Global News Podcast - US signs landmark nuclear pact with Saudi Arabia

Episode Date: July 23, 2026

President Donald Trump approves a landmark energy deal that will establish a civilian nuclear programme in Saudi Arabia. US lawmakers and Israel warn that if the agreement allows the Gulf state to enrich its own uranium, it could pave the way for it to build its own nuclear weapons - but the US insists the deal upholds the "highest standards of nuclear safety". Saudi Arabia has long wanted US nuclear technology, while the US gets a leg up in the competition with China and Russia to develop civilian nuclear infrastructure in the region.Also: A Florida teenager who sued Meta claiming that he was addicted to and harmed by his use of social media platforms, has dropped his lawsuit. Our correspondent in Lebanon travels to the so-called pilot zones in the south, where residents are trying to return home while the army vows to disarm Hezbollah. The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo becomes the third largest on record with more than 1,000 people dead. In India, the youth-led 'cockroach' party supporters protesting in Delhi ramp up their demands for education reform. How young Nigerians are using AI tools to learn new languages in pursuit of a life abroad. And Christopher Nolan's Odyssey movie is boosting sales of the book versions.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] Photo: US President Donald Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud attend the Keynote Address at the Saudi-US Investment Forum in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 13 May 2025. Credit: ALI HAIDER/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

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Hello, I'm Oliver Conway, and we're recording this at 4 o'clock GMT on Thursday the 23rd of July. The US signs a nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia, despite fears it could allow the Gulf Kingdom to develop a nuclear bomb. Israel has condemned the agreement. We have a special report on the growing protests against against the education system in India by the so-called cockroach party. And Venezuela's ousted leader Nicholas Maduro has appeared in court in New York. What's the view in Caracas? Also in this podcast... From the data, the one that surprised me the most is AI and sign language.

It's really, really mind-blue and very interesting. The young Nigerians using AI to learn different languages. And the film version of The Odyssey helps. boost sales of the book. President Trump says his war in the Middle East is aimed at stopping Iran getting a nuclear weapon. However, the US has now signed a pact with Iran's rival Saudi Arabia, which could allow it to develop a nuclear bomb

and possibly trigger an arms race. The agreement is supposed to establish a civilian nuclear program in the Gulf Kingdom. But critics say lacks safeguards mean the Saudis could be able to enrich uranium and reprocess nuclear waste and thus gain the ability to make a bomb. America's ally Israel has condemned the deal. Here's former Israeli Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett. The nuclear agreement taking shape with Saudi Arabia over Israel's head

is a severe strategic failure that endangers our security. Enrichment of nuclear material on Saudi soil could lead to a regional nuclear arms race and a dangerous loss of control. There is truly no way to predict what the Middle East will look like. in a decade or two, which is why what we need is fewer centrifuges in the Middle East, not more. The Trump administration insists the agreement will not lead to proliferation. Both Iran and Saudi Arabia have long insisted they have the right to pursue a civilian nuclear program and have no intention of developing a bomb.

Saudi Arabia has said it would turn to China or Russia if it didn't get help from the US. Rina Shah is a former senior congressional advisor for the Republicans. is smart strategic leadership, American companies. Leading Saudi civilian program means U.S. jobs, exports, and real influence, not ceding the field to China or Russia. We all want ironclad non-proliferation. I think this deal really delivers bilateral controls with American oversight and IAEA involvement on enrichment. These are practical protections that keep us in the driver's seat.

But Democratic Congressman Ro Kana, who serves on the House Armed Services Committee, says he has deep concerns over the deal. Saudi has not committed to giving up nuclear fuel production. In fact, they claim they have the right to do that, and they haven't agreed to inspection. So it is a terrible deal. But Trump is floundering in the Middle East. The Strait of Pormuz is closed. We're losing service members. Gas prices are up.

The Saudis were upset at us because of this ill-planned war. And so the USEAN administration flailing making poor decisions. The agreement will still have to be reviewed by the U.S. Congress, but opponents are unlikely to have enough votes to block it. Our chief North America correspondent Gary O'Donohue told us about the two parts of the deal, the peaceful nuclear cooperation agreement and the bilateral safeguards agreement.

The first one is we're understanding a 30-year deal for the Americans to build civilian nuclear power plants in Saudi Arabia. tens of billions of dollars in potential revenues. And alongside it, we're told there'll be a bilateral safeguards agreement. Now, that is crucial because some of the commentary around this has been that Saudi Arabia would be not quite as under scrutiny as other deals have been in the past, particularly allowing it potentially to enrich its own uranium, which the US doesn't normally do when it does these deals, and also to have a slightly looser inspection regime. The bilateral word suggests to me that That's a safeguard arrangement between the US and Saudi Arabia,

maybe not involving the International Atomic Energy Agency, which was usual in the past. But we'll have to wait and see the actual text to know if that's true. I mean, the deal has been in the pipeline for some time. The Biden administration wanted to do this deal. They tied it specifically, though, to Israel and Saudi Arabia normalizing relations. That fell apart after the attacks on Israel by Hamas. That linkage appears to have been dropped from this deal.

The key thing, though, here, and the Americans are open about this, is that Russia and China were sniffing around this arrangement, trying to get in on this big time. In fact, Russia had signed a couple of preliminary agreements with Saudi Arabia on this. So the Americans were fearing that they would get frozen out, and that may be a potential reason, if it transpires to be the case, that there may be laxer controls, particularly on proliferation issues. But a big geopolitical win in that region,

and they don't want to lose their relationship with Saudi Arabia. They don't want to lose their leverage. And this is a big way of tying that in for several decades to come. So this will be regarded as a huge commercial success, obviously, but something of a coup for the State Department as well. Gary O'Donoghue in Washington. In a landmark trial in California earlier this year, social media platforms were found liable for harmful effects on young users.

A woman who sued META and Google won $6 million in damages. But now a second lawsuit against META, among thousands in the pipeline, has been dropped. A Florida teenager who sued four social media companies over his depression and anxiety decided not to go to trial with META after settling with YouTube, Snapchat and TikTok. I heard more from our technology reporter Callie Hayes in San Francisco. The young man who's only 15 years old, his lawyers, described the potential stress that trial would cause for him as being part of the reason that he decided to drop this case. But he also felt that the attention that the cases have received thus far,

of which he is one of many, has kind of served a purpose. Will this, though, be seen as a victory for meta? And what about the other platforms who are already settled? I think meta, yes, could view this as a victory. they are attempting to appeal, along with YouTube, actually the previous verdict that they received for damages in the initial trial. So there's a world in which I think they could use the fact that this young man decided to not go to trial to try to bolster their claims, that all of these claims by these young people are, you know, not sufficient. But other companies, maybe they're kind of thinking right now that they wish they had stuck it out and hoped for a dismissal like this.

that maybe would have saved them some money. So META is avoiding a trial and a payout here, but there are many more cases which, what, will go to court? Oh, yes. I mean, there are thousands, I think somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 to 4,000 cases right now working their way through, you know, various courts in California. And the way it's been working, this was similar in the L.A. proceeding

where this young man just dropped his case today. But they're grouping hundreds of cases. cases together and then picking specific ones, specific legal claims, to actually go to the trial stage. So there will be a handful more trials in the year to come for sure, and they will have implications for many, many, many other cases making similar claims. Callie Hayes in San Francisco. Days after a brutal police crackdown on the cockroach Janata party protests in Delhi, thousands of young people are braving heavy monsoon rains to take part in demonstrations in the Indian capital.

At least 60 people were injured on Monday after police used batons and tear gas to try to disperse the crowds. Opposition politicians have thrown their weight behind the protests, disrupting proceedings in India's parliament to demand a debate on the crackdown. The youth-led cockroach movement is demanding education reforms and the resignation of the education minister after a leak of a national entrance exam. Our South Asia correspondent Azadei Mashiri sent us this report from Delhi. I just got to the protest site and it's packed. I remember being here about a month ago.

At the very first one, the Cockroach Janta Party had organized and this is much bigger. It was just an internet meme before and now there are thousands of people around me crammed into this one area. It's blocked off by riot vans and there are also multiple barricades. We've been here for several days.

We were here for the march. It was beautiful before the police came. For those who don't understand how stressful the exam can be. Could you explain why it was so upsetting? Because even the smallest exam in India, because there's so much population, is like a lot of students against one seat,

and when one exam goes right and you understand that that is not the one being counted, it's just brutal. It breaks your heart. Most of the faces here look like they're about 25 years old or younger, but I can spot one woman who looks like she's a parent. I feel like she's a parent. I feel as though all these children are my own. The police beat them brutally, and they have severe injuries.

I'm so deeply distressed by this that today I've come here bringing all my children and their friends along with me. I keep seeing people wearing these masks of cockroaches and people passing out posters. So why the cockroach? There were these comments by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court about a month ago calling youngsters in social media and journalism cockroaches. He said his words were taken out of context, but Abidjit Dipkett pounced on those comments.

He's a student at Boston University, and he created social media accounts that in just days gained more followers than the ruling BJP party. Now, a month later, the chief spokesperson of the cockroach Chandler Party, Sorav Das, told me this has become a movement that is impossible to ignore. I think the Cockroch, Janda Party, is a perfect example of the kind of rupture we are seeing in the society here in India. The social contract between the people who've been elected and the electors is completely broken because the government does not listen

to the demands of the youth who are facing highest joblessness, unemployment levels, exam paper leagues, competitive exams are the only means for a lot of families to get out of poverty. There are students I've spoken to. They say that for years they felt ignored by mainstream politics,

they're frustrated by high rates of unemployment, by lack of opportunities, I keep hearing that here. They may be calling for the Education Minister's resignation right now, but the students here, to them, this is just the beginning. Azaday, Michiri, reporting from the Indian capital. This week in Lebanon, the army has begun deploying to a small number of villages in the war-torn south

as part of a US-broker deal. The agreement aims to see Israeli troops gradually replaced by Lebanese soldiers, who will then take on the task. of disarming the militant group Hezbollah. There are three so-called pilot zones so far. Karin Torbay, correspondent for BBC Arabic, spent the day visiting them or trying to visit them at least.

She spoke to James Menendez from Beirut. Well, the idea is basically to have some sort of a process that could lead to two things. First, the Lebanese army dismantling Hezbollah, the Shia militant group. And second, Israel withdrawing from Lebanon gradually until it actually leaves Lebanon altogether. But there are still many, many questions about how this will be done. Two of the three pilot zones that were assigned to the first trial aren't occupied,

and the Lebanese army is already there. So it created a lot of confusion about what is the role of the army and whether this will lead at all to the gradual withdrawal of all Israeli troops from Lebanon. What about the third zone that you went to, West. and Zortar, what was going on there? Well, basically, we only could get to the one of the entry points to the town because the rest of the entrances are all too dangerous to go to. But we saw a lot of people gathering.

These are the residents of Zotar, people who had to flee it in March following the last round of escalation between Hasbullah and Israel. And they haven't been back to their town since then. The Lebanese army only deployed yesterday into the town to make sure that it is cleared from any ammunitions, from unexploded ordnance. So it is still very, very dangerous to go there. And while we were waiting, actually, we heard the sound of a nearby air strike by Israel. It was hitting a town just close to where we were. We saw families, kids, women, men, all waiting to go back then.

There was a long, huge. of course, waiting as well as ambulances to get into the town to take any remains of the bodies that were trapped there for weeks following the attacks and the battles that happened there. So we spoke to some of those people who were waiting to go back to their towns and to check on their properties. I lost my paternal cousins and my maternal cousin. I lost my paternal uncle, a martyr in the previous war. We lost so much and so many people.

Of course, we were hoping to go back to our land. We don't know much, but from satellite images we received, it looks like our house is still standing, but we don't know whether it was damaged or burned. I'm waiting to be allowed into our homeland to smell the scent of its soil to get our souls back. We left during the ceasefire after our house was destroyed. Zawata is our homeland, our soul and breath.

There are large parts of southern Lebanon that are completely under, Israeli occupation, so people can't really get even close to there. Because there are two kinds of towns in Lebanon. Some of them, by the border, are occupied by Israel, but also there are large parts of the south that are under Israeli fire control. So also, it is very dangerous to go there as someone could be hit at any moment. So although there is a theoretical ceasefire, Hasbullah has abided by it, but Israel says it retains its freedom of movement

and every now and then continues to carry out strikes to detonate structures in areas it occupies. BBC Arabic correspondent Karin Torbay talking to James Menendez. Still to come on the podcast? It's really quite heartbreaking, to be honest. I was at one of the nurseries that UNICEF helps to run beside the treatment centre. There was a nine-year-old boy there. His mum died this morning.

A worrying spike in Ebola figures in the Democratic Republic of Congo. You're listening to the Global News podcast. Since they were seized by US forces in January, Venezuela's former president, Nicholas Maduro, and his wife, Celia Flauarez, have been held in a jail in New York, facing drug trafficking charges. They're likely to remain there for some time after a judge set their trial date for June next year.

Both deny the charges against them. Outside the court, protestors, Hester's held placards calling Maduro and Flores dictators. But supporters of the former Venezuelan first couple said they should be released. I'm out here today to demand the U.S. takes his hands off of Venezuela. The United States does not have the interests of the Venezuelan people in mind. All it wants is the oil. It wants the natural resources.

That's all it's interested in. Venezuela should be able to dictate how they're governed. And our government should not have the right to go in in other countries and kidnap elected leaders. I had more of my colleagues. The correspondent Will Grant in the Venezuelan capital Caracas. As you were hearing there, certainly there was frustration and support outside the court that the two sides coming up against each other a little.

But inside the courtroom, it was interesting. He came in in a beige prison suit. His wife Celia Flores was there too. Now, he shook the hands of his legal team. The people in the gallery had been told very clearly not to address him, or as the judge put it, they could face legal issues. themselves and that was largely respected, we understand. He listened intently as he was essentially told

that the kickoff date for his trial will be the 1st of June. He wasn't shackled and then when he left court, he sort of waved to the gallery briefly before being taken away by US Marshals. And it was commented here in Venezuela itself that apparently he looked like much thinner, which doesn't surprise you when you know that some of the conditions he's been kept in are pretty harsh. Now it is six months since he was seized by the Americans,

and of course Venezuela itself still getting over those twin earthquakes. But do people there, are they focused on what's happening to him? Things have moved on politically so quickly from Nicolas Maduro that it already feels a sort of distant moment. Of course there are those who are fully committed revolutionaries in Venezuela who fully back Nicolas Maduro and feel that he has been illegally removed from power. But by and large, people in Venezuela, and certainly who I've spoken to in Caracas, have just moved on.

It's almost like they haven't had a chance to breathe, given everything that's happened in this nation, both politically since the 3rd of January when Nicholas Madhuda was removed from power, and, of course, with the twin earthquakes, the country's biggest natural disaster in 100 years. Yeah, and how are people in the worst affected areas? How are they getting on with rebuilding their lives? It is a very slow and painful process and simply the act of finding their missing loved ones isn't over for so many thousands of families, Ollie. It is an extremely dark and difficult situation. The northern coastline in La Guaida State remains absolutely devastated.

Of course, it's only been a month, so you wouldn't expect it to be any way near back on its feet. What we have seen is heavy machinery has sort of removed a lot of the rubble. from some areas, entire apartment blocks have been completely removed now, but of course that has created other tensions with the families who say, in some cases, their loved ones remain in there still. Now, there is international aid on the ground still, particularly in the form of the World Central Kitchen, which has given away a million meals by its estimations. There are teams working around the clock from every which way you can imagine, including the government. It needs to be said, that they are working. It's just, I think, the criticism of them is certainly

that initial response was very confused and chaotic. There's a lot of people who feel that they've never got the heavy machinery, they're never really got a chance to dig for their loved ones while they might have still been alive. Will Grant in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas. The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo is now the third largest on record, with more than 1,000 people dead. The World Health Organization, says many people are living in fear of being infected. John James is in Congo working for the UN's Children's Agency, UNICEF. I've been here for about two months now.

It's really quite heartbreaking, to be honest. I was at one of the nurseries that UNICEF helps to run beside the treatment centre. There was a nine-year-old boy there. His mum died this morning. On Saturday I was in a different health zone in Nisi, about an hour away. We came out of meeting the doctor there, and a woman was just wailing a clump of bows next to her, another baby that had died and people sort of just a few meters away, putting on their protective

clothing, getting ready to decontaminate the area. There is currently no vaccine for the virus, though several are in development. Our global affairs reporter Richard Kugoy told us more about the spread of the disease. The Ebola outbreak is spreading fast because we have about a thousand cases right now. We have more than 2,000 confirmed cases. And we also have about 700 people who are currently either hot. hospitalized or in isolation. That indicates that actually the virus is spreading fast,

not just in the epicenter in the northeastern province of Ituri, but it has also been detected in four other provinces along the shared border with Central Africa Republic, South Sudan, and Uganda. We have about 189 children who have died since the outbreak was first detected in mid-May, and about 450 of them have contracted the disease. disease during the period. And even for those who have survived, it's really caused emotional toll on them. A lot of them are suffering from trauma. They're suffering also from fear because they have witnessed the loss that has been caused by this and some of them being isolated, especially from their

caregivers and even their parents as well. So this is really quite taken at all on their children who have also been dealing with issues to do with conflict, which is quite rampant in the areas which have been affected by the Ebola outbreak. What the government has done is really boasts testing capacity, but still it's not enough. They have increased surveillance and are also increasing our contact tracing, but there are numerous challenges that they are facing, because especially camps which have been hosting,

people who have been displaced by conflict, they're really overcrowded. The sanitary conditions are not really good. Richard Kugoy. According to a recent Google Search Trends report, there's been a sharp rise in young people in Nigeria using AI to teach themselves foreign languages and sign language. Many say the technology makes learning faster, cheaper and more personal. The trend comes as young professionals there continue to emigrate amid economic challenges

and the high cost of living in Africa's most populous country. The BBC's Macwuichi Okafo spoke to two young Nigerians using AI to learn new languages. Hey, Gugu, how do I say I'm hungry in Thai? This is Abigail E. Yita Yo, a travel and lifestyle content creator in Lagos, Nigeria. She uses AI to learn languages before and during her trips abroad. I don't really use language learning apps, to be honest, because I can just have a one-on-one conversation with AI. I can say, pretend you're a friend and I'm learning how to speak this language for the very first time. How would we communicate?

I'll start in French and you can continue that way. In Thai, that's, Chanhiel. For Abigail, AI is not a classroom. It feels like a real conversation where she can practice, make mistakes and learn instantly. For me, when AI came about, this is where I used it the most when I was in Thailand. When you want to eat something to know what the ingredient contains you would, I would snap the ingredient, just puts on AI, just list out. So it lists out everything as it is written there in the language you understand.

She says AI also helps her navigate daily life abroad, from reading food labels to understanding new environments. She's not alone. Samuel A.ku is also using AI to stay connected with family abroad. I would definitely want to go to Norway. And yeah, using AI has helped because now it's easier to speak with my cousins and the rest also. And sometimes they're like, oh, how are you learning fast actually? And now I can type with it.

Like, and I'm really good at typing with it. In recent years, many young professionals have left Nigeria in what is described as a brain drain as the economy continues to struggle with a high cost of living. Data from recent Google search trends in Nigeria show rising interest in languages such as German, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, and even sign language, with many young Nigerians now turning to AI to learn. If I'm going to other countries also, I would gladly still use AI to learn at the end of the day. In Lagos, Nigeria's commercial hub, the city is home to a rich mix of local,

and international languages and cultures. Now, something is changing. I'm on my way to meet Google West Africa spokesperson, Thai Wokola Ugolade, to learn more about the company's latest trends report. From the data, personally, the one that surprised me the most is AI and sign language. It's really, really mind-blower and very interesting, right,

because I've been Nigerian for all my life, over 40-something years, and sign language isn't something that you hear most people talk about. He says language learning is no longer just about communication. It's about opportunity, work and global connection. Some of the most brilliant people that you would ever meet are people who don't speak your language. And you have to learn to speak new languages. It expands your world and it will take you to places where you never would go. There are economic opportunities as well.

People who do businesses with people from different parts of the world are some of the fastest-growing regions economically or some of the most advanced regions technologically are regions that don't speak what we speak. China, for instance. For many young Nigerians, learning a new language no longer begins in a classroom. It begins with a prompt. MacWachi, Oka-Fo, reporting from Lagos.

Christopher Nolan's blockbuster adaptation of Homer's Epic, The Odyssey, has made nearly $270 million on its opening weekend. But the tale isn't just winning over film fans, interest in the book itself is booming with copies flying off the shelves, as Lizo Mizimba reports. No one could stand between me and home. Mary Levecard. The Odyssey is proving to be a hit in the bookshops,

as well as at the box office. Many fans of all ages have been inspired to go back to Homer's epic poem with sales of print editions rising by 700% in the UK, compared with the same period in 2025. In the past week alone, almost 8,000 print copies were sold, taking the total so far this year to 47,000. And it's not just been physical book sales. An audio version, read by Sir Stephen Fry, is on the Spotify UK audiobook top 10, while a narration by Sir Ian McKellen has entered the equivalent chart in the United States.

Liso Mizamba. Well, one person who is not a fan of the film version is Elon Musk. He has strongly criticised what he calls woke casting. On Wednesday, the South African-born billionaire posted on X that he was using his AI tool grok to create, quote, a historically accurate movie. He even suggested he might be willing to give controversial director Mel Gibson $100 million to make it.

But what are the challenges of creating an authentic version of Odysseus' journey home from the Trojan War? Dr Emma Greensmith is Associate Professor of Classical Languages and Literature at St John's College, Oxford. She spoke to James Kumarasami. The story of Homer's Odyssey is set in the legendary aftermath of the Trojan War, which is conventionally placed to be around the late 13th or early 12th century BC, so during the late Bronze Age.

But the other history at play, which is when the Odyssey was probably composed, is much later. So around the late 8th or early 7th century BC, the Ioms Age. And what we actually get in the Odyssey is a blend of Bronze Age material and customs, weapons, social practices, more from Homer's own time. So the very premise of making a historically accurate Odyssey, I would be interested to know. it seems to me to be they would want to do both, but that bothness would be a real challenge. Its origins are in an epic poem, but in an oral one that might have been sung to music, is that correct?

That's exactly right. So before becoming fixed, written texts, as we would understand them, the Iliad and the Odyssey belonged to an oral performance tradition. So the early performers were called Ioi, so literally singers, oral rhapsodes, so literally stitches of song. And they would deliver the verse in a meter called Hixameter in kind of a melodic or a chant-like way, probably accompanied by an early type of lyre called a forminks. It should be a musical then, really.

Yeah, a musical in some ways, but not in the modern sense. First of all, it would be just by one person. So the Iyoidos or the Rhapsode would be a singular performer. There were loads of them in the 8th century, these sort of travelling singer-poet. but they would do the whole whole of the story on their own. So no parts, no casting, probably no dance and no costumes. Dr Emma Greensmith, talking to James Kumar Asami. And that's all from us for now, but the Global News Podcast will be back very soon.

This edition was mixed by Joe McCartney and produced by Emma Joseph. Our editors, Karen Martin, I'm Oliver Conway. Until next time, goodbye.