US announces ‘economic D-Day’ for Iran

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0:30us. And then we'll be learning about Francis Galton and the racist, discredited pseudoscience of eugenics with Desiree Birch. We'll meet many medieval saints in their bone boxes with Rachel Parrott. So if that sounds like your sort of thing, listen to You're Dead to Me wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. Bye.

1:00Dot Besant has unveiled details of what the White House is calling economic D-Day for Iran. But will Washington really take aim at Tehran's trading allies? The first death reported of a Briton fighting for Russia against Ukraine. We'll find out who he was. As the investigation into the fatal A66 car crash widens, we hear about links between organised crime and other forms of criminality in Middlesbrough. Why has a social media forum that took pride in its human content turned to AI? We have a report on a house of terror in Scotland and consider the joys of chomping on a cookie made of plastic.

1:38The Trump administration had billed today as Economic D-Day for Iran. So would it live up to the hype or would the D turn out to stand for something closer to damp? Well, earlier this evening, after days of pitch rolling, including an editorial in the Financial Times, The US Treasury Secretary Scott Besant unveiled, or in the language of the White House, unleashed the latest weapon in America's battle against Iran. Operation Economic Outcast, as it's being called, includes a widening of existing sanctions, but also a threat to economically isolate countries which continue to trade with Tehran.

2:14Well, those are well known, and they include the likes of China, Russia and India. But while Mr Besant said that no country was above US sanctions, he didn't name names. And that led to this question being asked of him. You described this as an economic D-Day, but D-Day wasn't a threat of an invasion, and the US didn't give a timeline to Germany. So why not impose the sanctions today? Well, we are giving everyone the opportunity to remedy bad behaviour. Why would I want to blow up the global financial system? We believe that it is important to level set and give people a cure period, but they should know that that will move very quickly and that we are serious.

2:58Let's speak to our correspondent in Washington, Tom Bateman now. So what exactly did he announce, Tom? Well, there are concrete measures here, and they really fell into three categories that at least were announced today by the Treasury. So they've talked about targeting what they say is a procurement scheme internationally to help Iran with its ballistic missile program. They also talked about a malicious cyber group that they said has helped the Iranians attack U.S. critical infrastructure with cyber attacks. And then there were more of these financial sanctions, which was largely the sort of subject at hand, which involves, say, the Treasury, a network of brokers and companies and these shadow fleet vessels, these ships that get oil out of Iran, largely going to Asia, obviously, particularly to China.

3:48and then shell companies that get the money back into Iran. So some specific sanctions announced against all of those entities. What we didn't have and what you were getting a sense of in that question there was one big announcement that really would have shook the system as it stands. So, for example, the sanctioning of a very large Chinese bank. There was nothing like that, given that the Americans say it's these financial institutions that ultimately allow for crude oil to be bought by China and exported to Chinese refineries, there were no sanctions like that. And, you know, given the way that this announcement was trailed in terms of an economic D-Day, of the Trump administration was saying the biggest operation of its kind economically to isolate a country in history, there was certainly nothing in the announcement that matched the expectations that had been set.

4:43How is this supposed to fit into the wider operation against Iran? Well, I think it's clearly another part of this sort of growing admission that Mr. Trump has run out of road militarily. For now, his options in terms of leverage and more pressure on the military front have evaded him, in part, of course, because of the fact that the ammunition stockpile for the Americans has been badly deteriorated by the war that was launched. So it's a reversion back to what he has always described as maximum pressure on Iran, but trying to widen, as one analyst put it, the blast radius of sanctions so that they cover, yes, the Iranians themselves, but also more of this pressure on countries that still trade with it, including American allies.

5:38So the threat is there, but what we haven't seen is that followed through. And I think that line there from Scott Besson, well, you know, do you want me to blow up the global economy, gives you a sense of what they believe the risks are here if they really do follow through, particularly with very punitive sanctions against Chinese banks, because you would then expect the Chinese to retaliate against the US. And one of the ways they can do that, which they've dabbled with before, is to withhold critical minerals, which the Americans need for basically armaments, for example. So, you know, the Chinese have a lot of leverage here.

6:11Mr. Trump hasn't quite gone there yet. Briefly, Tom, we are just weeks away from midterm elections. What are the domestic politics of all this? Well, they're pretty, you know, worrying for the White House because Mr. Trump has seen his approval ratings continue to tank, in part because of the pressures this is putting on the US economy as gasoline or petrol prices remain higher than they were during the war. You know, at the same time, you've got a trade war being launched with Canada. That puts pressure on. The White House has been trying to bring down the price of beef for consumers by slashing the tariffs on Argentinian beef, which has really angered American cattle farmers over the weekend.

6:55So you're seeing core parts of potentially of the Republican base that are deeply unhappy. there is no sign of a way through this for the moment and Mr Trump continues to focus on the international situation the pressure on Iran I think that in itself is a sign to some of his would-be supporters that he is not putting the focus where they want it to be which is on the cost of living Tom, many thanks Tom Bateman there in Washington Well I've been getting more reaction from the Iranian sanctions expert Esfandia Batmanghelich who's the founder and CEO of the Bourse and Bazaar Foundation which describes itself as the think tank committed to economic development economic diplomacy and economic justice in West and Central Asia.

7:35So what did he make of the US Treasury Secretary's news conference? I think in many ways it was a botched announcement. And, you know, the Trump administration built up a lot of expectation leading into this press conference. And what they ended up actually announcing, I think, is quite underwhelming from the standpoint of the detail and the likely impact of the measures that they've put forward. And the easiest way to explain this is to compare it to the last time the U.S. administration tried to really announce that they were going to wage economic war. And that was when the Biden administration in February 2022 announced economic war on Russia in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

8:18And there were four things in that announcement that were really lacking in Besant's announcement today. The first is that Besant failed to actually mention the countries that were on board. And unlike the Biden administration some years ago, has failed, it seems, to build a coalition to actually isolate Iran economically. He talked about the president being interested in having phone calls with different leaders to get them on board. But that hasn't been done at the time of the announcement. Second, there was no detail on timelines when, in fact, the measures that have been announced are going to bite.

8:56Third, there isn't a lot of specificity about the measures. The sanctions that were announced today, targeting some 60 entities, are very similar to waves of sanctions we've seen in the past. And finally, and most importantly, Secretary Besant did not define a goal of the economic pressure. There is, of course, the idea that economic D-Day means weakening the Iranian state. but to what end? And he did not outline whether the economic pressure was intended to create a pathway back to the negotiating table or whether it was part and parcel of this effort to kind of crush Iran or change the regime.

9:32And I think that lack of clarity will also undermine the credibility of his message. These 60 entities that have been sanctioned, what do we know about them? I think it's a mix of companies involved in Iran's oil trade and also financial intermediaries. So this is something that the Treasury Department has targeted in the past as a way of trying to limit Iran's ability to use sort of the gray or black market to move its oil and then receive payment for that oil. And it is the case that the sanctions and the blockade have significantly reduced Iran's oil exports during the course of the conflict.

10:10But that pressure has not actually translated into either a meaningful reduction in Iran's military capabilities during the war, nor has it actually pushed the Iranian regime to consider diplomacy with the U.S. to be a very viable pathway. because, of course, this is the third instance in which they were engaged in negotiations with the U.S. about achieving a fuller agreement in which the U.S. has responded by basically instigating a war. And so that pattern of behavior has really shaped thinking in Tehran about how they need to approach the Trump administration. And despite having, I think, earlier in the summer made a goodwill effort to find a diplomatic solution, the consensus is emerging in Tehran that this economic pressure will warrant some form of military response, especially as Trump remains vulnerable moving into the US election.

11:05China, of course, the world's largest buyer of Iranian oil. And Scott Besant was asked several times at the news conference why America hasn't sanctioned countries that they know are helping Iran to trade on the world stage. And he said, why would I want to blow up the global financial system? Is that an admission that they can act if they want against China and other countries, but that they realise economic impact would simply be too great? I think that is exactly what the Treasury Secretary let slip. And he's not unique in coming to that conclusion. Every Treasury Secretary of the last three or four administrations has come to the same realisation, that when used to the extreme degree, sanctions and other forms of economic coercion tend to undermine the US stewardship of the global economy.

11:55Because if the US is sending the message that unless other countries subordinate their economic sovereignty and their national interests to the determination of what matters for Washington, they will be pushed out of the dollar system, it becomes very clear to those countries that they need to think of alternatives to the dollar system so that they're not put into that very difficult bind. Perhaps we should end with a thought on the sanctions and what impact they continue to have on the Iranian people. How would you characterize it at the moment? Jamie, I think that's exactly the right question to be asking, because the fundamental thing, and I have put this question to US officials across multiple administrations now, is what is achieved by using measures in such an expansive way that simply makes the Iranian people poorer, and thereby disempowers them relative to their government.

12:49And the lack of concern or consideration from the Treasury Secretary, his inability to articulate any real solidarity or commitment to stand by the Iranian people and shield them from the negative impact of the policies he was announcing, I think shows that there is a certain moral bankruptcy to what the U.S. is pursuing. And it's no different from, I think, their conduct in the war as well, in which the treatment of civilian casualties was particularly callous and inconsiderate. That was the Iranian sanctions expert Esfandia Batmangelich. And coming up later in the program, from Reddit to Sedit.

13:29Our final story comes from nuclear revenge. Oh, OK, this is spooky. This is revenge. This is as extreme of revenge as it can possibly get on Reddit. Look, this is probably going to be too far for most of us. So let's just enjoy the ride. OK, buckling up. Well, look at why people are listening to stories on the social media discussion forum Reddit and why Reddit is planning to use AI to voice up its posts.

14:02Hello, Greg Jenner here. I'm the host of You're Dead to Me, the BBC comedy show that takes history seriously. Every episode, I pair up a top historian with a fantastic comedian, and we have a lovely, funny, fascinating chat about a different subject from world history. And in this new series, we're beginning with an epic voyage through the story of Homer, the Iliad, and the Odyssey. And that's with Kyle Smith-Bino joining us. And then we'll be learning about Francis Galton and the racist, discredited pseudoscience of eugenics with Desiree Birch. We'll meet many medieval saints in their bone boxes with Rachel Parris.

14:35So if that sounds like your sort of thing, listen to You're Dead to Me wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. Bye.

14:48Now, though, as Andy Burnham was in Kiev today, reaffirming the fact that while British prime ministers may come and go, Britain's commitment to Ukraine remains constant. News emerged of the death of one Britain with a very different point of view. Bradley Townsend from Barnsley in South York Berkshire has become the first British citizen known to have died while fighting for Russia against the Ukrainians. He's reported to have been killed by a Ukrainian drone in the eastern Donetsk region in June. The Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office confirmed it was aware of reports that a British national had died in Ukraine, adding that it was in contact with his family.

15:26Well, back in April, Bradley Townsend featured in a video alongside two Britons, Aidan Minnis and Ben Stimson, who were both given Russian citizenship for fighting in the occupied Donbass region. Being filmed by Stimson, he was asked why he had chosen to fight with the Russian army. In 2014, when everything happened then, I didn't really know much about politics, especially geopolitics. I heard about separatists in Donbass and I didn't think much of it, but I thought if they want to be separate, why not let them? And then I remember in 21, I started getting really interested into it. And then when the SVO kicked off in 22, then I really started being interested in that.

16:10SVO, Special Military Operation, the Russian acronym for it there, what the rest of the world would call a war. Well, the video is uploaded to a Russian recruitment site. We can speak now to Rafe Blackburn, who's Westminster correspondent for the Yorkshire Post. Good evening, Rafe. What do we know then about Bradley Townsend? So Bradley Townsend was 33 when he died. He described himself as a normal working class lad from Yorkshire. He liked fishing. He liked messing around with his mates. He liked, you know, relatively normal things that people do in their teens, 20s and early 30s. And I think that's why it's so extraordinary for a lot of people that this, you know, normal lad ended up choosing to travel thousands of miles away to fight for Vladimir Putin.

17:03What do we know about his travel there? We know he didn't tell his family he was going. He didn't tell his friends. He told them he was going to Romania to meet a friend. and he travelled to meet Aidan Minnes and Ben Stimson, who you mentioned earlier. And we don't know exactly what happened when he was out there. We know he went to Moscow at some point. And then the only thing that his family and everyone have heard since that video that was published was that he had died from the drone strike in Donetsk in June. June. And what about local reaction to all of this, Rafe? What have you been hearing?

17:48I think, as you'd imagine, when news broke that Bradley had first gone to Russia, people were really shocked. And now I think it's just real sadness that it's ended up this way. In the video that you played a bit of, you know, he basically said he was worried that he could get injured or worse, and he said himself he didn't want to go on a suicide mission, and tragically, for him and his family, it seems like that's what's happened. Rafe, many thanks for that. Rafe Blackburn, who is Westminster correspondent for the Yorkshire Post. Now, the investigation into the head-on collision on the A66 near Middlesbrough, which left seven people dead, including two police officers, widened today.

18:37Cleveland police announced that they have arrested 12 people as part of an investigation into what they have called the criminality which took place prior to the fatal crash in the early hours of Saturday morning. A Volkswagen Passat, driving on the wrong side of the road, collided with a marked police car, killing PC's Matthew Blades and Tom Clough and the five young men who were in the Volkswagen. On PM, the BBC's Home Affairs correspondent, Daniel Sanford, said the extent of the police separation in Middlesbrough in the early hours of Saturday morning was now becoming clearer. Police had received reports not only of the Volkswagen Passat, but also of a Volvo, which was reportedly ramming into properties.

19:19Police have drawn a connection between those two activities, and it was the Passat that the police ended up chasing, and that then led to it driving the wrong way down the A66. police have today said that they've arrested 12 people in connection with the criminality before the crash so lots of those people have been arrested on suspicion of being involved with an organised crime group four of them have been arrested on suspicion of having a firearm without a certificate including a 61 year old woman and it's also become clear through the course of the day that of the five young men who died in the Passat that ran into the police vehicle, four of them also had extensive criminal records.

20:06Well, Chris Cook is the Labour Mayor of Middlesbrough. So how big of a problem is organised crime in the town and the wider region? So I think we're one of the places that when anywhere gets to the sort of size that we are, we're always growing. It's one of the challenges that we face, especially when areas have been underfunded for a long amount of time creates more vulnerabilities in more people so what we need to really start to address is those sort of deficits in people's lives and the things that make especially young people more susceptible so we're at the minute we're investing in stuff like youth clubs but also that family support those things that have been eroded over the years like shure starts and all of those other things people might not instantly see that as a problem towards organized crime but actually it is it's all of these things that would have helped and supported young people to not choose those routes or to be able to make better choices in life.

20:56Crime is quite a challenge, isn't it, in Middlesbrough. I think last year, 150 crimes per thousand people and Cleveland Police Force had the highest murder rate in the country, didn't it? Yeah, and it's worth saying that the starting point when I first came in, I'd inherited a Crime start of 170, over 170. And at that point, the wardens were about to lose their jobs and various cuts have been made to the community safety. So one of the things I've done is to reverse that. So our crime numbers have started to fall from that 170 mark down to where they are now. And there's obviously been investment in the police force.

21:35But it's that long-term strategy that we need because I think if we only take the view of, right, we need more CCTV, more police on the beach, all of those things, it doesn't deal with the overwhelming demand that continues to come through. What we need to deal with is those societal issues that sort of get people into the situation where these people are able to take advantage of them, bring them into organised crime groups, which is obviously bad for the young people, but also bad for their families and everyone around them. So we need to make sure that we do two things at the same time. In the short term, there are projects, aren't there, underway to try and tackle organised crime?

22:12There was a project that we ran recently, which is just starting to come to the next phase which was called Clear Hole Build and that was in East Middlesbrough which is an area of particular focus and actually some of the things that we would talk about when we were in the sort of the clear phase where it was that they were identifying and then dealing with individuals who were causing major problems throughout that entire community. It was fascinating actually to sort of see a bit of the web of the things that go on behind what is a relatively large area of Middlesbrough. What did you discover?

22:42So it was a case that actually the police were able to sort of demonstrate the correlation in between certain individuals, certain addresses, and actually by tackling some of those individuals, it really, really had a huge hit on some of the visible street level drug dealing that was happening in East Middlesbrough. it didn't solve it overnight but there was a marked difference and actually some of those individuals were helping to sort of not only set up there but they were also helping to facilitate some of the activity over in redcone cleveland because we share that boundary line over in east middlesbrough is that fair to say then that what you're seeing in middlesbrough and perhaps in cleveland more generally is the the link between what's happening on the street the crime that's happening on the street that people are experiencing on a daily basis and this sort of web that's behind it yeah i think you would have to speak directly to clean police to get the exact statistics but from memory our largest majority amount of crimes in some way linked to drugs with it being an assault on the street or being something else that the root sort of element to it all is drug related now drugs um is obviously a complicated sort of system they don't just land in middlesbrough there has to be trafficking there has to be all sorts like get it here and i think it's about trying to dismantle some of those structures to make sure that drugs aren't as easy to move around because if we don't start to deal with the other sort of bearing drug problem then we can't obviously deal with the other problems as well.

24:11That was Chris Cook, the Mayor of Middlesbrough. Quick reminder if you want to listen back to any of this programme or to previous ones you can go to BBC Sounds where you can also download the podcast. The main headline so far on The World Tonight Washington has announced a new wave of measures designed to isolate Iran from the world economy. Andy Burnham has promised to maintain Britain's support for Ukraine despite what he called outrageous threats by Russia. And the war of words between the United States and Canada has continued after trade talks between the two countries broke down over the weekend.

24:43Today, President Trump announced on his Truth Social platform that he will increase tariffs on Canadian cars and auto parts to 50 % from January 1st. Across the border, the Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney maintained that he has no regrets about walking away from the talks. An attitude at the negotiation table that Canada is a subsidiary of the United States, that Canadian industry is going to be disadvantaged relative to American industry, that we're going to set up terms so that over time Canadian industry is going to face constant headwinds, that's not something we're going to accept. and we're going to turn to something else now because the popular online discussion forum reddit has taken pride in being human or something of a bastion of what might be called human generated content on the internet it's only been one of the last websites to resist influencer culture and ai but reddit's now testing a new feature that uses ai to convert text posts into video and audio it all follows on from the popularity of reddit threads being read out on podcasts and YouTube shows.

25:53Here's one example on the Endless Thread podcast. It's from the Boston-based public radio station WBUR, and it dramatises a thread where people debated why passengers on a flight from New Jersey to Palma de Mallorca were told that the plane would be turned round if they didn't turn off the Bluetooth function on their phones. Normally, it's because someone is airdropping inappropriate things to other passengers. I don't think they would declare an emergency or turn back due to that, would they? This flight just announced a 7700 emergency on Flightradar24. What happened? Skull emoji. Well, to tell us what's happening, we're joined now by Kat Tenbarge, independent journalist who writes about internet culture for Spitfire News.

26:39Welcome to the programme, Kat. Thanks so much for having me. Well, tell us, I think, first of all, for listeners who aren't familiar with Reddit, I mean what exactly is and why is it become so popular for people to read out posts on it yeah so reddit is a forum platform it is compiled of all of these little spaces called subreddits and the topics range from pop culture to news and politics to interpersonal conflict which is the basis of a lot of these sort of text posts that are now being read out loud so you can have everything from someone sharing the worst thing they ever saw at a wedding to somebody asking am I the a-hole in this situation I experienced or can you give me advice on my relationship and these are of course the building blocks of a strong compelling narrative with a lot of human interest and a strong compelling community which has been quite happy to not be taken over by AI or indeed influencers until now.

27:53But things are changing. Yes. And why are they changing? Is it just a case of if you can't beat them, join them? Because clearly people are voicing these posts, as we've heard in podcasts. So as a site decided, well, look, we're going to voice them up ourselves. Yes. Essentially, Reddit is now testing its own AI-powered readouts of some of these posts. And I think the reason why is because for any social media platform, success is measured in user engagement. Those users don't even have to be human. Bots can factor into what those numbers look like. And I think Reddit is following along with the trends that have been happening across the internet, where regardless of whether human users want these AI features or not, they can drive up the engagement.

28:53And there's at least some audience that is willing to listen to robotic voices reading out Reddit text posts. So now Reddit wants a piece of that action for itself. Right. Are there going to be subreddits about that? Oh, I'm sure. There are so many subreddits dedicated to drama happening within the platform itself. So that wouldn't be surprising. OK, how do you foresee this developing then? Is it is this something that is going to to catch on? Is it something that, you know, is just sort of inevitable? I suspect that the user base of Reddit is not going to be happy about this. The platform has responded quite negatively generally to the emergence of AI, both on and off the platform.