Global News Podcast - US and Iran agree peace deal

Episode Date: June 15, 2026

The United States and Iran say they've reached a deal to halt their war, which would include the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and removal of the US naval blockade. The agreement includes the end of the war in Lebanon. The deal is due to be signed on Friday. Also in this podcast: Swiss voters reject capping the population at 10 million. We speak to the Kremlin's teenage enemy, Alexander Browder. And the Dutch try out a speed limit for cyclists.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]: Cargo ships in the Gulf Credit: Reuters

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This is the Global News News. podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Celia Hatton, and in the early hours of Monday, the 15th of June, these are our main stories. Finally, a deal's been reached to end the U.S. war with Iran with the announcement of a formal signing ceremony in Switzerland on Friday. But how solid is this agreement? We have analysis from our correspondence in Jerusalem and London and from the BBC Persian Service.

Also in this podcast, a game at the Football World Cup that started as a slow burn but became a second half thriller. And the 17-year-old whose school project has come to the attention of Vladimir Putin. It's unprecedented. They've never sanctioned a high schooler before. And so it's clear that my work exposing their currency laundering schemes has touched enough. We start with a triumphant social media post from Donald Trump, let the oil flow. he wrote. He then tells ships of the world to start your engines. The U.S. and Iran have confirmed they've agreed to a deal to end their conflict that began just over three months ago. The text of what's been agreed hasn't officially been released, but both sides have indicated they'll lift

their blockades on the Strait of Hormuz, a move that could allow ships to pass through it again. Representatives from both countries are scheduled to meet in Switzerland for a formal signing ceremony on Friday. On State TV, the Iranian deputy foreign minister, Kazam Garibabad, had this to say after the text had been finalized. Two immediate developments were supposed to take place and will take place, starting last night on the early hours of Monday. First, the immediate and permanent end of the war and military operations on various fronts, including in Lebanon. As you saw the statement announced by the Prime Minister of Pakistan explicitly referred to the immediate and permanent end of the war on all

fronts, including Lebanon. The second development was the lifting and the end of the naval blockade that the United States had imposed on the Islamic Republic of Iran, which was also announced by the US President in his statement. This memorandum of understanding was reached despite our complete distrust of our enemies. We have no trust in the enemy. Our trust lies in our military strength, our diplomatic capabilities, and the support and unity of our own people. That is why the implementation of this memorandum of understanding is extremely important. We have specific plans in place to monitor the implementation of US commitments under this memorandum. Iran's deputy foreign minister, he mentioned there the Pakistani Prime Minister.

Pakistan has acted as one of the main mediators to end the conflict. That mediation role looks set to continue as this agreement sets out a framework for a further 60 days of talks to hammer out some of the more complicated issues on the table, including details on the possible lifting of sanctions and the future of Iran's nuclear program. Our Middle East analyst Sebastian Usher joined us from Jerusalem shortly after the agreement was announced. Interestingly, what the Pakistani Prime Minister says is that both sides have declared, this is quoting it directly, the immediate and permanent termination,

of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon. Now, that is a big step. It was the situation in Lebanon that, again, almost derailed this at the last moment when Israel bombed the southern suburbs of Beirut that was following the infiltration in northern Israel of several rockets from Hazbullah. That looked for several hours like it was going to spoil President Trump's hopes that the deal would be done and would be able to be announced on his. his 80th birthday. Well, he has succeeded in that. But this idea that the war in Lebanon that Israel's

waging against Hezbollah will come to an end, I think that's something which will take a bit of unpacking. Sebastian, you're speaking to us from Israel. Has there been any reaction from there so far? When we're speaking, I mean, we're speaking very shortly after this has just happened. There hasn't been a reaction so far as I've seen, but there's a kind of mute. reaction in the sense that there was an anticipation, a fear, that Iran would fire missiles overnight. That's certainly the signals that we were getting from various Iranian officials, that Israel would face punishment for that attack it carried out on the southern suburbs of Beirut and that it was imminent. So there was an alert, a higher state of alert that was raised.

The Israeli military says that it was prepared offensively and defensively for this, and a sense that Israel was moving back into the mode of potentially being prepared, both to take down those missiles as they came in with its Iron Dome system, but then almost certainly to launch its own wave of strikes. And that's exactly what happened this time last Sunday. So I think there will be a sigh of relief over that, because one assumes that's not now going to happen. I mean, in this extraordinary back and forth that we've had, I mean, absolutely, I mean,

I think everyone has been following this is slightly dazed by the whiplash turns. It's not beyond the realms of possibility that that that attack could still be carried out, but at the moment it looks far, far less likely. You've taken us through some of the challenges still facing the region. We've described this as a deal, but it's more specifically being termed a memorandum of understanding between the US and Iran. I mean, it's really just the first phase of an agreement, isn't it? Can you take us through what isn't in this deal?

What still remains to be agreed? Some of the information that's been given over the past 24 hours or so from the Iranian side in particular has suggested that more may be in this memorandum of understanding than had been anticipated. A senior Iranian official said that there was an agreement within it for Iran to dilute its high-eastern. enriched uranium, what President Trump has referred to as nuclear dust, inside Iran, rather than,

as President Trump had been suggesting, it somehow being taken out of Iran. So that would be quite a big step at this stage. If that held, that would be one of the big stumbling blocks potentially dealt with. If the conflict in Lebanon, as we were saying, is somehow brought to an end by this, I have to say that I have serious doubts about that, because it's a lot of it. Israel is not a part of this agreement, essentially. And the Israeli government, the Israeli prime minister has essentially said that they should continue to have a certain level of freedom in the way that they wage that offensive. Then that would be a big thing as well. We don't know about the billions of dollars that Iran wants unfrozen. They wanted a certain amount of that

to be unthrozen at the beginning of this process within this memorandum of understanding. The latest that we heard from President Trump was that that wouldn't be the case, but it would maybe happen during the process of negotiations that would follow, you know, according to the kind of progress that was made. So we're not sure about that yet. But it may be, potentially, that this is more of a deal that it goes further than perhaps people have been expecting. I mean, we'll obviously find that out more in the coming hours. That would be very helpful, obviously, in terms of the negotiations, which, you know, would be seen as very difficult and dealing with, you know, the red lines, the main stumbling blocks, over the next,

some people have talked about the Iranians, particularly have talked about a 60-day period that would follow the signing of this deal. And we've been told the signing will be on the 19th. Things could happen between then, of course. I mean, things have been happening every day that have changed the equation. Sebastian Usher. As Sebastian mentioned full details, of the deal have not yet been made public, and it's unclear how quickly the Strait of Hormuz might

reopen to all traffic. At issue is not simply a military ceasefire or an Iranian nuclear agreement, but also the state of the global economy. Our correspondent Joe Inwood told us that prices of key commodities had already started to fall. The cost of oil, that seems to have gone down, and of course it's not just oil that is going to be flowing through the Strait of Hormuz when it is opened up, But of course there's really important things like fertilizer, gas that's used in other countries as well, really a huge amount of the kind of the lifeblood of the global economy will be gradually unblocked and things could start to get back to normal. Now, of course, all of this is predicated upon, not just it being implemented, but it holding. You know, this is definitely, definitely the most optimistic we can feel so far about things starting to get back to normal. But we are not there yet.

There are still uncertainties in this. Still hasn't been signed yet. All sides seem to be moving in the same direction. But I think there are still hurdles that remain. You mentioned the global economy, Joe. Things looking a bit brighter. Donald Trump has been under pressure, hasn't he, domestically, to find some way out of this conflict.

Of course, it hasn't escaped people's notice that, as well as celebrating the 250th birth of the United States, He's also celebrating his 80th birthday, so clearly this was a day he wanted to get this done. But I think in a more sort of deep political sense, you hit the nail on the head there. He has suffered, his popularity has suffered, partly because he had promised not to get into wars, and clearly has got into a war, but also because Americans are feeling the cost of this in their pockets. You know, the rising cost of whether it's a fertilizer for American farmers, or probably more immediately the cost of petrol, of gas to go in their car. that is something Americans notice. But I think it's really important not to get too fixated on the cost to American consumers.

As I was mentioning before, fertilizer, a lot of which goes to the developing world, that is not getting through as well. And while it's inconvenient for people to have to spend more on petrol, it's really a matter of life and death for other people to be able to grow food. So I think in terms of keeping in perspective, I think that is the impact really that has had the most dramatic effect, if not the one that's had the most impact on President Trump and his popularity. Just to focus on what's going on inside Iran for a moment,

the Iranians have already said that they really want to focus on lifting of sanctions. What do we know about that? We should say at the time we're speaking just before midnight London time, the details that we've had come out don't have any mention of either sanctions relief that I've seen or any kind of unfreezing of assets. So Iranian assets that are held in Western countries or in Gulf countries in their banks, those being unfrozen and given back to the Iranians. I haven't seen at this point any mention of that.

It doesn't mean it's not in the deal because the text has not been fully released as we speak. But it hasn't been highlighted by anyone. Whether the sanctions relief is immediate or whether the sanctions relief is phased in, that was always a point of contention. The Iranians wanted to be up front. The Americans said they wanted sanctions relief to be essentially tied to, what they saw as good behavior. So whether the sanctions relief is immediate or phased in, it is definitely going to be the direction of travel that we're going in, that there is going to be

a sort of a slight lifting of restriction on the Iranian economy, freeing up of some of the assets they have overseas. As I say, and how immediately it happens, we don't know, but it will be happening. Joe Inwood. And we've seen evidence that some in Iran are trying to portray this agreement as a victory for Tehran. Iran's top military command, Hatam al-Anbiyah central headquarters, has said Iranians, together with the country's armed forces and Tehran's proxies and allies in the region, have shown the U.S. and Israel that they have no option but to accept defeat and surrender. We'll have more analysis from our BBC Persian service later in the podcast. Still to come in this podcast.

decision, the voters have sent a signal in favour of stability, openness and reliability. Switzerland votes no to capping the size of its population. She's one of the best-selling music artists of all time. Rising to fame as a member of R&B group Destiny's Child before launching a solo career that's produced chart-topping hits in era-defining albums. And with a business empire spanning haircare, whiskey and entertainment, It's fair to say she's more than just an artist. She's a global brand.

Good Bad Billionaire is taking a closer look at the life and fortune of Beyonce. Good Bad Billionaire from the BBC World Service. Listen now wherever you get your BBC podcasts. You're listening to the Global News podcast. We've got the latest on the men's football World Cup for you now. Japan and the Netherlands met in a pulsating match in Dallas. That game ended in a two-two draw. All the goals were in the second half.

Our sports correspondent John Bennett is in. in the US for the tournament, and he gave me this update. It was always going to be, I think, one of the best games of the group stage, a semi-finalists from the Euros in the Netherlands against a Japan team, who many people have picked out as a team to watch in this tournament. They breached through qualifying, they scored over 50 goals. They recently beat the likes of Brazil and England, and it turned out to be the game of the tournament so far, this two-two draw.

Quiet first half, but then the second half really came to life. Japan twice coming from behind in this two-two draw. Cricentio Somerville, he probably thought he'd won it for the Dutch with a beautiful curling effort, but Dicichy commander headed in a late equalizer. I think it was a fair result in the end. Both teams will take this, although probably the Netherlands, of course, having been two or one-up, one-nil-up, will have thought they maybe could have won it. But Japan, after being quite passive first half, much more impressive when they were being positive,

but an excellent match in Dallas. And then earlier, though, a match with two teams that maybe weren't so quite so evenly match, the tiny nation of Curacao were beaten 7-1 by Germany. Yes, many people were wondering, will this be one of the biggest upsets in World Cup history? Well, it wasn't. Germany came into this tournament under pressure because they'd been knocked out of the last two tournaments in the group stage,

but they were excellent today. Having said that, one name will go down in the history of football in Curacao, Livano, Comenencia. He scored their first ever World Cup goal on their debut at the tournament. He made it 1-1. Germany looked stunned at that. stage. But right after that, there was one of those controversial hydration breaks we've had at this tournament, which kind of splits a game into quarters. They take these breaks due to high temperatures,

and that completely halted their momentum. Don't get me wrong, Germany probably would have won anyway. They look very impressive. Kai Havetz on the score sheet twice. Jamal mooseal, also one of the goal scorer. Seventy two places in the rankings separated them. It was always going to be difficult, as you say, Carousel, the smallest ever World Cup nation, population 150,000, and the gaping quality was clear to see. John Bennett in New Jersey, and I can give you the result of another match. Ivory Coast has beaten Ecuador 1-0 in Philadelphia. To Switzerland now, where voters have rejected a proposal to limit the country's population to 10 million people. Around 55% of those who voted in the referendum said no to the plan. Imogen folks reports from the Swiss capital, Berne. Switzerland has grown

rapidly in the last 25 years from 7.3 million people in 2002. to 9.1 million today. 25% of them are not Swiss. The right-wing Swiss people's party said pulling the emergency break on immigration would solve problems like high rents or crowded trains. But in the cities where these problems are most acute, voters disagreed. In Zurich, Geneva and Bayern, more than 70% of those voting rejected the population cap. Switzerland has an aging population. It needs doctors, care workers and hotel and restaurant staff.

They come from all over Europe, thanks to non-EU member Switzerland's participation in free movement of people. Swiss Justice Minister Beacianz, welcome to today's result. With today's decision, the voters have sent a signal in favour of stability, openness and reliability. They have shown clearly that they want to continue relations with the European Union and that in these uncertain times, stability is important. Key to that stability is access to Europe's single market, where half of all Swiss exports are sold. Leaving free movement of people would likely have meant losing that access,

and Switzerland, although neutral, is increasing its defence spending, it hopes to cooperate on security with Europe. With the world so unstable, the government argued, now is not the moment to alienate friendly neighbours. The Swiss People's Party is disappointed at its loss, but Member of Parliament, Thomas Eshey, warned that the problems it highlighted won't go away. Forty-five percent said yes to this initiative of the Swiss People's Party. I think that's a very clear signal to our government,

to the other parties, to the big lobby organizations of the economy, that the current development cannot continue as it has in the past. Most Swiss voters won't disagree that challenges around housing and transport need tackling. But what today's result suggests is that many of them may be weary of the people's party's constant focus on immigration as the source of Switzerland's problems. Imogen folks. Now, what does it feel like to be privileged? President Putin's youngest enemy.

17-year-old Alexander Browder is the person to answer that question. He's the son of the anti-Putin and anti-corruption campaigner Bill Browder. And Alexander found out this month that, like his father before him, he's been sanctioned by Russia. This, after the high school student, published research into how Moscow may be using cryptocurrency to evade Western sanctions. The teenager, who's due to take his final school exams next year here in the year, UK, says it's proof his work has touched a nerve. Julian Walker asked Alexander Browder how he first discovered he'd been sanctioned by President Putin. It's a funny story. I'm still in high school. I was sitting at the back of my economic class. I opened up my laptop and I saw a

Reuters headline stating that I was sanctioned. It's unprecedented. They've never sanctioned a high schooler before. And so it's clear that my work exposing their currency laundering scheme, has touched enough. They're obviously unhappy with what you're doing. So explain in sort of layman's terms what that work involves. Yeah. Over the past year and a half, I created the largest open source database of cryptocurrency money laundering. And what I discovered is that state-sanctioned actors, like Russia, Iran and North Korea,

are heavily utilising cryptocurrency to launder their funds. And specifically, a recent development with Russia's money laundering efforts is that they created Russian-backed stable coin. So a stable coin is a type of cryptocurrency, which is backed to some real value like the dollar or gold. And in this case, it's backed by the ruble. It was set up in January 2025, and it's been sanctioned here in the UK, in the EU, and the US. But it still continues to function. What I discovered is that many illicit cryptocurrency exchanges which allow the stable coin to be converted into cash registered in Kyrgyzstan. And even more shockingly, it's been reported that the mastermind behind this scheme gifted the Khergis president a luxury jet.

So it's clearly a politically motivated thing. Two months ago, on the back of my work, 26 senior MPs and lords wrote to the UK Foreign Secretary urging sanctions on these enablers. Well, two weeks ago, the government responded by sanctioning these enablers, but then what came out as a surprise to me is that I myself was sanctioned by Russia. You mentioned sanctions several times during that explanation. I mean, clearly people listening to this conversation will be aware of the sanctions that already are in place against Russia because of what's happening in Ukraine. But is your argument that this particular methodology that you've described gets them around those sanctions?

Exactly. It's cryptocurrency for the Russians have become one of the key tools that they use to skirt Western sanctions. And also, not only that, to fund their war of aggression and target Western countries. In terms of that connection that you've made with parliamentarians in Britain, do you think there's a sufficient understanding amongst those people that you're talking to about what might happen under the heading of cryptocurrencies? Yeah, so I'm relatively young. And so I understand this system well, but the issue is that many people have no idea about how cryptocurrency works. And indeed, most of the senior politicians I speak to have no idea how any of it works, how money gets laundered through cryptocurrency.

And it's a really pressing issue because you have bad actors like Iran, North Korea, and Russia who are able to move billions through cryptocurrency because they can set up such advanced schemes where politicians and authorities have no idea how to stop them. 17-year-old Alexander Browder. In the Netherlands, a two-week trial has started to impose a speed limit on cyclists. The Dutch government boasts it's on their official website that they're the number one country in the world when it comes to cycling. So why carry out this experiment?

Our correspondent in The Hague is our own great bike enthusiast and a holligan. This is such a Dutch dilemma. And the question at the heart of all of this is how far do you restrict freedom-loving cyclists in order to protect the vulnerable people on the bike lanes? So the children, older riders, in a country where bikes are so integral to daily life from school runs to commutes. And every morning, I ride about 20 kilometres an hour back and forth to school. That's the limit they're trialing in Houghton, which is a place near Utrecht in the centre of the Netherlands. Every morning, I'm overtaken by teenagers on fat bikes, so these electric bikes that get their name from the size of the wheels,

people in their 70s on e-bikes, commuters racing to the office, more than a quarter of all journeys here in the Netherlands are made by bikes. So the cycling infrastructure, it's a victim of its own success. The Dutch are trying to keep that world-class reputation. So this trial is happening because cyclist deaths rose, dramatically last year, 14% to 281. And on top of that, an estimated 81,000 cyclists ended up in accident and emergency rooms being treated for various kinds of injuries.

The lanes that we're riding on every day, they're designed for the traditional sit-up and bag or granny bikes, as they're called over here in the Netherlands. But now they're carrying a huge array of users. So they have to find a way to allow all of those different types of riders to coexist without jeopardizing anyone's safety. Anna Holligan. Let's return to our top story. The U.S. and Iran announcing a deal to halt their war. The framework agreement is due to be signed on Friday in Switzerland, but details of what it contains are still emerging. BBC Persians Baman Kalbasi gave Janat Jal this assessment.

It is an important breakthrough. It is happening in the backdrop of endless mistrust, obviously two wars. And the reality that a lot of... lot of disagreements were dragging us on until the very last days. And so those gaps have been closed enough to be able to announce a 60-day period of negotiations, but is also a very important moment given that Israel was very clearly against letting this happen. And Mr. Netanyahu openly tried to derail it by attacking the suburbs of Beirut. So it is significant that it has arrived where he has. People around the world will be breathing a sigh of relief because basically Iran has been able to hold a global economy hostage. We're talking about the reopening of the

Strait of Hammuz, but it will take time, won't it, for oil shipments to flow as freely as I did before? Absolutely. I mean, most experts are looking at this recovering market that would be a slow one. So it's not going to affect gas prices tomorrow or reduce the chances of inflation. right away. And at the same time in Iran, we've got more than 85 million people in absolutely horrible economic situation. It was terrible before the war. It was terrible before the protest in January. And now we're looking at 60, 70% inflation. So a country that its middle class is all but collapse. It's poor or even poorer. It's in desperate need of some relief. The question is, will this money released in these sanctions help that economy enough? Or will it be lost?

to corruption, but nevertheless, both sides of this equation are desperate for its end. Yes, because this war has come at its huge costs, and it seems pretty much that we're going back to where we were before, Bahman. Indeed. The fundamentals haven't changed, except Iran has a new deterrence, which is now before, it didn't think it could close the straight of hormones whenever it wanted. It would have costly move that only super heartliners in Iran would advocate, but it did it, and now it knows it works, and it could do it again. And the reality is the basis of this deal is not that different from what Barack Obama signed in 2015.

Sanction relief for limitation on Iran's nuclear program. None of it has fundamentally changed. Baman Caldasi. 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 Massoud Ibrahim Hale, and the producer was Emma Joseph. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Celia Hatton. Until next time, goodbye. She's one of the best-selling music artists of all time. Rising to fame as a member of R&B group Destiny's Child before launching a solo career that's produced chart-topping hits and era-defining albums. And with a business empire spanning hair care, whiskey and entertainment, it's fair to say she's more than just an artist, she's a global brand.

Good Bad Billionaire is taking a closer look at the life and fortune of Beyonce. Good Bad Billionaire from the BBC World Service. Listen now wherever you get your BBC podcasts.