Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.
I'm Charlotte Gallagher, and in the early hours of the 26th of May, these are our main stories.
Chapter 2: What recent military actions has the US taken against Iran?
The US launches what it's calling defensive strikes on southern Iran. We ask what it means for the ceasefire in place since April and the chances for a peace deal between the two countries. Also, will the internet finally be restored in Iran after months of a digital blackout? Also in this podcast, how climate whiplash is hitting more of us.
Chapter 3: How does the US-Iran ceasefire impact diplomatic negotiations?
What it means really is that our climate is becoming more volatile. So when we are seeing these swings between different weather patterns, they are just becoming more violent, more energetic.
And we get the verdict on the enhanced games in Las Vegas.
Chapter 4: Will Iran's internet blackout finally end?
As Washington and Tehran claim they're inching closer to a peace deal, US forces say they've launched airstrikes on Iranian targets. The two sides had been observing a ceasefire since early April. Iran has not responded yet. I asked our North America correspondent, David Willis, what we know so far.
Morshala, the U.S. has attacked missile sites in southern Iran and boats trying to lay mines, according to U.S. Central Command. A statement from them says that U.S. forces conducted self-defense strikes in southern Iran today. to protect our troops from threats posed by Iranian forces. This is the target, but it doesn't give any details of the attacks.
Chapter 5: What are the implications of climate whiplash in Europe?
And that statement concludes U.S. Central Command continues to defend our forces while using restraint during attacks. the ongoing ceasefire. Well, there are reports, unconfirmed reports, of explosions near Bandar Abbas, which is a key Iranian airbase near the Strait of Hormuz.
Precisely what impact, if any, these strikes will have on that fragile ceasefire, it's been in place for more than six weeks, of course, since the 8th of April, isn't entirely clear.
Chapter 6: How is the Enhanced Games different from traditional Olympics?
Throughout that ceasefire, Iran has maintained control over shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and the US Navy has been blockading Iran's ports. Now, President Trump wrote earlier in the day that a deal with Iran would either be great and meaningful, as he put it, or there would be no deal at all.
Has this come as a surprise to people, given that 24 hours ago we were saying it looked like a deal was getting there almost?
Well, you're absolutely right. The U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggested earlier that a deal could be reached within a day, as he put it. And although that was swiftly rebuffed by a spokesman for Iran's foreign ministry, who said that whilst progress had been made in talks between the two sides, no such agreement was imminent anymore.
Now, they are thought to be discussing, delegates from Iran and the United States, a memorandum of understanding, which would involve a 60-day ceasefire extension, the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, and further negotiations on Iran's nuclear program.
Chapter 7: What is the current situation regarding the Ebola outbreak in Africa?
That, of course, is not a final settlement. It leaves some of the thorniest issues still to be resolved, including the future negotiations of Iran's nuclear enrichment program, which this whole conflict was all about in the first place, or supposed to be. The Trump administration almost seems to me to be willing a conclusion to this crisis.
President Trump has made very little secret of his impatience, his desire to achieve a solution to this crisis with the, of course, midterm elections coming up less than six months away.
That was David Willis. Meanwhile, Iranians are facing one of the longest running national internet shutdowns in history. People there have been in digital darkness most of this year, first during a brutal crackdown on anti-government protests that shook the country, and then as the US and Israel went to war with Iran.
Before the latest US strikes, the president, Massoud Pesachkian, announced the internet blackout will end, with state media saying access could be restored in the coming hours. But BBC Persian's Bahman Kalbassi told me people are sceptical.
The regime is intent on much more stringent control on the Internet, and it has taken major steps to make Internet as something of a privilege available to the few, available to those loyal to the regime. available to businesses that are close to the regime or even students and professors who would have to go through regime channels. Are they suddenly prepared to give all that up?
It very much remains to be seen.
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Chapter 8: How has a diamond discovery changed a community in Sierra Leone?
It's very hard to judge. There is a clear attempt by a lot of, especially the most hardline elements of the regime to say that Internet is not necessary for everyone. They have actually come out and said it publicly. So is the president overriding all of that, given that he's not a major player in the IRGC, the Revolutionary Guards are the ones who make these calls?
That is a question that I will believe it when I see it.
Because there have been times during this particular conflict where the president has come out and said something and then he's been contradicted by the Revolutionary Guards.
Throughout his entire tenure, that has been the case. And more so, obviously, since the war began and the power shifted even more than before to the hands of the generals. There's the reality, of course, that the economic impact of this internet shutdown is extremely grave. A lot of businesses are basically dying.
And many young people who depend on Internet connectivity can't do their basic work. So those pressures are boiling up. But is it enough or has it been enough for the entire government to recalculate and decide to not go forward with their plans of creating a North Korea-style internet system. That really is the question right now.
A lot of people are very sceptical of these announcements until they see real connectivity.
And I imagine that even if the internet is restored, a lot of websites presumably are blocked. It's not totally free access.
I mean, even before the war, Internet in Iran was very much restricted and many people accessed what they wanted to see or hear or listen to via VPNs. So that is the state of life in Iran has been for decades. But Since the war, even that has gotten very, very difficult. Many of the VPNs don't work. People go through incredible hoops just to get connected to WhatsApp for a few minutes.
So it is as if you create a major mass digital jail and put 90 million people in it.
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