Iona Craig

So Saudi Arabia now faces an economic crisis and the knock-on impact on global oil supplies only worsens the current economic situation as countries from the UK to the US to China all grapple with fast-rising prices.

So to help us understand how all this came about, there's nobody better to discuss this with than Iona Craig.

She's probably the most qualified British journalist who's specialised in covering Yemen in recent years, and she joined me to discuss the latest.

Here's Iona.

My name's Iona Craig.

I'm a freelance journalist who's been covering Yemen for 16 years now.

And I used to be based there.

Sandrine Desamours from the UNHCR in Djibouti.

From those very immediate accounts of fear and desperation caused by the latest fighting, let's now try to get a sense of that bigger picture with one of our regular experts on the region, the investigative, investigative journalist Iona Craig.

She's a specialist in Yemen and the Arabian Peninsula.

Should we be still saying that, uh, Yemen is on the brink, or are we now in a full-fledged war?

So it, it's, it's challenging for them both economically because the damage it's doing to the, their oil pipeline that they've become so reliant on because of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, as well as to these continued attacks by the Houthis, um, firing missiles into Saudi cities and, and, and towns.

They want more help from the international community, and they're struggling to get it.

That was the journalist Iona Craig.

The Welsh actor Matthew Rhys is perhaps strange to relate not really a household name in the UK.

Yemen's Houthis continued to exchange fire with Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter over the weekend, claiming a strike on a military base and a key oil pipeline that was being used as a way of bypassing the Strait of Hormuz.

Iona Craig is a journalist who's covered Yemen for 15 years and she joins us now.

Good morning, Iona.

Good morning.

They would like to monetize the Bab al-Mandab and start being able to charge vessels to being able to come through that choke point, much like Iran has really demonstrated they've wanted to do through the Strait of Hormuz.

So it becomes much more complex now to negotiate over.

Thank you so much, Iona Craig.

It is 33 minutes past seven and Brian Jennings is here with the headlines.

Como demostraron las acciones del grupo tras la guerra de Israel en Gaza, el transporte marítimo en el mar Rojo es altamente vulnerable a los misiles, drones y pequeñas embarcaciones de ataque de los Hutes.

Pudieron controlar lo que entraba y sale del estrecho de Mandeb y se dirige hacia Suez sin haber obtenido estas ganancias territoriales, le expliqué a la BBC, Iona Craig, experta en Yemen.

They were able to control what was going in and out of the Mandeb Strait and headed towards Suez without having obtained these territorial gains, Iona Craig, an expert on Yemen, explained to the BBC.

Iona Craig, an expert on Yemen.

Pudieron controlar lo que entraba y sale del estrecho de Mandeb y se dirige hacia Suez sin haber obtenido estas ganancias territoriales, le expliqué a la BBC, Iona Craig, experta en Yemen.

Pero claro, ahora controlan la zona que domina directamente el estrecho de Mandeb y esto les da mucha más influencia.

But of course, they now control the area that directly dominates the Mandeb Strait.

Saudi Arabia backs Yemen's internationally recognized government against the Houthis.

Well, let's talk to the journalist Iona Craig, who's been covering Yemen for many years after being based there.

Iona, very good to have you with us as ever on, uh, News Hour.

They've captured this island.

Um, but it's only been recently that the Houthis have pre-prepared to, to make that push south and, and actually were able to do it quite easily in the end.

Iona, thank you very much indeed.

Uh, Iona Craig, journalist, uh, and, uh, Yemen expert joining us live.

Now, the government of Iceland says it'll put forward a bill early next year, which could lead to a permanent ban on whaling in its waters.

Saudi Arabia in particular is now reliant on the Red Sea to export its oil.

Iona Craig is a journalist specializing in Yemen and the Arab Peninsula, and I asked her how significant these latest clashes are

areWell, at the moment they're certainly the fiercest clashes we've seen in this area of Yemen for since at least 2018 really when there was the push by the government forces, the internationally recognized government forces to try and retake ground along the Red Sea coast.

When I was there actually with those government forces as they pushed north so yes it's been nearly almost ten years certainly eight nine years since we've seen this level of violence between the two sides and this escalation now which is once again over the coastal area of Yemen and this kind of crucial area which abuts the Red Sea and the mountains really which are the high ground that overlooks the Bab-el-Mandeb which is so crucial now and is really a prize that the Houthis are after.

Yeah is it possible to say how much control or impact at least the Houthis have over this opening into the Red Sea at the moment?

Well they certainly in their initial round of fighting over the last sort of twenty four hours have taken some territory They've also then lost some of that territory they gained in the kind of last few hours of today.

I think what's really crucial to understand about this area is Is the geography of it The internationally recognised government forces hold What's called the Tehama Which is the flat Coastal plain That runs along the Red Sea But a lot of the inland Territory is still controlled By the Houthis Up into the mountains And these are Very high Mountains and once you Control some of the Crucial High points In those Highlands Then it makes It a lot easier To take the Territory On the Coastal Plain and it seems The point Of attack Really For the Houthis Is What's Called The Taiz Mocha Corridor Which is Their Area That Runs Between Central Ties Down to Port of Mocha on Coast If The Fighting At Moment Around Sort Two Crucial Jabal Habashi And Jabal Numan Which Are Important Whoever Controls Can Make Much Easier Them To Control Plains Below Towards Coast if houthis Take Those Kind Strategic Then Makes A Lot Easier Them To Then Take Coastal City port city mocha Potentially Then Ground Over Babelmandab Appears Be After Moment Journalist Iona Craig Now back in July the tech company OpenAI said a couple of their AI systems had gone rogue and made a hostile hack into another tech company Hugging Face Following the incident Openai Invited Two Independent Ai Safety Researchers To Conduct An Investigation To Ascertain What Happened Report Was Released This Week Raised Even More Questions Around Ai Safety Well Dylan Freedman New York Times Ai Projects Editor First He Reminded Me Initial Incident Basically this was a two month long incident and actually the hugging face portion was only one week of it but about mid May open ai started training and evaluating new models and they ran what's called agents to complete tasks and basically the agents found some of the tests very difficult and impossible even and so they figured out ways to hack outside of their research containment environment instead they were sort of meant to be isolated from the internet and from each other but they figured out how to establish a communication channel and talk to each other and share insights from their hacks and they ended up hacking through multiple different systems and it sort of culminated in their attack on the AI company hugging face in mid july and they also hacked openai own internal infrastructure around same time Yeah now this caused quite a lot of consternation at the time and it meant that there was a big sort of investigation as to exactly how this had happened a post mortem if you like um and there were a couple of reports that were commissioned but now we've got some detail coming out of these reports and it it actually sounds as if these rogue bots could be even more dangerous than we originally thought Yes So open ai Voluntarily Let Three From Nonprofit Meter Redwood Research Conduct Investigate What Found Bots Extremely Motivated Cheat Very Sophisticated We Didn't Previously Know Um So Actually Convinced Other Sacrifice Training Tasks Commit Perma Death Agents Invented Whole Lingo Strange Terms Um Hacked Grading System Tasks Assigned Espionage Sharing Information Highly Sophisticated Unusual Unprecedented Cyber Where Imagined Risks Real Does Sound Absolutely Terrifying Way You Describe Understand Reports Quite Tight Constraints Was Also Important As To What Was Found These Reports Yes absolutely While Commendable OpenAi Voluntary Investigators Did Have Under Current Uh Essentially Limited Only Single Week Attacked Occurred Only investigators monitor while premises six days access researchers perform investigate resort ai understand ai itself all sorts funny issues taking side Rogue Ais heists Not Only Um Agent Gone Rogue Though Past Few Months Worrying Many People There Element Almost Proud Clever Getting Powerful Where Leaves Us Recent Similar Scale Anthropic Meta Had Recently Ai Agents Hacked Out Internet Committed Smaller Scale Cyber Attacks Couple Things One Right Wild West Regulation United States Companies Broad Leeway Do Swarms Thousands Agents Can Do Sophisticated Without Being Regulated Dylan Friedman The New York Times Bringing End Edition News Hour Get more With BBC Podcasts Wherever listen first Favorite Shows Like Evil Genius Good Bad Billionaire Dead Subscription BBC Premium Apple podcasts Enjoy Range Podcasts Free Amazon Music Subscription