US-Iran Negotiations, Middle East Reacts To Possible Deal, DRC Ebola Outbreak Spreads

Because you are hosting on those days, but you know, I feel good about showing up on a day like this because I figured, you know, like anybody who Anybody who listens to me on a holiday needs me, well, I hope a lot of people are sleeping in yes, yes, and listening to us later. Maybe a little bit later. Like six a.m. six a.m. seven a.m. night a.m. but still listen, you still need to be informed to holiday.

“Yeah, to be informed. You have to keep up on events.”

President Trump said an agreement with Iran is called largely negotiated and would move everyone closer to peace. He says the deal would open the straight of our moves. So why do some Republicans call it a disaster?

I'm Leila Faldel. That's Stephen's keep and this is up first from NPR news.

This is up preliminary deal with Iran. It wouldn't include the unconditional surrender. President Trump was demanding nor does it address the key U.S. concern Iran's nuclear enrichment. Has Iran capitulated at all? Also, when Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has killed more than 200 people. Groups are struggling to respond to mid-violence, misinformation, and less U.S. support.

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So the next time someone says, did you see that? You can say, yeah, obviously. Follow NPR's pop culture happy-hour wherever you get your podcasts. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio says a deal with Iran is close. Some progress has been made, significant progress, although not final progress has been made. President Trump spoke with leaders of several Gulf countries and Israel on Saturday.

Trump then said an agreement had been, quote, largely negotiated. Rubio spoke a bit more carefully, telling reporters he's expecting a response from Iran soon. We will get to what Iran has said so far in a moment. We begin with what we know from officials on the U.S. side. NPR's senior national political correspondent Mara Lyasin is covering this and joins me now.

“Hi, Mara. Hi there. So what are U.S. officials saying publicly about this possible deal?”

Well, it's not actually a deal yet, but Trump posted that he'd spend Saturday talking with leaders from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Turkey, Jordan, Bahrain, and Pakistan about, quote, a memorandum of understanding, and that one aspect of these negotiations according to Trump would be to reopen the straight-of-war moves. Iran's foreign ministry says the memorandum of understanding is aimed at ending the war, but that Iran is rejecting any discussions about

its nuclear program. So no change there. Trump later posted something that tamped down expectations. He said he told U.S. negotiators not to rush into a deal. He also reiterated that Iran cannot develop a bomb, but he also posted, quote, "Nobody has seen it or knows what it is. It isn't even fully negotiated." Okay, so it's not even clear that this is anything really yet. What has the reaction been politically? There are Republicans who supported the strike on

Iran, who've been very skeptical about this deal memorandum. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina posted on X. If a deal is struck to end the Iranian conflict because it's believed that the straight-of-war moves cannot be protected from Iranian terrorism, then Iran will be perceived as being a dominant force. He later urged Trump to stick to his guns and get a good deal. Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, said on X that

the deal was a disaster. And in a previous post, he said Trump is being ill-advised to pursue a deal

“that would not be worth the paper. It's written on. So I think as we get more details about this,”

we might get more reaction like that. Yeah, so it's been a little over 12 weeks since the U.S. and Israel started this war. Most Americans don't like it. Gas prices have spiked and inflation is on their rise. Republicans are increasingly nervous about the midterms given all of this economic news. What a deal, Mara, with Iran now help them in November? It certainly would help them more than not having a deal, especially if the straight-of-war moves opens and gas prices come down

before November that would be helpful for Republican incumbents. We are seeing a deeply unhappy electorate. Democrats have an advantage when people are asked that generic ballot question, who would you prefer to run Congress Democrats or Republicans? And if it was a decade ago, we'd be saying, whoa, it looks like there's a blue wave forming. But the structural advantages

that Republicans have make them more powerful in the midterms. They have lots more money.

There's been a new round of court sanctioned partisan redistricting, and even before that

We also know from polling that even though voters are negative about Trump and the war and the ballroom and the economy, they're also reluctant to vote for Democrats because the Democratic brand is so unpopular. So that means in the end, Democrats and competitive districts have to find ways to separate themselves from their party. Republicans in these districts have to find a way to separate

themselves from Trump. And we know that some Republicans in Congress are blocking for the first time

at voting for some of Trump's unpopular policies. That's had to be our senior national political

“course by Marleys. And thank you, Mara. You're welcome. So that's how the war looks from here.”

Let's see how it looks from the Persian Gulf region. About 1,500 ships are still waiting to travel through the straight of our moves. Iran has controlled this waterway since the start of the war three months ago. Neither the U.S. war nor a short-lived U.S. military operation to open the straight has brought about Iran's capitulation. Okay. So what do you see in this agreement? Exactly. NPR, international correspondent, Abitraoia's in the United Arab Emirates,

joins us once again. Hi there. Hi. Good morning. Okay. The President's statement over the week and triggered these headlines that gave me the impression the war is over. But it sounds like the

terms are not resolved. So what is in the agreement? Right. This would only be a preliminary

agreement, not a final deal. It would essentially extend the current ceasefire by another 60 days and think of it more as a starting point for direct talks between the U.S. and Iran for that to even happen. And so what we've heard from Washington and Tehran is that this deal would include

“Iran gradually opening the straight of her moves, which is critical to getting energy flowing”

again from the Gulf to the rest of the world. And what this deal does not include our details on Iran's nuclear program. Here's Secretary-St. Marco Rubio explaining this to reporters yesterday. And we'll require some future work on negotiating the details. When you're talking about a nuclear program, as an example, these are highly technical matters. And one's that would probably need to be addressed over some period of time. And later in response to a question by the New York

Times, Rubio said, "technical talks on nuclear enrichment can't happen in 72 hours," quote, "on the back of an app can." Okay. So this is some kind of interim deal or a deal to make a deal doesn't seem to address Iran's nuclear enrichment. What is Iran giving up if it's not giving up the possibility of nuclear weapons? Right. Well, it has to open the straight of her moves. This is its leverage, which it did not have before the war. It will have to start letting ships

through again and without demanding any tolls. The U.S. has made that clear. But Iran now also has demand Steve. One is that the U.S. on freezes its billions of dollars in foreign banks. And another is that Israel ends its war in Lebanon against the Iran-backed Hezbollah. But just like Trump is facing midterms this year, so his Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He's also facing elections in Israel this year. And he wants both wars to continue. Netanyahu says Trump told him

in their last phone call on Saturday that Israel will be able to continue its war in Lebanon, which he described as self-defense. But Iran has been saying that ending that war in Lebanon must come before any nuclear talks. And this is one of the points that are still under negotiation. I'm fascinated by all the points you just raised there. One in particular, you say that Iran expects to get some of its many, many billions of dollars of frozen assets unfrozen to them.

This is something that enraged Republicans back in 2015 when the U.S. made a nuclear deal with Iran that included some money to Iran. And so now the Iranians seem to expect money again. That's one issue here. Another has to do with continuing the war in the region. What do Arab nations, including the one where you are, the UAE, think about that? Right. So there was this

“call over the weekend between Trump and all the key regional leaders here from Pakistan to Turkey”

and beyond. And official statements about that call show that they spoke in rare unison, urging Trump to end the war through talks. Gulf Arab states have also paid a heavy price for this war. We know that they were hit hard by Iran. Also see there are two million around two million Muslim pilgrims right now in Saudi Arabia performing the Hajj. That's another reason why there's a push to hold off on any return to war right now to ensure their safety and protect

the sanctity of that pilgrimage. And there's pressure building to reach a deal because this war does not seem to have actually softened Iran's position much. You know, Iran before this war had agreed to storing its highly enriched uranium abroad according to mediator Oman at the time. And today Iran state media says there are no commitments on that. And President Betralli, thanks as

always. Thanks, Steve. The latest government figures show more than 200 people have died

in the Democratic Republic of Congo's Ebola outbreak. That's out of more than 900 suspected cases. The virus is spreading in eastern Congo. The region is larger than Florida. Armed groups and national armies are fighting there, which is complicating efforts to contain the disease. The World Health Organization warns the risk of the virus spreading rapidly in the country is very high. The outbreak involves a rare strain of Ebola, which doesn't have an approved vaccine

Shasa. Welcome. Hello. What's making this outbreak hard to contain?

“There's a perfect storm of factors making this one difficult. Eastern Congo's extremely”

vulnerable. The healthcare infrastructure is degraded. Eight budgets have been slashed and all of this in a region, which is in the grip of extreme violence. Ebola has had several outbreaks in the DRC.

The first storm was in 1979. But this latest one was only really noticed when a nurse turned up

ill on April 24th, and was then buried in a tank called Monggualu. The epidemic was then only announced on May 15th by which points lots of people had already died. A three red cross volunteers who had handled infected bodies before the outbreak was known about have also since died. When Leila refers to a region, the size of Florida, where this outbreak is happening, what's at region like? Well, first maybe a little bit about the epicenter of the outbreak,

Monggualu in a Tory province. Now, this is a gold mining town where the population is extremely

vulnerable. People live in unsanitary conditions. It was considered almost a no-go zone until

very recently. It's had no humanitarian missions and it's hard to reach. A Tory province is also fractured by extreme violence with multiple armed groups fighting, such as the ADF, which is linked to the Islamic State. And then more broadly, Eastern Congo is facing several overlapping conflicts. There are four different national armies fighting on the ground at the moment, and the biggest conflict is the one with Rwanda Bax M23 rebels, and some Ebola cases have been

confirmed in that area too. Okay, doesn't sound good. And so part of the problem here is the war,

“or war is going on. What other challenges do a group's face when they try to deal with this?”

Apart from the conflict, one of the largest challenges is distrust in healthcare, which is there for historical reasons, these are populations that have been oppressed by one group or another for a very long time. Then there's also a phenomenal amount of misinformation and conspiracy theories that are circulating. Gabriella Aranas, the regional operations coordinator for the international Federation of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent in Africa told journalists that

their volunteers are going door to door in an effort to combat fear and false rumours. For some people, the algorithm is very real. And they are seeking information in how to protect themselves and better protect their families. For others, there is still suspicion and misinformation, claiming that Ebola is fabricated. On top of that, there is an urgent need for PPE and other medical equipment, which is all in short supply. And of course, all of this is compounded by

US aid cuts, which have definitely had a huge impact on eastern Congo. I just want to underline this, health officials are going door to door, warning people about Ebola, and some people are just saying

“that, don't believe it, not happening. That's correct. I mean, I think it has to be understood”

and it's difficult to understand from the outside that many of these areas are almost entirely cut off from commerce or interaction with the global economy, so they're simply not used to outside is coming in and telling them about things like this. And with Livingstone and Kinshasa, thanks so much. Thank you. On this holiday weekend, it's worth finding something else in the

up-first feed. The Trump administration is rolling back federal efforts to fight climate change,

so city and state governments are stepping in. We think we are standing what can be the future of energy in Denver. It's the Sunday story, climate solutions on the local level, listen now, in the up-first podcast feed from NDR News. And that's up-first for this Monday, May 25th, Memorial Day, I'm Steveinsky. And I'm Leila Faldil. Today's episode of up-first was edited by Christian of Calamar, Tena Cryo, Taraniel, Muhammad's Ovar D.C. and Taylor

Haney. It was produced by Ziyad Buch and me and Dumas. Our director is Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Zowank and Hogan. Our technical director is Carly Strange. Join us again tomorrow.