Global News Podcast - Trump to decide if US will attack Iran 'within two weeks'

Episode Date: June 20, 2025

The White House says Trump will decide whether to attack Iran within two weeks because there is a "substantial chance of negotiations". Also: why killing a Lithuanian bear outraged hunters, and the search to name storms.

This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Janet Jalil and in the early hours of Friday the 20th of June, these are our main stories. President Trump says he'll make his decision on whether or not to get involved in Israel's war against Iran within two weeks, as there is a chance of negotiations. After Hungarian police banned this year's LGBT Pride march from going ahead in Budapest, the city's mayor insists it will still be held. Finland's parliament votes to withdraw from a treaty banning landmines because of what it sees as a threat from its neighbour, Russia.

Also in this podcast, how, if you have a memorable name, you could get a storm named after you. It's such an unusual name. I popularise it. Depends on how bad the storm was, I suppose. Following fevered speculation that Donald Trump was about to order a strike on Iran very soon, he appears to have pulled back from the brink, for now at least. In a news conference on Thursday the White House press secretary Caroline Levitt made this announcement.

I have a message directly from the president and I quote, based on the fact that there's a substantial chance of negotiations that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future, I will make my decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks. This comes as Iran has issued defiant warnings saying that Mr. Trump risked becoming embroiled in a quagmire if he joined Israel in attacking Iran and as divisions have been exposed among the president's supporters over the possibility that he might draw the US into another foreign entanglement, including

in this furious debate between former Fox News presenter Tucker Carlson and Senator Ted Cruz. I don't know why you'd be embarrassed of it. You've said that you are sincerely for Israel. I believe you. I don't think you have some weird agenda. You seem to be sincere. By the way, Tucker, think you have some weird agenda. You seem to buy the way by the way Tucker

It's a very weird thing The obsession with Israel we're talking about foreign countries hardly an obsession. You're not talking about Chinese. You're not talking about Japanese You're not talking about the British. You're not talking about the French the question. What about the Jews? What about the Jews? Oh, I'm an anti-semite now the senator you're asking the question You're asking why are the Jews controlling our foreign policy? That's what you just asked. Senator, I am hardly saying that and I have... That is exactly what you just said.

Well, actually I can speak for myself and tell you what I am saying. Good. Then this intervention on Fox News from Caroline Sunshine, who worked for Donald Trump in his first term. The question that I think those voices in the media should have to answer is, if what you want is American involvement in a war with Iran, which American troops and units would you like to see die first? Would you like it to be the First Brigade of the 1st Armored Division out of Fort Bliss,

Fort Bliss, Texas that lost 133 men during the war in Iraq? Would you like to see it be the Iowa National Guard that saw its bloodiest and longest deployment in the Iraq war since World War II? War has a high human cost, and President Trump was elected on a promise not to betray the American people and get them involved in a conflict that they don't want to be in. Well with Mr. Trump having now decided to delay this potentially momentous decision, our North America editor Sarah Smith considers what the American public make of all this.

As he weighs his decision in further situation room meetings inside the White House, he's facing significant public and political opposition to involving the US military in an attack on Iran. One opinion poll published in the Washington Post suggests that 45% of voters oppose US airstrikes against Iran, with only 25% in favour. Several prominent, usually loyal, Trump-supporting lawmakers have also spoken out against military action. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has even said, anyone slobbering for the US to become fully involved does not belong in the Make America Great Again movement. Donald Trump did campaign

on a promise to keep America out of foreign wars, but he's also been adamant for years that Iran must not be allowed to have nuclear weapons and may decide the national security risks outweigh the concerns of his supporters. Sarah Smith, well BBC Persians Bahman Karbassi is based in New York. He gave his assessment on why President Trump was delaying his decision on US military intervention in Iran. It's a walk back from the brink. What has contributed to it is obviously not known to us yet, but we can guess that partly domestic politics, the massive row that is going on in Donald Trump's base, one part that is very interested in taking the United States into war with Iran and the other side that is fully

opposed to it. So those have been going at it in public very much in the last week or two. That may have had an effect. And maybe the other important factor is that Iranians have been talking to the United States, as reported by Reuters in the last few hours and confirmed by the White House in this very same press conference, that yes, Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Arakchi, Iran's foreign minister, have spoken on the phone a number of times. The foreign minister of Iran is also meeting his European counterparts in Geneva tomorrow.

So all of that may have increased the chances of a diplomatic off-ramp, which is why the statement by the president read by the White House spokesperson refers to a substantial chance of negotiations with Iran. Remember, negotiations were ongoing. Iran was at the table with the United States before Bibi Netanyahu decided to interrupt it with attacking Iran unprovoked. So that is still clearly the case. The position that Iranians have been taking publicly, at least, is that they will come

back and continue or resume talks as soon as Israel stops bombing. But that hasn't clearly stopped them from talking to Mr. Witkoff, Donald Trump's appointee in the Iran talks. So clearly, there is a lot of communication and it's no longer just indirect, it's directly between Mr. Witkoff and the Iranian Foreign Minister. There'll be a huge amount of relief at this, not least in Iran, but also a lot of confusion because just a couple of days ago Mr. Trump was telling people in Tehran to evacuate. I've seen that very exact comments

by Persian language social media users in Iran. And many of them have very hard time connecting to the internet but still manage to post tweets and on Instagram saying, how did we go from get out of Tehran just 48 hours ago, 72 hours ago, to wait two weeks, we might have a deal. But it's also not a surprise to those who watch Donald Trump operate and change his mind. So that is the reality of how he's functioning, but it is coming at a very high cost because

the bombing of Iranian cities, especially Tehran, and the disruption in lives and the civilians who've been killed is extremely shocking and stressful for millions of Iranians. There's a standoff between the police in Hungary and the mayor of the capital Budapest over whether this year's LGBT Pride march can go ahead. The police declared that the Pride march had to be banned because Hungarian law makes it illegal to promote or display homosexuality in front of children. But the Mayor of Budapest says such a ban is illegal and insists that the march will go ahead anyway. Terry Reitke is a German member of the European Parliament for the

Greens. She called on the European Commission to act against the Hungarian authorities. The right to freely assemble is a cornerstone of all of our democracies. Attacking it means attacking human dignity. This parliament, for one, will not stand and watch while queer people are being threatened and slandered. Victor Orbán, you can ban all sorts of things, but you cannot ban the existence of people. You cannot ban freedom and you cannot ban love. I heard more from our correspondent in Budapest, Nick Thorpe. Well, this is a long standoff effectively between the government and the organisers of Pride and all their supporters, you know,

they introduced a new law in March linking or rather restricting the current right of assembly to respect for a child protection law passed years ago which bans the promotion or depiction of homosexuality to in places where it can be seen by children. So the police effectively, in a nutshell, are really just trying to enforce the latest legal situation. And they say that however it's organized, and now it is being organized or planned under the auspices, under the umbrella of the city mayor, Gerghe Karachan, a liberal, the police say that bystanders

under the age of 18 would be able to see the parade, the march going by on June the 28th and therefore in order for them to keep the law they had no choice but to ban it and they issued a 16 page document including photographs of previous pride events in order to back up their ruling. So with the city's mayor saying that they're going to defy this order, what's going to happen? Will this march go ahead? I think the impression is at the moment suddenly the organisers, both the City Council and the Rainbow Mission, which is the other organiser, the co-organiser, actually the traditional organiser of the last,

because this is something that's happened every year for the last 30 years, this will be the 30th, they say that they want it to go ahead, that it will go ahead, and they've got support from across Europe for it. They've just today published a list of 70 members of the European Parliament, two former Prime Ministers of Ireland and Belgium, the mayors of Amsterdam and Brussels, where they will be attending. But of course legally now they're on a collision course, not only with the government now but with the police. And so the question would then be how could the police stop it and if it does go ahead in large numbers and you know in past years there have been tens of thousands taking part

how they could actually stop that. Nick Thorpe. There's been an outcry in Lithuania after the authorities issued a permit for the killing of a young brown bear that had wandered into the capital Vilnius. The unlikely saviours of the bear? A group of hunters. Isabella Jewel has the story. The two-year-old brown bear startled people living in the leafy suburbs of Vilnius on Saturday morning when it wandered in from the forest.

I was very scared. I looked around to see if it was running down the road. The forest is not far away. When we if it was running down the road. The forest is not far away. When we heard it was spotted on a nearby street, we thought, oh no, we don't have a fence. Over the weekend, the young bear walked through neighbourhoods, explored people's gardens and ambled across major roads, followed by onlookers filming it with smartphones. It came to our garden. I was away at that time, but my wife was at home and it ran around the house. The fear and curiosity of residents is unsurprising. Spotting a bear somewhere so residential is rare in Lithuania,

where the bear population is tiny. Estimates suggest there might only be between five and ten of them left after they were overhunted in the 19th century. But the government's response to the incident was met with broad opposition. While it was still on the loose, the authorities issued a permit for the bear, a protected species, to be shot and killed. Local hunters were outraged by the suggestion. Ramuta Yukanyeta from the Lithuanian Association of Hunters and Fishermen said the bear was a beautiful young female that did not deserve to be shot. She said that the animal was scared but not aggressive

and had got lost in the city. The hunter's suggestion? The sedation and relocation of the bear. While debate over the animal's fate rumbled on, the bear decided to take matters into her own paws and retreat to the forest later in the week. This is the second case of a large animal coming into Vilnius in recent weeks, the other time it was a moose that made an appearance. So local figures are now calling for a more coordinated approach to incursions into the city by wildlife. Isabella Jewel.

Still to come... Whoa! Whoa! What? No! Oh my God. It appears there has been a wreck. Ship 36 just blew up. It appears there has been a road. A test of the world's largest space rocket ends with it exploding in a spectacular fireball. Finland has joined several Eastern European countries in voting to pull out of an international treaty banning landmines. Finland's President Alexander Stubb described the move as necessary because of an aggressive imperialist Russia

which itself uses landmines. More than a hundred Nobel Peace Prize winners have called it a disturbing development which will endanger lives. Paul Moss is our Europe regional editor. The Ottawa Treaty was drawn up in 1997 after decades of negotiation and pressure, mostly by the way coming not from governments but from campaign groups and the United Nations for example, and it followed growing concern about landmines and the way they kill innocent people, often remaining active for decades after a conflict is over. Let me give you just one example. The Vietnam War ended in 1975. Since then 40,000 people have been killed by land mines. The trouble of course is that it's very easy to scatter land mines. They're small and light. You could toss them around like tennis balls but then it's

long painstaking and very dangerous work to clear them again. So the Ottawa Treaty banned the use stockpiling production and the transfer of anti-personnel land mines, worth noting not the big mines that take out tanks and other vehicles. And more than 160 countries have signed up although there have always been some major holdouts, notably Russia and the United States never signed. So why has Finland pulled out? Well, I can answer that in one simple word. Russia. Finland has a 1300-kilometre border with Russia

and the invasion of Ukraine has made Finns very nervous. They join NATO and now they say they're going to pull out of the treaty. The argument is very simple. If you've got the potential for an army to evade, landmines, they say, are a very cheap and easy way to stop them. I should say Finland also not alone. Poland and all three Baltic states, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia have all put forward the same argument and say they're going to pull out too. Also, Ukraine hasn't pulled out of the treaty, but it's argued it's the first country to be in breach in it because Ukraine has used landmines to try to stop Russia.

What's the reaction been to these proposed withdrawals? It's gone down very badly. I mean, the United Nations Secretary General Antonio Gutierrez said he was gravely concerned, said their risk was that they would undermine two decades of a framework that saved countless lives. And that was echoed by a main campaign group, the mines advisory group. They campaign on the issue, but they also go out there clearing landmine fields. They say that before the Ottawa Treaty 25,000 people a year were killed and that number

is now 1,000. So generally the argument is that yes, you may think that landmines are a very quick and easy way to stop an invading force but they leave a legacy of death which continues for decades. Poor Moss. A SpaceX rocket being tested in the US state of Texas exploded on Wednesday night sending a huge fireball high into the sky, a moment captured on the company's livestream. Whoa! Whoa! What? No! No!

Oh my God. It appears there has been a road. Ship 36 just blew up. The 120 metre tall Starship is the most powerful rocket ever made. And Elon Musk, who runs SpaceX, hopes it will eventually carry humans to the Moon and Mars. This comes after another test over the Indian Ocean in May also ended in failure. But Mr. Musk downplayed this latest explosion in which no one was injured, describing it as just a scratch.

Alex Wilkins is a news reporter at New Scientist magazine. I asked him how big a setback this is for Mr. Musk's ambitions to make humanity a space fearing race. It's important to understand that SpaceX's approach and the way its approach has always been is this fail fast approach. So it tries to do lots and lots of tests and whether they work or don't work, they see it as success because they can gather lots of data about what went wrong and try and fix that.

And they see it as an advantage to have more data to try and fix things faster than their competitors. So it's always been a part of SpaceX's approach. They've seen huge success with it, with earlier rocket, the Falcon series. And that's now become one of the most successful rockets of all time. It performs the majority of commercial space launches. And that's now become one of the most successful rockets of all time. It performs the majority of commercial space launches and SpaceX's approach there really saw the success of Falcon. For Starship, they've had less success with this approach. This has now been nine test flights with Starship without achieving successful orbit, many of their other goals they've fallen short on.

Elon Musk says that this is still part of their procedure, this fail fast approach he put on X about this explosion, that it was just a scratch and presumably they will still continue with this fail fast approach. But there are some observers now in the space industry that are starting to ask can this continue forever and is this the right approach for a rocket that is much more complex than Falcon? And where does this leave Elon Musk's dreams of colonising Mars? He is still going forward with that goal. Apparently he has said to SpaceX employees that he wants them to launch starships towards Mars at the end of next year. There's this favourable alignment in the solar

system where Mars and the Earth will be close and it'll be easier to launch. And he wants to send people in 2028. Alex Wilkins, a controversial South African opposition politician who's been at the center of a row about race relations in the country, has been denied entry to the UK. The British authorities said they'd refused Julius Malema's latest visa request because of his support for Hamas and his call for violence against South Africa's white minority population. Pumza Filani reports from Johannesburg. This is the second time Julius Malema has been denied entry to the UK in just two months.

The first time the government said he submitted his visa application too late. This time, the Home Office cited his vocal support for Hamas, including a statement he made after the 7th of October attacks in which he said his own party would arm the group if it came to power. The government also said Mr Malema had made statements calling for the slaughter of white people in South Africa, or hinted that it could be an acceptable option in the future. Last month, during a visit from South Africa's Cyril Ramaphosa in the White House, President Donald Trump played a video of Mr. Malema singing the former liberation song, Kill the

Boa, which Mr. Trump said incites violence. South Africa's economic freedom fighters have accused the UK of stifling free speech and denying entry to their leader. Although a high-profile South African court has found that the song is not literal and does not amount to hate speech, Mr Malema has continued to face criticism in the white farming community for embracing it. Crucially, however, there have been no recorded mass killings or targeted attacks on white South Africans. On the visa matter, the EFF suggested the UK's classifying of Mr Malema as an extremist was ironic. It accused Britain, in its words, of having the blood of Africans dripping from its hands because of its colonial history.

From Zafilani. Some Westerners are retiring to Thailand because they're fed up with poor quality or expensive care homes in their own countries. Gideon Long has been to Thailand to find out if this is a model of care that works and if so, could it be exported to the rest of the world? Ten elderly people are sitting, lifting their arms, stretching their legs, following the instructor's routine. A couple of them are in wheelchairs, and some look very frail. Others less so. After the class, I wander around the resort. Well, there's no denying it is a beautiful place.

I'm standing in front of the lake here with fountains playing in it. There are tropical plants everywhere, palm trees and some incredible flowers. The accommodation here consists of bungalows. Some of them are overlooking the lake with lovely verandas on them. And all of it nestled in the lush green hills that surround Chiang Mai. Hi. I meet Lyn Stewart. Lyn's 81 years old. She's from the US and lived there and in Northern Europe for many years before moving to Thailand.

There was a time when I just got fed up with the weather and I looked for sunshine, butterflies and flowers and year-round beauty. I came here and I thought I'd give it six months, five years later and I'm still here. But so much more reasonable than the United States and you get the most exchange for your dollar. Do you go back to the US at all now? Everything I need is here. I really have nothing that I absolutely can't find in Thailand. It's a sentiment echoed by other residents. My name is Liz Jackson and I'm 83 years old.

Liz has been here for a year. I'd already been in a care home in the UK, I had a knee operation done and it was OK, but I just thought I don't want to die here. I really, really did. For many retirees, cost is a big factor in the decision to move to Thailand. Liz tells me she pays US$1,800 a month for her care, a quarter of what she was paying in the UK. And that's your food, your cleaning, your laundry. Everything is done for you.

This is not all about money, though. The Buddhist culture is very interesting. Peter Millard is another British pensioner at the resort. There's very little anger. You never hear people shouting. People are extremely gentle and kind, and particularly to the resort. There's very little anger, you never hear people shouting, people are extremely gentle and kind and particularly to the elderly. But of course not all elderly people are as healthy as Lynne, Liz and Peter.

I visit another care facility, also in Chiang Mai. This is the VivoCare Dementia Facility. I spoke to one of VivoCare's Swiss owners, Roger Holzer. I remember when we started we had one new guest per year. Now on average we get a new guest every three to four weeks. So it has dramatically accelerated. Could it work elsewhere in the world? The next facility we are, I hope, going to open is in Kenya and Morocco and Namibia.

Dr Caleb Johnston has researched the private sector care system in Thailand. Many of these facilities are only able to offer what they can offer because of the abundance of cheap care labour. Is it better for care workers to migrate overseas and be separated from their children for five, ten years? And what is the impact on the local and particularly the public health service in Thailand itself? One of the big critiques of medical migration is that all these private hospitals, they are draining resources away, investment, nurses, doctors, care assistants, equipment from the clinics and hospitals that are desperately needed

by the national population. That is a real concern. Dr Kelleb Johnston ending that report by Gideon Long. The UK's National Weather Service, the Met Office, has launched a search for new storm names and has invited the British public to put forward suggestions. So our reporter Harry Bly has come up with a rather lovely and unusual one, thanks to someone close to him. Bert, Dara, Nisha, Raffi and Vivian, some of the names chosen for storms this current season. Naming storms, the Met Office says, helps raise public awareness for upcoming

severe weather. It also helps the media communicate warnings more effectively, because a memorable name allows people in affected areas to search more easily for updates online. For example, the latest named storm, Storm Eowyn, in January, was the UK's most powerful for more than a decade. A survey found that 99% of people within the affected area were aware of the warnings. The Met Office is asking the public to submit names for the season ahead, starting in September, and this time there's an option to give a reason for the name they're suggesting.

Forecasters say new names should be inspired by someone who, like a storm, causes an impact wherever they go or is known for being a force of nature. I've chosen to submit my grandmother's name, Aldith. It's such an unusual name. I popularise it. It depends on how bad the storm was I suppose. Would it be fair to describe you as a force of nature? I get on board if there's something I want to deal with. Force of nature. Like the tide and the wind you mean. Exactly. Like a storm.

Like a storm even, yes. And do you know what your name means? I have heard it meant wise and strong. So quite fitting for a storm perhaps. Once all the submissions are in, the final list will be compiled by the Met Office with help from their counterpart weather services in Ireland and the Netherlands to reflect the diversity of the three countries. service, with help from their counterpart weather services in Ireland and the Netherlands, to reflect the diversity of the three countries. Other considerations include how easy the

names are to pronounce, and any varied meanings across the different languages. There will be a name for every letter of the alphabet, except Q, U, X, Y and Z, in keeping with international storm naming conventions. The list is due to be announced in September with the first storm beginning with A. I've never met another Aldiff except a second cousin that's been named after me. So no, I think it would be all right. Aldiff ending that report by Harry Bly. And that's all from us for now but there will be a new edition of the Global News podcast that report by Harry Bly. were Alison Davies and Alice Adley. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Janet Joyle. Until next

time, goodbye.