Global News Podcast - Germany and UK tell Trump this is 'not Nato's war'

Episode Date: March 16, 2026

Germany and Britain say the war against Iran has nothing to do with Nato and the alliance won't be taking part in any effort to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. But the UK Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, said London was working with individual allies on a plan to secure the vital waterway, which has been largely closed by Iran. President Trump has said it will be very bad for Nato if it doesn't get involved, though the alliance is only a defensive partnership. He also called on China to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz - saying it gets "90% of its oil" from there and hinting he might delay his summit with the Chinese president Xi Jinping if he doesn't get what he wants. Also: Russia launched a rare daytime attack in Kyiv on Monday morning - using drones that Ukrainian officials say appear "upgraded"; Whistleblowers have told the BBC that social media giants allowed more harmful content on people's feeds, after research showed how outrage fuelled engagement. TikTok and Meta have denied the claims; BBC Talking Movies presenter Tom Brook on this year's Oscar winners and what they say about the future of the film industry; and new research reveals babies younger than one practise deceit such as pretending not to hear parents or hiding toys. The Global News Podcast brings you the breaking news you need to hear, as it happens. Listen for the latest headlines and current affairs from around the world. Politics, economics, climate, business, technology, health – we cover it all with expert analysis and insight. Get the news that matters, delivered twice a day on weekdays and daily at weekends, plus special bonus episodes reacting to urgent breaking stories. Follow or subscribe now and never miss a moment. Get in touch: [e-mail]

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Car gurus.cairus.ca. You're listening to the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. Hello, I'm Oliver Conway. We're recording this at 16 hours GMT on Monday the 16th of March. Germany and Britain reject President Trump's demand for NATO to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Iran carries out more attacks in the Gulf, killing at least one person in the UAE, and Ukraine's capital, Kiev, comes under rare daytime attack by Russia. Also in the podcast, what do the Oscars tell us about the future of film?

Before even a year and a half, half of the kids are deceiving in our samples. They're probably not criminal masterminds or anything at that point. They're just really cleverly coming up with ways to get what they want. How babies learn to trick us at a very young age. After pulling its minesweepers out of the Middle East earlier this year, the US says it needs help to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran has reportedly laid mines as part of its strategy to stop oil tankers getting through. President Trump wants NATO allies to help clear the waterway

and has warned that if they don't, the organisation faces a, quote, very bad future. Japan and Australia have already said they are not willing to send warships to patrol the strait. The British Prime Minister, Kirstama, said reopening the waterway was not a simple task. He said the UK would do what it could, but would not be drawn into a wider war. Firstly, we are working with others to come up with a credible plan for the Straits of Hormuz to ensure that we can reopen shipping and passage through the strait. Let me be clear, that won't be, and it's never been envisioned to be, a NATO mission. That'll have to be an alliance of partners,

which is why we're working with partners both in Europe, in the Gulf and with the US. For its part, Germany pointed out that at the start of the war, the US said European assistance was neither necessary nor desired. And the German Defence Minister Boris Bistorius rejected the US President's latest demands. What does the world expect? What does Donald Trump expect from a handful or two handfuls of European frigates in the Strait of Hormuz that the powerful American Navy cannot accomplish there on its own? That's the question I ask myself. And before we make a decision, outside of NATO

territory, by the way, we would need both an international framework and a man to do. from the German Bundestag. I would think about that very carefully before we take that step, and I see absolutely no reason to do so. It's not our war. We didn't start it. We want diplomatic solutions and a swift end. Our chief international correspondent Lee Doucette told us more about the difficulties facing the US in getting help from its allies. President Trump keeps changing, not just his narrative on what the end goal is for the United States President and Commander-in-Chief, but also keeps changing his narrative on what's happening on the ground. Our listeners will know that he's repeatedly said, oh, the war is almost over.

We've destroyed Iran militarily. And remember, this is a war where there was no consultation with any allies except for Israel. And when Sir Kier Stommer, who initially refused to join, the war effort, then came in and said, we'll help in a defensive way. And he said, no, we don't want people who joined the war when it's already won. And now he's realizing, and it's extraordinary, that this wasn't realized, wasn't made it clear to him by his planners, that Iran had an ability to basically close off this strategic waterway, the Strait of Hormoz. There are some tankers which are still getting through, which underlines to you that there are others who are trying

different ways around this crisis. For President Trump, he now wants a Hormuz coalition, as he calls it, and is asked countries. And in that way, he often menaces them that if NATO allies don't come to his aid, then there will be consequences. But you have on the other side, the Indian foreign minister, Jai Shanker, who will join the EU meeting today to discuss this very issue of what they can and should do to try to get that straight open, has been saying, well, they're talking to Iran. And they managed to get two Indian flag gas tankers through the strait this weekend. Turkey has also been talking to Iran. They managed to get a bulk carrier through. Of course, these are exceptions. This is not the bulk of the traffic. But we do also hear reports that other countries are talking to

Iran. But President Trump wants countries to join him in a war, whereas I said he hasn't made clear what the overall aim of the war is. And it's also not clear what the war is in the strait of form. moves in his interview with the Financial Times, he also said that he wants to knock out some bad actors on the Iranian shoreline. So this would mean that a whole lot of other countries would become belligerence in this war. And that's a very, very dangerous shift in an already dangerous war. Yeah, and there have been more reports of heavy bombing in Tehran. Do we have any idea of when this might end? It's interesting aspect of this war. I think, I think it's the only one I can remember, where you have the two main combatants, the Americans and the Iranians, in a sense, talking, well, talking past each other on social media. President Trump will say something on his truth social account. Iran will fire back. And then Iran, then America, mostly President Trump, but also members of his administration, will do the same. Now President Trump said on Air Force One, he said that U.S. is holding talks with Iran, but the Iranians aren't ready. And for the first time,

Abasadakchi said that there are proposals from neighbouring countries that they're studying. Lees Doucette. Well, as well as pressurising NATO, President Trump also called on China to help reopen the strait, saying the country gets 90% of its oil from there and hinting he might delay his summit with the Chinese President Xi Jinping if he doesn't get what he wants. In response, the Chinese foreign ministry said both sides were in communication about the expected visit. Trade talks are already underway between the US and

China in Paris. This assessment from our Beijing correspondent, Stephen MacDonald. Now, the problem for Donald Trump is that he doesn't have the same leverage with China in terms of bullying that he does with other countries. I think most analysts would say that, again, he seems to have overestimated the extent to which he can push Beijing around. I mean, his problem here is basically twofold one. China might say, well, we didn't start this war, Why would we go and help you sort it all out? And number two, already, there are signs that Chinese ships are going to be let through. And so why risk sending the Chinese Navy anywhere near a dangerous place like that

or any other Chinese assets to come to the US's aid, even if it is to keep these talks alive? I mean, Beijing definitely wants Donald Trump to come. We know this because of the sort of soft peddling of the sort of soft peddling of the rhetoric here so as to not upset Washington to keep the momentum going towards this visit. And we're seeing these discussions still going on in Paris right now. Between Scott Besant and Hurley Fong, as if the visit is going ahead. They're trying to nut out the various sticking points when it comes to trade, the supply of rare earths, the supply of chips, finding ways they can cooperate with one another, but yet another indication that I think the US doesn't have the same leverage with

China. We've got these trade figures that have come out showing that while Chinese exports to the US down by 11% year on year for the first two months of this year, overall, they've gone up by 22%. So it shows that China's getting markets elsewhere and doesn't need the US the way it used to. Stephen MacDonald in Beijing. Despite a reduction in its attack, In attacks in recent days, Iran has continued to lash out at targets across the Middle East. Overnight, Saudi Arabia said it down dozens of drones, while Iraq and Kuwait also reported new strikes. In the United Arab Emirates, Dubai International Airport was again temporarily shut

after a drone set a fuel tank on fire. Officials in the UAE capital Abu Dhabi say one person has died after a missile hit a car there. There's also been more disruption at the Fugera Oil facility. We heard more from our correspondent in Dubai, Azaday Meshiri. All this, only a day after the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Archi, said that Iran was not targeting civilian and residential infrastructure. That's obviously going to be little comfort to the United Arab Emirates that is seeing these multiple incidents that it's had to respond to. And it's extremely frustrating for a country that feels that it's been unjustly pulled into this wall. Iran may think that this is the sort of pressure that makes leaders here.

put pressure on the United States to end the wall. But the fact is that officials here are furious. One presidential advisor called this imposed terrorist aggression. And so this image that has taken so many years, so much effort to build of a safe and prosperous country, it's taking multiple blows and people are worried about the long-term impact here. Yeah, I mean, earlier on we heard about people fleeing essentially the UAE to try and escape these drone attacks.

What is the impact of this opening and closing of the airport and disruption at the oil facility in Fugera? I mean, life is still carrying on here in Dubai. For example, there is one regular fountain and light show at this artificial lake at the base of Borghalifa, a busy area, and they still are carrying on with those shows. Having said that, there are fewer people who are watching, and people are generally very worried that a city and a country that is built on tourism, is going to take a very big hit, and it's a major expat hub. Only 10% of people here in the UAE are Emirati citizens.

The airport, Dubai International Airport, is one of the world's busiest airports with the most international passengers going through. There are about 90 million passengers that it dealt with last year. And so that's why they're so concerned that this image of a city built of glass towers, glitzy, luxurious, but most importantly safe, that he won't start attracting the same sort of business

and the same sort of tourists in the same way. Azadei, Mashiri in Dubai. In the first days of the war, the Israeli Prime Minister said he could now fulfil his long-held ambition to crush what he called the regime of terror in Iran. And Benjamin Netanyahu says the bombing campaign is already achieving some of his aims.

Our Middle East correspondent Lucy Williamson has this report. Israel's war. time routine is now so familiar. Even the hospital entertainment continues in underground car parks turned into temporary wards. Several floors above, sirens sound daily as Iranian missiles are intercepted by Israel's air defences. This underground car park at Sherat-Zerick Hospital in Jerusalem is now a fully functioning hospital. It's not the first time that Israel's hospitals have moved patients underground during war. And what many Israelis are now asking their prime minister

is whether this war with Iran will put an end to Israel's conflicts. It's became very difficult, the situation each time. We have the bombs here. We want to finish this issue. Verbi Vash was visiting his father-in-law, recovering from a fall. His hospital bed neatly positioned on a numbered orange parking space. Do you think Israel will be... in this situation again, in six months, in 12 months?

It might be. Unfortunately, it doesn't finish. Do you think this could finish it? This war could finish the wars forever? Most of this depends on Trump. Iran has been sending missiles towards Israel night and day. Yesterday, shrapnel from cluster bombs landed in several places. Israel's Prime Minister has been preparing for war with Iran for decades and says this conflict has already changed the Middle East and Israel's power within it,

even with Iran's regime still standing. Iran is way weaker. Nimrod Sheffer, a former Air Force General, now part of the opposition Democrats Party, says victory in Iran will hang on recovering its stockpile of highly enriched uranium. They lost the air force, they lost the air defense, they lost most of its ballistic missiles capacity,

they lost the Navy, they lost tons of assets. Now they said, okay, we realize the game. We understand now. You will keep on attacking us until we have the nuclear capacity. It could be even a worse situation than before. Before this war began, many Israelis said they were tired of constant conflict, but were willing to fight Iran if it meant something fundamental would change. Their prime minister has repeatedly pushed for Iranians to overthrow their government.

But with little sign of that happening, the war schedules of Israel and the U.S. may be starting to diverge. The political reality in America is very different than the political reality here. Michael Oren is a former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Netanyahu, even people who detest Netanyahu in the opposition, are solidly behind him. The question is the timetable is much more Americas than it is. We don't feel the economic crunch. We don't feel the rise in oil prices. We don't feel any of these pressures that are being brought to America.

are not being brought on the Israeli government. Israel's security strategy has changed since the Hamas attacks of 2023 and its power in the region has grown. Its military might in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran has proved itself time and again in containing threats, not resolving conflicts. Our Middle East correspondent, Lucy Williamson. Still to come on the podcast?

It doesn't make me feel great. I just get addicted. I can't help it and I can't really stop. Whistleblowers tell the BBC how social media giants allow more harmful content on their platforms to try to boost user engagement. This is the Global News podcast. Russia launched a rare daytime attack in Kiev on Monday morning using drones that Ukrainian officials say appear upgraded.

Multiple explosions were heard throughout the capital city and elsewhere. As I heard from our diplomatic correspondent there, James Landau. There were attacks across the country in Nipro where two people were killed in Zaporigia, we think about three dead there. There was also, as you say, an attack on the capital here in Kiev. The authorities say about 30 drones attacked, they think, largely energy infrastructure targets in and around the capital city. And it was pretty loud. We could hear and see some of this from where we are in the city. Debris from some of the drones that were destroyed landed in. pretty prominent parts of the city centre, including the Maidan Square, where famously Ukrainians

gather to protest and demonstrate, and also increasingly remember their war dead. And as you say, yes, there have been some reports that some of these drones had new capabilities. I have to say, I mean, there are always drones is very much an evolving technology. And I think what the suggestion here today is that some of the drones that may have been used, and none of this is confirmed, had greater communication with those, the Russians that had fired them. The original drones were sort of launched and fired, and then once they were away, they could no longer be controlled. The suggestion is that some of the drones that came here

were communicable with those who had launched it back in Russian territory. But there's a bit of uncertainty about what developments were. Because a lot of these drones are destroyed, so it's very early to tell from just going through the remnants of what have been destroyed. And how has the war there been affected by the fighting in the Middle East, if at all? Well, in lots of different ways, really. The Ukrainians fear that they've been forgotten as the world's attention turns on the Middle East. And that's inevitable.

So President Zelensky and others have been doing their utmost to keep Ukraine in the news. He's been very visible, very prominent, talking to world leaders, visiting countries, giving lots of interviews. At the same time, he's been very vocal in saying, look, Ukraine has a lot to countries in the Gulf and elsewhere who are learning what it's like to suffer from cheap Iranian designed drones. The Ukrainians are also pretty aware that there are some downsides from this conflict. Russia is filling its coffers with money because of the raised price of oil and the fact that the Americans have decided to waive some sanctions temporarily on Russia. They also know that the Gulf is firing off an awful lot of air defence missiles at the moment,

which means that it will be harder for Ukraine to. purchase or get given more of those in the coming months. So it's sort of mixed view, I think, from here. But at the moment, I mean, we had a long session with President Zelensky over the weekend. And several of us asked just how bad the moment it was. And he didn't give the impression that this was a game-changing moment in the war. James Landau in Kiev. More than a dozen whistleblowers have told the BBC that social media companies have allowed more harmful content to appear on their platforms in order to maximise user engagement. They spoke to the BBC documentary Inside the Rage Machine.

I heard more from our social media correspondent, Marianna Spring. I've spoken to whistleblowers and insiders across several of the major social media companies. Some of them work at TikTok, so one who's a TikTok employee actually gave me rare access to the company's internal dashboard of user complaints. So I could see evidence about how they prioritise in terms of this system, specific cases and so on and so forth. And they in particular highlighted how they were instructed to prioritize several cases involving politicians over a series of reports of harmful posts featuring children, which was really concerning to them. They also showed me some examples of content

that were encouraging people to join terror groups, say, which wasn't as the top priority that they had to moderate and deal with. And I met this whistleblower over over several months. They're incredibly concerned that these decisions are being made within the companies, not just to compete with the other social media companies, but also to maintain a strong relationship with political figures to avoid threats of regulation or bans. I also spoke to several people who work at Meta. That includes an engineer at Meta who said that they were told to increase borderline harmful content. That's like misogyny, conspiracy theory content in order to compete with TikTok. Another senior researcher at Meta said that when they launched Instagram Reels to compete with

TikTok, they didn't have sufficient safeguards in place. And I've seen. seen internal research that shows an uptick in harmful content in the comments on reels. Also, I spoke to someone called Brandon Silverman, who was another senior person who worked at Meta and described how they invested in lots of staff to work on Reels, but then turned down a request for two specialist staff to deal with kids. Here's a clip of him. And I remember a moment when regular headcount planning process, and there were some integrity teams and safety teams, or we're going to ask for two headcount to work on kids stuff and tend to work on elections. There was another team that went, oh, we just a lot of

just got 700 for Instagram reels. I was like, okay. It's worth saying I put all these allegations to the social media companies. TikTok said these were, quote, fabricated claims and the company invested in technology that prevented harmful content from ever being viewed. And I also put the allegations to META. And META told me that any suggestion that we deliberately amplify harmful content for financial gain is wrong. The truth is we have strict policies to protect users on our platforms and have made significant investments in safety. And what do these kind of decisions made by the companies?

What do they mean for the people who use their services? One of the things that was highlighted repeatedly by the people who work within the companies is how the prevalence of this kind of content, not preventing the spread of borderline content, say. The issue with that is that lots of younger people, including teenagers, use these platforms. And so they are then at risk of being exposed to this content, which is promoted by the algorithms. And in the documentary, I met a young guy called Callum. He's now 19, but when he was 14, he describes how he became effectively radicalised by the social media algorithms and adopted racist and misogynistic views. I also went into a school and spoke to some teenagers about their experiences, particularly how when they say they don't want to see some of this violent and harmful content using the tools in the platforms, they're still getting pushed it. Lock down when I was like nine.

We were at home all the time, and that's the only way I could communicate with my friends. So I used it a lot more. Who thinks that they spend the most time? Five hours a day, maybe. I'm doing it, like, before school in the morning, and then as soon as I get home from school. It doesn't make me feel great. I just get addicted.

I can't help it, and I just won't they stop. Are there things that pop up on your feed, and you think? I don't really want to see more of that. Probably, like, the same, like, violence. It's like the bully and the fighting, really. It just makes people think it's right. And then you report it.

It doesn't come up for, like, a day or two, and then it'll just pop back up. Now, this documentary and investigation comes at a time where lots of countries around the world are thinking about whether to ban social media for under 16s, for example. And I think that the crucial thing that it highlights and that I've found from doing this is just how what the social media companies are saying to the outside world doesn't feel matched up with what the people on the inside doing the work are seeing and the risks they feel are being taken that ultimately affect users and particularly younger people.

Mariana Spring. Hollywood may still be basking in the glow of its biggest nights, the Oscars, but the film industry is facing some major upheavals, including corporate mergers, the growing use of artificial intelligence and mass layoffs. BBC Talking Movies presenter Tom Brooke was at a watch party in Los Angeles for the Academy Awards ceremony. He's been reflecting on what it says about the future of film with our North America correspondent Peter Bowes.

People could go away from tonight's proceedings and think, Oh, great. You know, Hollywood studio film, or two studio films, doing really well. And the reality is, you know people who work in the industry here, people who are out of work, great anxiety about AI and whether it will bring about the promised land

or destroy people's careers. I do feel it is the end of an era, in a way. I mean, it sounds very dramatic, but, I mean, where film is perhaps less central to people's lives, but never been more important in terms of giving us hope for the future. One battle after another, a Norwegian film's sentimental value. I'm a news junkie, but somehow watching these films made me appreciate life in a really good way.

And it's a different form of narrative storytelling, and we need that. Everything is changing in just two or three years' time. The Oscars will not be on television. It will be on a streaming service on YouTube. And that really, for me, just encapsulates how quickly things are changing. I know. It's been on television, standard broadcast television, since the 19th. It's going to be on YouTube.

And at first I thought, how shabby. But the thing is, YouTube gets 2.5 billion monthly users. So it will take it to a huge audience. But I wonder what it will be taking to a huge audience. What kind of spectacle. Tombrook in Los Angeles. Now, babies look innocent enough, but a new study suggests they learn how to deceive us

before the age of one. More than 700 parents across the US, UK, Australia and Canada were asked about. their children's behaviour, and a quarter of them were found to dabble in the basics of lying by the age of 10 months by pretending not to hear a parent, hiding toys, or secretly eating food. Elena Hoyka from the University of Bristol here in the UK led the research. She spoke to Laila Nathu. I think the surprising finding of our study was that deception is emerging so much earlier than we

thought. In the research community, we always thought it was about three years, but we found some parents' reporting it as early as eight months and about half of kids by 17 months. Was it also the kinds of things that they were doing? Yes, I think that's really key. So in previous research, we relied a lot on this task where kids peek up something and then say, no, they didn't peak. I mean, kids are great at that at three years.

But we borrowed deception types as well from the animal literature. So non-human primates do deception in the wild. So a non-dominant chimpanzee, for instance, might find some food. and eat it behind a big rock so that the dominant one doesn't come and take it. So using that kind of deception, we looked at whether kids were doing that, and it seems that they are. It would suggest that this sort of behaviour is normal if you're observing it in about a quarter of very young babies. Is that right? Would it be right to describe it as normal? I mean, we don't, you know, because the instincts of some parents might be, oh gosh, my child is already hiding things from me and becoming incapable of lying.

Yeah, I think it's absolutely normal. So before even a year and a half, half of the kids are deceiving in our samples. I mean, from the kids' point of view, they're probably just trying to get things they want and coming upon ways to do that. So they notice if they can't see someone when they do something, they get away with it. So, you know, they're probably not criminal masterminds or anything at that point. They're just really cleverly coming up with ways to get what they want. So they're really thinking of their own interests, which is, you know, standard at this point of development.

And here they're really clearly doing something people are not telling them to do. So they're also somewhat creative in their thinking as well. And then as they get a bit older, the babies when they become toddlers, I think you found that they sort of progressed to a bit more sophistication in terms of how they can deceive. How much is that connected to how their parents respond to their initial behaviors? So overall, we found that parents who deceive their kids, their kids, their kids knew more deception types and a small number, 15% or so of parents reported encouraging their kids to deceive. And those kids were also more likely to deceive. Is there a chance that

through play parents could be unwittingly encouraging them to deceive? I mean, I'm even thinking about peek-a-boo or something, you know, a very simple game that does involve deception. I think that's quite possible. I think there's a lot of overlap. And actually, that's why I got into this project. I've done humor research for about 20 years. And some types of humans, humor, Peekaboo is a great one that develops very early on in the first few months. Kids are starting to understand peekaboo. And it's tricking people and then enjoying it. Kids tease before a year as well to offer things and then take it back. So they're kind of deceiving their parent, but they're laughing about it. And of course, parents do these things to their kids too. The great thing about

humor is that it's emotionally positive, it's social. And so when parents are doing that, those might be some things that make kids realize, oh, we can break the rules sometimes and trick other people. Elena Hoyker from the University of Bristol here in the UK. And that's all from us for now. But the Global News podcast will be back very soon. This edition was mixed by Louis Griffin and produced by Chantelle Hartle. Our editors, Karen Martin, I'm Oliver Conway. Until next time, goodbye.