Global News Podcast - US reportedly offers 15-point plan to end conflict

Episode Date: March 25, 2026

US and Israeli media outlets are reporting that the Trump administration - with the help of Pakistan- has handed Iran a 15-point ceasefire plan. President Trump insists his administration is talking to the "right people" in Iran, and that they "badly" want a deal to end the four week conflict. On Tuesday he hinted at a "very significant prize" gifted to the US by Iranian negotiators relating to oil and gas, and the Strait of Hormuz. Just hours later, Iran told the United Nations that "non-hostile vessels" will be allowed to pass through the Strait. Meanwhile, the Pentagon is expected to deploy ground forces to the Middle East, according to the BBC's US partner, CBS News. Also: the social media giant Meta is ordered to pay $375 million dollars in damages for misleading users over child safety; Russia launches one its largest aerial attacks on Ukraine since the war began, hitting cities across the country with nearly one thousand drones; Denmark's governing Social Democratic Party comes top in Tuesday's parliamentary election, but with its worst showing in more than a century. And, joy as a second gorilla gives birth to twins in a national park in Congo in the space of a few months.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] credit: Graeme Sloan

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. It's 2009 and we're in the German mountains. A man straps himself into a car on the world's most dangerous racetrack. He whispers to himself, It's time to put my balls on the dashboard. As he starts the engine. In 15 minutes, he's in an ambulance, unconscious. In 15 years, he's a billionaire.

This is Total Wolf, Formula One's most powerful team boss and the breakout star of Drive to Survive. This week on Good Bad Billionaire, How Toto Wolf Made His Billions. Listen wherever you get your BBC podcasts. You're listening to the Global News Podcasts from the BBC World Service. Hello, I'm Oliver Conway, and we're recording this at 5 o'clock GMT on Wednesday the 25th of March. The US has reportedly sent Iran a 15-point plan to end the war. The social media giant Meta is ordered to pay $375 million in the United States.

damages for misleading users over child safety. And Russia launches nearly a thousand drones at Ukraine. Also in the podcast, we look at NASA's mission to fly humans deeper into space than ever before. And there was a real sense of joy across the team. Moments like this are so incredibly unique. And they give everyone a big morale boost. And they just remind us why this work matters. Delight as a second gorilla gives birth to twins in a national park.

in Congo. President Trump appears to be pursuing a twin approach to the war on Iran. On the one hand, he's reported to be sending thousands of US paratroopers to the Middle East, raising the possibility that he intends to invade Iran's oil hub of Haarg Island. But at the same time, US officials say Iran has been sent a 15-point plan to end the war. Speaking at the White House, President Trump said the two sides were already in negotiations. And the Iranians, quote, badly, want to make a He also spoke about a gift from Iran related to the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz. It was a very big present worth a tremendous amount of money. I'm not going to tell you what that president is, but it was a very significant prize.

And they gave it to us, and they said they were going to give it. So that meant one thing to me would deal with the right people. Is that nuclear-related? No, it wasn't nuclear-related. It was oil and gas-related. Was it related to the Strait of the... It was related to the flow and to the strait, yeah. A few hours later, Iran said it would allow what it called non-hostile vessels to pass through the strait.

In recent days, countries like China, India and Pakistan have managed to negotiate safe passage through the waterway. Despite this report of possible progress, analysts like Ali Baez from the International Crisis Group say the situation remains very dangerous. The United States is now getting closer and closer. to the prospect of putting boots on the ground. The president seems to have absolute belief in the ability of US military to deliver results and he believes that taking over Iranian territory would force the Iranians to open up the strait of foremost.

This is an absolute catastrophe for the region and it might come to haunt the US and Israel. I spoke to our US correspondent David Willis and he told me first about the American Peace Plan. It's being reported here, Oliver, that the U.S. has sent Iran, a 15-point plan, via intermediaries in Pakistan, for ending this war. The sort of blueprint that the United States believes is needed to be signed up for by Iran. And according to the New York Times, it broadly addresses Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programs

and is said to include the demand that Iran abandoned any attempt to build a nuclear weapon. Now, that is something which President Trump, to surprise of many, I might add, said today that Iran had already agreed to. And this plan is also thought to include provisions regarding maritime routes, given Iran's recent blocking of the Strait of Hormuz. It's unclear how widely the plan has been shared amongst Iranian officials or indeed whether Iran is likely to accept it as the basis for negotiation and nor is it clear whether Israel, which of course has been bombing Iran together with the United States, is on board with the provisions included in this plan. Iran has of course denied that any negotiations are taking place with the United States and President Trump once again refused to be drawn today on who in Iran the US is negotiating with. At the same time there are reports that US paratroopers are going to be heading to the Middle East.

Is President Trump really thinking of trying to take Haug Island? Possibly. You're absolutely right. It's being reported that as well as, to Marine Expeditionary Units, the Pentagon is sending more than a thousand soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division to the region, including an elite contingent of paratroopers and rapid response forces, and that's in addition to the thousands of soldiers and Marines that are already in the region. It's not clear precisely where these members of the 82nd Airborne will be stationed, and President Trump didn't address troop deployments when he spoke to reporters in the Oval Office today. But the reports have prompted speculation that all this talk of negotiation could be aimed at perhaps soothing the financial markets

and also buying time, as you mentioned there, Oliver, for the US to get troops in place ahead of a possible ground invasion. David Willis, talking to me from Los Angeles. A US jury has found that META violated New Mexico's serious. state law by misleading users over child safety. The tech giant was accused of allowing predators to get access to underage users, thus enabling child sex abuse and human trafficking. It was ordered to pay $375 million in damages, less than the $2.2 billion requested by the state. The New Mexico Attorney General, who brought the case, said the firm's executives knew their products harmed children and lied about it. Meta says it will appeal. I heard more from our North America.

technology correspondent, Lily Jamali. Well, this trial is significant because it's the first time that a U.S. state has managed to sue this company, META, over child safety and win. And META is one of the world's biggest tech companies. They own Instagram. They own Facebook. They own threads and WhatsApp. These are products that nearly all of us use in some form or fashion.

And for years, states like New Mexico had a really hard time getting cases like this one on child safety. in front of juries because the tech companies would say that under U.S. law, they're not responsible for content that people post on them. Here, the state was able to successfully argue that this case was really about design choices, the algorithms that push certain content and potential contacts to these kids. The fact that this case made it to a jury always carried a sense of historical consequence, but this verdict with this $375 million judgment only adds to that sense. Yeah, and what exactly has Meta been found to have done wrong? So Meta is specifically found to have willfully engaged in unfair trade practices in violation of consumer protection laws in New Mexico.

The allegation which the jury bought here is that they misled the public when it comes to the safety of its platforms. Meta has said they disagree with this verdict. They're planning to appeal, as you mentioned. They also say they work really hard to keep people safe on their platforms. forms. All along, they have taken issue with this idea that they don't do enough to protect children. In 2024, about a year and a half ago now, they launched something called Instagram teen accounts, which they say helps limit screen time and interactions with strangers, gives parents more control. But critics have said that that program is just window dressing.

It doesn't do a lot to meaningfully address child safety concerns. This is just one of a series of cases brought against Meta and other tech firms. Will the industry be worried here? I think they are. And I would say certainly there's a feeling among advocates that I've been speaking to that there is a change in the works here. There's another case being considered by a jury right now in Los Angeles, brought by a young woman who alleges META's Instagram is addictive

and caused harm to her mental health. There, there are parents all through the courthouse who have lost their kids to what they believe with social media addiction. and then you also have laws all around the world being considered or enacted to keep kids off social media. Lily Jamali in San Francisco. Starting on Monday night and continuing into the day of Tuesday, Russia launched nearly 1,000 drones against Ukraine, according to the Ukrainian military. The low-cost but deadly weapons hit targets across the country,

leaving several dead and more than a dozen injured. Our correspondent in Kiev, Vitalyev-Cevchenko, has the details. Normally attacks of this scale happen at night, and they tend not to focus on Western Ukraine. Overnight, five people were killed in attacks across Ukraine, and then in the afternoon, wave after wave of Russian drones flew west in broad daylight. And the damage they caused is severe, including to a wave of Russian drones, flew west in broad daylight. and the damage they caused is severe, including to a 17th century church in Lviv. This was the attack.

President Vladimir Zelensky called this attack an absolute perversion which only Vladimir Putin can like. In neighboring Ivana Frankivsk, two people were killed and a maternity hospital was damaged. The Ukrainian Air Force says that this country was attacked with the largest ever number of drones dispatched by Russia on a single day, 948. According to President Vladimir Zelenskyy, the sheer scale of this attack shows that Russia has no plans to end this war. Vitaly Shevchenko in Kiev. If all goes to plan, this time next week,

Four astronauts will be heading for the history books, as NASA's Artemis II mission carries them further from Earth than any human has ever been. They're due to fly around the moon as part of a plan for a manned return to the lunar surface for the first time since the Apollo era half a century ago. Our science editor, Rebecca Morel, has been taking a closer look at the living conditions for the crew and how the mission will play out. The astronauts making this epic journey are three Americans. Reid Wiseman, the missions commander, who's had a lifelong lover flying but says he's scared of heights.

Pilot Victor Glover, whose nickname is Ike. He says it stands for I Know Everything. Christina Cook, the only woman in the crew, she made history with the first all-female spacewalk and Jeremy Hanson from the Canadian Space Agency, who's never been to space before. The astronauts will spend 10 days in the Orion capsule. The compact living space is where the will exercise, eat, work and sleep. The astronauts will use a water dispenser for drinking and to rehydrate their food. They've each chosen their favourite meals for the trip. And a step just beneath the hatch doubles up as a flywheel exercise machine.

The astronauts will work out for 30 minutes every day. The mission to the moon and back will last about 10 days. The first day, the astronauts will orbit the Earth, checking the spacecraft's vital systems. On the second day, they'll depart for the moon. departs for the moon. The journey takes about four days. As the astronauts fly around the moon's far side, they'll see parts of the lunar surface never seen by human eyes before. After that, they'll begin their four-day journey home. The return is one of the most dangerous parts of the

entire mission, and the crew will be relying on Orion's heat shield. It will have to protect the astronauts from temperatures of 2,700 degrees Celsius, as a spacecraft speeds through the Earth's atmosphere. That's half as hot as the surface of the sun. The heat shield was badly damaged during the first uncrewed Artemis mission. But by changing the angle of Orion's re-entry, NASA is confident this won't happen again. Once the spacecraft is safely through, a series of parachutes will be deployed to slow it down. The astronauts will make a gentle splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California, where a recovery team will be waiting. One of the Premier League's leading goal scorer, Mohamed Sala, will be leaving Liverpool Football Club at the end of the season.

The 33-year-old Egyptian International announced his forthcoming departure in a video on social media. I never imagine how deeply this club, this city, this people would become part of my life. Liverpool is not just a football club. It's a passion. It's a history. It's a spirit. I can't explain in a world. With his reflection, here's our senior football commentator Ian Dennis.

Those who know him have always said to me that he would always leave on his own terms, but it will be farewell to a Liverpool legend. 255 goals, only Roger Hunt with 285 and Ian Rush at 346, have scored more than Mo Saler, and that's just his goals. You throw in his assists as well, and he's had an incredible 374 goal involvements in 4,000. 135 appearances. I mean, we are talking of not just a Liverpool legend, a Premier League legend and an African legend, because last week against Galatasarai at Anfield, he became the first African player to score 50 goals in the Champions League. So when you talk about greats, then Mo Salah is definitely one of those. I mean, he is undoubtedly underperformed this season. Ten goals. If you compare that to his previous goals tally.

in his first season, then 27, 23, 31, 31, 30, 30, 25 and 34. And I think the manner of his departure as well is fitting for his level of service that he's given Liverpool Football Club over those nine years, but also it's fitting for Liverpool as a football club bearing in mind what happened at the end of November and December when he'd had that fallout and there was question marks over his future prior to going to the African Cup of Nations because he was on the bench for those three successive games. The first time, incidentally, that had ever happened in his Liverpool career. And that just didn't seem right for the departure of Mo Sala to go with dividing the fan

base, that cloud of uncertainty, whereas this, on his terms, he will get the send-off that the Liverpool fans will undoubtedly want to give him when he does depart now on his own terms at the end of the season. Ian Dennis. Still to come on the podcast. Somebody could just drink a real bottle of frangeloose, fill it again with poor quality wine and sell it again. The man trying to stop French wine fraudsters. It's 2009 and we're in the German mountains.

A man straps himself into a car on the world's most dangerous racetrack. He whispers to himself, It's time to put my balls on the dashboard. As he starts the engine. In 15 minutes, he's in an... Ambulance, unconscious, in 15 years, he's a billionaire. This is Toto Wolf, Formula One's most powerful team boss and the breakout star of Drive to Survive.

This week on Good Bad Billionaire, how Toto Wolf made his billions. Listen wherever you get your BBC podcasts. You're listening to the Global News Podcast. Journalists at Australia's public broadcaster ABC have gone on strike, walking out for the first time in 20 years. They're protesting over pay, conditions and the possible use of artificial intelligence to replace them.

Our correspondent in Sydney, Katie Watson, told me about the disruption. What it means is some of the big programmes, the flagship shows such as 730, which is an evening current affairs program, it's breakfast show. Those are not going ahead. There'll be some reruns. There'll be some pre-crop programme shows playing music as well as BBC World Service, which is going to also help plug the gap. Apparently they were offered a 10% pay rise. Why is that not enough?

So they were offered a staggered 10% pay rise. That's over three years. So it would be 3.5% the first year and then the following two years, 3.25%. So 10% over three years. Well, Australia's annual inflation rate in January was 3.8%. But one of the other issues was that staff were also offered a $1,000. bonus, which sounds good, but it's not for casual staff. And actually, most of the workforce are on fixed-time contracts and casual contracts. And so those people would not be part of that. And what are the particular concerns about artificial intelligence? So there's broadly a concern that the broadcaster is refusing to rule out, replacing some staff with artificial intelligence. now this is not something that Australia faces alone, but that was just one of the other issues that the union members who voted

voted against this offer. And so ABC now needs to take this to the workplace tribunal of Fair Work Commission and try and resolve the dispute somehow. Katie Watson. Denmark's governing Social Democratic Party came top in Tuesday's parliamentary election, but with its worst showing in more than a century.

The Prime Minister, Meda Federicsson, had been hoping for a poll boost after standing up to Donald Trump's threats to take the semi-autonomous territory of Greenland. Despite falling short of a majority, she says she is ready to serve as Prime Minister again. At the party's election night gathering, Interior Minister Christian Rabjurg Madsen explained why she should stay in the top job.

Greenlandic crisis and the totally unacceptable pressure that we have been put under by the American administration have been a tough thing to deal with, but I also think that it's shown that we have the right Prime Minister and the Prime Minister that's ready to take Denmark through, also very, really tough times. From Copenhagen, Adrienne Murray gave us an update on the results. The Danish Prime Minister, Messon-Frederickson,

her party, the Social Democrats, have secured the most votes. She's got almost 22% of the vote, and that means she has 38 seats in parliament, together with the red block, they're the group of allied parties because this is a coalition, that type of parliament, where there's many parties on the left and the right.

But those allied parties together have 84 seats. The opposition, the blue block on the right, they have 77. So that gives the red block this small lead. But neither side has the required 90 seats to have a majority in parliament. in this situation now where it's not quite clear what form the next coalition government will take. Interestingly, though, there's a small party in the centre for the moderates and they have 14 seats.

They are led by Lars Michael Rasmussen. He's a former prime minister himself and was also the foreign minister and Meadow Fredrickson's previous government. He is now positioned really with a lot of power to steer the course of what this next government might look like. Adrian Murray in Copenhagen. Imagine spending hundreds of dollars on a bottle of fine wine only to find you've actually bought cheap plonk that's been falsely labelled. Well, a vineyard in France has come up with a unique solution

to fight the fraudsters, as Richard Hamilton explains. In recent years, French police have dismantled many criminal networks that have made millions of dollars by exporting counterfeit bottles of expensive vintages. To try to stop the fraudsters, vineyards have used secure labels, secret engravings, and even microchips on the bottles. But those methods are still not foolproof. Somebody could just drink a real bottle of Fongelus, fill it again with poor quality wine, cork it again even if the original cork of Fongilus, if the guy is really good.

and sell it again. That's Benjamin Laforay, the head of research and development at Chateau Angelou in Bordeaux. He's invented a system for identifying counterfeit wine using the unique genetic code of each vine from the vineyard. His team mixed samples of DNA from the grapes with wax from local beehives, which are then used to seal the bottle. If consumers suspect they've been cheated, they can send a sample of the wax back to the chateau for analysis and a definitive answer.

Benjamin says the really clever bit is that the counterfeiters can't recreate this unique seal. If somebody would like to make a false angelus wanted to put the wax back again on top of the cork, they would have to melt it. But because of our process, if you heat up the wax to the temperature which makes the wax melts, you immediately destroy completely the DNA inside. Benjamin Lafouray says the idea came to him one night when he couldn't get to sleep. After that, he spent a year developing this system and has now patented it. It sounds like a lot of work, but since bottles of Angeles are sold for up to $800,

protecting them is a good investment. Above all, he says, the reputation of his vineyard depends on customers being able to to trust that their wines are the real thing and not sophisticated fakes. Richard Hamilton. Next to the Congolese jungle. Well, that is the sound of a mountain gorilla. Officials at Varunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo have reported that one of them has delivered twins.

It's a pretty rare occurrence. Only 1% of these endangered creatures are twins compared to about 4% of humans. And even more remarkable, it's the second set of twins born in the park in the past few months. Laura Parker is head of conservation programs at Virunga National Park. She spoke to Rebecca Kesby about the reaction there. When the Rangers reported the second twin birth,

there was a real sense of joy across the team. Moments like this are so incredibly unique and they give everyone a big morale boost. And they just remind us why this work matters. Two for one. Twins do tend to run in families don't they? Do we think that the two mothers might be related? We don't. And in fact, there hasn't been a lot of research done on this because they are so

incredibly rare. But what we do know is that it's likely due to a rare biological event called hyperovulation, which we see in humans as well, when two eggs or two ova are released. It is natural, but it's a very uncommon occurrence. But it may be more likely when females are in very good physical condition, when there's a lot of stability and social cohesion. within the groups and when stress is limited. You know, Mountain Gorillas have recovered significantly since the 80s and 90s, and not because there aren't the same challenges that we had back then, but largely because of sustained long-term conservation efforts.

And I suppose then these mothers may have similar issues that human mothers might have with twins. Are you worried that it might be a little bit too much? We're certainly not worried it might be too much. Mortality in infants and Mountain Gorillas is already quite high. But, you know, gorillas are not biologically adapted for twins. You know, gorilla mothers are adapted to raise one infant at a time. They carry them constantly.

Now, gorillas also walk on all fours. So carrying two babies at one time can be physically demanding for her. So survival can be more challenging in that way. But the gorilla births that we had in January, those twins are now approaching three months, which is already a significant milestone in their survival. You know, all signs of observation right now point to very little. little stress on the mother. Gorillas are, I think, even more exceptional than humans in their ability to work with one another. And the males do a great job keeping the group calm,

supporting the mother. But it's really up to her. You know, gorillas, they're not like lions or other species that can share the burden of child raising. It's, you know, the mother nurses alone and carries the infants alone. We don't want to over anthropomorphize this, but it's really such an amazing event. And even when you're observing them, when you see the video, just how calm the mother is. I think there was a video posted on our social media today, even showing the mother with, you know, the two babies in her arms, and then she's caressing a juvenile next to her that seems to be quite curious. Laura Parker from the Varunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo. And that is all from us for now, but the Global News podcast will be back

very soon. This edition was mixed by Daniel Fox and produced by Chantal Hartel and Chauvin Lehi. Our editor is Karen Martin. I'm Oliver Conway. Until next time, good Bye. It's 2009 and we're in the German mountains. A man straps himself into a car on the world's most dangerous racetrack. He whispers to himself, It's time to put my balls on the dashboard. As he starts the engine.

In 15 minutes, he's in an ambulance, unconscious. In 15 years, he's a billionaire. This is Toto Wolf, Formula One's most powerful team boss and the breakout star of Drive to Survive. This week on Good Bad Billionaire, how Toto Wolf made his billions. Listen wherever you get your BBC podcasts.