Yemen's Houthis launch missile attack on Israel

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This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.

I'm Pete Rawson and the early hours of Sunday 29th March, these are our main stories.

The Houthis in Yemen have warned they'll keep targeting Israel in the coming days after

launching their first attack since the war in the Middle East began a month ago.

Large protests have taken place across the United States against the Trump administration.

In Ethiopia, some non-essential government workers have been put on leave,

as the country struggles with a few shortage linked to supply disruptions caused by the conflict

in the Middle East. Also in this podcast.

It's quite shocking actually.

Food giant Nestle say a truck carrying more than 400,000 Kit Kat bars has gone missing.

We begin the podcast in the Middle East where Yemen's Houthi rebels have launched a second

missile attack on Israel, less than a day after it entered the conflict. On Saturday,

the Iranian-backed group launched its first attack since the beginning of the war.

Emergency sirens and an explosion were heard in the southern coastal city of Eliyat,

as a drone suspected to be from Yemen was intercepted by the Israel Defense Forces.

Israel says that all the strikes launched so far have been intercepted.

Brigadier General Yaya Sarri is a Houthi military spokesman.

We've got help and reliance upon Allah. Our armed forces carried out the second military

operation in the Holy Jihad battle with a barrage of cruise missiles and drones,

targeting several vital and military sites belonging to the Zionist enemy in the southern

occupied Palestine. The Houthis of war and the strikes will continue and the escalation

represents a dangerous spread of the war and brings threat of even more damage to the global

economy. I spoke to our correspondent Jill Inwood and began by asking him why the Houthis

decided to attack Israel now. So the Houthis are long-standing allies of backed by the Iranians.

They are they're a militia group in Yemen they're involved in the long-running civil war there

and they were essentially some some say proxies for some say allies for you can choose

your terminology but they are aligned with the Iranians. Now some people might say it's

surprisingly haven't got involved to this point. We saw Hezbollah of course another Iranian ally

they got involved very quickly once the supreme leader Al-Altala Ali Ali Hamane was killed.

The Houthis haven't but they have chosen now this weekend as their point to do it and it really

could be quite a significant moment. Just tell us about the significance of these attacks today.

This is a new front within the war and of course I don't want to downplay the significance of

those missile attacks but what really is going to be crucial here is whether the Houthis and

this is something they've said they might do decide not to attack Israel but to attack shipping

going through the Red Sea specifically something called the Bab al-Mandab Strait. Now this matters

because of the massive economic consequences this war is having especially on global oil

supply. Just to give you the bigger picture Saudi Arabia normally exports its oil through the

Strait of Hormuz that has been shut by the Iranians we've talked about that a lot. To counter

that they've started pumping their oil in a pipeline across the country and exporting it down

through the Red Sea sending it to Asia that way. The Houthis have the capability and they've done it

before they did it during the war in Gaza to effectively shut or to try and block a the Bab al-Mandab

Strait. Now if they do that Saudi Arabia will lose a huge amount of its capacity to export oil

to Asia to the Far East and that will have huge economic consequences it might make what we're

seeing so far which is very serious look you know pale into insignificance I don't want to

overstate this but it could be potentially very serious if they decide to take that action.

Now that you see there's been precedence for this before we haven't had any reaction from Saudi

what might they do what what options are open to them. So the Saudis obviously waged a long war

against the Houthis and evidence is that the Houthis are still there holding part of the country so

I think the military option for them it is going to be difficult but so when the Houthis tried to

shut the Bab al-Mandab Strait last time the Americans did carry out air strikes and I think those

did have a significant impact so we don't quite know what the military capabilities are I think

they probably will be trying to work out some way to persuade them not to do this but the problem

we've got in this conflict is that the wider diplomacy doesn't seem to be going anywhere at the

moment we have the Americans talking about talks and saying the Iranians are desperate for a deal

but there's no real evidence of that. Tehran is not making any sounds like they want to compromise

and from their point of view from the Iranian point of view the longer this goes on the stronger

their hand gets. We have a situation where the Americans in the Israelis obviously started off

very with an overwhelming military power but every day that goes by their list of targets

decreases the impact they can have with each strike decreases. For the Iranians every day that

goes by the impact they're having on the global economy increases it exponentially or certainly

very significantly so from the Iranian point of view they basically the longer they sit this out

the more it looks like the kind of strategic balance is in their favor and that's why I think

we're not going to be seeing them rushing to the negotiating table any time soon whatever the

Americans are saying. Joe Inwood. To Lebanon now where Israeli strikes show no sign of relenting

state-run media says Israeli war planes flew over Beirut skies on Saturday night with reports

that some broke the sound barrier several times. Israel says it's targeting the Iran-backed group

Hezbollah our Middle East correspondent Hugo Bishiga is in the Lebanese town of Seqsaqia where he

attended the funerals of five people killed in Israeli air strikes on Friday.

This war is destroying not only Lebanon's present it is also taking away part of its future.

This was the funeral for Jawad Yunis killed in an Israeli air strike as he played football with his

cousins he was 11 his mother Malak was devastated. My son is gentle and pure he loved the idea

of martyrdom and when he grew up he wanted to be with the resistance he wanted to resist the

enemy Israel who killed him. Also killed were Jawad's cousin Sajid who was seven and his own

Korakhab an interior designer who was also buried today his body wrapped in a Hezbollah flag. He was 41.

I'm looking at the house that has been hit in this air strike and the scale of the destruction

here gives us an idea of the power of the attack the entire house has been destroyed.

The Israeli military has yet to explain why it attacked this building across Lebanon more than

120 children have been killed in Israeli air strikes in this war with hundreds more wounded.

Israel says it is targeting Hezbollah which has continued to fire missiles across the border

in recent days and in Lebanon the Israeli attacks give no respite also in the south in the town of

Zaltar and their strike killed at least five paramedics. Human rights groups say Israel's repeated

attacks on healthcare workers in Lebanon could amount to war crimes.

During a Zoom call with journalists President Zelensky read from his phone what he described as

an intelligence report from this morning. He said a Russian satellite had filmed the Diego Garcia

base four days ago and that in separate similar incidents Russian satellites had filmed U.S.

military bases in the Middle East a Turkish airbase and oil installations across the Gulf. He did

not share any detailed evidence to back up the claim. President Zelensky also appeared to

criticize the U.S. for easing sanctions on Russia's oil industry. This he said essentially meant

helping your own adversaries at a time of war. Speaking about his tour of the Gulf the Ukrainian

president said the visit had focused on long term defense and energy cooperation particularly

offering Ukraine's drone technology and expertise. He also said he was working to ensure that Ukraine's

ability to fight Russia was unaffected by the global energy crisis. President Zelensky told the

BBC that the Ukrainian army had enough fuel for now. Vitaly Shuchenko reporting from Kiev.

Pakistan is leading efforts to get Iran and the U.S. engaged in peace talks inviting the foreign

ministers of Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt for talks on how to deescalate the tensions in the

Middle East as Islamabad positions itself as a potential intermediary between Tehran and Washington.

Our correspondent Caroline Davis sent this report from the Pakistani capital.

While there is still no confirmation that there will be talks between Iran and the U.S.

Pakistan has announced different talks that will be happening from tomorrow,

Sunday, here in Islamabad the capital. They will be the foreign ministries of Pakistan,

Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey and the discussion will of course be about deescalation in the

Middle East. Now this will be again seen as Pakistan positioning itself as a key mediator

between the U.S. and Iran. Now we already know that Pakistan has been passing messages between

those two countries, but we also know that Pakistan's foreign ministry has been talking about the

number of phone calls that Pakistan has been having with its senior officials and senior officials

in other countries, not least a conversation that was had between President Donald Trump and

Asim Manir, Field Marshal Asim Manir, who is the head of the armed services here in Pakistan,

just under a week ago. The big question of course with these discussions is will any of these

four countries be able to put something on the table, be able to find a way through

four deescalation at such a fraught moment? Caroline Davis in Islamabad.

Ethiopia has told public institutions and state owned companies to send non-essential

staff on leave to reduce pressure on transport and fuel. The move comes as the country

struggles with a diesel shortage linked to supply disruptions caused by the U.S.

Israeli war on Iran. Nearly half of Ethiopia's fuel imports come from the Middle East.

Our Global Affairs reporter Richard Kigoy has the details.

Long-cuser vehicles are forming at fuel stations many of them running low on supplies.

Police say they have broken up a network accused of smuggling and holding fuel,

calling it economic sabotage. Authorities have already ordered suppliers to prioritize

security services, manufacturing and transport, but the impact is being found across Africa.

Rising prices have triggered panic buying in Kenya and South Africa.

Fuel costs have jumped by more than 30% in Nigeria and Somalia since the war began.

Egypt has ordered most businesses to close by 9pm from Saturday in a month-long effort

to cut energy use and ease rising costs. Richard Kigoy

Still to come in this podcast? This is the first time as far as I know we've talked about

hitting the cohorts. Beauty retailer Sephora and Benefit Cosmetics are under investigation

for marketing anti-aging products to children.

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Let's turn now to the United States. No Kings! No Kings! No Kings!

Large protests against the Trump administration are taking place in cities across the US,

marking the third iteration of no Kings rallies that have previously drawn crowds into the millions.

Organizers say the protesting against policies imposed by President Donald Trump,

including the war in Iran, federal immigration enforcement, and the rising cost of living.

A White House spokesperson called the protests Trump derangement therapy sessions

and said the only people who care are the reporters who are paid to cover them.

What exactly though does no Kings mean? The No Kings is a grassroots movement,

and they say their message is simply that the US is a democracy, a country of laws, and not

of Kings, so no one person should have absolute power. These protests have taken place in

cities including Boston, Los Angeles, Washington, Chicago, and Atlanta, but it's quite interesting

that this year the organizers say they have seen a surge in a number of people organizing a no-king

protest in rural areas of deeply Republican states like Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana.

So that's quite interesting that that's happening this year, especially with the midterm elections

coming up in November. The No Kings protests and the movement was actually launched on President

Trump's birthday last year, and this is the third one. The last one took place in October

in which they really focused on President Trump's policies around illegal immigration,

which is also a theme they've been protesting against this year. We don't have a confirmed number

yet, but the last No Kings protests drew crowds of nearly seven million people across America,

and organizers are expecting this one to have drawn crowds of more than that, and they are also

protesting against the war in Iran. So we've seen large crowds chanting some people holding

up effigies of President Trump and the Vice President J.D. Vance. We've heard from Democratic

Senator Bernie Sanders. We've seen actors Robert De Niro and even actress Jane Fonda.

You mentioned the war in Iran there. I mean the timing of these protests is pretty significant

right. The White House has a lot on its place at the moment, not least the war in Iran. Do you think

that has had any impact on the numbers of people attending? The war in Iran definitely has

a part to play in how many people have turned up, and also the fact that these anti-Trump

protests, as some have called it, haven't just taken place in America. We've seen these

No Kings protests in European cities like Amsterdam, Madrid and even Rome were up to 20,000 people

showed up. Symedia Laoso. The multinational beauty retailer Sephora and the US company Benefit

Cosmetics are under investigation amid claims the companies promoted skincare products,

including anti-aging creams to girls as young as 10, using online influencers to reach them.

The Italian competition and market authority says the marketing may have encouraged what's being

called cosmeticorexia, described as a culturally reinforced obsession with having flawless skin.

Sally Hughes is from the Guardian weekend magazine here in the UK, and she says this is the first

time European countries have tried to tackle this issue. She's been speaking to Sean Lay.

There has been much talk of this across Europe in the past, I would say, two to three years

about the sort of pitfalls of potentially marketing at young people and their response to that,

but this is the first time as far as I know we've talked about hitting the courts.

What is the potential risk of using products like anti-aging creams at such a young age,

if indeed that is what has resulted from this? Well, I think there are two problems,

there is a moral problem. I don't think any of us wants to think about very young people thinking

about preventing signs of aging in their skin or even being that preoccupied with how they look

full stop, so there is that aspect to it. But the other is whether these ingredients in those

sorts of creams have the potential to cause lasting or even temporary damage to kids.

So ingredients like retinoids, for example, in a young person would only ever be prescribed by a

doctor for things like acne during teenage years, but all over the counter retinoids pretty much

are there for the purpose of preventing or reversing signs of aging in skin. And they're potent,

you know, they're potent active ingredients that can cause temporary inflammation, irritation

and so on and make your skin more sun-sensitive. So these are obviously things we would never want

to see in a young person. There's something I think called Sephora kids. What's that?

Well, Sephora kids is a sort of slang term used by people in the industry to describe this,

possibly sort of disturbing phenomena of kids going into Sephora and other stores like it and

spending their pocket money on things to improve their skin. I use the term improve,

subjective, improve their skin and their appearance and how lots of adults complain certainly that

when they enter those sorts of stores that they are full of kids, spending their pocket money and

on a more sort of sinister level, what is being done to monetize, to maximize the profit from this

phenomena that really started in COVID, I think young people became obsessed, particularly

obsessed with skincare during COVID and since then the situation has only become more extreme.

Sally Hughes from the Guardian Weekend magazine. In a statement, the parent company of Sephora

and Benefit, LVMH perfumes and cosmetics, said that they operate in strict compliance with

the applicable regulations and will fully cooperate with the authorities. Authorities here in

Europe say they are on the hunt for a missing truck carrying 12 tons of the Kit-Kat chocolate bars

that apparently vanished on route between Italy and Poland. The Giants Swiss Food Company,

Nestle says almost 414,000 bars were on board when it disappeared. In a statement, they said that

whilst we appreciate the criminal's exceptional taste, the fact remains that cargo theft is an

escalating issue for businesses of all sizes. With Easterlimbing, the company added that some

consumers in Europe may struggle to find Kit-Kat ahead of Easter. Adam Levy runs a website called

the Chocolate Professor in New York City and has been closely following this story.

Adam Levy basically a truck was stolen which surprises me that there's no transponder,

no error FID, they can't find the truck, they can't find the supplies, it's quite shocking actually.

It is shocking and I suppose it comes at the time not only an incredibly busy time

for the chocolate industry, certainly for manufacturers to get their products

to the shelves in time for Easter, but also a time when the actual value of chocolate has reached

quite a high. Yes, chocolate's been increasing the special last two years because of climate change

and other costs involved with that. The cocoa costs have gone up dramatically in the last

couple of years and it's definitely affecting whether it's the high end being to bar people,

the 70% the gourmet stuff as well as the Kit-Kat and Eminem's. All trucker prices have

gone up in the last two or three years. I suppose that would make it potentially a very attractive

load or 12 tons of worth of chocolate to get your hands on, but disposing of it, how easy would that be?

Well, you know, I'm estimating it, I'm not the professional one. I think this value of this truck

is like 60 to 90 thousand dollars at wholesale value. Wow. Now you're not going to be able to take

this truck and go to your market Spencer or Aldi or some other large supermarket and say,

hey, I've got a truck for you. You know, there are certain rules. They scan certain things,

they're going to say, oh, this is stolen. So this is going to be moved by organized crime,

just like they move everything else, whether it's liquor or cheese or anything else. So they're

going to go through the mom and pops and say, hey, you know, penny is on a dollar. Here's a case of

Kit-Kats. You know, don't scan it or don't we always scan it internally. Yeah, well, you weren't

you in the States called mom and pop stores or the sort of the little corner shop, the independent

business, the kind of place that maybe you might persuade an owner that actually not to ask

too many questions. Nonetheless, presumably this this truck that's got a limited shelf life. So

they've got to they've got to get rid of it pretty quick. Well, commercial produced Kit-Kats like

this will last at least a year on the shelves. They got time to move it. And, you know, this is a

thing you can easily move. We're not talking, you know, a couple cars with RFID chips and

everything else in it. You can move Kit-Kats. You know, you know, you can go to that corner store,

whatever it's that, you know, here's the special case, here's special pricing, just like stolen

cigarettes, you know, or untax cigarettes. You know, there's a network out there to move

things like that. That's small, cash, movable, yes. So if somebody comes up to you, do you want to

buy some chocolate? You might be wise to be a little bit cautious, especially if they produce it

from an unmarked bagel from under their raincoat. And more seriously, have we had this kind of

heist involving chocolate before? Oh, there've been some great heists. I mean, that's that great

heist, but there's some interesting heists in the past. You know, another great heist back in 2014,

Lint Chocolate, another big Swiss big chocolate market company. You know, they had over 287,000 tons

of chocolate stolen by an Italian mafia gang back in 2014. That I think it was valued almost

$8 million dollars. That was 2014. Probably it's almost double by now the value. You've had people

and locally in the UK, you had someone try to steal a container of a Cadbury cream eggs in 2023.

You've had people steal chocolates, you know, in Austria and other places. So yeah, chocolate

is something you can move and it's a skin. It's an affordable luxury, so people will buy it.

Adam Levy talking to Sean Lee. Almost two weeks since the Oscars, some film lovers in Scandinavian

countries are probably still basking in the glory of the film's sentimental value, becoming the

first Norwegian movie ever to in best international feature at the Academy Awards. The film has also

become Norway's biggest ever global hit, leading some to declare it a new era for Norwegian film

exports. Much of the credit for its success has gone to Stelen's Scars Guard, one of Sweden's

greatest living actors who has a major role in the picture. Tom Brook went to meet him.

I interviewed this Swedish actor in New York a few weeks ago. From the moment we met,

I could tell we were going to get along. He is a class act, very easy to talk to, not at all

intimidating. He immediately got on my good side, telling me he watches BBC News every morning

from Stockholm. And I watch you? Oh, frequently. Oh, good. Do you feel morally uplifted after you

watch me? Yeah, I feel like if he can do it, I can do it too, right?

Sentimental value was one of my favourite Oscar-nominated films. It was a beautifully crafted

story of a strangement within a family. What do you hope your film's sentimental value can give

audiences right now in the midst of this very tumultuous time in which we live? It's an important

voice. It's a weak voice. It's someone whispering when everybody else is screaming. That's the

worst listening to. And that's more truthful. Because when you scream, you get the suspicion

when you hear all the screaming that you've got something to hide. You wouldn't scream that much

if you did. And you wouldn't promote something so hard if it wasn't fake.

Stellan Scarsgard has had a long and varied career in theatre, television and film. He can move

between big franchise projects and small budget European films as well as experimental cinema.

He is, without doubt, one of Sweden's greatest actors. One of the things that I find very

interesting watching you is you have a lot of presence on screen and you appear to do things

which seem very authentic and very subtle in conveying the nuances of your character.

Is that something that you're doing consciously? I'm doing it very consciously. I sort of do my

own narrative in a way. The character's narrative and it's an emotional narrative and it varies and

sometimes it's instantly I invent it. But it's what interests me is what is going on underneath,

what is going on between the lines, what goes on in the pauses and I love

heavy scenes where I'm just listening to something. It's not just laziness.

He may not have won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, but the movie in which he stars,

sentimental value, made history by becoming the first Norwegian picture ever to win for Best

International Feature. Stellan Scarsgods' performance definitely contributed to that success.

You've had an incredible career. What is it you think that there's enabled you to have such

longevity? I've never had any ambition. Number one, because ambition is very dangerous to you.

I've had the ambition of being a good actor and I make sure that I have fun all the time.

As you see my CV is rather eclectic and it is because I do what I want to do right now,

not what I should do.

Stellan Scarsgods speaking to Tom Brook.

And that's all from us for now. If you want to get in touch,

you can email us at globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on

x at BBC World Service. Use the hashtag globalnewspod. And don't forget our sister podcast,

the global story, which goes in depth and beyond the headlines on one big story.

This edition of the global news podcast was mixed by Zabi Hula Karush and the producers

are Karla Conte and Aryan Kochi. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Pete Ross. Until the next time,

goodbye.