BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.

This is the global news podcast from the BBC World Service.

I'm Celia Hatton on Tuesday, the 13th of January.

These are our main stories.

In Iran, thousands are feared to have been killed by government forces.

With the partial restoration of phone services, Iranians have been describing violent crackdowns

on anti-democracy protests in their initial calls abroad.

The French far-right politician, Marine Le Pen, has begun her appeal against a two-year prison

sentence and a ban on standing for public office.

Also in this podcast,

My gut is equivalent to an Italian man five years older than me.

Could good gut health be the key to living longer?

Let's begin in Iran, where a total communications blackout appears to be lifting,

telling us more about the unprecedented anti-government street protests that led to a deadly crackdown by the authorities. Some people inside Iran are now making phone contact with people outside the country,

and that's helping us to fill in the picture on what's been happening since the internet was

shut down several days ago. This Iranian woman in London had a brief telephone conversation

with a relative. A family member called me around sort of half ten and very,

very brief call. They just called to say that they're safe. Are they and their wife safe? And that

was it. They're in the north of Iran. So they're in an area called Gorgon, just north of Tehran,

quite kind of on the outskirts of the town, so quite rural area. And they said that basically

everyone's being killed. And I asked, do they personally know people? And they said family members,

colleagues, neighbors, like, you know, in every household that's happening. And they had just

...