Ukraine hits energy facilities in Crimea

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Hello and welcome to News Hour from the BBC World Service. Coming to you live from London, I'm Regini Vidyanarthan.

There have been power blackouts since Sunday when Ukraine apparently struck some energy infrastructure. the Crimean authorities, the Russian installed Crimean authorities do not publicly admit what was hit, but according to experts, most likely those are power stations. In several parts of Crimea, and today the biggest uh city of Crimea, Sevastopol, is facing huge power cuts. Just for context, there are more than half a million people living there according to Russian cities.

Indeed, and people in Sevastopol have been told to introduce power saving measures, including saving their mobile batteries by turning the brightness down, all these kind of measures. Are they able to access other things like petrol?

No. Uh and since Monday petrol was no longer sold to kind of ordinary Crimeans or holiday makers. Crimea is a really popular holidaymaking destination for Russians and Some people got stuck there and they cannot get out or have to pay huge sums for taxis because um not all bus services operate as usual because of uh fuel shortages. So fuel is now only sold to government bodies.

And Yaroslava, I'm also seeing pictures on the BBC website of cars queuing for fuel at gas stations in Sevastopol after these restrictions.

Yeah, but uh there there is no real use uh to do that because uh it's impossible uh at least f from what people uh living there told me to get fuel. Even on the black market it.

It's uh

really hard thing to do. And possibly the only way is for them to go to mainland Russia via the Crimean Bridge. But again, for that they also need fuel. So it's a case twenty two situation. For instance, some of um Crimeans who

We

were able to get in touch with told us how desperate he is uh not knowing whether he would manage to get to work tomorrow with no fuel left in his car.

Since yesterday the petrol stations have been sitting empty. The fuel is there, but they're not selling it. Deliveries arrived overnight, and normally sales would start during the day, but after Crimean Governor Axionov's decree everything was shut down. I managed to fill up my tank recently.

And it's obviously difficult to actually access Crimea and speak to people on the ground there, but we have at the BBC been getting some telegram messages. Here's another one that we voiced up from someone talking about the situation there when it comes to getting supplies.

Things have got worse since the start of the month. I ordered a generator yesterday and I'm going to pick it up today. The funny thing is that now fuel sales have been suspended. There's nothing to power it with. The last time I filled up my car was a couple of days ago before the attacks. It cost one hundred and two rubles per liter, and I got twenty litres in total.

And what have we been hearing from officials in Sevastopol?

Yeah, officials in Sevastopol have admitted the problem that Sevastopol had, um Mikhail Rosvajev was encouraging residents of the city. to save their mobile power, to check on their elderly neighbours who might not have got all the information about what's happening and might be stressed out being left without electricity. Yeah. So here has communicated with people trying to encourage them to stay calm.

Well, let's speak now to Yuri Sak, a former adviser to the Ukrainian Defence Minister, to discuss this in a bit more detail. Welcome to NewsHour. First of all, what is Ukraine's strategy uh when it comes to Crimea? We've seen an intensification in recent days uh by the Ukrainian military there.

Good afternoon. Ukraine's strategy regarding Crimea is part of Ukraine's strategy overall. And our overall strategy is of course to end the war. And for quite some time we knew that there was only one way to actually end this war and this is what about a year ago Donald Trump called peace

peace through force.

So we need to negotiate a ceasefire, we need to negotiate hopefully a lasting peace, but we are not seeing any signals from the Russian leadership. about their willingness or readiness to negotiate meaningfully. So with our long range campaign, into including deep strikes into Russian and destroying their military and oil infrastructure, as well as now this campaign covering very extensively Crimea. We're hoping to help Russia make up their mind.

You say all of that, don't you, um, Mr Sak, but Russia is making gains, uh, particularly, for example, in eastern Ukraine?

That is not uh actually true. The front line today extends for almost one thousand kilometers. And to be precise, you know, there are different uh scenarios in different parts of the

It is, isn't it, about to surround the city of Kostanivka?

Well I was just gonna say that in some parts of the fly uh front line Russians have some uh incremental advances, but overall the front line is at a stalemate and everybody understands that because there's a kill zone which both sides control with their drones and Ukraine has developed very significantly our mid strike capability, which means we're now capable of disrupting the Russian logistics.

Let's talk about these attacks on infrastructure that we were discussing just then. They're in Ukrainian areas occupied by Russia. How much damage do you think you're causing to Russia's oil revenues?

I think uh armed forces and um uh security forces are surgically precise when it comes to these strikes. As you have seen, uh the targets are only concerned with the military infrastructure. For example, today we've had another series of strikes on the air defence positions of Russian armed forces in Crimea, in the temporarily occupied Crimea.

Okay, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts. Yuri Sak, former advisor to the Ministry of Defence in Ukraine.

Well that's the law. These are it's an international waterway. No country is allowed to charge tolls or fees on an international waterway. That's existing international law. That's the way it is and international waterways all over the world and that's the way we expect it'll be here. So I don't think we have anybody to convince around here in that regard. I think all the countries in this region would agree with us.

Well the Strait of Four Moose lies between Iran to the north and the peninsula of Oman to the south and Navigation on the waterway has been a big sticking point in these talks. Now Iran and Oman are discussing charging service fees for vessels crossing the strait. So when is a toll not a toll? Well I'm joined now by Omani academic Abdullah Babud, Chair of the State of Qatar for Islamic Area Studies at Wasida University. Welcome to NewsHour.

Uh yes he's uh uh thank you first of all, uh Regini and uh I I think he's absolutely correct. The United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea uh Uni clause uh actually prohibits that. Uh this is an international waterway and international uh strait. uh for and should be open for international navigation. Where he got it wrong is there is a big difference between uh transit fees, which is a toll, uh, and that's payment simply uh to pass the uh through the strait of hormones.

Rydyn ni'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw.

Mr. President, uh yes, there are two different things and I think this is something that uh it's been missed uh by the US administration and by some observers. Uh neither Oman nor Iran have asked for uh a toll uh to transit. That is uh absolutely clear under international law. But service fees are accepted and it's been practiced in other waterways, basically the phosphorus. uh and the other. Uh and uh it is uh important that

Okay. Thank you so much.

Coming up on the programme, red alerts are in place across a number of countries as temperatures continue to soar in parts of Western Europe. The global chief heat officer at the UN tells us that despite heat waves, elected politicians haven't been forced to act on climate change.

It hasn't become an issue where the politicians had felt pressure, political pressure on So they basically kind of don't do anything about it and they l they leave it. They kind of p they they patch things up for the moment that there's a heat wave and just patch things up for the moment that the next heat wave comes. But what we really have to understand is that we will be dealing with temperatures that our cities are not designed for and that our bodies are not designed for.

We'll have more from Eleni Marivelli in fifteen minutes.

This is Regenie Vidinarvin with News Hour coming to you live from the BBC in London. Now if you're a football fan, it's the dream assignment, watching every game in the World Cup. But with four matches a day and forty eight teams, it's an exhausting one too. Superfans Kevin Okoto and Austin Franklin are getting paid fifty thousand dollars to do just that.

Thank you.

I'm in the middle of Times Square and along with the digital billboards there is a new fixture. It is a custom-built cubicle that you can see right into with a sofa, two recliners. And two men who are being paid$50,000 to watch every single World Cup match. There's a sign here that calls them Chief World Cup Watcher.

Uh so over there we've got a miniature version of every single soccer ball ever used in the World Cup on the boat.

Austin Franklin is an influencer from Philadelphia. I caught up with him and Kevin Okoto, a former line cook from Florida, just over a week into their roles to get a tour of the space.

You know, it's like any twenty-year-old's like, you know, imagination. Like if you could put anything in here, like this is what you'd put in here as a soccer fan, I think.

Plenty of seating options. Plenty of seasons. Plenty of flags. Lots of plushies, I see. Yes. And then Kevin, there's even a memory wall. You guys are taking some Polaroids and

We're trying to take a polaroid. So just getting uh some memories, our memories in and also uh taking photos with our guests as well. So so once we get to the final we can recount on, you know, the journey that we've been on.

Sorry, I might wanna tune into Messi taking this PK.

They beat out thousands of others for this job, which requires them not to just watch every match, but also to create content for fans. The start of the World Cup with four matches a day and an expanded forty-eight teams has made for a packed schedule. With several more weeks to go, the men say they're trying to pace themselves.

Um, I sleep when I can. It is a total marathon of it's you know, a relatively easy job, right? I'm sitting on a couch watching football, but It it it has been tiresome and uh I've making sure I get my eight hours when and where I can.

Kinda gotten worn down a bit. You know, I've gotten worn down, Austin's gotten a bit worn down. So just learning how to, you know, keep up with everything that's going on.

Well thankfully we have two T Vs, right?

Austin's favorite part has been meeting the thousands of fans from all over the world that have taken over Times Square and chatting with them in between matches about football, culture, and how they're experiencing the United States.

Yeah, the craziest part of it is how frequently I forget that I'm in Times Square with people watching me. Like I'll be watching a match for ten, fifteen minutes and get sucked into it. And I look to my right and see Kevin and then see all of these people walking around Times Square and you totally forget that you're in a cube in the middle of Times Square with people watching you.

I'll take a second bite

This is the cheese and corn empanada. You should get one of them panadas.

Another perk of the role, they're served food from the countries competing. On today's menu, Argentinian barbecue while they watch Lionel Messi play.

Man, I jinxed him. I feel like I

Both men have no regrets, but their spectators are split on whether they'd want their job.

That'd be great.

I think it's nice but it might just be kind of weird standing sitting there and everyone can just look at you and you don't really have any privacy.

It's a hundred and four matches. Would you wanna watch all the hundred and four matches? What do you think of that? Is that something you

You would want to do?

Yes. Fifty thousand dollars I would take that so happily. To watch all World Cup games that's like a Easy job.

We're starting to get into a routine a bit, you know, when we have earlier games.

So which teams do they support? Kevin is rooting for the US and Ghana because of his family ties to both nations. But Austin wears Norway's jersey, not for any personal reasons, but because he thinks they could surprise everyone.

I think it's, you know, an easy pick to say, Oh, Spain will win or France or you know, and and I think Norway's right on the cusp and if the chips fall where they may I could totally see them bringing it home.

What a great job they have. Neda Torfiq reporting there from New York.

Now listen closely, I'm going to play you a sound from the Western Balearics. It's got a bit of a beat to it, hasn't it? Well that click is the sound of a sperm whale recorded off the coast of Ibetha. Now listen to this. Now that's the sound of a sperm whale from the eastern Mediterranean. A bit paceier.

We use small research vessels with toad hydrophones that detect the animals' echolocation clicks and we can use that to locate and track the animals. So we would follow them for about a day, taking photographs of their tails. to identify them as individuals and also recording any of the social sounds that were being made.

So tell us about these social sounds as you described and you gathered, all of these different sounds, and what did you discover?

Spoonwell social sounds are vocalizations that we call coders and they're kind of stereotyped patterns of clicks like um sort of the shave in a haircut, coded knock that people do on doors and things like that. So they sound very distinctive.

What does that tell us about sperm whales more broadly then?

Okay, so it tells us that the vocal dialects appear to develop in isolation, so when a a group becomes somehow separated from the other, so there is a distinction. gap between the population in the East and the population in the West, while males do appear to travel between the two populations, so they don't diverge genetically very much.

Are they communicating about them with these clips?

We think that it serves to help sperm whales identify other animals that they might want to cooperate with. So they might want to join up in a group and defend against predators together or something like that. And you can think of it as like

Interesting. And y you mentioned the human comparison there, and is there even a musical comparison as well?

So when they make these coders they often do it in a kinda duet. You know, my personal speculation is that there's probably very similar feelings of belonging and bonding that humans would experience if they made a shared rhythm, which we do a lot. or drumming together or that kind of thing.

Yeah, the follow up to that is when we get two Wales on the programme for that duet. That's Luke Rendell from the University of St Andrews there.

The Signal Awards recognize the podcasts that define culture, and being honored by the Signal Awards sets your production team apart with recognition. The industry's top experts and acts as proof that your work is a standard bearer for podcasting worldwide. By entering your work is heard by the Signal Awards Judging Academy, an invitation-only body of podcasting.

Welcome back to NewsHour. A review into maternity services in a hospital trust here in the UK has found that hundreds of mothers and babies died or were harmed due to systemic failures. The Ockenden Review into Maternity Services in Nottingham found that there was a bullying, toxic culture and persistent failure to listen to mothers and fathers. The hospital trust has now apologized to the women and families who suffered harm, loss, trauma, and distress.

Well I was um full term healthy pregnancy. The day after my due date I started having contractions. Those contractions lasted for six days. Um I made multiple contacts with the hospital for help. I had two admissions and I was repeatedly told that my contractions weren't meeting three in ten minutes. Um I was repeatedly told I wasn't in labour. Um so after the six days I actually started to deliver something at home um and I went in and the treatment I got was horrific.

Just like that.

Yeah. And then he left the rim.

And you had spent as you described there, Sarah, you had spent days, not not a matter of hours, but a matter of days, trying to be listened to, trying to to get your concerns across, and you were repeatedly ignored.

Yeah, and I I I got to a point um where I thought even as a senior clinician and I work at that hospital, I can't get admitted. Um, and then the last phone call I made just before we went in, I remember lying on the sofa and I thought, I'm just gonna have to do this on my own. I'm gonna have to deliver at home on my own because no one will let me come into the hospital.

Donna Rockenden's review will be it will be published. We already know about about the scale of this and some of the problems. What does that mean to you?

Oh my emotions are all over the place about it really. Um you know, just to know that harm and death for so many families across Nottinghamshire was potentially preventable is absolutely soul destroying.

That's Sarah Hawkins speaking to Anna Foster there.

You're listening to News Hour from the BBC. I'm Regini Vid in Arvin.

So when we get amber or red heat warnings, there's three factors for staff and for children that we worry about. The first one is sunburn, so we're well versed in making sure that children wear sun hats and wear sun cream and stay in the shade.

That's Simon Kidwell, the head teacher in the north west of England. Well as temperatures continue to climb, the question is is enough being done to protect people? Well this week we've seen dozens of deaths related to the extreme heat. Some due to drowning as people head to water bodies to cool down. Well the elderly and vulnerable are also at risk in these times, as are people who work outdoors.

The speed with which the heat is rising, the speed with which we see more frequent heat waves, longer lasting heat waves and heatwaves with higher temperature far exceeds the speed that we've seen cities adapt. So part of what cities must do is first of all they have to create a map to figure out where their most vulnerable areas are because heat effects is it's amazing how it affects everyday urban life.

You talk about cities needing to take heat into consideration. On a very simple level, what might that mean?

Two are the big kind of uh areas where cities should be working on. First is l the long term measures, which means how do we design cities in ways that are cooler? So yes, more parks and more green is super important, more permeable surfaces. and also uh specific building codes so that we make sure that the buildings are actually either retrofitted or when they're built they're build taking heat into consideration and also figuring out how to make cooling more

What we've seen um here in the UK and also in other parts of Western Europe such as France. Um is a rise in the number of water related deaths where we've seen people go and swim in lakes, in rivers because they're desperate to cool off, but uh it's it's ended up that many people have have lost their lives.

Yeah, this is really it's very sad. Th I think again this has to do with with what I was saying, the short term measures that the the cities and the governments have to have to prepare for. They have to create um secure spaces where people can go to cool down. And this is you know, i it's part of our governments that have to that have to create this. It's like you know, it's it it's like when we have an earthquake.

Doctor Alaney Myravili, Global Chief Heat Officer at the UN Habitat.

Now one of the central issues of the US Iran deal, which was recently signed, and something which is central to regional stability in the Middle East, is a permanent end to the fighting in Lebanon. In recent weeks we've seen Israel and the Iran backed group Hezbollah violate truces multiple times. In fact, just a few hours ago the Israeli military struck southern Lebanon, saying it was targeting Hezbollah.

Uh it's good to be with you, Regini. Um thank you very much for the time together. Um so yesterday was the first day of these talks that you've described. Uh unfortunately uh the Israeli side is um um s mentioning them as being a train wreck. Um and I think even on the Lebanese side they feel that uh not much progress has been made. I think this is these negotiations are complicated because of the uh decision uh by the US

Why do you think that's a mistake?

Well, uh it's a mistake because uh if the Iran track fails, um the Lebanese track fails. Uh separately, um there are ways to move the uh Lebanon Israeli track forward, I think, more easily, uh, and we can talk about how to do that uh than there would be with the Iran track. But by combining the two. One will be dependent upon the other, and that's not a good sign in terms of the separate track between Lebanon and Israel.

Isn't the purpose, I suppose, of people who do believe they should be linked is to put pressure on um all the parties involved to ensure that a ceasefire is adhered to. Because what we've seen in recent weeks, as you well know, Mr Gabriel, is that the ceasefire in Lebanon has only really been in name.

Uh exactly. Uh President Trump uh views the Lebanon track potentially getting in in his way of this larger issue that he faces, the Iran track. Um and the so the good news is that that um the um th by combining these in the pressure by Iran to combine them has kept the Lebanon track on the front burner. So in in that sense it's a good thing. Um but uh overall I think it's gonna really complicate things. That doesn't mean they can't make progress in the next two days though.

And how how do you think you're going to make progress? There's talk of these pilot zones uh to encourage Israeli troops to withdraw from areas.

Exactly. Um I think the solution here is something we've been proposing in a separate track. to um basically identify a sector in um south of the Latani or wherever uh the two parties agree, maybe a a combination of a few villages in what they call a pilot zone. uh there would be uh a withdrawal by Israel, not from all of the the South, but from this sector. They would withdraw. Uh disarmament would be uh announced by the United States.

Mr Gabriel, I just want to jump in there because the Israeli Defence Minister said that Israel won't withdraw. So how are you going to move forward with that pilot?

Well what he said was they w they will not withdraw from uh south uh from uh the entirety of the south of the Litani. So what is being suggested and we'll see if the next two days can produce this. is one small sector as a demonstration to prove that the Lebanese can disarm that sector with Israeli withdrawal and let people move back to the area. And embed embed the Lebanese armed forces to protect these people.

Okay, Mr Gabriel. I'm so sorry we've run out of time. Thank you for joining us. This is Regini Vidinarvin with News Hour coming to you live from the BBC in London.

I've come to the Kigonzi camp for internally displaced people now. This is a region that is beset by insignificant. There are armed groups operating in different parts of the province and beyond. And these people live in cramped spaces. I can see their homes. Many of them are still tents. Others are mud walled. Some are built using corridors.

I am frightened. Ebola is killing many people.

I find Regina Janine queuing to fetch water from the communal watering point near the shared Pitler trains. She tells me they've been taught how to prevent Ebola, but they lack the means to do so.

Look at how we are living. 10, 15 people in one room. We've been suffering since we got displaced. I wish we could go back to our farm.

The militia should be disarmed before people can go back to their homes.

Bosko Kisoke is a civil society activist.

There are seventeen official IDP camps and more are recognized ones in Ituri province. These people have nowhere else to go. Until today, the security situation that forced them to flee has not improved.

They fled their farms in Jugo, about eighty kilometers northeast of Bunya, eight years ago, after they were attacked by an armed group. She says before then they grew their own food. But since being displaced, they are fully dependent on foreign aid, which has been reducing.

Let's go!

The camp president, Jizo Etienne, worries about the impact Ebola could have on the 25,000 people living in Kigonze camp.

Here, people need water, but there are no hand washing stations. No soap, how do we protect ourselves? In such living conditions, this disease could finish us.

I speak to him near the shared iron sheet bathrooms. They still have USAID branding, but that was cut off last year. Now, when the latrines fill up, the camps management cannot afford exhaust services, they empty them themselves. After we left, we received reports that ten people died at Kigonze camp in just one day. Suspected cases of Ebola. Samples were taken for testing. People in the east of the DRC have been hit hard by this outbreak.

Anne Soy reporting there and we are just hearing from the World Health Organization that trials of two therapeutics for Ebola will begin in the DRC next week.

Now, tens of thousands of homes are without power in the west of France as temperatures are set to peak across the country on Wednesday during that record-breaking heat wave. Well, the BBC's Hugh Schofield joins us live from Paris. So Hugh, first of all, just tell us more about all of these h homes that have been affected. It's more than what, sixty eight thousand?

Well th yes, I mean that was the situation uh this morning. Uh they are gradually being reconnected, though I dare say l they're not all reconnected yet. There are other pockets of cuts across the country, in fact, that's not the only place in the Giron down round Bordeaux in the Boucheron in Marseille. There are also these mini isolated power cuts caused by...

Indeed, and we're hearing from France's weather agency that those temperatures are going to continue to remain high. What more are they saying?

Well, yeah, I mean they certainly not not before the end of the week is there gonna be any let up and even even after that it's not gonna go down d dramatically though w I think we'll e we'll and we'll leave the the the uh really intense.

Hm. I mean you mentioned that, Hugh, we just spoke to someone from the UN who's tasked with advising cities on how to deal with the heat. Um, are authorities in France taking this seriously enough and are people uh kind of up you know, making a case for for them to do more?

Well, I mean governments are going to be criticised um uh because inev inevitably uh not enough will have been done and you know, obviously today not enough buildings have been renovated. Uh the norms are not being rigidly a applied. Uh so, you know, people are suffering in in Paris for example, loads of people live in tiny flats at the top of millions of flights of stairs and they are in absolute hell at the moment.

Mhm. Okay, Hugh Schofield in a very sticky Paris, I'm sure. Thank you very much for bringing us up to date on the latest there. Well that ends this edition of NewsHour. I'm Regini Vidinarden from the team and myself. Thanks you all for listening.

The Signal Awards recognize the podcast that define culture, and being honored by the Signal Awards sets your production team apart with recognition The industry's top experts and acts as proof that your work is a standard bearer for podcasting worldwide. By entering your work is heard by the Signal Awards Judging Academy, an invitation-only body of podcasting.