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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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You're listening to the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.
Hello, I'm Oliver Conway. We're recording this in the early hours of Tuesday the 12th of May. The British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is under mounting pressure to resign.
Chapter 2: Why is Keir Starmer facing pressure to resign as British PM?
Iran says it's ready to respond to any aggression after President Trump said the ceasefire was on life support. And scientists say whales are in danger because of an increase in ships off South Africa, triggered by conflicts in the Middle East. Also in this podcast...
It was dangerous to go to the market, even for one kilo of rice. You can be arrested, killed, raped, harassed, beaten, humiliated. So people would rather starve, not go out.
How life is slowly returning to Sudan's capital Khartoum after the city was battered in the civil war. It's been a difficult few days for the British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, and it could be about to get worse.
After a damaging set of results from local elections last week, dozens of MPs in his Labour Party, including a number from his Cabinet, publicly called on him to resign or set out a timetable for his departure. One of them, Jonathan Hinder, told the BBC that the Prime Minister's speech on Monday, which was seen as a last-ditch attempt to save his premiership, had been tone-deaf.
It's time to be real. He's going, no doubt about it. If you look at those results last week, we're being swept away in our heartlands. And to come out in response to that and start talking about Brexit and having free movement again, for that to be the focus, when you're fighting for your life as the Prime Minister, it was absurd. I heard more from our political correspondent, Rob Watson.
Well, we see it to be at another moment of peak drama in British politics, Oliver. And the day had started with Keir Starmer hoping that a speech that he was giving would somehow stop the drip, drip, drip of MPs urging him to consider his position. That did not happen. And indeed, as the day went on, things seemed to get even worse. And the day concluded...
with the BBC understanding that several senior ministers, cabinet ministers, had said to the Prime Minister, look, the game is up, you seriously need to consider resigning. So a very, very bad day indeed for the Prime Minister, leaving his grip on power, the Prime Ministership and the leadership of the party slipping away.
So he is still currently in place, but what might happen in the coming hours on Tuesday? It could be the moment this drama concludes one way or another because the Cabinet are meeting, that's the senior ministers, and we understand at the BBC there is a split in the Cabinet. So some have said to him, you need to consider your position.
Others take the view that the last thing that Britain needs is another leadership contest after having seen the Conservatives change leadership five times while they were in power. So there is a movement against it. And I guess what we'll be looking out for is how does that resolve? I mean, do the Cabinet decide in the end that they will get round Keir Starmer?
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Chapter 3: What are Iran's responses to recent aggression and ceasefire challenges?
They understand these are all medical people. Dr. Oz, life support is not a good thing. Do you agree? I prognosticate. I would say the ceasefire is on massive life support.
Well, Iran's parliamentary speaker and chief negotiator, Mohammad Bagha Galibaf, responded on social media, saying our armed forces are ready to respond and to teach a lesson for any aggression.
Chapter 4: How is increased ship traffic off South Africa affecting whale populations?
And the Iranian foreign ministry spokesman, Esmail Baghaei, insisted that Tehran's peace proposals were reasonable. We did not ask for any concessions. The only thing we sought was Iran's legitimate rights. I leave it to you to judge whether Iran's demands are excessive.
Iran's calls for an end to the war in the region, its demands that the naval blockade be brought to a halt and its request for the release of assets belonging to the Iranian people. Are these unreasonable demands? So how close are we to the ceasefire unravelling? A question I put to Bahman Kalbassi from the BBC Persian service in New York.
Judging what the president says, obviously it's not going to be easy to hold the ceasefire. But the problem right now the White House faces is that there are no good options. Restarting the war has its own consequences economically and for the security of the region, countries in the Persian Gulf, will obviously be hit again.
And so those consequences are obviously weighing heavily on the decision makers at the White House. Preserving this status quo is also, as the president says, is very hard to see possible because sooner or later Iranians would want to increase the cost of this blockade.
And accepting the deal that the Iranians are proposing is also very difficult because it's very hard to sell a deal that is not very different fundamentally from what Barack Obama achieved in the JCPOA or famously known as the Iran deal back in 2015. So none of the options before the president are desirable.
Nevertheless, he may have to lean towards one or the other to break the stalemate, but it's not clear any of them will. Looking at the various proposals that have been winging their way from Iran to the US and back, have we seen either side soften its position at all? On one key issue Iran has, and that is the fate of the enriched uranium, 400 kilogram of highly enriched uranium.
They had previously said we would not send any of it outside of Iran. But apparently the new proposal that they sent that the president rejected said,
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Chapter 5: What is the current situation in Sudan's capital Khartoum after the civil war?
has the possibility of half of it being sent to a third country and the rest being diluted. So that's one step they've taken. But they also have asked for sanction relief and release of all the Iranian assets frozen in foreign banks up front because they don't trust Donald Trump to actually lift sanctions later on if they give up their leverage.
So that's probably one of the reasons that the White House is very unhappy with the Iranian proposal. Very briefly, President Trump going to China this week. No doubt Iran will be a top talking point. It will be, even though the White House officials have been saying that it will not be the number one issue or the overwhelming discussion around it.
But they also said that they're going to ask Chinese to help with this matter and pressure Iran. Obviously, Chinese government will ask for something in return. So this is not going to be the desirable environment that the president wanted to go to China under. Bahman Kalbassi of the BBC Persian service in New York.
Scientists are warning that increased shipping off South Africa as a result of vessels trying to avoid the conflict in the Middle East is posing a danger to whales. Experts from the University of Pretoria say there is a heightened risk of collision because the seas off the southwest coast of the country support significant whale populations. Here's our Africa correspondent, Mayeni Jones.
South African researchers say this issue has been ongoing since 2023, when more ships started rerouting around South Africa after Houthi rebels hijacked a British vessel near Yemen. But further attacks and the ongoing war between the US, Israel and Iran has led to more ships travelling through the Cape of Good Hope, exacerbating the problem.
The lead researcher of the University of Pretoria's whaling unit told the BBC their aim isn't to point the finger at anyone, but rather to draw attention to the issue in order to reduce the risk of future collisions. Professor Els Van Muelen says it's hard to quantify how many whales have been struck. as more data is needed.
Most collisions between whales and ships tend to happen deep offshore, leading to the animals sinking to the bottom of the ocean rather than washing up on the coast. This makes it difficult to estimate how big the problem is. Until they have more data, solutions are hard to recommend.
But Professor Vermeulen says they could include tweaking shipping routes as well as reducing the speed at which vessels travel at certain times of the year. My Annie Jones. For more than three years, Sudan has been engulfed in a brutal civil war. At least 150,000 people are thought to have been killed, possibly many more, while millions have been displaced.
The war began as a power struggle between the Sudanese military and the powerful paramilitary group the Rapid Support Forces. In the early days, the RSF seized much of the capital Khartoum before the army regained control of it in March 2025. One year on, BBC reporter Mahanad Hashim has returned home to the battered city to see how people there are getting on.
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