Iran threatens further retaliation as Israel escalates strikes on Lebanon

March 19, 2026·1 hr 2 min·6 clips

Iranian missiles struck a Gulf diplomatic meeting and key gas facilities, escalating the conflict to a new level.

Craft gives way to crisis. After the UBS opening and Emma Nelson's London introduction, the programme moves fast into Middle Eastern diplomacy colliding with violence as it happens. Riyadh does the heavy lifting here. A strike lands while diplomats are gathered in Saudi Arabia to discuss the Iran war, and the timing is hard to shrug off. Qatar is pulled into the same picture. A major liquefied natural gas complex becomes another target, with the Iranian attack described as causing extensive damage. Lebanon makes the regional stakes feel wider still. Israel's intensified fight against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon sits alongside the Saudi and Qatari developments, giving the update a tense, spreading quality. Then the pace shifts. A Belgian legal story takes the broadcast back into older history, with a former high-ranking diplomat charged over Patrice Lumumba's assassination. Count Etienne Davignon is 93, a former EU commissioner, and was a junior diplomat during Congo's post-independence crisis. Lumumba's death still hangs over Belgium. The correspondent notes that a parliamentary investigation more than 20 years ago had already judged Belgium morally responsible. Now there is a prosecution. The case is presented as the first prosecution linked to the murder, after most other suspects have died. The facts still feel cloudy. Davignon is also accused of involvement in the deaths of two political allies, while his lawyers give no comment. Seoul closes things out with a lighter but slightly awkward dispatch about frustration after an acceptance speech was cut sharply short. Nelson then signs off with the credits. It is very much The Globalist: war, diplomacy, old accountability, and a cultural beat, all kept sober without pretending any of it is neat.

As heard by us

A foreign-affairs hour that links battlefield headlines to wider political and economic pressure.

It opens on the Middle East at full tension: diplomats in Saudi Arabia, a Qatari gas facility hit, and Israel tightening pressure on Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

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Why you'd press play

You want the Middle East mapped without losing the wider world.

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