Trump demands Iran surrender unconditionally

Hello and welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service, we're coming to you live from

London, I'm James Menendez, and we're going to begin with America and Israel's war against

Iran as it comes to the end of its first week. It is a war that's been fought entirely

from the air and the intensity of that aerial bombardment shows no signs of abating.

Indeed, there were some of the heaviest attacks on the Iranian capital Tehran so far, only

this morning local time.

You can hear people shouting in response to explosions nearly as a demonument in the city,

that video posted on social media. While President Trump says it'll only end when Iran surrenders

unconditionally. At the moment, it is still fighting back, even though the US and Israel

say much of its military capability has already been destroyed. It remains difficult to know

exactly what's going on inside Iran, the BBC, like most international media can't report

from the country and communications with people there remain tricky, but not impossible.

Today we managed to get through to one of the few international journalists able to report

from Tehran. She's the Colombian reporter, Catalina Gomez, who's lived there for the

best part of 20 years, and reports for the French news channel, France 24, and also Spain's

Van Guadrilla newspaper. Catalina began by telling me about those attacks earlier today.

It was basically around 5, 5, 10 in the morning that several explosions came, like they were

dropping the bombs very consecutive, and it lasted for five minutes. I used to live in Ukraine

and spend a lot of time there, and this was probably one of the most powerful bombardments

that I have heard in Ukraine or here. It was very strong. Everything was shaking. You can

feel the sound of the plane on the earth. Immediately all these pictures from Tehran started

going out in the social media, and they were very strong. You could see this huge attack

in the city, and it continues during the day, in different parts, is the West, and in

the afternoon came back to the center very strongly.

And those ones early in the morning at dawn, I mean, how close to you were they, do you

think? They were very close, actually, they were in the center of the city. I'm located

in the very center, and this was close to what they call Baterrek Barillo, is the compound

of the Supreme Leader that was actually attacking the first moment of the Israel and American

attack almost one week ago. I feel it like it was like two streets from my house.

And more generally, I mean, are you able to find out what is being hit in this campaign?

It's very difficult because this is a very secure area. In this moment, Tehran is a very,

very secure city with a lot of checkpoints of different militia groups like the Basis

or the Special Forces or the Special Police. Then there are some areas that is very difficult

to transit around. But what people are saying at this was related with some military academies,

but also related with some areas with this compound of the Supreme Leader talking about

the bunkers and tunnels around. But it's just speculations because we don't really have

the opportunity to get to this part. And especially to this special part, this is the most

secure area of the city. It's interesting. You talk about the checkpoints and the presence

of the militias and so on. That suggests that much of the regime's military apparatus

and personnel, I mean, they're all still in place. It's not like people have been

deserting their posts, is it? I mean, what we know, and we would see in the streets,

they are not the certain. They are really much there. I know that they have been attacking

bases of militias, but we can see in the streets is that they are so much presence. But I also

have to point something interesting. Two days ago, I was in the north of the city close to a

very famous place in Tehran, Tajriz, one of the biggest bazaars. And it was full of checkpoints

that day, very difficult and very dangerous because they were showing their guns very openly.

But today, I was there and it was very, very quiet. It's Friday. People should be out.

And also, there were almost no checkpoints that really show something because

there has been very much attack the city today Friday. And you don't see that much of security

in the streets. I never seen my life Tehran as empty as this afternoon night.

So people clearly staying at home, and are you able to speak to people at all in the city

and find out what they think about what's going on? I mean, clearly, people are worried,

but I just wonder whether people welcome what's happening. I mean, what are their thoughts about

what the days and weeks to come might hold? People are worried, but people have different

approach depending where they are. I mean, people who support the system and

is mourning the Supreme Leader, they are very much requesting for revenge, waiting for the new

Supreme Leader. They don't care who it's going to be that the clerics who are in charge of doing

that, they will decide. And they are really against America and Israel, but they believe that

the Iran has to go until the end. And you have other people who are really, really worried because

even if they are against Islamic Republic, they are worried what is happening with the country and

what is going to happen. After that, they are also very worried of being a big team of these

attacks, of the Israelis, of America's. And also, they are very afraid of these militias and

these checkpoints in the streets that something will happen to them. That's why people are trying to

be very careful being in their house or out of the city. And Catalina, when you speak to people

who are supportive of the system, I mean, is there any hostility towards you as a journalist?

Does it become much more difficult to do your job? No, I've been here for many years working,

not always as easy to work with this group of people, but I haven't seen any difference between

now and other times. Actually, I see them even more relaxed. It helps me. I'm Colombia. And I

always start talking to them, same, I'm Colombia. And then it really relax them a little bit,

not relating me with any European or American country. In terms of people's lives at the moment,

I mean, is there enough food in the shops? Can people get the sort of essential supplies they need

at the moment? Yes, yes, this is Middle East where in any war is very difficult not to find food.

And then everything is in the shops. There were not many shops open these days because these

morning of the Supreme Leader, many of the shops were closed, but the big supermarkets

are all the small shops in the neighborhoods they were open. And the food was fine. There were not

many restaurants open because Ramazzan and because at night probably was not very worth it for them

to open, but hasn't been any lack of anything. And when there are a series of bombardments,

I mean, are there shelters that people can go to to protect themselves?

This is the most worthy thing. There is not alarms, not any kind of alarm,

no opener, not in the mobiles, nothing that tells you that the planes are coming and the

missiles are coming. And there is basically no shelters. The parking are not open,

metros are not really able to take these people. Then everyone tries to do whatever it comes

to protect themselves, but no. And there is not a really national campaign to teach the people

what to do in this kind of occasion. They are lacking of these measures and it's very worrying.

I also got to ask you this because you got back into Iran on Saturday when the attacks began.

And in fact, I mean, it's a case of out of the frying pan and into the fire because you came

back from a reporting stint in Ukraine, didn't you? Why go back at that point? I mean, why not stay

outside when this aerial campaign just began? First of all, because it is our job as a journalist,

I have the opportunity to come back because I have a permanent residence visa in this country.

I'm one of the few foreign journalists who are allowed to report from this country permanently.

Also, because I've been living here since 2007 and it's basically the country where I live,

my family is here. I married here. Then for me, or as a necessity, this is the story I've

been covering for almost 20 years, but also in the personal level. That was the Colombian journalist

Catalina Gomez speaking to me from Tehran. Well, Israel's war is also with the Lebanese

militia, Hisbalah, which is backed by Iran. Today, it stepped up its bombardment of southern Lebanon

and southern suburbs of the capital Beirut, strongholds of Hisbalah, and that drove an estimated

100,000 people into shelters. We're a Davis, sent us this report.

Oh, you can now come down to Beirut's famous Cornish, the waterfront. Along the Cornish are

several families who've been displaced have decided to camp here, including this family of

12 people. They've got a couple of tents, a couple of chairs. It was very dangerous.

12 of us came in small cars that can't even fit eight people. We arrived at Don while we were

fasting. We came in our pajamas. We slept on the ground here. The head of the family is a man

called Adel. He told me why they're sleeping here on the streets. There's no room in the schools

or the shelters for them, they say. Every shelter we go to tells us there are no spots left,

no space. They tell us to wait until new places open up. Or try another city,

but there's no safety anywhere. Israel hasn't left any space safe. What sort of welcome if you had

it? Many people here in Beirut, they blame the resistance. They blame Hisbalah for what is

happening now. Everyone is blaming Hisbalah, but no one was blaming Israel when they brought

the ceasefire for a year and a half. The world is blaming the victim and not the killer.

It was clear even here as we're speaking to some of these internally displaced people,

there are tensions in Lebanon. A man has just come up and is debating, disputing what Adel is

saying, blaming Israel for everything he says. And it shows just some of the tensions that still

remain in Lebanese society. There are dozens of families, people of all ages who've been evacuated

from Dahia, from southern Beirut. What you find is that the older people are still loyal to Hisbalah,

their blame, the Israelis, their blame the Americans for everything. But younger people,

including one 14-year-old girl we've been speaking to, is perhaps more pragmatic.

I'm Dunya, I'm 14 and I'm from Hadas. Lebanon is honestly such a beautiful place, so it's really

sad to see this happening. When did you leave Dahia, and what has it been like trying to find

somewhere to get shelter and food? Well, we left Dahia yesterday at like 3 p.m., right when they send

us notifications to evacuate the area immediately. So where did you sleep last night?

We didn't sleep last night, we couldn't sleep out of fear. We were just seeing the news just to

check on our homes. And who do you and your family blame for all of this? Some people are blaming

the resistance, some people are blaming Israel. Who do you blame for all of this? We think that

Hisbalah, I think it's way too early for Lebanon right now to have like another war. So I feel like

them acting on Israel is kind of their problem as well. Oh, we just had another big

asteroid right in front of us. It's right in the heart of Sudden Bay Route, the entire area,

of course, is now under an Israeli evacuation order and you can clearly see why.

And that was where a Davis reporting their from Bay Route in Lebanon. You're listening to Niza.

Still to come, our scientists have found a way to turn moon dust into something that plants

can grow in. The cool thing about this is it can be created through things like the astronauts

food scraps, coffee grounds or even the cotton t-shirts they're wearing, fed to the worms and

created in space to provide the organic matter. Or in that coming up in just over 10 minutes,

our main headlines from the newsroom at the moment, President Trump's demand of the

unconditional surrender of Iran as the US and Israel continue their bombardment of cities there.

Officials in Iraq have warned against using the country as a launch pad for attacks on

neighboring states amid tensions with Iran. And the opening ceremony of the winter

Paralympics is taking place in Italy with some nations boycotting it in a dispute over Russia

and Belarus.

This is James Menendez, we news our life from the BBC. Now we're going to head to

Venezuela. We heard last night from our South America correspondents he's just managed to get

back into the country for the first time since the US captured the former President Nicolas Maduro

and his wife and whisked them away to a New York courtroom. While her visit coincided with a brief

trip by the US Interior Secretary Doug Burgham who was there to talk about investment in Venezuela's

mining and rare earths. In a sign of the close cooperation between the Trump administration and

the new interim leader Delci Rodriguez, she has promised to change laws to attract that foreign

capital. But Mr Rodriguez was a close ally of Maduro and most of his government is still in place.

So what has changed since that US Special Forces raid at the start of the year? Well here's

Ioni Wells's report from the capital Grecas. This is the first time I've been able to report from

Venezuela in two years. And on the surface there are lots of signs that Nicolas Maduro's

government is still in charge. There are wanted posters plastered around the airport

for the opposition's last election candidate at Munna González. The city's covered in billboards

of Maduro and his wife. With the hashtag we want them back.

What has changed is the government is now working with the US. This week US Interior Minister Doug

Burgham met interim president Delci Rodriguez on a visit to push mining development.

I'm at the international airport now where Doug Burgham is about to set off and go back to the

United States. At a press conference he was asked whether he raised democracy with Delci Rodriguez.

We certainly talked about a positive future for this country and there's a number of things

that are happening again under the current leadership that are very positive for everybody

in this country. One change of Venezuela has been the release of political prisoners, although

hundreds of people remain behind bars. And outside the El Broteo prison now where there's an

encampment of tents of family members of people still inside protesting and campaigning every day

for their release. One person here is Juan Pablo Juanita. He's an opposition politician.

He was accused of terrorism and treason for challenging the 2024 election result.

He was detained in May 2025.

The first 21 days of my imprisonment were 21 days of humiliation and outrage.

I went 21 days without washing, without bathing. When they released me I went out to visit some

detention centers. That really annoyed the regime and they arrested me again. My freedom is

incomplete because there are still many political prisoners. I asked him what had changed since

the US took Maduro after military strikes and claimed it would run the country.

Even the fact this protest is happening daily shows the big changes that have happened in Venezuela.

Months ago people would have been too afraid of repercussions for protests like this.

Imagine if we have done this before January 3rd. We would have all been jailed,

but instead this gave us more courage and now we are not afraid.

But even though this fear seems to be gradually cautiously lifting, I've spoken to many people here

who still feel afraid of speaking freely.

I'm on the streets of central Caracas, exactly two months after the US seized

Nicolas Maduro in a military raid. Sports is paying a gathering here to show there's a port for him returning.

Kelsey is carrying the weight for Venezuela, resisting the blows and fighting for our population,

because while it is true the president is imprisoned, there is a population of resistance.

Off mic though, some of the people here told me it was mostly government employees feeling

obliged to go and while some of them are privately critical of the government, they're still too

afraid to say so publicly. After decades of the same government, supporters and critics want to

know, is the transition really coming? And if so, when?

Only Wales reporting there from Caracas and I've been speaking to only on the line from the city

and I picked up on that point, I mean, is there any timetable for the political transition?

At the moment, no, the US and Venezuela have been communicating over mostly sort of economic

deals at the moment, but the US has been quite when asked explicitly whether or not it is

demanding a sort of process, a timeline for democratization for fresh elections.

The US has spoken about almost a sort of three-pronged approach about stabilising the country

and the economy first, developing the right conditions for free elections, for setting out a

timetable for them and it's certainly something which a lot of opposition activists and politicians

that I've spoken to have also referred to, the idea of creating the conditions for free elections,

making sure that all political prisoners are released, that all opposition politicians who

are still detained or have been suffering from restrictions are also able to act freely

and that there will be reforms to the electoral system because it is worth pressing,

that the electoral system, the judicial system in the country are still government controlled

and that does concern even those on the opposition who would like to see a timetable for

elections, but want to make sure that if and when they happen, again, the conditions for them

will be as fair as possible. Yes, I mean, you talked about people feeling

freer to talk, but I mean, as you hinted there, the state apparatus of Maduro and his enforcers,

I mean, they're still in charge, are they? That's right. It is still the same government in charge

led by Adelcio Rodriguez, of course, Nicolás Maduro's former vice president. There's still

many of the same government ministers in charge, notably the interior minister, the El Sado Cabello,

who is known for essentially being the one who orchestrated much of the crackdown on dissent that we

saw in particular over the last couple of years and after the last elections who runs the

paramilitary groups that operate in the country. So still there's a lot of fear given

those people are still in position. I think what has changed, though, is there is more of a willingness

to challenge the government than we have seen in previous years. I mean, certainly when I was

speaking to people protesting outside some of the prisons, demanding a release of more

prensical prisoners, one woman turned to me and said, just look at this, this couldn't have happened

before the third of January. Now we don't have that fear anymore. So I think that that is one of

the bigger changes and even speaking to young and people at the university here in Caracas just

yesterday as well. Many of them were very openly talking about their desires for a transition,

expressing support for some opposition candidates that potentially could be in the mix in the future.

So I think there is certainly an openness, but I think a nervousness too, which as I mentioned,

I picked up including a rally for Nicolás Maduro from some of the people there, some of the

public employees there who are still on that government payroll and I think are still nervous

about what could happen to them both in terms of their freedom but also even their jobs,

their livelihoods, if they were to speak out against the current administration and express

a desire for change. And thinking about livelihoods just briefly, I mean, the economy has been

such a big problem for Venezuela. It's driven many people to leave the country. I mean, are there

signs that that's picking up? What impression have you got? I wouldn't say that in terms of day-to-day

life people are feeling any changes yet. Prizes are still high. There is still extreme poverty

around the country, which are still visible. I think there is some optimism that perhaps if there

is the foreign investment that is promised by the United States chiefly when it comes to the country's

oil sector, mining sector, other sectors that perhaps that wealth will start to trickle down,

will revive some areas that have been long neglected, including some of the areas that used to be

very rich from oil money and hubs for oil workers, for example. But at the moment, I think that

is still potentially quite a long way off. We're seeing a lot of these deals on a macro level,

on a micro level, poverty is still very high in the country. And that was also South America

correspondence. I only well speaking to me from Caracas in Venezuela. You're listening to

Neusar. Do you stay with us? Lots more coming up in the second half of the program.

Welcome back to Neusar. It may be a long way off, but if humans are ever to spend any time on

the moon, then they'll need to eat. They're not just supplies of dehydrated food flown in from

Earth. Well, the prospect of growing food on the moon has moved a little closer. Researchers in

the US have managed to grow chickpeas in a soil that contains up to three-quarters moon dust, or at least

simulated moon dust. Jessica Atkin is one of the researchers at Texas A&M University. She's a

NASA fellow there. First of all, what's in simulated moon dust? High amounts of silica, iron,

aluminum, things that you would find on the moon. Is that conducive to to growing chickpeas

or is it harmful to plants? It is quite harmful. So, to have a soil on Earth, you have to have two

things. You have to have organic matter and microorganisms, and moon dirt or the simulate has

neither of those. So it gets a little bit tricky, and we had to go about adding those things.

For the organic matter, we actually use something called the vermicompost. And I know that's a big

word, but it's basically just worm poop. The cool thing about this is it can be created through

things that are otherwise thrown away in a space situation. Think things like the astronauts'

food scraps, coffee grounds, or even the cotton t-shirts they're wearing, fed to the worms,

and created in space to provide the organic matter. The star of this study is mycorrhizae. It's

our buscular, mycorrhizal fungi. It's a fungus, and it is one of the oldest symbiosis

relationships on Earth, and it's actually what allowed plants and fungi to inhabit early

forming land on Earth. And so, we thought to ourselves, could we potentially use this symbiosis

and create the same on the moon? So, when you combine that with the worm poop and the simulated

lunar soil, the moon dust, as it were, plants can grow in that, it seems. Yes, they can. Now,

every plant that was in any regular stimulant did experience stressors, but they were able to

push past those stressors with the help of the fungi to go to the reproductive stage and produce

seeds. Have you eaten any of the chickpeas that the plants have produced yet? Not quite yet,

it is on my to-do list, but first we're having them tested to see, did they accumulate any of these

metals, or did the fungi help reduce their uptake, and are they nutritious? Regolith may be hazardous

and contained metals, but it also contains essentially all nutrients plants need to grow strong

minus nitrogen. So, you've got to try on other plants. I mean, man and women can't live on

chickpeas, homosolone, can they? Yeah, that's a good point. And the really cool thing about this

fungi is if you're to look outside your window right now, over 80 percent of the plants that you see

on land can be colonized by this fungi. So, it would be great to test it on a diverse range of

crop systems. And that was Jessica Atkin, one of the researchers at Texas A&M University in NASA

fellow there, looking into growing food on the moon. She's been growing chickpeas in that moon

dust moon dirt. You're listening to news out from the BBC.

This is the BBC World Service in London, you're listening to news out, and I'm James Menendez.

Well, let's return to what's happening inside Iran now and what seems to be one of the worst

incidents of the conflict so far. It happened on the first day of America and Israel's campaign,

school in the city of Minab in the far south of Iran, was struck from the air, causing parts of

the building to collapse and setting the rest on fire. The Iranian authorities say 168 people were

killed, many, or most of them young children. The US Secretary of Defense was asked about the

incident on Wednesday. He said the Pentagon was investigating, adding the US would never target

civilians. Israel has said it wasn't aware of any operations in the area, but was also looking

into it. My colleagues at BBC Verify have been examining footage of the strike on social media

and also at satellite imagery. Shayan Sadarizade has been telling me what they found.

In the immediate aftermath, we saw some videos being shared of a couple of people in the vicinity

of this school, a one on a boulevard nearby who filmed multiple plumes of smoke. Another person

knows the key piece of video for us. The man who actually walks into the courtyard of the school,

so we first see him outside the school and he's looking at the walls of this school which have

like letters of the Persian alphabet, some children's murals, and then he walked in and we see the

main school building and we see two plumes of smoke rising from the top floor of that building,

but also to his left, obviously at least two or three other plumes of smoke. Now we went to

satellite imagery to analyze what was going on and we found out that place where the school is

located, which is in the southern city of Meenab. You know, there is a base belonging to the Islamic

Revolutionary Guard Corps, the RRGC, very, very close to it. This base we believe belongs to

the RGC's naval force and interestingly enough, this area also includes a medical clinic that

also belongs to the RGC, but the medical clinic and the school both are walled off from the rest of

the RGC base. According to the satellite images captured on the 4th of March, so four days after

the attack that we received, multiple areas have been hidden near the school and the school itself,

so we can see the school was partially damaged. We can also confirm this in some of the videos

shared by Iranian media of the sort of damage to the school and we can also see multiple buildings

in that RGC base have been hit and also part of the medical facility has also been hit.

Just to be clear about the geography, the school is not part of the RRGC compound,

but it is adjacent to it, is that right? Yeah, absolutely correct. So the school is immediately

to the northeast of this RGC base and there's an identifiable wall that separates the school

from the RGC base. There's a school sign right above the wall and there are children's murals,

so it's very clear that that is a school that is separate from the rest of the RGC base. We went

to a couple of experts what we received from them is that this was most likely multiple strikes

targeting that particular compound and the area surrounding it, not just one strike, several

places were hit. Are you able to work out who might have attacked it? Because there has been

some suggestion that it could have been a stray Iranian missile? We went to the US, the US

Sancom, we asked them about this and both the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hexeth and Secretary

of State Mark Rubio have said that they are investigating this incident. We went to the idea

of these role defense forces and they said they were not aware of any strikes in that area

and the Iranians are very clearly saying that this was an American or Israeli strike,

so we asked experts about that and none of them was able to tell us but any definitive

sense who carried out the strike. They only told us that very clearly that compound was intended

to be hit and it was hit multiple times and now there was an image that went viral on social

media that claimed to show a sort of failed defense missile fired by the IRGC, that was responsible

for this but you know the experts tell us that's highly unlikely because multiple areas within that

compound have been hit with precision strikes and also the defense missiles that the IRGC has

does not have the explosive power to cause the level of damage that we see in the satellite images

and most importantly we were actually able to geolocate that particular image that went viral and

that's like more than a thousand kilometers away from this incident from this school.

And finally I mean were you able to ascertain how many people were killed in this attack and were

most of them children? Yes according to Iran authorities 168 people were killed, we don't have an

access to the list of people who've been killed, we're not able to verify every single person

but we did see and verify some videos in the aftermath of the attack that we saw

as sort of children's bodies in there, you know we saw a severed arm, we saw some limbs in

underneath the rubble and we've also seen some videos being shared of appear to be coffins of

children in the funeral event that happened and also in the immediate aftermath and there was also

a sort of list shared by the governor of the province where this school is located, it was a list

of about 56 people with names and dates of birth reportedly have been killed in the attack.

We went through that list and about 48 of them are aged between 6 and 11 and we were able to

match the names of three of those people on that list with the names that we saw on three of the

coffins that we saw in the in the videos of the funeral. And that was Cheyenne Sardarizade of BBC

Verify.

Now if you're afraid of heights you might want to turn the radio down a bit because even though

the story about to hear as an audio account it is vivid plus you may have already seen the video

that's now circulating and that you'll know what I'm talking about. It concerns a rescue in

East Texas last weekend of two people whose hot air balloon got entangled in a communications

tower leaving them dangling in mid air and not just one of those cell phone towers that's a few

stories high. This one is more than 300 meters tall more than a thousand feet and from the top

one you can see for miles. It has a happy ending but it was an extraordinarily challenging operation

for the rescue teams requiring extremely cool heads. Cliff Patrick is a firefighter with Longview

Fire Department. Luckily he is a cool customer as you'll hear he's been telling me what happened.

The text came across to our one of our group chats for our technical rescue team and it was

something that we've talked about. This tower is one of the tallest in our area. The estimations

were from 100 to 300 feet at that time. I wasn't necessarily able to grasp the full magnitude of it

until I get closer to the scene. The tower that's full height is what 900 feet for our metric

listeners that's about 300 meters. I mean it is really tall isn't it? Overall it's a

1080 feet and so we were ballooned contacted at about the 920 foot mark. They're on the tower.

So as a very tall tower one of the tallest in our area which made it unique and the fact that

as everybody was traveling to the scene we could see it from 35 miles out everybody kind of had

that aha moment when they ran it a corner and got it in view and we're like oh this is this is

the big one and we are a long ways up there. And what happened I mean the balloon had simply

just drifted by accident into the tower and got tangled up. That's basically what had happened.

There was a wind shift then the pilot obviously had a miscalculation and thought he could climb

over the tower. So they contacted the gadwire and the tower and ended up hanging up on it.

So you get there you got to get up there. I mean is this something that you're trained to do?

I mean presumably you've got extensive climbing experience. Every year our department does a

rope rescue class and we do a day of tower rescue but we're only doing about 200 feet on the tower.

So we trained to do this but you can't train to that extent. This was obviously five times

anything that our department's necessarily trained for. How long does it take to get up?

To 900 feet. The first climber that started climbing it took him hour and 10 minutes to make

the climb. He had more rope and a little bit more gear. I got to climb a little bit more streamlined

personal rigging and victim harness and other rigging that I carried with me. He had the rope

which added about 40 pounds to him. Yeah I'm what sort of state with a couple in when you got up

there? I mean they must have been pretty scared. They were very scared. The gentleman was standing

helping us secure the basket and the female was seated in the basket. As she was talking on the

phone we had their cell phone number and so we dedicated one of our members just the talk to them

for the entirety of the climb. So she'd been talking to one of our fire captains down below

then he spent an over an hour on the phone with them while we were making that climb.

How stable was the basket and what was left of the balloon at this stage? I mean was there a risk

that it could fall? There absolutely was. That was probably the most stressful part of the operation

was making the climb and you're trying to climb as fast as you can because we don't know what state

the balloon is then, how it's hanging. I was up there and I saw it wrapped around the guide wire

and hanging on the power itself but I'm not sure how it managed to maintain contact with

that guide wire and stay secured to that guide wire. It was really just I think providential

Lord's hand watching over him. So that was the most stressful part of the climb was knowing that

that basket could be coming down and we need to push as hard as we absolutely could to get there

and secure the basket and then secure the survivors in it. Yeah so how did you get them from the basket

to the tower and into your clutches as it were? Once we made contact the first climber was about

five minutes ahead of me and he was able to throw a rope over to them. They secured the basket. He

then secured it to the tower. When I got there we slid over two victim harnesses and we verbally

instructed them how to put a harness on and then secure them to the tail of the rope that we had

sent over. So at that point they were secured but they would have taken a substantial pendulum.

Once we had them in harnesses and tied to our rope still in the basket then I upclimbed about

30 more feet above the basket into the canopy. You don't see me in most of the shots because I'm

kind of wrapped up in the canopy on the top of the tower and we fixed an elevated anchor above them

by about 30 feet lower to line down to them then we were able to tension that and then swing them

over, pendulum them over to the tower and secure them to the tower. We did that one at a time moving

them from the basket to the tower. When I've watched the videos of the hairs on the back of my

neck stand up on end and I mean it just makes me feel cold watching it. I mean when you see

the landscape below and just how far there is to fall. Yeah there were different comfort levels

of all the rescuers up on the tower and you know I was climbing with the Lieutenant Steven Winchell

and he let me know about 500 feet up that the heights weren't his favorite thing and it made for a good

good moment of levity for the situation and drive us to climbing faster but he pushed through

that some guys just had to push through knowing that we just had to do what was necessary and focus

on the task at hand rather than focusing on the fear of what we're doing. Yeah I mean you're very

cool about it but it is an extraordinary feat. How are the couple have you been in touch with the

metal? They were very shaken up in the basket and they were very relieved once we got them to the

tower. I haven't physically talked to them after that day but I believe they're doing as well as

can be. I mean obviously once they got to you on the tower then there was a long climb down which

which can't have been easy either. We had 14 different rescuers spaced at six different levels

across the tower and so since the victims weren't harnesses we went ahead and just rigged systems

and lowered them down handing them off at each different level or pitch that we'd call it and so

we lowered each of them down the tower across the six different rope systems so they did not have

to down climb they were lowered down. I mean is this incident happened ever before? I know in the

early 2000s I think it was stayed in Nebraska had a fatality at height similar but as far as

the live rescue of two survivors I don't know that one has been done necessarily at this height

with climbing. Okay so you're going to become the experts now the people are going to be calling

you up if it ever anything similar happens again asking how did you do this? Well hopefully we

can do some good training in the meantime and that lay out a good playbook before going forward.

That was Cliff Patrick firefighter with the Longview Fire Department in East Texas on that

remarkable rescue. If you haven't seen the video you can find it pretty widely do take a look

it's pretty awe inspiring. You're listening to NewsHour from the BBC.

We'll rejoin NewsHour once we tell you what's coming up on the BBC World Service. At 23 GMT

the interview is joined by Julia Gillard Australia's first woman Prime Minister.

We have allowed to settle an impression that more for women always means less for men

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Definitely obviously I didn't prioritize the needs of my son unfortunately I didn't I was

very selfish in their moments. And unexpected elements discusses the science of colour. Animals

were already seeing colours hundreds of millions of years before fruits, flowers and animals started

to feature bright reds, yellows and blues. Now let's rejoin NewsHour and James Menendez.

A reminder of our top story today on the news app president Trump's demand of the unconditional

surrender of Iran as the US and Israel continue their bombardment. Catalina Gomez is one of the few

accredited foreign journalists in the Iranian capital Tehran as she told me earlier she'd noticed

the change in the level of security in one part of the city. Today's ago I was in the north of

the city and it was full of checkpoints that they very difficult and very dangerous because they

were showing their guns very openly. But today I was there and it was very very quiet and also

there were almost no checkpoints that really showed something. One of the headlines is that the

opening ceremony of the Winter Paralympics is taking place in Italy but with some nations boycotting

it in a dispute over Russia and Belarus.