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- [00:00]
Narrator/Advertiser
This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the uk. This message comes from Schwab At Schwab how you invest is your choice, not theirs. That's why when it comes to managing your wealth, Schwab gives you more choices. You can invest and trade on your own. Plus get advice and more comprehensive wealth solutions to help meet your unique needs. With award winning service, low costs and transparent advice, you can manage your wealth your way at Schwab. Visit schwab.com to learn more. Puerto Rico is having a moment of global attention. Behind it are decades of execution, preparation and business momentum. Global companies manufacture, innovate and scale here with confidence not culture or business. Culture and business. Puerto Rico. It's not what's next, it's where. Visit investpr.org business
- [00:59]
James
now after the episode on Monday night, there was a two hour period of newscast jitters where based on some quotes from President Trump where he said the war is very complete. Pretty much. There was a lot of speculation about whether something big was about to happen, whether this was about to end. We might have all been heading back in. Alex for a late night emergency episode.
- [01:20]
Alex
Yeah. And then there were another series of comments from Donald Trump in various interviews, addresses and press conferences which suggested probably the war in Iran wasn't coming to an imminent end. So there was no need for an emergency episode of Newscast. And we're going to unpick all of those quotes and the various comments from Donald Trump about what is happening in Iran from a US Perspective.
- [01:40]
James
And given the chance of emergency episodes at the moment, this is probably a good moment to remind you to subscribe to Newscast so you don't miss any of them. But let's get on right now with today's episode of Newscast, Newscast, Newscast from the BBC. Fat Boy Slim and me in the classroom doing our violin lessons. I was the tattletale in the class. Can I have an apology, please?
- [02:00]
Katrina Perry
I trust almost nobody that daddy has
- [02:02]
James
to sometimes use strong language. Next time in Moscow.
- [02:06]
Alex
I feel Delulu with no Salulu.
- [02:08]
Katrina Perry
Take me down to Downing Street.
- [02:09]
Michelle VC Bachman
Let's go have a tour.
- [02:11]
James
Blimey. Hello, it's James in the studio and
- [02:15]
Alex
it's Alex in the Westminster studio. And joining us from Washington is chief presenter and newscast Trump translator in chief Katrina Perry. Katrina High, What a title.
- [02:26]
Katrina Perry
Well, try and live up to that 80% of the way.
- [02:30]
James
Yeah, well, let's do it. The first thing to translate is Donald Trump's interview with CBS where he said the war was very, very complete. Pretty much. So let's translate that. What do you Think? Well, I mean, as much as you can. What do you think he meant?
- [02:47]
Katrina Perry
Well, yeah, so far as we can, it's being read as President Trump getting to a place where he's ready to declare the war is. And that's potentially for a number of reasons. One, he had initially said this would be a multi day operation. He called it a war. He's now calling it an excursion for the studiers of language. The change in wording there, it's quite interesting. And also we're seeing this huge impact on oil prices which is giving a lot of people a great sense of nervousness that's trickling down to the American people. That's never a good thing when your voters are upset. But of course, it's not a open to President Trump to just unilaterally declare that this war is complete, that it's over. Their partners in this are Israel. They have some differing war outcomes than the US Does. And of course, Iran gets a say in that as well. Just because if the US Was to decide to stop striking Iran, that doesn't mean that Iran is going to stop retaliating or as we've seen, targeting its neighbors as well.
- [03:55]
Alex
I mean, there's a whole load to unpick in terms of the actual content of what President Trump said. But it was this sort of series of comments that he gave, one after the other through a period of a couple of hours on Monday evening. The first one being, I think I'm right in saying Katrina, a phone call where he did this thing that he started to do increasingly, which is just like pick up the phone to a journalist when he wants to get some sort of message out. Which, I mean, is that an entirely new thing? Is that a sort of, have you ever had a phone call from President Trump? Like, what's going on with that?
- [04:26]
Katrina Perry
It's really interesting, isn't it? Because usually American presidents are so inaccessible. You've got to go down to the White House, get into the briefing room, if they're there, hope that you get a question or you get to shout at them as they're getting on and off Air Force One or they're in the Oval Office with the world leader. Usually that would only be reporters there for a couple of minutes. But we've seen President Trump be the most accessible president to a group of journalists, to reporters that we've ever seen. And the statistics are there to back that up. And what he started doing in the last few months is sometimes he calls reporters, but most of the time it's the main Anchor networks here, the big sort of celebrity superstar, TV news presenters here and chief White House correspondents just calling the President themselves. He's given them all his phone number and he actually answers the phone and then on occasion he calls them and he tends to ring a few people on a day. You know, he's kind of sharing the love. He doesn't give just one and scoop to any one outlet. But it's quite extraordinary. And you know, it's tremendous access for those who get the phone calls, of course. But there are questions there about doing it the old fashioned way, which was calling a press conference or in this case, when you're talking about starting or ending a war, having a sort of sit down live address to the nation. But it's a very curious way of doing business. But of course, President Trump, master communicator, master marketeer, and he's looking for methods that get his messages right out there into the public domain.
- [05:58]
James
And not just calling journalists, but addressing Republican lawmakers to try to get his message out and also holding a news conference. And let's have a bit of a listen at what he said there.
- [06:09]
Narrator/Advertiser
It's the beginning of building a new country. But they certainly, they have no navy, they have no air force, they have no anti aircraft equipment. It's all been blown up. They have no radar, they have no telecommunications and they have no leadership. It's all gone. So, you know, you could look at that statement.
- [06:30]
James
We could, we could call it a
- [06:33]
Narrator/Advertiser
tremendous success right now as we leave here. I could call it, or we could go further. And we're going to go further.
- [06:40]
James
I mean, even in that one clip, we could do this or we could do that. I mean, to be fair to Donald Trump, Katrina, one of the things that he has said or people have said on his behalf repeatedly is it is strategically not necessarily very useful or clever to telegraph your next move to your opponent. And so are we perhaps just seeing Donald Trump do what he often does, which is just try to confuse people?
- [07:09]
Katrina Perry
Yeah, that's exactly it. I mean, it's not just President Trump. It's the same of leaders in any country. If you're engaged in any kind of war or attack or defensive action, you're not going to tell the media or the people in your country exactly what you're going to do. Before you do it, you lose your strategic advantage. I think why we see all these different sort of comments from President Trump is because of what we were just talking about, the level of accessibility, the amount of times that he has been in front of cameras talking to journalists in the last, you know, what are we at now? 10, 11 days since this war began means that he's constantly being asked for an update and he feels he has to give one, but within those confines of not actually saying anything, which is, you know, the art of the communication in this realm.
- [07:55]
Alex
It's interesting because we had in this sort of series of comments that came out over a period from President Trump on Monday evening, the first one being this. The war was very complete, pretty much which a lot of people read as a sort of deliberate attempt, as you said, Katrina, to calm the oil markets. Because there's obviously there were nerves among governments really right across the spectrum about the potential economic impact of what's happening in the Middle East. But I guess the consequence or potential consequence of this seemingly shifting position from President Trump or this sort of deliberate vagueness about timelines and about what might happen next is that then the people who are then having to respond on behalf of the US Government in other capacities don't really know what they have to say. So you've got Pete Hegseth giving a news conference on Tuesday. He is the secretary of State for Defense, or as they like to he likes to call himself the secretary of state for war. And then he was sort of having to somehow match what the president had said in all of its kind of unspecific, slightly changing implications about what was actually going on in Iran. We can hear a little bit of him when he was asked about it.
- [09:02]
Narrator/Advertiser
We are winning with an overwhelming and unrelenting focus on our objectives, which are the same as the day I gave my first briefing here on Operation Epic Fury. They're straightforward, and we are executing them with ruthless precision. One, destroy their missile stockpiles, their missile launchers and their defense industrial base missiles and their ability to make them, Two, destroy their navy, and three, permanently deny Iran nuclear weapons forever.
- [09:41]
Alex
So you've got there Pete Hegseth, who was saying about the most intense day of strikes in Iran, but then setting out what he saw as the objectives of the US Efforts in Iran have. Have they changed much? Is he right to say that he's been consistent about it? Because, of course, from President Trump, we heard him sort of flirting with the notion of regime change initially, as well as talking about the nuclear program and ballistic missiles and the like.
- [10:04]
Katrina Perry
Yeah, in those first few videos that we heard from President Trump in the first kind of 36 hours after these strikes began, he was talking about the people of Iran rising up, seizing back their country. He said something along the lines of, you'll never have a better chance than you have now. But since then, it really has been quite consistent. In terms of these four points that you heard Pete Hegseth outlining there, we've heard them from him a few times, we've heard them from the President a few times, we've heard them from the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio a few times. And there hasn't been really much of a reference or any of a reference to the people of Iran on the issue of regime change. You know, we did hear President Trump saying on Monday that the Ayatollah son who's been put in place now, Khamenei, that he wasn't a good guy, he wasn't going to be there for very long, he didn't think he was the right leader. But he has said in the past few days that the person or people that he thought could be good leaders had all been killed in these strikes. Where we do see differences, though, is between the US And Israel. When Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump are talking about this being nearly over and they're kind of going to go in super heavy before it ends. When you look at Israel, their stated war aims are about ending the regime, about completely putting Iran in a place where their regime has no power at all. And that's not what we're seeing now, and that's not what we're hearing from President Trump. And it was really interesting to see, actually, Senator Lindsey Graham, who is a good ally of President Trump. They've had their ups and downs over the years, but they're from friends at this point. But Senator Graham told reporters this morning, there's no way you can say you've won the war with an ayatollah in charge. There cannot be a successful outcome. An epic fury using the operation name codename here, if people like that are still in charge. So he is now in direct conflict with what the President is saying, if indeed he's leading up to this place where he's about to declare the war being over from the point of view of the US at least.
- [12:12]
James
And so having made the case for Donald Trump's changing language, saying that maybe that's. That's calculated and deliberate, I suppose the counter argument is that over the past decade or so, geopolitics has involved an awful lot of retrofitting strategic aims onto Donald Trump's whims, you know, by the media, by Donald Trump's colleagues, by supporters, by opponents, I. E. He does say different things. Things One, one day he says One thing, the next day he says another, and then everyone scrambles around trying to interpret. But maybe, maybe sometimes the obvious is the true thing, which is he's just not sure what he thinks himself. And he sometimes changes his mind and changes it often.
- [12:52]
Katrina Perry
I mean, there are a whole pile of people making a living out of trying to decode President Trump, what he says at the time and what he meant to say and what he intended to say. And I'm sure we'll see PhDs in this for the next few decades. The fact of the matter, I suppose, is we can only go on what the President says on any given day, and we can only go on the actions that we see on any given day. And the actions that we're seeing today and for the last few days are this heavy bombardment of Iran by the US and by Israel. And we're not seeing at this point anyway any sense of downscaling the infrastructure that the US Military has out there, personnel being removed or anything like that. So until we see that happening, the US Is still very firmly in this war in Iran, even if the president wants to call it an excursion now. And until we're not there, we're there. And from an American public perspective, as long as they're seeing those oil prices continuing to go up, as long as they're seeing Americans losing their lives, seven US Service members already dead at this point, and many others injured, then President Trump is really trying to manage that message here in the US as well as sort of navigating the foreign policy part of it and the upset that it's causing with all of his allies as well.
- [14:15]
Alex
And just on that point, Katrina, it's interesting, I wonder, has there been much sort of polling done on how people in the US Are feeling about the actions of the US And Iran right now?
- [14:27]
Katrina Perry
We've had quite a few polls, actually. Now, I will just put the health disclaimer in there that a lot of these, the sample sizes are just about 1,000 people, which, you know, is mathematically correct for polling. But when you're talking about a country this size, you have to be careful not to read too much into these polls. But almost universally, the polls show that the American public are firmly against this war. It splits a bit along party lines. You get huge percentages of Democrats are against the war, you know, in the 80s and 90s, a bit lower than that when you're talking about Republicans, more like 60, 70%. But, you know, all of the polls showing that Americans are not in favor of this. And interestingly, there was one poll in CBS News which said that 62% of the American public of all political persuasions felt that the President had not explained to them well enough or at all just what the objective was in launching these strikes on Iran. And I think that's quite a key indicator as to why we're seeing such poor support levels from the American public for what's happening here. Because people just feel they haven't really been told. You know, the TVM radio stations here are full of vox pops and so on with people saying why are we in Iran, what are we doing there? Iran hadn't struck us. Where was the retaliation, where was the self defense? This whole concept of the imminent threat that the President and his administration are talking about to the US they haven't presented any evidence of that to show that Iran was, you know, days or as the President said, a week away from launching a major attack on the US So I think it's really hard for people to get behind something like that when they don't know, they don't understand why the US is doing it in the first place.
- [16:15]
James
Yeah. And I suppose another way of putting that is that the US Government has not yet presented evidence of the legality of this war. But I wanted to ask you one other thing, Katrina, which is about Vladimir Putin. There's been a call between President Trump and President Putin of Russia. And afterwards Mr. Trump said that the US was considering easing oil related sanctions. What do we know about that call?
- [16:38]
Katrina Perry
Yeah, this is something that has really inflamed a lot of people here in the US Particularly those who are very much against this war effort, is that President Trump has been speaking to President Putin while there is reporting that Russia has been sharing intelligence with Iran as to the location of some of the US military assets and US military movements. In other words, helping America's stated enemy in this war. So a lot of anger about that and this conversation that President Trump had with President Putin, you know, saying it was going well and so on all the while the talks that were due to be held, these sort of three way independent talks with the us, Ukraine and Russia for next week. President Zelensky has said those talks are off now. So obviously that's of grave concern to Ukraine that their situation is being put back and on the lifting of sanctions that you mentioned there, James as well. I mean this is also just driving people crazy here, Republicans and Democrats, that they feel Russia is being somehow rewarded. The President spoke in that speech that he made at that press conference that he gave at Mar a Lago on Monday about lifting some sanctions on some countries, didn't name any, but we have already seen from the Treasury Secretary, Scott Besant, that there were sanctions on India, if you remember, to stop it buying Russian oil. Well, they've lifted that for 30 days to allow India to buy Russian oil. And the concern here is that that's just the opening of a door to sort of welcoming Russia back into the international table. And it's going in the completely opposite direction to everything that we're seeing from the Europeans in terms of trying to shut down Russia and really cut off its revenue flows from oil.
- [18:27]
Alex
So many aspects and potential consequences of this. Katrina, thank you so much for being our Trump translator.
- [18:34]
Katrina Perry
Talk soon, guys.
- [18:35]
James
Alex, that idea of prime ministers or presidents just phoning you, I mean, it's like gold, isn't it, if you're a journalist? We all want that to happen.
- [18:43]
Alex
Yeah. I have to say, it's never happened to me. Neither Keir Starmer nor any other prime minister has called me directly to give me some quotes. But I wouldn't say no if they wanted to. I think what's probably more familiar in the Westminster system is that you get their kind of head of comms on the phone. Now, that can happen quite regularly, not least when they want to complain about something that you've done or said. I mean, that's sort of a little bit more the norm in the kind of system here is that it's sort of the comms chiefs that will get on the blower to journalists. And this is of all parties.
- [19:15]
James
Yeah.
- [19:15]
Alex
So, you know, complain or correct or argue or push or do whatever else. That's a much more regular interaction than the kind of top dog themselves.
- [19:22]
James
It is. But there's definitely a thing, isn't there? I mean, without going into opening our contacts books, there's definitely a thing where you have all sorts of people's numbers and you have all sorts of conversations with all sorts of people. But that does tend to shift dramatically when they become actually in charge. If those, if you're lucky enough for them to be your. I mean, first of all, I'm pretty sure they change the numbers at that point.
- [19:45]
Alex
Well, I think some do, but do you remember that Boris Johnson famously didn't, and then his mobile number got kind of published and then he had to change it because a lot of people realized he had the same number that they probably had stored in their phones. But I think a lot of them probably do change their number when they get into Downing street or wherever else it might be But I guess a good lesson is keep your contacts book up to date because you never know where when that number might come in handy.
- [20:07]
James
Yes,
- [20:17]
Katrina Perry
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- [22:42]
Alex
Watch with a free trial now@britbox.com so one thing that you might have heard quite a lot about in the last week or so is the Strait of Hormuz. Even on Monday, President Trump was writing on his Truth social social media account all about this. I'll read you a couple of lines of what he said. He said if Iran does anything that stops the flow of oil within the Strait of Hormuz, they will be hit by the United States of American capitals 20 times harder than they have been hit thus far. And then he goes on to say other things, but there's been such a lot of focus on this particular stretch of water, the Strait of Hormuz.
- [23:19]
James
Yes. And the question is why? Why is that so important and why does so much oil flow through that one bit of water next to Iran? And to answer those questions is Michelle VC Bachman, who is senior maritime intelligence analyst at Windward and an expert on all things shipping and trade. Hello, Michelle.
- [23:37]
Katrina Perry
Hello.
- [23:38]
Michelle VC Bachman
How are you?
- [23:38]
James
Very well. Thank you for joining us. You can help us understand what is going on here.
- [23:43]
Alex
I mean, Michelle, we've heard so much about the Straits of Hormuz, but I just wonder before we get into a little bit of detail about exactly what's happened and all of the implications of that, if we can kind of just take it back to basics and explain kind of why this has become so significant in this war. First off, I guess just the geography, where is the Straits of Hormuz and why has that become so key?
- [24:06]
Michelle VC Bachman
Well, this is a key narrow choke point through which 20% of the world's oil and gas goes through 20% of the world's fertilizers, significant container trade throughput as well. But importantly, there's not really any alternative route. There's some pipelines and Saudi Arabia are now sending some of their oil to the Red Sea. And I think there's another, another pipeline at the uae. But really this is the only way out. And so as we're seeing now, the closure has the potential for an economic inflation inducing shock equivalent to what we saw of the oil, you know, the oil price shock of the 70s. And yeah, I can't underestimate how critical it is that the transit that ships be allowed to transit. And of course, with I think we're at 13 tankers have been attacked and the area, the maritime security area threat still rated critical by navies and by marine insurers, nothing's going through, nothing at all.
- [25:13]
James
Or some people making a dash for it, going dark as it were, turning off the transponder and trying to make a dash through.
- [25:22]
Michelle VC Bachman
Well, there's an average of about 138transits daily, so we're talking about a handful now. And yes, there have been some tankers making a way through. So there have been some Iranian linked tankers go through dart, but you know, in the overall scheme of things they always have done that. But there has been one really audacious transit so far and that was a Greek owned Suez Max tanker which was laden with a million barrels of crude that it was loaded at Saudi Arabia. And that tanker went dark between March 4, March 9, sailed through and only yesterday did, did news of that emerge because it was about 100 nautical miles away from India and then it turned on its AIs. And so then we realized what it had done. And so I think now there are questions, you know, under what circumstances are marine insurers allowing these transits? Why are a handful of owners prepared to take the risk when, when hundreds aren't? And you know, is this about swashbuckling? If I don't take the risk and make the money, someone else will attitude or is there a genuine way out? The world is really watching right now.
- [26:38]
Alex
I mean it is because this is, you've already said it. Because we know about the volume of oil that passes through, the quantity of ships that pass through this. Because this is such a key strategic shipping route. Right. I mean, I'm just sort of in my mind just picturing where it is. So you've got the Persian Gulf, which is surrounded by a lot of the big oil and gas producing Gulf states. So you've got like Saudi Arabia, uae, Iran on the other side. And then the Strait of Hormuz is this narrow kind of strip that comes out from the Persian Gulf then into the wider kind of oceans and the other big shipping routes. So it is absolutely crucial that particular bit of water to getting all of these supplies through, right?
- [27:19]
Michelle VC Bachman
Yeah, absolutely. And at the moment the maritime security threat is critical. And a lot of these vessels, you know, marine insurance is a key impediment at the moment. So typically before the war broke out, to load a very large crude carrier that's about 2 million barrels of oil. The going rate from there to China was about $80,000 a day and that was considered a really strong rate. And we're seeing reports of fixtures being done for $770,000 a day. And that obviously reflects the massive cost of insurance and the huge risk associated with chartering a tanker in the area.
- [28:03]
James
And we've just been chatting about Donald Trump trying to decode Donald Trump and his various comments. One of the things he's been saying is telling ship owners to show some guts by sailing through. What do you think the industry makes of that?
- [28:18]
Michelle VC Bachman
Well, the industry, if, if they deemed it was safe, they would go through. And I think only this morning the, the Joint Maritime Operations center had advice about the area that seemed to contradict that. They assessed the area of critical, and they indicated that attacks against commercial shipping remained likely. Indeed, there was only a notification a couple of hours ago of another reported attack off the United Arab Emirates. So on one hand, you know, showing some guts, does that mean going through and placing crew at risk? And, you know, the Iranians have said that they're going to, they'll set on fire any vessel that attempts to make that transit. So we don't know. Another likely scenario is that we end up with a situation like the Red Sea and the Houthis, where the Houthis effectively gave a free pass to the Russians and the Chinese to go through. And ship owners, if you're western affiliated, you avoided the area. So, you know, we may end up with a situation like that where, you know, ships laden with commodities for India, Asia and China and other countries are able to go through or prepared to take the risk to go through, whereas US And Western affiliated ships may perhaps be more cautious and remain at Anchorage.
- [29:50]
James
My question about this, then is given this is such a choke point, and it has been for decades, and everybody knows about it, is there not another way? I mean, Saudi Arabia does have a pipeline that takes it across. If you imagine Saudi Arabia sticking down in the middle of Persian Gulf on the right in this Strait of Hormuz we're talking about. And then if you go to the west of that, to the left, if you're looking at a map, there's the Red Sea, and Saudi Arabia takes some of its oil that way.
- [30:22]
Alex
Right.
- [30:22]
James
And if so, can everyone not do that, or could they not take a lot more oil that way? Michelle?
- [30:28]
Michelle VC Bachman
No, the pipeline capacity for the Red Sea, I think, is about 5 million barrels per day. And that, of course, is, you know, well short of what Saudi Arabia export and can pump. And the problem now is that these countries are starting to curtail their production, which makes it even harder for them to restart if and when the Hormuz reopens. So there's a lot of it's Like a lot of chain reactions, the longer the Hormuz remain shut, and of course, this is unprecedented, nobody in my world thought that the strait would close because so much of the oil and the energy heads to Asia, and that geopolitically, countries like China and India would be able to. To have some sway and ensure that the choke point remained open.
- [31:22]
Alex
Given that, then, from a sort of geopolitical perspective, how does Iran have the power to effectively shut down the Strait of Hormuz? I mean, I think the Iranian foreign minister has said we haven't closed the strait. They've blamed sort of Israeli and American aggression causing instability in the region. But clearly the actions of Iran and the. The kind of threats that have been made to ships passing through has had a direct impact as well.
- [31:44]
Michelle VC Bachman
Yes. The Iranians said swiftly after the war broke out that they would set alight any ship that attempted to transit. And that resulted within 24 hours for Marine insurers and protection and indemnity policies attached to the war risk extension. Part of that, that was canceled and then renegotiated at a higher rate, which has made a lot of vessels just stop at anchor and the cost and the risks deemed too high to go through. So while the strait isn't officially closed, the, the messages that are being sent from, you know, the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps in particular, is that it's not safe to transit.
- [32:26]
James
We. And I suppose the other thing that this reminds us of is that Donald Trump can say all he likes, oh, the war is nearly over, but it's just a reminder this is not necessarily in his hands if Iran continues to try to choke off world trade. And I wanted to ask you, Michelle, in terms of that threat to world trade, we've talked a lot here about oil. You mentioned fertilizer, which is very important for the global economy as well. What about goods more generally? Is there an effect more widely on container ships, on goods? We saw a lot of a big impact after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. I know that's a bit different, but is there an impact here beyond oil?
- [33:10]
Michelle VC Bachman
Well, yes, it's kind of like combining the pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the Houthis choking off the Red Sea all into one. When you sort of look at the cascading impact that it has across the global trade sector. Firstly, you have oil and gas that's choked in. You have the recalibration of jet fuel, diesel and refined product trades, because, after all, there are significant export refineries in the Middle East Gulf, which is why You've seen jet fuel and diesel prices spike. So significantly. Container trades, they're once again, they're redirecting around the Red Sea because the Houthis have also increased their threats. You don't have container ships going in. Again, we've had 13, maybe 14 ships now attacked in the area, so it's quite significant there. So as I said earlier, I can't underestimate the impact this is going to have. And of course, even let's say the Strait opens in a couple of days time, this is going to take a couple of months to unwind.
- [34:23]
Alex
And just on that point, Michelle, I mean, we said right at the beginning, you're an expert on all things shipping and trade. This is your area of expertise. You follow this, this really, really closely. From your personal perspective, how does this rate in terms of the crises the industry's faced over the, over the years?
- [34:41]
Michelle VC Bachman
Well, I've been using the word unprecedented a lot. Firstly, you know, I, I remember, you know, the, the pandemic was, was massive. The war in Ukraine, again, you know, the, the, the shock that it has on, on shipping. But, you know, in my nearly 30 years, you know, the, the biggest thing that could ever, ever happen is, is the closure of the Strait of Hormuz because it is so critical to the oil and energies market. And, you know, here we are. Never thought that we'd be here.
- [35:14]
James
Well, thank you very much for telling us about it. That does put it in perspective.
- [35:19]
Michelle VC Bachman
Thank you very much.
- [35:27]
James
And speaking of ships, a little bit of news before we go. We learned on Tuesday afternoon that HMS Dragon, a destroyer, a type 45 Royal Navy destroyer, had left Portsmouth Harbour. On its way, we're told, to the Eastern Mediterranean. Assume. We assume that's probably Cyprus or thereabouts where this RAF base is, Alex. And do we know anything more?
- [35:50]
Alex
Well, obviously there's been some criticism about the fact that it was very slow to get going, but we have had a social media post from John Healey, the Defence Secretary, who's actually praising the Royal Navy, calling it a remarkable effort, that it's rather than six weeks of work to get this ship up and out. It was completed in six days, he said. The very best of Britain in action. I'm sure that won't silence all of the critics, but. Yeah, what we know is H. Ms. Dragon is now on her way.
- [36:17]
James
And that's it from this episode of Newscast. We're on our way as well. We'll be back very soon. Bye bye.
- [36:23]
Alex
Newscast, Newscast from the BBC.
- [36:26]
Narrator/Advertiser
Thank you so much for making it to the end of Newscast you clearly copyright Chris Mason Ooze Stamina. Can I gently encourage you to subscribe to us on BBC Sounds? Don't forget you can email us anytime. It's newscastbc.co.uk and if you would like to join our Discord community to talk about everything newscast related, there is a link in the description of this podcast and don't be scared. It's super easy to click on it and then get set up. Or you can WhatsApp us on 033-01-239480 and I promise you we read and listen to every single message. Thanks for listening to this podcast.
- [37:06]
James
Bye.
- [37:12]
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