Trump: Last chance for Iran to sign a deal

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Saving money on everything for your next project. Now at Menards. Menards has a huge selection of bagged concrete and mortar mixes. Whether you're pouring a walkway, concrete slab, or setting a post, we have the right product at the best price to complete your project. Shop our entire selection of concrete mixes and supplies in-store and on menards.com. Plus, check out the weekly flyer for more great deals happening now. money at Bernard. It's been five months since the deadliest civilian strike of the U.S.-Israel war in Iran. 120 children killed at a school.

0:43Experts say the evidence indicates it was American forces that hit the school, but the U.S. government has not admitted responsibility. I'm Asma Khalid, and I host the Global Story podcast on the BBC. The BBC has now visited the site of the school and spoken to Iranians about what they saw. For more, listen to The Global Story on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:10Welcome to the programme. Hello, this is NewsHour from the BBC World Service. My name's Paul Henley. We're coming to you live from London. First up today, there are conflicting pieces of information emerging again on the state of the war against Iran. President Trump said new talks on ending the conflict were in progress today. The Iranian foreign ministry said the two countries were in fact not negotiating at all. On Sunday, Mr Trump claimed he'd called off what he called massive strikes in order for the talks to happen. Earlier, he said the perimeters of a deal had been agreed and would include reopening the Strait of Hormuz, the vital waterway closed by Iran.

1:50This is President Trump speaking about an hour ago in the Oval Office. We have many talks and we'll say we have or we don't have. you know, straight about it. But they deny it. But they're not denying it now. They just put out a statement, not denying it. But for some reason, when they're talking, they don't like saying that they're talking. So I say, wait, we're in talks. Big deal. We're in talks. And they'll sometimes deny it, even though they spend hours and hours together talking. No, the talks are going along. Well, I asked our White House correspondent in Washington, Berndt de Busseman, What was known about these alleged talks?

2:28Well, there's certainly no confirmed. We don't know if there are talks or really what those talks are looking like, if they are in fact taking place. As you mentioned, Iran is strongly denied that. And it's always a bit difficult to say what's happening behind the scenes. But President Trump and the White House have very often accused Iran of saying one thing privately and saying another publicly. At times, they've suggested that Iran's public statements are also aimed at a domestic audience, which could include hardline members of government or senior figures within the IRGC who are opposed to making any sort of concessions with the United States.

3:03And it's also worth noting that this isn't the first time that Trump has claimed that he's called off strikes because there's diplomatic progress, which in the previous times it didn't turn out to be the case. In May, for example, he said that he'd withheld planned military operations, again, because Gulf allies asked him to and that he was going to. planning on hitting Iran very hard and seizing Karg Island, but that positive negotiations were taking place. The same thing took place in July. Some here in Washington have suggested it's something of a negotiating tactic in which he's kind of dangling the stick, but at the same time still hoping that Iran takes the carrot, as it were, and negotiate.

3:44But it's a bit difficult to say what's happening behind the scenes, but certainly we don't have any confirmation of direct talks or even really indirect talks through mediators such as Oman or Pakistan. The president's frustration at the status of negotiations does seem pretty clear. He has grown increasingly publicly exasperated with what he called this morning, he termed it duplicitous Iranian negotiators and what they've said about the negotiations. The fact is that the Strait of Hormuz isn't uncontested, as President Trump says these negotiations are leading to. And there's also growing dissatisfaction over the conduct of the war here in the United States.

4:25People are very concerned about the price they're paying for petrol. Farmers are very concerned about the price they're paying for fertilizer. And recent polls have shown that the actual approval rating among Americans for the war in Iran is at an all-time low since the war began five months ago. And while President Trump's not on the ballot for the upcoming midterm elections, many Republicans are, and they'll be hearing from their constituents about this very issue in which I think the White House is very keenly aware of the political and domestic ramifications of this dragging on much further.

4:59Burnt de Busman there in Washington. Well, the US might for decades have been the world's preeminent military power and the biggest producer of military hardware. But this war with Iran is reported to be severely testing its physical resources, some weapons it's apparently simply running out of. How come? Phillips Payson O 'Brien is a professor of strategic studies at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, who has written extensively about this. I asked him what level of military stocks had so far been used up in the war against Iran. Well, a huge number. I mean, we're talking in certain vital weapons characteristics like Patriot 3 interceptors or Tomahawk missiles or FADS, they're the most advanced air defence system the United States has, almost 50 % of all stocks have been used.

5:47It sounds like the most expensive weapons are being used the most. Yes, because the United States simply wasn't prepared for the war it started. It started this war of choice thinking it would be quick and easy and that Iran wouldn't be able to strike back. So it grossly underestimated its enemy. And also the United States didn't have a cost-effective system to protect itself. It only had these very expensive high-tech systems built to fight the Chinese, which is not what you need if you're fighting$30 ,000 Iranian drones. So the United States would fire a$3 million,$2 million weapon to shoot down a very cheap system.

6:26And so the United States has just run through these stocks, wasted them to a large degree, and gotten very little out of them. President Trump and Defense Secretary Hegseth have blamed former President Joe Biden's administration for the munitions shortages. Is that fair? Well, in some ways, you can blame everyone because the last 20 years, the United States has allowed its industrial base to wither and it simply has built the wrong kinds of weapons. But of course, Trump was president for four years before this. And for the last year and a half, he has been president and they have seen how the war in Ukraine has evolved and the need for protection against cheap drones.

7:05and they did nothing about that. And they chose to start the war. So ultimately, it is their responsibility. They put together this military which started the war and it simply wasn't up to scratch. Is there a sense of the government flailing in its objectives, flailing in carrying them out? There were reports in the press this week of an email being sent to military experts nationwide asking for advice on what to do next. Yes, they don't have a strategy. I mean, I'm flailing around for their objectives. We don't know what their objective actually is now. So they change the goalposts. Sometimes it's to say Iran can't have a nuclear weapon.

7:44Sometimes it's to say no toll in the Strait of Hormuz. Sometimes it's this. Sometimes it's that. They don't seem to have an objective. But even worse, they don't have a plan to get out of the war. So that email, which supposedly went around the Pentagon, is very illuminating. It's literally a cry for help. Can someone give us ideas that we can use to put pressure on the Iranian government to do something, give us a deal? But it's a sign, I think, of their strategic poverty, that they're doing that at this point in the war. And is the physical shortage of weapons an explanation for the many pauses in this war that President Trump keeps announcing?

8:19Both the pauses and the fact that Trump might want to escalate, but he can't. So when all this Trump, when Trump threatens, I'm going to escalate, I'm going to put ground troops in, I'm going to take card. actually that's almost impossible now because the stocks are so small and if they went and did a major escalation and tried to fight this war with say ground troops in iran they probably would run through the stocks at a faster rate than they have so far so it's hitting them in both ways that it means that they can't do what they want to do but also then they don't have an ability to put more pressure on iran and briefly there are other wars going on is ukraine having an effect too?

9:00Well, yeah, on what the U.S. is doing, I mean, it should have had an effect, I would say. It's not, you know, Ukraine's not getting any of this stuff. So the United States isn't giving any of it to Ukraine, which has left the Ukrainians now with no way to defend themselves against Russian ballistic missiles. Actually, what the weapon should be used for is to defend against ballistic missiles, not to defend against cheap drones. But Ukraine is being, you'd say, hung out to dry because the United States has wasted a lot of its stocks. Professor of Strategic Studies at the University of St. Andrews there, Phillips Payson O 'Brien.

9:43In the last two months, dozens of people have been killed across Pakistani-administered Kashmir in clashes between security officials and protesters from the group Joint Awami Action Committee, or JAAC. The committee says it's protesting for basic rights, including health care and electricity supplies. The JAAC was banned in June, and it's been labelled foreign-funded terrorism by the government. With the internet cut off and roads blocked, getting information from the city where the protests started has been difficult. Now, though, the BBC has become the first media organisation to gain access to Ravala Khot.

10:22Our Pakistan correspondent Caroline Davies reports from Islamabad on what the team on the ground found out.

10:32Despair in the makeshift clinic. Shafqat Hussain came in with low vital signs, a gunshot wound to the chest. But his friends clasped his hand at his bedside, the sheets stained with the blood of the previous patients, and hoped until he passed.

10:53Like many in Ravlakot, Shafkat had been protesting for weeks. They started in June, led by the Joint Awami Action Committee, or JAAC, a group of local activists that have grown in influence since they formed in 2023. The authorities say the JAAC want to disrupt the ongoing regional elections, that they are armed, and that the authorities won't tolerate the march. There was a crackdown, leaving dozens dead. and violent clashes spread across Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Some security officers have died, but most casualties are protesters. Getting inside Rawalakot is difficult. Roads are blocked or guarded.

11:37The internet and phone signal cut. It's meant it's nearly impossible to know what is happening. When the team arrive, they find family after family mourning loved ones they say were shot dead in the protests. This woman lost her only son. He said martyrdom is a great honor. He fought for what was right. He never lived as a slave. Protesters don't trust the local hospitals, scared they'll be arrested, instead going to makeshift clinics. The doctor running it says they struggle to keep up.

12:13We have enough supplies to provide first aid. We can stop bleeding, clean and dress wounds, and remove superficial bullets. but patients with serious injuries to the chest, abdomen, head or other vital organs need advanced hospitals. He says they've treated around 50 to 60 critically injured patients in the last week and that he personally treated 15 to 20 with gunshot wounds. Most, he says, were under 40 years old. The authorities have said security forces did not fire on peaceful protesters but that law enforcement acted against individuals who were involved in attacks on law enforcement personnel, threatened public safety or obstructed lawful authority.

12:55They say it's not true that protesters have been arrested in hospital. The authorities accuse the JAAC of being foreign-funded terrorists and the group has been banned. The JAAC maintain they are peaceful. But we asked one of their core committee, Uma Nazir, about the deaths of security officers. Look, perhaps such deaths did occur. I will not comment on that. However, I believe that certain elements who are under their control were infiltrated into our ranks. They did not provide us with evidence on this alleged infiltration, and the authorities say the JAAC are running a disinformation campaign against them.

13:41The BBC did not see weapons or shooting at the protests they observed. The JAAC say they're open to talk, but there are more protests planned. That report from the BBC's Caroline Davies. You're with the World Service. This is NewsHour.

14:06Coming up, we hear from Kim Ayres after the Red Cross visited his mother, Aung San Suu Kyi, who remains a political prisoner in Myanmar. It's been tough, I must say. I've had to contend with being separated from my mother for many years. After all, she was under house arrest for 15 years. But the last five years have been different because we haven't known where she is or how she is or been allowed any communication, basically. More in half an hour. The headlines for now, Russian officials say seven people have been killed in a Ukrainian drone strike on a Black Sea beach resort. And Iran and the US are continuing to make conflicting claims about whether they're engaged in talks or not, with President Trump insisting negotiations are happening right now.

15:06I'm Paul Henley and this is NewsHour, live from the World Service. Faced with mounting pressure for him to go as president of football's world governing body FIFA, Gianni Infantino is reported to be seeking help from friends in the White House. The New York Post newspaper says Mr Infantino repeatedly tried and failed to reach President Trump on the phone since his proposal collapsed effectively to privatise the World Cup competition. Henry Winter is an English football journalist. I began by asking him whether the White House might, whether approaching rather the White House might work for Mr Infantino.

15:45A lot of his calls aren't getting through. I mean, it looks like his trump card is literally not his trump card anymore. I mean, they were obviously very matey, as we saw during the World Cup, but maybe he's outlived his usefulness. Football associations in England and Wales have withdrawn their support for his leadership. Others might follow. Who are his allies right now? Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, they haven't really shown their hand. I mean, the Qataris have shown some support. The Swiss FA, according to some reports today, were sort of prevaricating on actually not coming out against him, i.e.

16:23reflecting the UEFA, the European perspective, which has been very critical and really going after Infantino on a day-by-day basis. But otherwise, definitely Africa, there will be support for him there and also in Asia. And I think if he announces fairly soon, which I'm sure he will, the likelihood of 2030 being a 60-14 World Cup, he'll generate more support because obviously more countries can qualify and climb aboard the gravy train. But this part privatisation plan is dead, is it? It's gone? It's gone. It's the proverbial dead parrot. Absolutely, it's gone. because it's angered so many people, not simply in UEFA, but actually around the world, partly because of the lack of transparency, the lack of accountability, the lack of actually communication to people close to him, supposed allies at FIFA, who he just didn't keep in the loop on this.

17:21There were supposed to be investors lining up to put private money into the World Cup, among them the brother of President Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner. You could see how, if he could get President Trump to answer the phone, he might have a bit of leverage. Yeah, I mean, first, from exactly what you say there, the optics of that are absolutely terrible, because it looks like the whole thing was literally cooked up on a barbecue around the back of the White House. You know, this is the World Cup that we're talking about, the most important prize in sport, and it shouldn't just be handed around to Infantino's rich mates.

17:58He seems to show a level of shamelessness that we're not recognising perhaps in what's going on at the moment. If he's been forced to back down, I mean, he isn't one for backing down. He parades his motives, who he has done in the past, hasn't he? Yeah, I mean, it's a very dangerous combination of arrogance and naivety and actually poor advice, whether it's the bankers close to him, whether it's people in his immediate circle who he sort of confided to about this plan. I mean, they're good people at FIFA. I mean, there are 960 odd people who actually work there and another 200 scattered around the world.

18:39There are good people who work there, who organize things, who do amazing work for communities and infrastructures around the world. But he's obviously not listening to them. He's not listening to the good guys. He seems to have made enemies very recently, doesn't he? Gianni Infantino had his supporters at UEFA when he was coming up in the ranks then. Oh, absolutely. And UEFA really are going for him. It's almost Shakespearean, the family member who left the family and they're absolutely chasing him down now. But there's almost a sort of tossing up of his offences before this sort of red card, which we all hope will come sooner rather than later.

19:19Because of the events that have happened over the last year, whether it's parachuting Lionel Messi's Inter Milan into the Club World Cup, whether it's overturning Ronaldo's punishment, sorry, his two-game ban, which would have precluded him from Portugal's first two games of the World Cup, whether it was the peace prize for Trump, I could go on and on. I mean, it's quite a long list of offences over the last 18 months. That was English football journalist Henry Winter. Now, doctors in Texas in the US have been using groundbreaking surgery on an unborn baby to cure a birth defect while the baby was still in the womb.

19:57His mother, Maisie Savage, who's from London, was operated on while she was 26 weeks pregnant. Baby Theo was among the first in the world to benefit from this kind of clinical trial. This report comes from Camilla Horrocks.

20:15Maisie was 20 weeks pregnant when she and her partner Josh discovered there was a major problem with their baby Theo. We went in for just a usual scan, check everything was okay and the sonographer noticed that something wasn't quite right. Theo had a condition called gastroschisis which affects around 1 in 3 ,000 unborn babies in the UK each year. Essentially, a lot of his bowel and intestines and his appendix were all growing on the outside. The belly button doesn't develop properly, leaving the intestines to grow externally. It was terrifying, wasn't it? Yeah, incredibly scary. Specialists at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London found that Theo had complex gastroschisis, which would have required multiple surgeries after birth, months in intensive care and potential lifelong complications.

21:09And then one Tuesday evening we got a call. We had a little girl come from Mexico. This is Dr Michael Belfort, a pioneering surgeon from Texas Children's Hospital who's been trialling experimental surgery for patients just like Maisie and Theo in the United States. We have chosen that 15 % of babies with gastroschisis that have the worst prognosis. Theo's parents were told they qualified for the trial. But the catch was that it was in Texas and that we would have to go there pretty much right away and we'd have to stay there for the remainder of the pregnancy. At a hospital in Belgium, Maisie was given a Botox injection through her womb and into Theo's abdominal wall to relax the muscles to make the repair easier.

22:01Then the family flew to Texas, where the operation was performed 26 weeks into the pregnancy. Maisie's womb was partially exposed. The amniotic fluid was drained and replaced with CO2 gas to expand the operating space. Then, using keyhole surgery, Theo's organs were gently pushed back inside his abdomen, which was then stitched closed. The operation was a total success. Maisie went on to carry Theo to term. He was born by natural delivery, a perfectly healthy baby boy with no scar. He's completely fine. He's great. Yeah, he's amazing. Everything they did just completely reversed what could have been a really horrible start to his life.

22:47The majority of paediatric surgeons... Dr Belfort is already looking ahead to what he can do next. The inside of the uterus is now a new surgical space for innovation. Certain cardiac surgeries in utero, and I think we can do some lung surgeries in utero. So, you know, it's open for ethical experimentation. This technique is undergoing clinical trials in the US involving 10 babies. But the early results are so promising that surgeons are hopeful it could become routine in the UK within a few years. Back home in London, baby Theo is one of the lucky ones. His future has been completely turned around.

23:33His mum and dad, Maisie and Josh, feel incredibly grateful and are now finally enjoying parenthood. The impact that they've had on us as a family is incredible the level of care was amazing they made a very traumatic time of our lives so much easier and we've got this little man and we couldn't be happier he's a little miracle isn't he camilla horrocks reporting this is the bbc world service and news hour there's never been a better time to get outside and experience the benefits of nature Discover nearby trails and explore the outdoors with AllTrails. Download the free app today and find your outside.

24:22It's been five months since the deadliest civilian strike of the U.S.-Israel war in Iran. 120 children killed at a school. Experts say the evidence indicates it was American forces that hit the school. But the U.S. government has not admitted responsibility. I'm Asma Khalid, and I host the Global Story podcast on the BBC. The BBC has now visited the site of the school and spoken to Iranians about what they saw. For more, listen to The Global Story on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

24:55Welcome back to NewsHour. A celebrated horse behaviourist from California called Monty Roberts has died at the age of 91. He was a pioneering horse whisperer who developed an alternative non-aggressive method of training horses, which has come to be adopted by many people around the world. The late British Queen followed his methods and she became a friend. Speaking to the BBC in 2007, Monty explained how he learnt to communicate with horses from the age of seven. They want us to lead them. They want us to show them what we ask of them. Their communication system is sign language. It's a language of gestures.

25:35I didn't know the gestures but I followed the horse's lead and he took me to some places which showed me that I could say, that's a good boy, and give him a rub and then walk away from him. And I don't know what innately told me to walk away, drop my eyes and walk away. But if you stop and think about it, no predator has ever done that. I'm saying I'm not a predator. Kelly Marks was inspired by Monty Roberts. She's the founder of a group called Intelligent Horsemanship, teaching people how to train and care for horses in a more thoughtful way. She told my colleague Rebecca Kesby how she first met Monty Roberts.