my guest is abdullah mohtadi, leader of the komala party of iranian kurdistan. is his a fight for rights orfor independence? abdullah mohtadi, welcome to hardtalk. thank you for having me. it s a great pleasure to have you on the show. i began by referring there to the tragic death of mahsa amini. would you say that her death last september in custody inside iran has changed the political dynamic inside iran? it has because on the 16th of september, she was declared dead in the hospital. the day after, on the 17th, there was a funeral in her hometown of saqqez in the province of kurdistan there are four kurdish provinces in iran and it was a spontaneous protest movement erupted in saqqez, her hometown, and it soon spread to sanandaj, the capital city of that province. and two days after that, on the 19th, it was a general strike called by the cooperation center the kurdish political parties which was fully observed. and after that, they called for a peaceful evening dem
live from our studio in singapore. this is bbc news. it s newsday. hi there, thank you for being with us. we start in ukraine and the attack on a crucial dam in the south of the country. thousands of people have been forced to evacuate because of rising flood waters. the dam sits between russian held territory to the south, and ukrainian territory to the north. kyiv says that moscow is to blame and so do nato and the eu, which has called the destruction a war crime. at a un meeting, russia has accused ukraine of sabotage. the uk prime minister, rishi sunak has said it s too soon to make a definitive judgment, but if russia is found responsible, it would demonstrate the new lows that we will have seen from russian aggression . to kherson now and this report from our ukraine correspondent james waterhouse. i think it is still if you go by what you officials are saying just today it is still in its early phases. -by by what us officials are saying- it has starte
hello, i m matthew amroliwala, welcome to verified live, three hours of breaking stories, and checking out the truth behind them. we start with that major development in ukraine, where thousands of people have been told to evacuate their homes after kyiv accused russian forces of blowing up a major dam, threatening a catastrophic flood. this video tweeted by ukraine s president zelensky shows the breached kakhovka dam. he has accused russia of blowing up the dam to slow its offensive by making it harder to cross the dnipro river. russia says, ukraine is to blame. this dam is over the dnieper river, between areas controlled by russian and ukrainian armies in the south of ukraine and there are fears for the cooling capacity at the nearby zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the biggest one in europe. regardless of who or what caused the breach, it has potentially deadly consequences for towns and villages in the path of the water. bbc verify has established there was already
especially what is happening on the battlefiled in ukraine and what appears to be the start of the counter offensive. kyiv says it is quote shifting to offensive actions in some areas. hanna malyar ukraine s deputy defence minister described the eastern city of bakhmut as the epicentre of hostilities , and claimed russian forces are on the defence there, as well as in the south. the ukrainian army has released these images, showing what it says are ukrainian forces destroying russian positions in the direction of bakhmut, in the occupied eastern region of donetsk. in contrast, russia claims it s thwarted a major ukrainian attack in the same region. its defence ministry has released this video, that it says shows ukrainian armoured vehicles coming under heavy fire. moscow says 250 ukrainian troops were killed and a number of armoured vehicles were destroyed. the claims have not been verified by the bbc we ll hear from our verified team shortly. here s a map showin