it sunk 16 Iranian mine-laying vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, which is a key passage for oil exports connecting the Gulf to the Arabian Sea. Three commercial vessels have also been hit in the Gulf, including a Thai-flagged cargo ship which was attacked while sailing through the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict has effectively blocked vital shipping lanes through the Strait, halting the flow of one-fifth of the world's fossil fuel supplies. More on the financial impact in a moment. But first, our correspondent Barbara Pletasha, who's in the Qatari capital, Doha, told Ankur Desai more about these latest attacks. We had a couple of loud explosions here just recently in Qatar, and the Qatari said that they were intercepting incoming missiles. You also had in Saudi Arabia reports that they shot down missiles aimed at the main military base there and drones that were targeting the major oil field there. The United Arab Emirates said early this morning it was also responding to a barrage of missiles, and we've heard now that two drones have fallen near the airport. Bahrain was warning its residents to seek shelter very early this morning. Not clear what happened there. The Iranians say that they fired at military installations there. They also say they fired at a U.S. base in Kuwait, although that hasn't been confirmed by either of those countries. And in Iraq, a drone struck a major U.S. diplomatic facility, the Baghdad Diplomatic Support Center, no injuries, and apparently there were six drones fired in total. Five of them shot down. And then further north, in northern Iraq, at least three drones were intercepted on the outskirts of Erbil. So that's across the region. Barbara, what about the latest on the activity in the Strait of Hormuz? There have been three suspected Iranian attacks on ships this morning. The latest one reported by a UK maritime monitor saying that it was hit in the Strait of Hormuz. It was a bulk carrier and the crew are safe, it said. Earlier there was a Thai-flagged ship that was struck as it was trying to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. A fire started and the crew had to abandon ship, but again I believe there were no casualties. Then in the very early hours of this morning, of Wednesday morning, a container ship owned by a Japanese shipping company was hit in the Gulf with partial damage to the hull, but the crew was safe. So that's now about 14 ships, I think, that have been hit in suspected Iranian attacks in the Gulf area since the war began. The strait itself is largely shut down, but one analyst who spoke to the BBC said that there were these single ships, he called them singletons, trying to make it through still. And that was happening. But also, he said, if ships group together at some point, they may try and get an able escort, which the US and the Europeans have both been talking about. The Israeli military says it's begun a wave of attacks on Beirut and Iran simultaneously. In Lebanon, the IDF says it's targeting Hezbollah command centres and weapon sites. The Lebanese health ministry says Israeli strikes have now killed nearly 600 people since the war began. The latest airstrikes have hit southern Beirut, from where our correspondent Karine Torbi has sent this report. I am here in the heart of the capital. This is a residential area called Aisha Bakar. And I'm just standing in front of a building where an apartment was struck in the very early hours of this morning. Of course, the damage is expensive. Nearby buildings, cars and apartments have been extensively damaged. And people here are in absolute shock. This is in the heart of the capital. And as I mentioned, this is a residential area. Families, people were here. And this is a neighborhood that people thought was somehow safe. People I spoke to here told me they never, never considered this area to be in danger or that it could be targeted by any strike. But this has happened this morning, and this is the second time in less than a week that the capital, Beirut, is struck. The first time was in a hotel in Beirut, and Israelis actually killed four Iranian diplomats that were staying in a very famous hotel. And now this apartment here. Across Iran, the strikes have been aimed at infrastructure targets. There are reports that Iran's new supreme leader, Mujtabar Khamenei, may have been wounded, but there's been no official comment on that yet. Our correspondent Yolande Nell is in Jerusalem. She spoke to Anka Desai. In Tehran, first of all, I mean, the heavy bombings continued with more explosions being reported there as the US and Israel continued to strike. That's where the Israeli military says its aim is to deepen the damage on the regime. In some of its latest strikes, it says it's targeted Iranian forces preparing to launch missiles at Israel. And it's also targeted, it says, key command centers for Iran's armed forces, particularly in the west of the country. There were some more comments from the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on his ex-account, where he addressed the people of Iran, calling on them to overthrow their religious leadership, to gain their freedom. We are creating the conditions for you to act. In the coming days, we will pass the torch to you, he said. grasp your destiny. And Israeli commentators are really saying that despite the fact there are these repeated calls on people to rise up in Iran, Israeli officials do seem to be lowering their expectations about the prospect of regime change. Israeli commenters saying that there are no signs of regime collapse or defeat, maybe just some cracks at the moment as a direct result of the ongoing strikes. And so the goals appear to be more about, you know, degrading Iran's military as much as possible and the governing capabilities of the Iranian regime. There are also reports that Iran's new supreme leader, Mojtabar Khamenei, has been injured. We haven't seen or heard from him so far. What more do we know? Yeah, this is interesting because Iranian state television has used a term to describe him, which is being sort of translated as wounded veteran. The New York Times and Reuters claim to have Israeli intelligence sources. The American newspaper is saying it also got Iranian officials who are saying that he was lightly wounded at least in some of the earlier joint strikes by Israel and the US and suggesting that why he not been seen in public or even in any kind of video message since he was named as the leader And, you know, the New York Times is saying that he's believed to be in a secure location with very little communication. Yoland Nell there in Jerusalem. It's hard to overstate how much fluctuations in oil prices affect the world, from petrol pumps to heating, industrial production and manufacturing. So a decision to release hundreds of millions of barrels from reserves to try to stabilise the markets isn't to be taken lightly. But in response to the situation in Iran, the 32 member countries of the International Energy Agency have now unanimously agreed to make their biggest ever intervention in the oil market. Fatih Birol is Executive Director of the IEA. As a result of the discussions among IEA members, I can now announce that IEA countries have unanimously decided to launch the largest ever release of emergency oil stocks in our agency's history. A year countries will be making 400 million barrels of oil available. To be clear, the most important thing for a return to stable flows of oil and gas is the resumption of transit through the state of Hormuz. The release of the emergency reserves is more than double the amount made available after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022. Our business correspondent Michelle Fleury has more details. The action that we're seeing here by the IEA and the scale of it is very significant. The fact that they're doing the biggest strategic release of oil reserves in its history, double anything we've seen before in terms of size. They're trying to make a statement here. And I think it underscores the seriousness of the situation when you've got the Strait of Hormuz, which is responsible for about a fifth of the world's oil passing through there. It expresses the concern, but it's in the detail, as always. Crucially, they say that they are not releasing details of the time frame or the specific amounts. So, in other words, will this be drip, drip, drip? Will there be a big release in one go? And I think, in part, you take that together with the fact that we don't know how long the conflict is going to last. And if you look at what has happened to Brent crude, initially, obviously, there was some optimism. And so it helped bring down the price of oil. That didn't last long. And Brent crude is back up to $90 a barrel right now. How influential do you think the Europeans were in this decision, Michelle? Because the G7 countries were talking today. Emmanuel Macron was leading that discussion. And they were putting pressure on the IEA to start talking about the strategic reserve. Yeah, I mean, look, I think it played a significant role. But you have to remember that, as you said in your introduction, there's about 30 or so countries involved here. Any one of them, if they had sought to block this, potentially could have scuppered the deal. So really, it speaks to kind of the unanimity amongst these people right now and their concern about this situation. But ultimately, I was speaking to an analyst a couple of hours ago. They were telling me, you have to get the flow going again. So this is a band-aid, but ultimately, because of sort of the role the Strait of Ormuz plays, you need the flow going through that. There is talk about naval vessels escorting tankers through there, but even trying to set that up is going to take time. And so perhaps this is about bridging that gap with these reserves until there is some sort of way to work out how to kind of resume the flow, because ultimately that is what's going to take the pressure and that is the point at which you'll see the oil price come down. Michelle Fleury speaking to Christian Fraser. Inside Iran, there have been fresh airstrikes, according to the Israeli military. John Sudworth has pulled together a picture of the last 24 hours inside the Islamic Republic. After the US Defence Secretary promised the most intense day of bombardments yet, Late into the night, cities across Iran were rocked by the sound of explosions. The vast majority of Iranians are suffering this onslaught in enforced silence. To stifle any internal opposition, the government has cut off the internet. But some voices are finding ways to circumvent the censorship, the very few who have access to VPN software or satellite phones. So, with government channels, uncensored of course, showing footage of the devastation, with emergency teams working in destroyed buildings, what do Iranians make of the war, 12 days in? Our colleagues at the BBC's Persian service asked two residents, who were both supporters of the anti-government protests that shook Iran earlier this year and were put down with brutal force, how they view things now. First, a woman in her 20s from Tehran. Does she now harbour anger towards those bombing her country, or is it still reserved only for her leaders and the Islamic Republic? Islamic Republic. I'll be angry with America and Israel too, but first the Islamic Republic, which dragged the country into a war. It caused all this damage. I think if Trump stops, people will pour into the streets. This man, also in his 20s, but from another heavily targeted city, Karaj, is less optimistic about war bringing any kind of positive change. From the beginning, I never really count on Trump's promises anyway. In my opinion, the future of Iranian people isn't even the smallest of factors in their calculation. I'm not angry at America or Israel at all, even if they end the attacks. Why should it matter to another country. They have always acted for their own benefit. My anger is toward the Islamic Republic. All the blame, including the war and the destruction, is on the Islamic Republic. Right now, I feel like U.S. and Israel have to some extent achieve what they want. They just want to make sure the regime can never stand back up again or coach trouble for them. Otherwise, even if they want to change the regime, it wouldn't be for the benefit of the people of Iran. Other Iranians simply speak of their terror, their fatigue, and the risks from the burning buildings and oil fields that make the air thick with smoke and the rain black with tar. It's currently raining in Tehran, so you can hear the droplets of water falling down in the background. And, yeah, the bombing is intensive, I would say. It doesn't really matter if it's close to where we live or it's far. The sound is so loud that it would be heard across the city. So I'm not really sure how many bombs have been dropped on Tehran. For now, despite the onslaught, in its outward messaging at least, the government remains defiant. still threatening retaliation against America while warning its own people of harsh consequences for anyone found collaborating with the enemy. John Sudworth. So what about the humanitarian situation inside Iran? Jan Eglund is the Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council, the biggest Western humanitarian organisation operating there. He spoke to Justin Webb. We have 110 aid workers on the ground in Iran. Many of them have fled themselves now, but we put up eight relief centers in as many provinces. What our people on the ground tell us is that the bombing is intense. It's around the clock and it's all over this vast country. So millions are fleeing. You cannot have this kind of an intense air campaign on heavily populated urban areas without vast consequences for ordinary people. And the same thing is happening in Lebanon, where well over half a million is fleeing in that small place. So I find this to be not well portrayed when it is in the West seen as some kind of a military strategic chess game. who running out of missiles first It first and foremost an immense strategy for millions and millions and millions of families who are running out of missiles first It first and foremost an immense tragedy for millions and millions and millions of families on both sides of this crossfire And when you talk of them fleeing in Iran, to where are they fleeing? Out of the main urban centres, especially Tehran, to smaller places. But many say we felt we were safe when we left Tehran in a great hurry. But they're also bombing here. I mean, they're bombing in the east where we serve the millions of Afghan refugees. Iran has one of the highest refugee populations in the world. Many more Afghans are seeking protection in Iran than in Europe combined. They are also hit by all of this. What would you say then to those in Iran who have been welcoming what has happened? And there's no doubt there are some of them. Do you think the balance of those who welcome it and those who don't will change? It's a political question in many ways. I would just say that, I mean, I think all are now yearning for a ceasefire. And this kind of air raids, thousands of air raids on heavily populated areas in Iran, in Lebanon and from Iran on civilian populations is going to make things worse by the day and it will solve nothing. Jan Eglund speaking to Justin Webb. Still to come in this podcast calls for more women to be involved in the development of artificial intelligence. We're just not involved in the design so you know this has happened throughout science not just in computing and AI. Starting a business can be overwhelming. You're juggling multiple roles designer, marketer, logistics manager, all while bringing your vision to life. Shopify helps millions of business sell online. Build fast with templates and AI descriptions and photos, inventory and shipping. Sign up for your one euro per month trial and start selling today at shopify.nl. That's shopify.nl. It's time to see what you can accomplish with Shopify by your side. This is not the future we were promised. Like, how about that for a tagline for the show? From the BBC, this is The Interface, the show that explores how tech is rewiring your week and your world. This isn't about quarterly earnings or about tech reviews. It's about what technology is actually doing to your work and your politics, your everyday life. And all the bizarre ways people are using the internet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. This is the Global News Podcast. In July 2024, a parcel burst into flames just before it was loaded onto a DHL cargo flight to the UK, one of several incendiary devices sent by post from Lithuania. Now an international investigation has concluded that this was a sabotage attack coordinated by Russian military intelligence against countries allied with Ukraine. 22 suspects have been detained and will soon stand trial in Lithuania and Poland. In recent months, a wave of such attacks across Europe have been linked to Russia, though Moscow consistently denies involvement. As part of her investigation, our Eastern Europe correspondent Sarah Rainsford has been speaking exclusively to the man who sent the parcels to Britain. This was a sabotage operation run from Russia through messages on Telegram. Can you meet a man tomorrow? Collect the boxes. Hi, can do. In person? Yes, OK. Details soon. I've had unprecedented access to the texts, and they show that in the summer of 2024, a user called HK was sending instructions to Aleksandr Shuranovas in Lithuania. He was told to collect four parcels in Vilnius and post them to the UK and Poland. So what's the pay? And what's inside? They'll give 150 euros. Hold on, I'll send a picture. What? That reaction is because the pictures showed tubes of face cream, massage cushions and sex toys. But concealed inside the parcels, there was a liquid high explosive. These were improvised incendiary devices, and one of them would burst into flames just before being loaded onto a DHL flight to Britain. Any later could have been disastrous. I have now met Alexander Shuranovas. It's the first time any suspect in this case has spoken publicly. I wrote to him in prison as I investigated a wave of sabotage attacks across Europe. And when he was released recently to await trial, he agreed to an interview. I didn't know what I was part of. I was just sending some parcels and no more. Shuranovas is 53. He's tall and talkative, and he maintains he would never knowingly have handled explosives. I would not have agreed to this, not even for a million dollars. Even though we had money problems, I would not have done it. Why would I need a million if I'm going to end up in prison for life? But he did send the parcels. The joint investigation team just released this video, and in it you can clearly see Shiranivas on CCTV posting the four boxes. Then there's his arrest, placed down on the floor. His story, together with the many case files I've seen, reveals the threat that Russia now poses, as it actively recruits within Europe for people to carry out its attacks. Sometimes you hear people talk about a shadow war by Russia. Do you think that's what we're seeing? I wouldn't call it shadow. I think it's pretty intense, active confrontation. I think this is active aggression against our nations. And we are in a different ballgame. Vilmenter Svitkowskis is crisis manager at the prime minister's office in Vilnius. It's quite a clear message that those who support Ukraine, they will be hit by the Russians. we followed the route Shuranovas took last July when his wife drove him to the pickup so this is the small park where Alexander Shuranovas sat on a bench and waited for the man who was to hand him the four parcels but he's told me he had no idea that inside those boxes were the devices that this courier had already prepared and had set to go off all over Europe. The files I've seen show Shuranovas was the last link in a long chain, where each person had a task. Set the timers, supply the cars, move the parcels. Many seem to have known only their part and not the full picture. Shuranovas tells me HK, the man who hired him, was an old acquaintance from Russia he'd done business with before. In the chat he asks, Shuranovas is Lithuanian, but Russian is his first language. He talks of money troubles and of a criminal record he has for theft and fraud. So I point out he has the exact profile Moscow usually looks for. culture. Sharanovas tells me he'd have to be stupid though, because he got his wife to drive him to the deliveries and he used his own debit card. At the DHL office they used near the airport, a member of staff inspected the parcels he brought in then very closely. She even taped up a leaking tube, unaware that it contained an explosive. The next day, that package burst into flames at Leipzig airport. Another went off near Warsaw and a third at the DHL warehouse in Birmingham. Investigators can't be sure whether Russia's ultimate aim was to bring down a plane or to intimidate countries aiding Ukraine. But the capacity to do harm is clear. And I've discovered that the parcel plotters had no plans to stop. Sharanovas told me he'd already been hired to send three or four parcels every month. The next delivery was due a few days after he was arrested. Sarah Rainsford With the AI revolution well underway the technology seems to be popping up everywhere One of the latest initiatives uses AI to help save the estimated 20 whales who die each year due to collisions with ships It's called WhaleAgent and it comes from the technology company Cognizant. Babak Hodjat, who's from the company, told Ansoy how the technology might help save the whales. We're losing about 20,000 whales every year, and that number is growing at around 18% a year. So it's significant, especially when you think about the fact that the numbers of these larger whales for some of the species is in the hundreds left in the world. So it is a major issue. The number of ships is growing. In fact, there are more and more ships around three times what is going around right now is estimated by 2050. These are large ships. They have a hard time putting the brakes on. It takes kilometers for them to actually stop or change route. And most of the shipping routes actually overlap with the known whale habitats, around 92% of them. So there are a lot of data sources, especially with things changing. So not only do we have more ships, but the migration routes of these whales are also altering with climate change and other changes. So we need to keep up with that. And there's a plethora of data that comes in and AI can bring in the various different data sources and work them together through what we call multi-agentic systems. and solve this problem, which is itself also multi-objective, which means that we're solving not just to save the whales, but also to reduce the risk of collision, therefore reducing the cost on the ships themselves, reducing climate impact on ships rerouting. So we want to solve multiple problems at the same time, basically. How does it work? We feed the various different data sources as well as historical data. Some of these data sources are real-time. Some are weather-related, could be ocean current-related. Then there's vessel traffic that's coming in. All of those come in. We have different AI systems specializing on the different feeds. We then have AI systems that specialize in bringing in and using the various different feeds in combination. And also machine learning systems that make predictions and estimations on risk of collision ahead of time. well enough ahead of time to be able to then make a call on whether or not we want to reroute a vessel so that the collision is avoided. Babak Hodjat speaking to Anne Soy. The potential of AI to save Wales aside, many have fears about this rapidly advancing technology and how it could affect our lives. And here's something else to think about. One of the world's leading computer scientists and a member of the UN's high-level advisory body on AI, has warned that because so few women work in AI design, there's a risk that robots of the future will reflect an overwhelmingly male perspective and could become misogynistic. Professor Dame Wendy Hall from the University of Southampton in southern England is working on creating an AI driving licence to teach people the rules of the road. She's been speaking to Emma Bartnett. We're really talking about the fact that there's so few women going into AI that we're not involved in the design of the robots or the design of the software and also not involved in how it's being applied in society. And as we're 50% society and we'll be using this technology as much or not more than the other 50%, then I find that a very worrying thought. What does that mean, do you think, though? Is it about bias and a sort of lens that's not being applied? What could happen that wouldn't happen potentially? Yes, bias. And we're just not involved in the design. So, you know, this has happened throughout science, not just in computing and AI. I mean, design of cars or baby seats in cars and all sorts of things, the stories about how women are not designed in the things that affect them a lot. So that happens throughout society. But what's important about AI is that technology is going to have a profound effect on us as a society. And the female voice and the female, our culture, our way of doing things, the things we need to do and want to do are not reflected in the research labs and the design, the companies that are designing the software and the robots. So they're more likely, my mantra is always, if it's not diverse, it's not ethical. They're more likely to actually take on the male characteristics. And then you have to retrospectively think, well, how does this help women or work for women? And we're in that vicious cycle again of us not included in the development. The computer scientist Wendy Hall speaking to Emma Barnett. Let's finish today's pod with something uplifting, if not entirely pleasant, to listen to. The European hedgehog is a small mammal covered in thousands of spines and it's in peril. Numbers are falling and many hedgehog deaths are caused by traffic. But could this be prevented by a high-pitched noise? Researchers in the UK and Denmark have identified the full range of the animal's hearing at a frequency that's four times higher than humans. They're hoping that discovery could be used to warn the hedgehogs of danger. Our science correspondent Georgina Ranard explains, but you might want to cover your ears. Take a listen to this and see where you stop hearing it. The highest frequencies humans can hear are around 20 kilohertz. At 45 kilohertz, dogs stop hearing and beyond 65 is the limit for cats. Until now, no one knew the acoustic range of hedgehogs, but scientists at Oxford University have been testing it. I spoke to Dr Sophie Rasmussen, who led the research. We discovered, to my great surprise and joy, that hedgehogs can hear up to 85 kilohertz. So it's really high frequency hearing and it's way above ultrasound. To make their discovery, Dr Rasmussen and team played this soundtrack to the hedgehogs. But at a much higher frequency. They monitored brain activity in the animals to pinpoint the range. The findings could help protect the European hedgehog, which is classed as near-threatened. Dr Rasmussen wants to develop sound repellents that could be fitted to cars or lawnmowers to keep hedgehogs away from them. We need to discover which sounds actually scare the hedgehogs. Now we know which frequency they can hear in, but are they scared of screams or should it be like a pulsating sound or, you know, what would be efficient? And could it help us understand more about how hedgehogs communicate? We know they snuffle, snort and grunt. but maybe they're also making sounds we simply cannot hear i've often wondered when hedgehogs pass by each other they do interact and you can tell that they they are interacting in some way and that could also just be chemically by sniffing each other but imagine that they're actually blabbering all the time and we just couldn't hear it Dr Sophie Rasmussen and a hedgehog ending that report by Georgina Rannard And that's all from us for now If you want to get in touch you can email us at globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk You can also find us on X at BBC World Service Use the hashtag Global News Pod And don't forget our sister podcast The Global Story which goes in-depth and beyond the headlines on One Big Story. This edition of the Global News Podcast was mixed by Darcy O'Brie and the producer was Alice Adderley. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Emily Thomas. Until next time, goodbye. This is not the future we were promised. Like, how about that for a tagline for the show? From the BBC, this is The Interface, the show that explores how tech is rewiring your week and your world. This isn't about quarterly earnings or about tech reviews. It's about what technology is actually doing to your work and your politics, your everyday life. And all the bizarre ways people are using the internet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
