Can the US really take control of Iran's oil?

I'm Charlotte Gallagher, and at 1,600 hours GMT, on the 30th of March, these are our main stories.

“President Trump repeats his threat to hit Iran's energy infrastructure, but also says he's negotiating with the Iranian leadership to end the war.”

And Cuba is set to receive 700,000 barrels of oil from Russia after months of a U.S. blockade.

Also in this podcast, the ancient shield that's going back home for the first time in two centuries.

It really clearly see where a prehistoric sword or spear has pierced the shield at some point, though they were definitely used in combat. President Trump's latest remarks on the war with Iran have been raising eyebrows with his mixed messaging. He's repeated that a deal to end the war could be reached very soon. Just as thousands of U.S. troops arrived in the region, preparing for possible ground operations to take over Carg Island, Iran's main oil exporting hub. That would not be without risks. As we heard from Brad Taylor, a former U.S. special forces lieutenant colonel who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

The question to my mind would be applying a military application of force for strategic in-state.

What is that? If it's just to stop the Iranians from exporting oil to fund the regime, you don't need troops to do that. You could blow up the pears. You could do anything you wanted from the air and prevent them from exporting oil. In my mind, if we were going to do that, it's more of a psychological effect. Here we come. Here comes the troops, but I'm not sure it's worth the risk of actually doing it. It's very close to the shores of Iran, and we're dealing with the drones and the missiles and that kind of stuff which are going along distance.

But that puts them in the right line of artillery fan. The other risk is when they hit the island, they probably have 48 hours of supplies to get going. But eventually, you're going to have to get them resupply to sustain the operation, and that's going to have to come through air, and that involves another component of risk. You're going to be flying helicopters in and out of there to get the resupply going. It's just a very logistically challenged piece.

“I've been speaking to our diplomatic correspondent James Landell. I asked him first, what's the strategy behind President Trump now focusing on carguerland?”

This is a huge source of revenue for Iran's economy. Iran's economy is already in bits. It has been struggling for a very, very long time. And the argument is that if the Americans can control that island, then they can put pressure on the Iranian regime in talks, particularly in discussions to open up the straight of all moves. In other words, it would, in theory, give the American some leverage. And if there were U.S. troops on carguerland, I mean, they would be very easily reached by Iranian missiles, Iranian artillery, I mean, would they be sitting ducks in a way?

Well, yes and no. I mean, first of all, the Americans would have to take it, and that's no mean feat. It's a long way from anywhere.

Remember, the straight of all moves is highly defended, so there's a question mark about whether or not the Americans could get any warships into the Gulf. Then you've got the question of how the Americans could hold carguerland. It would require substantial resupply, in terms of soldiers, munitions and emergency medical evacuation. The military experts will tell you it's entirely possible, but as ever, the longer you hold any island or piece of ground, militarily, the harder it becomes to defend it in the long term because the cost will mount. And they're also talking about the possibility of going into Iran and seizing the uranium.

Yes, so look, there is about 400 kilograms of highly enriched uranium that is missing. This is left over from the U.S. Israeli attack on Iran last June. And this is the material that's relatively close to weapons grade material. You can probably, you know, just enrich it a little bit further, make the experts estimate about 10 to 12 bombs. And the suggestion is that the Americans might try to conduct some kind of special force operation to seize and remove this material. But again, the military experts are all warning. This would be hugely complex.

Has President Trump got himself in a bit of a mess here, because it doesn't appear like there's an exit strategy.

“He's very mixed with all his messages. You know, what is going on?”

Well, sometimes the American messaging is deliberately mixed to confuse the enemy. And therefore, on the one hand, the Americans are suggesting a willingness to talk, but at the other hand they're suggesting a willingness to escalate and deploy military force in different ways. On one level, that's designed to keep the Iranians guessing. It's also designed to try and put pressure on the Iranians to say, look, if you don't agree to some kind of deal over

greater military force and to escalate. The risk, though, is the element of surprise has gone,

“because Donald Trump has been speaking so openly about some of these potential options that he might deploy.”

But also, as you say, there is still a degree of strategic confusion over how the Americans wish to exit this war. And at the moment, there's not a great deal of clarity coming out of the White House. That was James Landell. And you can hear more from James about how U.S. troops could be used on the ground in Iran, and how that could give President Trump more leverage in talks by going to our YouTube channel. Search for BBC News on YouTube and you'll find the global news podcast in the podcast section.

There's a new story available every weekday. As Israel continues to carry out attacks across

Iran, damaging power grids, life for ordinary people there is getting harder by the day. Our correspondent Joyn Wood has compiled this report. Working by torchlight, a search and rescue team navigates a vast crater in the centre of a terran street. The beam of light pauses on the twisted remains of a motorbike before moving on. This has become a common scene as the U.S. and Israeli strikes into their fifth week.

One man who lives nearby witnessed the aftermath. Last night they hid the middle of the street near our house with no specific target, no building, no person, nothing, just the middle of the street. The asphalt was torn up and a huge crater was created. Several parked and passing cars were turned to dust by daylight it is a very different scene in terran, certainly the official version is. The historic bizarre's and market

seems to do but not empty and footage released by the news agencies. Colorful suites are piled high. A man squeezes fresh pomegranate juice. Only one man speaks on camera, a computer programmer called Matton. He appears to be in his 20s and has a bag slung over one shoulder. We are fighting to prevent sanctions to show the strength of the country of our country he says. For me these things are more important than internet

outages or anything else. But that message of defiance is not what you always get in private

communications as shared with BBC Persian news and voiced by their team. My businesses are completely shut down now. My situation is not better than theirs.

“It's been very quiet and I think I can hold up the business for one month maximum.”

We're slowly starting to learn how to live with war. We're going out with the kids, open our shops and we get emotional watching old photos and movies of Iran. Just as getting information out of Iran is difficult because of the near total internet shutdown, so too is it hard for Iranians to hear from the outside world. But clearly information does get in. Over the weekend President Trump said this. "They have to open it up. They have to open

up the straight of Trump, I mean, harm us. Excuse me for, I'm so sorry. Such a terrible mistake." Now whether or not it was a joke is seemingly upset Iranians, even those who oppose the regime. Trump called this rate of hormones, the Trump is straight. This rate of hormones and the Iranian islands are in danger of being lost. Last night in Tehran there was an unusual sound, certainly for those who watched this war from afar.

Iranian air defense is firing into the blank sky. They appear to be aging AA guns, unlikely to shoot down a modern fighter jet. But they are still firing. In what is fast becoming a battle of wills, that is significant." Joanne Wood reporting. Russia has come to the aid of Cuba and sent more than 700,000 barrels of oil to the communist island, which has been suffering under a U.S. oil blockade. The Kremlin spokesman

Dimitri Pascov said it had raised the issue with the United States, and was pleased the sanction delivery was taking place. A mid-Sovia blockade, our Cuban friends,

“the petroleum products and oil, they are essential for keeping normal life running for electricity”

generation and for providing medical and other services to the population. Russia, of course,

Cuban friends. So does this mark the end of the oil blockade by Washington?

I asked our global affairs reporter Nimisweb. President Trump has told journalists, he doesn't have any problem with Russia's sending fuel to Cuba. Now, it isn't clear if these remarks were he made on board, Air Force War on Sunday are a complete reversal of his blockade on the island, which has now been in place for three months, that includes threats of tariffs for any

country who is delivering oil to the nation, or if it's just a one-off allowance. He said that if a country wants to send oil to Cuba right now, I have no problem with that, whether it's Russia or not, he said anyway, Cuba is finished, they have a bad regime and a corrupt leadership, so it essentially didn't matter if a boat of oil got through or not.

“It's really unclear, I think Cuba will be wanting this oil to continue now from Russia.”

Russia has made it close while the Kremlin spokesperson to meet your Prescott saying that Russia will continue to work on oil supplies to Cuba, and that these supplies to the island actually raised in its talks with the US. But there's a bit of a grey area, which no one seems to have a definite answer for at the moment. So once this oil vessel is docked in the northern shore on Cuba, we will then find out if there is another one, or if there are any more

progress we made with it. And presumably, this is going to make a huge difference for Cubans. Here's a President Miguel Diaz Canal, basically said that Cuba hasn't had any oil delivery for one three months now. Now Cuba is suffering a severe economic crisis, a central collapse of the economy, as well as severe fuel shortages. Since the US imposed its oil blockade, there have been two nationwide blackouts, and this is on top of daily extended blackouts,

fuel scarcity, basic goods being very scarce as well as water shortages. So this amount of oil onboard the Anatolian colodkin vessel is thought to be able to supply Cuba for about a week

of fuel. And that is including things like essential services, so hospitals which from

dire need at the moment, many running off generators with their intensive care units and emergency services, seriously under pressure from this blockade, as well as transport and electricity. Again, the electricity system, the grid is kind of disarray, but it's been exacerbated by this fuel shortage, which in turn has been put on more pressure by the US blockade. Mimi Swaby. Now, if you're someone who prides yourself on being an early riser, fresh,

and chirpy in the morning, spare thought for your opposite numbers who prefer being up late into the night. Because researchers in Italy have found that night owls are more likely to show signs of being depressed, anxious and irritable. Dr. Lindsey Browning is the founder of trouble sleeping asleep clinic here in the UK. She told Laila Nathu that each of us is predisposed to function better at certain times of the day. We all have a thing called our chronotype,

“and that means at which point of the day do you feel you're most awake and alert?”

And there are early people, sharks who seem to wake up and feel really refreshed and want to get going straight away, but as the day progresses, they start a fade, whereas the laser people, evening types on night owls, the morning is not their friend, and as the day progresses, they tend to get more and more energy and want to stay up a bit later, and there are lots of people somewhere in the middle. So that's your chronotype, it turns when in the day you feel you're

most alert, basically. You can't change that, particularly. Right, so it's genetic, is it?

There was definitely a genetic component to that. There are ways you can tweak it, but you can't completely change yourself from a night owl to an early morning log. And on this idea of night owls being associated with worse moods, is that to do with something biological, or is that to do with how they have to operate within the constraints of society, perhaps they feel a bit more out of sync with the schedules imposed by society?

“That's what we think that if you are someone who is a night owl, then your day time isn't”

really working with your biological and what you want to achieve. So you might be trying to be out of step with a daily schedule. You want to fall asleep later, but work, school, or family, still require you to wake up early, which means you probably might end up getting less sleep, because if you go to bed late, but still have to get up at the same time as everybody else, most people who are night owls or evening types tend to have short sleep. And also, if you are

sleeping in the weekend, and you have a very different social jet lag, you have a different bed time wait time during the working week, and the weekend, that can disrupt your academy, which can lead to poor quality sleep. And those things short sleep and poor quality sleep have a huge impact on our emotional regulation, and that's probably what this study is showing, because it's an association. It didn't say that night owls will definitely become having poor emotional regulation, and those

kinds of traits associated with a developing bipolar disorder, but it did show an association, because of those factors. You said that you couldn't really do much about it if you are

of smooth the path? What would your advice be for somebody who really genuinely is a night owl, for example, but who has to have early starts? Think of it a little bit like jet lag, so the answer isn't just to ignore it, but to really help your body, so keep your bed time and wake time as regular as possible, so that you allow yourself enough time in bed for sleep. And also get

bright light, first thing in the morning, because that can really help to anchor us,

catering with them. So, first thing the morning open those curtains, maybe even go outside for a quick walk or have your breakfast in the garden, try to reduce bright light exposure

“late in the day, and like I said before, it's so important to avoid the pattern of short sleep”

during the week, followed by a long catch-up line to the weekend, because that really creates this sense of a disregulation of your skating with them. Your body doesn't really know what time it is, so consistency really is the key. That was Dr. Lindsay Browning. Still to come in this podcast. They're understanding of how art crime works is from the same films and fiction that the general public watches, which suggests that criminal collectors exist

when in fact in known history we know of almost none that have ever existed. After a daring heist in Italy, we ask what the thieves do with stolen art. In Myanmar, general Minong line is that to be the country's next president, he led the military coup five years ago, which resulted in a brutal suppression of the opposition. He's been chosen by the country's parliament, which is dominated by the military following recent elections

“that were widely described as a sham. So is it business as usual with the military in charge?”

Our Southeast Asia correspondent Jonathan Hadd is in Myanmar. I think it is. This certainly isn't any kind of new dawn. This is in essence an expanded version of the existing military regime in civilian clothes. You've got a parliament where 90 percent of the members of parliament are loyal to the military loyal to men online himself and men online is choosing his own loyalist. He'll clearly choose loyalist to be in his new government, but also to replace him in

command of the army. So it's very much still he's show. This is something he's wanted to do for a long time. When he launched his coup, he claimed somewhat implausibly when he ousted the elected government of Anson Sushi five years ago that he was doing it to protect his version of democracy.

And they call it the military calls it a discipline flourishing democracy. And he's always said he

wanted to have an election and get back to civilian rule. It's taken him this long because he's set off a civil war and armed opposition to his coup which is resulted in his regime losing control of large parts of the country. And indeed there were many parts of the country where the election could not take place. That civil war goes on. But he will be pleased that he's passed this particular milestone. And he will also be trying to persuade country's particularly in this

region who are more likely to be persuaded by his argument that they should engage with him and recognize him now as the legitimate government. The legitimacy of something he's not had for the last five years. Western governments of course will continue to shun him and argue as do many others that his position is essentially illegitimate. And how do people in Yangon feel about this election

“and feel about him taking over the country? I think there's a large degree of resignation. It's”

pretty hard to get people to speak openly. A lot of people are unhappy. They felt forced to take parts in the election. I think for most people here they just exhausted by the civil war. The economy has completely collapsed. And now of course we've got fuel shortages caused by the Iran war which are particularly bad in Myanmar. They're very hard to get fuel now. And remember this country doesn't have a reliable electricity supply so many people rely on generators. So things are really grim economically

and people just want an end. The problem is that Milan line isn't giving any sense that he's

going to change his tactics and perhaps soften his suppression of the opposition. He his message on his last arm forces day parade at the end of last week was very hard line and he's appointed a very hard line man to replace him in the military. So sadly much as people here hope that a civilian government might possibly bring an end to the civil war. Nothing Milan line is saying or his deputies are saying suggests they're going to change. That was Jonathan Head in Myanmar.

One of the biggest manhunts in Australian history is over. The suspect, 56-year-old Dezi Freeman, who was wanted for killing two police officers seven months ago, has been shot dead. He had fled into Bushland last August prompting a huge search operation. This report from Richard Hamilton. In 2021, police arrested Dezi Freeman previously known as Desmond Philby during an anti-government protest. He was a self-declared sovereign citizen who regarded the government

they arrived at his semi-rural property in poor punkar about 300 kilometers northeast of Melbourne.

“They'd gone there with a search warrant in relation to a child's sexual abuse investigation.”

Two officers were shot dead at the scene and a third was injured. Freeman, who was believed to have

expert Bushcraft skills and multiple firearms, then fled into Bushland in Mount Buffalo National Park. Although he's not yet been formally identified, police say Freeman was shot after a three-hour standoff. Mike Bush is the Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police. This morning, Victoria Police, fatally shot a man, has a result of the operation. Everything I know at this point tells me that this shooting was justified. The operation was

conducted by professionals. There was an appeal to encourage the person to come out. He then exited the building. There was an opportunity for him to surrender peacefully, which he did not. This brings closure to what was a tragic and terrible event.

“The search for Desi Freeman was one of the largest in Australian history. A reward of a million”

Australian dollars had been offered for information leading to his capture. At one point around 450 police officers were involved, including experts from New Zealand and even the Australian army. More than 100 homes were searched and police used helicopters and sniffed dogs to scour a vast area of scrubland that was also littered with disused mine shafts. But they admitted that Freeman had known that terrain much better than they did. Richard Hamilton

Thieves in Italy have made off with paintings by Renewa, Susanne and Matisse worth millions of dollars after breaking into a museum near the city of Palmer in just a matter of minutes. It's one of the most significant thefts in Italy in recent years and follows the audacious robbery of Francis Crown Jewels from the Louvre in Paris last October. So what actually happens

“to stolen art? Leila Nathu spoke to Noah Charney, the founder of the Association for Research”

into crimes against art. In this case, it's quite clear that the thieves knew what they were after. There were the three pictures that they took plus a fourth one of the identity of which is not come forth to the public yet that they tried to take but about scared off by the security system the alarms going off. So it was targeted, but it was probably chosen as a location to burgo because it was relatively underprotected a bit out of the way and they saw the objects

as high value easily portable objects that were perhaps undersecured. Are they high value though on a black market for odd? That's an excellent question and the show and answer is no. If art thieves knew how difficult it was to turn stolen art especially by famous artists into cash they probably wouldn't bother. So it opened auction these are extremely valuable, particularly a saison watercolor which is very rare. But there is almost no market black or otherwise

for identifiable unique stolen paintings. So thieves have to come up with another way to profit from them but a lot of them don't know how to because they're understanding of how art crime works is from the same films and fiction that the general public watches which suggests that criminal collectors exist when in fact in known history we know of almost none that have ever existed. So they're not stealing to order for sort of underworld collectors. So what then happens they just

end up staying in storage presumably never to resurface. So it's true the idea of criminal art

collectors is primarily from the realm of fiction. I know of a few dozen counter examples but that's it and there are tens of thousands of art thefts reported worldwide every year so it's just a fraction. But what happens more often is maybe more interesting but more complex. Most art theft involves organized crime at some level and organized crime groups will sometimes take these stolen objects and use them on a closed black market in dealing with other criminal groups and using them

for trade or collateral for other deals involving objects that have a high risk in turning into cash like arms and drugs. And you have this idea that the stolen work of art which experts estimate on a black market is worth maybe 10% of its legitimate value and you can equate that as a check

that you never want to try to cash. But you think you're the British or you could get 10% of

the value for it and then you can trade it for other objects of a similar value on the black market. No attorney. Finally and incredibly rare bronze age shield has been returned to Scotland for the first time in more than 230 years. The shield was originally discovered in a peat bulk in North

creator of pre-history at National Museum, Scotland. It's a really, really important object.

These were highly decorated objects. Generally considered to be symbols of so many or status, but we were forced to be able to show that they're very effective defense weapons.

“Describe the shield for us. How big is it? What does it look like?”

The shield is about 60 cm in diameter to round shield handled from a single in-gotta bronze

into a very thin sheet, but then it's been decorated with concentric rings and concentric hammered bosses and has over 9,000 of these bosses hammered into the surface of the shield. Does it look as if it's been used in anger or in self-defense? Yeah, this is the really fascinating thing about

“this shield in particular is you can really clearly see where a prehistoric sword or spear has”

pithed the shield at some point. So they were definitely used in combat and this is really significant as well because these are some of the very early origins of conflict and violence in in Britain. When are we talking about what? Yeah, do you have a sense of when the shield was created and what the conflicts were that were driving its use? The shield dates to just over 3,000 years ago in what we call the bronze age. This is a period where people are settled in farming

communities, they're living off the land, but this is also a period where we see the invention

of the sword, the first object in human history that's designed purely for harming another human

unfortunately and with this if somebody has a sword you want a shield or you want a bigger sword and it fuels what I call the bronze age arms race, where you have societies coming into conflict with each other in a very dedicated fashion for the first time and this gives rise to it as sort of status with a warrior, some decapable of defending your community but also unfortunately shattering another. That was Matthew Knight speaking to Justin Webb and the shield

will be on display towards the end of June at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.

“And that's all from us for now. If you want to get in touch you can email us at [email protected].”

You can also find us on x@vbcworld service use the hashtag global newspot and don't forget our sister podcast The Global Story. This edition of The Global News Podcast was mixed by Mike Campbell and the producers with Judy Franco and Paul Day. The editator is Karen Martin. I'm Charlotte Gallagher, until next time. Goodbye.