Global News Podcast - Israel attacks Iranian state TV

Episode Date: June 17, 2025

Israel has hit Iranian state TV as Tehran has reportedly reached out to end the war. Also: The suspect in the killing of a Minnesotan lawmaker is charged with murder, and the owners splashing out on their pet's birthday.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. deal ratings and price history. So you know a great deal when you see one. You're listening to the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. Hello, I'm Oliver Conway. This edition is published in the early hours of Tuesday 17th June. Israel has hit the headquarters of Iranian state TV in Tehran. Meanwhile, Iran is reported to have reached out to try to find a way to end the fighting, but the Israeli Prime Minister seems in no mood to back down. At the G7 summit in Canada, President Trump has said Iran is losing and should negotiate before it's too late.

Also in the podcast, the suspect in the killing of a Minnesotan lawmaker and her husband has been charged with murder. And the Trump family unveils its latest business venture. Trump Mobile, we've partnered with some of the greatest people in the industry to make sure that real Americans can get true value from their mobile carriers. We felt there was lacklustre performance in the mobile industry. We have the details. On Monday, the fourth day of its offensive against Iran, Israel said it had gained full

control of the skies above Tehran, allowing it to attack the Iranian capital at will. One of its first actions was to target Iran's state TV. The newsreader could be seen leaving the studio as bits of debris fell onto her chair. The channel, which was off air for a few minutes, said some of its staff were wounded and it accused Israel of trying to silence the voice of truth. Iran is clearly on the back foot in this conflict and is reported to have reached out to Israel and the US to try to find a way of ending hostilities. President Trump was asked about that at the G7 summit in Canada. They'd like to talk, but they should have done that before. I had 60 days and they had 60 days and on the 61st day I said we don't have a deal. They have to make a deal and

it's painful for both parties but I'd say Iran is not winning this war and they should talk and they should talk immediately before it's too late. Well, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said reports that Iran was looking for a way out meant the Israeli offensive was working. I'm not surprised that they want to give up like this because we are hitting them hard on the ground. Of course they want to stop. To stop and continue building the death machines, both the nuclear weapon that threatens our existence and the ballistic missiles.

We are obligated to eliminate these two threats. If it's possible to achieve this in another way, please. But we gave it a chance. 60 days. During that time, while they were working on the American deal, the Ayatollah, the dictator of Iran, was finding ways to destroy Israel. Our chief North America correspondent, Gary O'Donogoghue is in the Canadian town of Banff. I asked him if diplomatic pressure at the G7 summit there could do anything to stop

the fighting. Brutally, no. What they will look for is some form of unity, something that they can get together on, that coalesce around a set of words, a statement that they hope will bring pressure to bear. But at the end of the day, I think most of the members of the G7 know that this is really going to be brought about by the US if it's going to be anyone. And while their words can matter and do matter in terms of the unity of the organisation, actually bringing about concrete results on the ground is kind of beyond their remit. So I guess they'll be adding their voices to those of Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Oman

who have reportedly been pressed by Iran to pressure President Trump to do what he can to use his influence with Israel. I think so and I think that's what you'll see in a lot of the bilateral meetings here, people urging the president to favour or to prioritise de-escalation. We've seen his rhetoric sort of veer from side to side over the last few days and I think the other members of the G7, certainly some of them, not all of them exclusively, some of them would prefer to see a more sort of, you know, an effort by him to bring this thing to an end. He says that this may bring about talks, it may be more likely to bring about

talks, but there's no sign of that apart from these rumours we're hearing about Iran reaching out, but no sort of official confirmation of that at this stage from any of the sort of national security team. And there are reports that the G7 leaders have been drawing up a planned statement on the conflict, but President Trump doesn't want to sign it. Do we know why? Because I suspect he thinks that it won't reflect his view particularly, and you can see people like Keir Starmer have been emphasising de-escalation.

And even he says when he says there's a consensus he says but there's still a lot of work to do which makes you think there isn't a consensus. So there are variations in view among the members when you get down to the sort of nitty gritty once you go beyond generalisations like Iran should never have a nuclear weapon which they can all agree to but after that then you start to get into the nuances of what a statement would look like and then you get your problems. Gary O'Donoghue at the G7 in Canada. Iran didn't update its death toll on Monday but on Sunday it said that more than 220 people had been killed in the Israeli strike so far. These include nuclear

scientists and military generals but also reportedly, including a poet, a teenage Taekwondo star and a member of the National Paddle Team. In the past couple of hours, the Iranian Red Crescent said three of its rescuers had been killed in an Israeli airstrike in northwest Tehran. Israel had earlier warned people to evacuate from part of the city. This woman described the mood in the capital. I've been extremely stressed. All the nightmares from my childhood have come back. I was born in 1979 and from the moment I became aware of the world, I was surrounded by terrifying and sorrowful sounds along with constant tension that only intensified. Our childhood occurred during wartime. These past two or three nights, every little sound, like something in the alley, the sound of a motorbike, or something falling,

even if I drop something, makes me jump in fear. I'm terrified." BBC journalists can't report from inside Iran because of restrictions by the Iranian government. Kazran Aji is a special correspondent for the BBC Persian Service and is himself Iranian. He gave my colleague Nagar Manchetti an insight into what people in Iran are thinking. They are frightened.

A lot of people in Tehran live in high-rise buildings and there is an issue of whether you use lifts. There's concern that electricity might be off at any moment. The water might get cut off. And there are reports of shortages of material in shops. Some shops have closed because they don't have any stocks to sell. And don't forget the value of the Iranian currency is dropping almost by the day, and that makes everything extremely expensive and the prices go up all the time. There's a question of whether they're going to be hit. Of course, there is this idea that Israel is hitting a selection of targets that are military or nuclear or

government sensitive. But the concern is that there are various centers that are to do with government or military or the Revolutionary Guard that people don't know about. Like if you live next door to a top commander of the Revolutionary Guard, you wouldn't necessarily know about it. Or if you're close to some sensitive center, you're not aware of it necessarily. And then in Tehran, the capital, a lot of people are leaving the city for the countryside. I suppose it's the same story with other cities in Iran. Iran is about 85 million people. The population is high, and the country is about five times the size of France.

And there are a lot of small towns, villages, cities, and a lot of these places, even some small places have been attacked because they have housed some military unit or some military installation. The general feeling is one of fear and not knowing whether they're going to be targeted. I noticed that Prime Minister Netanyahu has been saying that our fight is not with the Iranian people, and he was hoping that the Iranians will rise up and overthrow this regime. But it doesn't work quite like that. This regime has a very severe security grip on the population and it's not easy for ordinary people to express their views. In that kind of a situation, you are in the dark as to how far people are engaged in all this and the politics of it.

In 2019 you wrote, I've been abused as a traitor so many times and for so long that my son, when he asked what he wanted to be when he grew up once, announced that he wanted to be a traitor like his dad. I mean, it's funny to agree, but it's just so interesting in terms of freedom of speech. Yes, this issue of being seen as an outsider, even if you're inside the country and even if you're Iranian, doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to be treated as equal. What is the thinking in terms of Iran and nuclear development? A lot of people are asking the question as to why do we need to go for a nuclear program?

This nuclear program started in Iran in early 2000s. It's been going on for more than 20 years, and it has cost the country a few hundred billion dollars for Iran is a massive amount of money. Why have we invested so much into something that has become a cause of great pressure on the country? And we have got very, very, very little out of it, if anything at all. And in fact, if you left it to ordinary Iranians, we'd say we don't want this nuclear thing. Thank you very much.

Kazanajee from the BBC Persian service. In Israel, 24 people, all reportedly civilians, have been killed since the conflict began on Friday. Despite its apparent efforts to restart negotiations, Iran has continued to launch its retaliatory strikes on Israel. And just before we came into the studio, I got an update from Jerusalem and our correspondent, Ioni Wells. Iran has issued a warning to evacuate ahead of further strikes saying that they will continue strikes into the morning so I think we can expect to hear further sirens, further alerts. So far Israel say that 24 people have been killed in some of these Iranian strikes on Israeli territory so both sides have

been continuing these attacks saying that they are targeting not just military targets but also key infrastructure as well. Now, you have been to visit one of the sites of one of the recent Iranian attacks, Haifa, on the coast in northern Israel. What did you find there, and are people still rock solid behind the offensive against Iran? We visited a site where something had struck

a residential area, so we saw buildings that had been completely destroyed. Homes were being evacuated. Buildings were being marked for demolition. There was rubble everywhere. Cars that had been completely burnt through and lots of children and families wading through the rubble, trying to pull out any bits and pieces

that they could find of their belongings there. Overall, most people have remained relatively supportive of the Israeli government. Many have said that even though they appreciate what's going on, it means that they're going to see potentially more deaths on the Israeli side, more destruction in their neighborhoods or other areas. However, that isn't certainly representative of all Israelis. There are some, including some I spoke to at that site in Haifa, who feel increasingly

concerned about what Israel is doing to Iran. including some I spoke to at that site in Haifa, who feel increasingly concerned about what Israel is doing to Iran. I spoke to a mother and son. The mother was particularly concerned about the impact it might have on getting hostages back. The son concerned that this latest action was taking attention away from Gaza. I think it's not the best timing for Israel now

to strike Iran, although it's very important to do that because of all the atomic bombs that they want to prepare. But we're still having at least 20 living hostages in Gaza. We are almost not talking about the hostages in Gaza now since for the last four days. It's almost like they're forgotten. And instead of fighting to bring back the living Israeli, we are causing for more dead people in Israel. What I mostly feel is a lot of empathy for the people suffering the genocidal mania of Israel in Gaza.

I think Israel is a genocidal mania for at least two years now and now the IDF seems it's okay for them to take this hubris and do it to Iran. So as we heard there some people not supportive of what the Israeli government is doing and in fact actually very critical wanting them to stop and wanting other nations to stop arming Israel. Overall, the sort of international community has been urging de-escalation but given what both sides are saying this evening, that certainly doesn't seem to be the case. Ioni Wells in Jerusalem. In an interview on Monday, the Israeli Prime Minister said he would not rule out assassinating Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The 86-year-old has ruled Iran since 1989. One man who has met him is Jeffrey Feldman, a former Under Secretary General at the United Nations. He told Tim Franks about his impressions. It was probably the most remarkable moment in my diplomatic career. I had been a US State Department Foreign Service officer for decades, working mostly in and around the Middle East, working mostly on trying to push back against the Iranian influence. And then I left the State Department, joined the United Nations in 2012, and suddenly in 2012, I'm with Ban Ki-moon, my boss, the UN Secretary General, in a private meeting with Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah who leads Iran.

And what struck me was that Khamenei chose to use most of the meeting with the UN secretary general that was on the margins of the non-aligned summit in Tehran that year, non-aligned being the largest movement inside the UN, the largest movement of member states, to bash the United States. He talked in very sort of quiet, benevolent tone with this sort of benevolent expression on his face. But the words were an attack for several hours on the United States. It was a monologue, for the most part, about the United States.

Part of it was that the United States is a power that's collapsing. Why do you, the UN, listen so much to the United States when it's a collapsing power? But a lot of it was the sort of evil nature, as he saw it, of the United States, the perfidy, the mendacious nature of the regime, how the Washington regime was intent on promoting chaos and bloodshed around the world. Ban Ki-moon raised the fact that Obama in 2009 had sent Khamenei a letter to try to defrost the relationship a bit. And Khamenei dismissed this letter as simply theater.

So in my US government career, I had read that Khomeini's whole identity for the Islamic Republic is rooted in this anti-Americanism. And I experienced it firsthand when I was there. Do you think that this is a man who, in his ability to control all the levers of the Iranian state, is open to the idea that at times of maximum peril like these, he will need to offer at some point some flexibility?

I think regime survival is his number one goal, and that everything is subordinate to regime survival. So if regime survival is going to require him to offer some concessions, to offer some compromises, to sit down with the devil, as he described the United States, I think that he would be willing to do that. I think that he was sincere in his monologue to the Secretary General about what he thinks of the United States. Of course, that did not stop him from both authorizing his negotiators for the JCPOA and authorizing his foreign minister and others for the five rounds of talks with the United States. Of course, that did not stop him from both authorizing his negotiators for the JCPOA and authorizing his foreign minister and others for the five rounds of

talks with the United States that took place. But of course, when it comes down to the question of enrichment, which we are going to be facing unless the Israelis are able to completely destroy Iran's nuclear program forever, which I find to be a highly unlikely outcome, we're going to still face the question of enrichment. and will he compromise on that? And I think that the answer is if he believes that regime survival requires it. Geoffrey Feltman. Still to come on their pets' birthdays. Ever feel like car shopping is designed to make you second-guess yourself? Is this a

good price? Am I making the right choice? With CarGurus, you don't have to wonder. They have hundreds of thousands of cars from top rated dealers and advanced search tools, deal ratings and price history. So you know a great deal when you see one. That's cargurus.ca. Looking to reassure your operations? Global conversations about tariffs make now the time to act. Puerto Rico is the ideal place, a US jurisdiction with lower costs, made in USA labelling and unmatched incentives. Join global leaders like Amgen and Eli Lilly in an ecosystem built over 75 years, home to top pharma and medical device production, a deep talent pool and world-class

bioscience infrastructure. Puerto Rico, your cost-effective reshoring solution. Visit investpr.org slash reshor to get started. He was a huge music star with millions of fans around the globe. He was like a household name. An international icon. But his fame came at a cost. The Indian singer and rapper Siddhu Mussewala has been shot dead near his home in the North

Indian state of Punjab. I'm Ishleen Kaur and I spent the last two years searching for answers. Who wanted Sidhu Musewala dead and why? Sidhu Musewala's murder can't be just an open and shut case. World of Secrets, the killing call from the BBC World Service. Listen now, wherever you get your BBC podcasts. The ocean is vast, beautiful and lawless. I'm Ian Urbina back with an all new season of

The Outlaw Ocean. The stories we bring you this season are literally life or death. We look into the shocking prevalence of forced labor, mine boggling over fishing, migrants Prosecutors in Minnesota have been giving more details about the movements of the suspected killer of a Democratic state lawmaker. Vance Luther Balter is charged with murdering Melissa Hortman and her husband and the attempted murder of another couple. The authorities say he was found in woods near his home on Sunday after a two-day manhunt. He was arrested after crawling towards officers in order to surrender. Joseph Thompson is Minnesota's acting US attorney. Officers recovered Belter's 9mm Beretta along with the body armour and the mask behind the

home along his path of flight when he fled on foot. They later searched Belter's car where they found five more firearms including assault-style rifles and a large quantity of ammunition. Belter also had in his car notebooks containing a list of more than 45 Minnesota state and federal elected officials, including Representative Portman. Now, Belter planned his attack carefully. He researched his victims and their families. He used the internet and other tools to find their addresses and names, the names of the family members. He

conducted surveillance of their homes and took notes about the location of their homes. He also prepared in other ways. He concealed himself as a police officer, outfitting his black SUV with police lights and a police license plate, wearing a black tactical vest and body armor, carrying a police flashlight and a handgun. And of course, he wore that hyper realistic silicone mask that's seen on the surveillance videos. The video of his arrival and shooting of Senator Hoffman is truly chilling.

Again, it's no exaggeration to say this is the stuff of nightmares. Minnesota's acting US attorney Joseph Thompson. In recent years, the Trump family has made plenty of money from social media and cryptocurrency. Now the US president has set his sights on mobile phones. His son Donald Trump Jr unveiled the plans. Today we're here to introduce Trump Mobile. We've partnered with some of the greatest people in the industry to make sure that real Americans can get true value from their mobile carriers. A big part of what we've done right now in the world has been focused on technology for people who have been underserved, whether that's been in crypto or anything else. But

one of the places where we felt there was lackluster performance was in the mobile industry. I had more from our New York business correspondent, Erin Delmore. Trump Mobile is the latest venture by the Trump family and the Trump entity into the business landscape here, really kind of capitalizing on the president's appeal in some parts of the country. There are two parts to it. There is a mobile service plan, which is a lot like your cell phone plan you have with unlimited talk and texting, and there's a hardware piece to it. There is a mobile service plan, which is a lot like your cell phone plan you have with unlimited talk and texting. And there's a hardware piece to it too. It is a gold colored

cell phone. The case is gold and it has T on it for Trump and it has a American flag etched into the back. So it's quite flashy as the president has shown he likes his products to be. Yeah. A voter's not concerned that the Trump family is making so much money or do they just see it as part of his business acumen? I think they see it as part of the way he is different from his predecessors. Now, a lot of this really came to the fore during President Trump's first administration because presidents have to be independent of their business interests while they're running the

country. And to that end, it's called the emoluments clause. And the president divested his positioning in the company formally and really handed ownership over to his kids. So it's why you see today Don Jr., his son, talking about the new business venture here. At the same time, it is very close and very much showcasing the president's appeal right down to the price of it. It's $47.45 for the month.

He is the 47th and 45th president. We have seen this in a lot of the products that the Trump Organization has put forward during President Trump's administration. Yeah. How easy is it to set up a mobile phone network and what do rival operators make of it? Well, this is by no means a soup to nuts telecommunications company. It's a licensing agreement like many of the products that the Trump Organization has found its way toward. You know, there's even a disclaimer at the bottom of the website that says Trump Mobile, its products and services are not designed, developed,

manufactured, distributed or sold by the Trump Organization or any of their respective affiliates or principles. So it's not dissimilar to what we have seen the president do with some of his other families, business entities during his time in office. It's just the latest case here. Erin Delmore in New York. A report on child sex abuse by groups of men in England and Wales has found there was a collective failure by the authorities to address questions about the ethnicity of the perpetrators. In areas where data was available, men of Pakistani heritage were disproportionately represented among suspects, while thousands of mainly white girls were targeted for rape. The Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said officials had dodged the issue over fears of being accused

of racism. She pledged to toughen laws to root out what she called the scourge of child sexual exploitation. Victims and survivors need action. The reforms I've set out today will mean the strongest action any government has taken to tackle child sexual exploitation, more police investigations, more arrests and new inquiry, changes to the law to protect children and a fundamental overhaul of the way organisations work, to support victims and put perpetrators behind bars. The British Home Secretary Secretary Yvette Cooper. Women who use period tracker apps are being warned their personal data may be at risk.

A report from the Mindaru Centre for Technology and Democracy found that information on exercise, diet, medication, sexual preferences, hormone levels and contraception use could be collected and sold at scale. The report's author is Stephanie Falsberger. The data that is collected by these apps is really valuable because it builds a very holistic picture of so many things about a person. So it makes it very commercially valuable because it includes information about your consumptions, your lifestyle choices, your health and also your reproductive lives, access to, for example,

abortion pills, but also crucially information about whether or not somebody might be wanting to have a baby or would be pregnant. Pregnancy is one of the most lucrative and sought after information within advertising because when you can advertise to somebody who is in the process of becoming pregnant, you can like lock in in their consumer habits for the next decade or so. And that's incredibly valuable information. So for example, the Financial Times did an investigation in 2013 where they found that information about whether somebody was in their third trimester was 220 times more valuable than information about someone's gender or age or location. And then there's also the fact that this data can and also has been used in investigations into unexpected pregnancy loss. That's why, for example, this data is so much more sensitive. But also I do want to say that

this information cannot only come from period tracking applications. It can also come from search histories or messages to family members or friends, for example. Stephanie Faustberger. Here in Britain, research suggests that people are spending more than ever on celebrating their pets' birthdays. As Richard Hamilton explains, the trend is particularly strong among the younger generation. Almost two-thirds of Britain's pet owners celebrate their animal's birthday, spending an average of $165. The

research found that new toys and gourmet food were the most popular presents, followed by beds, blankets, collars and leashes. For a few dollars, owners can have their cat's picture painted on a cushion or their dog's face on a beer mat. But more ambitious presents include a custom portrait of their pet in full military garb, or a dog DNA kit for around $140. Even more unusual options in the burgeoning pet birthday market include the world's first Bluetooth-enabled remote-controlled dog toy, a paw-print clay mould, or even a light me when my dog farts candle. Around 55% of owners have thrown a party for their pets, but this rises to 79% among millennials and 83% for Gen Z. Many see their pets as part of the

family or even a substitute for having children, which they may have delayed for financial reasons. The trend also seems to be partly driven by social media. And across the pond, when it comes to celebrating pets' birthdays, Americans seem to be equally barking. Ba-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa- Today we are celebrating a birthday on the bus. Apollo turns five today and for his birthday his family sent along his favourite snack which is cheese. But the research extended beyond our feline or canine friends, suggesting that guinea pig owners are more likely than both dog and cat owners combined to celebrate their

pet's milestones. And celebrities are at the forefront of the party craze, sparing no expense. The Formula One racing driver Lewis Hamilton threw a soiree for his bulldog Roscoe, complete with party hats, a dog guest list and dairy-free cake. Sofia Vergara, star of the TV series Modern Family, celebrated the birthday of her son's Chihuahua, Baguette, by waking her up with a shower of dollar bills, launched of course from a money gun. And even after the death of the fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld in 2019, his cherished cat Shupet continues to enjoy extravagant celebrations. Her 11th birthday was marked with a festive bash on a private jet.

Richard Hamilton. And that's all from us for now, but the Global News Podcast will be back very soon. This edition was mixed by Caroline Driscoll and produced by Alison Davis and Peter Goffin. Our editors Karen Martin, I'm Oliver Conway. Until next time, goodbye. Ever feel like car shopping is designed to make you second-guess yourself? Is this a good price? Am I making the right choice? With CarGurus, you don't have to wonder. They have hundreds of thousands of cars from top-rated dealers and advanced search tools, deal ratings and price history. So you know a great deal when you see one. That's cargurus.ca.