Global News Podcast - Trump warns Iran 'whole civilisation will die tonight'

Episode Date: April 7, 2026

President Trump has warned that "a whole civilisation will die tonight", as his deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz approaches. Iran's Revolutionary Guards have said they'll retaliate beyond the Middle East, and deprive the US and its allies of oil and gas if Washington crosses 'red lines'. Also, the US Vice-President, JD Vance, is in Hungary, trying to bolster the campaign of Prime Minister Victor Orban's party in advance of Sunday's parliamentary elections; the organisers of the British music festival, Wireless, have cancelled the event following a row over its headline act, the US rapper, Kanye West, who has now been banned from entering the country; and why Australia's most distinguished living war hero has been arrested.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]

You're listening to the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. Hello, I'm Oliver Conway. We're recording this at 15 hours GMT on Tuesday the 7th of April. President Trump warns that an entire civilization will die tonight unless Iran opens the Strait of Hormuz. Israel says it's attacked railway tracks and bridges in Iran after warning civilians to stay away from the train network. And the US Vice President J.D. Vance has again condemned Europe during. a visit to Hungary. Also in the podcast, one of Australia's most decorated soldiers is arrested over the alleged murder of unarmed prisoners. And hang on in there because it's going to be great and here is one reason why you'll have to work less and you'll still get as

much money. How realistic is the call by the boss of Open AI for a four-day working week? Another day, another extraordinary post from President Trump directed at Iran. A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again, he said, adding, I don't want that to happen, but it probably will. He was referring to his deadline of midnight GMT tonight for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face being wiped out. But he went on to say, now we have complete and total regime change, where different, smarter and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionary wonderful can happen.

Who knows? We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the world. 47 years of extortion, corruption and death will finally end. God bless the great people of Iran. Well, in response to that post, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps said they will retaliate beyond the Middle East if the US crosses red lines. Our chief international correspondent, Lee Doucet, is following developments. We live in a very disturbing moment, and I don't think that needs being said, is where the world is now on a brink of a very dangerous escalation, because as we report day and day out, whatever happens in Iran doesn't stay in Iran, and there will be retaliation from Iran across the region. and there was already concern over President Trump's posts over Easter weekend where he used expletives and threatened Iran to destroy every last power plant

and every last bridge. And now he threatens to destroy their civilization, perhaps in response to Iranians saying, how can you dare be a country of 250 years to destroy our 2,000-year-old civilization? And now President Trump is casting it as a civilization. What we've seen, ever since this, war began is that President Trump uses moments in this war, and let's be honest, uses journalists

to use his words to try to shape the course of the war, in particular to move the markets, to try to bring oil prices down and to stabilize the markets. Even in the first week of this war, on March the 9th, he came out and told CBS News, I'm going to end the war very soon. And predictably, oil prices came down and markets then stabilized. Now the markets have learned. But President Trump keeps ramping up his rhetoric, because what he was, wants to do is not just move the markets. He wants Iran to submit to his dictates. Remember even before this war began, how Steve Whitkoff said that the U.S. president was curious as to why Iran had not surrendered when there was a U.S. military buildup in the region because President Trump thought,

wow, that's such a big threat, we're such a major army, which they are. Why aren't they giving in? And perhaps he thinks that the more he rhymes up the rhetoric, the greater the chance that Iran will give in. And Iran has made it absolutely clear. It will not submit to his dictats. But while everyone waits to see what President Trump will do, Israel is just carrying on with its own list of targets. Today, they attacked a train station in Kashan, that's in the north. They attacked a bridge in Kham. That's in the center of Iran. They attacked a bridge on the Zanjan-Tabris Highway. That's in the north. Yesterday, it announced that it had struck the main petrochemical plant, and it had already attacked other petrochemical plants. So Israel isn't waiting for the deadline to expire. It is

already attacking infrastructure. And Iranians have also pointed out that they've attacked many universities. So the war is going on whatever President Trump decides to do when that deadline eventually comes. Our chief international correspondent Lee Doucette. Well, in Iran, media censorship and internet blackouts limit the amount of information getting out as well as in. But the rescue of an 18-month-old girl from the rubble of her home in the city of Tabriz has gone viral and given a rare insight into the suffering caused by the war. However, there's a side of the story not being told in Iran, as Paham Gobadi explains. Be careful, slowly.

Amongst the dust and debris, an 18-month-old girl is pulled alive from the ruins of her home. I'll take you out of this now. My dear, I will get you out. Wearing pink pajamas, Helma is limp and disoriented. The Israeli attack killed her mother, father, brother and sister as they slept. She was the only survivor of her family. Footage of her rescue has played across Iranian state TV and gone viral. It's been hailed a miracle and an example of the Israeli-American brutality.

All of them are martyed and only Helmers left. Her cousin told Iranian state media. What sin had they committed? Helma's father, Hamid Mirzad, was in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and the presumed target of this strike. It was precise. The family's 10th floor apartment was directly hit. After clearing the debris, it became clear that four members of one family were killed.

Dear Helma, You have never been alone, and you will never be alone. There are 90 million Iranians, and we are all united. God willing, we will defeat the enemy. The Israel Defense Forces told the BBC it struck a military target of the Iranian terror regime in the city of Tabriz. It added that the IDF conducts strikes in accordance with international law and takes all feasible measures to mitigate harm to civilians and civilian infrastructures that may be affected by the strike.

Helma's father, a military officer, may have been the target, but she will live with the consequences. Pahm, Kobadi of the BBC Persian Service. The authorities in Turkey are investigating a gunfight outside the Israeli consulate in Istanbul. Officials say one gunman was killed and two others wounded. The interior minister described them as terrorists. I got an update from Hilken Boran of the BBC Turkish service.

The wounded suspects have been interrogated right now, according to a written statement issued by the Interior Ministry. And I'm here right in front of the plaza where the attack took place. And I can tell there's heavy police presence here, as well as ambulances. And we can see police special forces in camouflage gear from where I am standing, which is very close to where the attack took place. I don't know if you can hear the sirens, but these have been going on for some time now because the gunfight erupted around 12, 15 local time. and it's almost around 3 p.m. where we are right now. Interior Minister Mustafa Chifchee said one of the suspects has ties to an organization that exploits religion, which is a term that is used to refer to the Islamic State or Al-Qaeda,

and the other two were brothers and one suspect had a drug record, according to the Interior Minister. And we also know statements from other officials that there has been an official investigation into the attack, and the suspects have come to Istanbul from the nearby town of, Ismit via a car and then they were conducting this attack with long-barreled rifles. And the Interior Ministry also said two police officers have been lightly injured, no life-threatening engineers there. One of them was injured on their foot and the other one on their ear. But the authorities seemed to have got this under control pretty quickly.

Exactly. And they have been very keen to emphasize that point because the memories of a previous IS affiliate attack is still fresh in the minds of the residence of Istanbul. A gunfight, similar gunfight, erupted in the nearby town of Yalava some months ago, where a lot of police officers got killed, and then the officials were condemned after the attack for their inability to get the situation under control and for the lack of appropriate resources

in order to intervene in that situation. Right now we're seeing a lot more bodies than we're accustomed to it. This is the business heart of Istanbul, a very central district. This is a metropolis of 20 million people. So whenever you're taking this kind of mass, security precautions. Whenever there are a lot of police officers on the ground and the roads are being closed, it turns into a complete and utter nightmare for the residents of this city. Now, we don't know the motive, but I understand there were no Israeli diplomats at the consulate.

Yes, numerous sources have told news agencies that no diplomats were present inside the building when the attack took place. And we also know this because most of the diplomats have officially left Turkey after Hamas' 7 October 2020 attacks and the ensuing military operations. operation by Israel in Gaza. Now the consulate is very accessible. It's right in the business district of Istanbul. There are usually rapid response forces covering the premises and the attackers encountered those police officers who managed to tackle this threat before it got out of hand. Hoken Boran talking to me from Istanbul. On to the latest controversy involving Kanye West now and a planned headline festival performance by the rapper in London this summer has been cancelled. Along with the

festival itself after the British government revoked his visa to enter the country. The decision by the organisers to book him caused outrage over his past anti-Semitic comments. Canyé West, who now calls himself Yeh, has blamed his behaviour on bipolar disorder. More details from our correspondent Noor Nanji. This controversy has actually been going on for days over this decision to book Kanye West, now known as Yeh, as the Headline Act at the Wireless Festival, which takes place in July. It's been confirmed now that the Wireless Festival has been cancelled. And I can read you the statement now in full from Festival Republic who organise wireless. They say the Home Office has withdrawn Yeh, Kaini West, electronic travel authorisation, denying him entry into the United Kingdom. As a result,

wireless festival is cancelled and refunds will be issued to all ticket holders. It says, as with every wireless festival, multiple stakeholders were consulted in advance of booking him. No concerns. They highlighted at the time. Antisemitism in all its forms is abhorrent and we recognize the real and personal impact that these issues have had. It goes on to say, as Yeas said today, he acknowledges that words alone are not enough and in spite of this still hopes to be given the opportunity to begin a conversation with the Jewish community here in the UK. Just about an hour before that statement, we had a statement we heard from the government and the government, it turns out, has blocked Kanye West's permission to travel to the UK.

Now, the Home Office told the BBC that the decision to refuse permission was made on the grounds that his presence would not be conducive to the public good. Now, the festival obviously looked to that and thought, OK, well, we don't have a headliner. Kani West was due to headline all three nights of the Wireless Festival. They don't have a headliner anymore. They've clearly taken the view. We don't have a festival anymore. So the whole thing is off.

I mean, this whole decision to have him as the headliner has been really deeply controversial because we look back over the history of comments, anti-Semitic, pro-Nazi comments that Kanye West has made in the past, including last year where he sold clothing with swastikas on and he also released a song titled Heil Hitler. Now, we should say that he has in January he apologized. He said he's not anti-Semitic and he blamed his bipolar disorder for that. But clearly there was a lot of pressure mounting over. the weekend from MPs, also from Jewish groups and indeed from a number of sponsors. High-profile sponsors, Pepsi, its headline sponsor, pulling out over the weekend.

No, not you there. After breaking the record for going deeper into space than anyone before, more than 405,000 kilometres from Earth, the crew of Artemis 2 is now heading home. Before astronauts lost contact with mission control for 40 minutes as they looped around the far side of the moon. Their Orion capsule will now take about four days to get back here. Our science editor, Rebecca Morel, sent this report from Houston.

A close encounter with the moon. The moon is so bright. It's just overwhelming brightness. A view that humans haven't witnessed for more than 50 years. And some parts that have never been seen by human eyes before. Earlier in the flight, the four Artemis astronauts made history. Integrity crew on April 15th, 1970, during the Apollo 13 mission, three explorers set the record for the farthest distance humans have ever traveled from our home planet. Today, for all humanity, you're pushing beyond that frontier.

As these four astronauts voyaged onwards, they named some of the moon's features, a crater now called integrity after their spacecraft, and another named after Artemis Commander Reid Wiseman's late wife, who died six years ago. And so we walk. Creator, loud and clear. Thank you. After breaking the record, the crew just kept on going, surpassing it by more than 4,000 miles, with their lights dimmed in the capsule to take the best pictures,

a treasure trove that's eagerly awaited by the team at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Science is playing a big part in this mission. There's even a special desk for it. The science officer sits right at the front, but the hard work is really just beginning because the thousands of images and descriptions the astronauts have made will be poured over for many months to come. Rebecca Morel at Mission Control.

Still to come on the podcast? It was a great sense of satisfaction personally and a great sense of relief as well because there can be little hiccups along the way. I was just so relieved yesterday at Forward Amateurs that the game went ahead and it was a lovely sunny The football fan who's been to every professional and non-league ground in the UK. This is the Global News podcast. Now, some European leaders have a tricky relationship with Donald Trump to say the least, but not the Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban.

He is a close ally of the Americans. And today he's had a visit from the US Vice President, J.D. Vance, ahead of the Hungarian general election on Sunday, which opinion polls suggest he could well lose. At a joint news conference, Mr. Vance accused the EU of interfering in the election to get rid of Mr. Orban. What has happened in this country, what has happened in the midst of this election campaign, is one of the worst examples of foreign election interference that I've ever seen or ever even read about. The bureaucrats in Brussels have tried to destroy the economy of Hungary.

They have tried to make Hungary less energy independent. They have tried to drive up costs for Hungarian consumers, and they've done it all because they hate this guy. Well, for his part, Mr. Orban heaped praise on the US president and vice president. With the election of President Trump, I believe a golden era has been ushered in in our relations. We owe gratitude to President Trump and Vice President Vance for standing. by Hungary during the past years. The United States of America is the strongest country in the world and I am happy to say that they are our allies today. The peace and the security of Hungary, therefore,

is guaranteed. The words of Victor Orban. But how is the U.S. Hungary relationship viewed on the American side, especially within President Trump's MAGA base? Isaac Stanley Becker is a staff writer at the Atlantic who focuses on US-European relations. He's currently in Hungary, and Rebecca Kesby asked him what J.D. Vance gets out of his visit there. Well, I think you're right to be thinking about and asking about the domestic political consequences of this, because I think that's really more important than the significance of this visit to the actual voting in Hungary, where I think that whatever J.D. Vance says is likely to have little significance. Where it has more significance is back home in the MAGA movement that JD Vance wants to lead into victory in the

28 presidential contest. And Hungary has been this real model for that movement. And so the consequences of the election here are enormous. It's been this kind of foreign template for, you know, a certain vision, a kind of a right-wing vision of seizing the institutions of the state, using them to advance a particular vision of the good life, and punishing those who don't come apply with that. Can they really be comparable, though, because Hungary, whilst obviously an important country, is tiny. It's got a population less than that of the US state of Ohio, which is one of the least populated states. So, I mean, what's in it for Mr. Vance? Well, that's the thing that's kind of remarkable about this. You stand back and you realize this is a landlocked country, a fewer than 10 million

people. It contributes negligibly to NATO, which is the ostensible measure that the Trump administration uses to determine which European partners are valuable to Washington. But because of this ideological symmetry, it's come to take on this really outsized significance in the maga mindset. In terms of where this puts the U.S. EU relation, the EU has been very critical of Victor Orban. They blame him for holding up the funding to go to Ukraine. Recently, there's been talk that there's been direct contact with the Kremlin,

which various governments across about, it does put the Americans on the totally different side to all of this, to the EU. That's exactly right. We're seeing a kind of new convergence here between the US and Russia who are on the same side of this election. You know, a raid on the other side

are the leaders of most EU countries who quietly at least not in the overt way that Vance is doing are hoping for a different outcome. So it's just one more kind of dent in that US, Europe. relationship. Isaac Stanley Becker of the Atlantic in Hungary. Ben Robert Smith was once hailed as Australia's most distinguished living war hero. He was awarded the Victoria Cross for conspicuous

gallantry in action during an operation in Afghanistan. But now he's been arrested, accused of murdering unarmed prisoners there. He's denied any wrongdoing. Our correspondent in Sydney, Katie Watson, told me more. On Tuesday morning, he was arrested at Sydney Airport. Now he faces five counts of war crimes murder. One charges of murder. One is of jointly commissioning a murder. Three of aiding, abetting, counselling or procuring a murder. Now there was a press conference earlier today and authorities talked about the fact that alleged victims were not taking part in hostilities at the time. They were detained, unarmed and under the control of the Australian Defence Force. And they were, allegedly the victims were shot by the accused or by subordinate members in the presence of or acting on behalf of Ben Roberts Smith.

So he now will be spending the night in a cell in custody and on Wednesday he will appear for a bail hearing. And what's been the reaction in Australia to his arrest? Well, certainly there's a lot of making, you know, a lot of people who've been asked about it, including the Prime Minister, making sure that there is a legal recourse and that law takes the path. without getting too involved. But certainly, there's been a lot of discussion about wanting to make sure that this is an isolated case, that this is not something that is intrinsic of the Australian forces. But it certainly has been criticism that's taken a long time for this process. I mean, interestingly, it's worth pointing out that it was back in 2023, there was a defamation judgment. He'd sued several papers for allegations that he had committed war crimes and he sued several papers. A defamation judgment in 2020. found that he had indeed killed several unarmed Afghans. He tried to appeal that. That appeal he lost last year against the federal court.

But of course it's not been tried in a criminal court. That's the difference that has a higher burden of proof. But certainly the response has been making sure that the legal avenues can take their path. And briefly, what sentence mighty face if found guilty? So war crime murder would face a maximum penalty of life and prison. Katie Watson in Sydney. The chief executive of Open AI, Sam Altman, has called for companies to pilot a four-day working week

with no loss of pay as part of a vision for how an AI economy could work. Our technology editor Zoe Kleinman told Anna Foster more about the plan. It does kind of feel like finally we get a carrot with all this doom that we've been hearing about the threats and the potential problems with AI. Here is a big AI company coming out and saying, well look guys you might be able to work less and get as much money but the question is you know how realistic is this honestly is this something we've been hearing the AI sector say for quite some time

I heard Elon Musk say a few years ago he talked about something he called universal high income and he said look there's not going to be work in the way that there is now because AI is going to be doing so much of it so let's just distribute the wealth among us and we won't have to work and we'll all have loads of money and you think that sounds great doesn't it brilliant when does that start but actually in reality, knowing how these big companies work and looking at the history of how big companies operate, is it really likely that they are going to be sharing any what open AI calls efficiency gains, productivity dividends, if you like, with the workers, or is that likely to stay among the very few giant companies that we have who are really operating this AI?

When you read this document, it's 13 pages long and it addresses lots of issues around how society and how our economics isn't really set up to manage AI coming in the way that the tech companies keep telling us it's going to come. It's a bit of a marketing ploy, I think. Hang on in there because it's going to be great. And here is one reason why you'll have to work less and you'll still get as much money. Is it realistic, though? I think a lot of people would be very cynical about that message. Yeah, do you know, I was just wondering exactly what you were saying there, the fact that it's got a definite whiff of sales about it because it's coming from the AI industry. Is anybody outside the AI industry who perhaps have a more independent eye on it,

making similar suggestions? All of this is best. on the premise that a new era of AI is coming, which is called ASI, artificial superintelligence, and it is as intelligent as people. And this in turn paves the way for something called AGI artificial general intelligence, which is more intelligent than us. But let's start with a lot of scientists being extremely cynical about whether or not AI ever gets to that stage. And indeed, why it needs to, because we already have people being as intelligent as we are. Do we need to replicate that, or do we need the tech to complement us in different ways? Lots of scientists I speak to who don't actually think that will ever happen. The AI industry will tell you that they're on

course and it's going to happen very soon, but you've got to bear in mind they've been saying that for quite some time. I think there is a lot of agreement among experts that AI is hugely disruptive. We already see that. It is going to disrupt jobs. It is going to bring about a lot of change to a lot of traditional ways in which the world of work has run. And we do need to think about the impact of that on society, certainly. And I think a lot of people would say we do need to consider our policies. But also we need to bear in mind that companies like Open AI want it to go their way. They want to influence that policy and shape it in a way that benefits them. And I think you're right that we need to ask more broadly, where should we be going this, rather than asking the very companies that are

trying to sell all of this to us in the first place. Our technology editor Zoe Kleinman. Finally, to a football fanatic. This weekend, Tony Inchenzo achieved his lifetime ambition of watching a match at every single professional league and non-league football ground in England. It's taken him decades. So how many matches has he seen? I've been to 5,805 football matches and that includes 2,68 different football grounds, which embraces the entire National League system because I did the last non-league ground on Easter Monday at Forward Amateurs. How did it feel then when you crossed the line and you could tick off that last match that you had to complete the set?

It was a great sense of satisfaction personally and a great sense of relief as well because there can be little hiccups along the way. I was just so relieved yesterday at Forward Amateurs that the game went ahead and it was a lovely sunny day. You are the expert really in the fan experience, aren't you? And lots of people listening, they might save up to maybe go to see, you know, the big clubs play, maybe watch on TV. but make the case for why it's good to go to smaller clubs. Non-league football has got three main benefits as far as I'm concerned. The first one is accessibility.

So you can go and watch your local non-league club. You can drive down there, park outside, turn up 10 minutes before the game, pay your admission, wander around the ground, stand or sit where you want. And afterwards you can rub shoulders with the players in the bar and chat to the players. So that's the accessibility. Then there's the affordability. So the affordability is very, very important. If you want to watch a Premier League game in London, it's £100 a ticket these days.

But for example, at non-league level, you could get a drink, a burger, and enjoy your whole day out for probably less than £10 or £12. So that's affordable for working class people who might bring a couple of kids along with them. And then for non-league clubs, the other important aspect is the community involvement of the club. because these non-league sides, it's not just about the first team, but they run several youth teams, girls, teams, ladies teams, disability teams, and they have a huge reach out into the local community, which in a town that might have a population of 30,000, it embraces nearly everybody in the town.

So those are the main aspects of why I love non-league football and why people are turning to it, because they can't afford to go to Premier League matches anymore. Yeah, and you have travelled up and down and right across the country, in this endeavour of yours. I guess it gives you a really good picture of the modern UK. Well, I've been to places that I would never have probably even heard of

if it wasn't for football. A case study would be Mousel FCs, but it's spelled Mousel, but it's pronounced Mousel. Down on the western tip of Cornwall, it's a fishing village of 600 people, but their football club there is climbing the leagues and doing really well. It was a pleasure to go down there. I've been to Cornwall, up to Northumbria,

across the Cumberland, down to death. Evan and Ken, all over the country, the Isle of White, the Isle of Man, Guernsey and Jersey. Fantastic places to visit and meet all the people along the way. There's lots to do and I don't want the hobby to finish. So I'll continue to set myself new challenges even if it's going to all the county league clubs. Tony Inchenzo, talking to Rebecca Kesby. And that's all from us for now, but the Global News podcast will be back very soon. This edition was mixed by Chris Murphy and produced by Nikki Verrico.

Our editors, Karen Martin. of a conway. Until next time, goodbye.