Global News Podcast - Trump’s demands over nuclear deal rejected by Iran

Episode Date: March 9, 2025

Iran's supreme leader rejects demand from Donald Trump to reach a nuclear deal or face a potential military response. Also: South Korea's impeached president released, and International Women's Day celebrations.

This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Bernadette Keough and in the early hours of Sunday, the 9th of March, these are our main stories. Iran's supreme leader rejects the demand from Donald Trump to reach a nuclear deal with the US or face a potential military response. Poland's prime minister says overnight Russian air attacks on Ukraine are a result of appeasing a barbarian. Shock and fear in Syria's minority Alawite community as more than 600 civilians are reported to have been killed by Syria's security forces. Also in this podcast, South Korea's impeached president gets out of jail. And International Women's Day through the prism of Spain.

We are still being killed. There are many things that need to keep changing. I don't want to see the upcoming generation going through what the previous generations and even us have gone through. Iran has responded defiantly to President Trump's warning that it faces possible military action unless it agrees to nuclear talks. Mr Trump says he told the Ayatollah in a letter that Iran must never be allowed to become a nuclear power and could face attack. The Islamic Republic's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Iran would not negotiate

under pressure from what he called a bullying country. Some bully governments insist on negotiations, but these talks are not aimed at solving problems. Instead, they want to use them to dominate others. By all means, let's negotiate, but let's do so to push for what we want. If the parties sitting on the other side of the table accept, all the better. If they don't, they will take the blame. Tehran has repeatedly denied that it's planning to develop nuclear weapons, but has enriched its uranium supplies to near weapons-grade level.

Parham Ghabadi from the BBC's Persian service told me more. Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei was furious today. He called the United States a bully, a country that is bullying Iran and is trying to come to a deal with Iran through intimidation. He did not lash out at the United States. He also targeted the European countries as well. The three European countries, United Kingdom, France and Germany, the signatories of Iran nuclear deal called them, said that these countries are shameless because they're asking

Iran to stick to its nuclear commitments. So he was extremely angry. But let's remember that this is not the first time that Donald Trump has sent a letter to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayesul al-Khamenei back in 2019 during his first term after giving up the nuclear deal. He also sent a letter to Khamenei through Shinzo Abe, late Japanese Prime Minister. And at that time Khamenei gave the same response. He said that it was not worthy. His letter is not worthy a response. And in front of the cameras he did not even agree to accept the letter.

What's at stake for Iran if it refuses President Trump's demand for a deal? So a lot of things have changed since President Trump's first term, because last time the tension was not this high between Iran and Israel. So Iran and Israel have targeted each other, directly attacked each other, twice at least, in the past few months. So that has changed. The other thing that has changed is that in the past few years, Iran has seen several rounds of nationwide protests, both because of social grievances and economic grievances. And those grievances are still

there today. All this pressure is going to be even more if Donald Trump is going to be able to reduce Iranian oil export to zero. So there is a risk for Iranian supreme leader to face a nationwide protest. Plus, apart from that, this time it's real. President Trump has said that he probably does not want to get the United States involved in another war in the Middle East, but he has previously said that he's going to give the green light to Israelis to strike Iran's nuclear facilities and from the reports we know that Iran's anti-air defense systems which protect Iran's nuclear facilities have been damaged last time Israel attacked Iran.

So how concerned will the Iranian government be at this escalation intention? The rhetoric showed that they rebuff the threat. They say that they are not really that concerned. They've already resisted in the past, so they're going to resist more. However, this time the stakes are really high for Iran because Israel has already launched an attack against Iran in the past. So they've shown that they're capable of doing that. And if that happens again, that can risk a further escalation. If Iran responds, that can spiral out of control and turn out to be a full-blown war.

Parham Gabbadi. Now to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Fighting is intensifying in the Ukraine-held Kursk region. Ukraine's military says it was the scene of some of the fiercest fighting in over 100 clashes on Saturday after Russian attacks killed at least 25 people overnight. The escalation follows the US limiting Ukraine's access to its military intelligence and satellite imagery. Major Vladimir Omelyan, a former Ukrainian Minister of Infrastructure now serving on the frontline, says this has crippled Ukraine's ability to anticipate Russian attacks.

Using this intelligence, using satellites, we are able to foresee Russian Red Army actions to understand what kind of supplies they provide to the front line, to understand what kind of attacks they are already doing. By cutting that, we become almost blind. We still have some access to our own surveillance, but it's mainly short, mid-range. You cannot prevail or you cannot destroy the enemy if you don't understand its actions. America's shifting stance on Ukraine has caused grave concern in Europe. America's shifting stance on Ukraine has caused grave concern in Europe. Neighbouring Poland has already announced military training for all adult men this week.

And its Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, said this latest attack is what happens when you appease barbarians. Our Ukraine correspondent, James Waterhouse reports. House reports. It was the turn of the town of Dobropilie to feel the weight of another Russian drone attack. Eight apartment blocks, people's homes, were damaged or destroyed. There are casualties and injuries, says Pavlo Dyrchenko from the local police. Crews are at the scene, extinguishing fires, he says, and dealing with the aftermath of the attack. What was left are shells of a previous existence. The country's ability to defend itself

has been hampered by America's blocking of its military aid, its intelligence and now satellite imagery. The technology company, Maxarar has told the BBC that it's suspended some pictures for Ukrainian accounts at the request of the White House. Defending troops had used them to identify Russian positions. One officer says it's now like fighting blind. President Trump has threatened large-scale sanctions and tariffs on Russia after its bombardments but in the same breath, he also suggested that anyone in Vladimir Putin's position should be doing what he's doing.

How Russia's invasion ends is dominating political agendas. Sakir Starmer is heading to Paris on Tuesday to meet defence chiefs from countries willing to send troops here after a ceasefire is signed. And despite the White House warming to Moscow and being more hostile to Kiev, President Zelensky has been forced to mend his relationship with Donald Trump. Because of the reality that both Europe and Ukraine still need the military might of America.

President Zelensky is due to travel to Saudi Arabia ahead of a meeting of senior Ukrainian and American officials to discuss the terms of a potential truce. Russia's demands have not softened, whereas Ukraine is being forced to compromise. James Waterhouse In Syria, the first major clashes between the new Islamist government and supporters of the toppled President Bashar al-Assad have taken place. Reports say hundreds of people have been killed in the Latakia and Tartus regions since the government force was ambushed on Thursday. Most of the dead are said to be civilians from the Alawite minority, some of them victims of massacres. This

woman who has friends and family there told us what she'd been hearing. She didn't want to be identified, so one of my colleagues has voiced her comments. One of my friends is a pharmacist whose husband was killed yesterday, and today she was shot as well while pregnant and she's bleeding on the streets. People are in their houses, staying safe in their houses. They're not doing anything. They would come in and knock on their doors and if they don't open they would just spray all the house with bullets and they would

kill anybody that's in there. It's just ethnic cleansing there against Alawites in that area. Dozens of Alawites have fled to Lebanon. From Damascus, our Middle East correspondent Lena Sinjab sent this report. authorities. Those forces are reported to include Chechen fighters. Violence erupted after remnants of the Assad regime from the Alawite minority ambushed security and army personnel, killing dozens of them. Syria's interim president Ahmad al-Sharah has vowed to hold anyone who attacked civilians accountable. So far his forces seem unable to control the situation. Many of his supporters have a hardline Islamic agenda that could pose a real threat to the unity of the country. Lina Sinjab. The United States executes dozens of people annually but Friday

was the first time for 15 years that a man was put to death by firing squad. Brad Sigman was 67 and was executed in Columbia, South Carolina, where he'd chosen to be shot rather than being given a lethal injection or sent to the electric chair. This more than two decades after he'd confessed to murdering his ex-girlfriend's parents, battering them to death with a baseball bat. Paul Moss spoke to our correspondent in Washington, Merlyn Thomas, and asked her first why Brad Sigman had made that choice. He was offered the alternatives of death by electric chair or death by lethal injection,

but his lawyers say he chose the more violent option because he had concerns about the effectiveness of the other option. So, for example, he said that the electric chair would, and I quote, cook him alive. And he feared that the lethal injection would essentially drown him by sending a rush of fluid to his lungs. And there have been questions around the effectiveness of say the lethal injection, because in South Carolina itself, the three most recent cases of men who were sentenced to death by the lethal injection were declared dead after 20 minutes

but appear to stop breathing after just a few minutes. And there's also been questions around the lack of transparency in terms of the lethal injection because there was a new law that was brought in in 2023, which shielded the names of the suppliers and the exact contents of those lethal injections. And so lawyers and other critics have said that because they don't have that information, they can't properly analyze what's in the lethal injection. And it should be said that this is a really rare instance. Brad Sigman will only be the fourth person since the country reintroduced the death penalty in 1976 to be executed by firing squad.

Well rare, but I see that three other states have now legalised firing squads. Given that and also those widespread difficulties you were describing about lethal injection, is there a chance we're going to see more people executed by firing squad in the US? It's very possible. In Idaho there was recently a bill that was passed that could make death by firing squad the primary method. And also, it's still the secondary method in several other states as well, if, for example, a lethal injection drug can't be obtained. And it is worth saying that, according to a Gallup poll just last year, 53% of Americans are

in favour of the death penalty of a person convicted of murder. And so it's still a majority of Americans who are still in favour of this. Merlin Thomas. Still to come on this podcast, what the Danes think of Donald Trump's plan to take over Greenland. I find it really scary. Everything he sees, he just wants to get everything in some kind of way. South Korea's impeached president, Yoon Sung-yul, has walked out of a detention centre in Seoul

after being released. Mr. Yun was released after prosecutors decided not to appeal the case. He was arrested on charges of insurrection after a failed attempt to impose martial law in December. Mr. Yun was met by huge crowds of his supporters, waving flags as he left the prison and greeted them. Mr Yoon was released after prosecutors decided not to appeal against a court's decision to free him on technicalities. He's still suspended from duties and his criminal and impeachment trials continue. Andrew Peach got more on this from our sole correspondent Jean McKenzie.

Every day we get something I think we're not quite expecting. But look, this doesn't actually change the charges that Mr Yoon is facing. So he is charged with insurrection. This is one of the most serious crimes that you can be charged with in South Korea, which is why he as a sitting president has been able to be charged with it because presidents have immunity for most crimes. So he is still going to stand trial. It just means that he's not going to do it from behind bars. His lawyers have been fighting all along, you see, to get him released.

They've been arguing that it's illegal to keep him in custody. And the courts have agreed with them, essentially, on a number of legal technicalities. The prosecutors, they could have appealed this, but it seems that they're playing it safe. So they've chosen not to appeal it. This case is just so important, it's totally unprecedented, it's the first time a sitting president has ever been arrested so there's just no legal precedent for this, there's no legal rulebook and it

seems that they want to avoid any disputes that come further down the line so that there's no doubt when this verdict comes in. And if he's removed as president, does that change his legal status regarding the other charges that are still against him? Well what we could see is if he is removed as president then it could open him up to a whole load of other charges that he hasn't been subjected to yet because of that presidential immunity because there is a separate process that's happening here. So you've got the criminal process, but then you've also got President Nunes' impeachment process, and this is going to decide whether to permanently remove him from

office. So he was suspended a couple of weeks after he declared martial law. The Parliament suspended him, but the courts have to rubber stamp that. So they've been holding a trial for the last few weeks and going through the evidence and they're going to rule just in the coming days really. We're expecting it next week about whether to permanently remove him from office. And yeah, that does change his status and that could change things quite a lot. What we weren't expecting was to have him walk free before the court decided whether or not to bar him from office.

And we know he has supporters, we heard them there, but have you any sense of where the balance of public opinion is across South Korea? Yes, so martial law lasted for six hours in the end, but what has been staggering is how much it has polarised this country, and we're seeing still the ground and the crisis deepen here. So still more people want to see him permanently removed from office and then want to see him reinstated but the number of people who do want to see him back has been growing and people really... his supporters what we see him and I've been at many of

these protests all along and what I've really noticed is that they are becoming more loyal his supporters and more agitated. They see him as a martyr, they think that he is being mistreated and they're out on the streets and they're celebrating because they see this as a victory. So whatever the courts decide in the coming weeks about whether to remove him from office, it is going to upset a lot of people here and the authorities are bracing themselves for potential unrest. Jean Mackenzie. The government in the Democratic Republic of Congo has offered five million dollars for anyone helping to arrest the rebel leaders who've been capturing territory in the east of the country.

Last year they were prosecuted in absentia by a military court and were given death sentences for treason. The Congolese government has also offered four million dollars for the arrest of two journalists living in exile who have been critical of President Felix Chisikedi. Africa Regional Editor Will Ross told me more about those being targeted. The head of this alliance of rebel groups, Corne Nanga, now he used to head the country's electoral commission, which seems a very odd turn of events, but he's then gone on to head this rebel alliance, the Congo River Alliance, and within that alliance there's the M23 group, which is backed by Rwanda. So the leaders, the two leaders Bertrand Bessimois and

Sultani Makenger, there's also a five million dollar reward for information leading to the arrest of those two. As for the journalists, I mean this kind of shows the somewhat bizarre way in which the Kinshasa government operates, because here you've got a massive rebellion in the east of the country with territory being captured, taken away from the army. You're offering five million dollars for the capture of those or the arrest of those rebel leaders and at the same time you're saying four million dollars for a couple of journalists who are in exile, who've spoken out against the president and the government,

been very critical, but it seems rather odd to have the two in the same announcement. So has the army got no chance of capturing the rebel leaders themselves? Well it certainly seems that the Congolese army has been pretty weak compared to the strength of this M23 rebel group, which has had backing from Rwanda, even though at times Kigali has denied that. So it seems unlikely that they would manage to capture these people themselves. And in fact, what the Kinshasa government has mainly focused on is trying to persuade the international community to put pressure on Rwanda to stop backing the M23 rather than kind of take them on head on militarily and try and retake this territory.

And Will, the Congolese government has offered the US a deal involving the country's vast mineral wealth. What do we know about that? Yeah, these are negotiations that have been going on. We understand involving a lobby firm, but the idea is to try and get President Donald Trump to agree to a deal that would give the United States special access to the vast mineral wealth. But Congo is a complicated country to operate in and given all these armed groups, it's not clear that American companies will be able to come in easily and operate. Will Ross. The people of Greenland go to the polls next week at a time when Donald Trump

says he wants to take over the autonomous Danish territory. He hasn't ruled out using military force, arguing the US needs the world's biggest island for security. And then there's the minerals and rare earth metals beneath the ice. So what do the Danes think? Our Europe correspondent Nick Beak travelled to Copenhagen to judge the mood. Well this is La Fontaine Jazz Club. It's the oldest in town. It's often described as the best jazz club on this side of the Atlantic. It's a little corner of America here in Copenhagen and we've come to this place at a time where once again President Trump is saying he wants a not so little chunk of Denmark in the form

of Greenland, the biggest island in the world. I find it really scary. Everything he sees, he just wants to get everything in some kind of way. Music student Lucas is here with friends Molly and first Clara. Mostly I get affected by this because I think Donald Trump is scary and because we know that he's so powerful, he can affect our everyday in a lot of different ways. powerful, he can affect our everyday in that lot of dip and noise. This is the changing of the guard outside the Royal Palace in the heart of Copenhagen. At a time of course when there's been a big change in Washington DC, President Trump now fundamentally changing some of the relationships with America's closest allies, countries

that have stood shoulder to shoulder with America for decades. And of course, Denmark is in that group. Hans-Tino Hansen runs Risk Intelligence. They give advice on threats around the world. President Trump claims US control of Greenland is an absolute necessity for international security. The Russians have increased their presence in the Arctic, that's for sure, but it's not a presence that can directly threaten the US or kind of occupy Greenland,

because we're talking about more than 2 million square kilometers. Still, Denmark has said it will spend an extra $2 billion on defence, including in the Arctic. And Hans believes security there can be bolstered without an American takeover, but with deals that restore the scope of US influence. You can say that if you make more agreements both on defence security but also maybe on the economic sense and raw materials, then we are more or less going back to where we were in the 50s and 60s. With President Trump eyeing up Greenland's mineral wealth, we've come to meet Professor Minick Rosing, one of the world's leading geologists. Professor Rosing warns that the

vastness of his homeland and the lack of infrastructure are just two elements of why Greenland may not be the cash point some Americans may hope for. The economy of extracting it is very uncertain whereas the investment to start extracting it is very high. And then there's the question of who exactly would work the mineral mines. Most people who are there already have a job so they don't need a job in the mining industry. So what to make of it all? President Tom's decoration of intention to maybe take Greenland by force. It's very similar

to President Putin's rhetoric when it comes to Ukraine. And this Fogg Rasmussen was Danish Prime Minister for most of the noughties and then NATO Secretary-General. I don't think at the end of the day that the Americans will take Greenland by force. If they're concerned about security, they could just increase the military presence in Greenland and we would all welcome that. For him, ultimately, the Danes simply may not be able to do business here with a man whose view on territorial integrity is so wildly different from theirs.

Nick Beek. From Bogota to Berlin, thousands of people took to the streets on Saturday to celebrate International Women's Day. But it's not just a day to bang drums and sing. Many countries are reflecting on the fight for gender equality. In Spain, recent statistics indicate that nearly 400,000 women had reported physical or sexual violence from a past or present partner in the last 12 months.

The newsroom's Madeleine Drury reports. Despite the rain in the capital Madrid, International Women's Day marches each year in Spain are some of the world's loudest. We are still being killed. There are many things that need to keep changing. I don't want to see the upcoming generation going through what the previous generations and even us have gone through. The Spanish government marked the commemorative day by announcing that there will be a 50% increase in the number of judges specialising

in cases of violence against women. There has been a steady rise in the rates of convictions for intimate partner violence in Spain, reaching about 80% in 2023. But a recent report from the rates of convictions for intimate partner violence in Spain, reaching about 80% in 2023. But a recent report from the Council of Europe said experts were concerned that the number of sentences for sexual violence remains low. They also warned that victims continue to experience secondary victimisation in judicial proceedings.

This is down to challenges to their credibility, harmful stereotypes and the need for repeated statements. And a particular high-profile sexual assault case has made the debate around Spain's machismo culture dinner table conversation. I will not resign. Those were the words of a defiant Luis Rubiales, the former football federation president who was found guilty in February of sexual assault for kissing footballer Yenny Hermoso without her consent. Activists argue Spain has much more work to do to protect and promote women. So as protests take place across the world this International Women's Day, it's a demonstration

that Spanish women are not alone. Madeleine Drury. And that's all from us for now, but there'll be a new edition of the Global News podcast later. If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email. The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X at BBC World Service. Use the hashtag globalnewspod. This edition was mixed by Rebecca Miller and the producer was Producer was Terry Egan. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Bernadette Keough. Until next time, goodbye.