US reportedly offers 15-point plan to end conflict

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You're listening to the global news podcast from the BBC World Service.

Hello, I'm Oliver Conway and we're recording this at 5 o'clock GMT on Wednesday the 25th

of March.

The US has reportedly sent Iran a 15 point plan to end the war.

The social media giant meta is ordered to pay $375 million in damages for misleading

users over child safety and Russia launches nearly a thousand drones at Ukraine.

Also in the podcast, we look at NASA's mission to fly humans deeper into space than ever

before.

And there was a real sense of joy across the team.

Moments like this are so incredibly unique and they give everyone a big morale boost

and they just remind us why this work matters.

The light as a second gorilla gives birth to twins in a national park in Congo.

President Trump appears to be pursuing a twin approach to the war on Iran.

On the one hand, he's reported to be sending thousands of US paratroopers to the Middle

East, raising the possibility that he intends to invade Iran's oil hub of Hague Island.

But at the same time, US officials say Iran has been sent a 15 point plan to end the

war.

Speaking at the White House, President Trump said the two sides were already in negotiations

and the Iranians, quote, badly, want to make a deal.

He also spoke about a gift from Iran related to the flow of oil through the Strait of

Hormuz.

It was a very big present, worth a tremendous amount of money.

I'm not going to tell you what that present is, but it was a very significant prize and

they gave it to us.

They said they were going to give it, so that meant one thing to me would deal with the

right people.

No, it wasn't nuclear oil.

It was oil and gas related.

Was it related to the Strait of Hormuz in the flow?

Yeah, it was related to the flow and to the Strait, yeah.

A few hours later, Iran said it would allow what it called non-hostile vessels to pass

through the Strait.

In recent days, countries like China, India and Pakistan have managed to negotiate safe

passage through the waterway.

Despite this report of possible progress, analysts like Ali Vayez from the International

Crisis Group say the situation remains very dangerous.

The United States is now getting closer and closer to the prospect of putting boots

on the ground.

The president seems to have absolute belief in the ability of US military to deliver results

and he believes that taking over Iranian territory would force the Iranians to open

up the Strait of Hormuz.

This is an absolute catastrophe for the region and it might come to haunt the US and Israel.

I spoke to our US correspondent David Willis and he told me first about the American peace

plan.

It's been reported here, Oliver, that the US has sent around a 15-point plan via intermediaries

in Pakistan for ending this war, the sort of blueprint that the United States believes

is needed to be signed up for by Iran and according to the New York Times, it broadly

addresses Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programs and is said to include the demand

that Iran abandoned any attempt to build a nuclear weapon.

Now that is something which President Trump, to the surprise of many I might add, said

today that Iran had already agreed to and this plan is also thought to include provisions

regarding maritime routes given Iran's recent blocking of the Strait of Hormuz.

It's unclear how widely the plan has been shared amongst Iranian officials or indeed

whether Iran is likely to accept it as the basis for negotiation and nor is it clear

whether Israel, which of course has been bombing Iran together with the United States, is

on board with the provisions included in this plan.

Iran has of course denied that any negotiations are taking place with the United States and

President Trump once again refused to be drawn today on who in Iran the US is negotiating

with.

At the same time, there are reports that US power troopers are going to be heading to

the Middle East.

Is President Trump really thinking of trying to take Harg Island?

Possibly.

You're absolutely right.

It's being reported that as well as two marine expeditionary units, the Pentagon is sending

more than 1,000 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division to the region including an elite contingent

of power troopers and rapid response forces and that's in addition to the thousands of

soldiers and Marines that are already in the region.

It's not clear precisely where these members of the 82nd Airborne will be stationed and

President Trump didn't address troop deployments when he spoke to reporters in the Oval Office

today.

But the reports have prompted speculation that all this talk of negotiation could be aimed

at perhaps soothing the financial markets and also buying time as you mentioned there

all over for the US to get troops in place ahead of a possible ground invasion.

David Willis, talking to me from Los Angeles, a US jury has found that meta-violated New

Mexico state law by misleading users over child safety.

The tech giant was accused of allowing predators to get access to underage users, thus enabling

child sex abuse and human trafficking.

It was ordered to pay $375 million in damages, less than the $2.2 billion requested by the

state.

The New Mexico attorney general who brought the case said the firm's executives knew

their products harm children and lied about it.

Meta says it will appeal.

I heard more from our North America technology correspondent, Lili Jamali.

Lili Jamali Well, this trial is significant because it's

the first time that a US state has managed to sue this company meta over child safety

and win.

And meta is one of the world's biggest tech companies.

They own Instagram, they own Facebook, they own threads and WhatsApp.

These are products that nearly all of us use in some form or fashion and for years states

like New Mexico had a really hard time getting cases like this one on child safety in front

of juries because the tech companies would say that under US law they're not responsible

for content that people post on them.

Or the state was able to successfully argue that this case was really about design choices,

the algorithms that push certain content and potential contacts to these kids.

The fact that this case made it to a jury always carried a sense of historical consequence.

But this verdict with this $375 million judgment only adds to that sense.

Yeah.

And what exactly has meta been found to have done wrong?

So meta is specifically found to have willfully engage in unfair trade practices in violation

of consumer protection laws in New Mexico.

The allegation which the jury bought here is that they misled the public when it comes

to the safety of its platforms.

Meta has said they disagree with this verdict.

They're planning to appeal as you mentioned.

They also say they work really hard to keep people safe on their platforms all along.

They have taken issue with this idea that they don't do enough to protect children.

In 2024, about a year and a half ago now they launched something called Instagram teen

accounts, which they say helps limit screen time and interactions with strangers gives parents

more control.

But critics have said that that program is just window dressing doesn't do a lot to meaning

fully address child safety concerns.

This is just one of a series of cases brought against meta and other tech firms.

Will the industry be worried here?

I think they are and I would say certainly there's a feeling among advocates that I've

been speaking to that there is a change in the works here.

There's another case being considered by a jury right now in Los Angeles brought by a young

woman who alleges meta's Instagram is addictive and caused harm to her mental health there.

There are parents all through the courthouse who have lost their kids to what they believe

with social media addiction and then you also have laws all around the world being considered

or enacted to keep kids off social media.

Lily Jamali in San Francisco.

Starting on Monday night and continuing into the day of Tuesday, Russia launched nearly

1000 drones against Ukraine, according to the Ukrainian military.

The low cost but deadly weapons hit targets across the country, leaving several dead and

more than a dozen injured.

I can't respond and give Vitaly Shivchenko has the details.

Normally attacks of this scale happen at night and they tend not to focus on Western Ukraine.

Overnight five people were killed in attacks across Ukraine and then in the afternoon wave

off to wave of Russian drones flew west in broad daylight and the damage they caused

is severe, including to a 17th century church in Lviv.

This was the attack.

President Volodymyr Zelensky called this attack an absolute perversion which only Vladimir

Putin can like.

In neighbouring Ivana Frankivsk, two people were killed and a maternity hospital was damaged.

The Ukrainian Air Force says that this country was attacked with the largest ever number

of drones dispatched by Russia on a single day, 948, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The sheer scale of this attack shows that Russia has no plans to end this war.

Vitaly Shivchenko in Kiev.

If all goes to plan this time next week, four astronauts will be heading for the history

books, as NASA's Artemis 2 mission carries them further from Earth than any human has ever

been.

They do to fly around the moon as part of a plan for a man return to the lunar surface

for the first time since the Apollo era, half a century ago.

Our science editor, Rebecca Morrell, has been taking a closer look at the living conditions

for the crew and how the mission will play out.

The astronauts making this epic journey are three Americans.

Reed Wiseman, the missions commander, who's had a lifelong love of flying, but says he's

scared of heights.

Pilot Victor Glover, whose nickname is Ike, says it stands for I Know Everything.

Christina Cook, the only woman in the crew, she made history with the first all-female

spacewalk and Jeremy Hansen from the Canadian Space Agency, who's never been to space before.

The astronauts will spend ten days in the Orion capsule.

The compact living space is where the four will exercise, eat, work and sleep.

The astronauts will use a water dispenser for drinking and to rehydrate their food.

They've each chosen their favourite meals for the trip.

On a step just beneath the hatch doubles up as a fly we'll exercise machine.

The astronauts will work out for 30 minutes every day.

The mission to the moon and back will last about ten days.

The first day, the astronauts will orbit the earth, checking the spacecraft's vital systems.

On the second day, they'll depart for the moon.

The journey takes about four days.

As the astronauts fly around the moon's far side, they'll see parts of the lunar surface

never seen by human eyes before.

After that, they'll begin their four day journey home.

The return is one of the most dangerous parts of the entire mission, and the crew will

be relying on Orion's heat shield.

It will have to protect the astronauts from temperatures of 2700 degrees Celsius, as

the spacecraft speeds through the atmosphere.

That's half as hot as the surface of the sun.

The heat shield was badly damaged during the first uncrewed Artemis mission, but by changing

the angle of Orion's reentry, NASA is confident this won't happen again.

Once the spacecraft is safely through a series of parachutes will be deployed to slow it

down, the astronauts will make a gentle splash down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast

of California, where a recovery team will be waiting.

Our science editor, Rebecca Morrell.

One of the premier leagues leading goal scorers, Muhammad Salah, will be leaving Liverpool

football club at the end of the season.

The 33-year-old Egyptian international announced his forthcoming departure in a video on social

media.

I never imagined how deeply this club, this city, this people, would become part of my

life.

Liverpool is not just a football club, it's a passion, it's a history, it's a spirit,

I can't explain in a word.

With his reflection, his or senior football commentator Ian Dennis.

Those who know him have always said to me that he would always leave on his own terms,

but it will be farewell to a Liverpool legend.

255 goals, only Roger Hunt with 285, and Ian Russia 346 have scored more than Mo Salah,

and that's just his goals, you throw in his assists as well, and he's had an incredible

374 goal involvements in 435 appearances.

I mean, we are talking of not just a Liverpool legend, a Premier League legend and an African

legend, because last week against Galatasaray at Anfield, he became the first African player

to score 50 goals in the Champions League.

So when you talk about greats, then Mo Salah is definitely one of those.

I mean, he's undoubtedly underperform this season, 10 goals, if you compare that to his

previous goals, Tally 44 in his first season, then 27, 23, 31, 31, 30, 25, and 34.

And I think the manner of his departure as well is fitting for his level of service that

he's given Liverpool football club over those nine years, but also it's fitting for Liverpool

as a football club bearing in mind what happened at the end of November and December when

he'd had that fall out and there was question marks over his future prior to going to the

African Cup of Nations because he was on the bench for those three successive games.

The first time incidentally that had ever happened in his Liverpool career, and that just

didn't seem right for the departure of Mo Salah to go with dividing the fan base, that

cloud of uncertainty, whereas this on his terms, he will get the send off that the Liverpool

fans will undoubtedly want to give him when he does depart now on his own terms at the

end of the season. Ian Dennis. Still to come on the podcast? Somebody could just drink

a real bottle of orange juice, fill it again with poor quality wine and sell it again.

The man trying to stop French wine fraudsters.

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You're listening to the Global News Podcast. Journalists at Australia's public broadcast

to ABC have gone on strike, walking out for the first time in 20 years. They're protesting

over pay, conditions and the possible use of artificial intelligence to replace them.

Our correspondent in Sydney Katie Watson told me about the disruption.

What it means is some of the big programs, a flagship shows such as 730, which is an

evening current affairs program. It's breakfast show. Those are not going ahead. There'll

be some reruns. There'll be some pre-programmed shows playing music as well as BBC World

Service, which is going to also help plug the gap. Apparently they were offered a 10% pay

rise. Why is that not enough? They were offered a staggered 10% pay rise. That's over three

years. It would be 3.5% the first year and then the following two years, 3.25%. 10% over

three years. Well, Australia's annual inflation rate in January was 3.8%. But one of the other

issues was that staff were also offered a $1,000 bonus, which sounds good, but it's not

for casual staff. And actually most of the workforce are on fixed-time contracts and casual

contracts. And so those people would not be part of that.

What are the particular concerns about artificial intelligence? So there's broadly a concern

that the broadcaster is refusing to rule out, replacing some staff with artificial intelligence

now. This is not something that Australia faces alone. But that was just one of the other

issues that the union members who voted against this offer. And so ABC now needs to take

this to the workplace tribunal, the Fair Work Commission, and try and resolve the dispute

somehow.

Casey Watson.

Denmark's governing social democratic party came top in Tuesday's parliamentary election,

but with its worst showing in more than a century. The Prime Minister, Madam Feather

Xen, had been hoping for a poll boost after standing up to Donald Trump's threats to take

the semi-autonomous territory of Greenland. Despite falling short of a majority, she says

she is ready to serve as Prime Minister again. At the party's election night gathering,

Interior Minister Christian Rabjurg Madsen explained why she should stay in the top job.

Greenlandic crisis and the totally unacceptable pressure that we have been put under by the

American administration have been a tough thing to deal with. But I also think that it's

shown that we have the right Prime Minister and the Prime Minister that is ready to take Denmark

through also very, really tough times.

From Copenhagen, Adrian Murray gave us an update on the results.

The Jennifer Prime Minister and Madam Feather Xen hurt party. The social democrats have

secured the most votes. She's got almost 22% of the votes, and that means she has 38 seats

in Parliament. Together with the red block, that it's a group of allied parties, because

this is a coalition that type of Parliament, where there's many parties on the left and

the right. But those allied parties together have 84 seats. The opposition, the blue block

on the right, they have 77. So that gives the red block this small lead. But neither side

has the required 90 seats to have a maturity in Parliament. So in this situation now, where

it's not quite clear what form the next coalition government will take. Interestingly, though,

there's a small party in the centre for the moderates, and they have 14 seats. They are led

by Lars Michael Rasmussen. He's a former Prime Minister himself. And there's also the foreign

minister and Metto Frederick Senn's previous government. He is now positioned really with a lot of

power to steer the course of what this next government might look like. Adrian Murray in Copenhagen.

Imagine spending hundreds of dollars on a bottle of fine wine, only to find you've actually

bought cheap plunk that's been falsely labelled. Well, a vineyard in France has come up with a

unique solution to fight the fraudsters, as Richard Hamilton explains.

In recent years, French police have dismantled many criminal networks that have made millions

of dollars by exporting counterfeit bottles of expensive ventures. To try to stop the fraudsters

vineyards have used secure labels, secreting cravings, and even microchips on the bottles.

But those methods are still not foolproof. Somebody could just drink a real bottle of

frangilus, fill it again with poor quality wine, cork it again, even if the original cork of frangilus

if the guy is really good, and sell it again. That's Benjamin Lafore, the head of research and

development at Chateau Angelus in Bordeaux. He's invented a system for identifying counterfeit

wine using the unique genetic code of each vine from the vineyard. His team mixed samples of DNA

from the grapes with wax from local beehives, which are then used to seal the bottle. If consumers

suspect they've been cheated, they can send a sample of the wax back to the chateau for analysis

and a definitive answer. Benjamin says the really clever bit is that the counterfeiters

can't recreate this unique seal. If somebody would would like to make false Angelus wanted to

put the wax back again on top of the cork, they would have to melt it. But because of our process,

if you heat up the wax to the temperature which makes the wax melt, you immediately destroy

completely the DNA inside. Benjamin Lafore says the idea came to him one night when he couldn't

get to sleep. After that he spent a year developing this system and has now patented it. It sounds

like a lot of work, but since bottles of Angelus are sold for up to $800, protecting them is a

good investment. Above all he says the reputation of his vineyard depends on customers being able to

trust that their wines are the real thing and not sophisticated fakes. Richard Hamilton.

Next to the Congolese Jungle. Well that is the sound of a mountain gorilla.

Officials at Varunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo have reported that one of

them has delivered twins. It's a pretty rare occurrence. Only 1% of these endangered creatures

are twins compared to about 4% of humans. And even more remarkable, it's the second set of

twins born in the park in the past few months. Laura Parker is head of conservation programs at

Varunga National Park. She spoke to Rebecca Kesby about the reaction there.

When the Rangers reported the second twin birth there was a real sense of joy across the team.

Moments like this are so incredibly unique and they give everyone a big morale boost and they

just remind us why this work matters. Two for one, twins do tend to run in families, don't they?

Do we think that the two mothers might be related? We don't and in fact there hasn't been a lot of

research done on this because they are so incredibly rare. But what we do know is that it's likely due

to a rare biological event called hyper ovulation which we see in humans as well. When two eggs or two

over are released, it is natural but it's a very uncommon occurrence. But it may be more likely

when females are in very good physical condition, when there's a lot of stability and social

cohesion within the groups and when stress is limited. You know, mountain gorillas have recovered

significantly since the 80s and 90s and not because there aren't the same challenges that we had

back then but largely because of sustained long-term conservation efforts. And I suppose then these

mothers may have similar issues that human mothers might have with twins. Are you worried that

it might be a little bit too much? We're certainly not worried it might be too much. Mortality and

infants and mountain gorillas is already quite high but you know gorillas are not biologically

adapted for twins. You know, gorilla mothers are adapted to raise one infant at a time. They

carry them constantly. Now gorillas also walk on all fours so carrying two babies at one time can

be physically demanding for her so survival can be more challenging in that way. But the gorilla

births that we had in January, those twins are now approaching three months which is already

significant milestone in their survival. You know, all signs of observation right now point to

very little stress on the mother. Gorillas are I think even more exceptional than humans and

their ability to work with one another. And the males do a great job keeping the group calm,

supporting the mother. But it's really up to her. You know gorillas they're not like lions or

other species that can share the burden of child raising. It's you know the mother nurses alone.

I mean carries the infants alone. We don't want to over anthropomorphize this but it's really

such an amazing event. And even when you're observing them when you see the video just how calm

the mother is, I think there was a video posted on our social media today even showing the mother

with you know the two babies in her arms and then she's caressing a juvenile next to her that seems

to be quite curious. Laura Parker from the Virunga National Park and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

And that is all from us for now. But the global news podcast will be back very soon. This

edition was mixed by Daniel Foxx and produced by Chantal Hartle and Shavon Leighi. Our editor is

Karen Martin. I'm Oliver Conway. Until next time, goodbye.

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