Global News Podcast - Trump's peace plan still vague as war with Iran continues

Episode Date: March 24, 2026

Israel and Iran continue to strike each other after the US says plans for talks with Tehran remain "fluid". We also hear how President Trump's vague peace plan gives only temporary relief to unstable markets, and about life in Iran under constant bombardment. In other news, the United States pays a French energy company $1 billion not to build a wind farm. Danes go to the polls: will they re-elect their prime minister for a third term? The plight of some of Cuba's most vulnerable people under a US oil embargo. And, the BBC follows an illegal trade as valuable as cocaine - in baby eels.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]

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This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World's service. I'm Alex Ritzin and at 16 hours GMT on Tuesday the 24th of March, these are our main stories. Hope for de-escalation after reports that a negotiation team including special envoy Steve Whitkoff and Vice President J.D. Vance may meet Iranian officials this week in Pakistan. Meanwhile, the war continues. Iranian media say Israeli-U.S. strikes targeted two gas facilities. and a pipeline in the country, hours after President Trump said he would temporarily halt attacks on power infrastructure. Oil prices have risen again, with the barrel of Brent crude going above $100. Also in this podcast, US designs on Greenland hang over Prime Minister Mehta Frederickson on polling day in Denmark.

This Trump bump over her leadership in Greenland is something that she hopes will help hand her victory. as she seeks a third time. And the US pays French energy giant total almost a billion dollars not to build a wind farm. A day on from President Trump's announcement that attacks on Iranian power plants were being put on hold and that big progress was being made on a deal to end the war with Iran, we're no clearer about what that amounts to. It's rumoured that the US Vice President J.D. Vance and Mr. Trump, Trump's special envoy, Steve Whitkoff, could travel to Pakistan to meet Iranian officials this week.

But there's been nothing concrete from either side. Meanwhile, Iranian state media say Israeli-U.S. strikes have targeted two gas facilities and a pipeline in Iran. Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has vowed to continue attacking the country. His defense minister, Israel Katz, has said Israeli forces will take control of southern Lebanon up to the Littani River until the threat from Iran's ally Hezbollah is gone. Tehran has fired further missiles into Israel, including Tel Aviv. In Iran, a replacement for the experienced Ali Larajani, who was killed by an Israeli strike last week, has been named.

Mohamed Baghezol Qadah is a revolutionary guards insider. I asked our diplomatic correspondent, Paul Adams, what we know about moves to end the conflict. I wish I could be definitive, Alex, but frankly, nothing is very clear. Certainly no sign of the major progress and very strong talks that Donald Trump was talking about

when he made his surprising announcement. It is clear that something is going on behind the scenes. We are hearing that messages are being passed by various mediators, including probably Pakistan, Turkey and Egypt. The Qataris, by the way, have said this morning that they are not involved in any of this. An Iranian foreign ministry official was quoted by our American CBS partners as saying,

we received points from the US through mediators and they are being reviewed. So clearly there is some kind of background conversation going on. It hasn't yet translated into direct talks between the Americans and the Iranians. It is being mooted that the foreign minister Abbas Arachi might meet the US envoy, Steve Wittkoff, possibly later this week. in Pakistan. But at the moment, as I say, all of this is very, very fluid. And I don't think anyone is really optimistic of an immediate breakthrough. What about this speculation that the hardline speaker of the Iranian parliament might be involved, despite his denials? Well, yes, it would

be surprising. There's no immediate sign that Mohammed Galibaf is indeed involved, although one of the rumors during the rounds is that he and Vice President J.D. Vance might meet. I mean, he is, Mr. Falibaf is very much from the hardline camp. He is also thought to be someone who is perhaps somewhat opportunistic, perhaps somewhat pragmatic. And so there is some speculation that maybe he could be amenable. He could be the kind of figure that Donald Trump might see as Iran's Delci Rodriguez. the vice president in Venezuela, who took over there after the U.S. abducted the Venezuelan leader. But again, we are deep in the realms of speculation here,

and I think we need a bit of time before any of this comes more clearly into focus. And briefly, what can you tell us about Iran's new security chief? Well, Mohammed Bahra Zolkada is from very much the same background as his predecessor as the head of the National Security Council, Ali La Rajani. is a veteran of the IRGC, the Revolutionary Guards. He was involved with the Basij, the voluntary militia. I think the fact that he is now the head of the National Security Council is a sign that the hardliners are still in charge, that the IRGC is still calling the shots, and that as far as Tehran is concerned, this is all about displaying some kind of stability and continuity.

Paul Adams. Were President Trump's comments about possible talks with Iran merely a ploy to calm the markets which have been in chaos since war began. If that was his aim, it doesn't seem to have worked. The price of Brent crude oil rose back above $100 a barrel after plunging on Monday. Speaking during a trade visit to Australia, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said the soaring gas and oil prices and stock market falls threatened global stability and the hostilities must end. The situation is critical for the energy supply lies worldwide. We all feel the knock-on effects on gas and oil prices, our businesses and our societies. But it is of utmost important that we come to a solution

that is negotiated and this puts an end to the hostilities that we see in the Middle East. So did President Trump's talk of a peace deal reassure investors? I asked our business correspondent in Singapore, Nick Marsh. Well, it did reassure them initially when he posted on his social media on Monday morning US time, that they'd be postponing, bombing these energy facilities. The price of oil slid pretty quickly. It went down in the case of Brent Crout to below $100 a barrel. So that was good from his point of view.

That meant the stock market bounced and things were looking a bit more optimistic when it comes to the idea that there would be productive talks between the US and Iran. but the Iranians say that nothing of the sort has happened, that there's been no talks, let alone talks that have led to a possible ending of hostilities. So, so long as the facts on the ground haven't changed, i.e. Iran is in control of the strait of Hormuz, millions of barrels of oil and gas aren't moving through that choke point

to countries out here in Asia, for example. Then traders and people in markets are looking at that a little bit confused, but at the same time thinking, well, nothing's changed in a in a material sense, and accordingly, the price of oil has started to creep back up again. And the gains we saw in Asian markets this morning off the back of the US ones were sort of eroded as well. So it's a little bit of as you were. Nick, we've been hearing some reports that there are traders making some very big bets in the oil market ahead of Donald Trump's social media post. What do you know about this? Well, I've been looking at that data. I mean, they did make big bets. Why they made those bets is a completely.

different matter. But yeah, hundreds of millions of dollars were put on oil futures contracts about 15 minutes before Donald Trump made his announcement on his social media that there had been talks and that, you know, there was a possible end to the war, which triggered a sharp fall in the price of oil. So we've seen the bets being put on. We don't know exactly why. The White House has said that it doesn't tolerate any kind of insider trading. Let's see what the U.S. financial regulators have to say about it. Nick Marsh, and just to underscore the effects all this is having on the oil markets, the Philippines has declared a national energy emergency.

The government will give subsidies to transport workers and farmers and prevented hoarding and price gouging. But it's not just oil and gas prices and stock markets that have been affected by the war. All kinds of business sectors around the world have been hit, including Kenya's flower-in-lawful. industry, one of the country's top foreign exchange earners. Council flights has meant severe disruption for sales to its Middle Eastern market, as Jay Hirani from Kenya's Primarosa flowers explains.

Our company has really been affected. Our market basically is 80% to the Middle East. And when aerospace are locked, our flights are reduced. That means we're not able to sell anything because our customers cannot ship out anything. And like all perishables, we have a shelf life. So we usually keep the flowers for a maximum of five days. If in those five days they are unsolved, we move them to local sales. But the only challenge is we don't get our growing costs back.

So in a nutshell, we're still at a loss. Even if we sell them to the local market, it's still a big hit for us. Sometimes the Dubai opened up its airspace. And, you know, customers start sending us orders. So we pack and deliver the flowers to the airport. So once we've delivered the flowers, the customers come back to us and tell us the flight has been cancelled already. And they ask us to collect the boxes back from the airport.

It goes back to a shredder machine, and we reuse flowers that are unsolved as fertilizers, and it goes back to the compost. I'm assuming the losses on a daily basis for one farm it'd be anywhere between $20 to $30,000 per day. This is one farm. And if you consider all the other farms, it's a significant amount of loss. Jay Hirani from Kenya's Primarosa Flowers.

Despite the possibility of talks between Washington and Tehran, the bombing of Iran continues. Our international correspondent Joe Inwood has collated, along with the BBC's Persian service, some of the latest material to make its way out of the country. country. There's a fighter jet above my head, he says. Air defences below.

I'm not sure where exactly. But sometimes you don't need to understand a language to grasp its meaning. The sound of fear is unmistakable. This is the unauthorized view of Tehran, filmed from rooftops in the dark. And for about 24 hours, there was a serious danger that darkness would be something the people of Iran would have to get used to. President Trump threatened punitive strikes against the country's power plants

if the effective blockade of the Strait of Hormuz was not ended. It was the main subject people contacted the BBC's Persian service to discuss. And so when that threat was lifted, the relief was clear. Last night I was so scared about that power plant that I stayed up late, just listening to music and thinking about all the films I've always wanted to watch, and just everything I wanted to do, basically when 99% of them needed electricity. But the lifting of the threat to power plants did not mean it was a peaceful day in Tehran.

A group of men, wearing the uniform of the Red Crescent, carefully dig through rubble. We don't know exactly what else was nearby, but they say this was a residential building, and they're searching for a child. Whatever the truth of any one event, the destruction being done to Iran is unmistakable. On State TV, the anchor reads a message from the Speaker of Parliament. Our people demand the complete and humiliating punishment of the aggressors, it says. Donald Trump has claimed that negotiations are underway and Iran's request. They have denied that, and nothing coming out of Tehran suggests they are in the mood to compromise.

It's a fact not lost on a man who once again got in contact with the BBC's Persian service. I think this will be very costly for the Iranian people. Whether Islamic Republic remains or realizes that it's on its slous legs, it will increase the cost to the Iranian people as much as possible. Back at the sight of the airstrike and a woman in a colourful headscarf is helped by two Red Crescent workers, she stumbles, then falls into a man's arms. Behind them a clean-up operation. is already underway.

Heavy machining, trying to bring order to a scene of chaos. But it is nothing compared to the diplomatic efforts ahead. After a month that has left peace in the Middle East, a smoking ruin. Joe Inward. Still to come in this podcast? How am I going to tell her she has no prospect in life? She'll have no opportunity for growth here, none. Pregnancy in Cuba, three months into the U.S. oil blockade.

Can healthcare really be reinvented? And if so, what does that look like in practice? I'm Tejcest-I, special host of Resilion Edge, a business vitality podcast, paid and presented by Deloitte. In this episode, I talked to leaders reshaping what healthcare can be. Ratnakur-Lavu and Elvance Health are keeping the consumer at the center of everything they do. We're really focused on three things. One is simplified personal member experiences. And the second thing is we want to empower the providers to drive the right health outcomes.

The third thing is we want to simplify work for ourselves so that we can better serve our customers and members. It's about designing systems that work for the consumer, systems that listen, learn, and build trust. We want them to be able to understand their benefits, find the right care. and then eventually we want to be able to schedule that. And this is where we are really excited about the partnership between Deloitte and AWS to bring some of these experiences to life. So how do you start, especially if you're dealing with legacy overload? The full conversation unpacks how Deloitte, AWS, and Elevance Health are redesigning

healthcare from the inside out, creating systems that work smarter, scale faster, and bring the human experience back to the forefront. All of that and more on this special episode of Resilient Edge. Find us wherever you listen to podcasts. You're not at the office. You're solving murders in the Scottish Highlands. You're not in your car. You're in a candlelit carriage on the way to the ball.

This winter, see it differently when you streamed the best of British TV with Britbox. Catch a new original series like Riot Women. Let's start a riot! New seasons of fan favourites like Shetland. A body's been found. And on parallel collections of Jane Austen, Epitha Christie and more. It's time to see it differently with Britbox. Watch with a free trial now at Briton.

At a time when the supply of oil and gas from the Middle East is coming under increasing pressure, the focus is switching in many countries to renewable energy. According to the energy think tank, Ember, a record number of solar and wind farms were installed around the world last year. But meanwhile, in the US, the Trump administration has announced it's paying the French company Total Energy's $1 billion to walk away for. from its contracts to supply wind power off the coasts of North Carolina and New York. Making the announcement on Monday, the U.S. Interior Minister Doug Bergam said the company

will invest the money in fossil fuel projects instead. We're partnering with total energies to unleash nearly $1 billion that was tied up in a lease deposit that was directed towards the prior administration's subsidies that were pushing expensive weather-dependent offshore wind with this agreement. We're allowing this great company to redirect those dollars that have been paid into the Treasury to affordable, reliable and secure oil and natural gas production. Here's our environment correspondent Matt McGraw. I think, Alex, if you look at what Doug Bergam, the U.S. Interior Secretary said in his comments there, one of the key words was the word secure. And security, national security, is an element

that the Trump administration has tried to use against wind energy. President Trump's antipity towards wind has long been known. He famously in 2012 gave evidence against a wind farm off his golf course in Aberdeenshire in Scotland, and he has in his presidency tried to essentially move the country away from wind. And they tried last year to shut down five wind farms on the grounds of national security and they issued stop work orders, but those orders were thrown out by the courts. This new tactic now seems to be to go to the companies and offer to pay them back the money they've spent on leases

which they got under the Biden administration. They've done that with Total and they're going to pay them back $928 million. In return, Total are scrapping the leases. They're also committing not to build any other wind in North America and also to invest in liquid natural gas and gas plants in Texas. And according to Total, the company, they said it's a win-win situation for them. They say it's a pragmatic decision. They've changed their mind on the

importance of wind since President Trump came to office. They're not renouncing onshore wind, but they think offshore wind is too expensive to make electricity from. Is the US an outlier in this respect, though? I mean, surely the trend in many countries is towards renewables. Yeah, very much so. And as you cited from Ember earlier on, the statistics show that last year renewables overtook coal as the world's principal source of electricity. to make electricity and investments in renewables across the world last year were around $2 trillion and they have been for a couple of years now. That's essentially double the investments in fossil fuels.

But it does depend on where you are. Very much developing countries have embraced renewables very much so. China is racing ahead with renewables while also building a lot of coal. And countries like the United States are essentially also looking at going back to coal in some respects. And we've seen that from the President Trump's administration, a greater emphasis on trying to make the Department of Defense by electric. electricity from coal-fired stations to enhance the life of these particular assets. So very much a different picture from different parts of the world on this issue. Very briefly, though, away from the

environmental arguments, do they have a point? I mean, their own gas is presumably more secure than a lot of things. Well, it's a very tough question on the question of gas itself. I mean, yes, the United States is world leader in producing gas, so it's quite a safe supply for them. I think, though, there is more a political and ideological aspect to the deal with Total than it is based on national security. I think it comes down to realistically President Trump's antipathy to wind long-held and he has made no bones about it at all. Matt McGraw. To Cuba now, which has spent most of its weekend without power. The Trump administration's fuel blockade has meant that no oil shipments have reached the country in three months. Some of the worst affected are the elderly, children and

pregnant women, with many saying that they've received no state support and are frightened at the prospect of having a baby during a blackout. Our correspondent Will Grant reports from Havana. As Washington shows no sign of letting up its near total oil blockade on Cuba, most hospitals on the island have been plunged into darkness. Many are only accepting emergency cases. But the lights inside Havana's specialist maternity in neonatal hospital, the Ramon-Gonzalez-Coron, have stayed on throughout the crisis. Little wonder, when you meet one of its patients, Maureen Echevaria Peña, at 26 years old, her first baby, a boy, is due later this week. It's been a complicated pregnancy as Maureen has

had gestational diabetes and chronic hypertension. She has not left the maternity ward since the blockade began three months ago. Things have been tough, admits Maureen, with her doctors watching on. But here in the hospital, they've done everything they can for me. They've given me the medicines and insulin I need for the health of the baby and the placenta. She says, though, that the rolling blackouts have her worried about the impending birth. Over the weekend, representatives of international solidarity movement, Among them, the US group Code Pink

arrived in Havana under the banner Let Cuba Breathe. They brought with them aid donations, including for the Gonzales Coralm Maternity Hospital. When the President of the United States uses the colonial language of I will take it if I want, this is the same language that is used when it's on Palestine and Gaza. This is the same language. In front of Cuba's aging Politburo and President Miguel Diascanel,

they promised unwavering support to the revolution. The governments used the visit of international pro-Cuba groups to highlight a simple message that the island's not alone. However, conditions for most ordinary Cubans remain near unbearable. And while Maureen says she's been well cared for during her difficult pregnancy, many of the other 32,000 pregnant women on the island say they've had to face these extremely challenging conditions with no tangible support from the state.

Hello. Indira Martinez is one of them. Seven months pregnant, she invited me into her home in the middle of a power cut. With no working stove or fridge, her caloric intake has dropped significantly in the last few months of her pregnancy. Her husband is also worried about her stress levels. I haven't received any of the humanitarian aid sent to Cuba. My husband and I didn't enter this pregnancy irresponsibly. We did it knowing that we can't rely on any help from the government.

It is us against the world. We just pray that everything works out okay. So, no, I haven't seen any emergency aid. Beyond the huge difficulties of being pregnant in the middle of a fuel blockade, Indira harbours real fears about the future for her baby girl. How am I going to tell her she has no prospect in life? Because she won't have any. As much as one would like, as a parent, to offer them a real life and motivate them,

I have no basis to tell her that she has a future or can maximize her full intellectual capacity. If I say that, I'll be lying. She'll have no opportunity for growth here, none. Among the international supporters in Havana was the Northern Irish rap group Kneecap. Cuba has an ageing population, a very low birth rate and huge outward migration. The island needs more young people to have children. But Maureen's baby boy, due in days, and maybe even in Dira's baby girl, due in two months, will be born under a crippling fuel blockade.

In effect, the hardest days in the island's modern history. Will Grant in Havana. Voters in Denmark have been at the polls to decide whether to re-elect their current Prime Minister, Meta Fredericksson. The snap election was called last month after Ms. Fredrickson received a poll boost for standing firm against President Trump's repeated calls for the US to annex Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory. Adrian Murray was outside a polling station in the capital, Copenhagen. I asked her if this was a gamble for Meta Fredericksson. It does come after months of slumping popularity, actually,

and this Trump bump over her leadership in Greenland is something that she hopes will help hand her victory as she seeks a third term. Now, Fredericksson has projected this image of strength and tough leadership. You know, she's earned a reputation as this I lady and certainly punches above her weight for a country of just, 6 million people when it comes to the international stage. She's a vocal supporter of Ukraine, a critic of Russia.

And of course, things like immigration, she's very strict on. And she's been calling for a stronger Europe. But here in Denmark, there's actually a lot of consensus on those issues. And she's much weaker at home. So rather than geopolitics, it's actually domestic issues that are dominating the campaign trail here. It's the cost of living, pension reforms, and even pig production and polluted drinking water. have all been on the centre stage when it comes to debates. And given that she has been in a centrist government ruling across the centre, aligning herself with a party on the right and a centrist party,

all three of them are down in the polls. They cannot get a majority. So what's happened is Frederickson has pivoted left again. And she's appealing to voters on the left with a controversial wealth tax. She's also pledging strict immigration control to sort of fend on. off a resurgent right wing. And she's really hoping that her strong leadership and her appeal now to left-wing voters will help get over what is really a voter fatigue. She's been in power for six years. And though her party is the biggest and tops opinion polls, they only have 20%. So she really needs to work together with a lot of other smaller parties if she's to win this election. Adrian Murray in Copenhagen.

And finally, a BBCI investigation has uncovered the workings of a global criminal trade in baby eels. The endangered species is one of the most trafficked animals in the world. Export bans for commercial use have fuelled the underground trade, which is worth billions of dollars. Sam Parenthood reports. We're going to have the smoke deals, okay? We're going to be served here with some green apples. In a high-end restaurant in Paris, Duke, which is not his real name, tucks into a plate of eels.

Within the EU, there is a legal market for eels, but Duke isn't interested in that. I'm in the smuggling business in Europe and Asia, focusing on European glass eels. If you see me in the street, you wouldn't think I'm a gangster. Duke has allowed the BBC World Service to follow his trafficking operation, as long as he remains anonymous. It's said 100 tonnes of eels are smuggled from Europe. I'd say that's a very conservative number. We call them living cocaine, cocaine of the sea.

He calls a gang member in Hong Kong to check they're ready for the latest illegal shipment from Europe. Hi, Aduk. He says they're ready. The Asian eel, which used to start. The Asian eel, which used to start, Chinese farms is also scarce. So demand for European eels exploded.

There are no legal routes, so the underground trade is flourishing. So here we talk about one of the biggest wildlife crimes in the world in terms of animals trafficked as well as fraud value. Scientists Florian Stein advises law enforcement on eosmuggling. The elvers are packed in suitcases and checked in as hold luggage on flights. And the overall value of that meat is very important. a member of Duke's gang waits on the shore in Hong Kong. He explains what they do after they collect the suitcases from the airport.

The big ships are waiting with the facilities to keep the eels alive. They transport them to China. We use speedboats or other small boats. There are thousands of eel farms in China. Once fattened, processed and killed, they could end up anywhere in the world. With the neighbouring gang, we have six teams, which is enough to run the entire European eel smuggling operation. Gang members told the BBC,

though smuggling eels is as lucrative as cocaine, the penalties if you were caught are far lighter. Sam Peranti. 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.com. 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 Mark Pickett, and the producer was Mickey Bristow. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Alex Ritson. Until next time, goodbye. Wise, the app for international people using money around the globe. When it comes to sending money abroad, many providers claim to offer free fees and competitive rates.

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T's and C Supply.