As the price of oil surges, markets tumble

Hello and welcome to newsarrads coming to you live from the BBC World Service Studios

in Central London. I'm Tim Franks. We're beginning with a war whose

effects it feels are causing ever-larger ruckians around the world. On major development

we'll be looking at in much more depth in 30 minutes and that is the naming of a new

supreme leader in Iran, the son of the last supreme leader. Who is he though? And what

does his appointment mean for the way in which the Iranians fight and the way in which

the country is run? In terms of those effects beyond Iran's borders though, well today

one of the biggest has been on global markets with the price of oil hitting $100 a barrel

for the first time in years and stock markets juddering downwards is a sense of how that

news is being reported around the world. The war with Iran is taking a toll on the US economy.

The price of crude oil shot towards highest levels since 2023 this week.

The Iran war sparks a record oil price spike, a barrel of crude oil, now more than $100.

Tonight oil fields on fire from Iraq to Tehran fueling growing concerns over the rising

price of oil. And those growing concerns is what have what's led the finance ministers

from the G7 group of leading industrialised countries to hold an emergency meeting today

along with the boss of the international energy agency.

I'm going to have more on that in just a moment. But first let's get latest on the markets

with Rachel Morrison from Bloomberg first in terms of oil and gas prices.

So this morning we saw a really big increase in both oil and gas. So as you mentioned oil

is now firmly above $100 a barrel and European gas prices surged 30% this morning. That's

tempered a little bit but they're still up more than 10% since the close on Friday.

So really a very strong morning on the markets for both of those commodities.

And the last time oil hit $100 a barrel, that was what when in the aftermath of Russia

invading Ukraine for years ago? Yes, exactly. So although for a lot of other commodities,

we're not seeing prices anywhere near what we saw during that time. But there's a lot of other

kind of ways of measuring this that show that this is the biggest shock since that in dollar

terms. The gain today on Brent crude is the biggest since 1988. So that really shows you that

this increase caused by the conflict in the Middle East is really having a large impact

on energy prices. And not just energy prices, stock markets. I mean, I'm going to say around

the world, correct me if I'm wrong, but around the world are tumbling. Is that just because,

well, you tell me, is it because of fears over inflation over interest rates? What?

Yes, that's right. So the S&P 500 futures are down 0.8%. We've got 10 year treasuries in the US,

moving up the dollar rising, gold falling. So all of that is pointing to economic weakness.

As you mentioned, inflation, you know, high energy prices will feed into those inflation

measures. And although we don't know how long this conflict is going to last for, you know,

they're starting to be a little bit more panic around the fact that this is the second week

of this. And it doesn't look like it's going to end quickly. And is that why do you think,

I mean, last week when when this happened, it didn't feel as if there was there was there was

a bit of nervousness in the markets, but there wasn't this sort of fall in the stock markets and

rise in the oil price that we're seeing right now. Is that, I mean, can you explain why that was?

So the Strait of Hormuz, which is the waterway that's been closed off, which is stopping

exports of oil and gas from leaving the Middle East, that's never been closed for this amount

of time before. So at the beginning, most people were expecting a quick fix to be found at least

for ships to pass through, even if the conflict continued. But that hasn't happened. And that

has taken some people by surprise because it's now been, you know, 10 days with that closed

and without exports. So we're seeing production facilities having to close and shut because they

have nowhere to put the oil. So that also means that when they restart, it takes a lot longer to get

production flowing again. So it, everything's pointing to this having more of a long-lasting

impact. And of course, we have no timeline for when Trump or anybody else will seek to end this.

Rachel Morrison from Bloomberg, Henning Glouistine is managing director for Energy

Industry and Resources at the Razor Group, they advise on political risk around the world,

which countries are most exposed to this energy shock. So in terms of consumers, the most exposed

are importers in the Indo-Pacific region, in particular India. They have a very high exposure

because they buy a lot of their oil and gas that they consume from the Middle East and they're

very price sensitive. So retailers, power generators, refineries are more price sensitive in India

than they are in most other regions. Similar applies to Pakistan and Bangladesh. So South

Asia's the whole is very exposed. If you move into North East Asia, it is the most of oil-intensive

economies there, like South Korean Taiwan, that are very exposed to this because a lot of

their manufacturing relies on imported crude to make things like chemical products.

So those regions are quite badly exposed. Europe's quite badly exposed as well though, because we're

coming out of a pretty long and cold winter for most of continental Europe. So inventory is natural

gas. The inventory is low. So the loss of Qatar, we look to find natural gas or LNG impacts Europe,

including the United Kingdom, are quite badly as well. So basically, I mean, any big economy that

relies heavily on imports of fossil fuels is highly exposed and in particular if they come

from the Middle East by majority, you are highly exposed to this disruption and it doesn't look

like it's going to let up anytime soon. We mentioned East Asia. You mentioned Europe. You didn't

mention the United States. It may not be quite as exposed, but is there likely to be or has there

already been a feed through, for example, to petrol pump gas pump prices? Yeah, absolutely. So

the United States, pump prices, gasoline prices have already shot to $4 per gallon at many pump

stations across the country. That is always politically sensitive in the US there. Although it's a

wealthy country, the US because they drive cars so much, they're very price sensitive, the public

there. Overall, its economy, though, is somewhat insulated from this price shock because the United

States is actually the world's biggest oil and gas produce itself. So they consume a lot of gas

and all that they produce domestically. And also, they're, of course, American companies that

will benefit from this because they will get to export a lot more oil and gas to consumers across

Europe, but also Asia. And in terms of those producers then, I mean, a possible benefit for

American producers, what about Russia? Could Russia stand benefit from this?

Russia has already benefited from this without a doubt. First of all, they're not losing any

exports because of this conflict. They're not dependent on the straight of hormones for their

oil exports. And crucially, the United States has granted India a sanction waiver so India can

now import as much crude oil from Russia as it likes to and they already are and at very high

prices. So the last cargo is India ordered from Russia of last couple days were fixed at around

$90 a barrel. Prior to this conflict breaking out, Russia wasn't selling oil at much more than

$60 per barrel. So they're making more money out of every barrel that they're selling and they're

selling more because India is now allowed to buy more from Russia because of this US sanctions waiver.

I also won't be surprised if the Chinese start raising imports from Russia because they are

highly exposed to the Middle East as well. And last but not least, I suspect actually also

Russian LNG exports to Europe will increase because Russian LNG is actually not sanctioned in

Europe at this time. And the European Union only plans to phase out Russian LNG from 2027 onwards.

That means between now and 2027 European importers can legally import LNG from Russia without any

consequences and because of the tidal gas markets I'd expect they'll do so.

Well that's fascinating. Tell me about oil because there's this emergency meeting of G7

finance ministers along with I think the head of the International Energy Authority.

That's happening while we are on air. There is some talk about whether those G7

finance ministers might do something with commonly held strategic oil reserves releasing some of

that into the market. Tell me about that and where do you think it's likely?

Yeah the IEA, the International Energy Agency has called this meeting as G7 countries. There's

another few countries involved as well. So we actually expect and I expect that there will be

a coordinated release of these so-called strategic petroleum reserves. So SBRs which every IEA member

which is most oil importing countries in the world has to hold. So every IEA member

country has to hold 90 days worth of import needs in inventories for situations exactly like

this one. So you release these petroleum reserves to bridge the supply gap in the hope that the

conflict in the Middle East is resolved relatively fast or shipments through the

straight formers can resume again which is also something that's been planned. So an insurance

system is being put together by European insurance companies with sovereign backing the same

as happening in the United States. So that ships passing hormones out of the Gulf into global markets

have some form of insurance and then maybe put some naval convoy system in place to escort tankers

out. And I was handing Roy Stein from the Eurasia group along with the economic cost of this war.

There is also of course the human cost. The greatest single loss of civilian lives came as far as

we know right at the start of the war with an airstrike on a school in the southern town of Minab.

Sound of a video uploaded by Iran's semi-official man news agency of the moment a missile appears

to hit the school more than 160 people died. Most of them young girls. I said the video appears

to show the impact. Well it's now been assessed by this video by the BBC's in-house team of

specialists and Merlin Thomas is BBC verified correspondent. We've been investigating this deadly

incident that happened on the first day of the war and in this war there's been limited

amounts of video footage emerging because of the internet blackout but this new video that's

emerged shed new light on exactly what's happened because yesterday the semi-official news agency

published a video moments before a missile hits the base. Now we've slowed the video right down

and we've shown it to multiple weapons experts who've identified the missile as a U.S.

Tomahawk missile. That's worth saying that Israel and Iran do not have Tomahawks. So to be clear

this new video doesn't show the missile hitting the school building but you can see smoke rising

in the background near the school building and because of that and expert analysis of

verified videos and satellite imagery it suggests that the area came under a wave of U.S. strikes

and you can see that in satellite imagery which shows a number of buildings that were hit. Donald

Trump has said in terms and I think it was just on Saturday that he said when asked the question

to the U.S. from the school no in my opinion based on what I've seen that was done by Iran. It

sounds as if this could contradict that. Yes it casts serious doubt on what President Donald

Trump has said. He obviously has blamed Iran for the strike on the school and we've asked the U.S.

about this and we'll continue to investigate that but experts that we've spoken to the body

of evidence we've looked at as well as satellite imagery indicates that the presence of a Tomahawk

missile says that this was a U.S. operation. Just briefly I mean any reason why the U.S. would not be

able to establish whether they had bombed the school by now. It's not clear normally in these kinds

of operations they would have intelligence that would indicate where they've struck so they've

not explained and been forthcoming as to why they haven't come forward with an answer. And that

was the BBC's Merlin Thomas. Coming up on News Air the drone specialist from Ukraine who say they

could help beat back Iran's aerial threat to Gulf countries. Honestly we have enough work here.

But we understand that this war is spreading across the world and that Iran is an ally of Russia.

So I think we could find the resources to send our instructors to train people who are fighting

the same enemy. That's coming up in about 20 minutes. Our main headline this G7 finance ministers

have met to discuss the global economic turmoil caused by the U.S.

already war against Iran. Japan's finance minister sat Suki Katiyama said in the statement

that there would be specific steps including the release of oil reserves.

You're with News Air. It's live from the BBC. I'm Tim Franks and we're going to step away from

the war. Although not in this case to head that far given that Turkey is one of the countries

that borders Iran. And that's because today Turkey's leading opposition figure Ekrem Imamolo has

gone on trial. He's the mayor of Istanbul although he hasn't been able to run the city for a while.

He was arrested last year just after he announced he intended to run for the presidency.

He's been in jail ever since and today he appeared in court along with several hundred others

to answer charges of corruption. Prosecutors are reportedly seeking a prison term for Mr

Imamolo of 2,430 years. Hannah Lucinda Smith is a freelance journalist based in Istanbul and the author

of Erdogan Rising a book about the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. How big a figure is

Ekrem Imamolo? I mean he's perhaps the number two, well definitely the number two figure after

Erdogan himself. And it's remarkable because he only became Mayor of Istanbul in 2019 before that.

He was a pretty unknown figure. He was a mayor and a sort of outer district of Istanbul.

But he took this shock when in 2019 beating Erdogan's candidate. And since then has proved

himself to be not only a popular Mayor of Istanbul but also a really popular opposition figure.

You know a figure that opponents to President Erdogan who really haven't had a kind of strong

popular charismatic figurehead for a really long time can kind of gather around. And you know as

you said in your introduction he had just announced he was about to be formally nominated as the

opposition's presidential candidate for the next election. So yeah it is no coincidence that he

was arrested when he was. Do correct me if I've got this wrong but I think the next presidential

election in Turkey isn't scheduled for a couple of years. Is there any, I mean I realize you

can't say for certain but I mean what are the thoughts about how likely this court case

may be done in time and you know whether indeed in Turkey if one is charged with this sort of level

of serious offences. What chances are that you might escape with a not guilty verdict?

Well I mean the justice system here in Turkey has been in collapse for a decade really since

the failed coup attempt of 2016, earlier decade ago now. You know the justice system has been

stripped out judges, lost their jobs, prosecutors, replaced with Erdogan's loyalists and again and again

we've seen you know figures like him, I'm all who opposition figures including the main Kurdish

politician Sela Hatin Demissar, she's been in prison for nearly a decade. These kind of trials

against them they drag on, there are charges added, they might go to the ECHR, the European court,

they might make a decision and it comes back to Turkey and neutral as they started,

they really drag on and on and on and on and you mentioned you know the sentence that the

prosecutors are seeking for Imamolo 2000, I think it's 352 years, I mean this is incredible

and even if he was only to spend a day in prison the fact is that Imamolo is now banned from politics

this is the key thing, this is the main challenge just Erdogan the first man really in two decades

who seem to have been able to gather a base around him and gather enough excitement around him

is basically ruled out of the next elections whenever they may come. So the other question is whether

there is any potential replacement for a man who has got recognition and it seems some charisma.

Well this is the problem for the opposition, so the I guess the next figure in the CHP

Imamolo's party is Osgarizelle the party leader who certainly you know he does appear in front of

the public a lot he talks a lot but he doesn't have that kind of base. I think what's really key

about Imamolo is the time that he's spent in charge of Istanbul and there's this really interesting

parallel because Erdogan too was Mary of Istanbul in the 1990s it was here that he built up this

popular base. He was also imprisoned while he was met at the time the system the sort of central

system was very secularist and they were very frightened by an Islamist like Erdogan he'd got

too popular and they put him into prison but he kind of used it as you know a really great PR

boost and managed to very quickly make his way to Prime Minister and then President after his

release within Imamolo I mean we can't say sure what will happen. And that was Hannah

Lucinda Smith speaking to me from Istanbul. Now a bit of ancient history for a younger listeners

before the delete key there was something called correction fluid a glupy liquid usually white

because most paper is white and applied to your mistakes on the page with a little brush attached

to the top of the small bottle. Why am I telling you this? Because it now appears it is really

ancient history. Staff at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge have they say discovered that the

ancient Egyptians had their own version for correcting mistakes on their scrolls three thousand

years ago. Helen Stradwick is senior curator at the Fitzwilliam. Well we're seeing it on a

papyrus that contained a text that we refer to as the Book of the Dead which is a funerary papyrus

and that is illustrated with small vignettes that accompany various spells that are written inside

there and on one of those we see a very large black jackal and either side of the body of the

jackal is a very noticeable when you spot it white stripe that looks very much like the old style

of tipex that I used to use when I was using a typewriter to correct it and it looks as if it's

been used to change the shape of the body of the animal. You can see it really clearly when you

sort of stop and look at it in any detail. The thing is that most people only glance at the vignette

because the text is the part that has been in the past the very interesting thing to

Egyptologists but when you start looking at the way that the vignettes have been painted then

there's a moment where you go oh why is there that white stripe there and another one there?

And why do you think that this was a sort of correction fluid as opposed to an addition

that they decided that they wanted the black torso of this jackal to sort of look multi-colored?

Well looking at the rest of the papyrus the artist or artists is extremely skilled and doesn't

use paint in a wasteful way at all so where there are layers of paint they are used very carefully

so we use infrared imagery on it and that allows us to see through the layers of paint particularly

you see the black layers of paint that might be underneath things and you know writers rain we

could see that the body originally was much much fatter and that there's these white stripes which

overlie a significant part of the black though it's quite clear it's been done to thin it down.

I then also have been looking at editions of other books at the dead and lo and behold yes I can

see it on other papyrus. I don't want to be snippy about it but the thing about tippex and I should

say given that I work at the BBC that there are other correction fluids available on the market however

the thing about these correction fluids was that when back in the day we used to use them they they

were supposed to be they never were but they were supposed to be invisible this seems as if

dare I say it it's rather crude. The problem is that the papyrus itself has aged over time I mean

it's you know it's several thousand years old and over that time the material of the papyrus

has darkened and become quite a dark brown so the white really stands out but originally when

the papyrus was made it would have been quite a creamy pale colour. To me it's been a delight to

actually have time to draw people's attention to these amazing people who made these things and

to kind of really humanise the Egyptians perhaps a bit more because for a lot of people the first

focus of their attention has always been on the kings of Egypt or the maybe esoteric religious

thinking that the Egyptians had but when we actually start looking at objects and can actually

see chisel marks or you know somebody's thumbprint or something like that you immediately

become more connected to the person he made it. Alan Strodwick from the Fitzwilliam museum in

Cambridge with that wonderfully beguiling discovery you're listening to news now.

Several Iranian diaspora groups have been petitioning the Australian government to allow the

Iranian women's football team to be allowed to remain in country there are fears for their

safety after Iranian state TV had labelled them wartime traitors for refusing to sing or salute

the national anthem before their first game of the Asian cup tournament at the team have now been

eliminated from the cup after they were beaten in their final group game on Sunday. Katie Watson

is on Australia's gold coast. I can tell you because I've been at their hotel all day they are still

here on the gold coast what their plans are that is a big question nobody knows the expectation is

they would be flying out of Australia soon because they've now been eliminated but that is

really unclear you know we were asked to leave the hotel after spending the day there

I did see some of the players some people who their minders who are there it's impossible to have

any kind of communication but that's what everybody's trying to understand what is the plan now

there's increasing pressure on authorities here in Australia and there's a lot of discussion

about the concern about their safety ever since they declined to sing the national anthem in their

first match against South Korea last week and then subsequently did sing the national anthem

in the pre in the next two matches there is concern that perhaps they come under pressure from

the regime right and I haven't been following the progress of the team obviously they've been

eliminated but I mean you talked about the anthems sometimes when players are unhappy and a goal is

they score a goal they don't celebrate I don't know if that's a level of detail that you've

got for us but do you do you know whether there was any I mean other than the anthems were there

any sort of hints of on field disquired from the players so I went to the match last night their last

match against the Philippines and there was very little interaction between the the the players

and the fans watching them at one point to help on the sidelines turned to where their Iranian

community are and of course they're they're all pretty anti-regime and she blew a kiss to the

crowd and there were huge cheers so that felt like quite a statement but beyond that there's been

very little big especially at the end when the Philippine side lined up to thank their supporters

the Iranian side just walked off and so there's been very little communication in press conferences

after the match any question on the wars being shut down what are the Australian authorities

saying about all this the Australian authorities are kind of not really being drawn into the discussion

the Foreign Minister Penny Wong said at the weekend that the the the government stand on

a derity with men and women of Iran a particularly Iranian women and girls it's obviously a regime

that's brutally cracked down on its people but certainly it's been pushed to try and get the

authorities to perhaps do more and very much push that the police need to do something as well

to make sure that these women stay safe but right now there's very little communication on that side

Katie Watson speaking to me from Australia's Gold Coast and since we had that conversation there

are reports of five members of Iran's women's football team of left the team hotel on the Gold Coast

and Don Trump has said today that Australia is making a terrible humanitarian mistake

whether to allow the women's soccer team to be sent back to Iran

this is the BBC World Service life in London you listening to news hour with me Tim Franks

Iran has a new supreme leader a new man with a familiar name as you may be able to hear from

this announcement on state TV

as you probably heard there and the new man is mushtabah hamane the son of the last supreme leader

ayatollah Ali hamane killed in an airstrike on the first day of this U.S. Israeli war

but the familiarity of his name masks the fact that he has seen as a bit of a mystery when it comes

to how he's going to answer the massive questions hanging over Iran right now

questions as to how he will direct the fighting of this war how he will govern the country indeed

whether he's even able to govern the country see of us Ranjbar Dami is a senior lecturer at the

University of St Andrews in Scotland he's a specialist on modern and contemporary Iran

what do we actually know about mushtabah hamane

expertise doesn't really help in this particular instance because really he has been

shielded away from the public case until this very moment we know that he was part of the inner

circle of his father supreme former supreme leader Ali hamane he was part of his office but

didn't actually hold a formal position or role there the first sort of signs we had that he

was involved in political activities go back to 2005 when one of the presidential candidates

of the elections that were presidential elections that were held there and then Mehdi Karubi

alleged that he had intervened to raise the votes and increase the votes of one of the conservative

candidates that was the parliamentary speaker Muammad Baugh al-Ghalibov and Ghalibov and mushtabah

hamane are considered to have been very close since then and Ghalibov of course today is the

parliamentary speaker and he has been sending out tweets of praising mushtabah hamane as an

innovative leader as somebody who will rejuvenate the Islamic Republic while remaining loyal to

the broad tenets of his slave father then in 2009 again very controversial presidential

elections there was the green movement protest movement again allegations surface that mushtabah

hamane was involved in the in the crackdown of that movement again we don't really have the

details we don't really have clear cut proof but that those voices remained in the in the rainy

political sphere and last a few years ago another of the defeated candidates of 2009

who has been on the house arrest since 2011 we don't say mushtabah now a prominent dissident

and opposition leader claimed that plans were afoot for a dynastic succession from Aytolah hamane

to mushtabah hamane and asked the authorities to deny it publicly and officially and that denial

didn't come and of course Musavi was ostracized and authorities didn't usually respond to his

accusations but but also that remained and mushtabah hamane's name was often brought up in recent

years as a potential success as a likely successor to his father again without anything coming out

in terms of statements declarations speeches as to what exactly things in terms of world affairs

what he makes of the recent crisis that engulfed him on recent years and more so he hasn't had a

public profile but it sounds from what you're saying that he's been very close to the center of

power for a couple of decades he's had an important role i mean i have read some accounts which

have suggested that especially his father became ever more ancient that he may well have been

exerting all the more power but what the what the indications are from sort of you know the actions

with which he's been associated rather than any public pronouncements is that he is pretty hard

line pretty conservative yes i would say a continuity candidate he he he would he would basically

be entrusted with maintaining the the the mechanism of his father's office of the supreme

leader and and therefore was was was chosen because of course what remains of the Islamic Republic's

political elite after the spate of assassinations in june 2025 and now our people who were very loyal

to his father and loyalty to the former supreme leader hamane was a very defining trait and an

essential trait for holding high office in in the past couple of decades or so under the Islamic

Republic with a few exceptions of course so you could argue that that that that sort of continuity

is there despite the fact that his allies not himself of course are are sometimes depicted

in him as as some form of Iranian Muhammad bin Salman somebody who can can actually reform the

system from within without subverting the structure or political power right comparison there

with the Saudi crown prince i mean as supreme leader normally he's obviously he's the supreme

religious figure but he's also the supreme political figure he's the commander in chief

i guess one question it's for him but i suppose it would be for whoever took over the job is

how far they can pull on all those levers of power given what is happening to the country right

now i mean how how far what's your assessment of how far he can direct events well the office of

the supreme leader progressively became a rather secular rather religious institution it had a

veneer of course of religious tinge to it and adherence to religious ritual and practice and more

but the fact that it functioned as a as a secular instrument of exerting political power and authority

most of our harmonies religious credentials aren't high at all the the Iranian state media

as as uniformly referred to him as an ayatollah but there's very little proof that actually he has

that level of high clerical rank he will obviously have to wait into this myriad of crisis that

is the heavy legacy i would say of the late period of his father let's not forget what happened

in January for example with the with with that protest movement and and or for example the very

very poor economic situation and environmental crisis and more so clearly at the moment the

the first priority must be bringing his conflict to an end and then tackling these issues one by one

so we will have to just wait and see what happens and i would see a rush a ranch bar

Dami seen a lecture at the University of St Andrews and a specialist on modern and contemporary Iran

the Ukrainian President of Lodem is Zelensky as said that he is sending drone experts to the

Middle East this week to help Gulf states under attack from Iran in fact shortly before we

came on air Mr Zelensky said that 11 countries had asked for Ukraine's help after being hit by

Iran's Shakhir drones Ukraine has spent four years inventing cheap and effective ways of

defending their skies from similar Russian strikes using it often those Iranian drones

our diplomatic correspondent James Landel is in Ukraine and he's been to see the latest

anti drone technology the country has to offer we're standing in a field in the middle of the

Ukrainian countryside and it's a place where people come to test drones and we've come to look at

a drone called a bullet they're putting it together in front of us and it looks like a very strange

weapon a hybrid weapon half quadcopter drone half plastic shell and it's the latest

technology the latest design that the Ukrainians have come up with to destroy lethal Russian

Shakhir drones that attack Ukraine almost nightly the bullets just taken off rising on its four

propellers and then suddenly whoosh away it goes it tips on its side rockets away and now it's

just a small speck on the horizon its top speed is well over 300 kilometers an hour

this is one of Ukraine's newest and fastest interceptors and the idea behind it is very simple

the pilots launch the bullet and use a first-person camera simply to crash it into an incoming drone

they're deadly and the pilots know they could be just as effective against similar

Iranian Shakhir drones causing havoc across them at least this drone pilot Kulsain Drakha

thinks Ukraine has much to offer honestly we have enough work here but we understand that this

war is spreading across the world and that Iran is an ally of Russia so I think we could find

the resources to send our instructors to train people who are fighting the same enemy

we've come now to the factory where the drones are made there are rows and rows of men and women

soldering assembling fixing sorting and there are piles and piles of these drones you really get a

sense of just how relatively simple it is to make these drones and why they're so cheap

Stanislav Grushin is co-founder of the General Cherry drone company

are you surprised that it has taken this amount of time for the rest of the world to wake up to

the importance of this speaking honestly I'm really surprised it seems that every country is

preparing to the past wars but not the ongoing ones have any countries come to you have you had

extra demand requests in the last week yes a lot of state agents from different countries from

all over the world not sure them just Arabic ones who are already facing the threat from Iran they

understand now how it may be their request is pretty high and very urgent

President Zelensky says Ukrainian experts will arrive in the Gulf this week to offer immediate help

with drone defenses but he's clear nothing should damage Ukraine's own and he's looking to swap

interceptors for more Patriot missiles it's also about more than just selling drones allies would

also need training in how to use them Victoria Huncherok works for the Snake Island Institute

a defense think tanken believes Ukraine can teach the world a great deal I know training can take

long but I think Ukraine is an absolute champion in doing things quickly and rapidly adapting and

that's exactly what we can teach our allies it's one second is rapid integration of interceptors

in the air defense because it is quite new for allies just one thing important to remember is

that it should be a partnership Ukraine gives something Ukraine needs something to return right

we're happy to close the sky but let's also close the sky over Ukraine finally

the war in the Middle East poses risks for Kiev rising oil prices fueling Russia's war machine

distracted allies turning their attention elsewhere but Ukraine's hard one expertise in interceptor

drones gives President Zelensky an opportunity not just to win new friends and funds in the Gulf

but also to keep his war from being forgotten very familiar sound of drones from the war

in Ukraine and just a line that's come in further to what I was mentioning before

Vladimir Zelensky has said that some requests had already received concrete support requests from

Gulf states for help in countering drones but he did emphasize that any help could not be the

ex at the expense of Ukraine's own security this is news air

you're with the BBC World Service and this is news air live from London the catarie ministry of

defence has just announced on social media that so far today catar has been attacked by 17

ballistic missiles and six drones from Iran thanks to God said the ministry its armed forces had

successfully intercepted all that incoming fire meanwhile today Bahrain says that 32

civilians have been injured in Iranian attacks and the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are

also reporting being targeted as indeed shortly before we come on air has turkey or they've said

that they've intercepted a missile coming in from Iran the complete change to life in the Gulf

is causing a real diplomatic headache for the governments there who need to protect their citizens

their economies and their vital industries but they really do not want to be full partners in this

U.S.-Israeli war the BBC's Anifoster has been looking at how the conflict is affecting lives

in the catarie capital Doha

this is the main sook in Doha the market it's Ramadan so you can probably hear in the middle of the

day quite peaceful but not all of the shops are closed you can buy ood in this one on the right

beautiful little golden jars the smell in here is beautiful the air is really heavily perfumed

there are different little hole in the wall shops selling fabrics clothes for sale sparkling

scarves is worth saying that even if it weren't Ramadan at this time of day this part of town would

be thriving with tourists with locals but the restrictions that are on people not just here in Doha

across Qatar at the moment telling people not to gather so for example for iftar gatherings that's

the time of the day when people break their fast they normally come together that's being discouraged

at the moment entertainment activities have been stopped and that's all to try and keep people

safe while these missile and drone attacks from Iran continue Qatar is known for pearls before

they discover oil and gas so the main source of income was natural pearls so am Ahmed we are selling

like pearls silver gold because of this war the silk is really really affected so at late night

there will be few people because of the war and they are so panic because of the missiles

debris which will fall maybe they might assuming that yeah so people are staying at home what do you

think it would take for people to come back again the war has to be over so the fear has to be gone

what's it doing to your business because you said it was quiet but for the money that you take

in a day have you seen that go right down it's dropped really really dropped so it's so difficult to

pay those rent salaries if it is like this it's so difficult to survive not only us there are many

other companies shops and the people you know they are suffering because of this and the reason

the people aren't here it's because they're scared yeah of course you know it's obvious because

last night there was an attack we can't say like what will happen next anything could be happened

anytime we can just pray because you know this is not an a small issue there's more than eight

countries which are like struggling through this war and this is not easy but you know the airport

there's more than like a 10,000 stock even the business export import everything is stocked so

it's affected prices are going higher it's totally like affecting to the market what is it like for

you when those attacks come you know it's obvious we're feeling scared a little bit but we will

say that Qatar is one of the safest countries ever there's more than like 180 missiles have been

like launched by Iran they are trying to demolish it and the sky this is war we know that but we

can say like we are safe this is the Amiri Dewan it's a landmark in the center of Doha but it's

also the heart of Qatar in many ways it's the office of the Amir it's where vital decisions are

taken I'm looking across the beautifully manicured green lawn to these teal columns that stretch up

and of course the Katari flag is flying all around and the conversations that have been happening

in here over the last week or so have been vital now remember the day that the war started

and the Katari state very quickly put out a statement expressing its strong condemnation of the

targeting of Katari territory it said with Iranian ballistic missiles called it an unacceptable

escalation that threatens the security and the stability of the region strong words they came

on day one what the conversations that are happening inside there are based around is what happens

next can they continue in this purely defensive posture or if they want to try and change the balance

do they need to get involved in a more offensive way and what would that do to the reputation of this

country if they did they are complex decisions and they're being made on an hour by hour basis at the

moment what is happening in the region is very chaotic the Iranian behavior towards the neighboring

countries is unacceptable firing missiles and projectiles on neighboring countries they are

trying to frame it in a way they are targeting the American interests in fact they are targeting

critical civil infrastructure in the region ports airports energy they're trying to weaponize

everything to make it a global war my name is dr Abdallah Bandar al-Tabi at Katari University

this is not our fight sovereignty is a red line that should not be crossed secondly we are not

going to have a direct confrontation with Iran or we want to be involved in any military

confrontation in the region which is going to endanger the whole region and our innocent people

in the region for how long can there be a one-sided conflict where countries like Qatar are being

attacked and they don't respond it's a very difficult situation Anna and when you look at it

from our perspective we have been calling for dialogue over and over and over we believe that

diplomacy and dialogue is the only way to fix problems and not start by attacking the neighbors

we can't basically change geography we have to deal with it tourism industry all of those

things that are so important to the state of Qatar they're being heavily affected by this

30 percent of global energy comes off from the region Qatar actually contributes to 20 percent

of the LNG or liquefied natural gas global trade i'm sure in the coming weeks we will have a

bidding war on what remains in the market even if we leave the energy side so aviation

maritime all all of them are very important for the region and we see these skies are empty exactly

the sky is empty because the Iranian behavior is like it's unacceptable and unpredictable as well

so you don't know when they're going to fire the missiles so it's very dangerous and risky to

allow planes to fly in the sky and would be a very dangerous situation for four people

and that was Dr Abdullah Bandar al-Tayfi from Qatar University ending that report

by the BBC's Anna Foster reporting from Doha and I see that the AFP news agency is quoting

an ambassador from the United Arab Emirates saying that they too do not plan to partake in any

attacks on Iran that's it from this edition of news out from me Tim Franks and the team here in

London thanks for listening