25/06/2017 World News Today

As Iraqi forces close in on so called Islamic State

in the heart of Mosul - the militants launch

a counter attack, we report from the front line.

The fight here is at extremely close quarters.

This is the most forward position the Iraqi troops have.

Around 150 people are killed after an oil tanker

explodes in a huge fireball in Pakistan's Punjab province.

In Britain, 60 high-rise buildings fail safety tests carried out

We begin in the Iraqi city of Mosul and reports from there say

fighters from so called Islamic State have mounted

a counter attack in districts to the west of the Old City -

The army has told the BBC that British fighters

Earlier, the Iraqi military said it had captured

almost all of the area - our correspondent Orla Guerin,

and cameraman Nico Hameon, have sent us this report

But troops from Iraq's emergency response division

The target here - a hospital complex.

Getting a chance to see how the fight is being taken

Well, the fight here is at extremely close quarters,

this is the most forward position the Iraqi troops have.

They tell us that the nearest IS position is just 15 metres away,

and when they are firing here, the distance is so small

that sometimes they can see the faces of the IS militants.

The troops here, mostly young, determined to end a reign of terror.

"Daesh came and killed civilians," says Ali Mahdi,

"They destroyed life in the city, our duty is to bring

Here is the hospital building where commanders say about 200

foreign militants are holed up, including some Britons.

"That is what our intelligence tells us," says Colonel Falah al-Abdan,

"And also we heard them speaking on the radio -

we can tell their nationality from that."

Now their caliphate is turning to ash,

their positions being pounded from above

Part of the final push to eliminate an enemy

that once controlled a third of Iraq.

Years of conflict in Yemen have destroyed

The collapse of water and sanitation systems has left almost 15 million

people without access to basic health care.

As a result, easily treatable diseases such

as cholera are spreading at an unprecedented rate.

More than 200,000 people are believed to be infected,

and more than 1,300 people have already died - a quarter

Dr Richard Brennan is the World Health Organisation's Director

He joins us now live. Good to have you with us. Talk through the

particular challenges are facing in Yemen, giving the damage done to

infrastructure. The conflict has been going on for a

couple of years but that has been on the back of decades of

underdevelopment and political tensions. There has been intense

conflict over the last two years, divided government in Yemen so there

is a government based in the northern city, the southern city,

which has the backing of international communities, the

legitimate government. There are huge problems with access to people

in need because of conflict. There are major political cliches to get

access to people in need because of the divided political situation. As

you rightly say, a lack of support for the health system over the years

has really resulted in major deterioration in the infrastructure

any health service available so we estimate now that 14.8 million

people do not have access to basic health care. Along with that, health

care workers, among the best and brightest, have left the country or

not being paid and many have not been paid for eight months. So

defend very difficult to get these health care workers to come to the

facility. There has been a big international effort to address

these problems, massive cholera outbreak that you mention but the

hurdles are substantial indeed. You have dealt with other conflict

zones and trying to reach people in desperate need, how does the

situation compare with what you have seen elsewhere?

This is certainly amongst the toughest that I have been faced

with. There are more people in need of humanitarian assistance generally

in Yemen today there now are in any other country around the world. It

is a tough situation for the committee globally right now. The

WHO, we have great emergencies, major crisis and, normally would

with expect one of those every couple of years, we have seven

ongoing at the moment. Including Syria and a rock, Somalia, south

Sudan and so on. The Yemen situation which has been declared one of the

pre-famine situated globally right now is at least one of the top two

or three in terms of... Need and level of difficulty in which to

work. OK, Richard, many thanks for that.

Apologies for the glitches on the line but thank you for persisting.

At least 150 people have died after an oil tanker

caught fire in Pakistan, according to the authorities there.

More than 100 other people are in critical

The fire started after a tanker carrying 50,000 litres

of petrol overturned on the outskirts of Bahawalpur

Villagers rushed to collect the fuel and a dropped cigarette may have

Hundreds of local villagers flocked to the scene of the overturned

In this impoverished area, they collected fuel in buckets,

jerry cans, and even empty water bottles.

But moments later, grief and anguish -

thousands of litres of petrol went up in flames,

Early reports suggest the blaze began when someone lit a cigarette.

TRANSLATION: The oil tanker capsized, people

The local traffic police asked people to leave,

warning it may explode, then suddenly there was fire.

TRANSLATION: I had already taken some petrol, I was about to fill

another can but felt dizzy due to the fumes so decided not

Dozens of the injured had to be airlifted to hospital.

The nearest burns unit is around 100 miles away from the site.

Medical teams worked flat out to assist the injured

Some in Pakistan have blamed the victims for rushing

towards the scene of the accident, but in other quarters

there is a sense of anger that people here are not educated enough

about basic safety issues, and that poverty forces them

to risk their lives for a few litres of free petrol.

The tragedy casts a shadow over preparations for the Muslim

festival of Eid al-Fitr, due to take place here tomorrow.

Instead of celebrations, there'll be funerals.

Materials used in 60 high rise buildings in the UK have failed

safety tests done after a huge fire in West London which killed

Local authorities have been testing the external cladding used on some

So far, every single sample has failed the fire safety test.

Thousands of residents were evacuated from other

blocks in London - but some refused to leave,

Pendleton in Salford, the latest location where tower block cladding

is being removed, an unsettling sight for another group of residents

It has left us, as residents, very confused and very concerned about

Tonight the Government released new figures

showing the latest buildings to have tests on cladding.

They show a 100% failure rate on samples.

60 buildings have now failed those tests.

The buildings stretch across 25 local authorities.

Immediacy is to give advice to the residents, to

reassure the residents, and ensure those buildings that are high rise

buildings are as safe as they possibly can

The Government says it can test around 100 samples in any 24-hour

period, but at the moment it is only testing

eight or nine a day, so with

up to 600 tower blocks in need of testing, unless those samples

start arriving much more quickly, this is

Arnold has been a fire safety expert for 20 years.

He says cladding currently only has to withstand

flame tests from the front - he says this simply isn't enough.

Test everything, test every angle, then you will know

In Camden, entire families have today been hauling their

possessions away from four tower blocks as safety measures are being

We went with Maureen and 87-year-old father

unsure if they should leave their tower.

Maureen went in and filmed on her mobile phone,

Afterwards, she seemed satisfied with what was being

Tonight, residents in Camden who have moved out of their

tower blocks have been with Muslims celebrating

small moment of relaxation amid the uncertainties

Duncan Kennedy, BBC News, in north London.

Let's take a look at some of the other stories making the news.

At least seven people died when the world's second highest

cable car crashed in the tourist resort of Gulmarg in

Police say the cable that operates the six-seater cabins snapped

Hundreds were stranded in the dangling cabins

The Italian government has stepped in with $19 billion

The amount is three times higher than originally forecast.

$5 billion will go to bail out Banca Popolare di

Vicenza and Veneto Banca with the remainder set

The Prime Minister defended the use of public money to avoid

Hundreds of police have lined the streets of Istanbul to try

and stop the annual Gay Pride march from going ahead.

It's the third year in a row the march has been banned -

authorities say it's because of security concerns

More than 2,000 people in south west Spain have been

evacuated from the path of a huge forest fire.

The fire broke out in a pine forest near the city

It's being treated as a level one maximum threat,

Windy conditions are making it difficult to bring

Stay with us on BBC World News, coming up in sport...

The latest installment in Formula One's great rivalry -

championship leader Sebastian Vettel takes on Lewis Hamilton

We have a rightful claim in certain parts of this country. I take pride

in the words... He believes God told him to plead

guilty and that was the end of it. They have advised the government

that the increase in lung cancer is due to smoking tobacco.

Hello, this is a BBC World News today.

As Iraqi forces close in on so called Islamic State

in the heart of Mosul - the militants launch

And more than 150 people are killed - as an oil tanker

bursts into flames - in the Pakistani province of Punjab.

Lewis Hamilton called Sebastian Vettel's driving

"disgusting" after the two clashed in an incident packed

A remarkable race that featured three safety cars and several

crashes was won by Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo.

Vettel was penalised for hitting Hamilton's Mercedes

as they prepared for a re-start following a safety car.

Hamilton was on course for victory with 19 laps to go in Baku,

but was forced to stop to replace the head rest on his car.

He ended up fifth, behind Vettel who's extended his championship lead

18-year-old Canadian Lance role came in third for Williams.

Germany and Chile are through to the semifinals

Germany beat Cameroon 3-1 in Sochi, and the moment of the game came when

the referee consulted the Video Assistant Referee

after this reckless high challenge by Ernest Mabouka on Emre Can.

But it was Sebastien Siani who was wrongly sent off in a case

It was only after Cameroon's players insisted the players review

the incident again that he sent off the right person.

Timo Werner scored twice in a dominant Germany performance.

Chile advanced after a 1-1 draw with Australia in Moscow.

James Troisi put the Socceroos on the front foot with a goal just

before the half time interval but Chile only needing a draw

to qualify for the last four levelled matters

through Martin Rodriguez giving them all they required to join

With a week to go until Wimbledon someone, who knows a thing

or two about winning it, Petra Kvitova, has won

just her second tournament back since returning from a knife attack

The Czech, who's a two time champion at the All-England Club,

defeated 21-year-old Australian Asheligh Barty, having

suffered the attack during a robbery at her home in December.

The 27-year-old's hand was damaged and was out of action until last

month's French Open, having been told she may not play again.

And after dropping the first set, came back to triumph 4-6 6-3 6-2.

I could not imagine a better comeback. I won a Trophy, about what

is why I was fighting to play tennis again. I was still able to have

great motivation to win titles for example here in Birmingham.

Roger Federer created history of his own by winning his ninth

The 18-time Grand Slam champion was a straight sets winner over

Germany's Alexander Zverev in less than an hour.

The 35-year-old top seed lost his first match

of the grass-court season last week in Stuttgart to Tommy Haas,

but was back on track at Halle - culminating in this 6-1,

6-3 victory over the home favourite Zverev.

Now to cricket, where South Africa beat Pakistan by three wickets

in their first match of the Women's World

Pakistan posted their highest ever World Cup score with opener

Nahida Khan making 79 as they finished on 206-8.

In response South Africa slumped from 113 for no loss to 177

for seven with number nine Shabnim Ismail striking consecutive

boundaries in the 49th over to secure a win.

Not so good for South Africa's men, though.

They've lost to England 2-1 in their best-of-three T20 series.

Chasing 182 to win, the Proteas came up 19 runs short.

The two sides will next contest a four-match Test series,

For the natives of Alaska, the challenge of climate change

means traditional reindeer hunting seasons are becoming shorter.

That means changes to farming techniques -

including larger herds to take advantage of the weather windows.

Our North America Correspondent James Cook has been

Reindeer meat is lean, tender, high in protein

In Finland as part of a cheese soup and in Alaska...

As ice cream. It is high in carbs and fat. You load up the fat bees

with lots of berries, different kind of berries and it is pretty tasty.

Traditionally this land was home to hunters of wild caribou.

But as temperatures rise, everything changes.

On the coast of Alaska, people are used to fending

for themselves, to surviving without outside help.

But even here, there is now a feeling that the rest of the world

should pay attention, because local problems

And while politicians wonder about those problems,

these people are finding that hunting is harder

The elders, they are watching climate change and versus

back in the day when they knew exactly when to go hunting and to do

Now they have to play with the weather.

The winters are colder and a little shorter

and spring is coming earlier

And so the reshaping of Alaska, with permafrost melting and glaciers

We have millions of hectares of the most productive

We can put reindeer on these ranch lands.

We need reindeer to feed people and so

I guess it is my job to take the magic out of Christmas.

Plans are now underway to fly thousands of reindeer to remote

Rump of Rudolph could yet become an Alaskan delicacy.

It took him six years from his small stage debut,

but tonight, Ed Sheeran will be the closing headliner

at the Glastonbury music festival, in the south west of England.

Last night the Foo Fighters finally had their chance to headline,

two years after an injury meant they were forced to pull

A lot of activity. Mind your head. A sense of what is going on.

This is the very end of a festival. Three days of music here, a wide

variety of acts, the consensus seems to be from most people here that it

has gone obituary well. A didactic -- energetic performances. A range

of acts across the whole site, ranging from people like grime

artists to an explosion of disco here on the main stage earlier where

Barry Gibb played BeeGees classics and now Rogers played some of the

greatest disco songs of the 70s and 80s. People are now waiting for the

closing headliner, Mr Ed Sheeran. Tens of thousands of people out

there waiting to see him. Along with the wonderful weather, Glastonbury

is usually the other M word, muddy. That has been very little. It has

meant that most people recorded as being a success. We are relying on

Ed Sheeran to finish that. Mentioning Ed Sheeran, he is very

much a mainstream musician, mainstream performer. Do you think

perhaps Glastonbury has lost some of the edginess, the types of site or

has that been very much stillbirth, still present?

I do not think so. Grime artist headlining, you see so much going

on. If you look at recent years, Metallica playing, Jay-Z a couple of

years ago. They do like to take something a bit risky and not

exactly out of the mainstream that the outer edges of that that

mainstream British music bands that might not want to go see. Look at

the line-up this year, Radiohead headlining, adored by their fans and

then Foo Fighters, a great rock band. I know we've got the biggest

orders from the UK at the moment, Ed Sheeran. He has been dominating the

singles charts, number one albums, extraordinary. I think the

combination of all those things across Glastonbury mean that people

do not feel it has lost its edginess because the kind of music they want,

they can always find. Just briefly, the crowds there

waiting in great anticipation. They want to be wild. Any surprises that

we might have from Ed Sheeran later? No, we are always waiting to find

out if people are going to have special guest coming in or anything

like that. Dunn has been playing his cards very close to his chest. The

kind of artist he is, he just likes to let his personality shine out. It

would not surprise me if we saw this kind of big celebrities from other

music artist coming out tonight because he's not really that kind of

artist, the people that are here wanted CB Ed Sheeran that they love

from his albums and this year when he has extremely success.

Have a great evening. I hope the weather holds out as well.

Don't forget you can get in touch with me and some

of the team on Twitter - I'm BenMBland.

This is BBC in world news today. Thank you for watching.