Iran says no negotiations until there’s a Lebanon ceasefire

BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts Hello, welcome to the programme. This is News Hour from the BBC, World Service Coming to You Live from London. I'm Paul Henley. Now, the future of peace talks planned for Iran has been thrown into doubt by a statement from the Iranian Foreign Minister that the US must first stop Israel's attacks on Lebanon. The speaker of Iran's parliament, leading the Iranian delegation that has just arrived for the talks in Pakistan, had previously also stressed the necessity of releasing Iran's blocked assets. Pakistan is the venue of the talks on Saturday, billed as historic by organisers and intended to include the US vice president, J.D. Vance. Malidah Lodi was Pakistan's representative to the UN, as well as ambassador to the United States. She told the BBC Pakistan had played a crucial role in bringing about these talks. It's high risk, but then it's also high reward. And in any case, Pakistan was uniquely positioned to play this role. There was nobody else who the US turned to and then Iran also accepted. If Pakistan can actually succeed in ensuring that the two sides adhere to the ceasefire and also read some kind of an understanding during the talks in Islamabad, then it will be a big feather in Pakistan's diplomatic cap. But the war in Lebanon continues. More than 350 people were killed and over a thousand wounded in a huge wave of Israeli attacks on Wednesday after the ceasefire in the conflict with Iran had been announced. Israel says it killed more than 180 Hezbollah militants. Israeli strikes have continued today. Our State Department correspondent in Washington is Tom Bateman. And I put it to Tom that there were still huge obstacles to these talks. Many. I mean, I think as the vice president, JD Vance, flies into Islamabad, you're seeing two sides moving further apart because, I mean, you've mentioned some of the comments from the Iranian delegation and, you know, we already knew that they were demanding the Israeli stop bombing Lebanon that as far as they understood it and the Pakistanis had said this at the outset, that the ceasefire covered Lebanon. But since then, of course, Israel and the United States say it doesn't. But we're now having other elements put in front of this by the Iranians, saying, for example, that assets blocked assets as Mohammed Bakeh Gali Baf, the Iranian parliamentary speaker and a member of the delegation put it, which would appear to mean assets frozen by the Americans as part of their sanctions regime on the Iranians. Now they're saying that they should be unfrozen before the talks can take place. So that appears to be a pretty big deal. And at the same time, you have Donald Trump appearing to get increasingly irritated, saying the Iranians, you know, don't have any cards to play apart from the fact they've blocked the Strait of Hormuz. They need to understand that. And he's then talking about the ammunition in the ships being reloaded and they're ready to fire it if there's no deal done. And appearing to sort of dangle the prospect of death in front of the Iranian negotiating team when he said that the basically the only reason they're alive is to negotiate. Iran clearly does have cards or things would be a lot simpler. And what are their negotiating tactics? Well, I mean, they clearly have cards because they have survived a war launched by the US and Israel that was intended to kill them and to bring in regime change, which was very clearly the Israeli objective was arguably the American objective too, and it hasn't succeeded. So, you know, Mr. Trump sort of six weeks into this war with now this very tenuous ceasefire, I think has few real objectives that he can point to other than this sort of destruction of conventional weaponry. But even that, you know, some of the American claims, I think, are a bit dubious here. And the fact is, although Mr. Trump sort of would hate to admit it, the blocking of the Strait of Hormuz is a very, very strong card. And it's one that became a war aim from him after he'd started the war to open a straight that was open when he started the war. So it remains one of his biggest problems that they have to get solved in this negotiation. But as I say, you know, if this is going to be some sort of two week process in which the Americans at the end of this need to say, oh, you know, we've also a curtail their nuclear ambitions, which was the fundamental core objective of this war, remember, few signs of how they are going to achieve that through this diplomacy, where Mr. Trump had always zigzagged between diplomatic outreach, but then using military force against the Iranians. So far, that strategy has proved unsuccessful. And is there any sign that Israel is willing to stop bombing Lebanon? None so far. I mean, Mr. Netanyahu, who spoke to Donald Trump a couple of days ago, when I think, you know, the Wednesday in which one 300 people in Lebanon were killed by the Israelis, by that bombardment in a single day, you know, that phone call then between Donald Trump and Mr. Netanyahu, in which he was clearly telling him at the very least to scale it back. But probably telling him to stop, I imagine. Mr. Netanyahu has not done that and instead has given him the prospect of some talks at ambassador level between the Israelis and the Lebanese, significant to have direct contact like that, but still sort of kicking it into the medium long grass. Meanwhile, Mr. Netanyahu says their attacks will continue until Hezbollah disarms. Well, that objective has been a years long one for Israel and the Americans. No sign of that happening. Tom Bateman in Washington in the past few minutes, the reports that the Lebanese president is saying the US will mediate between Lebanon and Israel. In that ongoing dispute, I've been speaking to two members of a family from Beirut caught up in Wednesday's Israeli attacks. 13 year old Naya's proximity to some of the blasts was documented in harrowing detail in a video she made on her phone, which has since gone viral. She was with her father filming on the Snapchat app in a street in Beirut at the moment when the assault began. The combination of the depiction of a child with puppy dog ears and a desperate run for cover as lethal bombs come down, caught worldwide attention. Naya's mother, Gida Marji, told me about the moment she knew how close her family had come to disaster. I received a phone call from her and she was crying and shouting and she said the explosion, a building and then the phone cut off. And that's all I heard and I couldn't reach her anymore. And just minutes earlier, I had heard a big boom and at the back of my mind, it was either a sonic boom or it was somewhere far because we had gotten used to normalizing those sounds with disregarded the sound. So when she called and she was crying and she said the explosion and building. So at the back of my mind, I thought that they had exploded our building. How long until you knew she was safe? It took me approximately three minutes until I could reach her dad. And then her dad said him and Naya were together and they were safe. But he told me the boys were at home. So I have a 11 year old and I have a four year old. And I tried to ask him, are they good? And he kept on repeating. He said the boys are at home. So I didn't quite understand. Were the boys at home and the house exploded or were the boys at home and they were safe? And what did you think when you first saw Naya's now very famous film on her phone? Look, when I first saw the video, because Naya sent it to me, I only saw it one hour later because I was busy. Ambiances. We don't know what was happening. I saw that she sent me a video, but I didn't open it. But then when I saw the video, I just collapsed and I said, everybody needs to see this video. I need to post it online so people can see what actually happened. Naya, thanks for talking to us. Tell me about those moments when the bombs fell. OK, basically, first I was with my dad because I finished basketball practice and we were walking home. We stopped because a car passed and we heard something. But we didn't really know exactly what it was. We continued walking and an airstrike struck the building in front of us. The first thing we did was run to another building and I didn't know what to say. So I just started swearing. I was just so scared. I would like to say I'm sorry for saying bad words in the video. I don't think anyone blames you. How long before you felt safe? Tell us about those ensuing minutes. The second we went into the building, we stayed for like one minute and we ran the opposite side of where they hit. And I was still scared because I didn't know what they could have done next. Like maybe they bombed another place that's next to me. I didn't know what was going to happen. So we started going to my house, but from a longer way. And when I arrived home, I felt the safest there. I've never seen a building fall in front of me. And I never thought I would ever see a building fall like that. What's your reaction, Nia, to your video going around the world being so recognized now? I didn't expect it to go that viral, but I'm happy that many people are noticing how kids my age and younger are feeling because of this war and how it's like unacceptable that kids this young are experiencing stuff like that. Thank you, Nia. Gida, it must have been terrifying knowing that she was so close to disaster. Yes, if that car didn't pass, because they were crossing the street to go to the building that was actually hit by three missiles. But because a car passed, they had to stop. So once they stopped, the missile hit and the pressure from the missile pushed her away from her dad. So her dad had to pull her back in towards him. You'd actually had a conversation as a family the night before, I believe, about feeling a little bit safer, hoping a ceasefire was on the way. Yes, we slept with the assumption that there was a ceasefire. And we thought that it's over. We had some positive vibes and we thought we were very optimistic and we thought it's finally done and the leaders are speaking together and everything. So when we woke up in the morning, some very good news on the TV. This is why I went to my work and the kids were home because they are on Easter holiday. We sent Nia Nia as the basketball players. She plays basketball like eight, nine times a week. So we sent her to basketball practice in the morning at nine o'clock and everything was normal for us. It was just a normal day, midday. Her father was working from home on that day. So he just decided to go walking. It was a sunny day. He decided to go walking 10 minutes from our house just to pick her up from basketball practice and come back. He just stepped out for 10 minutes and then the disaster happened. And how do you feel now? You didn't even go to work today. You were too scared to leave the children. Is that right? I haven't I haven't been to work for two days now because we left Beirut because my four year old and my 11 year old are also terrified because of the strikes also that happened around the house. Seven strikes happened around my house. Seven strikes. So my boys, especially my four year old, he still explains and tells the story of how the booms were too loud and the house was shaking all the time for a long time and how they had to hide in the toilet for safety because they were with the nanny. Is there any optimism left? Do you have hopes for peace talks now still? I'm hoping for that. But at the moment, at the moment, Paul, to be very honest, all I care about is the well being, the mental well being of my kids and myself and my husband. This is at the moment. This is all I care about. Ida and Nia Marji from Beirut. This is News Hour. Coming up, scientists studying chimpanzees in Uganda have documented what they say is the first evidence of civil war among groups of the animals that had previously lived in harmony. It was a case of friends becoming enemies because after 2018, after the separation had been completed, there were almost 30 individuals, most likely, being killed over the next eight years. More in about 20 minutes. The headlines, Iran has set preconditions for the start of negotiations with the US, including a ceasefire in Lebanon. President Trump says Tehran has only one card to play, its control of the Strait of Hormuz. And the four astronauts on board the Artemis mission are preparing to return to Earth. We'll have more on that in about 15 minutes. MUSIC This is Paul Henley with News Hour, live from the BBC. Hungarians are going to the polls in a crucial parliamentary election due on Sunday with veteran Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his Fidesz party facing a powerful challenge from the opposition, Tisa. Nick Thorpe sends this report on an election with an impact far beyond Hungary's borders. VIKTOR, VIKTOR, VIKTOR! A chill April evening in Somboté in the far west of Hungary. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is due at any moment in Savaria Square, and a crowd several thousand strong is impatient. Many carry Hungarian red, white and green flags. Betty, a retired teacher, told me she is combining this political rally with a visit to the hairdresser. Viktor Orban is a strong politician. Viktor Orban is a very strong leader. He's modernised the hospitals, supported the churches, and he's done a lot for families and for pensioners like me. Miklos is the mayor of a nearby village. I support him because he helps families, and especially because of the cap he has imposed on utility bills and the cap on fuel prices now. VIKTOR, VIKTOR, VIKTOR! In the election campaign, Viktor Orban stresses one theme above all. He stands for peace in neighbouring Ukraine, he says, while his rival, Peter Magyar, of the Tysa Party would drag Hungary into the war against Russia, with those he calls the warmongers in Brussels. In such a situation, we cannot allow a pro-Ukrainian government to replace a national government and send your money to support the war in Ukraine. NEMONU! NEMONU! But in the crowd, mixed with the chance of his own supporters, with the chance of the opposition. Filthy Fidesz, they shouted, a common refrain from those who accuse this government of feathering its own nest. Viktor Orban is fighting for his political life. CHEERING I've come here to Kishkunlotzhaza, just south of Budapest, to see Peter Magyar address a Tysa Party rally. The crowd is younger, the candidate is 17 years younger than Orban. He speaks calmly to them, while Orban bellows into the microphone. And he preaches a message of unity, of an end to the division, the constant search for external and internal enemies of the Orban years. In the crowd, I spoke to some of those who'd gathered to hear him at nine o'clock on a spring morning. I really want a big change. I believe he is a very honest person. He always says the truth. He discovered many bad things that Orban did. There's a big new solidarity among the Hungarians. The people believe in themselves again. And we can hardly wait for the election, because of the huge corruption of the politicians. They've taken the country in a bad direction. Whatever happens, this government will be out. This nation cannot tolerate them any longer. Driving back to Budapest, I listen to the news on the state radio. It begins with 10 minutes devoted to the Fidesz message, with just one minute for the Tysa Party. The last weeks have been marked by many scandals. Viktor Orban has long been described as the most pro-Russian leader in the EU. And it's not just the Russians. The US Vice President JD Vance was in Budapest this week to lend Mr Orban his support. You have stood up to the bureaucrats. You have stood up to the nihilists. And now I wonder, will you do it again? It's strange to see an election splitting NATO, the US with Orban, most other members, rooting for the other side. But time is running out for anyone hoping to influence this election. A record turnout is expected on Sunday. Rarely has so much attention from around the world been focused on this small, central European country. Nick Thorpe reporting, and NewsHour will be live from Hungary on Sunday and on Monday too. Now, as the much-loathed media mogul in the TV series Succession, the actor Brian Cox was seen unwillingly spending time in the country. He comes from Scotland. Now he's directed and starred in a much more sympathetic portrayal of his homeland. Glenn Rothen is a film featuring Alan Cumming and Shirley Henderson alongside Brian Cox. And it tells a tale of family, division and a whiskey distillery, a story some critics have labelled an over-sentimentalised version of Scottishness. The BBC's Johnny Diamond spoke to Brian Cox and asked him to respond to that. That's nonsense. Our nonsense. It is my country, and it is how they are. It's about two brothers. The younger brother, which is the main brother played by Alan, brotherly by Alan Cumming, he wanted very much to stay in Scotland and work. My character wanted to leave. He wanted to get away from Scotland. He didn't want to be there at all. And he ends up the one who has to stay. So their position's completely reversed. And that's the tension within the story. What of your relationship with Scotland and this idea of departure and return, of exile and coming back? How does the film reflect your own feelings? Well, it's a very difficult situation. I find that Scots very much now are treated like second-class citizens. I mean, we, the Scots, invented television. We invented anesthesia. We also invented... I think it's more than three. The telephone. The telephone as well. Alexander Graham Bell. This is why I became an independent. Because I think it's time that we got back our identity. That identity is sort of linked to what we do and who we are. And we've done a considerable amount. How does it play into where you live? And I'm not sort of accusing you of anything, but where you live and the relationship, the emotion that you have towards Scotland. I think it goes very much about where one's heart is. And where your heart is is not necessarily where you live, because sometimes you can't live in that situation. I mean, I become an actor. I had to learn to speak English because I then became a classical actor and I did the theatre. So I made that journey. That was the journey I made in my heart. And as I get older, I mean, when I die, I will be buried in Scotland. There's absolutely no question about that. You have had this huge career. A lot of people, as I know you know, will now think of you for a long time as Logan Roy from Succession. Does it hang over you having had that kind of television success and having people think, oh, look, it's Logan Roy. It's Logan Roy. Say something like Logan Roy does. No, they're not too bad about that, because it's in recent memory, you know, and eventually that will fade and they'll go, what was that again, Logan Roy? I mean, you've got to be realistic about this game. I mean, I take the compliments, I take the praise, and I acknowledge it and say, thank you very much. But it's not my life that it's only part of my life. I've done a hell of a lot of other things. I've played King Lear in the National Theatre. I've done it too, you know. I've done so much, you know, and everything else kind of enhances everything else that I've done. You know, they kind of compliment one another. And I've had a great time. I've had the best career that any actor could have. I really believe that, you know. I'm very, very blessed. But then I've worked for it. You know, I put the work in, you know, and you have to put the work in. Otherwise, no point. If they came to you and they said, we've got a film about another man of Scottish descendancy, a certain Donald Trump, would you embrace that? Absolutely not. Brian Cox speaking to the BBC's Johnny Diamond. This is NewsHour. MUSIC Welcome back to NewsHour. Pope Leo is set to visit four African countries. On a 10-day tour starting on Monday, he'll go to Algeria, Angola, Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea on a mission to help turn the world's attention towards Africa, that's according to the Vatican. Nomsa Maseko reports now on preparations for the papal visit. Outside Algiers Basilica of Our Lady of Africa, workmen are busy preparing for the pope's visit, putting a fresh coat of paint on lampposts and monuments. Algeria is a country with only a tiny Catholic community, but a towering place in Christian history. It's the birthplace of Saint Augustine, whose legacy is woven deeply into the pope's own Augustinian order. This will be the first papal visit to Algeria since independence in 1962. The theme of the three-day visit is the Muslim greeting, Assalamu Alaikum, peace be upon you, to demonstrate the Vatican's message of unity. And that's what Maroua Melky, a resident of Algiers, is hoping for. It's so nice. It helps strengthen the ties between the two religions, which share common history, especially in North Africa, and particularly in Austria. The pope will be visiting the Basilica of Our Lady of Africa during his three-day visit. It's known as a place of pilgrimage for both Christians and Muslims. An inscription outside says, Our Lady of Africa, pray for us and for the Muslims. Father Peter Clavier-Coe is the rector. What I'm expecting from the pope is a man who will once again encourage us in our faith and in our mission to build a world where there is peace and where people live together in harmony. As a sign of his commitment to interfaith dialogue, the pope will also visit the great mosque of Algiers. In Cameroon, anticipation is mixed with some unease. The pope plans to travel to Bermuda, the heart of the Anglophone separatist conflict in a predominantly Francophone nation. Security will be tight, but church leaders hope his presence might help push both sides towards dialogue and that the visit will indeed be what the Vatican is calling a pilgrimage of peace. I'm hoping that when the pope comes, everyone will be at peace and drop their weapons and anger. The third country on the tour is Angola, which has one of the largest Catholic populations in Africa, estimated to be around 15 million, and finally Equatorial Guinea, also a majority Christian country. The pope is coming to Africa with a simple message, peace, unity and dialogue, and the sense of anticipation is unmistakable as the four countries prepare for this historic moment. You're listening to News Hour from the BBC. I'm Paul Henley. The crew of NASA's Artemis 2 are currently preparing to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere at around 25,000 miles an hour. Their spacecraft is due for splashdown, as it's called off the coast of California, in three and a half hours' time, having completed the mission and gone around the moon. One of the four astronauts, Christina Cook, was asked what she would miss most about the mission. I will miss this camaraderie. I will miss being this close with this many people and having a common purpose, a common mission, getting to work on it hard, at heart every day across hundreds of thousands of miles with the team on the ground. This sense of teamwork is something that you don't usually get, as an adult. I mean, we are close like brothers and sisters, and that is a privilege we will never have again. And here is mission commander Reid Wiseman a short while ago, saluting colleagues from the European Space Agency, ESA, and from Airbus, which built the European service module that provided Orion's power. We just wanted to give a huge shout out to that ESA Airbus team, to our friends in the Netherlands, in Germany, and at the Glenn Research Center. This vehicle powered us and it propelled us from the Earth to the moon and back with extreme precision, and we are excited to be a part of your team. The last part of the journey is arguably the most risky and it's something very few people have experienced. I've been talking to one of them though, she is Samantha Christoforetti, Italian astronaut with ESA, who's twice been to the International Space Station. I asked her what it had been like coming back to Earth. It's quite a ride. You're basically falling on the planet when you are in the International Space Station, you kind of have to slow down just a tad, so you lose a little bit of your velocity and you start falling on planet Earth. In the case of the Artemis crew, they will come in screaming super fast from the moon, so it will be a much faster re-entry. In our case, it was 28,000 km per hour, so already quite fast, and they're going to be closer to 40,000 km per hour. Can you feel the speed and can you feel the impact against the atmospheric barrier? Is it bumpy? It's not like crashing against a wall, but that's not the case. When you start hitting this upper layer of the atmosphere, what happens is that they start slowing you down. What you feel is the deceleration, and it becomes greater and greater as you get decelerated, as the atmosphere slows you down. Obviously, you come deeper and deeper, and those layers of atmosphere become denser and they slow you down more. You have a steady increase of those... We call them G-forces, because you feel them as a load onto your chest, and you feel progressively heavier and heavier. You feel this force pressing on your chest. Both in my case, but I believe also the Artemis crew, they're going to peak if everything goes well around 4G, so they will feel four times heavier than their normal weight on the surface of the Earth. Mind you, it does feel a little bit worse when you come back from space, certainly after six months on the ISS, but I believe also after 10 days on an Artemis flight, because you're used to being weightless. Even just a little bit of force feels a lot heavier than you would normally perceive it. Do you hear anything when you re-enter the atmosphere? Oh, definitely. There's a lot of things that you want to hear. For example, there's a lot of pyrotechnics involved, like little pyrotechnics that release all those sets of parachutes. There's a pilot and a drog and then the main chutes, and they're all released by pyrotechnic charges. It may sound scary if you hear about it, there's charges exploding, but those are the things that you absolutely want to hear, because it means that everything is working the way it's supposed to. You'll have been well aware that that was the riskiest part of your mission. Was there time to be scared? I think that we all tend to trust, the technology trust, the vehicle trust, all those huge teams of engineers all over the world who've done the analysis, who've done the testing. I would say most of, certainly in my case, but I think most astronauts that I know tend to try and enjoy the ride, because in the end it is a fun ride. Now, of course, this flight, the Artemis flight is a little bit special. It's a re-entry from the moon, a high-speed re-entry, on a heat shield that had given a little bit of trouble on the first flight. There had been some unexpected behavior. It's been, of course, investigated and it's been cleared for flight, so everything is absolutely, everyone is absolutely confident, but I would imagine that there's going to be a little bit more attention regarding this specific re-entry. What could go wrong, not attempt fate? Absolutely. The first and foremost thing that needs to happen, and it needs to happen absolutely right, is to hit the flight path angle when you interface with the atmosphere. In fact, that's the job, by the way, of the European service module. There's going to be another trajectory correction burn, maybe another one that is going to make sure that that trajectory is absolutely right, because that is key to enable the heat shield to do its job, to make sure that that heat load that the heat shield is seeing is the one that it's supposed to see, and so it's going to do its job, which is to protect the crew on the way back. There are a few question marks about heat shields generally, aren't there? Yeah, I mean, it's an amazing technology, right? I mean, we're talking about huge temperatures that are developed around this capsule that is falling back onto the planet. I mean, you're literally coming back in a ball of fire, you see that. You know, when you come back, you see the flames outside the windows, you see the windows charring, so you really have this feeling. Just imagine, I mean, you know, when you see a rocket launch, everyone has an intuitive understanding of all that energy that is being released, and all of that energy in the end is put into that tiny capsule. And when you come back to Earth, you have to get rid of all that energy. So we are managing huge amounts of energies, huge temperatures, and that heat shield is the one that is doing the trick. What can you tell us about Splashdown? Yeah, I mean, that's, it's interesting, right? Because people often want me to compare Splashdown into the water versus my first flight on the Soyuz. I actually hit hard soil because we landed in the in the step in Kazakhstan. So I would say there's flowing cons. The Splashdown tends to be a little bit softer, obviously, because you're hitting water and not hard soil. On the other hand, you know, if you do land on hard soil, then, you know, then you stabilize in your study. While if you Splashdown, then you also have to contend with waves and, you know, moving around, which can be a little bit impacting for your vestibular system. So some people tend to feel a little bit nauseated. So there's pros and cons on both. But I think by that point, you know, that they Splashdown, there's going to be such a huge emotional release and relief for everyone that it's just going to be great for them. Samantha Cristoforetti, Italian astronaut with the European Space Agency. We're going to return now to our top story and the prospect of peace talks on Iran due to be held in Pakistan this weekend. The Iranian delegations arrived in Islamabad in the last hour or so. It's led by the speaker of the Iranian parliament, Mohammed Baga Khalibaf. The U.S. Vice President, J.D. Vance, is on his way there. He has spoken optimistically about prospects, although he stressed that his team would not tolerate Iran playing them. The two sides remain far apart on a number of issues, notably a condition set down by Iran that Israel's attacks on Lebanon must end before talks can begin. The Lebanese president here said in the past hour that talks with Israel are set to take place on Tuesday in Washington. So what are the prospects for the talks in Pakistan between Iran and the U.S.? Sahar Razavi is director of the Iranian and Middle Eastern Center for Peace Studies at California State University in Sacramento. I would like to be hopeful, but to be honest, knowing the history of ceasefires in the region, especially ceasefires that are as tenuous as from the get-go as this one is, I am not very optimistic about the durability of this ceasefire. Despite the fact that U.S. talks are expected to be led by J.D. Vance, who was at best lukewarm about the war in the first place and is definitely motivated to end it? Yes, primarily stemming from the fact that we have brand new reporting from CBS News and from the New York Times just in the last two days, essentially indicating that Israel was the driver of this war, Benjamin Netanyahu sold this war to Donald Trump from the beginning. And then later, just in the last few hours, CBS News is reporting that, in fact, Donald Trump personally agreed to the ceasefire, including Lebanon, and Israel also agreed to the terms and then subsequently bombed Lebanon and denied that the ceasefire included Lebanon. So I think Israel's and the United States' aims for Iran and for the region are divergent, and as long as they remain divergent, any ceasefire is not going to be durable. The U.S. would, on paper, have the upper hand. They can't simply pressure Israel, apparently, into doing things their way? One would think, no, apparently not. I don't know if you recall a few weeks ago, Donald Trump told reporters that the United States was negotiating or was in discussion with very top Iranian official that he could not disclose the name of because if he were to do so, Israel would kill him. And this was a really stunning admission from Donald Trump because if it's true, it really belies the United States' weakness in the face of its own ally, saying that he couldn't stop his own ally from assassinating a diplomat or a government official in bringing a war to an end, the United States wanted to end itself. And if it wasn't true, then you have to wonder why Donald Trump would see it as beneficial to him in his messaging to say that he was unable to stop Israel, but he really wanted to end the war. Could this be why, up until very recently, there was no naming of anyone on the Iranian delegation? It's in the last hour, I think, being said that the speaker of the Iranian parliament will be chief negotiator. Is he in danger? I would think so. Israel has a habit not only for Iranian officials, but also others in the region of assassinating the mediators and the negotiators and then later claiming that they don't have a partner for negotiating. I think just yesterday we got the news that Kamal Khair Razzi was killed. He died of his injuries from a strike that killed his wife. He was said to be negotiating. Ali Louryjani was killed just a few weeks ago. I think we see the pattern here that these people who are charged with negotiating on the Iranian side are killed by Israeli strikes. In a few words, we've only got a few seconds left. If the talks fail, what will Iran do? I think Iran is going to continue hitting U.S. energy infrastructure and assets in the region and that of its allies and it will leverage its control over the Strait of Hormuz to bring as much economic pressure globally as possible and most likely it's looking to prolong this as long as it can to put pressure on Donald Trump leading up to the midterms. Sahar Razavi there of California State University. This is the BBC World Service and NewsHour. I'm Paul Henley and this is NewsHour Live from the BBC in London. Scientists studying chimpanzees in Uganda have documented what they say is the first evidence of civil war among groups of the animals that had previously lived in harmony. The sound of a chimpanzee called Bayzi being attacked by several others, 28 killings were recorded in one community as two rival factions formed and cemented over several years. Roman Wittich is a chimpanzee expert and director of the Tai Chimpanzee Project in Cote d'Ivoire. I asked him what he made of this research. Scientists have observed first how this community grew already, using warfare to defeat a neighboring community and integrate all the females and part of the territory into their own community. They grew up to over 200 individuals, which means they were more than double the size from a usual chimpanzee community. This might be the reason as well why they in the end started to slowly divide into two neighborhoods. Two subgroups which completed isolation or separation in 2018 after the last male that had still connections in either of the communities had died. Was it really a case of friends becoming enemies? It was a case of friends becoming enemies because after 2018, after the separation had been completed, there were almost 30 individuals most likely being killed over the next eight years from the western community in the central community. How was this civil war fought? Were the chimpanzees using weapons? They are sometimes hunting with weapons, but wars are fought with brute force, with kicking, slapping each other, biting each other until one individual is dead. And what were the dividing lines? What were the differences between the two groups? Very, very hard to say because they have been one community beforehand. But what the researchers have seen is that the dietic relationships between the individuals became weaker and weaker over time. There were subgroups that were forming and then reproduction was only happening within the subgroups. So the males and the females of one subgroup would reproduce with each other, but not anymore with partners from the other part of the community. And so it became a genetically separated two groups. But there weren't simple conflicts over competing for a mate. These were between distinct groups. It was a split, wasn't it, in a community? That's right. This community that split off and here that's the reason why the word civil war is potentially used. Former friends became enemies. In this behaviour, if we want to understand where the potential, the human potential for violence is coming from, then we need to look at our closest living relatives. In this behaviour, can we take the comparison further? Were there peace negotiations? Was there reconciliation? The peace negotiations that might have happened, that kept the peace during the time of the isolation of the two groups, ended with a male in 2017 dying. That was the last male that had still a friend in either of the two communities. This male was the crucial part of keeping the peace potentially between these two communities. German chimpanzee expert Roman Wittig. Now one of the early pioneers of hip hop, Africa Bambata, sometimes called its godfather, has died. At the age of 68, he might not have become a household name, like some of those who followed in his footsteps, but he is widely considered to have laid the foundations for rap music from his home in the Bronx in New York. Africa Bambata's reputation was tarnished in later years following allegations of child abuse and trafficking. Thomas Hobbs is a music journalist who specialises in rap culture, previously having interviewed hip hop royalty, including LL Cool J and Buster Rhymes. My news hour colleague James Menendez asked him whether Bambata could be considered the founder of hip hop. I'm not so sure I'd go that far, but he was a real innovator when it came to cementing the concept of the break beat. So that would be maybe taking a 10 second loop off a James Brown song and turning it into a beat that MCs could freestyle over. The song you played before Planet Rock, there wasn't other rap producers of the 70s and 80s really sampling Kraftwerks, Trans-Europe Express. So sort of by doing that, he not only kind of created this electro funk sort of sound, but he also kind of really normalised the links between hip hop and techno and electronic music. And you could look at something like grime music in the UK where it was an extension of garage and house music beat breaks. And you could say that the genealogy goes all the way back to Africa Bambata. And he was doing this in Brooklyn at what, block parties? I mean, this was the very start of this music being created though, wasn't it? Yeah, one of the first pioneers alongside the likes of DJ Kool-Herk, Grand Wizard Theodore, yeah, Africa Bambata was doing these kind of house parties around the Bronx, bringing this type of music to the community. But I guess with him, he also kind of really made hip hop global. He's one of the first people, for example, to work with punk and rock stars. He worked with John Leiden and the Sex Pistols on World Destruction in the 80s. So I guess you could say his musical legacy has very much been about aligning hip hop with other genres and showing how everything is connected. And what about those abuse allegations? I mean, to what extent did they tarnish his reputation, I mean, in music more widely, but also particularly within the hip hop community? Sure. I mean, it's a real sore spot in hip hop culture because you've got influential artists like KRS-1 and Chuck D who are almost kind of able to have this cognitive dissonance in acknowledging he's a pioneer, but not also acknowledging that he's likely a predator. And I think we just have to maybe get to a point collectively where we can acknowledge somebody could be a pioneer, but they could also allegedly be a predator as well. Thomas Hobbs on the death of an early pioneer of hip hop music, Africa Bambata. That was News Hour for a Friday evening UK time. Thank you very much for listening. Bye-bye for now. Music