US launches wave of air strikes on Yemen's Houthis

This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Janet Jalil and in the early hours of Sunday the 16th of March, these are our main stories.
Donald Trump has ordered what he calls decisive and powerful military strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen. An aid charity in Gaza says Israeli airstrikes there have killed eight people who were on a relief mission.
Israel maintains it targeted terrorists. Huge crowds in the Serbian capital Belgrade have taken part in one of the biggest rallies so far against government corruption.
Also in this podcast, Elon Musk says he intends to send a rocket to Mars by the end of next year. But can it be done that soon? Ideally, you need a way of refueling a spacecraft that's capable to take you to Mars.
And for that, you probably most likely need some sort of infrastructure around the moon. The United States has launched large-scale strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen.
President Donald Trump said he'd ordered what he called a decisive and powerful wave of airstrikes against the Iranian-backed group to stop its constant attacks on shipping in the Red Sea, which began after the Israeli military went into Gaza in response to the Hamas October 7 attacks. The US strikes are reported to have targeted air defence and radar systems and missile and drone sites.
Images shared online show plumes of black smoke in the area over the airport complex in the capital Sana, which includes a sprawling military facility. As we record this podcast, the Houthi-run health ministry says at least nine civilians have been killed.
Firaz Maksad is managing director of the Middle East and North Africa section at the Eurasia Group. He told my colleague Anjana Gadgil how this could play out.
I think the broader message though here from the Trump administration, which has been planning this for weeks, has coordinated with its allies, the Arab Gulf, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and others. There's a dual message here.
One is towards Iran. Clearly, President Trump here wants to negotiate from a position of strength and leverage.
And this is what he's doing by threatening one of their proxies in the region. The second one is also domestic, very much underscoring that the Biden administration was unable to deal effectively with the Houthi threat to shipping in the Red Sea.
There's a new sheriff in town. There's a new way of doing business.
He will be much tougher than his predecessor was. So what reaction do you expect from Iran? And how does this strike affect relationships between the US and Iran? The Iranians are generally cautious.
And so this will take some time to play out. We will probably see some kind of Houthi retaliation against American bases and assets in the region.
Djibouti comes to mind right across from the Red Sea where there are American assets. There's concern about American assets in places like Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
We'll have to see what kind of response the Houthis will muster. The group's attacks against ships in the Red Sea has been going on for some time now.
How does the Trump approach differ from President Biden's approach before?

Well, for one, this is a much broader campaign. This seems to be also much more forceful in terms

of the targets that were hit today. My information is that this is not a one-off.
This will be

ongoing. And so this is really a different calibre of message that's being sent to the Houthis.

If the question is whether it promises to be more effective in ending Houthi targeting of shipping across the Red Sea, I think the response is less certain to that question. You're an expert on the politics of this region.
Is there an alternative approach that the U.S. could have taken that could potentially be more effective than these airstrikes? I don't think so.
I think the Houthis in Yemen has been a tough nut to crack, so to speak, for quite a number of years, certainly since October 7th, since Hamas launched its operation against Israel. We had the war in Gaza.
Houthis got themselves directly involved in that fighting. It is understandable that coercion be used again as a tool of foreign policy in the hope that would then support the diplomacy that is ongoing.
And I think it was very clear in President Trump's message to the Iranians that he is interested in diplomacy, that he is calling upon them to act quickly and to restrain their Houthi proxies in order to move forward, not only in relation to Yemen, the end of the Houthi strikes on shipping, but also in Iran's nuclear program. Middle East expert Firas Maksad.
And staying in the region, a British-based charity that provides aid in Gaza has rejected accusations by Israel that eight people who were killed during airstrikes in Beit Lahir on Saturday were terrorists.

The Al-Kher Foundation said that those who died were volunteers

and others who were setting up tents for displaced Palestinians.

It said some of those killed were journalists

documenting the charity's work for promotional purposes.

Israel maintains it targeted terrorists operating drones that threatened its troops.

I'm sorry. those killed were journalists documenting the charity's work for promotional purposes.
Israel maintains it targeted terrorists operating drones that threatened its troops. Eme Nader reports from Jerusalem.
A video shows the smouldering wreckage of a car with a number of bodies lying in its burnt shell. Local Gazans crowd around calling out for help.
The head of the Al-Khair Foundation told the BBC that the men had been establishing a new tent city in Beit Lahia in northern Gaza, which has suffered some of the worst violence and deprivation throughout the war. One man nearby saw what happened.
We were working, then we saw the firing of a rocket. Some people were killed and others were injured, and we came to the hospital.
We transferred them. The charity said the eight men who were killed included volunteers, two drivers, journalists and drone operators, there to document the Foundation's work.
It told the BBC a first strike targeted the cameramen, before a second attack hit those who went to assist them. In a statement, the Israeli military said it struck what it called two terrorists who were identified operating a drone that posed a threat to Israeli troops, saying it then struck additional terrorists who arrived at the scene.
Hamas has called the killings a massacre and a dangerous escalation as negotiations to continue the ceasefire falter. The Gaza Health Ministry says more than 140 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes since the truce came into effect in January.
Eman Addo reporting. President Trump has confirmed that one of the Islamic State group's most senior leaders has been killed in Iraq.
Mr Trump said US-led coalition forces had relentlessly hunted him down in partnership with Iraqi intelligence. With more details, here's our Middle East regional editor, Mike Thompson.
President Trump called Abdullah Naiki Muzli al-Rafai a brutal killer who caused much hardship and death. Iraq described IS's leader in Syria and Iraq as one of the most dangerous terrorists in the world.
US Central Command says he was killed in a precision airstrike in western Iraq on Thursday. His body and that of another IS militant are said to have been found wearing unexploded suicide vests.
Al-Rafai is believed to have led IS operational planning across the globe. The US still has more than 2,000 troops in Iraq, tasked with countering a resurgence by the jihadist group.
Following repeated requests by the Iraqi government, most, if not all, are to be withdrawn by late next year. The Islamic state group lost its last territory in Syria in 2019, but its sleeper cells have continued to launch deadly attacks across the region.
Mike Thompson. At the latest summit to try to secure peace in Ukraine, Britain's Prime Minister Kyrgyz Dahmer says the leaders of the 26 countries who took part in the online meeting on Saturday have agreed to move to what he called an operational phase in planning for a multinational force to guarantee a potential ceasefire in Ukraine.
Mr Starmer said the next stage would be a meeting of military chiefs within days. The group I convened today is more important than ever.
It brings together partners from across Europe, as well as Canada, Australia and New Zealand, with backing from others too, including Japan. We agreed we will keep increasing the pressure on Russia, keep the military aid flowing to Ukraine and keep tightening the restrictions on Russia's economy to weaken Putin's war machine and bring him to the table.
But with Russia yet to agree to the plan for a 30-day ceasefire that Ukrainian and US officials hammered out last week at talks in Saudi Arabia, Finland's President Alexander Stubb said it was still too early to talk about deploying peacekeeping troops. The Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky again reiterated his belief that Russia is purposely delaying signing up to a ceasefire deal.
He denied reports that Ukraine's forces are surrounded in the Russian region of Kursk, a claim that has been promoted by the US President Donald Trump. The Ukrainian side has a presence in the Kursk region.
The encirclement of the Ukrainian military is a Putin lie. There is no encirclement of our military in the Kursk region.
What kind of signals are coming from the Russian side? I asked our diplomatic correspondent Paul Adams for his assessment of this latest summit held in London. To police a ceasefire along a vast front line by a group of nations who've never really done this before without American support, you get an idea of just how complex this is.
The idea has really only been around for a couple of weeks, and we are still seeing a gradual increase in the number of people who seem interested in the idea. but there is clearly still a long way to go and we won't really have any real sense of how it's beginning to take tangible shape

perhaps until military officials get their teeth into it at a meeting that's due to take place somewhere in the UK next Thursday. The Prime Minister was saying we are now moving towards an operational phase.
Yes, what does that mean? I don't think it necessarily means much more than here we have the kind of political outlines, now we're going to give it to our military bosses and chiefs. It'll be up to them to figure out, OK, well, this country is offering that many troops.
This country's got aircraft that they might be willing to deploy. Let's try and put all these pieces together.
As I say, it's a really complex picture. We're talking about around two dozen countries, not all of whom, of course, are willing to commit troops.
In fact, at the moment, we only know of two, Britain and France, who are willing to do that. Interestingly, one thing that Keir Starmer did say was that the issue of an American backstop, that is the kind of support, frankly, without which an operation like this couldn't really get off the ground, perhaps even literally couldn't get off the ground, that that issue had not yet been resolved.
European officials were in Washington yesterday. They are going to be going back and forth for the next several days, trying to persuade Donald Trump that this is an operation that is going to need American military and logistical support for it to have a chance.
And we're also waiting to see how Russia responds to the ceasefire. So far, it's attached lots of conditions.
And the president of Finland has said, given this, it's too soon to talk about peacekeeping forces in Ukraine. Does he have a point? Well, he does.
I mean, I think what probably Sakir Starmel would argue is, well, we've got to be ready when the moment comes. That, I think, informs the sense of urgency we are now seeing.
But the Finnish president is right. None of this can happen if there isn't a peace to police.
And so that has to happen first. There's a clear anxiety that Vladimir Putin is playing for time.
We're seeing Russian forces pushing really hard in the Kursk region of Russia. That's the area of Russian territory that was seized by Ukrainian forces in August of last year and where the Ukrainians are clinging on in the hope that that will be a major bargaining chip when the negotiations finally begin.
I think it's pretty clear Vladimir Putin wants to see all Ukrainian troops out, ideally before those negotiations. There's been quite a lot of debate about the extent to which Ukrainian forces are on the run in Kursk.
Donald Trump got it into his head that Ukrainian forces were encircled. There's no evidence at all, but they are definitely on the retreat.
And it may not be that long before Russia is in complete control of Kursk again. Paul Adams.
Japan's hot spring resorts are famous around the world for their relaxing effects and health benefits. But the record number of tourists who have flooded into Japan in recent years, partly to experience the hot springs or onsen, which are heated naturally underground, has now led to a number of the resorts facing water shortages, with reports some have even shut down.
Our Asia-Pacific editor, Mickey Bristow, told us more. Well, hot springs were traditional Japanese pastime and obviously when foreign visitors go to Japan, they want to experience it.
And there's been so many foreign tourists in Japan over the last year or so. Last year, there was more than 30 million a record.

They just want to go there and they've been using all the water.

And so there's a lot of hot springs that are just running out of the water

because you've got to remember that this is water that's heated up underneath the ground,

brought to the surface.

So there's only a limited amount of this water and it's simply been used out. And given that there's no sign of the tourism boom abating, what can the authorities do to tackle this problem? Essentially what the authorities have tried to do is they're saying, look, you've got to try and limit the amount of water you use if possible.
That means, say, hotels are built in private, onsen in rooms don't do that as much, limit the amount of times you can use this water. Also, I'm sure there's a temptation to drill even further into the bowels of the earth and pump this water up, if possible, to get more of it.
There'll also be a temptation to filter some of this water. Now, there are really strict rules about what counts as hot spring water in japan as you can imagine but the temptation will be to filter it reuse it again if there's a limited supply and this is just one symptom of how over tourism is really having a massive impact on japan yeah i mean tourism is a great thing in many respects if you're getting lots of people coming into the country as you are in Japan you're getting people spending lots of money it's boosting the economy but of course the flip side of that is it brings a lot more people and so a lot more pressure on infrastructure such as trains and buses hotelsbnbs, all booked out.

So it essentially raises the prices.

So, of course, tourism brings a lot to the economy,

but it does bring a problem.

And it's something Japanese people are beginning to understand

and complain about as well,

even though they recognise that tourists bring money

and create jobs and wealth.

Mickey Bristow.

Still to come.

We had several vehicles, tractor trailers that were damaged.

We've lost all of our food.

It looks pretty extensive.

The roof's blown off of it.

Everything around it here is really bad.

We hear how tornadoes tearing across central and southern parts of the United States

have caused death and destruction. You're listening to the Global News Podcast.
It's being described as the biggest mass demonstration in Serbia since a fatal railway station roof collapse last November sparked an anti-corruption movement. On Saturday, tens of thousands of people marched through the capital, Belgrade, in the latest protests at government corruption, which they blame for the roof collapse that killed 15 people at a station in Novi Sad that had only recently been renovated.
These protesters say they want to see real change from the authorities. I believe that after this, people will have a better awareness of what's going on in this country.
And I'm hoping we will be able to reach out to the people, that all will be good and that we will return to normalcy. We're expecting to see this society free at last, as we've been trapped for years and decades in lies, crime, corruption and injustice.
I'm expecting all of that to change after today. I spoke to our Balkans correspondent Guy Delauny, who was at the protest in Belgrade.
Well, it's been an enormous crowd. And if you take the official numbers, and by the official numbers, I mean the numbers that have come from the government, they're saying that 107,000 people were at the various locations in Belgrade city centre.
Now, you know, if you take official figures and estimates of organisers, the truth is somewhere in the middle, usually. We haven't heard from the organisers.
We haven't heard from any independent monitors, but 107,000 people in Belgrade is huge by this country's standards.

It's certainly the largest protest that I've ever heard of taking place in Serbia. And when you're in the midst of it, it's absolutely staggering.
It was quite difficult to make any movement around the city because of it. They actually had to change the location of the rally from in front of the National Assembly to Slavia Square,

which is a much broader location with fewer obstructions, and crucially, none of the counter-protesters who were blocking the park in front of the National Assembly. And, of course, that was always leading to the possibility that there might have been clashes between the protesters and the counter-protesters.
It's been generally good-humoured. No serious incidents have been reported.
But once again, people raising their voices and saying that they are unhappy with the way that President Aleksandr Vucic and the government have been responding to these allegations of corruption and cost-cutting, which they believe led to the disaster at Novi Sad railway station last November. And given that there's no sign of these protests abating, how is President Vucic responding? It's really difficult to see what the end game to this is, because the students say they're going to carry on protesting until they've had full transparency and accountability with regards to this railway station collapse.
They want to know why 15 people died at a recently renovated facility that was part of the government's flagship infrastructure project, this high-speed railway line from Belgrade to Budapest. Now, President Vucevic says the government has already released a lot of the documentation.
We've had the resignation of Prime Minister Milos Vucevic, plus the mayor of Novi Sad. The charges being brought against 16 people, including a former minister.
He says he believes the students will never be satisfied whatever he does, and he thinks they're being manipulated or taken advantage of by opposition parties who are trying to use what he calls the street to overthrow a legitimately elected government. Gaidoloni.
The BBC has heard evidence of atrocities committed by retreating fighters in a battle for control of Sudan's capital Khartoum. The city has been held by the paramilitary rapid support forces since the civil war erupted in Sudan nearly two years ago.
But the Sudanese army has now retaken control of much of Khartoum and believes it's on track to seize the rest. Both sides have been accused of war crimes which they they each deny.
Barbara Pletasha reports from Khartoum, where the army has shown her areas it recently recaptured. And just to warn you, you may find parts of her report distressing.
Sudan's army is preparing the ground for a final push on Khartoum. Shelling positions of the RSF.
In recent weeks, troops have retaken districts on the outskirts of the city, squeezing the remaining RSF fighters into the center. We're entering an area that was recently recaptured by the army, driving along dusty streets lined by houses that are mostly one-story high, made of brick or cement.

And as we pass by, there are women who open the doors, look out and wave.

People were afraid. They were panicking, this woman tells me.

But there's security now that the army's here.

We were given the first raw accounts of what happened as RSF forces retreated. It was a shock.
They came suddenly, says Intisar Adam Suleiman. They said they'd shoot anyone who's outside.
Her son, Mozamal, is sitting next to the house with neighbors, right where he sat just weeks ago with his brother and his friend.

The RSF fighters ordered them inside,

then shot them in the back as they entered the gate,

killing both of them.

A bullet went through Mozamal's leg.

Our friend died instantly.

Then the man wanted to enter the house,

and my mother tried to hold the door shut. My brother died the next morning.
A few blocks away, I meet Asma Mubarak Abdukarim. She was with a group of women confronted by retreating RSF soldiers who sprayed gunfire around them, then pulled one woman into an empty house and raped her.
He told her to come with us at gunpoint, and he was beating her with his weapon. And then we heard shooting and the man ordering her to take it off.
Bullets were falling in the area, so we hid inside the house. The RSF denied these reports, stressing that the army has carried out mass atrocities.
Both sides are accused of war crimes. The neighborhood next door is an affluent suburb that was home to senior members of the RSF leadership.
It's now eerily empty. We've arrived at the mansion where the deputy commander of the RSF, Abdurrahim, was living.
There's a big empty swimming pool in the yard. There are other empty houses around where RSF commanders were living.
None as grand as this one, I don't think, but evidence that the top officials have moved on. The army says it believes that those still fighting for the heart of Khartoum are the junior commanders, the lower-ranking soldiers, and possibly foreign fighters.

Behind them, the RSF forces left a trail of destruction.

Zainab Osman Al-Hajj shows me the wreckage of her house.

They would come at night and break down the door.

They stole everything in my house and then burned it, she says.

This was not a war. This was chaos.

There was theft and stealing and robbery.

Outside, we meet Hussein Abbas,

returning even though the area is not completely secured.

He's nearly 70 years old, walking with a cane. So how does it feel to come back now after so much has happened?

The moment I got off here, I almost cried. Two years, two years I haven't seen this place.
Extreme suffering. We suffered a lot.
Survivors like Hussein are slowly coming back to try and salvage their homes. The army has the upper hand now in this terrible war.
But there's much suffering still to come for Sudan's people. That report by Barbara Plett Asher in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum.
Tornadoes which have been tearing across central and southern parts of the United States since late on Friday have killed at least 18 people. Most of the deaths were in Missouri.
The state's emergency management service reported trees and power lines down as well as damage to residential and commercial buildings. These Missouri residents described the destruction wreaked by the storm.
We had several vehicles, tractor trailers that were damaged, the roof tar storage building. We've lost all of our food, all of the stuff that's in the freezers and refrigerators.
It looks pretty extensive. The roof's blown off of it.
Everything around it here is really bad. The trailer park up the street had fatalities.
We don't have nothing compared to anything like that. I still have a home.
They don't. And there's more severe weather forecast to come.
Our North America correspondent Merlin Thomas gave us this update. There have been dozens of injuries reported as well as several fatalities related to these thunderstorms and tornadoes which tore their way through central United States and then left there in their wake a destruction, a trail of destruction in the US Midwest and Southeast.
Now, according to the National Weather Service, they've got reports of at least 26 tornadoes in these regions that have torn through and made touchdown. They've been reported, but not yet confirmed.
And this is really a mix of tornadoes, thunderstorms, as well as large hail. Now, the state of Missouri has been in particular badly hit, where they have seen downed power lines and commercial buildings and homes destroyed and damaged as well.
And local authorities say that they're working tirelessly to help those in need to recover their belongings and work through the debris of what has been left after the trail of these thunderstorms and tornadoes. And they've also said that they're still assessing the damage to some of those residential areas and some of those areas with those commercial buildings as well.
Now, it's important to say that it's not just tornadoes as well that have been triggered by this. There have also been wildfires which have been fueled by these thunderstorms and tornadoes, particularly in states like Oklahoma and Texas.
Now, according to the Oklahoma Forestry Service, some wildfires have burned through more than 27,000 acres of forestry And that fire has been 0% contained. That's according to the Oklahoma National Forestry Service.
Now, they've also said that they've issued a risk warning to areas in the panhandle as well. So this is really a lot more to come and the worst is yet to come.
Merlin Thomas. President Trump has signed yet another executive order to cut the funding of federal agencies, including the Global News Organization, Voice of America or VOA, Radio Free Asia and others, media outlets which aim to increase US soft power by broadcasting truth or balanced journalism.
Mr. Trump also ordered other agencies, including those responsible for preventing homelessness or funding museums and libraries, to scale back operations to the minimum required by the law.
Michael Sobolik is senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington. Lise Doucette asked him what he made of Mr.
Trump's latest executive order. On the one hand, it's a gift to autocrats like Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin.
I mean, when you look at Radio Free Asia, the whole model of RFA is surrogate broadcasting and surrogate journalism, which tries to bring a free press to nations that don't have it and to regimes that are terrified of it. and rfa losing its funding is gonna not just be a bad thing for the chinese.
It's going to be bad for American policymakers because a lot of the sources on the ground that RFA has cultivated over the years has helped elected officials make better informed decisions strategically about U.S.-China relations. We've seen this with the Uyghur genocide and the COVID-19 pandemic a few years ago.
And the shuddering of RFA is going to be a huge problem. And for VOA in particular, that's Washington's ability to tell America's story abroad in countries like China and Russia.
And losing the ability to do that is going to be a bad thing for American interests. Would it be correct to assume that since these moves against the size of the federal government, that the officials at the.S.
Agency for Global Media and some of the media outlets were making their case to President Trump's team? I mean, it's surprising they couldn't make that argument. I think what we're seeing in some cases from this administration is a predetermined outcome.
My impression is that many in the Trump administration, certainly not all, but there's several officials in key positions here, were not interested in hearing the arguments of the agency of VOA, RFA, or others. And I think the knives were out already, which puts them in a very difficult situation.
And I think we can probably expect to see a legal fight come up now because the president's executive order is going to be difficult to enforce because not all of US AGM's related entities are codified by the Congress, but many of them are. Michael Sobolik from the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C.
Now, could there be humans on Mars as early as 2029?

Elon Musk thinks so.

The SpaceX founder has announced his Starship rocket will embark on an unmanned mission to the Red Planet at the end of next year.

But spacecraft engineers aren't so sure.

Sian Cleaver works on NASA's Artemis program to return humans to the moon. She says Mars is still a long way off for anyone, even the world's richest man.
Really, the moon is a stepping stone to go onto Mars. Ideally, you need a way of refueling a spacecraft that's capable to take you to Mars.
And for that, you probably most likely need some sort of infrastructure around the moon. And that's the direction that the Artemis programme is heading in.
We're trying to see if we can build up this infrastructure, prove our capabilities on the Moon before we then take the next step onwards to Mars. But Mr Musk is confident his mission will overcome that problem.
Charlotte Simpson has more details. Starship, the world's largest and most powerful rocket, is central to Elon Musk's long-term vision of reaching Mars.
At around 120 metres tall, it's designed to eventually be reusable and have refuelling capabilities, key elements to making the 18-month round trip to the Red Planet. Announcing the news on his social media platform X, Elon Musk said there

would be no crew on board the initial missions, except for a humanoid robot named Optimus, which he's been developing with his company Tesla. If the landings go well, Mr.
Musk suggested man flights could begin by 2029, though 2031 was more likely. But after a test flight of the latest Starship prototype ended in a fiery

explosion last week, Elon Musk's dream of conquering Mars could still be some way off. Charlotte Simpson.
And that's all from us for now, but there will be a new edition of the Global News Podcast later. If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics we've covered, you can send us an email.
The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk.

This edition was... If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics we've covered, you can send us an email.
The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk.

This edition was mixed by Daniel Fox.

The producer was Liam McSheffrey.

The editor is Karen Martin.

I'm Janet Jaleel.

Until next time, goodbye.