Thousands of demonstrators take to the streets in cities in Turkey and clash with riot police as the mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu appears in court. Also doctors say Pope Francis will leave hospital on Sunday
Chapter 1: What are the main headlines in this episode?
This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Bernadette Keogh, and in the early hours of Sunday 23rd March, these are our main stories. In Istanbul, protesters take to the streets for the fourth day running following the arrest of the city's mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu, who's appeared in a Turkish court. Pope Francis is being discharged from hospital on Sunday.
Lebanese state media say eight people have been killed in two waves of Israeli airstrikes. Also in this podcast, an urgent inquiry is ordered into the power outage that closed Heathrow. The airport's chief executive has defended the response.
I'm proud of what the people did to get us out of the situation. Don't forget the situation was not created at Heathrow Airport. It was created outside the airport and we had to deal with the consequences.
And I still believe that one day the Taliban will allow schools and universities to reopen and I will realise my dreams of becoming a heart surgeon.
Chapter 2: Why are there protests in Istanbul?
The girls of Afghanistan still denied education, clinging on to their dreams. We begin in Turkey. Turkey. where thousands of demonstrators have taken to the streets in cities across the country for the fourth day running following the arrest of Istanbul's mayor, Ekrem İmamoğlu, who's now in court.
He was arrested on Wednesday and detained on charges of corruption and aiding terrorist groups, allegations that he's dismissed as immoral and baseless. It came days before he was due to be announced as a candidate for the 2028 presidential election. In a televised statement, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned the protests.
They attempted to provoke our nation over this corruption operation. They have been doing everything they can for four days to disturb the peace of the nation and polarize our people.
From insulting anyone they encounter to attacking our police officers who are only doing their jobs, from intimidating our members of the judiciary who are investing corruption reports to suppressing the national will with street terrorism, they have it all. They're trying every way to create an atmosphere of tension and chaos in our cities, especially in Istanbul.
Our correspondent Emily Wither is in Istanbul.
The protests definitely appear to be building and they also appear to be becoming more violent with the police cracking down quite hard. We were at a protest earlier outside the Istanbul building. municipality building, which is Imamoglu's office. His staff have been sleeping there since Wednesday because they don't want to leave the building empty in case the government tries to take it over.
Before the protests had even really begun, the air was thick with tear gas. And then later into the evening, pepper spray was used. We also saw a very violent crackdown in in Ankara, the capital, and also in the coastal city of Izmir where police violently broke up demonstrations and fired water cannons at the crowd.
Also in Istanbul, there is this court hearing that's happening now with Imamoglu and there were supporters of Imamoglu that gathered outside the court and they also clashed with police. One thing I noticed this evening was that when these protests first broke out on Wednesday, it was mostly students on the streets. But tonight, it really felt like a mix of ages.
And one thing that was interesting that all the protesters said to us is that they weren't necessarily on the streets because they support the opposition party, the CHP, that Ememoli belongs to, but that they were on the streets because they were fighting for the country's democracy, for the future of Turkey.
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Chapter 3: What is the status of Pope Francis's health?
Emily Withers. Pope Francis will be discharged from hospital on Sunday after five weeks of treatment. He's been suffering from a severe respiratory infection. The chief surgeon at Gemelli Hospital is Dr Sergio Alfieri.
The Holy Father will be discharged tomorrow, as we said before, in a stable clinical condition with a prescription to partially continue drug therapy and convalescence and rest period at least two months.
Our correspondent Bethany Bell, who's in Rome, gave us this update.
The Pope has been showing improvements over recent days. The Vatican bulletins have shown an improvement in the stability of his health. And today, the doctors who've been treating him at the Gemelli Hospital in Rome said that the Pope was now able to be discharged. They said that he had...
had very serious crises during the time he was in hospital to what they call life-threatening episodes, but that he'd never been intubated and he'd always remained alert and oriented. Now they say he's in a stable clinical condition.
He'll be allowed to go home, but he needs to have two months at least, they say, of convalescence and with drug therapy and rest so that he can improve and start work again.
So what will his schedule be like in the coming months because of that?
They haven't offered any detail about what his schedule might be. At the moment they say the very important thing is for him to continue his therapy, his physiotherapy, his drug therapy and this convalescent period. But they say that... Before he leaves hospital, he will appear from his window from the papal apartment in the Gemelli Hospital and offer a blessing there.
And that will be the first time he'll appear in public since he was admitted to hospital, which happened on February the 14th. and then he'll return to his residence at the Vatican. Apart from a photograph that was released last week and a voice message by the Pope, he hasn't been seen at all since he was taken into hospital.
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Chapter 4: What caused the power outage at Heathrow Airport?
So it's expected that the faithful will gather below his window to receive that blessing.
Bethany Bell. Here, an urgent investigation has been ordered into the power failure triggered by a fire which led to the closure of London's Heathrow Airport for much of Friday. The British government said that lessons must be learned after hundreds of thousands of people's travel plans were disrupted. More from our business correspondent, Mark Ashton.
Questions continue to circle around the resilience of Europe's busiest airport, taken out of action for 18 hours by a fire at one electrical substation. Heathrow's chief executive, Thomas Waldbein, said planes could have taken off and landed yesterday, but it was not safe to do so without backup power to critical infrastructure, such as runway lights, fuel systems and air bridges.
He defended the way the crisis had been handled.
I'm proud of what the people did to get us out of the situation. Don't forget the situation was not created at Heathrow Airport. It was created outside the airport and we had to deal with the consequences. Of course, we look at what we can do better. There's no discussion about that. I'm sure there will be questions.
But I don't know of an airport that has backup supply that can switch on in minutes to the magnitude of what we experienced yesterday. The same would happen in other airports.
Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam has invested heavily in alternative energy supplies to act as a contingency to deal with power outages. With Heathrow recently announcing a multi-billion pound expansion plan, there are calls for it too to prioritise alternative measures to ensure its infrastructure remains robust. with vital freight goods left in limbo for a day.
Business leaders say there had been a financial and reputational impact. One described the UK as a laughingstock. The Government Commission investigation, to include the regulator Ofgem, will look at the full circumstances surrounding the shutdown and consider how the network could be improved.
Mark Ashdown. State media in Lebanon has said that Israeli airstrikes have killed at least eight people. According to the country's health ministry, six of them died in southern Lebanon. One was a child. Israel said that its targets were rocket launch sites belonging to the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah.
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Chapter 5: What is happening with Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon?
Israel also said that it was responding to rockets fired over the border by Hezbollah, which denies this and insists that it's committed to November's ceasefire. Earlier, I got the latest from our correspondent in Beirut, Hugo Bechega.
It's just after quarter past eight o'clock at night here, and just moments ago we had confirmation from the Israeli military that a second wave of Israeli airstrikes were being carried out across Lebanon. There's been footage posted online of destruction in Tyre, which is the largest Lebanese city in the south of the country.
There have been reports on Israeli radio saying that only today the Israeli military attacked 50 targets across Lebanon in response to those rockets that were fired from Lebanese territory into Israel. So this is the worst violence since the ceasefire came into effect here in November, the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. And I think
We're seeing that Hezbollah is denying any kind of involvement in the attack. A number of armed groups operate in Lebanon, especially in southern Lebanon. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack.
But I think this is another demonstration of the challenges that the Lebanese authorities are facing in trying to control those areas in the south, where for decades, militants, armed groups, including Hezbollah, have operated. And I think it is also very interesting that the attack that happened today from Lebanon happens just days since the Israeli military renewed its offensive in Gaza.
So what we saw here today could be a reaction to that. But again, a huge wave of Israeli attacks and I think a lot of destruction across the country after months of relative quiet.
And are there fears of a total breakdown of the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon now?
This has been a very fragile truce and Hezbollah hasn't reacted to these Israeli attacks that have been happening almost every day. Since the implementation of the ceasefire, the Israeli military has attacked positions, people it says are related to Hezbollah. It says that these attacks are trying to prevent Hezbollah from regrouping and rearming people.
The Israeli military also continues to occupy five positions in southern Lebanon. And the Lebanese authorities say that these are breaches of the deal that was signed with Israel. So it really shows that despite the ceasefire, violence has continued here.
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Chapter 6: Why are girls unable to attend school in Afghanistan?
Religious topics are my favorite. I like learning about what kind of hijab a woman should wear, how she should treat her family, how to treat her brother and husband well, and never be rude to them. I want to become a religious missionary and share my faith with people around the world.
The focus on religion seemed much stronger here. When I asked about what other subjects were taught, the teacher showed me a handful of tattered maths and science textbooks. While they do offer opportunities to learn and socialise, one of the teachers in Amina's madrasa is adamant that they are not enough.
Madrasas can never replace traditional schools and universities. They are 100% necessary for us. If schools are not open, knowledge will die.
Despite the closures of school, girls in Afghanistan remain hopeful and determined to learn in any setting they can.
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