Global News Podcast - Trump says US in 'very strong position' for Iran talks

Episode Date: April 21, 2026

The US-Iran ceasefire deal is set to end on Wednesday but Donald Trump says he does not want to extend the deadline. The US President believes the US is in a very strong negotiating position. Iran has not yet confirmed if it will attend peace talks in Islamabad. The US vice-president J D Vance, who will lead the American team, is reportedly yet to leave Washington. Also: the British prime minister Keir Starmer comes under intense pressure over his role in the appointment of Peter Mandelson as US ambassador, fuelling doubts about whether he can survive as prime minister; Japan says it will scrap the weapons export rules that it's had in place since the end of the Second World War so it can sell lethal arms to its allies; and a group of women in Spain target the lingering symptoms of breast cancer treatment with the help of archery.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]

This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Celia Hatton and at 16 GMT on Tuesday, the 21st of April. These are our main stories. President Trump has said he believes the United States is in a very strong negotiating position with Iran, as the ceasefire between the two countries is due to end on Wednesday. A former top British civil servant, he said the Prime Minister's office had a dismissive attitude towards the vetting of Peter Mandelson. The UK ambassador to Washington was fired last September over his links to Jeffrey Epstein.

Also in this podcast, chaos at a circus in Russia. As a tiger escapes from the arena. And a scientific study that involved feeding cocaine to fish. We gave them either implants containing cocaine and a control implant which had no drugs. And that gave us a real experimental precision in determining how these drugs actually affect fish behavior in the wild. We'll tell you what the researchers discovered. The ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran is set to end on Wednesday,

and as we've been reporting in previous podcasts, we still don't know for certain whether talks in Pakistan between Iran and the U.S. will actually go ahead in Islamabad. As we record this edition, neither the American nor the Iranian negotiators have left their respective countries to travel to Islamabad. In a phone interview with the U.S. News Network CNBC on Tuesday morning, President Trump still sounded optimistic about finding a solution. We're going to end up with a great deal. I think they have no choice. We've taken out their Navy. We've taken out their Air Force. We've taken out their leaders, frankly, which does complicate things in one way. But these leaders are much more rational. It is regime changed, no matter what you want to call it.

Our chief North America correspondent is Gary O'Donoghue. Matthew Ramiwala asked him what he thought about. about President Trump's latest remarks. He's expecting to be able to sort of bounce the Iranians really into going to Islamabad. I mean, J.D. Vance was going to go, then wasn't, and now seems to be preparing to go today. And, of course, we've had the actual deadline for the ceasefire. I mean, this has been glossed over slightly, but the deadline for the ceasefire was meant to be today. The seventh was two weeks ago. The end of the seventh two weeks' time is the end of today.

That's been pushed back till 8 o'clock on Wednesday evening. That's US time. And so they will have very few hours, if they do actually get there together, to hammer something out. And I would caution against expecting, as you're doing, most of these kinds of negotiations in normal times, that the detail is all sorted out and they go there to sign things. I don't think they're anywhere near one another at the moment in terms of agreements.

We know there's an absolute sticking point on Iran's, wish to have control over the strait. It's being exercising that control, despite the American blockade, and their wish to continue to enrich uranium. They say for peaceful purposes, and the Americans say they want to get a bomb. So there are some hugely substantive issues here. This is not dotting of eyes and crossing of teas, and how that is going to get achieved.

And a few short hours in Islamabad seems to be an extraordinary lift. And all the while, there's almost a twin strategy, isn't there? There's the diplomatic strategy and there's the preparations for a resumption of the military one. And the constant in terms of the thinking from the Pentagon has been one more push will change behaviour. But they've been wrong to date on that, haven't they? Yeah, I mean, it's absolutely clear that Iran is prepared to take a lot of pain, has taken a lot of pain, is prepared to take more. Now, that's a sign perhaps of an autocratic regime that doesn't care very. much about the pain that its civilian population suffers in times like this, that, you know,

that its prime motivation perhaps is survival, and it has survived, despite what the president says. It is still, you know, the Islamic Republic, you know, and it still has, the head of it, the son of the man that the Americans killed on day one, or the Israelis killed on day one. So, you know, this is something that is frustrating, I think, to the president. He simply doesn't understand how they don't just give in to this overwhelming military force. And the truth is that, you know, in Iran there's a belief that this is a civilization that's been around for 3,000 years and that a few weeks of bombing from even the world's most powerful country doesn't necessarily change all that.

Having said all that, of course, they do need to get their exports going. They're oil exports going again. We've seen that one tanker has just been seized, according to the Pentagon, somewhere off Sri Lanka that was connected to Iranian oil. So this enforcement of the blockade is a real problem for Iran. And it's not just an enforcement of the ports around the strait and indeed their oil terminals, Kag Island and all these sorts of things. It's an enforcement worldwide that the Americans have promised to take on.

And hence why you see this tanker in the Indian Ocean being taken. Gary O'Donnekew. Here in the UK, the political fallout continues from the scandal over the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. The Prime Minister, Kier Starmer, has faced huge criticism over his decision to hire Peter Mandelson, a veteran politician who had close ties with Epstein to serve as the UK's ambassador to Washington, a key position. Mr. Mandelson was fired from his job in September. Yesterday, we reported on a very uncomfortable day for the Prime Minister Kier Starrmer, as he explained to the UK's parliament why Mr. Mandelson got the job, despite failing to get through the vetting process.

And today, a parliamentary committee has been questioning a senior civil servant who was sacked for not telling the Prime Minister about that vetting failure. I heard more from our UK political correspondent Rob Watson. It is a complicated tale, but much of it is quite simple. And essentially, that civil servant who, if you like, Kirstama, had made a scapegoat for, hiring Peter Mandelson, or at least not knowing about the risks, has been testifying and essentially hitting back. And much of his testimony was about the complex issue of the vetting process to senior positions, but actually at the heart of his evidence, Celia,

was the deeply damaging allegation against Kirstama that the Prime Minister had known all along about the risks in appointing Mandelson because his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein and business ties and Russia and China were all well known. and yet, Mr. Robbins said, when he arrived to be the senior official at the Foreign Office in January 2025, all the pressure from Downing Street wasn't on security checks, but on getting Mr. Mandelson to Washington sooner rather than later. I'm afraid I walked into a situation in which there was already a very, very strong expectation coming from number 10 that he needed to be in post and in America as quickly as humanly possible.

the very first formal communication of this to my predecessor, being that they wanted all this done at pace and Mandelson in post before inauguration. So I'm afraid what that translated into for my team in the Foreign Office was what I felt was a generally dismissive attitude to his vetting clearance. So, Rob, how dangerous is this for the Prime Minister, Kirst Armour? Well, it's dangerous in that it undermines the defence that he gave during a two and a half hour, truly bruising session to MPs on Monday, as he was suggesting, in which he basically said, look, not my fault, you know, if I'd been, if I'd shown this vetting stuff,

I never would have gone ahead with the appointments. It really undermines that. But it goes to something else, which is a danger for Kirstama about his judgment, his style of leadership, and this idea that he'd always promised that if he became prime minister, he would always take the can, if anything went wrong. Well, now he looks like he's been doing what other prime ministers have been accused of doing, which is getting somebody else to be the fall guy. Rob, what's been the British public's reaction to all of this back and forth? Are they following along? I think they're following in the sense that's bad for Keir Stama,

that it reminds them that Peter Mandelson is back in the news, and that is bad for the Prime Minister because it reflects on his judgment in appointing him in the first place. It's bad because the voters are reminded that Sakeer Stama had promised no drama, Stama, well, there's been plenty of drama. And it reminds them, of course, that he said he'd take the blame for stuff. And as the public see it, he doesn't. Our UK political correspondent, Rob Watson.

For a deeper dive on this, because it's an incredibly complex story, you can head to our YouTube channel. Search for BBC News on YouTube. And you'll find the Global News podcast in the podcast section. There's a new story available every weekday. The Mexican authorities say they've identified a man who carried out a deadly attack. on a group of tourists at a major archaeological site before killing himself.

Prosecutors say the man whom they named as Julio Cesar Haso Ramirez was a Mexican citizen. Security officials say the attack at Tejariwa Khan Pyramid Complex was not spontaneous, although the precise motivation is unclear. An unnamed Canadian woman was killed, and at least 13 other tourists were injured, including a six-year-old child. The UNESCO World Heritage Site is one of Mexico's top tourist attractions, and this shooting reignites worries about safety and security with floods of tourists soon to arrive this summer for the FIFA World Cup, as Will Grant reports.

The incident at the pre-Columbian archaeological site couldn't have come at a worse time for President Claudia Seimbaum's administration. Teotihuacan is one of Mexico's most popular tourist destinations, and the shooting happened with just weeks to go until Mexico, co-hosts the FIFA World Cup. Earlier this year, the Mexican government was forced to reassure people that security will not be an issue during the tournament after gunmen from the Halisco New Generation Cartel terrorised numerous cities

by burning barricades and setting fire to cars following the killing of the group's leader Nemesio Oseguera, also known as El Menchel. This latest incident appears to have no link to drug violence. The victim was a Canadian tourist, shot by a man who opened fire from the site's iconic pyramid of the moon. The gunman then apparently took his own life. Several more victims, citizens from Colombia, Russia and Canada were injured

and are being treated in hospital. Despite the widespread cartel violence in Mexico, such incidents involving tourists are rare. President Shanebaum said that she felt deep pain over the shooting at what is a UNESCO World Heritage site and expressed her most sincere solidarity with the affected individuals, and their families. The opening game of the World Cup will be held in Mexico City on the 11th of June between Mexico and South Africa. Will Grant. For years now, scientists around the world have been

testing wastewater to get a picture of how common illegal drug use is in society. But the fact that drugs pass through our bodies and into water systems also has consequences for the plants and animals that live there. A new study is shedding more light on this, particularly around cocaine and salmon. Our reporter Will Choch has the story. The calming crystal clear waters of Lake Vatten in Sweden. It contains a mind-boggling array of marine life, but it's also been home to some fish that are considerably more active than they should be. Scientists have known for a while now that the drugs humans take and pass on can end up being ingested by marine life. But researchers at the Swedish University of Agricultural Science

wanted to find out more about how it affects that life. They knew the limitations of lab-based work, so decided to take an extremely hands-on approach. I spoke to one of the scientists, Dr Jack Brand. You gave cocaine essentially to a salmon. Yes, that's right. So we gave them either implants containing cocaine, its main metabolite, which I can never pronounce,

so I'm not going to try, and a control implant, which had no drugs. And that gave us a real experimental precision in determining how these drugs actually affect fish behaviour in the wild. Those fish were then tracked and it turned out that the ones implanted with cocaine and its main breakdown product swam further and dispersed more widely across the lake. So largely what you would expect. But it's also concerning because of what it tells us about the impact of our waste on the wildlife around us. In the animal kingdom, sort of movement is fundamental. fundamental. You know, where fish are determines what they eat, what eats them, what habitats they

occupy. So it could have sort of profound implications for their ecology and evolution. It also affects things like energy budgets. So things like energy budgets are fairly fine-tuned in wild animals. You know, the energy expend, it has to be offset by the energy you bring in. And so in this case, an almost doubling of their movement rates is undoubtedly going to increase their energy consumption, which has to come from somewhere. Waterways are incredibly complex and diverse places and the waste products humans pump into them are equally myriad. This is just one tiny slice of that. But it's hoped it'll increase the understanding of exactly how one impacts the other and what can be done to reduce the harm to wildlife. Wilchalk. Still to come in this podcast,

the fitness solution that's helping breast cancer survivors in Spain. So when the arrow is fired by the archer's bow. There's a vibration in the upper limb that also helps to drain lymph fluid through the lymphatic system. This is the global news podcast. Let's focus on a big story in Japan now. Tokyo says it will scrap the weapons export rules. It's had in place since the end of the Second World War so it can sell lethal arms to its allies. It's the latest step away from the pacifist principles which the country adopted at the end of that war. Japan's regional rival China has responded angrily, saying it will resist what it calls Japan's reckless militarization. I got more from our Tokyo correspondent, Kudu Mimiori.

Japan isn't like other countries when it comes to this after World War II, after the atomic bombs that Japan experienced after everything. Japan essentially wrote pacifism into its DNA. It's been part of the country's identity. It went into the Constitution in 1947. So it It was no war, no weapons, exports, no military aggression. And for the past eight decades, I mean, that has largely stuck. What they were allowed to export were things like radar, rescue equipment, the stuff that helps you spot danger. But it doesn't really help you fight it. And all of that really ends now with the new rules.

What makes it even bigger is that Prime Minister Takaiichi has openly been talking about revising Article 9 of the Constitution. which is a clause that renounces war. So when we're talking about why this matters, it's not just about the weapons. It's kind of about this huge shift, a really big significant shift that we're seeing about what kind of a country Japan is going to become. So you say it's been part of its DNA, part of its identity. So why make this change now to begin selling lethal weapons to other countries after such a long time? And what did Japanese people think about all this? Yeah, I mean, I think we can really start looking at 2014 as kind of the beginnings of the old rules kind of chipping away. So even though it's been ingrained in the DNA for 80 years, we have seen signs of the LDP trying to shift away from it. So when Shinso Abe first in 2014 started to relax some of the rules, Kishida in 2023 pushed further in trying to kind of increase defense spending. Takaiichi, our current prime minister has now gone the furthest. The reason why it's happening right now comes

really down to geopolitics and what's happening to the rest of the world, right? I mean, we have, on one hand, Japan, when you look at a map, we're surrounded by China, Russia, North Korea. I mean, we see them as threatening. We also have the war in Iran, of course, the U.S. potentially. I mean, we're looking at them maybe not being as dependent as maybe they once were. I mean, the government's old rules are belonging now to a different new world. I just want to say also the Japanese public isn't necessarily fully on board. We saw a poll out this week that shows 49% oppose any changes to the Constitution. About 40% support them in the latest, according to Yomi Yuli Shimbun. So the government is moving faster, maybe then its own people are comfortable with. And that's why

we're now seeing protests happen nationwide. Our Tokyo correspondent, Kurumi Mori. A story from Russia's getting a lot of attention. and various places online. They're all tracking the moment in the Russian city of Rostov-on-dawn that a tiger that had been performing inside a circus ring suddenly leapt into the crowd. Our global affairs reporter Joanna Kean told me more. Well, a terrifying moment at the circus

has been circulating on social media. In the video, we can see several tigers. They're performing on stage. They're sat on individual stalls. Suddenly, the barrier separating. them from the crowd collapses. So we could also hear in the video the screams there as one of the tigers calmly climbs into the audience. Some people very sensibly grab their belongings and leave. Others look on as this tiger fortunately heads to an empty row of seats at the back of the tent.

In the video, a trainer can be seen following the tiger. We don't see this, but reports say he managed to steer it through an exit and into a secure container outside. Now, no injuries amazingly have been reported, but investigation into safety violations is underway. Well, that's an incredible story. And the video itself is pretty scary, Joanna. Have there been other incidents like this? Similar ones. So in Russia, in 2020, two elephants were just found playing in the snow. They'd escaped from their enclosure. In another incident, a brown bear had to be immobilized with an electric shock. It had attacked its trainer while it was. was being pushed in a wheelbarrow. There have been incidents in other countries as well.

In southwest Germany, 11 years ago, a man was taking his regular morning walk. He was killed by an elephant, which had escaped from the circus. Also in France, a couple of years later in 2017, an 18-month-old tiger was shot dead in Paris after escaping from a circus. Animal welfare groups say circus animals, you know, we're talking about tigers, zebras, sea lions. they're exposed to massive pressure. They're constantly having to move from place to place, enduring exhausting journeys,

and often miserable conditions as well, cramped cages and enclosures. Now, stricter welfare laws do mean that captive animals are now banned from circuses in a growing list of countries, but others, including Russia, still allow them to perform on a regular basis. Joanna Keen. And we'll end with some health news last.

Breast cancer treatment often saves lives, but it can also cause long-term health issues, including painfully swollen arms and ongoing fatigue. However, in Spain, a group of women are targeting their symptoms with the help of archery. Ranging from their 20s to their 60s, the women say they've seen encouraging improvements. Claire Bates reports from southern Spain. On the outskirts of a small town called Titana in southern Spain, A group of women are dressed as if for battle. Lined up in matching uniforms,

each has a quiver of arrows slung over her hip and a bow in her hand. So there's eight women all in a row and they've each shot about five or six arrows each. And I must say most of them have hit the yellow target. The group is called the pink arrows. The members are different ages and from different backgrounds, but they have some important things in common.

They've all had breast cancer and they're all living with the after-effects of treatment. During a break, I chat to Anna Bellen, who is 45. I have small children at home. Here I can disconnect and talk to people who have gone through the same thing as me, which is often not the case with the family. It's very good because it allows me to let go. But there's another quite unexpected benefit to archery.

Ten years ago, a hospital hospital. in Madrid tried using the sport as a rehab exercise for patients following breast cancer. Doctors were surprised to find it didn't just improve flexibility but also improved lymphedema symptoms. Lymphidema is a long-term condition which causes painful swelling in the arms and hands. It affects around one in five breast cancer patients. The project was featured on Spanish TV with a news reached Anna Cano, a champion archer. She helped set up the pink arrows in her area. We didn't know about how to do it.

We just start. We have to find the way they can shoot. So even we put the target in the ground, but they shoot many arrows. Finally, they can lift the arm. Anna says it's helped many of her students to manage their symptoms. One of them is Marie Huerta's.

She developed lymphedema following six surgeries to remove cancer and reconstruct her breast. Dole much and... When the arm swells, it hurts and it weighs a lot. It stops you doing things and you feel that the arm is useless, really. Was it difficult to pull the bow? Yes.

Yes. When you first pull the string, of course, your arm hurts because of the surgery. It was hard for me to do, but day by day my arm got stronger and it's not as inflamed as it was at the start. It has already reduced quite a lot. I went to see physio Marta Moreno to find out why archery was having such a big effect. She works at Virgin Delacasa del Orcahospital and has treated a lot of the women in the pink arrows. So when the arrow is fired by the archer's bow, there's a vibration in the upper limb that also helps to drain lymph fluid through the lymphatic system.

When someone draws and releases a bow, they contract and relax various muscles, which acts as a pump that improves the flow of lymph fluid. And while not conclusively proven, it's widely thought the vibration of the strings helps with this process. I've seen cases where the swelling has reduced and the lymphodema has even stabilized. The patients notice it a lot in their day-to-day lives,

especially when they work with their arms. They find they have a lot more freedom. Claire Bates reporting from Scyl. southern Spain. And for more on this innovative archery project, search for people fixing the world, wherever you get your podcasts. And that's all from us for now. If you want to get in touch, you can email us at global podcast at BBC.co.uk. You can also find us on X at BBC World Service. Use the hashtag Global NewsPod. And don't forget our sister podcast, The Global Story, which goes in-depth and beyond the headlines on one big story. This edition of the Global News

podcast was mixed by Chris Cazaris, and the producer was Will Chalk. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Celia Hatton. Until next time, goodbye.