Trump gives Iran 48 hours to reopen shipping channel

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1:37This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Chris Barrow and in the early hours of Sunday the 22nd of March, these are our main stories. President Donald Trump has threatened to attack Iran's power plants if Tehran doesn't reopen the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours. In Israel, medical officials say at least 100 people have been injured after Iranian missiles hit two southern towns, one near a key nuclear facility. And the man who led the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US election, Robert Mueller, has died. Also in this podcast... Kampari. Compared to other drinks, Kampari is one long holiday.

2:21The price of one of the ingredients of a Negroni cocktail has soared, but that's not necessarily good news for those who produce it.

2:33President Donald Trump has threatened to attack Iran's power plants if Tehran doesn't reopen the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours. We'll have more in a moment on why the US hasn't already done the job itself. But first, to Israel.

2:50Whoa. Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! That was an Iranian missile attack on the southern town of Dimona, which is close to a nuclear facility. This resident described what he saw. I just dropped off my mum here at my grandmother's, and I was about to turn round, and I saw an explosion, a fireball that fell. My brother-in-law and I ran inside and began to evacuate people to an ambulance. then the emergency services arrived. Israeli officials say more than 100 people were injured in the attack on Dimona and another town in southern Israel. Iran, which earlier launched an unsuccessful attack on a US-UK joint military base on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, says the strikes on Israel were a direct response to a US-Israeli strike against its own nuclear facility in Natanz.

3:45I asked the defence analyst Jonathan Marcus how concerning these attacks on energy infrastructure are. There are echoes here of what we saw in the war in Ukraine, with an important Ukrainian nuclear site seized by the Russians. The area around it often a target for attacks. Operating nuclear reactors are a very great concern in terms of the damage that would ensue if there was a serious strike against them. Clearly, the Iranians, one assumes in attacking the Damone area, know exactly what's there. It's no secret today. Anybody with Google Earth can find things on their home computer. We believe the Russians are giving a significant amount of intelligence to the Iranians as well.

4:30So they're sending a riposte to Israel. I think it is deeply concerning. The question is, could Iran have these longer-range weapons and perhaps more accurate and more longer-range than we perhaps thought they had originally had? The Iranians have a number of missile systems that experts in the West have estimated have ranges of up to around 2 ,000 or so kilometres. It's been thought that certainly one of these systems, if it was given a much less heavy warhead, would have a substantially greater range. It's quite possible it's this system that was fired towards Diego Garcia. Now that's something around the 4 ,000 kilometre mark.

5:09Of course, that would, everyone doesn't want to be alarmist, potentially bring some major European cities into the range of Iranian missiles. Do we have a sense of how much firepower Iran is likely to have left? Because the US has said that they estimate, I think it's around 77 % of the capability has been degraded or is no longer available. The honest answer is we simply don't know. The Iranians have shown a remarkable robustness under a really very intense attack from US and Israeli air power. and they don't need to be able to launch hundreds of missiles every day. If they can spread a small number of missiles around targeting Israel, as they have done in the south of the country near Dimona, where the Israeli nuclear reactor is, if they can hit targets in the Gulf, if they can try and attack targets at much longer range like Diego Garcia, they are keeping up the pressure, the tension, the strain, for example, on Israeli society, the fears and concerns of the United States Gulf allies, and indeed the long-range attacks could potentially worry America's European partners.

6:21So in a sense, you know, the Iranian arsenal is clearly hugely depleted, and the Americans claim great successes, but even with the relatively small remaining arsenal, the Iranians can keep up the pressure from their end. In your assessment of this conflict so far, does any one side seem to have the upper hand or does this have the hallmarks of a conflict like the Ukrainian one which could be dragged out for perhaps many years to come? Well, I don't think it's going to be dragged out for many years to come. I think it could potentially go on for some considerable time longer. The chief of the Israeli military has suggested that the war is roughly at its halfway point.

7:02That would suggest it could go on for three or four more weeks, perhaps. The difficulty we have here is that not only do the Israelis and the Americans have sort of different perceptions as to exactly what the war is about and what they want to achieve, but in a sense, neither of them have a very clear sense of the end state. You know, short of Iranian capitulation and the handing over by Iran of what nuclear materials it holds and so on, It's not entirely clear what the Americans want. In one sense, they want regime change, but nobody seriously thinks that is going to happen in Iran anytime soon.

7:39Of course, we're dealing with a mercurial and unpredictable American president. Mr. Trump could announce tomorrow morning that Iran has ceased to exist and that the war is over. It's not a joke. He could say something that extraordinary. I think it will be very difficult for the Israelis to continue if Washington decided to call a halt. But quite when that moment will be and what exactly the circumstances will be are unclear. And of course, the other crucial question is, well, the Americans might say they're going to stop. Will Iran stop? Will it release its chokehold on the Straits of Hormuz, for example, and allow energy supplies to keep moving again?

8:19So many questions as ever, and at the moment, very few clear answers. Jonathan Marcus. Mr Trump's request for help clearing the Strait of Hormuz was an implicit acknowledgement that the US doesn't have the resources it needs to demine the crucial waterway by itself. Emma Salisbury is from the Foreign Policy Research Institute. She's been speaking to my colleague Owen Bennett-Jones. The United States had really good minesweeping capability during most of the Cold War. So its capabilities are really strong throughout most of the Cold War. Once the Cold War ended, the US, along with a lot of other countries, dialed down its defence spending, drew down a lot of its capabilities, and minesweeping was one of those.

9:02So the capability atrophied steadily until about 2006, and that is when the United States got rid of Mine Warfare Command, which was the centralised point for all of their mine warfare capabilities. So those capabilities got sort of split up and hived off into different parts of the US Navy, which meant that they weren't being centrally organised and they didn't have a champion in the budget process. So that meant wine warfare capabilities still existed, but they just weren't as good as they were prior to that period. Right. So that was 2006 when this mine war command was basically abolished and split up.

9:43Yes. So that turns out to be a pretty disastrous decision, probably. So why was that taken? It was taken under the guise of integrating mine warfare across the Navy. But what actually happened was it was marginalised. So it was really the end of a long process of atrophy. that has really kind of cemented the fact that those capabilities have not been able to be built up again because there isn't that centralisation. That hasn't been a huge problem up until now because the United States has been relying on mine capabilities of its NATO allies. So mine warfare capabilities, mine sweeping and so on are really good in the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Scandinavian countries.

10:26And the US was always thinking if it were going to be fighting a war where it would need those capabilities, it would be alongside NATO allies. So that's why President Trump asked for help from his allies, because they were relying on their allies to have this capacity. That's exactly it. The US is now in a war where it is not fighting as part of NATO. So there is no expectation of NATO capabilities being brought to bear, which is why President Trump has had to ask. And that's why all of those countries also have the ability to say no, because this is not a NATO conflict. This is a US and Israeli conflict.

11:00So can you explain to us what the American capacity is now? You know, they're obviously rushing resources to the strait. Have they got enough to clear it? The short answer is no, they don't. There was a class of minesweeping ships. Four of those have been decommissioned very, very recently. And the other four are based in Japan, in Sassabu. So they are not in theatre at the moment. The capability slightly newer than that is on the literal combat ship, which is a modular ship, so it can be configured to different missions. So there is a mine capability that can be put onto those ships. Emma Salisbury.

11:38Now Robert Muller, who led the investigation into whether Russia interfered in the 2016 election, which brought Donald Trump to the presidency, has died. He was 81 and had been suffering from Parkinson's disease. His investigation did not conclude that Mr Trump had committed a crime, but neither did it exonerate him. Daniel Lipman, who's the White House and Washington reporter at Politico, has been speaking to my colleague Rajini Vaidjanathan about Robert Mueller and the fallout from that investigation. For several years, this investigation dogged Trump's administration. It was kind of like a cloud over everything they did.

12:13And it did have some accomplishments. It got the conviction of Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign manager, Michael Flynn, the former national security advisor for Trump, and Roger Stone, a close Trump ally. But it never got Trump. And a lot of Democrats feel like Mueller took too long and did not actually do a good job when testifying about this hearing, about this whole inquiry on Capitol Hill. And let's talk about the response from President Trump. It's unsurprising, but it's less than dignified in the wake of someone's death. It says, Robert Mueller just died. Good. I'm glad he's dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people.

12:58Signed, President Donald J. Trump. I mean, Daniel, that doesn't surprise me, doesn't surprise you, I'm sure, as well. But of course, it gives you a sense of the enmity between the two men. Yeah, it's pretty unpresidential for most presidents, but Trump is not one to have an artificial grief and sympathy at this man's death or other political opponents. Trump has done that in the past as well. And so I think we should remember that Mueller was not just defined by that investigation he did of Russian interference in the election. He rebuilt the FBI after 9-11 because it was more of a law enforcement bureau.

13:38It was not focused on foreign threats. They couldn't even talk to the CIA most of the time because of laws against spying on Americans. But the Mueller investigation into that Russian interference really defines Mueller's legacy. And a lot of liberals were trying to, they were thinking Mueller was going to get Putin giving messages to Trump, trying to put him into power, being his puppet. And that was not the case. Daniel Lipman. Now, campari is the main ingredient in a Negroni cocktail and although it's made from a number of other things the spicy herbal flavour of the oil that comes from the cascarilla bark is definitely a key part of the recipe Now, the trees grow on a handful of islands in the Bahamas and because there's not much of it available global demand for the oil has soared in the past three years and the price has tripled Well, that's offered residents of the remote Acklands Island an economic lifeline but it's causing problems too, as Wendy Urquhart reports.

14:38Campari. Compared to other drinks, Campari is one long holiday. Campari was invented in 1860 and it's grown in popularity the world over ever since. Its use in a variety of cocktails has made one of the key ingredients, cascarilla oil, extremely popular. Harvesting cascarilla has also provided a vital source of income for residents of Acklands Island in the Bahamas. For that reason, three years ago, Philip Williamson spearheaded the creation of the Acklands Island Cooperative Society. If there's one thing we have to do right from the outset, is we have to look at sustainability. Because the minute the price start going up, you have more cutting of the bark.

15:27It's hoped that by prioritising sustainable harvesting practices, such as cutting the bark without damaging the plant, finding new ways to cultivate cascarilla in greenhouses and bringing in new modern equipment to extract the oil, the Bahamas will be able to plant more trees. because the fact is right now stock is extremely limited and Kirk Cunningham from the Bahamas Forestry Unit is worried because that's driving up the price, which means more people want to get their hands on it. A lot more persons are now getting gas grill and a lot more persons are now going out to harvest gas grill and that being the case, sooner or later we're going to run out of the local stock.

16:08The Bahama Pine Islands project, which is funded by the Global Environment Facility and the UN, is also aiming to boost Cascarilla profits by producing perfume and soap from the oil, which will not only bring more money to Auckland's island, it will boost exports, and that means more work for local people. Cheers to Wendy Urquhart for that report. And still to come in this podcast... As an Asian American myself, growing up was really tough, not seeing anyone on the mainstream media who looked like me. and then now, wow, to have someone on the big stage actually looks like me is so wonderful. K-pop sensation's BTS returned to the stage after a four-year break for military service.

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19:28This is the Global News Podcast. Hundreds of millions of Muslims around the world are celebrating Eid al-Fatar to mark the end of Ramadan, the holy month of fasting. But in Australia, celebrations have been more restrained than usual following the massacre of 15 people celebrating the Jewish festival of Hanukkah last year in Bondi. The Australian Prime Minister said the alleged gunmen were motivated by Islamic State ideology. According to the Islamophobia Register Australia, reports of anti-Muslim hate have tripled since the attack. Our Australia correspondent Katie Watson reports. I've come to Western Sydney, a neighbourhood called Lakemba, which has a really big Muslim population.

20:08They've shut off the main road in front of the mosque. There are hundreds of trestle tables, and every so often there are buffet stations. On one side are the women's tables, on the other the men's, and there are families, young, old, everybody here. They're waiting patiently for sunset.

20:38The evening prayer begins and the queues form for iftar, a mighty feast of falafel, fatush, chicken and rice, to end the day's fasting. Despite the family-friendly vibe here, a police surveillance trailer parked in the road, complete with 360 cameras on tall poles, also speaks to the fear in the community. After being on the receiving end of several threats, the mosque requested extra police presence throughout Ramadan. They've employed private security too. We are going through very challenging times at the moment for the Muslim community and Australia in general. Jamel Keir is the secretary of the Lebanese Muslim Association, the mosque's custodians.

21:17If ever there was a need for communities to come together and break bread, I would say this year is more than ever. Reports of anti-Islam hate incidents have risen more than 600 % since October 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel. The shooting in Bondi in December, perpetrated by gunmen who were, according to police, inspired by Islamic State ideology, has also provoked more attacks. A lot of my brothers and sisters come here and we get together and take the iftar here. Moshe Jimin Shaquille is a doctor from Bangladesh. He's studying a master's in public health in Sydney. After the shooting, his job as a support worker got that much harder.

21:58If someone told me, are you a Muslim? You say I'm Muslim. So after the Bondi attack, some people thought the Muslim are terrorists. We're in a situation now in Australia where you can either go down one path and we will reap the rewards of our tough stance against Islam. Political rhetoric right now also makes it harder for the community. Earlier this month, Pauline Hanson, an Australian senator and leader of populist anti-immigration party One Nation, made comments questioning whether there were good Muslims. How can you tell me there are good Muslims? If jihad is ever called, and people must understand this, go and research, go and understand about this.

22:40She was censured by the federal Senate, and she's only partially apologised for the incident. Community leaders say that politicians like Hansen have legitimised racism. Jamel Keir again. We're talking about women being spat on in the street. We're talking about women whose scarves are being pulled off. Our Facebook post used to have five to ten comments. We're getting a thousand plus comments of the most bigoted, vile, racist comments. Because people feel empowered and emboldened because people like Pauline Hansen have enabled this sort of racism to be rampant and normal. The fear that I have is Pauline Hanson and her dog whistling has such an effect on the Labour and Liberal Party that they are too scared to take the defence of the Muslim community because it's political suicide for them.

23:25So we're left to defend for ourselves. That fear and frustration was clear on Friday when Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visited Lakemba Mosque to mark the end of Ramadan, facing booing and heckling by some in the community.

23:44Australia prides itself as a migrant nation. Multiculturalism a central part of its identity. But it's a concept that's now lost on many in the Muslim community. Dr. Zuhi Gabsi is senior lecturer in Arabic and Islamic studies at Deakin University. Multiculturalism is a politician word, right? I call it weasel word, a word that, you know, has a shell, but there is no meaning in it. Multiculturalism in Australia is good when you share a meal, right? But when you apply for a job, you look at it as you are a migrant. Bondi's anti-Semitic attack in December laid bare the cracks in Australia's ideal of diversity.

24:20Rising Islamophobia, also a symptom of hostile divisions in a country that saw itself as different, indeed more fortunate than the rest of the world. Katie Watson with that report. Cuba has suffered its second nationwide power cut in less than a week. The island's energy infrastructure struggles to deal with the fuel blockade imposed by the Trump administration. Cuba's energy ministry said the power grid had experienced a total collapse and that work had begun to restore supply. At the same time, campaigners delivering humanitarian aid have started arriving in Cuba as part of efforts to mitigate the effects of the blockade.

24:57David Adler is lead organiser of the convoy to Cuba. No family, no person, no grandmother or child is safe from its consequences. One of the main issues, for example, is how electricity in its absence affects schools. We're talking about a critical shutout from access to education, which is, of course, considered by the UN to be a fundamental right. Another is the issue of food. The siege is effectively creating a famine for the Cuban people. Many of the markets here are empty. And a third, of course, is access to medicine. So many of the delegates here have They've been visiting the hospitals where they're dropping their medicines and finding that the shelves are empty, that the criminal effects of this blockade are to deprive people of life-saving medicines and that's to say nothing of the consequences of the total blackouts which affect people on pacemakers and dialysis, matters of life and death.

25:50Our correspondent Will Grant, who's in Havana, told Will Chalk more about the aid convoy. It's called the Nuestra America Convoy, named after an essay by the Cuban poet and independence hero José Martí. But it has run into difficult weather. It's been a difficult few days in terms of the weather and the sea conditions around Cuba the past week. So as far as we know, the authorities have simply said it's suspended for now, but it will be making it to the island eventually. And I mean, from the outside, it's quite hard to imagine what everyday life is like. You are in Havana. Can you shed some light for us?