we'll speak to one of the journalists behind the investigation. and gmail celebrates its 20th anniversary this month. we'll get into if and how email fits in the future of how we communicate. but we're going to start with a story you may well have seen in the news, the investigation into the attack on the iranian journalist, pouria zeraati, in london. before we meet our guests, let's just go through what we know about this story. pouria zeraati was stabbed and hospitalised on friday. he's since been released. the police are now saying that two people attacked him and they were driven away by a third person. they all headed in the direction of heathrow. all three suspects, the police say, left the uk hours after the attack. now, the police haven't said anything about the possible motive, though counterterrorism officers are involved in the investigation. as for pouria zeraati himself, well, he's a really

high—profile tv presenter for iran international. that's a persian language tv news station. it's based in london, but it's available all around the world, including in iran. and i should add, iran denies any involvement in this attack but previously it has said it considers iran international a terrorist organisation. and pouria zeraati is now out of hospital and he and his wife are said to be in a safe place under the police�*s supervision. but clearly, the whole story raises broader questions about the safety of iranian journalists. and we've got one of them with us here. sima sabet used to be a presenter on iran international. she's also worked on the bbc world service. thank you so much, sima, for coming on the media show. thanks for having me on your show. you're very welcome. i wondered first, in terms of your situation, what impact did friday's attack on mr zeraati have on you personally? what's your current situation? pouria was attacked around 4:45, 2:45 on friday last week and i was contacted

by the counterterrorism police around seven—ish, 8:00 almost in the evening, and they requested me to leave my residence and stay somewhere else because my place was not safe to stay there. and i haven't been able to go back home since then. so today is the sixth day that i haven't been home. and what's the situation like for you? obviously not easy. i got a little bit unlucky because i got a cold on the very first night, so i was coughing and had fever, and just going from one location to another location, it was very inconvenient. but at the same time i had a bigger question — why? why shouldn't i feel safe at my home? i am a uk resident. i'm a uk national. i have been living here for very long. and why should...? why should someone be able to threaten me at home? and this presumably wasn't the first time that you've had dealings with the counter—terrorism police.

no, unfortunately not. there was a plot, a terror plot against my life, which came into light december 2023, which itv got access to intelligence from western intelligence services, which they had information about a plot which was supposed to take my life and my other colleague's, fardad farahzad's life. they were referring with a code, "bride", to me and a code, "groom", to him. and they called our assassination "the wedding". in the files that i recently listened to, there was a point that it was saying that, "ok, the explosion is not possible, "so go for a quiet wedding." and by "quiet wedding" they meant attacking with a kitchen knife. and the attack on pouria happened with a knife. so this has been the line of attack for at least as long

as we know, since last year. did you ever imagine when you were establishing yourself as a journalist in london that you would have to live under these kind of threats? well, i didn't expect, because we have a democracy here, we have free press in the uk, we have a free society here, and it's a haven forjournalists in order to be able to report, which iran is one of the biggest prisons forjournalists. of course, i mean, as a uk national, i expect to be safe whatever i do in the field ofjournalism. on the other side, dealing with the iranian government, i know that i'm always under threat. it doesn't matter where i work, how i work, what do i do. my show at a time was one of the... it was the most watched talk show in persian media. millions of audience were tuning in. it was prime time, 9pm tehran time. an audience, of course, i mean, we had uprising of women,

life, freedom, so people were listening and watching to us, especially with the internet shutdown, like, across the country. so the tv was the only window that people could get a little bit of information of what is happening at the time. so ultimately, what they want to get out of this threat is to get you off air, to make sure that you're silent, to make sure that you're not going to talk about what you're doing, not to provide information or whatever you do in your journalistic line of work. make sure that you're paralysed, you're scared, you have a sense of fear of what word you are going to choose to talk. we asked the home office for a statement for our programme today. a spokesperson said, "this remains an ongoing police investigation. "we're committed to giving the police the time and support "needed to carry out their inquiries. "it would be wrong to prejudice the outcome "of that investigation. "we will continue to carefully follow its progress." and sima, i wonder if we can bring another guest in to talk with us now. shashankjoshi is the defence

editor at the economist. he's a visiting fellow at king's college london. shashank, thank you very much forjoining us on the media show. can you help us understand how london has become such a hub for iranian media? well, it's partly that it's. a safe place from which to broadcast farsi language output into iran. - and that output has been consumed voraciously- inside iran for the reasons that your guest has just i outlined. there's been a huge appetite for it. - there's been a tumultuous 18. months for the iranian regime, particularly following - the death of mahsa amini in september 2022, a young. kurdish—iranian woman who'd been arrested for- flouting the hijab law. and what's happened is it's been a very practical base i for those kind - of media operations. the irony, i think, is it's - also been a very convivial base for the iranian regime, both iranian oligarchs, | relatives of the supreme leader, ali khamenei, . iranian clerics who send their children to london on visa schemes for investors.

so it's become notjust a hub for iranian diaspora media i to broadcast back into iran. it's become a hub for the i iranian regime and the elite to use as well, both . for nefarious purposes, for violent purposes, as we've just heard, i and also for sort of economic, cultural, social purposes. - and shashank, sima gave us some sort of chilling details there of experiences that she's had personally and plots against her. why? well, how does the iranian government target journalists here more widely? do you have any information on that? the british government saysl there's been about at least 15 credible threats by the iranian state to kill britons _ or british residents since - the beginning of 2022 alone. and they've done this before. i could point to scoresj of examples of iranian assassinations across europe in the 19805 and 19905. - a lot of those were against - former elements of the iranian monarchy, sort of former- politicians, former monarchist agents, as the iranian regime saw them. -

what's happened is there's been a much more aggressive - targeting effort - against journalists. and the way that iran does it is not to use, | typically, its own intelligence officers or agents for this - kind of violent work. it outsources lots of this. it uses assorted groups - of organised criminal networks, which are basically, _ in some cases, allowed to get on with drug trafficking - in iran in exchange for doing jobs for the ministry - of intelligence and security, which is iran's mainl external spy agency. one example of this, - by the way, not from the uk but from america, is a few i months ago, a drug smuggler and a member of the hells angels, the criminal group slash biker gang, were among those indicted. in the united states for a plot to kill iranian dissidents. - in addition to that, - iran has also used private investigators to watch - dissidents, and some of them may not know they are working for the iranian regime. - now, let's talk about something that's become known as havana syndrome, and a new year—long

investigation into it. behind the investigation are cbs news, the insider and der spiegel. and they've been looking into whether mysterious attacks on us diplomats may be connected to russia. here's a clip from cbs�* 60 minutes programme. and bam, inside my right ear, it was like a dentist _ drilling on steroids. it was like a high—pitched metallic drilling noise. i and it knocked me forward at, like, a 45 degree - angle this way. well, one of the journalists behind the story is michael weiss, editor of insider english, an online publication that specialises in russian—related investigative journalism. michael, welcome to the media show. let's just start with this. for those of us who don't know, what is havana syndrome? so havana syndrome is a condition that the us government formally refers to

as anomalous health incidences. it's a series of symptoms, including intense feeling of pressure in the ear, usually in perhaps only one side of the head. there's a directionality to it, which is why a lot of people who experience it feel as though they're caught up in some kind of energy beam or being attacked. there's vestibular problems. people lose balance. they can't walk properly. they develop headaches. in some cases, they have more serious complaints. one of the first people to come to public suffering from havana syndrome has gone blind in one eye, has to be medically retired from us government service. there was a report that was put out by the us intelligence community, an expert panel that was convened, and this report was classified initially. it was published in september 2022, but a redacted version describes the core characteristics of havana syndrome. and what's interesting is, in addition to some of the sensory phenomenon and symptoms that i mentioned, the fourth core characteristic is, quote, "the absence

of known environmental "or medical conditions that could explain the reported signs and symptoms." so we're now looking... the first case that was alleged was in 2016. but we've actually found evidence that there were additional cases prior to that date. so you're looking at... sorry to interrupt. that's what i was going to ask you is in terms of your new investigation, what's new? what did you find? well, i mean, we found quite a lot. just to start where i left off, there was a us government employee stationed at the consulate in frankfurt, germany in 2014 who experienced the symptoms ijust alluded to but was actually knocked unconscious. this person was working in the consulate at the time, doing the day—to—day things that they do, and woke up in hospital and was diagnosed with mild traumatic brain injury and a host of other complications. but the real, i think, big moment of our findings

was we set out, 60 minutes has been exploring this topic for five years. the insider partnered with them in the last year and they came to us saying, "everyone in the us government "we've talked to who believes that this is real "points the finger at moscow. we're trying to see "if there's any kind of connection to the russian security services or russian intelligence." and just to give you some background, the insider, my investigative partners, roman dobrokhotov and christo grozev, these are the guys responsible for unmasking the assassins of alexei navalny or the attempted assassination of alexei navalny with novichok. they were the ones to unmask the russian intelligence operatives who poisoned sergei and yulia skripal in salisbury, also with novichok, and a host of other things. attempted coups in montenegro. the explosion, terrorist attacks, if you will, of a succession of ammunition depots in bulgaria and the czech republic. so... and the tie that binds is all of the operatives responsible for everything except the navalny poisoning belong to a unit of russian

military intelligence known as unit 29155. and in the last decade, this unit has become quite notorious within all western intelligence communities for the operations that they have carried out. michael... michael, let mejust jump in there, though, before you carry on, because it would be really interesting for us to understand the process. what are the first things that you and your colleagues would do to start looking into that? where would you even start? well, the first thing we did is we talked to some of the victims, who they were, what their backgrounds were, where they were when they were attacked or they felt to be attacked. and we tried to determine, could we geolocate the presence of known russian intelligence operatives, particularly from unit 29155? i was about to say, their remit specifically is for kinetic operations, violent acts of... you know, military acts. they do assassinations, they do sabotages, sabotage operations and they do attempted insurrection, right? so they don't do pure espionage. if you find them in a city

in europe or i mean anywhere else in the world, asia, north america, the chances are they're there to reconnoitre a target for elimination or for some act of violence. so what we managed to do, using a host of methods, we obtained travel documents and flight itineraries. we determined through social media profiles and databases that are readily available on the dark web. i mean, paradoxically, russia is one of the most transparent countries in that very sensitive information from driver's licences to passport data and photos can be obtained for a price. and these things are sold on telegram and other social media platforms by crooked fsb officers who are trying to make a living moonlighting as private security consultants for companies. so using this methodology, we managed to piece together the real identities of gru 29155 operatives based on fake cover names that they use to penetrate europe.

i was just going to say, michael, in response to your media investigation and the investigation, obviously by cbs and those people with you, kremlin spokesperson dmitry peskov said no—one has ever published or expressed any convincing evidence of these unfounded accusations anywhere. so all of those are nothing more than unfounded accusations. shashank, defence editor of the economist, let's bring you back in. what have you made of the investigation that's been released and how it fits into your understanding of relations between russia and the americans? first of all, - it's stunning work. this is investigative - journalism at its very best. so i congratulate . mike and his team. they've really uncovered some fantastic things, . and no less than i'd expect - from that team who've done such great work in the past as well. i do think we have a really interesting puzzle here . because in...last year, last, i last may, the us intelligence community, the office - of the director of national

intelligence, odni, the agency that sits above all 17 us - intelligence agencies, published a report in. which they said they thought it was very unlikely, - among five of those agencies, thought it was very unlikely i a foreign adversary- was responsible for havana syndrome symptoms. not everyone, not all agencies completely agreed, but none i dissented from the conclusion that a foreign actor did not. cause the symptoms. and that was a really bombshell moment. | what mike's colleagues and mike in their great piece says - is that there's a consensus among the victims there . is a cover—up, that the us . government is hiding what it knows about the source - of havana syndrome on the basis that either it would be | so shocking as to force the american government i to confront russia or that it would deter recruitment from the cia and state i department. so they've set up this i really important puzzle. we're going to turn to gmail, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this month. it was launched on 1st april 2004, and some people thought it was an april fool's joke. but gmail now has

1.8 billion users. here to discuss its usefulness all these years on is mike isaac, tech reporter for the new york times, and julia hobsbawm, journalist, author of the upcoming book working assumptions and a specialist in evolution of the workplace. yeah. so it's funny to think of now because it's so ubiquitous, but i do remember when it was kind of an invite—only system in the valley. it was one of those things that was pretty... it sounds nerdy, but it was cool to have if you could get in early, and it's this... it was also a time where email was still sort of fragmented across a number of different properties that were kind of waning overtime. people had aol emails, people have yahoo! emails, which still kind of exists to this day and persist, with no judgment, i will say. hotmail was another one. hotmail, exactly. and so i think gmail was this sort of novel thing. but i think what they did

right was the simplicity, at least initially, of the interface — very stripped down, veryjust sort of clean white with text, without the sort of accoutrements that you'd get in a lot of these other big portal companies that existed back then. and then it really, it spread particularly because of that. and mike, before we bring julia in, just help us understand the business model. this was costing google an awful lot of money. we were getting it for free. how come? yeah. yeah, i mean, it's a real sort of core component of how i would say web 2.0 companies work. instead of charging you an upfront subscription fee or payment for something, basically you're paying with... it's free to use, but you are paying with the information you're giving it. whether it's your browsing habits or the types of emails that are being sent, at least from the... they get information on who's

sending you email, rather. so it really sort of became this thing that feeds into their overall business and how their data collection practices work, and that became sort of their model for everything, to feed their main search business, which is an absolute moneymaker for them. so essentially what we thought we were getting for free, turns out we weren't getting it for free. no surprises there. if i brought injulia, if i can bring injulia hobsbawm now, i mean, our relationship with email has changed a lot, obviously, since 2004 when gmail launched. well, it kind of has, - but it's never gone away. i mean, it's the main medium and the purveyor of the mainl message certainly. in white—collar work. everybody depends on email. there's 350 billion emails sent a day and the market's - set to grow. i think it's interesting, - mike talking about the history, because in office terms, - in workplace terms, it's really the arrival of enterprise

software and say... - just explain what that is. well, that's really paid—for, bought—in systems, - for instance, - microsoft's outlook. i mean, i think what's interesting is notjust| the 20th anniversary of gmail, but the 30th anniversary - of microserfs, which was an absolutely key essayl published in 1994, really all about microsoft, - and bill gates's nickname. inside microsoft used to be bill 6. why? because that was the email, billg@microsoft, you know, | so it's sort of culturally fantastically resonant. i and i think outlook - and microsoft probably, mike might disagree, - have as much in the history of workplace use of. email as gmail does. but isn't the fact of the matter that in 2004, some people at least would have been getting excited about the functionality of gmail and how gmail was fitting into their working life? certainly anecdotally, when i talk to people about email, not many people look that animated and excited about the experience. it's almost like the technology... it's still the default, but somehow the technology isn't catering to people's needs as well as maybe

once it did. well, i'm not sure that's right. - i think that it is the backbone of all communication, - and i think that rumours - of its demise are exaggerated. slack and other communication platforms which grew- in popularity and which have now caused a lot of trouble i in offices with, you know, people arguing on them l the whole time, were supposed to sort of replace email, - but nothing has actually replaced email. - and yes, it might be a bit boring and unglamorous,| but it sort of still does the job. - boring, unglamorous, and in my case, hundreds... well, no, certainly tens of thousands of unread ones in my inbox, which scare me every time i look at it. mike, if i could bring you back in, mike isaac from the new york times, just to talk a bit more about, you know, gmail and google�*s business model. i think in 2017, it stopped scanning gmail users�* emails in order to target them with personalised adverts. i mean, probably most

people wouldn't have known that it was doing that in the first place, but why did it have to stop? so i think that a real turning point came, in the united states, but really across the world, the eu, the uk and in other countries around 2016, 2017, when people really started realising the power of technology and how it can shape the world more than i think folks suspected in the past. and that's when regulatory agencies really started waking up and pushing back on some of these companies. you know, and these days now it's sort of obvious in the united states, the federal trade commission, the securities and exchange, sec, the department ofjustice here all pushing back and in some cases going after them in legal cases.

but basically, they sort of, companies like google and really facebook for a very long time enjoy getting as much data as they can as long as they're able to. and around 2016, 2017, i want to say they were really starting to push back at least on some of these big companies. and google, at least, as well as its sort of compatriots, i guess, started at least pulling back. but that is not to say that they don't still do it in other ways. they collect tons of information on us, whether it's through chrome, their internet browser, or through obviously search or the fact that they own android, which is the operating system on phones that more than half the world has at this point. so even if they pull back a little bit on one of their products like gmail, they can still sort of collect a lot of info on us throughout...through the many ways we use google. and julia, i'm sure as people are listening, they're thinking, well, what are the different messaging apps and pieces of software and programs that i use

on my computer to communicate, whether it's instant messaging or email? and do you observe as the years go by that the dividing line between what we may use in the workplace and what we may use outside of the workplace has become farfrom clear? so we're all sort of enmeshed l and embedded in the workplace in working around technology in multiple platforms, - and this is parti of the problem. we're overloaded. to your point, katie, - i think the world divides very neatly between those that let their emails rack up i and those like me that are really neurotic - and absolutely havei to have a clear inbox at the end of the day. or i feel i'm going mad. yeah, definitely people in my team look at me and go slightly... sort of blanch. it's one or the other. i used to bejulia and i'm tracking across to being... oh, good, i'm glad you'rejoining me. i'm luring you that way. yeah. well, we're all. ending up in that. but i mean, just in terms of email's cultural- significance relative - to any other of the mediums, you know, you only have i to look at popular culture. that wonderful episode - in the office when the manager tried to, you know, put people under surveillance and ended i up oversharing something. bridgetjones, even- in the dropout, the bbc's hit show at the moment, kind of the killer moment - in the story develops i when an email is sent. you know, email is absolutely

critical and ijust don't think . it's going anywhere. thanks for watching. we'll be back next weekend. hello there. on saturday we saw two sides to storm kathleen. 0n the one hand, across eastern england with some weak sunshine, temperatures reached 21 celsius in suffolk — the warmest day of the year so far. further west, though, those winds were a lot stronger — gusts of 60—70 mph and some large waves as well. and storm kathleen is still on the scene, tracking northwards to the west of the uk. still going to bring with it some windy weather on sunday,

and there'll be some further sunshine, but also some showers. it's not going to be quite as warm as it was on saturday. we're going to start with a bit of early rain to clear away from north—east england and south—east scotland, and then more showers will come in from the north—west of scotland and northern ireland. we'll see some wet weather arriving in wales, pushing through parts of the midlands and northern england, and later into the south—west of england. the best of the dry weather and sunshine probably through east anglia and the south—east of england, but it's going to be a windy day. the strongest of the winds likely to be in the far north—west of scotland — over 60 mph. temperatures are going to be lower than they were on saturday, but a pleasant 16 or 17 in the south—east and across east anglia in the sunshine. now, as storm kathleen weakens by monday to the north of scotland, we're going to find our next area of low pressure moving in from the south. and this one is going to bring with it some cloud and some outbreaks of rain. that's mainly going to run northwards to the western side of the uk, but we will see some rain for northern england and southern scotland. northern scotland likely to be dry. the winds becoming lighter, and we'll get some sunshine

and dry weather for awhile through the midlands and across some eastern parts of england. again, temperatures 16 or 17 degrees. by the end of the day it's not going to be as windy, but our area of low pressure is likely to deepen overnight and the winds strengthen again towards the south—west of england and through the english channel into the channel islands. and we've still got some cloud, we've got some outbreaks of rain left over on tuesday, to push steadily eastwards across england and wales, and some further showers to the north—west of scotland. the wind direction is changing to a north—westerly and that's going to bring with it some colder air, so maximum temperatures on tuesday are only 10—12 celsius. now, that colder air shouldn't last too long. during wednesday and into thursday, the wind direction changes and we get milder south—westerly winds, but that brings with it the chance of some more rain.

live from washington, this is bbc news. the israeli military confirms it's recovered the body of hostage elad katzir, from khan younis, nearly six months after he was abducted by hamas. in slovakia's presidential election, a pro—moscow candidate emerges the winner. and after uganda's constitutional court upholds one of the harshest anti—lgbtq+ laws in the world, we hear from a leading activist who is fighting to overturn it.

hello, i'm carl nasman. israel's military says it's recovered the body of a man taken hostage and held in gaza, in an overnight operation in khan younis on saturday. it accused the islamichhad group of murdering the man, who's been identified as 47—year—old elad katzir. elad was a farmer who was kidnapped from his kibbutz during the hamas attacks on southern israel last october. his sister said she blames israel's government for failing she, along with thousands of protesters, are calling on their government to do more to free the remaining hostages. from jerusalem, our middle east correspondent, hugo bachega, reports. in tel aviv, protesters are back on the streets. it has been six months since palestinian gunmen stormed southern israel from gaza, and more than 100 israelis remain in captivity. people are urging their

government to reach a deal with hamas for hostages to be freed, and they also