The Ayatollah and Israel

From Our Own Correspondent

BBC

News, News Commentary

4.4 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 20 April 2024

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Kate Adie introduces dispatches on Iran, Ukraine, South Africa, Portugal and Hong Kong.

As the world nervously watches the developments between Iran and Israel, Lyse Doucet reflects on the rise of Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Since coming to power three decades ago, he has managed to avoid taking Iran into an all-out war - could that change as tensions continue to rise?

A missile attack in the Ukrainian city of Chernihiv this week laid bare the weakness of the country’s air defences. Depleted ammunition supplies, as well as a worsening situation on the frontline, have heightened fears that the tide is continuing to turn against Ukraine in its war with Russia. Sarah Rainsford reports from Kharkiv.

South Africa is preparing to go to the polls, and for the first time since the end of white-minority rule, the governing ANC party is predicted to get less than 50 per cent of the vote. As in many other countries, immigration is high on the list of many voters’ concerns. Jenny Hill reports from the border with Zimbabwe.

Next week Portugal marks the 50th anniversary of the Carnation Revolution and its transition to democracy. Simon Busch met some of the men who joined the resistance against the country's former dictator Antonio Salazar, to find out what they think about politics in Portugal today.

And exotic birds have adapted to live alongside humans in some of the world’s major cities – and in Hong Kong it's yellow-crested cockatoos that you might see swooping through the skyline. Stephen Moss tells the story of why they’re now thriving.

Series producer: Serena Tarling Production coordinator: Katie Morrison Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.
0:04.6	Hello.
0:05.6	Today, as Ukraine's Prime Minister warns of Russian victory could herald a third world
0:11.3	war, we hear how the country has struggled amid waning
0:15.3	Western support. Immigration is a hot button issue in general elections around the
0:21.5	world this year. We hear how it's playing out in South Africa.
0:26.4	In Portugal, it's 50 years since the Carnation Revolution, we meet the former resistance fighters who stood against the country's
0:34.8	former dictator Antonio Salazar. And from the dense rainforests of
0:41.0	eastern Indonesia to the soaring skyscrapers of Hong Kong.
0:45.9	We hear how the yellow crested cockatoos have adapted to life in the big city.
0:52.4	But first, across the Middle East and beyond, people have been
0:55.8	watching developments between Iran and Israel. After an attack on Iran's consulate in Damascus, widely understood to have been launched
1:05.2	by Israel, last weekend Iran launched its first ever direct attack on Israel.
1:12.2	Then came US reports of an attack on the Israel. Then came US reports of an attack on the Iranian city of
1:15.4	Isfahan. Both Western and regional diplomats have called for de-escalation.
1:21.3	Lees-Doussdousette reflects on the rise to power of the man who will ultimately
1:27.2	decide what Tehran might do next.
1:31.1	We had to arrive by noon on June 6th, 1989. That was the deadline, to enter Iran without a visa,
1:39.4	to report on the funeral of Iran's revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khome.
1:44.9	We made it with minutes to spare to the southern port city of Bundar Abbas.
1:50.0	And there we watched on state television, the striking images from the streets of the capital
1:55.6	Tehran. A human tide so frenzied. The cleric's body fell out of his wooden coffin, carried away momentarily by the swell of the crowds.
	...

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