Iran attacks energy facilities in the Gulf

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1:00This is a global news podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Uncle Deci and in the early hours of Thursday the 19th of March, these are our main stories. Iran attacks energy facilities across the Gulf after the country's largest gas field is hit by Israel. America's top spies testify that after almost three weeks of war, the Iranian leadership remains largely intact if weakened. And Iran's women's football team returns home to an uncertain future after protest and asylum bid in Australia. Also in this podcast. I mean the old process was you fire off a CV, wait four weeks and then here yes or no. But now you get a chance to get AI to replicate a face-to-face interview. We explore job hunting in the age of artificial intelligence. The U.S. and Israel's war with Iran has entered a new and volatile phase.

2:01After Israeli missiles fell on the world's biggest natural gas field on Wednesday. Tehran promised to respond and within hours it launched its own missiles into Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar. The move prompted strong criticism from President Trump, who warned that any further retaliation would result in U.S. military action, threatening to blow up the Iranian gas field. A Middle East correspondent Sebastian Usher is following developments from Jerusalem. He told Nick Miles why the attack on the South Mars gas field was so significant. It provides around three quarters of the country's natural gas production. Now that's all pretty much consumed domestically because of sanctions etc. And so it has a real knock-on effect if that were to be put out of action, which is not what's happened. But it would seriously impinge even further on the regime's ability to meet the needs

3:02of its people, who even before this conflict started, were already in dire financial straits. I mean, one of the key reasons that they went out onto the streets to protest back in January, I mean, Israel just to say hasn't officially confirmed this, but I mean, Israeli media here is quoting sources saying 100% that Israel carried out the attack. And they're also kind of breathing these sources that this was a warning shot to Iran. It wasn't taking out the facility, but it was essentially saying, sure, this is what we could do if there's no movement from your side. No movement from Iran, apart from the fact that it has been responding in kind, doesn't it? Yes, I mean, immediately said that it would mount attacks on a number of key oil installations, gas installations of its Gulf neighbors, that's Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Saudi Arabia said four missiles were directed towards Readd. It's capital and that they were all intercepted.

4:03People heard very loud booms above them. The first time that this has happened in Readd during this conflict. And more significantly in Qatar, again, they are saying the authorities there, but about five missiles were fired towards them or intercepted but one. And that hit the rise Lafan industrial city. Now that is actually key to Qatar. It's where it's liquid natural gas, main production facility is Qatar is the main supplier of this around the world. And it's actually key to its extraordinary wealth. But it is important to say that a lot of what Qatar would normally be doing, the operations there have been suspended for a couple of weeks now. So it may not have an immediate, huge knock on effect. But of course, it's a real signal of how

5:06much further this could escalate. Sebastian Asha. And since we heard from Sir Qatar State Energy Company has confirmed that gas facilities at its main site have been hit by another round of rockets overnight. It said they'd caused fires and further significant damage. Global oil prices have surged again after that attack on South Paz. The market volatility is affecting people around the globe in how much they pay for petrol and everyday goods. China is a big importer of oil from the Gulf, including Iran. So how concerned is it? Our correspondent in Beijing is Laura Bicker. China is not feeling the shock of this war like many others may be doing. And that is because China has been stockpiling oil since around January. So it does have enough oil considering it's the biggest consumer of oil in the world. It imports more crude oil than any other country. It has about three to four months of stocks to go through. So then there is

6:09the case when you look at how many business ties China has right across the Middle East. And that is where China will be concerned. China is trying to export its way out of economic trouble. And the way it does this is trade. So it needs all of those shipping lanes, all of those connections to come through the street of Hormuz. China will be concerned thinking of its own interests when it comes to this conflict whether or not it will spread, whether or not it will affect its global growth and whether or not it will affect its overall economy in the long term. What you were saying there about the concern being about stability, that was very much mirrored wasn't it by people that you spoke to on the streets of Beijing? What what do they tell you? It's quite rare to hear Chinese voices but they were eager to speak to us because this is a source of concern for them. I reckon if the war escalates to nuclear level, it may trigger for the world war. The China

7:09Iran relationship is a strategic partnership. No matter what decision the Chinese government and military make, we as Chinese citizens will support it. Many people worried about this China, we should support for the peace. We want to protect our own development and to keep our economy in improvement our normal life should not be impact by the war. Chinese people are worried about their own interests and their own kind of cost of living and that's why they're worried about this war spiraling out of control and that's why stability is so important to them. So a stable economy is hugely important but what about diplomatically there are obviously opportunities here in a time of conflict? So I think when it comes to Washington, there's always been this view that Iran and China are very close. The reality is that alliance, if you want to call it that, is mostly transactional from China's point of view. When it comes to China and the US and this great global struggle, I think China will see a huge

8:10opportunity here. Globally, what you've seen since January is a parade of world leaders coming to do deals with China where you see a President Xi who is now looking like a tower and a beacon of stability in comparison to Washington and that is music to Beijing's ears. That is what they've hoped for all along. Is it the case do you think that the longer this goes on, there are more benefits for Beijing than there are are problems? For China, the geopolitical benefits are certainly there but for President Xi, the economy is all. I think when it comes to whether or not the party will continue to have faith of them, the people will continue to have faith of them, all of that depends on the economy. I think in the long term, China will want this wrapped up. Laura Bicker speaking to Nick Maus, and we have more on this on our YouTube channel, search for BBC News on YouTube, and you'll find global news podcast in surprise, surprise, the podcast section. There's a new story available every weekday. As the US Israeli war in Iran

9:11continues, divisions within the Trump administration are becoming starker. On Tuesday, the US counterterrorism chief resigned, saying he could no longer support the White House policy. On Wednesday, America's most senior spies appeared before a Senate committee and were asked whether they could confirm President Trump's assertion that Iran had been weeks away from producing a nuclear bomb. Here's a Democratic Senator John Ossoff from Georgia, pressing the National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard on what was known ahead of the first strikes on Iran at the end of February. Was it the assessment of the intelligence community that as the White House claimed on March 1st, there was a, quote, imminent nuclear threat posed by the Iranian regime? Yes or no? Once again, Senator, the intelligence community has provided the inputs that make up this annual threat assessment. You won't answer the question. The nature of the imminent threat that the president has to make that determination based on a collection and volume. You're here to

10:11be timely intelligence that he is provided with. You're here to be timely, objective, and independent of political considerations. Exactly what I'm doing. No, you're evading a question because to provide a candid response to the committee would contradict a statement from the White House. Senator John Ossoff and Tulsi Gabbard there, while I asked our Washington correspondent, Bert Debussman, whether the hearing had provided clarity on the conflicting intelligence assessments. There was very few answers as to the Trump administration's actual rationale for war and whether the intelligence community gave an assessment that supported it. I thought it was very notable in a written statement that was published online, Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence. She said unequivocally that in last year's strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, those facilities were obliterated and Iran had made no effort to kind of rebuild that manufacturing capacity. That's directly contrary to what the Trump administration said in the

11:15days immediately following the beginning of Operation Epic Fury, and she didn't actually say it verbally in the committee hearing, which kind of led to accusations that she was covering for the Trump administration. She also made the assertion that only the president can really make the assessment whether Iran was or wasn't an imminent threat, but many lawmakers, and I think large portions of the American public would argue that that's precisely what the intelligence community is for to make those assessments and pass them to lawmakers in Washington. So it was quite combative at times, and I think there's very few questions that were actually answered to a degree that it's kind of settled the public debate about this war. Questions also, whether everybody's singing from the same him sheet. The intelligence officials said that the Iranian leadership remains largely intact, which is an assessment that clashes with President Trump's framing of the war and how, in his words, how strong and successful they are and how much they're winning. Certainly, and I think that's the other main question is, the Trump administration has had kind of shifting justifications for why this war began and what

12:20led up to it. I think also it's very notable that in Joe Kent, the former counterterrorism advisor who resigned yesterday, he said that the intelligence assessment did not prove that Iran was an imminent threat and that there was very little room for debate. I think most Americans would feel more comfortable if there was at least a debate about whether a military campaign is a good idea or not, at least internally within the White House, but in his view, that didn't happen. And certainly nothing that Tulsi Gabbard said or John Rackliffe, the director of the CIA kind of seemed to back up the Trump administration's rationale for launching this war, which there's really quite heated public debate, not only in the American public, but I think increasingly we're seeing that among Trump's own supporters. So so cracks are starting to form, would you say, in the Trump administration and across the mega base because it's not been a popular war, a lot of that core supporter base do not want war and they want the focus to be on

13:22US domestic policies. Certainly, I think a lot of at least a significant chunk of Trump's mega base was very drawn to his promise on the campaign trail that the United States wouldn't become involved in protracted conflicts overseas or any sort of messy regime change exercise. And I think the resignation of Joe Kent, the counterterrorism advisor, he kind of solidified that viewpoint for a lot of people. This is a man who has four years been a staunch, staunch Trump supporter. He very much kind of embodied a certain mega mindset in terms of foreign policy and avoiding those sorts of wars in which he himself had a very distinguished war record. And then in his interview this evening with Tucker Carlson, he kind of made the argument that Israel had pushed the US to war and he used the Trump administration's own comments from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, for example, that Israel informed the US it was going to strike and therefore the US felt compelled it had to strike as well. So I think certainly especially

14:23when there's very public figures who are kind of darlings in the mag, a magosphere, as some would call it, such as Mr. Kent, whose wife also was kind of regarded as a war hero. She was killed in Syria. When a figure like that starts to verbalize those sorts of concerns about the way the US military is being used and why and the justifications for this conflict, I think that's something that will spread at the very least of very heated debate among Trump's own supporters, whether this war actually serves them and serves that America first agenda that they were promised on the campaign trail. Bad debusement reporting from Washington. As a US and Israel were launching their air attacks on Iran, the country's women's football team were in Australia taking part in the Asia Cup. When the Iranian national anthem was played ahead of kickoff, the players refused to sing along and that defined gesture led to a state broadcast presenter labeling the players as wartime traitors. As a result, the Australian government offered the team humanitarian visas,

15:28which initially 17 members accepted, but heavy pressure from the Islamic regime led five of the seven to withdraw their asylum claims. The team has now arrived back in Iran to wait what could be an uncertain future. Nassim Kadem is a journalist with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation ABC and has been following the Iranian team's progress. We've seen posters come out that suggest that they'll be celebrated when they get home, but what I would say is just watch what happens thereafter, so there might be a big celebration, there might be a big song and dance. I know our players have come home, but what happens thereafter. We also have to keep in mind that the reason they went back is a lot of the diaspora that I've spoken to journalists in Iran, international, a form of football player have said these players who wanted to stay but then changed their minds were basically being played voice messages from family members in Iran who were under threat that the intelligence

16:34arm of the IRGC was threatening the families you know to pressure them to tell these players to return home. So you know with all this going in the background you have to question whether what happens publicly is in sync with what happens privately under this regime. Yeah because there's a lot of speculation that they could face arrest or be banned from playing football in the future or representing Iran in the future. Exactly and then there's also I mean look these are things that we'll never know but a lot of athletes that have in the past sort of taken a stance against the regime in solidarity with protesters have gone missing there's been accidents you know so there's all sorts of things that go on and we don't we don't know exactly kind of what happens but people mustn't forget that what these women did when they were in Australia this act of not singing the national anthem this is a really massive thing and it's why Iranian State TV then ran a segment calling them traitors and basically saying they you know in wartime conditions they

17:36should face a revolutionary court and be brought to justice for what they've done things like that. So you know have to understand that it is in the regime's eyes a major a crime for them for what for that small act what we see as a small act is a massive massive act of solidarity with the protesters. ABC is Nasim Hadeb. Still wants to come. We quantified the length of dresses, hemlines, waistlines and necklines and we were able to show that fashion actually does come back every 20 years. The mass behind style trends. Doing taxes the old way meant handing everything off and just hoping things were moving but now you can feel confident your taxes are being handled right with into it turbo tax now you match with a turbo tax full service expert just upload your documents right in the app and boom they take it from there start to finish you've got a dedicated expert working your return they check every deduction

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19:47yeah decisions made in Washington can affect your portfolio every day but what policy changes should investors be watching Washington wise is an original podcast from Charles Schwab that unpacks the stories making news in Washington right now and how they may affect your finances and portfolio listen at Schwab.com slash Washington wise that's Schwab.com slash Washington wise today's episode is sponsored by nerd wallet smart money podcast ever google a money question and end up 12 tabs deep with 12 different answers this podcast is your shortcut back to clarity nerd wallet smart money podcast breaks down financial decisions with a team of trusted journalists they explain the why behind decisions like investing home buying and choosing credit cards with clear research backed insights no jargon no misinformation make your next financial move

20:47with confidence follow nerd wallet smart money podcast on your favorite podcast app you European leaders have warned that an expanded Israeli ground offensive in Lebanon could lead to devastating humanitarian consequences. Israel recently issued evacuation orders all the way to the Zahrani river almost 40 kilometers into the country on Wednesday Israel said it destroyed two bridges crossing the Latani river which it said was being used by the Iranian backed Hezbollah group to transport fighters and weapons Lebanon says nearly 970 people have been killed since the latest round of fighting broke out over 1 million people have been forced out of their homes where a Davies reports from number tier a region where civilians have been told to leave and where the consequences of staying behind can be fatal this is a part of southern Lebanon where Israel has now expanded its exclusion zone so that too many people in this town of Zifta

21:54but we're now at the site of an explosion a missile strike last night there were three shops here we're not clear how many people were here at the time but they're all saying that no warning was given before this building was hit no there was no warning it suddenly hit but didn't explode for five more minutes there is no one here related to a political party we are all civilians we aren't affiliated with anyone we've now been stopped from filming and recording by not Hezbollah but Amal who sometimes are pretty close to Hezbollah or whatever reason they clearly don't want us filming and recording here it's pretty kinetic round here I mean there's lots of explosions that we've just heard another boom in the distance and now walking across the road buildings all around here have taken hits from Israeli air strikes many of them are destroyed or badly damaged we were just sitting here together we thought the area was safe because most of the people have evacuated there is no one here then the missile hit there have been so many rocket attacks

22:58missile strikes here the Israelis have told everybody to leave why why you stay here there is nothing here for the Israelis to hit our rockets or weapons this building is mostly empty they are just doing this to harm us we were upstairs the hospital and we had sirens that came running down this was an air strike about 12 minutes further south along the road from the hospital where we are there's one injured person as you can hear behind me being treated now it's obviously really stressful for the medical staff here as well we don't know the extent of this man's injuries but a nurse has just come out of the room clearly quite emotional because of what she's having to deal with in there we're trying to deal with all this is Hassan Fakir he's the head of the civil defense unit here in the Nabatir region another air strike going off that's exactly what the east guys are having to deal with he said in the strike last night near the headquarters

24:00eleven of his own crew were injured they're not being targeted directly but it's clear they're in danger yesterday the building right next to the civil defense headquarters only about 10 meters away was targeted and destroyed eleven of our team members were injured staff and volunteers you've seen the damage to our station but this does not lessen our determination the Lebanese army the Lebanese police and the civil defense they're not belligerence in this conflict but they're clearly also victims we've seen what has happened to the civil defense headquarters several members of that unit were injured in that Israeli air strike and also now a group of police have just come in here one of them is very very distraught it looks like one of her colleagues has been caught up in an air strike we don't know what his condition is but it's clear that the emergency services are victims of this war we're a davis reporting from southern Lebanon across the world these can be tough times if you're looking for a job especially as a young graduate with low levels of economic

25:05growth in many countries it's not unusual to find many times more candidates than vacancies an artificial intelligence is changing the game on both sides of the recruitment process our business editor Simon Jack has been speaking to job seekers and hiring companies in London one big challenge these days is getting past a machine to get a job Bivanna Chilikuri is practicing her interview skills with a simulated employer for when she has to talk to a computer which will screen her job application for real it did get a little robotic throughout the process of applying Bivanna Chilikuri is a third year business student at Queen Mary University and has applied for over a hundred jobs and been rejected every time there were moments actually where I applied and I got a rejection in less than two minutes which is really really horrible a flat rejection within that short period of time makes you feel that this is not a human being looking at this definitely I think that's where most of the students kind of can tell that I'm Denny Meshwell I'm the CEO of the adiccogrew the boss of one

26:10of the world's biggest recruitment companies acknowledges the process can get demoralising people need to send on average like sort of 200 applications to get a job offer what AI brings is scale before you would reach out to 50 people and out of that you would select one so you would have 49 possibly frustrated okay now if you reach out to 500 countries you create 499 people frustrated so I'm here in central London part of the morning commuter crush and for many young people that's the golden ticket a place at one of these palaces of commerce around me and employers are inundated with hundreds sometimes thousands of applications for every place one reason why companies are turning to AI to screen to sort to shift to be the gatekeeper to get into these places companies like top law firm Mishkonda Rare the law firm is piloting a video AI chatbot to screen applicants Tom Wickstead Mishkonda's early careers manager said they received over 5,000 applications for

27:13just 35 jobs candidates are using AI to write more application forms so we've seen an explosion of applications over the last four years I mean the old process was you fire off a CV wait four weeks and then here yes or no but now you get a chance to get AI to replicate a face-to-face interview so you get to go into far more detail and much more personalised experience for the candidates can the process tell if the candidate has used AI we can detect where and it potentially has been used and we take that into account when we're reviewing those applications but ultimately we're not going to turn someone down if we think that they've used AI to help them write some of their answers Buvana says she understands why companies are using more AI and why candidates are fighting back I don't blame the companies right they're getting flooding amounts of applications but it is coming to a point where the students are now getting lazy so they're like okay if you're going to screen with AI I'm going to apply with AI I don't blame them either I think it's just a situation everyone's trying to figure it out Adeco's Deni Mashuel has some advice for both

28:18sides what needs to happen and what companies have to be conscious of is to inject the AI smartness at the right moment in the process so that you compliment the efficiency of AI with the judgment the human touch of people I'll business editor Simon Jack reporting finally as baggy low rise trousers replace the skinny jeans once a staple in every core kids wardrobe we're now witnessing a cardinal rule of fashion in action clothing trends repeating themselves and mathematicians have actually calculated the fashion cycle Emma J. Darla from Princeton University let this study we collected a database of about 35,000 images of women's dresses the oldest dress in their databases from 1869 and the latest goats till 2022 and what we were really interested in is looking at this question of does fashion come back and trying to see if we could prove that this is true

29:21was just a perception so we quantified the length of dresses hamlines waistlines and necklines and we were able to show that fashion actually does come back every 20 years some people suggest that it would be because of a generational gap I also think that it has to do with the rate of change that's acceptable to us per year so for something to be fashionable it needs to be different from last year but also of course dresses can only be so short or so long and because of that it's going to start to oscillate and we think that's maybe what sets this 20 year period but it's definitely less clear than it has been in the past starting in the 1980s the mid 1980s there's been really an increase in the diversity of styles that women are wearing so instead of having one dominant style that almost all women would wear there's many skirts, meaty skirts, ankle length skirts, floral length dresses you name it it's coming back. Professor Emma J. Dela from Princeton University

30:24and that's all from us for now if you want to get in touch you can email us at global podcast at bbc.co.uk you can also find us on x at bbc world service and you can 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 Masoud Ibrahim Kael and the producer was Stephanie Zacherson and the editor is Karen Martin I'm on good aside until next time goodbye. This episode is brought to you by Intuit Quick Books Bill Pay growth is the goal but the paperwork is a trap if your accounts payable feels like a second job you're doing it wrong enter Quick Books Bill Pay reduce manual data entry automate your approvals and track 1099s in one place no more chasing signatures no more spreadsheet headaches just control over your cash flow and a back office that actually scales automate your accounts payable today at quickbooks.com

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