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Adam Fleming
This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.
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Adam Fleming
apro vecha los ahoros de Memorial Day in los y compra los vasicos parelo gar pormenos ahoro centadolares en la parilla agas de cuatro que madores
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char Royal Performance Series.
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Dominic Casciani
Hello.
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Adam Fleming
We are back in the newscast studio, which is a shame for one reason, because it was great to see so many newscasters in person at the Hay Festival and it was a fun vibe but but good for another reason, which is that we have air conditioning here. So I for one, for now am very comfortable. As the UK breaks some more temperature records for the month of May and we're back in the not so hot seat for this episode of Newscast, Newscast, Newscast from the BBC, Humanity's next great voyage begins. We are in the midst of a rupture.
- [01:26]
Parham Gobadi
Nostalgia will not bring back the old order. Six, seven.
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Adam Fleming
Yeah, it's supposed to be me as a doctor.
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Parham Gobadi
Daddy has has also special quotation thinking
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Keir Starmer
about it like a panto helped.
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Parham Gobadi
Do we play music now or what do we do?
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Adam Fleming
Hello, it's Adam in the newscast studio and shortly we will get the latest on Iran because there have been some developments in that part of the world. But first of all, there's been a development here in the UK over that case of the three teenage boys who were given youth rehabilitation orders in connection with the rape of two teenage girls in Hampshire rather than being given custodial sentences. There was a big public outcry about those sentences over the last couple of days. Laura Kay did that very powerful interview with one of the girls on her program at the weekend, and the development today is the Prime Minister announced that the Attorney General is using the powers he's got to do this to refer the sentence to the Court of Appeal, where a trio of judges will decide if this sentence was unduly lenient. The person who can explain all of this in a lot of detail for us and help us understand what's going on is the home and legal affairs correspondent here at the BBC, Dominic, Dominic Casciani. Hi, Dominic.
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Dominic Casciani
Hello, Adam.
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Adam Fleming
Hi, Dominic. What's your take on just how this has played out, the fact that the Attorney General is going to refer this to the Court of Appeal and the events over the weekend?
- [02:45]
Dominic Casciani
Well, I think, Adam, to be perfectly frank, this has come about because there's a great deal of uncertainty about whether or not the trial judge at Southampton Crown Court has done the right thing in how he's handled the case of these three boys. And there's clearly, as we now know, a lot of public anger and astonishment, the outcome of this case. But at the same time, I think there is a degree of uncertainty and, well, to put it diplomatically, raised eyebrows, if not worse, among prosecutors about what's gone on. Because my understanding of the case is this is not the outcome that they expected to see and what they effectively went into court asking for during the sentencing last Thursday. Now, I think if we break this down, I think the basic facts of the case are quite simple. This was a really, really appall series of attacks on two girls by three boys. They planned the attacks, they filmed the attacks, they shared some of what they filmed online. They used those films to also further degrade and humiliate the girls that they attacked. We're not going to get into details of what went on, but when you look at the list of charges and the specific forms of the crimes that these girls were subjected to, it's absolutely appalling. And that's why when the Crown Prosecution Service went into court last Thursday for the sentencing, they presented arguments to the judge about how he should proceed. Now, in essence, when you have a sentencing exercise in court, it's quite simple, Adam. You know, the prosecution go in and they say, look, these are the facts of the case which have now been established by the jury's verdicts. This is how this case compares to other similar cases. And this is why we think this case falls within a particular range of the sentencing options. And then obviously, the defendant, through, normally, through their barrister, they get to say something in mitigation. They talk about their background factors which may have had a bearing on why they offended, and also prospects for rehabilitation and what's happened since the offence. And bearing in mind, when you have offences from a couple of years ago, very often people's lives can change. That's the background, and then the judge has the sentence. And then basically, it's not a balance of those two things that a judge takes those factors into account and then he or she comes up with the number. It gets a little bit more complicated when it comes to youth offending, and I'll come back to that in a second. But in essence, what the prosecution said was this was a series of offences of the highest harm, what's called category one harm, which meant it was a sustained incident. One of the victims, at least one of the victims was particularly vulnerable. There were additional factors which made it one of the most appalling crimes. And the personal responsibility of each of the offenders was the highest because they had significantly planned it and acted together and so on. And therefore that meant they went to the judge and said, if this was an adult offender, we'd be saying to you that the appropriate sentence was, would be between 12 and 19 years.
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Adam Fleming
Yeah, if it was an adult.
- [05:55]
Dominic Casciani
If it was an adult, 12 and 19 years. So now in the whole scheme of sexual offences dealt with in Crown Court, that's towards the high end. You know, you can't get much higher than 19 years before you get into life sentences. Okay. That's the background. Now this is where it gets complicated because a judge in a youth case then has to take into account prospects for rehabilitation. It's a really important part of the exercise. The sentencing guidelines are very, very clear that when they set about looking at the young offender, they've got to look at their development prospects for rehabilitation, whether custody is really necessary at the end of the day and then take a view. And that's why these sentences, exercises can be quite complicated and can often lead to outcomes which if you're not in court and hearing everything said over very often over an entire day, you may be a little bit surprised by the outcome. And I have to stress I wasn't in court for this one, so I don't know what the judge has said and we don't have the judge's sentencing remarks. So we're a little bit in the dark about how the whole process came about.
- [07:05]
Adam Fleming
But just to be clear, the system, whether it's the law or the guidelines that are given to judges or the practice in, on, on the judge's bench, does allow you in cases like this where the person who's been convicted is a child, that they don't have to go and serve a sentence where they're put behind bars. Okay. No, it wouldn't be a prison in this case because you don't go to prison if you're under 16. But there's, there's the scope for a non custodial option here in the system.
- [07:38]
Dominic Casciani
Yeah. Let me give you an example from 10 years ago, a case which has always stuck in my mind which is a very serious terrorism case, which was effectively at the time it was a 14 year old boy from Lancashire who was charged with preparation for acts of terrorism. He was accused of effectively trying to organize a serious terrorism attack along with other Islamic State supporters. He, he was caught, he was brought to justice. And it was a real dilemma for the sentencing judge in that case. Now, that sentencing judge gave that young man, who can only be known as Boy s, gave him a life term, but with a minimum of five years, which meant by the time he reached the age of 20, 21, if he made progress in youth custody, he would have a shot at getting out and being rehabilitated and going on to a normal life. And in that case it worked because that young man left prison in his early 20s. And I've spoken to him and had long conversations with him since and I reported the story some time ago. And he's gone on to have a effectively a happy and normal life, having gone through a lot of developmental issues. He had as a young man, addressed those, learns how to control himself and understand where he was wrong and has moved on. Now, that is the aspiration of the system. This system is saying young people, their brains aren't fully formed, they haven't necessarily reached a point of maturity. Things can change very, very rapidly, particularly in a teenage mind. You've got to give time for these things to play out. The difficulty we've got, Adam, in this case is we just don't know exactly what was said in relation to these three young men. I do know that one of the young men was described in course as having an IQ that was so low it was in the lowest 1% of the population. So you've clearly got one of these offenders with some quite serious developmental issues. As for the others, it's just not quite clear. We've asked for the judge's sentencing remarks and we haven't got them today. And the BBC has actually made a formal application tonight saying, you, you, we, we have to see what was said in court in order to actually fairly properly report this.
- [09:56]
Adam Fleming
And Tom, just explain why we don't automatically have that. Because I'm thinking back to times where you and I have been sat in this studio. It's been a high profile judgment and it's there on the judiciary website. And we've been able to go through line by line, word for word what the judge has said in that case. Why are we not doing that tonight?
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Dominic Casciani
Well, look, the principle, the legal principle is the open justice rules that the open justice principle is strong, that we should have access to all this stuff in practice. A great deal of our justice system is still working on principles that are more than 100 years old at times. And culturally it just doesn't happen. In some courts, in some locations, it can be very hit and miss. I and other court reporters, literally, sometimes you feel like you're banging your head off a desk. Sometimes your inability to get a piece of information, which you know in legal terms is public information under the open justice principle, but you can't actually get at it because the wheels turn very slowly. So it's very difficult for us to actually fully report the circumstances of this case tonight. Now, I think the first time we'll probably get an opportunity, Adam, is when this goes to the Court of Appeal under this unduly lenient sentence review which has now been ordered.
- [11:10]
Adam Fleming
And then just in terms of how it's played out today, we can hear Prime Minister Keir Starmer reacting to this news, or in fact breaking this news, which he did mid morning on Tuesday.
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Keir Starmer
It's a really distressing case. I think it's distressing for everybody to see. To hear about the courage, frankly, of the girls to come forward is humbling, but it is distressing. I find it distressing as a politician, I find it distressing as a father. And there are questions about the sentence. The Attorney General has power to refer a case to the court, Court of Appeal. If the Attorney General thinks that the sentence is too lenient, the Attorney General has now exercised that power. So I can announce that that case now will go to the Court of Appeal and the Court of Appeal will now review the sentence in that case. And that is clearly the right outcome.
- [12:02]
Adam Fleming
And then we got a statement from the family of one of the victims at the centre of this and they said they hope the correct outcome will prevail when the case goes to the Court of Appeal. So, Dom, just in terms of that Court of Appeal process set out, how
- [12:15]
Dominic Casciani
that might work, yeah, it's quite simple, really. So, in effect, this, this swift review which has happened has simply involved the Attorney General, who, although the AG is a Cabinet minister with another hat on, the AG is the top legal advisor in government and supervises the Crown prosecution service. The AG's team would have got a, or more than one top prosecutor in the room in the last 24 hours and said to them, what do you think of this case? Was this what you were expecting? As prosecutors, how does this compare to other cases? Those prosecutors who are in the top courts in the land, day in, day out, would have said to the ag, this, this is an unduly lenient sentence. This is what it looks like. And so, armed with that information goes to the Court of Appeal. Three senior judges were put on this case. I'm willing to bet that the three judges chosen for this case will be among the most experienced that the court will have available. Because of the public clamor to. To get answers over this, they will then receive basically an argument from. From the Crown on behalf of the. Well, effectively from the Attorney General, saying, look, this is an unduly lenient sentence because if you compare this to other ones, you know, custody should have been considered and we don't understand why not. There was a case mentioned during this, during this trial to the trial judge, which basically said that juvenile offenders convicted of rape can get a hefty jail term. They will then hear the arguments from the barristers, or are likely to hear the arguments from the barristers for the three boys, which will basically reiterate what the trial judge was told about their backgrounds and almost certainly make the case that this outcome was the fair one. Taken into account the prospects which. Which are hopeful for rehabilitation and then they will rule. It's a pretty quick process once it begins, because typically what happens is the Court of Appeal spends a lot of time reading in. The judges are pretty quick readers. They'll get their heads around this and then it'll probably be all over. It'll probably take, I suspect, half a day.
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Adam Fleming
Right.
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Dominic Casciani
Something like that. They're normally quite quick, these things.
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Adam Fleming
And Dom, I mean, it's very hard to predict these things. But when. When might this actually happen? When might we see it being decided at the Court of Appeal?
- [14:33]
Dominic Casciani
Yeah, so we haven't got a date yet. And sometimes these kind of hearings take an age to get to the Court of Appeal. I think there's possibly a reason why this might be dealt with more quickly than other cases. Thinking about it, it's because of the possibility that the sentence is going to be changed from, effectively, a community order, where these three boys are in the community and receiving rehabilitation and supervision in the community, being shifted from that to a form of youth custody, at which point they'd be taken into a secure children's home, effectively a form of imprisonment. And if that's going to happen, they're going to need to know their fate sooner rather than later. And I suspect that will mean the Court of Appeal may end up expediting this one and actually dealing with it
- [15:17]
Adam Fleming
quite quickly, and then just not to turn this into a law seminar, although that would be quite useful. And I'm sure you'd be a very good tutor. A few times you've said that. It's sort of the people that the Attorney General speaks to or the people that the Appeal Court Judges sort of refer back to are the prosecutors. Why do the prosecutors who are basically one side in the legal process have such sway when it comes to defining what the right sentence might be? Aren't they just there to make the best case for the prosecution? And, and that's it. They're just, they're just one half of the, of the case, it seems, it seems when it comes to considering the right sentence they get a sort of special status.
- [15:57]
Dominic Casciani
No, no, it's, it's, I, I, I would, I wouldn't load it that high. It's just that the prosecutors tend to be the people who are the absolute experts on what's happened before and what the case law is. So for instance, in this case, when these three were being sentenced, they were referring to a case which is only known by the initials rd, rdp and that was a, that was a young offender who was 15 at trial and he received an eight year old custody, youth custody term. And they were saying, look, if you look at the facts of this case, the real specific facts of the case, this is very, very similar to what we're dealing with here at Southampton Crown Court. So what tends to happen is the prosecutors tend to be over that kind of detail about what's been going on in the law. It's then for the barristers on the defence side to actually make submissions about why you can't apply another case from five years ago to the circumstances of this case. So it's a balance between those two. There isn't, there isn't, there isn't an imbalance there. The court has to take both of those into account. But it really is to prosecutors who really have their heads around all the individual laws which have gone in recent years.
- [17:08]
Adam Fleming
It's not like the prosecution are sort of getting another go.
- [17:12]
Dominic Casciani
Well, I mean you could argue they are because the unduly lenient sentence scheme allows them to make those submissions. And unusually in this case, the Crown Prosecution Service itself has made an unduly lenient sentence application to the Attorney General, to their own boss in effect. That's quite unusual for that to happen. They normally just leave it to the public.
- [17:34]
Adam Fleming
What, because they just don't want to get involved in sort of questioning the judicial system.
- [17:40]
Dominic Casciani
I think it's more a case that ulss these cases, they happen, they don't happen that often because generally speaking courts get it right. If you look at the outcomes, a uls very, very RA rarely leads to some kind of massive change in the sentence. So what tends to happen is they tend to be outliers, these cases. But just the other thing on sort of equality of arms. Bear in mind as well that any offender who receives a sentence which they feel is unduly harsh can appeal the sentence even if they're guilty. So you can go to the court of Appeal and say, look, yeah, I accept, I'm guilty of this crime, but, you know, the 10 years, come on, you know, it was only worth five, something like that. So an awful lot of the course appeals work is reviewing sentences and very often you'll see the course of appeal day in, day out. We just don't report these tweaking, tweaking sentences, you know, you know, taking six months off one, adding two years to another or whatever. And it's all about trying to get consistency across the system and trying to be fair as well.
- [18:43]
Adam Fleming
And we will likely never know the identity of these teenagers. Boys.
- [18:48]
Dominic Casciani
Well, that's a complicated one. So judges aren't afraid to lift the anonymity orders on youth offenders, but it only happens if they're sent to youth custody. Okay. It doesn't happen if they've got a community sentence. So we can. I can think of many cases down the years where it's been the. In the whole scheme of national news, it's, you know, it's been a shocking local case, but not really a massive national case. And a local judge in the local Crown court will name the young offenders, particularly in relation to knife crime and gang crime. A lot of that goes on, but that's where they've sent those young offenders into some form of custody. It tends to happen when they're older. So the older the teenager is up to the age of 18, the more likely they are to be named in relation to a violent offence, the younger they are, less likely it is to be they're going to be named. The naming of Thompson and Venables, the two boys who killed James Bulger in Liverpool many, many years ago. That was a. That was a real outlier that those were named, you know, those two boys at the time. I suspect what will happen is if this sentence is changed and the boys are given a form of youth custody, I think there will then be applications from sections in the media, which maybe the BBC will be part of as well, saying, we want to review the anonymity there, but I don't think that will happen before the sentencing thing is dealt with.
- [20:20]
Adam Fleming
And Dominic, a related issue to this is the actual age at which a person or child becomes responsible for being a criminal. The age of criminal responsibility in England and Wales, it's currently 10. In France, it's 13, Germany 14, Scotland 12. And the government is looking at changing that, increasing that in England and Wales. Where are we with that?
- [20:40]
Dominic Casciani
I think this is some way off. This is a really, really complicated issue and I think it's also a very complicated issue within the Labour Party as well because the the Asia criminal responsibility was lowered by Tony Blair's government to to the point it is at now. So any move to increase it put it more in line with some of our European comparators. I think that's going to be a bit of a debate within the ruling Labour Party if that's going to happen. And I think also there'll be a political optics issue there for any government who actually wants to rebalance that or feel that it has to rebalance that, because it's quite a difficult thing to sell if you think about it in political terms. You can imagine the kind of criticisms of any government that will be made by changing that because quite frankly, you will have some people who would be prosecuted today for an offence and wouldn't be tomorrow. Of course, on the other side you've got all the arguments which we've touched on today that some children develop at different rates to others and they may be involved in crime as very, very young teenagers because of complex issues in their lives, particularly where they've been victims of abuse themselves. And they may be able to move on if they're not criminalized. But that's a whole Ph.D. adam well,
- [22:01]
Adam Fleming
and if anyone's going to get a good mark in their PhD for doing it, it will be you. Dominic, thank you very much.
- [22:07]
Dominic Casciani
Thank you.
- [22:17]
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- [22:48]
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- [23:39]
Catriona Perry
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- [23:47]
Adam Fleming
Now, as promised, we're going to talk about the situation with Iran because over the weekend Donald Trump posted a quite long post on social media, in fact, several posts on social media that made it sound like the talks between the US and the Iranians were kind of reaching some kind of conclusion. Then on Tuesday morning, we woke up to the BBC News push alert saying there had been US military action for the first time in a little while in Iran. So I was quite confused about whether it was the first thing or the second thing was the direction that the world was heading in. So let's try and work out which one it is because I'm joined on the line by our colleague from BBC Persian, senior reporter there, Parham Gobadi. Hi Parham.
- [24:26]
Parham Gobadi
Hi Adam, thanks for having me again,
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Adam Fleming
thanks for coming back. And down the line from Washington D.C. it's Catriona Perry. Hello Katrina.
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Catriona Perry
Hi Adam. Good to talk to you.
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Adam Fleming
Right, let's start with you, Katrina. What have we Learned about these U.S. airstrikes?
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Catriona Perry
Well, we have had a statement from CENTCOM, which is the branch of the U.S. military that's in charge of that region of the world. And they have described these strikes as self defense because of course we're in a ceasefire period. We have to remember. So this came out of the blue because all of the bluster and everything that we've heard from President Trump in recent days about talks this ceasefire was still holding. But in that statement, Captain Tim Hawkins said US forces conducted self defense strikes in southern Iran today, he says to protect our troops from threats posed by Iranian forces. Targets included missile launch sites and Iranian boats attempting to emplace mines. So very much describing this as a one off, not a restarting of the whole campaign, which is something that there has been a little clamoring for here in the US given how long now that this ceasefire is going on, how long the Straits of Hormuz have been closed and the lengthy period of time that gas prices, petrol prices are continuing to rise up here in the US and right around the world.
- [25:46]
Adam Fleming
And Katrina, we should just remind ourselves that the, the full scale military action by the US and Israel against Iran, mostly has stopped during the ceasefire period, apart from a few exceptions. And the Strait of Hormuz, the blockade that the US put in place is to stop Iranian ships transiting through the Strait of Hormuz. That's the sort of. That's the activity that's been happening there recently.
- [26:11]
Catriona Perry
That's it exactly. The Strait of Hormuz is effectively closed from that U.S. blockade. And the Iranians have a blockade on as well. So all that's getting through are a couple of Iranian ships that are heading out to allies places like China and Russia, and a couple of ships that the US has managed to sort of escort through as well. But really you're talking single digits there compared to the few hundred that would normally pass through on a day.
- [26:39]
Adam Fleming
And Parham, how has the Iranian regime responded to this, this increased military action in the last day or so?
- [26:45]
Parham Gobadi
So the Iranians have put the blame on Americans. They're saying that Americans in the past 48 hours have repeatedly violated the ceasefire. This is part of the Iranian Foreign Ministry's statement. And they said that no aggression will be left unanswered. At the same time, Iranian revolutionary bars also issued a statement saying that in case of violation of ceasefire by Americans, they will consider retaliation as both legitimate and certain. They have also claimed that they've managed to down an American drone, MQ9, and they have also fired at another drone, RQ4 and F35 fighter jets. And they say that they forced them flee. To flee. To flee the territorial airspace. But these are the Iranian claims and we cannot, you know, we have no way to verify them at this stage.
- [27:34]
Adam Fleming
And also, Baron, there was a message posted on social media from the Supreme Leader, Mojtar Khamenei. And that was, well, that was a communication from him, but not. But not visual. It wasn't him doing it in person, it wasn't him doing it live. It was some text on social media.
- [27:49]
Parham Gobadi
That's a very important point because we have to remember that ever since the war started, ever since that there were reports that he was injured in the war, there have been no videos and no audios of him, only written statements read by Iranian news anchors on Iranian state tv. But this again, this new message, this his latest message, again, is a sign of defiance. It shows that the entire regime, the entire establishment has become, some may say, more radical because he said in that statement that the clock will not turn back and the regional countries will no longer act as a shield for American bases. This was his father's dream all the time, all these years, to expel American forces from the region and some people in the west are arguing that might be a good idea for the Americans. However, probably many countries who have been impacted, especially Arab countries in the Gulf who've been impacted by the Iranian attacks, drone and missile attacks, might not welcome that idea. In another part, he said that he referred to his father because his father, 10 years ago, he said that Israelis will not see the day of light in 25 years. What he meant was that they will be, you know, destroyed completely. There will be no Israel in 25 years. He reiterated that claim. He said that as my father said, that promise is still in place and Israelis will not, in 15 years time, there will be no Israel. And he also mentioned Lebanese and the axis of evil. So it shows that Iranians have not changed course. In fact, probably they want to continue the way, I mean, reinforce their regional allies, which they say is a part of their ceasefire as well. And also they still have the motto and the slogan of destroying Israel.
- [29:33]
Adam Fleming
And Parham, just that first bit you were talking there in the statement about the nations of the Middle east no longer being a shield for US bases, is that a threat to potentially attack other Middle Eastern countries that have US bases in them? That's what they mean by that.
- [29:50]
Parham Gobadi
It is. And they've repeatedly said that, they've said it openly, that Gulf countries, they have to expel American forces, they have to shut down their American military base. This is many analysts, they say that the policy Iranians are using is, they call it triangular coercion because Iran knows that its military might and its military capabilities is no match for the most advanced and powerful military in the world, the United States. So what they do is that they put, they coerce another, smaller nations who have some influence on the United States, whose, you know, well being and their oil export and gas export. If they manage to stop that, that will impact the world economy. So this is what they call a triangular coercion. And this is, it seems that Iranians have adopted in the last round of fights with the Americans and the Israelis, because this time around, the difference between this war and the last war was that for Iranians it was an existential threat because of Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu both said that they are seeking regime change at the beginning of the war, but that that did not materialize.
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Adam Fleming
And Katrina, in terms of the negotiations, or I don't know if we're calling them negotiations, but to some kind of more semi permanent settlement for this. What, what clues have we got about how that process is going?
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Catriona Perry
Well, there Were talks taking place today in Doha about this? We're hearing from Iranian state media that the Iranian delegation have arrived back in Iran at this point. And it would seem that those talks, if you want talks about talks, are really about a single proposal related to the Strait of Hormuz, related to extending the ceasefire that we've seen so far for between 30 and 60 days, depending on which reports you look at. And that that would be the period then for the negotiation of something more longer term, more permanent. Marco Rubio, he is in India at the moment. He spoke just before getting on his plane a few hours ago. He said he felt something could be agreed within the next few days. Obviously with a whole pile of posts from President Trump over the weekend which seemed to suggest something was really imminent, as in, you know, sort of a few hours away. Obviously that hasn't materialized. And then we saw these so called self defense of strikes on Monday night. So it's very hard to get a handle on just where any of this is at the moment, as has been the case for the few months that we've been in this kind of holding pattern, that nothing really seems to be moving forward. You know, the most concrete thing we're hearing, as I say, is from Marco Rubio something in the next next few days. But that's really seems to be just about reopening the straight of Hormuz and getting the oil and the fertilizer products and everything else flowing again.
- [32:39]
Adam Fleming
And yeah, Parham, is that what you're thinking is going to happen first? I've quite sort of narrow deal that tweaks the status quo rather than solving any of the big problems here?
- [32:50]
Parham Gobadi
It seems so, because there's no other way. Because if there are so many sticking points in these negotiations that if they want to focus on a broader consensus and a broader deal, it will probably take way, way longer. And what matters the most is that to be able to open the Strait of Hormuz because so many countries are being impacted, including Iran itself. Yes, they're enduring that. However, many believe that this cannot go on forever. Iran cannot be blocked, you know, sea blocked, because they have to, you know, it's detrimental for their oil wells and their oil infrastructures and their pipelines. They need to be able to extract that oil and to put it on the ships and export it. And economically it's under severe pressure as well. So I think it appears that they want to first, you know, find the kind of mutual understanding, a memorandum of understanding, and then based on that go for longer negotiations that includes Probably Iranian nuclear materials and nuclear activities. And also we'll see if the United States will accept Iran's control over the Strait of Hormuz, because Iran is really adamant to keep that. And the other thing is that Donald Trump, in the past 48 hours, I think he changed his tone a little bit regarding Iranian nuclear enriched nuclear material that are over 400 kg of them with 60% purity. He said that they are either they should be there transferred to the United States, but he also said there's a possibility of transferring it to a third country that has a, you know, nuclear infrastructure to dismantle it over there. So that that shows that there is light at the end of the tunnel regarding that enriched nuclear material.
- [34:31]
Adam Fleming
Interesting. The pieces are sort of slowly falling into place. Maybe Katrina, we're talking about ceasefires. One ceasefire that has just not held at all is the one concerning Lebanon because Israel continues and in fact continues to escalate its airstrikes on, on targets it says are related to Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. But do we have any idea how the situation in Lebanon plays into the wider situation?
- [34:58]
Catriona Perry
Yeah, I mean, this ceasefire is really a ceasefire in name only at this point. You know, even the extension that was agreed just a couple of weeks ago here in D.C. which is where there have been talks between Lebanon and Israel, which, you know, those talks in and of themselves are pretty historic. They're direct face to face talks. Obviously Hezbollah is not a party to those talks and can't be. It's designated as a terrorist organization, so it can't be part of those talks. And it also doesn't want anything to do with them anyway. But even since the extension to that ceasefire was agreed, we've seen so many strikes, we've seen a tremendous loss of life, many of them children, many, many civilians. Although, as you say, Israel says it is targeting only Hezbollah targets. But at this point, I think it's also forming part of whatever those longer term talks or negotiations are between Iran and the US because there are more confusing the talks about talks here. But there are more talks in the Lebanese Israeli track, let's say, set to take place here in Washington at the end of this week. But it's in Iran's gift to tell Hezbollah to stand down. It's in the gift of the US potentially to tell Israel to stand down. And I think there's some tacit agreement that that situation can sort of operate in its own lane until things get to the point of a bigger agreement on the Iran US perspective, whether that is as we've been discussing a sort of first stage related to the Strait of Hormuz or something bigger than that. But definitely we're seeing strikes after strikes, reports of drones going into Israel, reports of Israeli strikes on Lebanon, more evacuation orders being set in there by the Israelis for the Lebanese people as well. So very much still an active situation.
- [36:57]
Adam Fleming
And Katrina, just remind us what the Abraham Accords are or were. I suppose they were. And then they now are, as you will no doubt explain brilliantly, and also why they're coming up again in this context.
- [37:09]
Catriona Perry
Yes. So the Abraham Accords are something that came about in the first Trump administration, which was this great plan. And in France, the Biden administration kept it going as well to try and normalize relations in the Middle east between Israel and the Gulf and Arab partners there. Now, President Trump has continued to return to mentioning the Abraham Accords because he sees this as one of his signature big victories from his first Trump administration. And he put a really long post out over the weekend on this, lauding this success of the Abraham Accords that Bahrain has signed, that the UAE has signed. They were coming quite close to Saudi Arabia signing up as well. Just before October 7, 2023, those attacks happened. And then of course, any sort of normalization pact was completely off the table. But this lengthy post that President Trump put up on his Truth Social over the weekend, he seems to be trying to link a big extension of the Abraham Accords to any sort of big deal that's going to be signed in the region between the US And Iran. And you know, the post is really long. If you print it out, it's an A4 sheet long. That's how long the post is. And full of his usual superlatives that if the Abraham Accords could be linked to this would be the best deal sort of the world has, has ever seen, a historic event and so on. But there has been radio silence coming back from many of these countries. They're not prepared to have Iran as part of this bigger deal. Many of them don't want to sign up to the Abraham Accords with the US at this point with the normalization of relations with Israel either. The situation is just as we know. We talk about it so much on this pod, so volatile in the region that I think many are of the allies in the region are focused on, you know, let's try and get one of these things sorted straight up, namely being our fear of retaliation from Iran, namely being getting the Strait of Hormuz open and moving into this bigger plan that President Trump is describing of A regional big event where everyone signs up to the Abraham Accords as well as the US Iran peace deal just seems to be too big of an idea at this point in time.
- [39:26]
Parham Gobadi
Can I add one point regarding this Abraham Accord? Because I think posts like that by Donald Trump, if he wants to reach a deal with the Iranians, can be counterproductive because as I mentioned in the latest statement by Iranian leader Moshe Abu Al Khamenei, he's again reiterating that he wants the destruction of Israel. So if you want to, if any deal with the United States will be interpreted as Iranian are dealing with the Israelis, or it's a kind of, you know, rapprochement between Iran and Israel, Iranians would not probably sign that Iran. Iranian former leader, the father of the current Iranian leader, before he died, when the Abraham Accord was signed, he was furious and he repeatedly asked the Arab countries, including the uae, to change course. And he harshly criticized them. And he said that if they do not change course, they will see the consequences. So I don't think this is going to help reaching a deal with Iran.
- [40:28]
Adam Fleming
Parham, thank you very much for that.
- [40:30]
Dominic Casciani
Thank you.
- [40:30]
Adam Fleming
And Katrina, good to catch up with
- [40:32]
Catriona Perry
you too, as always. Thanks.
- [40:42]
Adam Fleming
And just before we go, we've had a very nice message from Catherine in Edinburgh. As will become clear as I read out this message, she says, I'd like to know if you're coming to the Edinburgh Festival this August. If so, when will the tickets be available? I was there last year and thoroughly enjoyed it and I don't want to miss it this year. Well, Catherine, I've got good news for you. Well, and for you, if you want to come and see us in Edinburgh, we are going to be at the Fringe again this year and the tickets are available now. We're going to be there August 10th to August 14th. And to get tickets, you need to go to the Edinburgh Fringe website, which is www.edfringe.com. then you click on shows. Then if you search for newscast, you will then find details of how to get the tickets. So that website again is edfringe.com click on shows, search for newscast and you will find the details of our show. And why not search for anyone else you fancy seeing at the Edinburgh Festival as well while you're there, Although I'm not sure it's my job to actually promote other people's shows. And just a warning, I think there's a £1.50 booking fee, so the tickets are free, but obtaining the tickets costs a little bit and hopefully I will see you and probably Catherine there in August. And I'll definitely see you again very soon for another episode of Newscast.
- [42:02]
Parham Gobadi
Bye bye.
- [42:03]
Adam Fleming
Newscast.
- [42:04]
Catriona Perry
Newscast from the BBC.
- [42:06]
Adam Fleming
You've come to the end of Newscast. Some people, and you know who I mean, might say you ooze stamina. Can I encourage you to subscribe on BBC Sounds? And you can get in touch with us anytime. Email us@newscastbc.co.uk, you can WhatsApp us on 0301-239-480. Yes you can. A five minute quick and easy calorie burning workout. Give it a try. Come join our sweat sesh on TikTok.