Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Explore what the Charterholder advantage looks like at cfainstitute.org. This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. Hi, I'm Ankur Desai and at 16 hours GMT on Tuesday the 30th of December, these are our main stories. The United Arab Emirates has agreed to end its military activities in Yemen after being given a 24-hour deadline by Saudi Arabia to pull out.
Protests are spreading in Iran over rising prices and the plummeting value of the currency. Also in this podcast, Mount Everest and the challenge of removing rubbish and waste from the mountains is proving almost as tough as climbing it.
And... It's got this neck collar which has spikes that are about a metre in length. So it's sort of the length of golf clubs sticking out in various directions. And we've never seen anything like that in any other animal.
We'll have the story of the dinosaur hunters and their 10-year investigation which led to the discovery of a spiky punk rock dinosaur. We start with escalating tensions between two of the biggest powers in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Riyadh has declared a UAE-backed separatist advance in Yemen as a threat to its national security and has told the United Arab Emirates to withdraw all its forces from Yemen within 24 hours. Saudi Arabia said it had carried out an attack on the port of Mughala in southern Yemen, where it said large quantities of weapons had been sent from the UAE intended for the separatists.
The UAE has now agreed to end its operations in Yemen, but denied it had sent arms to the separatists, saying it was disappointed by the Saudi claims. Iona Craig is a journalist who has lived in and reported from Yemen for 15 years. She told Krupa Padi about the situation there.
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Chapter 2: What led to Saudi Arabia's strike on the Yemeni port of Mukalla?
The security forces have deployed heavily, but videos show them pulling back amid the public anger. State media say Iran's president, Masr al-Pezashkian, urged his own government to listen to what he called the legitimate demands of the protesters and make reforms. Some in the crowd can be heard shouting political slogans, calling for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic.
Slogans that can be heard include Death to the Dictator, targeting Supreme Leader Khamenei, the real power in Iran, and This is the Final Battle, Pahlavi Will Return, a reference to the family of the ruling Shah of Iran ousted in the late 1970s. David Bamford with that report.
Being a small island off the coast of China, fully aware that Beijing has a mind to invade you must be intimidating at the best of times. And it's likely even more so when this is going on. Jet planes launching and the firing of rockets as China's People's Liberation Army, or the PLA, enters its second day of military drills around Taiwan.
The war games are simulating the seizure and blockade of key parts of the self-governing island, which Beijing claims as its own territory.
Chapter 3: How are protests in Iran related to rising prices and currency value?
So how is this going down in Taiwan? These people at a market in Taipei are remaining stoic.
The intimidation effect isn't that strong for us. This isn't something new. They threaten all the time. China threatens any country it sees as a threat.
I don't think there's much impact.
Chapter 4: What challenges are faced in cleaning up Mount Everest?
People are still going out, so it doesn't really affect anything. For us personally, no matter what's happening overhead, life still has to go on. Taiwan's defence ministry has called on countries around the world to condemn the drills. It says it's spotted dozens of boats and planes near the island, and that 27 rockets have been fired in its northern and southwestern waters.
As our China correspondent Stephen McDonald told me, despite a relaxed attitude in some parts of Taiwan, these war games do have real-world implications.
Domestic flights from Taiwan's main island to these offshore islands have been cancelled. Around 6,000 passengers were inconvenienced because of that. The Taiwanese government has said that this is potentially illegal because of all those disruptions. That said, people know it's only going on for a couple of days and they'll get on with their lives.
However, there will be some in Taiwan who would be worried that It's ramping up. You know, you can't just ignore that these exercises are taking place. They are, after all, a dress rehearsal for a blockade of Taiwan, a potential invasion in the future of Taiwan. So, yeah, there would be some people who are worried that they're taking place and the government in Taipei has condemned them.
But for the ordinary people in the street, yeah, they're just getting on with their lives.
And like you say, there are people, some observers, who believe that China does have the capacity to invade as early as 2027.
Yes, I think most observers would say that the PLA could take China. Taiwan if it wanted to, unless the US got involved with Japan and others, but just so they didn't. Militarily, they could. The problem is what the Taiwanese government is factoring in is the cost of doing that. So it's no cakewalk.
You've got to get across the Taiwan Strait with landing craft, and they're practising that as we speak. But, you know, death, destruction all round. China's reputation would be in the toilet. China would have international sanctions on it. I mean, not to mention the fact that the Chinese government has to explain to its own people why we're...
killing our brothers and sisters from that rogue province in order to get them to join the family again. That's a bit of a hard sell if there are all these dead people on the beaches, not to mention all the dead soldiers from the PLA. It would be an awful thing for it to happen. And so this is what the Taiwanese government's trying to do. They're not thinking we can beat the PLA.
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