Who will monitor Iran's nuclear activities?
UN inspectors have left Iran after Tehran cut ties with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
This means inspectors will no longer be able to monitor the country's nuclear activities. list of 3 items list 1 of 3 list 2 of 3 list 3 of 3 end of list
That's led to many people questioning the future of Iran's nuclear programme, and fearing another round of tensions.
Israel launched its attacks on Iran last month, claiming Tehran was weeks from producing a nuclear weapon.
The United States backed its ally, striking key Iranian nuclear facilities.
But Tehran has struck a defiant note – suspending co-operation with the UN's nuclear watchdog.
So what does all this mean, and what might the future hold?
Presenter: Adrian Finighan
Guests:
Abas Aslani – Senior research fellow at the Center for Middle East Strategic Studies
Tariq Rauf – Former head of verification and security policy at the International Atomic Energy Agency
Harlan Ullman – Senior adviser at the Atlantic Council and chairman of the Killowen Group
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Al Jazeera
33 minutes ago
- Al Jazeera
Israel now faces adversaries that it cannot defeat
Since October 7, 2023, the war of images has eclipsed the war of weapons. From Gaza's pulverised hospitals and starving infants to mass graves and desperate fathers digging through rubble, every pixel captured on a smartphone strikes deeper than a missile. These raw, unfiltered, and undeniable images have a far greater impact than any press conference or official speech. And for the first time in its history, Israel cannot delete them or drown them in propaganda. The horrifying images of the Israeli army massacring people at aid distribution locations prompted newspaper Haaretz's Gideon Levy to write on June 29: 'Is Israel perpetrating genocide in Gaza? […] The testimonies and images emerging from Gaza don't leave room for many questions.' Even staunchly pro-Israel commentator and New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman no longer buys into the Israeli narrative. In a May 9 op-ed, addressed to US President Donald Trump, he declared: 'This Israeli government is not our ally,' clarifying that it is 'behaving in ways that threaten hard-core US interests in the region'. Once, Israel's narrative was protected by the gates of editorial rooms and the gravity of Western guilt. But the smartphone shattered those gates. What we see now is no longer what Israel tells us — it's what Gaza shows us. The platforms carrying these images — TikTok, WhatsApp, Instagram, X — don't prioritise context; they prioritise virality. While older generations might look away, younger ones are glued to the stream of suffering, absorbed by every pixel, every siren, every moment of destruction. The global public is agitated, and this works against the Israeli interest. Israel is no longer just at war with its neighbours; it is at war with the lens itself. The psychological toll of this visual war is reverberating deep inside Israeli society. For decades, Israelis were conditioned to see themselves as global narrators of trauma, not subjects of international scrutiny. But now, with videos of Israeli bombardment, flattened Gaza neighbourhoods, and emaciated children flooding every platform, many Israelis are grappling with a growing ethical predicament. There is unease, even among centrists, that these visceral images are eroding Israel's moral high ground. For the first time, public discourse in Israeli society includes fear of the mirror: what the world now sees and what Israelis are forced to confront. Internationally, the effect has been even more destabilising for Israel's diplomatic standing. Longstanding allies, once unconditionally supportive, now face growing domestic pressure from citizens who are not consuming official statements but TikTok's live streams and Instagram's image feed. Lawmakers in Europe and North America are openly questioning arms shipments, trade deals, and diplomatic cover, not because of the briefings they have on Israeli war crimes but because their inboxes are flooded with screenshots of scattered body parts and starving children. The battlefield has expanded into parliaments, campuses, city councils, and editorial rooms. This is the backlash of a war Israel cannot win with brute force. To regain control of the narrative, Israeli officials have pressured social media platforms to curb content they dislike. Yet even Israel's most sophisticated public diplomacy efforts are struggling to keep pace with the virality of raw documentation. Behind closed doors, the Israeli military is no longer merely worried about public relations; it is concerned about prosecution. The Israeli army has admonished soldiers for taking selfies and filming themselves demolishing Palestinian homes, warning that such material is now being harvested as evidence by international human rights organisations. Footage and images from social media have already been used by activists to target Israeli servicemen abroad. In a number of cases, Israeli citizens have had to flee countries they were visiting due to war crimes complaints filed against them. In the age of smartphones, the occupation is no longer just visible — it's indictable. In the past, Israel fought wars that it could explain. Now, it fights a battle it can only react to — often too belatedly and too clumsily. The smartphone captures what the missile conceals. Social media disseminates information that official briefings attempt to suppress. The haunting images, digitally preserved, ensure that we never forget any devastating atrocity, or act of brutality. Images of conflict do not just convey information; they can also redefine our perceptions and influence our political positions. The powerful 'Napalm Girl' photo that captured the aftermath of an attack by the US-allied South Vietnamese army on civilians during the Vietnam War had a profound impact on American society. It helped create a significant shift in public opinion regarding the war, accelerating the decision of the US government to end it. Today, in Gaza, the stream of powerful images does not stop. Despite Israel's best efforts, the global opinion is overwhelmingly against its genocidal war. Smartphones have completely changed the nature of conflict by putting a camera in the hands of every witness. In this new era, Israel struggles to defeat the relentless, unfiltered visual record of its crimes that calls for justice. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.
Al Jazeera
7 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
Iran tells millions of Afghans to leave or face arrest on day of deadline
Millions of Afghan migrants and refugees in Iran have been asked to leave or face arrest as a deadline set by the government comes to an end. Sunday's target date neared amid public concerns over security in the aftermath of the 12-day conflict with Israel, which the United States joined with air strikes on Iran's uranium-enrichment facilities. But humanitarian organisations warned that mass deportations could further destabilise Afghanistan, one of the world's most impoverished nations. Iran is home to an estimated 4 million Afghan migrants and refugees, and many have lived there for decades. In 2023, Tehran launched a campaign to expel foreigners it said were living in the country 'illegally'. In March, the Iranian government ordered that Afghans without the right to remain should leave voluntarily by Sunday or face expulsion. Since then, more than 700,000 Afghans have left, and hundreds of thousands of others face expulsion. More than 230,000 departed in June alone, the United Nations International Organization for Migration said. The government has denied targeting Afghans, who have fled their homeland to escape war, poverty and Taliban rule. Batoul Akbari, a restaurant owner, told Al Jazeera that Afghans living in Tehran were hurt by 'anti-Afghan sentiment', adding that it was heartbreaking to see 'people sent away from the only home they have ever known'. 'Being born in Iran gives us the feeling of having two homelands,' Akbari said. 'Our parents are from Afghanistan, but this is what we've always known as home.' Mohammad Nasim Mazaheri, a student whose family had to leave Iran, agreed: 'The deportations have torn families apart.' The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimated that Iran deported more than 30,000 Afghans on average each day during the war with Israel, up from about 2,000 earlier. 'We have always striven to be good hosts, but national security is a priority, and naturally, illegal nationals must return,' Iranian government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani said on Tuesday. Late last month, the UNHCR said, of the 1.2 million returning Afghans, more than half had come from Iran after its government set its deadline on March 20. 'They are coming in buses, and sometimes, five buses arrive at one time with families and others, and the people are let out of the bus, and they are simply bewildered, disoriented and tired and hungry as well,' Arafat Jamal, the UNHCR representative in Afghanistan said as he described the scene at a border crossing. 'This has been exacerbated by the war, but I must say it has been part of an underlying trend that we have seen of returns from Iran, some of which are voluntary, but a large portion were also deportations.' Al Jazeera's Resul Serdar, reporting from Tehran, said Afghans have increasingly been blamed for economic hardships, shortages and social issues in Iran. 'These accusations have been fuelled by political rhetoric and social media campaigns following 12 days of conflict between Iran and Israel and claims that Israel has recruited Afghans as spies,' he said.
Al Jazeera
7 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
'Every one of us has a responsibility' to divest, to boycott
Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the BDS movement, says it's the public's duty to press governments and corporations to end their complicity in Gaza's genocide. This comes after a report by UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, naming dozens of companies profiting from violence against Palestinians.
