← From Our Own Correspondent
From Our Own Correspondent
Iran War: A sharp escalation in the Gulf
00:28:47
Strikes on the world's biggest gasfields prompted rebukes by Qatar and other Gulf nations
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Narrator
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BBC Correspondent
hello. Today we're in the Venezuelan capital Caracas, where banners and billboards featuring former President Nicolas Maduro stay in place. In Latvia, the BBC's Russian language service broadcasts to a growing audience. In Russia, we hear from those who had to uproot their lives in Moscow to keep it on air. In South Korea, microdramas are taking the movie industry by storm. We meet the actors performing theatrical acrobatics on set. And finally we're in Finland for the winter swimming championships. Our correspondent took the plunge in bracing waters in ulu. But first, the US Israeli war with Iran saw a marked escalation this week with strikes on some of the world's biggest gas fields. Israel's attack on Iran's South Pause gas field situated offshore between Iran and Qatar triggered a swift response from Tehran, who launched strikes on the Raslafan Terminal, the world's largest liquefied natural gas facility and other Gulf countries. The attacks caused oil and gas prices to spike, and despite more than 7,000 targets struck by US forces alone in Iran, the regime continues to fire missiles and drones at neighboring countries. Iran's topography and decades of planning mean stocks of these weapons are buried deep underground or deep into the sides of mountains. Frank Gardner has been in Riyadh and Doha. He wrote this dispatch as the attacks on energy infrastructure were underway.
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Frank Gardner
From out of my window I can see a narrow spit of pure white sand jutting into the azure blue of the lagoon. A wooden fishing boat, a dhow, rests idly at anchor and barely a ripple disturbs the surface of this tranquil harbour in Qatar's capital, Doha. This is the Gulf of online travel brochures, the perpetually sunny, tax free, crime free escape from the dreary tedium of commuting in the rain in London, Glasgow or wherever. And yet now there has been a rude awakening from this dream world. Last night, Iran fired a load of missiles at the Raslafan gas processing plant up the coast from here, causing extensive damage and sparking the huge fire that took hours to put out. For weeks now, people here in the Gulf have had to get used to their phones, emitting a kind of apocalyptic end of days alarm sound, warning them to stay indoors and away from windows as drones and missiles from Iran are inbound. Iran's Foreign Ministry keeps denying that it's targeting civilian sites here on the Arabian side of the Gulf, but nobody takes that seriously. This is nonsense, said Faisal, a young Saudi taxi driver, as he drove us through the near empty streets of Riyadh during Ramadan. It's like I'm hitting your face with my hand and at the same time telling you I'm not hitting you. Gulf governments have vented their frustration in rather more formal language, accusing Iran, their giant neighbour across the water, of betrayal and of carrying out brutal and unjustified attacks. Sinful is how the United Arab Emirates government has described Iran's assault on its territory, saying it reserves the right to defend itself. So what does that mean exactly? Are we about to see the Gulf states sending their very expensive Western supplied air forces interaction over Iran and join in what everyone is calling this war of choice by the US and Israel? There has been some debate about this in government circles here, but most agree it would not be worth the risk. The contribution by Arab states would be miniscule next to the might of America's war machine, and it would only invite yet more retaliation by Iran. Besides, Gulf leaders are well aware of their own population's antipathy towards Israel. There is already a suspicion here in the Gulf that Israel has dragged Washington into a war to suit its own ends. And it's the countries of this region which are paying the price. Certainly the longer Iran keeps threatening shipping in the narrow Strait of Hormuz, the higher the cost. Not just to Gulf Arab coffers in the short term, but to consumers worldwide and longer term to that hard won reputation this region has nurtured as a safe haven. This is my third Gulf War, as it were. During the U. S Led Desert Storm campaign to evict Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's troops From Kuwait in 1991, I was in Bahrain, where the skies often turned dark from the blazing oil wells set on fire by defeated and retreating Iraqi soldiers. In 2003, I was in Basra covering the U. S Led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, which then of course turned into a disastrously mismanaged occupation. But this time is different. In neither of those previous wars was there this direct threat to Gulf states and their infrastructure in the way they're threatened now. We didn't have drones back then. Today, it's clear that despite three weeks of constant pounding by US And Israeli airstrikes, Iran still possesses enough of these small, cheap, mass produced weapons to threaten and unsettle this entire region. So how will this end? When I talk to British expatriate friends in Bahrain, a country that has been on the receiving end of a huge number of Iranian attacks, they say their immediate concern is simply to get a decent night's sleep without being interrupted by sirens, booms and bangs. A Bahraini analyst I speak to told me a red line has been crossed. We will never be able to have normal relations with Iran after this. But thereby lies the problem. President Trump appears to have thought that by dint of America's overwhelming advantage in Farpah, the Islamic Republic would either collapse or capitulate to Washington's demands. Neither has happened. So in the absence of that happening, and there are few signs that it will, sooner or later, the US Is expected to declare victory and end hostilities. At that point, shipping will resume in the Strait of Hormuz and things will return to a semblance of normal. But in that scenario, the Islamic Republic will still be there and will still be a threat to its neighbors.
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BBC Correspondent
Frank Gardner it's been nearly two and a half months since Venezuela's former president Nicolas Maduro was seized by US Forces. Since the socialist president's arrest, former Vice President Delse Rodriguez has taken power and appears to be closely cooperating with the us and next week, Maduro is due in a New York court to face drug trafficking charges along with his wife, Celia Flores. Washington has outlined a three stage plan for Venezuela of stabilization, recovery and eventual transition, and has begun easing sanctions. But it hasn't provided a time frame for elections. And many young Venezuelans who've always been governed by the same socialist political movement are sceptical that much will change.
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Irony Wells
Irony Wells Landing at the international airport in Caracas, you could be forgiven for thinking nothing had changed in Venezuela. There are still banners of Nicolas Maduro everywhere, insisting he is working for you despite now being in a U.S. jail. Every migration booth displays a wanted poster for the opposition candidate of the last election, Edmundo Gonzalez, promising a $100,000 reward and accusing him of violent crimes against the state. There are still numerous billboards dotted along the motorway from the airport into the capital of Maduro and his wife. They now bear the hashtag we want them back. The country is still controlled by the former president's United Socialist Party of Venezuela and many of his allies. Yet this show of support by the government inside the country is at odds with the image it is portraying on the world stage. The interim president, Del C. Rodriguez, has cozied up to the US in meetings with US officials, she's hailed how wonderfully they are working together to attract new foreign investment and oil deals and allowed the release of some political prisoners, although hundreds remain behind bars. The day I arrive, a government rally is being held to mark two months since Nicolas Maduro was seized by the us. There's a countdown marking the number of days since, in their words, his kidnap. Just as for past rallies I've been to, buses have been put on to bring people here. The crowd wear pro Maduro T shirts and wave Venezuelan flags. People I chat to in the crowd repeat loyalist messages to me. He's a prisoner of war. Venezuela didn't start. He's our constitutional president. We want him back. But privately, some suggest to me they'd say more if they could. Just not here. Away from the crowd, one 22 year old in a government issued T shirt suggests everyone in the crowd is a public sector worker obliged to be there. On the phone to me the next day, she's more candid. It's all a lie, she says, explaining that last month they were told by the government they'd get a bonus if they went to Maduro's support rallies. Those who didn't go didn't get it. We have to get rid of these people. That's non negotiable, she says, singling out some of the other powerful allies of Maduro who remain in government, who she holds responsible for cracking down on free speech and opposition. For public sector workers like her, she believes as long as the same government remains in power, their ability to speak freely remains compromised. Others, though, sense a tide is turning. University students I speak to on all sides of the political spectrum have welcomed this change. Two young women I talked to lament that their generation has grown up in a country where expressing yourself freely could harm you. One backs the conservative opposition the other is on the left and disagrees with US Intervention. I speak to some recently released political prisoners who worked on the opposition's last election. Maria Oropeza, who livestreamed her arrest in 2024, and Jesus Armas, who has tortured an interrog interrogated in jail, both share similar optimism about what's changed. It was almost impossible to protest before. Now it's happening, maria tells me. People are defeating the fear and feel brave again. Some of the media are having more courage to talk, jesus says. I see signs of this myself at a camp outside a prison where relatives wait for loved ones inside to be released. A woman tells me that just months ago, an open protest like the one they're holding outside the gates wouldn't have been possible. That is a sign of what's already changed. Driving around as a journalist, I feel the same lingering fear from my last visit that at any moment I'll be pulled over at one of the checkpoints. On one road, an intelligence unit of the police pull us over, and a familiar sense of dread washes over me. I start rehearsing my answers in my head. But no. Can you deliver some chicken to the next post? The officer asks, handing us some lunch boxes for their colleagues in the next town. I can't quite believe my luck. There are still lots of unknowns about whether some of Venezuela's systemic economic and corruption problems will improve. But this cautious optimism about speaking more freely is already a tangible change I noticed since my last trip in 2024. For people like Jesus, that freedom feels personal. After his 10 months living in a jail cell with no window, we stand on his balcony, watching the sun dapple the mountains that surround Caracas as some blue and yellow macaws fly by. The first time I saw these birds and the sunrise after my release was the most beautiful and inspiring thing, he tells me. For others, though, like the nameless public sector worker, this sense of freedom still feels distant until elections take place. I ask her what the Idea of democracy after a whole lifetime living under the same political movement feels like for her. It feels like a dream, she tells me.
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BBC Correspondent
Irony wells. Next week, the BBC's Russian service marks its 80th anniversary. From its early days as a shortwave radio service, BBC News Russian has grown into a multimedia operation, reaching upwards of 6 million people per week in Russia and among Russian speakers in Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic countries, the South Caucasus and Central Asia. With freedom of speech under attack and access to information restricted both in Russia and in many surrounding countries, the service's editor, Jenny Norton, reflects on how the team have found ways to adapt.
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Jenny Norton
In the 1970s, at the height of Soviet jamming of the BBC, the most coveted shortwave radios in the USSR were made by the Veff factory in Latvia, which was then part of the Soviet Union. A generation of young Russians grew up learning how to twist the dial with great precision to find whichever BBC signal had somehow bypassed the howling and whistling of the jammers. When you found it, a window opened into a whole other world of uncensored news, literature and Western pop music all coming to you live from London. Those days are long gone. The jamming stations have all closed down, The Veff factory doesn't make radios anymore and Latvia is now an independent country. But since the start of Putin's full scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the information space in Russia has been shrinking. A new generation of Russians are now having to fight to stay connected to the world and our team has to battle Internet blocking and shutdowns to keep on reaching them. Four years ago, the Russian service Moscow newsroom had to leave Russia, but their work continues in exile. And their new home, by a twist of fate, just happens to be in Latvia. Over the past 80 years, history often seems to have repeated itself. Take the first ever Russian Service Radio news bulletin from the 24th of March 1946. The news reader was the splendidly named Mrs. Sonia Betty Horsfall. The top story was all about Iran and the ongoing negotiations for Soviet troops to withdraw after their wartime occupation. Now it's the US Israeli war with Iran that's dominating the news. And to reach audiences In Russia in 2026, we have to tell the story in a myriad of ways across different platforms. Our website is blocked in Russia, as are YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and WhatsApp. The messenger app Telegram used to be our only uncensored way of getting information in and out of Russia. But not anymore. These days, Russians can only reach the BBC website and social media channels and many other banned sites by using VPNs virtual private networks which allow them to bypass the censors. Everyone from young people to the shortwave radio generation has had to learn how to do it. But what will we do if they start blocking VPNs and shut down Internet access altogether? One of our team asked the other day. It's a question we often ask our colleagues in BBC News Persian who are now reporting the war on their country despite an almost complete Internet blackout in Iran. We have so much to learn from them and increasingly, sadly, so much in common with them. We had to leave Russia in 2022 because it was no longer safe for our staff to continue doing their jobs there. Even calling Putin's special military operation in Ukraine a war was against the law. Getting nearly 50 shell shocked BBC Russian journalists, their families and their pets out of Russia and into Latvia now feels like the easy bit. Building new lives, learning a new language and finding new ways to keep reporting Russia from the outside has been a much tougher challenge. No one can travel safely back to Russia. Home and family have become unreachable. Reunions have to happen in third countries and even in exile. Our staff are still being pursued. Eight have been designated foreign agents by the authorities in Russia, required by law to put disclaimers on all their published work, taken to court and fined in absentia for failing to comply, heading inevitably towards criminal prosecution. If I get a criminal record in Russia, then the list of places where I can safely meet my mum is going to get even shorter, one colleague told me the other day. There have already been cases of Russians discovering too late that they're on the international wanted list in countries friendly to Moscow. When the Russian service first went on air, Winston Churchill had just made his famous post war speech warning that an Iron Curtain was coming down over Eastern Europe. In 2026, a digital version of that Iron Curtain has come down again. The post revolutionary emigres and the Cold War exiles who led the Russian service in those earlier radio days have now been replaced by a new generation who never thought that one day it would be their turn to leave. The Russia I grew up in has completely disappeared, says one of our ex Moscow team. In the blink of an eye, the freedom, the possibilities and the excitement have all gone. I don't want to think that I'll never go back, she adds, but right now it's hard to believe. Russians clearly want more than their state controlled news media is currently giving them. And after 80 years, I hope that our first newsreader, Mrs. Horschel, would be proud to see how many of them still trust the BBC.
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BBC Correspondent
Jenny Norton
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Bleacher Report Advertiser
the Bleacher Report app is your destination for sports right now. The NBA is heating up, March Madness is here, and MLB is almost back. Every day there's a new headline, a new highlight, a new moment. Moment you've got to see for yourself. That's why I stay locked in with the Bleacher Report app. For me, it's about staying connected to my sports. I can follow the teams I care about, get real time scores, breaking news and highlights all in one place. Download the Bleacher Report app today so you never miss a moment craving the
- [19:30]
Cachava Advertiser
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- [20:03]
BBC Correspondent
next A new genre of movies is taking the entertainment world by storm. The microdrama. They're carefully curated one or two minute long shows known as verticals that are made to be watched on your phone. The plots tend to be somewhat outlandish and very fast moving. These shows have already taken off in China with multi billion dollar revenues, and now other entertainment powerhouses like South Korea and Hollywood are looking to profit from this market. Our correspondent Jake Kwon in Seoul went behind the scenes.
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Jake Kwon
The film set was freezing, but everyone looked like they were too busy to feel it. We were in a factory in Paju City just outside the capital Seoul. This is where the film crew was making South Korea's latest micro drama. I had no idea what they were until I stumbled upon a video of a Chinese period drama on Instagram last year. Actors were making exaggerated faces, yelling and slapping each other. Jilted lovers, I guessed. As ridiculous as it looked, I was intrigued and my thumb hesitated from scrolling. There were others too. Passionate kisses, an armored knight in a dungeon. The sudden birth of a baby. They always ended with an invitation to install an app and if you don't, you will miss the ending. These apps are already huge in China. The tech giant Tencent, already the biggest video games company in the world, estimated these 2 minute microdramas made roughly 7 billion dol in 2024. That means they made more money than traditional movies did in the country. And now Hollywood and K drama makers in South Korea are getting in on it too. One of the first Korean companies to take the plunge was Vigloo. They invited us to their set to see how it was all made. That day, they were shooting the fourth episode in a 63 episode series called Return of the Nation's Heir. Here, a handsome billionaire was stuck in his own body after suffering a mysterious car accident two episodes back. His fiance remained loyal even though he was now supposedly penniless. Then her cartoonishly evil and rich family visits the couple to break them up. While her wicked aunt yelled, her pompous uncle flicked a table, flinging food into the air. The first thing I noticed was how fast everything was being shot. They rarely did more than two takes. Shoot, shoot, move. As I was trying to take some photos, a crew member nearly swiped me with a giant lighting pole while moving to his next position. Everything was shot in close up and nothing was subtle. The director, Kang Mi so shouted across the set, telling the actors to really ham it up. I thought back to the acting classes I took in school. The style here was the complete opposite of what I was taught. The actor playing the aunt scrunched up her face even more and repeated the line that would surely be censored in a regular K drama for being too vulgar for television. The director said she used to make reality TV shows before coming over to Microdrama. She told me that overacting was all intentional. Unlike the shows on Netflix or in the cinema, people don't choose to see the shows she's making. They stumble upon them while scrolling through their phones. These scenes must grab viewers attention at the first glance. In this show that she was shooting that day, there are 10 separate scenes where someone is slapped across the face and each more creative than the last. And once they have your attention, they show you several more episodes for free. Now that you're hooked, they move you over to the app, where they can charge anywhere between 30 to 50 cents per episode. For the rest, by the end of a series, you would have paid around $20. Though they can make more money than selling movie tickets, they also cost a fraction to make. In the upscale, fashionable district of Gangnam, I meet Neil Choi, who gives off the air of a tech developer rather than a creative industry CEO. After launching a successful Odio streaming app, he was inspired by Chinese microdramas to start his next business. We are the fast fashion of movie making, he told me. From the moment someone thinks up a show, it takes only two months to stream on his app. Not only do they hire fresh unknown faces for the starring roles, the crews are small and sets are bare. Then Neil took us to the back end of the office to show off his latest experiment. Fully AI made shows. In this corner, two workers were turning a human written script into a 30 minute series, only using generative AI. They plugged in commands and within seconds computers spit out videos that they then stitched into movies. No actors or crew necessary. Back at the set, the actors and crew didn't seem bothered at all by this cataclysmic change in filmmaking. Over lunch, the main actress, Ahn Chae Hee, whose face was still red from crying during her scene earlier, said she is worried that the AI would take her job one day. But for now she's grateful for the chance to play the lead and all the actors love the absurd plots and exaggerated lines. After each take of a dramatic slap or a table flip, laughter broke out on the set. After all, Chae Hee is herself a fan, saying they are spicy and that's what keeps grabbing our eyeballs.
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BBC Correspondent
Jake Kwon and finally Finland. Our climate editor, Justin Rolatt isn't just interested in our warming world. He's also a keen cold water swimmer, and he recently found himself competing for Team GB in the Winter Swimming world championships in Ulu, a town in northern Finland about 100 miles south of the Arctic Circle.
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Narrator
I've always swum partly to stay fit, but mostly because I like the warm ache afterwards. First it was in heated indoor pools, but for the last 20 years or so in the local Lido mine is the huge basin of shimmering blue water at the foot of Parliament Hill in London. You'll find me there first thing. Most mornings it's never been about competition, it's just a hobby. But one morning in mid February, my boss phoned to chat about stories we were planning to cover. Oh, and one other thing, he added. You got quite a bit of spare holiday. You might want to take some or you'll lose it. I mentioned it next morning over coffee with some fellow Lido swimmers. Come to Finland, said Stephanie, a Canadian former opera singer with a fearsome front crawl. She explained it was hosting the 2026 World Winter Swimming Championships. It's good to get out of your comfort zone. She laughed. A few clicks and €168 later and I was enrolled. At the age of 59, I was competing for the de facto Team GB in one of the few international sporting events that don't require any evidence of talent. Steph got me in the team WhatsApp that's when I saw the first videos. A forklift truck was hefting a huge block of ice up a hill. Our swimming pool was being cut from the sea ice of the Baltic Sea. Rumours started to go round about the water temperature. Someone said -0.6 Celsius. Someone else shared an official looking page, suggesting it was actually a bone chilling. Minus 1.8. That is not in anyone's comfort zone. It is as cold as seawater gets. I'd signed up for a 200 meter swim, 8 lengths. The regulations said I needed to take an ECG, an electronic heart test, before competing. I'm sure it's just to make sure there are no underlying issues, the nurse said. Yeah, I thought as she shaved my chest hair and glued on sensors, because water that cold could induce a heart attack. ULU was everything you'd expect of northern Finland. Snow laden pine trees twinkling in the sunlight. I passed the pool out in the estuary on the way to sign in. A team was fishing out lumps of ice with nets. But inside the local sports hall turned registration centre, there was a warm hubbub as swimmers from all over the world greeted each other. This was a truly broad church. 50 countries were represented with over 1,800 entrants, 260 of them from Coldwater Crazy UK. Competitors ranged from towering former Olympic champions with chests like nuclear frigates to a large contingent of blue tits, members of the huge now global community of mostly female, non competitive cold water swimmers that was founded a decade ago in Wales. 5pm on the Tuesday and my turn has come. The weather can only be described as horrible horizontal snow. I'm sitting in a heated waiting room, the antechamber to the icy pool, wearing nothing more than baggy swimming shorts, goggles and a cap. I've started to feel faintly sick. Unfortunately not quite sick enough to cry off. Then it's time to go to the pool. We walk through the snow and onto the ice. For some reason, it is not reassuring that two divers in dry and scuba gear are poised to jump in should someone slip beneath the waves. The order comes to take off your clothes. Next, I'm in the water. A horn blares and we are off. It's like an explosion of obliterating white light. The cold is so intense it's almost an out of body experience. After the first length, I begin to regain consciousness. Then it's just agonisingly cold. An icy slush has collected at the ends of the lanes. I feel my hands and feet ossify into stiff claws. And then just as suddenly it's all over. I'm ushered into a sauna. Well, of course I am. This is Finland. As I begin to warm up, I realise I'm feeling elated. Only I can't work out if it's a sense of triumph or just because the pain is now over. And then an even more frightening thought. Maybe this is my comfort zone.
- [30:38]
BBC Correspondent
Justin Rolatt. And that's all for today. We'll be back again next Saturday morning. Do join us.
- [30:45]
Jamie Bartlett
I'm Jamie bartlett and for BBC Radio 4, I'll be looking at how fakery took over the world. No, no, hang on, hang on. Sorry, you're not Jamie Bartlett. I'm Jamie Bartlett. Oh, really? Well, who am I, then? I'm afraid you're not real, pal. You're just an imitation chatbot I created to help me make this series on modern fakery and why it's everywhere. Sounds good. What's going to be in it? Well, There's a lot. 1980s professional wrestling, dodgy academics, AI, psychosis, COVID vaccine, skeptics. What's it called? Everything Is Fake and Nobody Cares. With me, Jamie Bartlett. And me, Jimmy Bartlett. Listen. First on BBC sounds.
- [31:33]
Bleacher Report Advertiser
The Bleacher Report app is your destination for sports right now. The NBA is heating up, March Madness is here and MLB is almost back. Every day there's a new headline, a new highlight, a new moment you've got to see for yourself. That's why I stay locked in with the Bleacher Report app. For me, it's about staying connected to my sports. I can follow the teams I care about, get real time, scores, breaking news and highlights all in one place. Download the Bleacher Report app today so you never miss a moment. The Global Gaming League is presented by Atlas Earth, the fun cashback app. Hey, it's Howie Mandel and I am inviting you to witness history as me and my How We Do It Gaming team take on Gilly the king and wallow. 2, 6 $7 million gaming in an epic global gaming league video game showdown. Plus a halftime performance by multi platinum artist Travy McCoy. Watch all the action and see who wins and advances to the championship match right now@globalgamingleague.com that's globalgamingleague.com in partnership with Level Up Expo.