Author: BBC World Service

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Newshour - Iran-Israel strikes

The Israeli military is continuing its strikes on Iran - following overnight explosions at Mehrabad airport in Tehran. On Friday Israeli planes struck Iranian nuclear and military sites assassinating several military leaders and nine top nuclear scientists. Iranian state media says sixty civilians including twenty children were also killed in an Israeli air strike on a residential complex in the capital. In response Iran has carried out missile strikes on Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Tehran has warned the US, France and Britain that their bases and ships in the region will be targeted if they help stop its strikes on Israel.

Also, we speak to Muhammad Yunus, the interim leader of Bangladesh.

And a new film about the West Virginia town, where people go to avoid the electro-magnetic radiation of modern life.

(photo: Rescuers work at the site of a damaged building, in the aftermath of Israeli strikes, in Tehran, Iran, June 14, 2025. Credit: REU)

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Newshour - The BBC World Service Debate: Is Donald Trump Making the World Safer or More Dangerous?

The BBC World Service Debate considers the rapidly changing international landscape since Donald Trump returned to the White House.

The US President says his legacy will be as a peacemaker and unifier. So far he’s brought Putin to the negotiating table and made Europe take its security seriously in a way it hasn’t for decades. But his methods have horrified critics, who say his shock and awe approach to diplomacy is reckless and chaotic. The President’s unpredictability has rocked global alliances. Is Donald Trump making the world safer or more dangerous?

In front of a live audience in the BBC’s Radio Theatre in London, the BBC’s Chief International Correspondent, Lyse Doucet, is joined by:

KT McFarland, former US Deputy National Security Advisor to President Trump in his first term Brian Wong, Assistant Professor and Fellow at Centre on Contemporary China, University of Hong Kong Miguel Berger, German Ambassador to the UK Azadeh Moaveni, journalist, writer and Associate Professor at New York University

(Photo: U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House on June 12, 2025. Credit: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein)

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Newshour - Iran retaliates by launching ballistic missiles at Israel

Iran has launched an aerial attack on Israel in an operation it's called True Promise 3. Black smoke has been seen rising over Tel Aviv's skyline. Earlier today, the Israeli military said it had struck the Isfahan nuclear facility in Iran - as its strikes on the country continued.

Also on the programme: Colombian superstar Shakira tells us about life as an immigrant in the US; and a report on the Air India crash.

(Image: Missiles launched from Iran are intercepted as seen from Tel Aviv, Israel on 13 June 2025.Credit: Reuters/Jamal Awad)

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CrowdScience - Was there an idyllic time before carnivores?

Was there ever a time when life on earth was peaceful? Free of violence? No predators, no prey, just... vibes? Or has nature always been 'Red in Tooth and Claw'?

Have we always been eating each other?

Our listener Scott sent us on a quest to discover the origins of predators and prey, and to find out what all this ‘eat or be eaten’ stuff is really about.

Taking us back to the very dawn of life on earth, Professor Susannah Porter from the University of Santa Barbara lets Alex peer into an extraordinary world of microscopic warfare. It’s a dog-eat-dog (or, microbe-dissolve-microbe) world, with single celled organisms doing battle with each other. For billions of years, this was life on earth! Tiny, violent, and completely fascinating.

But what about bigger creatures? More complex ones - animals? Speeding forward several billion years, Alex arrives in the Ediacaran Period – a time of unusual tranquility, where strange, plant-like animals lived in relative peace. At the Natural History Museum in Oxford, UK, palaeontologist Dr Frankie Dunn shows him around.

So where did real predators come from, then? Alex is joined by Dr Imran Rahman as he ushers in one of the most extraordinary periods in Earth’s history – the magnificently named Cambrian Explosion! Here we find real predators, with teeth, claws, and impressive hunting appendages. Through the fossil record, we can see an arms race developing – as predators get more sophisticated, so does their prey. It’s ON.

Finally, Alex wonders if our own evolution, shaped as it has been by this predator-prey arms race, might have been very different without the threat of being chomped. Professor Lynne Isbell from the University of California, Davis takes Alex on a trip into our primate past, and tackles one of our most fearsome predators: snakes.

Presenter: Alex Lathbridge Producer: Emily Knight Series Producer: Ben Motley

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Newshour - Israel’s military launches wave of attacks on Iran

Israel's military say they struck dozens of military targets, including nuclear targets in different areas of Iran.

Iran says the attacks by Israel are a declaration of war and there are warnings of a strong retaliatory response by Iran to the attacks which killed numerous military officials and scientists.

Also in the programme: Investigators in India have found the on-board video recorder from the Air India plane which crashed on Thursday, killing more than 240 people. We'll report from the crash site in Ahmedabad.

(Photo shows smoke rising from a damaged building in the aftermath of Israeli strikes in Tehran, Iran on 13 June 13, 2025. Credit: Majid Asgaripour/West Asia News Agency via Reuters)

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Focus on Africa - Are South African troops ‘stuck’ in DRC?

The first group of South African soldiers deployed to the Democratic Republic of Congo, arrive back in the country today. South Africa sent around one thousand five hundred troops to the DRC as part of a wider peacekeeping mission. In February, at least fourteen soldiers were killed during heavy clashes with the M23, a group fighting against the national government led by President Felix Tishekedi. At home in South Africa there has been public debate about the need for this deployment. Richard discusses the delayed end of mission amid reports of low morale and poor conditions in DRC with the BBC’s reporter, Nomsa Maseko.

Also, Ghana makes significant progress in reducing child labour

And does FIFA's expanded Club World Cup offer fresh opportunities to Africa's football clubs or not?

Presenter: Richard Kagoe Producers: Bella Hassan and Yvette Twagiramariya in London and Charles Gitonga in Nairobi. Technical Producer: Pat Sissons Senior Journalist: Karnie Sharp Editors: Alice Muthengi and Andre Lombard