Trump warns 'clock is ticking' for Iran

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1:20President Trump has again issued a warning to Iran amid stalled peace negotiations, saying unless they move fast, there won't be anything left of them. Rwanda is tightening security on its border with the Democratic Republic of Congo amid fears over the potential spread of an Ebola outbreak. The Kremlin responds to Ukraine's biggest drone attack yet on Russia. Also in this podcast. The authorities weaponized the death penalty as a tool of political repression to instill fear among the population and essentially crush and stifle any dissent that there might be. Amnesty International says Iran is carrying out more executions than at any time since the 1980s.

2:08It's not the first time he's used such words, but if President Trump is to be believed, his patience is running out with Iran to agree to turn the ceasefire into a peace deal and end the war with the United States and Israel. On Sunday, he wrote on his Truth Social website, for Iran, the clock is ticking and they better get moving fast or there won't be anything left of them. Then in capital letters, time is of the essence. Mr Trump's close ally in Congress, the Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, told NBC television's Meet the Press that Tehran was testing Washington's patients. President Trump's very frustrated.

2:47So what to do next? I think you weakened him further. What President Trump has done has been amazing militarily, but there's still more targets to be had, and there's things we can do to hurt their... The energy infrastructure is their soft underbelly. If you go back to the fight, I'd put energy on top of the list. Hurt them more, maybe they'll make a deal if you hurt them enough. But right now, I think they're trying to wait us out. I think they're playing games. And in the words of the President, I think they're crazy. I think he's right. But Mr Trump's repeated threats to resume attacking Iran appear to have had little impact on the Islamic Republic.

3:22It wants a permanent, durable ceasefire in Lebanon between its proxy there, Hezbollah, and Israel before reaching a deal with the US. According to media in Israel, the Prime Minister there, Benjamin Netanyahu, spoke to Mr Trump on Sunday about the possibility of bombing Iran again. For more on the President's latest warning, I spoke to our correspondent in Washington, Joel Gunter. I think it would probably be quite foolish to try and make a prediction either way. Obviously, we've seen him make very similar threats before, only to then back down from them. In fact, the language of this threat is sort of similar.

4:00It echoes that terrible threat he made last month, that he was going to wipe the entire Iranian civilisation off the planet if his demands were not met. That was a threat that he, of course, backed down from. He may do the same here. There is a sense that this is all part of a sort of coordinated maximum pressure campaign to try and bring the Iranians to the table, to try and force them to make concessions, to give President Trump something he can sell as a win in America where the war is deeply unpopular, becoming more unpopular by the day. And many ordinary Americans are suffering real economic hardship.

4:42Yeah, and actually that leads to some people suggesting that there are two audiences for this. Yeah, maybe Tehran, but also the audience at home. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, on the Tehran side, it's perhaps a little bit more straightforward. He's once again saying that if you don't do what I want, we are going to bomb you to smithereens. It is out of the playbook. There is a feeling that perhaps he doesn't have much more left in negotiating terms apart from these threats of military force. Back home in the US, a little bit more of a complicated picture because there is certainly a very big constituency that will hear him saying, we're going back to war and be exhausted by that prospect.

5:24I don't think people really believe at this point that this military excursion or skirmish or whichever one of the various things Trump has called it over time is bringing something to Americans. I think by and large, the stories you see here is that most people are far more concerned about the sky high prices at the gas pump, rising prices at grocery stores than they are about the future possibility of Iran developing a nuclear weapon. It had looked as though diplomacy was his preferred option, but particularly with the recent visit to China. Yeah, that's right. I mean, maybe there was a sense that diplomacy was now the only option.

6:04Iran had apparently, to the surprise of the Trump administration, withstood that joint American-Israeli attack. The sort of overthrow of the regime that they thought might happen, that the people might bring about after the initial strikes, clearly did not happen. And Iran proved itself capable of withstanding the force and also turning to the Strait of Hormuz as a huge leveraging technique. So diplomacy was perhaps the only option. There was some speculation before the trip to China that the Trump administration might try to press China to give them some support to lean on China's longstanding ally, Iran.

6:43But coming out of that China summit, nothing you could really hang your hat on that suggested that China was keen to get involved. Joel Gunter in Washington. Before the ceasefire, Iran tried to draw its Gulf neighbours into the war by attacking them with drones. On Sunday, the defence ministry in Saudi Arabia said that it had intercepted and destroyed three drones coming from Iraqi airspace, while the United Arab Emirates is investigating the source of a drone strike at a nuclear power plant near Abu Dhabi. Authorities said an electrical generator in the compound was hit, but that no one was hurt and that radiation levels remained normal.

7:21The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said any military activity that threatened nuclear safety was unacceptable. With more, here's BBC Pershing's special correspondent, Kazra Nagy. The UAE has just issued a statement saying that three drones were fired towards the nuclear power plant. Two of them were shot down, and the third hit the ground within the compound. And they're saying that they came from the west of the country. That could be either from Iran or from the Houthis. But obviously, the main suspect is Iran, and the relations between Iran and the UAE is at rock bottom after the war.

8:06and Iran fired about 3 ,000, according to the UAE, 3 ,000 missiles and drones at UAE during that time. So things are not going very well with these two countries, and this is the latest. I suppose this is a message from Iran, if Iran is behind it, that UAE should not get involved in this war any further. Khaasra Adnaji. Amnesty International says the number of executions that took place around the world in 2025 was the highest in more than four decades. The Human Rights Campaign Group said the rise had been driven largely by Iran, where more than 2 ,000 people were put to death, double the number of the previous year.

8:51Most were for drug and murder offences. But Amnesty said there had also been a rise in executions of political prisoners. Caroline Hawley has compiled this report.

9:05Hello, people of Iran. You are hearing my voice from Urumiya Central Prison, and this may be the last time you hear it. 29-year-old Mehrab Abdullazadeh was arrested in 2022 during anti-government protests that followed the death of a young woman in police custody. He was accused of being involved in the killing of a member of the security forces. From the very first day of my arrest, They forced confessions out of me through torture and threats. They know it, and God knows it, that I am innocent. In this recording, obtained by the Kurdistan Human Rights Network, he describes the torment of being on death row, the sleepless nights.

9:46A condemned person can only find a sliver of peace after 1 a.m., perhaps letting go of their racing thoughts to sleep for two or three hours.

9:59This is his mother, wearing a navy headscarf, sitting on a grey sofa, holding in her hand a framed black-and-white picture of him. She begs for help to save him, saying he's young, he's innocent, he has dreams ahead of him. But in the early hours of May 3rd, state media announced his execution. He's one of dozens of political prisoners who've been put to death since the US and Israeli war on Iran began. At least 14 of them were only arrested in January during a nationwide uprising that was crushed with lethal force. Nassim Papayani from Amnesty International says executions are carried out by hanging at dawn.

10:39Effectively, people in Iran have been waking up daily, near daily announcements of executions being carried out. the authorities weaponized the death penalty as a tool of political repression to instill fear among the population and essentially crush and stifle any dissent that there might be. At the end of last month, state-run TV ran a report on Sasan Azadvar, a 21-year-old karate champion convicted of effective collaboration with the enemy during January's protests.

11:14He's seen in the report in handcuffs, apparently confessing to breaking the window of a police car with a stick and asking for petrol to set it on fire. Less than four months after his arrest, he was executed, even though he wasn't officially accused of a lethal crime, which is the threshold for using the death penalty under international law. Femin El-Khitan, spokesperson for the UN Human Rights Office, says Iran's increased use of the death penalty to silence political dissent is frightening. We are seeing people who are being charged on vague laws and texts and executed, often also in expedited processes.

11:54And many individuals, including children, are still at risk of execution. This is the voice of Erfan Shakurzadeh. He's wearing blue prison uniform, and appears in the circumstances unbelievably calm. He was arrested last year while studying for a Master's in Satellite Technology and accused of spying for the US and Israel. Again, his confession was televised. Erfan Shakruzadeh was 29 when he was executed last Monday. In a letter he wrote from prison, obtained by Iranian human rights groups, he says he was subjected to eight and a half months of torture and solitary confinement. and the confession he made was under duress.

12:40Iran executed more people in 2025 than at any time since the 1980s, according to the UN, and it fears that the number this year will be even higher. Caroline Hawley and the BBC has asked the Iranian authorities to comment on their increased use of the death penalty, including against Sassan Azadvar and on claims of torture, but it has not received a response. countries neighboring the democratic republic of congo the drc are watching warily as the authorities in kinshasa struggle to contain a deadly outbreak of ebola there have been about 300 suspected cases and more than 80 deaths so far the virus has also been recorded in uganda and rwanda has tightened its border security residents near the eastern drc border city of Goma are reportedly not being allowed to cross into Rwanda.

13:35Rafael Casali, who lives in Goma, said that he was scared. I'm afraid, like any human being, because we have children at school and they still come into contact with a lot of people. We don't really know who they might be around or play with. Once they come home, they can infect the whole family. In his latest address, the DRC's health minister, Samuel Roger Kamba, gave an update on how the outbreak seems to have began. People in the community said it was witchcraft. Now we realise that the first person fell ill in late April and died. The body was repatriated to a nearby town. It was the return of this body to a mining area with a large population that caused the Ebola outbreak to escalate.

14:19I asked our health correspondent James Gallagher how worrying the situation is. There's a lot going on here that makes it a more difficult and challenging outbreak than many others. One of them is there is a different species of Ebola to the ones that we're normally used to dealing with. This one has only cropped up in two outbreaks before, hasn't been seen for more than a decade. So when doctors were doing blood tests on patients, they're using the latest technology that looks for the most common forms of Ebola. And so patients were coming back negative, despite the fact they had it. It took more sophisticated analysis, so that has slowed the response.

14:55is also taking place in a part of the world where there's a lot of people moving across borders. That complicates things like contact tracing. You need to know who every patient that has had Ebola, who they may have passed it on to. And as soon as you introduce multiple countries and a large proportion of the population that don't live in their own homes, they're displaced by conflict in the region, that makes it all incredibly hard. And we're also in the territory of not having a proven effective vaccine or drug treatment for this particular form of Ebola too. Lots of it is challenging. Why does Ebola seem to be focused on this part of the world so often?

15:33This is the 17th outbreak in the DRC. Yeah, and it's all going to come down to where the virus is living in animals because this isn't a virus that is principally affecting people. It's an animal infection. It's what's known as an animal reservoir. Principally, that's going to be fruit bats, but you can also get into other animal species. And the reason why DRC is involved in so many of these outbreaks is because that's where people come into contact with the infected animals. It's simple as that. So many people, to the frustration of the authorities, are going to priests and churches instead of to medical centres.

16:10Why is it, after all this time, why is the message still struggling to get through? I think you have to remember that when it comes to Ebola, there's been years of prejudice and superstition and discussions around things like witchcraft involved. And, you know, you're trying to overturn lots of deep seated beliefs and concerns and distrust in medical professionals. And that is a lot to overcome. And in some cases, you also have lots of cultural things that it goes against as well, such as like burial processes, all these little things that are additional challenges in terms of trying to contain Ebola and something like this.

16:51I do think it's worth mentioning, though, that even if we were to look back to the 2014 to 2016 outbreak of Ebola, this time in West Africa, that affected nearly 30 ,000 people and was a huge issue for the countries and areas that evolved. I do think it's worth just being reassuring, though, that despite the fact the World Health Organization has declared this a public health emergency of international concern, that doesn't mean we're in the early stages of a COVID style pandemic. It means that the scale of the problem needs a international response to it. But that doesn't mean the whole world is under threat.

17:30if we were to cast our minds back to 2014, there were only a handful of cases that appeared in other parts of the world and they were mostly in volunteer health workers who had travelled to the region to help out. James Gallagher. Still to come in this podcast. Good afternoon, people of Oxford Street. People may cry out to God saying, why is there so much suffering in this world? Why is there so much pain? When does street preaching become a nuisance worthy of police attention?

18:29We'll be right back. US for more details. Must be 21+. Moto Casino. America's social casino. The world is buzzing with AI tools, but instead of making things easier, they've made your workflow overwhelming. You're stuck copying and pasting, context switching, and juggling too many apps. There's now a better way that outsmarts the work chaos. Meet Superhuman, the AI productivity suite that gives you superpowers everywhere you work. With Grammarly, Mail, and Coda working together, you get proactive help across your workflow, from writing to preparing for meetings, presentations, and so much more.

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20:08I'm Kai Wright. I'm Carter Sherman. Welcome to Stateside with Kai and Carter. We're a new show from The Guardian. We're talking to big thinkers and the best journalists just trying to understand the world through smart conversation and honest reporting. We don't have billionaires telling us what to say. Stateside with Kyan Carter will come out three times a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, starting May 13th. Subscribe on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

20:39This is the Global News Podcast. Last Wednesday, a committee in the Israeli parliament met to discuss rising attacks and harassment of Christians in Jerusalem. This followed a violent attack on a Catholic nun by an Israeli settler a few weeks ago. Insults, vandalism of churches and being spat on have become daily occurrences for Christians in Jerusalem and members of the clergy and congregations warn it is getting worse. Ioni Wells reports from Jerusalem. The Christian community here in Jerusalem was shocked recently when a video went viral of a man pushing a French Catholic nun to the ground and kicking her in the old city.

21:19It took place on Mount Zion, near a site Jews believe is King David's tomb, and Christians believe is the site of the Last Supper. The suspect is a 36-year-old Israeli settler called Yonah Simcher-Schreiber. The nun was a researcher here at the French School of Biblical and Archaeological Research in Jerusalem. Its director, Father Olivier Poquion, says the attack was a shock, but not a surprise. Having one of us victim of that wasn't a surprise. it's arriving unfortunately on a daily base but the level of violence was totally unexpected and this is showing this is a new step in what we are facing.

21:58Physically speaking she was very lucky but psychologically speaking she's still under shock and now she has to refrain from walking in the old city.

22:11Over the past month anti-Christian incidents have also occurred in the West Bank and southern Lebanon, where an Israeli soldier was photographed smashing up a crucifix and another holding a cigarette to a statue of the Virgin Mary. The soldiers involved in these incidents were given military detention. This week, Jerusalem church leaders urged Israel to address rising hate crimes against Christians at a committee in Israel's parliament, the Knesset.

22:37Gilad Kariv, chair of the Israeli Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Committee, called the attack on the nun terrorism.

22:47There are about 200 ,000 Christian citizens in the state of Israel. Christian families are afraid to come to the old city of Jerusalem. This is a situation we must not accept. An Israeli police commander in the old city said his force was doing everything possible to allow people of all faiths to go about their lives. The hearing happened the day before Jerusalem Day, when Israel celebrates its capture and annexation of East Jerusalem in 1967. Here, crowds of mostly religious nationalist youth waving Israeli flags parade through this predominantly Palestinian area and the Muslim quarter of the old city.

23:27At times, they sang insults to Arabs and attacked and vandalised shops. Most of the harassment was directed at Palestinians in the Muslim quarter, but the Christian areas were targeted too. Now, there was this group here of Ethiopian Jewish girls who learned from us. It was interesting because they were open, curiously, to what we had to say. They heard, they learned about the Armenians, about the Armenian genocide. And then the smaller girl said, are they Christians? So they should die. The Religious Freedom Data Centre, who run a hotline for anti-Christian harassment, set up an educational stall in the Armenian Christian Quarter of the Old City.

24:03Its founder, Yiska Harani, said in 2025, their hotline received 181 reports of anti-Christian harassment. but that this is likely an underestimate. Yiska says often some of the anti-Christian attitudes among some extremist Jewish communities comes from the bloody history between Jews and Christians. There are three roads to making this change. You have to understand that history does not die out. But there's present. We live in the 21st century. Secondly, enforcement. If the police doesn't take it seriously. And it's not really the police. It's the government. And the third thing is the visibility of Christians in the public space.