US and Saudi Arabia strike nuclear deal

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Decisions made in Washington can affect your portfolio every day, but what policy changes should investors be watching? Washington Wise is an original podcast from Charles Schwab that unpacks the stories making news in Washington right now and how they may affect your finances and portfolio. Listen at schwab.com slash Washington Wise. That's schwab.com slash Washington Wise.

0:55Plus, free shipping. Black Friday in July ends July 27th. Shop today at Wayfair.com.

1:05Hello, I'm James Kamarasamy. Thank you for downloading the BBC's World Tonight podcast for Wednesday the 22nd of July. The United States and Saudi Arabia have signed a landmark nuclear deal. We'll hear what is in it and why it's been ringing alarm bells in some quarters. As Andy Burnham says he is reviewing the early prisoner release programme, we'll get two perspectives, including that of a mother who is distraught that the man responsible for the death of her seven-year-old son might only serve half of his sentence. Plus, why Venezuelans aren't glued to their former president's legal drama in New York.

1:41Why the odyssey is all grok to Elon Musk. We speak to a friend of the new Ukrainian Armed Forces chief. And the Jeff Bezos and Liverpool rumours will ask why Blue Origin's founder might want a stake in the Reds. In the past half hour or so, the US Department of Energy has confirmed that the United States and Saudi Arabia have signed what has been described as a landmark nuclear cooperation agreement, one that establishes a civilian nuclear programme in the kingdom. The deal, in fact, includes two agreements, a peaceful nuclear cooperation agreement and a bilateral safeguards agreement. Let's speak to our chief North America correspondent, Gary O'Donoghue now.

2:22Gary, well, look, the fact that there are two agreements is pretty significant, isn't it? Potentially. It's worth saying that the press release for this only dropped about 15 minutes ago. So we haven't seen the text of these two agreements. But yes, the first one is we're understanding a 30-year deal for the Americans to build nuclear power plants, civilian nuclear power plants in Saudi Arabia. Companies like Westinghouse will be involved in that, 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 today 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.

3:19The bilateral word, and I don't want to overread this, suggests to me that that's an arrangement, a safeguards 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. Quite. What about the timing of this? Timing's interesting. 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 normalising relations. That fell apart after the attacks on Israel by Hamas.

3:58That linkage appears to have been dropped from this deal. So that doesn't seem to be there. 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 pre-preliminary agreements with Saudi Arabia on this. So the Americans were fearing that they would get frozen out and that's why they've moved. And that may be a potential reason, if it transpires to be the case, that there may be, you know, laxer controls, particularly on proliferation issues. So for the Americans, a geopolitical win, but also a commercial one?

4:39And they're emphasising the commercial, very much emphasising the commercial, But a big geopolitical win as well in that region. They don't want to lose a foothold. 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, many thanks. Gary O'Donoghue there, our chief North America correspondent. And as Gary said, the details of the deal are still coming out.

5:14But that has already been reaction. Reena Shah is a former senior congressional advisor for the Republican Party. And she told the BBC that this was a good deal. The US-Saudi nuclear agreement is smart strategic leadership. American companies leading Saudi civilian program means US 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. There is no concern in the US Congress and in Israel about the agreement.

5:59John Garamendi is a Democratic congressman from California. He's also a member of the House Armed Services Committee. and in between votes on the floor of the US House of Representatives today. He told me why he objected to the deal. It is a wide open opportunity for Saudi Arabia to not only obtain civilian nuclear power, which I don't have a problem with, but the safeguards that are absolutely essential do not appear to be there and they appear to have the opportunity to enrich uranium in Saudi Arabia. Enrichment of uranium should not be occurring anywhere. in the Persian Gulf area, including Iran and Saudi Arabia.

6:39When the Secretary of State Marco Rubio says that there will be no deal that leads to proliferation, do you not believe him? I have no reason to believe him. The reactors that they should be getting do not require enriched uranium. This has to go to Congress. Is there any world in which Congress throws out this deal? There certainly is. there'll be a motion to disallow the agreement that'll be put forward i may put it forward myself or some other member that will be having a vote within 90 days about the deal and whether it should go forward and i can assure you there are going to be many many people members of the house that are going to want to vote no on this deal and count me at the top of that list what do you say then to those who argue that Saudi Arabia is a strong ally of the United States.

7:32This deal will keep that partnership strong. It will make it less likely they'll drift towards the likes of China or Russia. And it brings huge economic benefits to the United States, tens of billions of dollars for the companies that would be involved. That's a garbage argument. Saudi Arabia's record of human rights is zero. We can only go back and recall what happened to a reporter that was not on their favor. He was butchered, literally butchered. Jamal Khashoggi you're talking about. Exactly. Why would we ever allow anybody else in that region to enrich uranium? There's no reason for it. It is not needed for civilian nuclear energy.

8:13It's only needed for the development of a bomb. Would you be okay, though, if the guardrails were in place, if this was a deal much like the one with the UAE, which precluded nuclear enrichment, enrichment of uranium? Well, what we know of this deal, it is not like UAE at all. UAE was the development of civilian non-weapon nuclear power. What we understand from this one is that this, while it includes civilians, also includes the enrichment of uranium. Much of the discussion, well, the war with Iran was supposed to be over the enrichment of uranium. So let's be very, very clear here. The enrichment of uranium is a significant step to the development of a nuclear bond.

9:05Democratic member of the US Congress, John Garamendi there. Coming up later, Elon Musk has said that his AI platform GrokImagine will make a historically accurate adaptation of Homer's Odyssey. But is it possible to be historically accurate about this epic poem? Our ability to access that world, even as historians, is really tough because this civilisation, this palace culture was destroyed just after the time span of the Odyssey in, we probably think, a series of separate catastrophes. More on that later on. Let's return to the present day, because the state of the prison system in England and Wales has long been one of the toughest, the most sensitive briefs for any new Prime Minister, and it's proving no different for Andy Burnham.

9:54Plans for the early release of thousands of prisoners under the new Sentencing Act, which is due to come into force in September, has now been thrown into question after it emerged that two of the killers of PC Andrew Harper, the officer who was dragged behind a car in 2019, were among those due to benefit from shortened sentences. Faced with the anger and distress of PC Harper's widow and mother, Andy Burnham has now pressed pause on the plans. I've spoken to the new Justice Secretary. We will review the policy together and make further statements in due course. Well, we'll hear some contrasting opinions about the policy review in just a moment.

10:30But first, let's get a bit more on the background and indeed the basics of sentencing. Now we can speak to Mark Thomas, criminal barrister at St John's Buildings in Sheffield. Good evening, Mark. Good evening. Thank you for having me. Thanks for joining us. Well, let's get back to basics. Can you just explain how early releases currently work? So it's a basic concept that no offender will serve the full length of their sentence. It's very straightforward. There are three main schemes by which someone is released early. They're either released at the 40 % mark, so having served 40 % of their sentence, at the 50 % mark, having served half of their sentence, or for the most serious offenders, they're released having served two-thirds of their sentence.

11:21When someone is released, they are released on licence, meaning that they're subject to conditions that are set by the probation service. If they comply with those conditions, then they will remain out of prison for the remainder of their sentence. So they're essentially serving their sentence in the community. If they fail to comply with their conditions, they can be recalled on that licence and be returned to prison. So what is due to change from September? So at this moment in time, the default position is that for most offenders, they will be sentenced and they will only serve 40%. There are a number of exceptions to that rule.

12:07And those people who are exempted from the 40 % will have to serve 50%. From the 2nd of September of this year, those serving 40 % and 50%, or who would be serving 40 % and 50%, will now only serve one third. And those offenders serving two thirds, or would have been serving two thirds, will now serve 50%. So we've gone down from 50 and 40 % to one third and from two thirds down to 50%. Why has that change been made? Very simply, the prison population. The Sentencing Act of 2026 was informed by an independent review. That independent review was largely based upon the overcrowding in prisons. And realistically, the explanatory notes to the Sentencing Act, which is essentially demonstrating Parliament's intention, is all to do with the government's response to easing the pressure on the custodial estate.

13:18So the short answer is the reason they're being brought in is because of the conditions in the prisons. Mark, thank you very much for that briefing. Criminal barrister Mark Thomas there. Well, PC Harper's family are not the only ones who are concerned about the shortened sentences. Catherine Errington's seven-year-old son, Archie York, died when their home in Newcastle was destroyed in an explosion caused by an illegal drugs lab in the flat below. Drug dealer Rhys Galbraith was given 14 years in prison for manslaughter. He was eligible for release after serving two-thirds of his sentence. But Catherine was told last month that under the new early release scheme, that was being reduced to half.

13:58and she shared her thoughts with us today. On the 16th of October 2024, we lost our beautiful seven-year-old son Archie in the gas explosion that happened in Benwell. As a family, it was a normal night. Never had a million years did we think that we'd wake up under rubble, fighting for our lives, wondering whether or not we will survive. Me and Archie's younger brother, Finlay, wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for Robbie and the neighbour Anthony pulling us out from the rubble. Archie was the only innocent party in this that lost his life and I can't help that thinking the wrong person died on that night it should have been him not Archie as he did nothing wrong he should be yeah my concerns are reese the child killer is on the list for this new early release scheme how many more child killers are on the list i say to andy burnham why are you letting this happen think about the victims families think about who you are letting on the street because i don't think that all they've just came up with this new scheme because the prisons are overfilled, build new prisons, let victims have real justice.

15:28In my eyes, the prisons have always been overcrowded. It's because the justice system's rubbish. If you're going to do the crime, make sure they do the time. Make sure they do the correct time for heinous crimes, manslaughter, rape, murder and it seems to be the perpetrators are just getting a slap on the wrist for doing wrong so no wonder the prisons are overcrowded. Catherine Herrington, we did ask the Ministry of Justice if the Chief Probation Officer was available for interview. She was not but they did send us this statement as the Prime Minister has said today the Justice Secretary will be reviewing this policy in full.

16:13The prison system this government inherited was on the brink of collapse, running at 99 % capacity and at one point fewer than 100 places left. Victim protection is central to our reforms. The greatest risk posed to victims is the risk of not being able to lock up dangerous offenders. These measures will ensure that never happens again. We are strengthening community punishment. Anyone who is released faces tough new rules, such as 24-7 monitoring, restrictions on their movements, tagging, being banned from attending public events, pubs and clubs, backed by our record 700 million investment into probation by 2028 to 2029 and community punishment and 1 ,300 extra probation officers.

16:57Well, we can speak now to Jodie Anderson, senior caseworker at Inquest. It's a charity that works with people whose family members have died in the care or custody of the state, such as in prisons. Good evening, Jodie. Good evening, Jamie, and thank you so much for having me. Well, thanks for joining us. You listened, I think, to Catherine Errington speak just now. I mean, a real sense of anxiety amongst victims, families like hers who think that the perpetrators might be released early. What is your reaction to this review that the Prime Minister is talking about of early sentencing? Yeah, I just I want to start really by just acknowledging the concerns and anxieties, including those of Catherine, who I heard.

17:42I do sort of encourage some caution when we think about the scheme. I mean, it's it's very modest and it's very short term in its implementation. I mean, it's nothing new. It's sort of working on a previous early release scheme. And as the barrister who spoke earlier set out, you know, it's not an early release scheme, it's an earlier release scheme. So it simply just brings the time at which people are being released a little bit earlier. And it goes some way, I'd say a very modest way to addressing what is fundamentally dangerous overcrowding levels in the prison system, which is not a new problem.

18:21I mean, those of us on the front lines have been saying for decades now, you know, we can see that this is an issue over the horizon. And this is just one very short term measure. I mean, really what the government need to be doing is looking at a much longer term strategy to reduce the prison population. I mean, even just the remand population sits at 20 percent. IPP prisoners recall, all of that could be dealt with. but that's not to say you know that there aren't real issues here to be grappling with which is to be honest the fact that people going into prison today most people going into prison today will be released and that's a fact and we can't ignore that so it's a question of what we do with people who are being released from prison and being expected to reintegrate into society and we just simply can't keep kicking the can down the road here.

19:14Yes, we'll have a little bit of capacity eased by the early release scheme, but what we really need to do is start really reinvesting or investing, sorry, in community initiatives that would sweep up this huge problem. What do you say then to people who are worried that people are being released too early? I mean, as you say, most people in prison will be released, but there is a reason people are in prison. is there not? And perhaps in some cases, and we've heard from people who were released early and felt themselves they were released perhaps too early and not ready to be out in society. I think there's a couple of interesting points that you raised, Jamie, and I think, you know, the issue of safety is a real one and it's a real concern.

19:58But, you know, for victims and complainants, they will not feel safe knowing that a perpetrator is in a prison system that is exacerbating and causing more harm and dysfunction, exposing them to more violence, drugs, mental health. You know, the cases that we deal with day in, day out involve people who are very often very seriously mentally unwell. They have themselves been subject to forms of neglect throughout their lives, are themselves victims in many ways, and are then thrust into the sort of revolving doors of crime. They enter the prison system and then, you know, the system which causes them extreme harm and then pushes them out into, as I say, the revolving doors.

20:46And so we are not simply, I mean, there are lots of issues and one of them is what we're actually giving to people upon release. But people are going to be released anyway. We're going to have to confront that issue. they are being released under this scheme to a probation service where they are subject to, let's not forget, very, very tight oversight, licence conditions, supervision. So it's not simply the case that the doors are open and they're free to go. They're subject to another form of curtailment on their liberty. It's just a different type of... Indeed. It's a complex subject. Jack, thank you very much for providing your perspective.

21:29Jodie Anderson, co-leader of Inquest. This episode sponsored by She's Birdie. Every woman knows that feeling and She's Birdie knows it too. The just in case feeling. Just in case I hear something. Just in case someone tries the door. Just in case I need to wake up fast. It's not fear, it's awareness. And Birdie Box from She's Birdie was made for exactly that. Birdie Box is a portable travel door alarm designed by She's Birdie for hotels, dorms, Airbnbs, and anywhere you're staying away from home. It installs in seconds on the doorframe, and if the door is opened, it activates a loud siren and flashing strobe to help draw attention instantly.

22:12She's Birdie, because peace of mind should check in with you. Birdie Box by She's Birdie. Visit She'sBirdie.com. That's S-H-E-S-B-I-R-D-I-E dot com. And order your Birdie box before your next day away from home. There. The main headline so far on The World Tonight, the US Department of Energy has in the past hour confirmed that an agreement has been reached with Saudi Arabia for American companies to run civilian nuclear power plants in the country. Now a judge in New York has told the ex-Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro that he will stand trial in his drug trafficking case next June It follows his seizure of course by US special forces in Caracas at the beginning of this year Maduro's lawyer has said he will argue that as a head of state his client is protected from prosecution by the principle of sovereign immunity Well in normal times Venezuelans would be keeping a very close eye on these proceedings but they have other things to worry about at the moment It's been less than a month since twin earthquakes struck the north of the country, killing at least 5 ,000 people.

23:16The BBC's Will Grant has returned to the worst affected region, La Guaida, and from there he sent this report. Everywhere you turn in La Guaida there's more evidence of the devastation, whether it is social housing on this side of the road, down near a place called Playa Los Cocos, or indeed on the other side of the road where you see businesses and homes, private homes also completely crushed. The picture everywhere you turn remains one of devastation. Of course, now the heavy machinery is moving a lot of the rubble, but there are still family members burrowing into the remnants of those homes, trying to find the bodies of their missing loved ones.

23:58And in that context, it's very hard to imagine the idea of the ex-president, Nicolas Maduro, facing drug trafficking charges in a U.S. courtroom. Most people we've spoken to say they simply don't have capacity to think about that now. Yes, many remain extremely angry at not just this government, but previous governments for the state of the nation and that they believe he should be facing charges. But many others say all they can focus on now is this moment. Right now, we all feel like we don't have a president here. No one at all. Our president is ourselves, our families, and the Venezuela people.

24:38Because in truth, it really doesn't feel like we have a leader.

24:44Honestly, Maduro has never worried about whether the Venezuelan people are doing well. That has always been a lie. What matters to them is how they're doing, nothing more. Whether things go well or badly for him now is down to God above. Only he will give the answer to that and a solution to all of this too. As you were hearing from both of those grieving family members, they have no interest in what is happening in New York or what is happening to their ex-president, Nicolas Maduro. All they are concerned about right now is what's happening in here, in the rubbling La Guaida, in the search for their missing relatives.

25:19And that was the BBC's Will Grant there, reporting from Venezuela. You've heard of a Greek odyssey Well now there's going to be a Grok odyssey Elon Musk who has made no secret of his anger At Christopher Nolan's film version of Homer's epic poem And especially what he's called his woke casting of certain parts Well today he took to his platform X To announce a new creative project Using his AI tool Grok Imagine Before this year ends Grok Imagine will make a full length movie of the odyssey That is historically accurate and true to the art of Homer So how do you go about creating a historically accurate version of Odysseus' journey home from the Trojan War?

25:59Well, Dr Emma Greensmith is Associate Professor of Classical Languages and Literature at St John's College, Oxford, and she's been telling me about some of the potential challenges. 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, which is in the Irons Age. And what we actually get in the Odyssey is a blend of Bronze Age material and things, customs, weapons, social practices, more from Homer's own time.

26:47So 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? Yeah, 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 aioidoi, so literally singers, or a word that was used later, rhapsodes, so literally stitches of song. And they would deliver the verse in a meter called hexameter in kind of a melodic or a chant-like way, probably accompanied by an early type of lyre called a forminx.

27:39So 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 Ayoidos or the Rhapsode would be a singular performer. There were loads of them in the 8th century, these sort of travelling singer-poets. But they would do the whole of the performance they were giving, the whole of the story, standing there on their own. So no parts, no casting, probably no dance and no costumes. You started off by talking about the different time periods, the one in which it was written down and the one in which it depicts. So for it to be depicting that 12th to 13th century BC period, what would be in the final cut and what would be out of the final cut, if you like?

28:33You'd notice the cuts, you know, so many things like familiarity with ironworking, public assemblies ruled by aristocratic households rather than palace bureaucracy. All of that stuff technically is anachronistic in the Odyssey. The 12th, 13th century period that the storyline is depicting, so the kind of age of heroes, that was what we can think we'd call kind of Mycenaean palace culture. So a palace society where the writing system is associated with something which we call Linear B. This civilisation, this palace culture was destroyed just after the time span of the Odyssey in, we probably think, a series of separate catastrophes.

29:18Gradually, the whole palatial political system, it was effectively gone by about 1100 BC. That world, for Homer's audience, was already lost. And he's sort of commemorating it. These rhapsodes were bringing it back through song and through memory. That was Dr Emma Greensmith, Associate Professor of Classical Languages and Literature at St John's College, Oxford. Now, the Ukrainian military has been today trying to project a sense of business as usual a day after President Zelensky replaced the head of the armed forces, General Oleksandr Siersky. It has carried out another pair of drone attacks on warehouses belonging to Russia's largest online retailer, Wildberries, after hitting similar facilities in central Russia four days ago.