Trump announces tariffs on Iran's allies

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.

0:48I'm Janet Jalil and in the early hours of Tuesday the 13th of January, these are our main stories. President Trump says countries doing business with Iran will face an immediate 25 % tariff on trade with the US. A BBC investigation reveals how one woman has lured hundreds of foreign men to fight for Russia. Minnesota and Illinois are suing the Trump administration over the mass deployment of immigration enforcement agents in their states.

1:22Also in this podcast... It's absolutely exploded. And that's despite the fact that some are saying it is a pretty grim idea, isn't it? I mean, let's face it. The viral Chinese app for young people living on their own called Are You Dead Yet?

1:43President Trump has repeatedly threatened to strike Iran if its regime continues its brutal crackdown on the huge crowds that have turned out for the past two weeks to demand a better future. Witnesses have talked of security forces opening fire on unarmed protesters with Kalashnikov-style assault rifles. Hundreds, possibly thousands of people have been killed. And on Monday, Mr. Trump announced not military action against Iran, but a favourite measure of his, tariffs of 25 % against any country that trades with Iran. In a moment, we'll look at the impact this is likely to have. But first, despite an internet and communications blackout since last Thursday, we have been able to identify some of the people killed in recent days.

2:33BBC Persians Jiyar Gol tells us about one of them. Rubina Aminyan, a 23-year-old Kurdish student at University in Tehran, was studying fashion design and dreamed of moving to Milan to pursue a career in fashion. Like many of her generation who challenged the regime's social restrictions on women, she refused to remain silent or stay confined to her university accommodation. On Thursday, Robina joined the protest. Two days later, her father and mother were called to Tehran to identify her body in the morgue. The security forces did not want to release Robina's body. My sister snatched her and took her daughter into her arms and held her for four hours as she drove back to her hometown in Kurdistan.

3:31The security forces then refused to allow her to bury her daughter in their city, and they did not permit a funeral. Communicating with Iran is extremely difficult. The regime has completely shut down the Internet. Only a small number of people have managed to get in touch with us via Starlink satellite connections. The information we have received suggests the death include fathers, mothers and teenagers. Over the past two weeks, we have been able to identify some of the victims and speak to their families. Many of them were under 18 years old. On state TV, a paramilitary commander warns parents, if their children go out and are shot by a bullet, they should not complain.

4:23Jiha Gol. For many Iranians abroad are also desperately searching for their loved ones but finding it almost impossible to reach them. Sahar in Germany told us she's scared to contact her family. The regime is able to execute people under false allegations and I don't want to contact them to say something wrong which could be maybe dangerous for them. And of course, no one wants to lose a family member or a loved one. But what about all the others who were killed? They are also loved ones from families inside Iran. So it's very difficult. I try to get as much information as possible, especially from the National Council of Resistance of Iran.

5:13But I try to avoid to see all the movies and images which are very horrible from inside Iran. Watching on from Norway, Melissa told her she feels both hope and fear. I woke up to the news these past few days and I was horrified of the numbers. And I had this split second where I thought, what are we doing? Is it worth it? But of course it is. This is a price for freedom. I myself live in safety in Norway, so it's easy for me to say. But obviously, the people in Iran who do not have those rights, who do not live free, are willing to pay the price for their freedoms. I'm so proud of this generation who just will not leave the streets.

5:59They will not go home and be silenced. And we have to back them up. And quite honestly, today is also the first year anniversary of my father's death. He passed away. He was a man who dedicated 46 years of his life to the fight for freedom in Iran. He fought against the oppression of the Shah. He fought against those and he fought against the mullahs of Iran. And now when I woke up to the news, when I saw the videos, quite honestly, I felt like his spirit is alive. He's there with the demonstrators in the street. For days now, President Trump has been threatening possible military action against Iran.

6:40Brian Hook was the U.S. special representative for Iran during Mr. Trump's first term. This regime remembers him from the first term. When he got out of the Iran nuclear deal, he took their top commander off the battlefield, Qasem Soleimani. Baghdadi defeating ISIS, maximum economic pressure. He's very well known to this regime. And then in the second term, he spent six months trying to talk the regime into a deal. They said no. And then he sent American B-2 bombers over Iran and they bombed the nuclear sites. And so this regime has, unfortunately, a perfect record of not taking the diplomatic off-ramp when Trump offers it.

7:21Well, now the U.S. president has announced that he's imposing a 25 percent tariff on countries that trade with Iran. But how much pressure will that put on Tehran? Our international editor is Jeremy Bowen. It's going to be complex at the very least. Here's an example. China is the biggest buyer of Iranian oil. He's in a very delicate trade situation already with their trade tariff war between America and China. Is he going to suddenly put a 25 % tariff on China in addition to the other stuff they've been doing? It's already a very delicate negotiation. I wonder about that, quite frankly. Look, the thing about Iran is you cannot ignore it in the Middle East or in the wider world.

8:03Why is that? It's very big. It's got the oil, it's got the gas, and since 1979 they've had this Islamic regime which has an ideology which has put it in conflict with some of its Arab neighbours, with the Israelis, with the Europeans, and particularly with the Americans who say it's a terrorist state with nuclear ambitions. But the regime and its supporters, They say that their enemies want to destroy the Islamic Republic. And it seems that there are still millions of people who vote in elections for the hardliners who believe that. So they include that amongst their enemies, those protesters who went on the street and were chanting those slogans and who were shot in many cases.

8:45Now, look, if you look at regimes that collapse, just sort of die. It doesn't look like one of those regimes, because sometimes regimes fight for years. like Syria's Assad. And then when they go, they go in days. He went in days. Mubarak in Egypt went in days. In the end, the Soviet Union just kind of was like air coming out of a balloon. At the end, they just flopped. Iran and the Islamic regime are not at that point. The leadership has always been factionalized, but on things like the survival of the regime, they are not. As long as they have people who are prepared to go into the streets and shoot dead their fellow Iranians on behalf of the regime.

9:27They are not a dying regime and they will continue to fight however weakened they've been by circumstances in the last couple of years. Jeremy Bowen. Russia is going to extraordinary lengths to find new recruits for its war in Ukraine because so many men are dying. Over the past 10 months, their losses have been growing faster than at any time since the full-scale invasion began in 2022. Now a BBC Eye investigation has found that social media is being used to lure foreigners to Russia under false pretenses of lucrative jobs, only for victims to end up on the front line in Ukraine. The investigation found 490 invitations were sent by one woman, a former teacher.

10:13Nawal Almagafi has this report. We are being sent to this slaughter. Shells are falling like rice, and people like rice on the ground scattered everywhere. That's the voice of a 26-year-old Syrian man, Omar. It's not his real name. He sent us a voice note in videos from the front line of Russia's war with Ukraine as he trudges through thick snow. He thought he was traveling to Russia for a security job. Within weeks, he was on the front line. Russia's war in Ukraine has killed hundreds of thousands of soldiers on both sides. As losses mount, the Kremlin has widened its recruitment, targeting men far beyond Russia's borders.

11:03For the past year, BBCI has been investigating how foreign fighters are being recruited, what they're promised, and what actually happens to them.

11:16Guys, I am grateful to you for signing the contract. I want to say thank you to the Syrians who believed in me, who want to fight for Russia. The investigation has uncovered a recruitment network centered on one Russian woman, Polina Alexandrovna Azarnech, a 40-year-old former teacher and businesswoman. She posts Telegram videos daily with a welcoming smile and loud music in the background. She is the woman who recruited Omar. With 14 years of brutal civil war in Syria, he was the sole breadwinner for his family and had to seek opportunities outside. A one-year contract with Russia's Ministry of Defense, promising Russian citizenship,$5 ,000 up front, and crucially, she promised them non-combat roles if they gave her a$3 ,000 cut.

12:08But that promise wasn't kept. What I see on the road, it's something that doesn't leave the mind. Dead bodies everywhere. Omar told BBCI that he and others had been deceived by Polina and he wouldn't pay her the money she was demanding for her cut. We were tricked. We don't know the language. We can't understand anything they tell us. This woman is a con artist and a liar. In response to his accusations, she sent a video. Do you recognize your passport? And now look what will happen to it. It's burning well. Do you know how well it's burning your Syrian passport? The I-team have traced 12 families whose sons were recruited by Polina.

12:54All of them are now either dead or missing. Hi, Polina. This is Nawal al-Makhafi from the BBC. I'm reaching out to you because I want to ask if you'd be willing to do an interview. Can I speak to Polina, please? There were numerous attempts to speak to Polina. At one stage, she answered. So my first question is, I've spoken to recruits who say that you promised them non-combat roles and they say that you misled them. What's your answer to this? Can you explain to her that it's really important? She's hung up. Eventually, in answer to the allegations sent to her, she sent this voice note. Evidence must be presented to support the allegations.

13:43And our respected Arabs can stick their accusations up their ass. So if your esteemed colleagues want to get some comments or an interview face-to-face, welcome to Russia. Thank you for your attention. The BBC contacted the Russian Ministry of Defence, but they didn't respond to an interview request. As long as there's an appetite for foreign fighters fighting in Russia's rank, There'll be no stopping those middlemen exploiting those who are in the most desperate circumstances. Noa Al-Maghaffey reporting, and you can watch the full documentary, BBC Eye Into the Void, Putin's Foreign Fighters, on the World Service YouTube channel.

14:26Two US states, both governed by Democrats, Minnesota and Illinois are suing the Trump administration to try to block the surge of thousands of immigration officers into their states following the fatal shooting of a 37-year-old woman by an ICE agent last week. Hours before the legal action was announced, agents in Minneapolis fired tear gas to break up a crowd of people confronting them, a few blocks away from where Renee Good was shot dead.

15:06Minnesota's Attorney General Keith Ellison said people were being racially profiled, harassed, terrorized and assaulted and that the police were spending countless hours dealing with the chaos caused by ICE. The truth is Donald Trump doesn't seem to like our state very much. He doesn't like our best in the nation, safe and secure elections. And sometimes he doesn't like who we choose in them. He doesn't like how we take care of each other or how we make sure our kids have enough to eat. He doesn't like the strength that immigrant communities bring to our state. And he doesn't seem to like that we protect our neighbours no matter where they were born.

15:46Our North America correspondent Peter Bowes told me more about the two lawsuits. They are separate lawsuits, but very similar in nature and essentially have the same goal. and that is to try to stop the, as Minnesota describes it, the surge in the number of these federal immigration agents to these respective states. Minnesota's lawsuit argues that the deployment, which has now been going on for some time and is increasing, it seems, daily, that the deployment amounts to an unconstitutional federal invasion, one, it says, which has suspended life for millions and caused chaos and violence. And its initial goal is to get a court order to take effect possibly within the next 24 hours, a temporary restraining order to stop these agents being deployed.

16:34As you say, we've just heard some pretty strong words and some strong reasoning why this, as they see it, lawsuit is justified, talking about racial profiling and these agents picking up people who are American citizens and just going about their ordinary work or going to their workplace or going home, being embroiled in this plan to round up illegal immigrants. In the Illinois case, this is also being brought by the city of Chicago, they have said that the Trump administration has unleashed an organized bombardment and is imposing a climate of fear. And in both cases, the legal reasoning is that essentially what the federal government is doing is a violation of the US Constitution because it's infringing, they say, on the state's rights, essentially the right to govern themselves.

17:28The Trump administration is standing by its controversial policy. It is. The administration describes these legal actions as baseless. It says it has these agents targeting undocumented migrants and insists that further agents are necessary. We've been told there will be hundreds more sent to Minnesota in the next few days needed, according to the federal government, to ensure their safety during operations. The Department of Homeland Security has said that the deployments are necessary to combat illegal immigration and crime, and there is no sign of any U-turn on that policy. Peter Bowes. Still to come in this podcast.

18:15He had the problem which most people with this illness have is unexplained intoxication. The curious case of a man whose body began brewing its own alcohol.

18:52chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman and in a new BBC series I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

19:13The big fear of the famous fictional singleton Bridget Jones was dying alone with no one discovering her body for weeks. And it seems she's far from being the only one to worry about this. A new bleak sounding app called Are You Dead Yet is proving highly popular with young people in China, millions of whom live on their own, far from their families. The concept is simple. Users check in every two days, clicking a large button to confirm that they're still alive. If they don't, it gets in touch with their emergency contact to warn them that something might be amiss. Our China correspondent Stephen MacDonald told us more about the app.

19:54It was released last year without much fanfare and for some reason in recent weeks it's really taken off to the extent that it's the number one app being downloaded in the country. It's designed especially for people who are living by themselves especially young people maybe they've had to move away from home for study for work or what have you it's playing into this idea that well people are afraid of sounds a bit bleak but dying alone that they're in this rented place living by themselves they might die and that nobody would realize it but like I say it is it's absolutely exploded and that's despite the fact that some are saying it is a pretty grim idea isn't it I mean let's face it some people have suggested possibly a more uplifting title like I'm still here or I'm alive or something like that focusing on the positive rather than are you dead but the reason they've chosen this is because of how it sounds in Chinese and it's a play on words like there's this very popular app here a food delivery app called Erlama.

21:08Erlama means in Chinese are you hungry? Well Sirlama means are you dead? And so Sirlama sounds like Erlama and that's why they've done it as a sort of a catchy thing and it's part of the reason that it's taken off and so the people who've set this up they have received these complaints or suggestions and say that we might consider it. Stephen Macdonald. Archaeologists have expressed delight at the discovery of what appears to be the largest ever Roman villa found in Wales. They say the site, which is still under the ground, could become to Wales what Pompeii is to Italy. The exact location is being kept secret while the archaeologists work out what to do next.

21:53Dr Alex Langlands of Swansea University led the project and told us about the moment the site was revealed. When I saw the first plot come out, my eyes popped out of my skull. And the guys at Teradat, which is the geophysical survey company, they went back and did what's called ground penetrating radar. So it's a really sort of high-tech way of taking readings beneath the ground. So you get this sort of really detailed, fine-grained 3D model of what's under the ground. And there's no doubt about the fact that this is a villa and a really rather impressive one as well. It's going to be a fancy building.

22:26it's going to have decorated floors, it's going to have painted wall plaster, it's going to have all sorts of fancy decorations around it, it's going to be hosting the great and good of South Wales society in the late Roman period. What happens to it, for me, is the most interesting thing. Does everything collapse in the late 4th century, as it does on some villas, or does it actually continue into the 5th century? And we know with some of these sites that they go on to become centres of Christian learning tantalisingly. And I'm already getting too excited. We may very well have a sort of precursor, if you like, or a stepping stone into that later early medieval Christian site.

23:07Dr Alex Langlands. Wildlife officials in eastern India are trying to capture an elephant that's believed to have killed at least 22 people in the past week in the state of Jharkhand. Our global affairs reporter, Ambarasa Natirajan, has been following the story. It's quite extraordinary that so many people have died because of this one elephant, even though this human-animal conflict story is not something new in India. But 22 seems to be a very high number, and the local people were telling BBC Hindi colleagues who did this story that if they had intervened on the very first few days, probably they could have saved more lives because on one particular day alone, it killed more than 10 people.

23:51And it's a very remote part of the state, and it is adjoining the forest areas. And this is the season where people also store paddy after their harvest. Either they collect them from the field and they keep it in the field itself or in barns and different places. So this attracts this elephant. Probably it has come out. It's a male elephant, very young, very agile, moving very fast, and it's not afraid of people. So it is looking for some food. And what they suspect, it could also be due to a situation called MUST, where the testosterone level goes up once in a year. And that's why it is getting very angry.

24:30And now the officials are saying they've deployed more than 100 people using drones and trying to push it back into the forest. That is the most, you know, the primary aim of this operation. Otherwise, if there is no other chance, then they have to take other decisions. But it is also highlighting the other problem about, you know, deforestation, like how the habitat of the elephants are being encroached upon. And also, you know, railways going through forest areas, highways coming because elephants migrate what they call as corridors. They go from one place to another and they remember that in their memory.

25:07And now that all these become islands, so they are completely cut off in different areas as we see more of development. and what experts are saying is that we can expect more situations of human-animal conflict like this one. I'm Brassan Echirarjan. Finally, a story that gives a whole new meaning to home brewing. It concerns a man in the US state of Massachusetts whose body began brewing its own alcohol and making him drunk. Terry Egan explains. The problem began after a man in the US took several courses of antibiotics because of an inflamed prostate. But it stayed a problem. The man, a retired marine, would regularly feel drunk and sleepy.

25:52And of course, it became hard to function normally. Even trying to contact someone to deal with the problem, he sounded intoxicated and wasn't taken seriously until his wife rang on his behalf. That's when the man was diagnosed with something called auto-brewery syndrome. Yes, that is a thing. The couple had heard that a treatment was being planned for just such an eventuality, and it was even the case that a study was underway involving gut microbes. Libby Homan of Harvard Medical School explains what they were up against. He had the problem which most people with this illness have is unexplained intoxication.

26:36It's exceedingly rare and many physicians who've dealt with the problem actually become very cynical because there are some people who know about this and try to elude law enforcement and other social and legal issues claiming they have this when they're actually closet drinkers. But if the illness sounds unusual, a treatment was in the works involving fecal transplants. The man was given numerous doses of oral capsules formulated from the faeces of a male donor. Over time, his own gut bacteria was replaced by the healthier version and he no longer felt drunk. And in fact, all of this is not so strange after all.

27:24The experts think most of us generate a small amount of alcohol in our guts. It's only when they overproduce that alcohol that it becomes a problem. Terry Egan, ending this podcast on a sober note.

28:10If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.