Latest news with #Ceasefire
Al Arabiya
6 hours ago
- Business
- Al Arabiya
Trump dismisses reports US is weighing up to $30 billion civilian nuclear deal for Iran
US President Donald Trump on Friday dismissed media reports that said his administration had discussed possibly helping Iran access as much as $30 billion to build a civilian-energy-producing nuclear program. CNN reported on Thursday and NBC News reported on Friday that the Trump administration in recent days had explored possible economic incentives for Iran in return for its government halting uranium enrichment. The reports cited sources. CNN cited officials as saying that several proposals were floated and were preliminary. 'Who in the Fake News Media is the SleazeBag saying that 'President Trump wants to give Iran $30 Billion to build non-military Nuclear facilities.' Never heard of this ridiculous idea,' Trump wrote on Truth Social late on Friday, calling the reports a 'HOAX.' Since April, Iran and the US have held indirect talks aimed at finding a new diplomatic solution regarding Iran's nuclear program. Tehran says its program is peaceful and Washington says it wants to ensure Iran cannot build a nuclear weapon. Trump, earlier this week, announced a ceasefire between US ally Israel and its regional rival Iran to halt a war that began on June 13 when Israel attacked Iran. The Israel-Iran conflict had raised alarms in a region already on edge since the start of Israel's war in Gaza in October 2023. The US struck Iran's nuclear sites over the last weekend and Iran targeted a US base in Qatar on Monday in retaliation, before Trump announced the ceasefire. Israel is the only Middle Eastern country widely believed to have nuclear weapons and said its war against Iran aimed to prevent Tehran from developing its own nuclear weapons. Iran is a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, while Israel is not. The UN nuclear watchdog, which carries out inspections in Iran, has said it has 'no credible indication' of an active, coordinated weapons program in Iran.
Yahoo
20 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Carnival's Success, Circle Internet Group's Rise, and More
In this podcast, Motley Fool analyst Asit Sharma and host Mary Long discuss: The housing market slowdown, and where prices go from here. How Carnival rides the waves of uncertainty. Circle Internet Group's meteoric rise. Diworsification at a watch company. To catch full episodes of all The Motley Fool's free podcasts, check out our podcast center. When you're ready to invest, check out this top 10 list of stocks to buy. A full transcript is below. Before you buy stock in Circle Internet Group, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Circle Internet Group wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $704,676!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $950,198!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 1,048% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 175% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of June 23, 2025 This podcast was recorded on June 25, 2025. Mary Long: Cruise stocks catch a wave. You're listening to Motley Fool Money. I'm Mary Long, joined today by Mr. Asit Sharma. Asit, great to see you. It is truly a pleasure to have you here today. Asit Sharma: Same, Mary, I am truly honored to be with you today. Mary Long: Here we go. Please honored all good vibes today. Before we dive into some deeper stories later on in the show, we're going to highlight some of today's headlines up top. So, Asit, we're going to start with some macro stories and then dive a bit deeper into some company specific news. First big thing that we're keeping an eye on is that the S&P and NASDAQ both closed at their highest points since February, leaving both indexes hovering around record highs, largely on the news of a ceasefire between Israel and Iran. There are reports that fighting continues, but investors seem to be betting on peace. You got oil futures falling on the Ceasefire announcement. Gold moved in a similar direction, dropping to a two week low. You also have another part of the economy that's moving in a different direction. The housing market is falling from its pandemic highs. Data from the latest S&P index reports that home prices rose just 2.7% in April. That's down from their 3.4% gain in March. Redfin says sellers outnumber buyers 3-1 in this market and predicts that prices could slip 1% by late 2025. Asit, I think you want to double click on the housing market story. Anything you want to add there, give us a little bit of color. Asit Sharma: Mary, this is an industry at the end of the day that is a supply and demand story. I think what we saw in the great financial crisis back in 2008, 2009, really put a stick in the story that house prices will always rise inexorably and be a great investment that's been challenged during the pandemic. We saw the reverse occur. Now here we are, where the economy is slowing down. There's a lot of uncertainty. Tariffs are a big story. Interest rates are still stubbornly high, people aren't earning as much. We see this outnumbering of sellers to buyers. What does this mean to me? Well, one thing it means is that lots of people have lots of equity tied up in their homes. On the other side of the coin, there aren't as many people now in this economy who are able and willing to buy those houses, so it becomes a little bit of a buyer's market when the sellers aggregate. I don't doubt that we could start to see prices slip by late this year. Historically, when you look at all the data we have that goes back, an enormously long period, it is unusual for house prices to fall, but we may be in that situation again, so keep an eye on that. Mary Long: Earnings are slowing down, but we did get news from Carnival cruise lines yesterday, and as a result of its results, the stock was up 7% yesterday after market close. The company tripled its net income and raised its guidance. It expects adjusted net income to be 40% higher than last year at the end of the fiscal year. Asit, what stuck out to you in these results? Asit Sharma: I think, for me, the thing that sticks out for Carnival in general over the last several quarters is the way that they have managed and boosted their yields. So all of their ships, they've decreased the ships supply in the past few years. They do a really good job of marketing, so they're getting more yield per marketing dollar. I think this whole strategy that Carnival has had of acquiring these small islands and making them destination places. The experience isn't all about the cruising has really resonated with cruisers out in the larger world. Many things they have done right. The other thing that really popped out at me this quarter is the amount that they're now spending on the interest that service their debt is less than it was just a few years ago. I think their long term debt peaked at around $32 billion, I think in 2023, and it's roughly $25 billion today. When you look at the commensurate effect of the interest expense on that debt, that's like half a billion dollars to the bottom line that they can add, and those over 12 month period. Those numbers really start to make the net income look a lot juicier if you're a long term shareholder. Paying down the debt, cutting the number of ships they have, having these destinations to drive interest and drive the yields, all these things together, just make a picture of a well run carnival cruise line. I think last point, CEO Josh Weinstein has done a tremendous job putting this company back on track. Mary Long: It's not news for me to say that the word of the year certainly seems to be uncertainty. That's in regard to the economy, to geopolitics, any field you name it. Because of that, a person could be forgiven for thinking, hey, in an uncertain environment, people aren't going to be going on vacation as much. They aren't going to be tightening their wallets. Carnival doesn't seem to be facing that issue. In fact, Josh Weinstein seemed very enthusiastic and excited that people are getting great value out of their cruises. Why do cruise stocks tend to rise even when consumers start tightening their wallets? Asit Sharma: Consumers tend to fool themselves in one sense, which is if you're looking at a vacation which is all inclusive, many of us trick ourselves into thinking, that's all that we're going to spend on that vacation. Cruise lines historically have enjoyed some periods where we've seen uncertainty in the economy, even a slight recessionary trend, where consumers will drop down from multi component vacation, so you're renting a car. You are staying in hotels, you're booking air flights to this one thing that if you book in the right time during booking season, you can get at a massive discount. Now, carnival is very savvy. Once you get there, they're really good at extracting your dollars anyway, but this is a lure for the general person out there in the economy who's starting to struggle a bit as a way to maybe make sure that they can stay within budget. Doesn't always happen. But this is part of the up and down momentum of this industry. Surprisingly, bad times can be good for the cruise line. Mary Long: Bad times can be good for the cruise line. Does that mean that you, Asit Sharma, plan to catch a ride with any cruise ship stocks? Why fall on that side of the coin? Asit Sharma: I am still trying to get some racks put on the top of my car for some kayaks we have that are sitting there very appealing. I want to get out on those kayaks at a local lake in Raleigh, North Carolina this summer. Mary Long: Well, that's very different than a cruise so yes to kayaks, but it sounds like no, you're not [inaudible] ships. Asit Sharma: Cruise you're not [inaudible] of Lake Johnson. Mary Long: It sounds like no, Asit is not a fan of adding cruise ship stocks to his portfolio. Already, with that, we're going to take a quick break. Later on in the show, we'll be talking stablecoins and the luxury watch market. Asit, Circle Internet Group has been on a tear since going public earlier this month. Circle is the company behind USDC. That's the second largest stable coin by market share. So a stable coin is a token that's backed by an equivalent dollar denominated asset. Before we get to Circle's rise, and in more recent days, it's slight fall, what is behind all of this interest recently in stablecoins? Asit Sharma: One of the things that stablecoins bring to the market is an avoidance of the fees that we pay to networks such as Visa and Mastercard when transactions are made. And most of the time, the merchant bears the brunt of those fees, but what do they usually do? Mary, they pass them on to you and me. And as time goes on, sometimes you even see that as broken out as a surcharge in certain service areas. The lure of the block chain didn't really pull a lot of retail interest in where transactions were concerned because of so many digital assets that came and went, there was fraud associated with some crypto assets over the last several years. But the idea of a stablecoin, which is backed in many cases by reserves of currency, pegged to a currency like the US dollar and perhaps regulated, as we see with the Genius Act, which has been the news lately, that's starting to pull in more interest. Also, I think the technology of stablecoins has improved over the last few years. We saw Circle announce a partnership with Fiserv which is a really large payment processing company. You see many strands of the story starting to come together that we could have a viable alternative to some of the established payment systems that have been around for decades. Hence, this explosion in retail stock interest, for those of you who follow circle on the stock market, a recent IPO, I'm sure you have seen how this stock has exponentially enjoyed SIM interest. I'll put it politely there. Whether it stays up in that stratospheric level is another question. Mary Long: To put some numbers behind those adjectives, Circle stock soared 168% on its first day of trading alone. It continued to rise in the weeks following. I think at its highest point, it was 700 and it had grown 750%. It's dipped a bit back down over the past few days. But, Asit, we're long term investors here, so let's zoom out and think not about what might happen over the next month, but maybe over the next five years. Where do you think Circle stock will be about five years from now? Asit Sharma: It's hard to say, of course, I'm going to hedge outright, Mary always do that. But I will take a bit of a stand here. I think this company has some potential because the market is so vast. When you think about transaction volumes for Visa and Mastercard, those are in the trillions every year, trillions of dollars crossing those platforms. Even getting a slice of that would be a substantial win for a business like this. What do they have to do to get there? They've got to have full transparency. To be this very easily defined and easily followed entity, they've got to comply with regulatory bodies around the world. They have to scale and be liquid at the same time, so they need a lot of capital to do this. They've got to seal a lot of deals with companies like Fiserv. In addition to sovereign body licenses, they have to wheel and deal out in the marketplace. But if you can do that, the market is there for an alternative to current payment systems. I should say, this is also an alternative to slower moving systems like ACH payments and some peer to peer payments. We've got a story which could emerge, but we're going to have to follow the execution on so many fronts that I just mentioned for that story to pan out where this becomes a really valuable company. But I'm seeing all this just for some investors who might dismiss this company out of hand, just seeing it's almost meme stock like movement since the IPO. That doesn't mean that this can't be a good business off the different networks. When you look around this landscape, this company, in particular, stands out for the effort it's put in to show it is compliance minded. It is reserve fund minded. It wants to be known as the most legit of these networks. It's got some potential over the long term. Mary Long: Thinking of the broader landscape of this space, a name that a lot of investors are probably pretty familiar with is Coinbase. How is what circles doing different than what Coinbase is, and maybe where do these crypto adjacent companies overlap? Asit Sharma: I think Coinbase is a company that's just benefiting from the general rise in digital assets. It's a trading platform. Mary, it is a company that rises when volumes of different coins rise. That's a really good place to be in this whole ecosystem. A company like Circle, may make it. It may not. It may be usurped by an even better competitor or regulations may change, or the demand for this may decrease. I'll give you one great example of how this could happen. Although it is blockchain based, we still don't have really great mechanisms for fraud prevention, the way that like Mastercard does or Visa or American Express. These companies that have been around for a long time and have made huge investments in their payment services. The rigidity and structure and backbone of these networks are yet to be proven. Whereas coinbase is over here just being a middleman, a broker. I always like those businesses because as long as there's trading, they'll find a way to make money, whether they're selling order flow, whether they're making it on the transaction, whether they are making it on the spread of holding assets and making interest off those assets. There's so many ways for a middleman like coinbase to make money. If you ask me, right now, which is going to be around in five or 10 years with a higher probability, I would say coinbase. Both can succeed in this environment, but they are different. They don't at this point, have a lot where they have confluence in the things they do. Mary Long: We'll close out with a story that I really wanted to be sure to hit on with you, Asit, because you and I have talked about the luxury goods market before, and I came across a fascinating story in the Walls troop Journal the other week that I thought you'd have some really interesting takes on. This one is about an American fund manager named Stephen Wood, who's taken a 0.5% stake in the Swiss watch company Swatch. He was gunning ultimately unsuccessfully, but he was gunning earlier this year for a board seat at the company, and Wood's hope is for Swatch to capitalize on its highest end brands to lean into its luxury offerings. I'm going to link to this article in the show notes because I think the listeners would be really fascinated at this just like this wild look at business strategy and family dynamics. There's a lot to unpack there. But we'll focus on Swatch, the company for now. Swatch currently owns 16 brands across various price points. You can get Brugue for almost $44,000, whereas a Swatch watch could run as low as $40. What do you think of this play, Asit? Do you like it, or do you see it more as an example of diversification? Asit Sharma: It might be dears vacation, Mary. It might be too little too late. I like that 0.5% stake. If he can get up to 1%, he might have some more say and maybe got a seat on the board. But Swatch is a business which was in currency years and years ago, decades ago actually was when I think it was at its brand peak. That would have been a great time to capitalize on that brand and to offer some super luxury items, attract the massively affluent who also loved the watches that were going for whatever it was at that time, probably $30. Inflation adjusted. But I'm not so sure that's a great strategy today because the brand doesn't have the cachet simply put, and this is a business which has stalled in its revenue growth. I do think that Swatch is making a little bit of a comeback. I notice some of the younger generation now are starting to wear Swatches you see them more in circulation than in the past, so that's good for the brand. Asit Sharma: But trying to do this barbell strategy with this type of brand, which has been around the block, I think that's difficult. I'm going to say it's a do worse idea than maybe others would have. We'll see. I never want to count an enterprising entrepreneur out, but I'm skeptical. Mary Long: You're not the only person that's skeptical. 27% of Swatch shares are short interest. Net profit fell 78% last year. I asked you the five year question on our last story. I'll ask you for this one, as well. Where do you see Swatch going in five years time? Asit Sharma: This is a business that can plod along, maybe meet the market or hang out with the market. The one thing to remember about Swatch is that it's got a really strong balance sheet. It doesn't have much in the way of long term liabilities, and it's got a really, great haul of current assets. It's something like 10 billion Swiss francs in current assets. Now about 7.6 billion of that is Swatch inventory, but the company turns its inventory over pretty regularly. This isn't a company that is just about to collapse. I think with a little bit of, brand revival, they will plod along. Do I see them outgunning the market and maybe suddenly catching fire? I don't know. I will say this, before we head out. I did actually buy a Swatch in an airport for my wife last year, simply because at one point in our illustrious career as a couple, we were too poor to afford what was then, Married probably that $30 Swatch price point. We happen to see this really beautiful store in the Istanbul airport. And I was very surprised at the number of Swatches that they have now. It's an explosion of color and lots of different styles. Maybe they'll catch fire with something, but I don't see this being an alternative to some other of the really higher end luxury companies you and I have talked about that make for better long term investments. Mary Long: I was going to say, you keep an eye on the luxury goods market. Is there a company that comes to mind that has already caught fire or that you think could continue to do so in the future that plays in the luxury space? Asit Sharma: Well, I've been talking up Ferrari for the last couple of weeks. I've been looking at symbol R-A-C-E. The thing that is really dawning on me over time is how well they sell into demand and how disciplined they are in restricting their output. I noticed just for fun, internally here at The Motley Fool, we have something called the Fool's errand, where we award randomly through a game that we play every month, some time off to valued Fool members. This month's theme was Ferrari, and our team did a great job of explaining that business model much better than I did on Motley Fool Money last week. But I will say that is catching my eye as a company that's going to benefit from the tailwinds of the F1 interest that's growing, and also just the amount that they spend in R&D research and development. They really love engineering. It's an engineering first company. Sometimes what propels a brand isn't really about status, but it's about the product itself, and they've always kept their eye close to that. Mary Long: That's about all the time that we've got for today. Asit, thanks so much for spending the morning with me here on Motley Fool Money. Always appreciate having you on. Asit Sharma: Always a pleasure, Mary. Thanks so much. Mary Long: Before we go, a quick programming note that this will be one of my last shows hosting Motley Fool Money. Working on this show each day for the past few years has truly been a highlight of my career. My favorite part of this job is that I get to read articles and books and go down rabbit holes every day and then have conversations that help me to better understand the world. I have learned so much, and it's my hope that by virtue of listening, you feel that you have too. I don't know exactly what comes next, but I do know that I plan to continue podcasting. If you want to see what I'm up to, LinkedIn is the best spot to find me. Until then, thank you. To each of you who have listened to Motley Fool Money for the gift of your time and your attention. I hope you feel that it was well spent and that you're a little smarter, happier, and richer because of it. I also can't go without giving a very special thank you to the Motley Fool Money team. That's Chris Hill, Dylan Lewis, Ricky Mulvey, Rick Engdahl, Dan Boyd, Tim Sparks, and all the wonderfully smart and kind and funny analysts that are regulars on the show. You all are the epitome of foolishness. What a gift it's been to work with each and every one of you. Until next time, Fool on. As always, people in the program may have interest in the stocks they talk about, and the Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against. Don't buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear. All personal finance content follows Motley Fool editorial standards, and I'm not approved by advertisers. Advertisements are sponsored content and provided for informational purposes only. To see our full advertising disclosure, please check out our show notes. For Motley Fool Money, I'm Mary Long. Thanks for listening. We'll be back tomorrow. American Express is an advertising partner of Motley Fool Money. Asit Sharma has positions in Mastercard. Mary Long has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Mastercard and Visa. The Motley Fool recommends Carnival Corp., Coinbase Global, and Redfin. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Carnival's Success, Circle Internet Group's Rise, and More was originally published by The Motley Fool Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
LBCI
a day ago
- Politics
- LBCI
PM Salam condemns Israeli strikes near Nabatieh as violation of sovereignty
Lebanon's Prime Minister Nawaf Salam on Friday strongly condemned recent Israeli strikes in the vicinity of Nabatieh, calling them a 'blatant violation of national sovereignty.' In a post on X, Salam said the attacks also breached the ceasefire arrangements brokered last November and posed a threat to the stability Lebanon is working to preserve. 'I strongly condemn the Israeli attacks around Nabatieh, which represent a blatant violation of national sovereignty and the ceasefire arrangements reached last November,' Salam wrote. 'They also pose a threat to the stability we are committed to preserving.'
Associated Press
a day ago
- Politics
- Associated Press
Iranian Kurdish dissidents abroad watch for signs of Tehran vulnerability after war with Israel
IRBIL, Iraq (AP) — From abroad, Iranian Kurdish dissident groups have been watching closely for signs that Iran's theocracy could falter in its grip on the country, battered by Israeli airstrikes in the intense, 12-day war until a U.S.-negotiated ceasefire halted the fighting. Israel launched the strikes on June 13, drawing Iranian missiles that targeted Israel. But it was not until the United States inserted itself into the war and hit Iranian nuclear sites on Sunday, including with 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs, that the war came to a watershed moment. Now, with the fragile ceasefire holding and many Iranians trying to return to a normal life, questions swirl about whether and how much the war has weakened Iran's clerical rule, in place since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iranian Kurdish exiles in Iraq mull their options A handful of Iranian Kurdish groups — many with a distinctly militant past — have long found a safe haven in northern Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdish region, but their presence has been a point of friction between the central government in Baghdad and Tehran. Iraq in 2023 reached an agreement with Iran to disarm the groups and move them from their bases near the border areas with Iran — where they potentially posed an armed challenge to Tehran — into camps designated by Baghdad. Their armed bases were shut down and their movement within Iraq restricted, but the groups have not entirely given up their weapons. Officials with two prominent Iranian Kurdish groups in Iraq told The Associated Press they are trying to organize politically to ensure that they would not be sidelined should the administration in Iran lose its hold on power. When asked if their groups were preparing an armed uprising, they either denied it or avoided a direct response. Mixed expectations of any real change in Tehran President Donald Trump floated the idea of 'regime change' in Tehran in the wake of the U.S. strikes, only to have his administration later say that was not the goal. Some of the Kurdish dissidents say they expect no immediate upheaval in Iran's ruling theocracy. 'Some of the parties think this war between Iran and Israel is a good opportunity for us' to advance the Kurdish cause, said Khalil Naderi, spokesperson for the Kurdistan Freedom Party, or PAK, a separatist Iranian Kurdish group based in Iraq. But Naderi disagreed with that premise. 'The U.S. and Israel attacked Iran to protect themselves from its weapons, not for Kurdish rights,' he said. Any premature armed mobilization on their part could endanger both the Kurdish groups and the fragile security of the Kurdish areas, both in Iraq and across the border in Iran, Naderi said. His stand was a contrast to that of PAK leader Hussein Yazdanpanah, who days after the outbreak of the Israel-Iran war, called on X for Kurdish youth to rise against the authorities in Tehran. 'Attack the enemy, its centers, and its facilities' and 'avenge the blood' of their fallen, Yazdanpanah posted. And last week in Washington, where he had been pushing U.S. officials to include the Kurds in plans for a potential 'day after' in Iran, Abdullah Mohtadi, the head of the leftist Komala Party from Iran's Kurdish regions, said he hopes the Israel-Iran war could represent a turning point. 'War can bring about internal domestic change,' he said. 'We hope that this time this will be the case.' Lessons from war Mohtadi denied that any external player, including the U.S. and Israel, had encouraged Kurdish groups to take up arms. But he didn't rule out the possibility that they would. 'We haven't at the moment called for an uprising, or we haven't called for an armed struggle, but we are monitoring developments very closely,' he said. Mohtadi maintained that Komala has avoided an armed struggle for nearly 30 years and that its camps in northern Iraq are purely for 'self defense.' Both Komala and the PAK, as well as another exiled Kurdish group, the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan or KDPI, have fought Iranian authorities in the past — but also sometimes fought against each other. The groups have different approaches to the question of Kurdish separatism. PAK advocates for an independent Kurdish state, while Komala and KDPI want a system in Iran similar to that in northern Iraq, where Iraqi Kurds have a semiautonomous and self-governed region. Iran has occasionally launched strikes on the Iranian Kurdish dissidents, but none during the Israel-Iran war this month. Divisions among the groups The dissident groups are walking a fine line, balancing the differences among themselves and with their hosts in Iraq, the Iraqi Kurds and the Iraqi government in Baghdad — neither of which they want to antagonize. Despite having shared grievances over the marginalization of Kurds in Iran, the Iranian Kurdish parties have not been able to build a consensus 'We haven't been able to unite, even though we would like to,' Naderi said. In March, ahead of Nowruz, the Persian New Year, the Kurdish dissident groups had planned to 'meet and discuss' Kurdish rights and destiny, but plans fell through. Even now, he said, coordination remains elusive. Kawsar Fattahi, a central committee member of Komala, said the dissidents should not plan for 'the fall of the regime, but on what will happen after that.' 'Because our goal is to rebuild a new Iran,' she said. Mohtadi, the Komala leader, said he has tried to reassure Washington that his group is not separatist but wants a 'democratic, secular federal Iran where the rights of Kurds and other ethnic groups are protected by the new constitution.' He denied anyone is pushing Komala into armed conflict. 'We aren't puppets,' Mohtadi said. 'Nobody has asked us to rise (up). We will decide when is the right time.' ___ Knickmeyer reported from Washington.
ABC News
a day ago
- Politics
- ABC News
What we don't know about the Israel-Iran war
It has been a chaotic two weeks since Israel launched its surprise attack on Iran, igniting a war between the regional powers. At least 627 people have been killed in Iran and 28 in Israel, according to authorities in each country. Thousands more were injured in the 12 days of relentless back-and-forth strikes. A ceasefire brokered by the US — days after it bombed Iran's key nuclear facilities — appears to be holding for now. But in what has been a fast-moving and often murky information landscape, many questions remain. There's a lot to unpack with this conflict, so if you want to jump to a specific question, use the links below. There is no clear, definitive timeline on how close Iran was to developing nuclear weapons. In March, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said the country's "intelligence community continued to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon". Last Wednesday, before the US bombed Iran's nuclear sites, President Donald Trump said Ms Gabbard, and the US intelligence community, were wrong. The justification for Israel launching its attacks on Tehran two weeks ago was based on a report from the International Atomic Energy Agency. It found that Iran had failed to comply with its nuclear obligations for the first time in almost 20 years. It said Iran's uranium had reached about 60 per cent enrichment. Once uranium is enriched to 90 per cent, it is deemed weapons-grade. Civilian nuclear power uranium is usually enriched to about 3 to 5 per cent. In early June, the US Institute for Science and International Security said Iran could convert its stockpile of 60 per cent enriched uranium into 233kg of weapon-grade uranium in three weeks. The institute estimated that would be enough for nine nuclear weapons. Back to top. The only consensus among experts is that the severity of the damage is still unknown. US President Donald Trump claimed the three key nuclear facilities the US bombed — Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan — had been "obliterated". America's top military officer, General Dan Caine, also said an initial assessment found all three sites "sustained severe damage and destruction". ABC Verify examined satellite imagery of the facilities, speaking to experts from the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS). It found it was highly likely that Fordow's enrichment halls were severely damaged or even destroyed, the Natanz site was "likely destroyed" and Isfahan had sustained heavy damage to its main uranium conversion facility. A US intelligence leak, acknowledged by the Trump administration, has cast doubt on claims the nuclear facilities had been obliterated. The classified assessment found Iran's nuclear program had only been set back by a few months. The preliminary report was made by the Defense Intelligence Agency, an arm of the Pentagon. US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that leaked initial assessment was "low-confidence" and had been overtaken by intelligence showing Iran's nuclear program was severely damaged by the strikes and that it would take years to rebuild. Back to top. There are no clear answers about whether Iran moved its enriched uranium before the US struck the three nuclear sites. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report detailed that Tehran had amassed 408.6kg of uranium enriched up to 60 per cent. Iran has claimed about 400kg of it was moved before the US dropped the so-called "bunker-buster" bombs. James Acton, a co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said "I tend to believe them". Several experts cautioned that Iran may have moved enriched uranium out of Fordow, noting that satellite imagery from Maxar Technologies showed "unusual activity" at the facility on Thursday and Friday. A long line of vehicles was pictured waiting outside an entrance to the site. A US intelligence assessment, reported by CNN and acknowledged by the Trump administration, found that Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium was not destroyed. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt did not deny the existence of the assessment but said it was "flat-out wrong". IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said Iran had informed the UN watchdog on the first day of Israeli strikes that it would take "special measures" to protect its nuclear materials and equipment. "They did not get into details as to what that meant, but clearly that was the implicit meaning of that, so we can imagine that this material is there," Mr Grossi told reporters. Back to top. Ben Saul, a United Nations special rapporteur on human rights and Sydney University international law professor, said the answer was clear. "Both the Israeli and US strikes on Iran are clearly illegal under international law," he told the ABC. "Iran had not attacked either country with a nuclear weapon, it didn't possess a nuclear weapon, and it wasn't threatening to imminently attack those countries." Israel argues it attacked Iran in pre-emptive self-defence to counter the threat posed by the country's nuclear program. When the US joined the conflict, it echoed the same justification. Under international law — written into the Charter of the United Nations in 1945 — a country may only defend itself from an actual or imminent armed attack by another country. Donald Rothwell, international law professor at ANU, said an imminent threat would require Iran having nuclear weapons capability and an intent to use them. "There seems to be no substantive factual basis for any Israeli argument of a right of pre-emptive self-defence," Professor Rothwell said. That also ruled out the US justification that it was acting in "collective self-defence" by aiding Israel. Both Israel and Iran may have also breached international humanitarian law during the 12-day war by causing "indiscriminate or disproportionate damage to civilian residential areas", Professor Saul said. He added the Iranian nuclear scientists Israel targeted were civilians who were not directly taking part in the hostilities. Back to top. When a state acts in violation of the UN Charter, the matter would go before the United Nations Security Council. But ANU international law professor Donald Rothwell said no action had been taken, and the US could veto any resolution that came before the council. Australia backed the US strikes on Iran and said Israel had the right to self-defence. The government has held its stance despite being questioned about the legality of the attacks. Professor Saul, international law expert and United Nations special rapporteur on human rights, said there was also not much that institutions such as the International Criminal Court (ICC) and International Court of Justice (ICJ) could do. Neither Israel nor the US have accepted the ICJ's jurisdiction, which is necessary for a case to be brought against those countries in that court. "So the right thing to do is for every country that cares about international law to firstly condemn it loudly and publicly," Professor Saul said. "And secondly, to consider imposing sanctions on the governments and the leaders that have broken what is really the most sacred taboo of international law of the last 80 years. Back to top. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was established in 1957, at a time of immense Cold War tensions and anxieties. Several countries across the world had begun embarking on nuclear power and nuclear weapons programs. But the recognition of the need for such an agency had dawned on scientists years earlier — perhaps as early as the aftermath of the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan at the end of World War II. In a speech in early 1946, just months after the end of the war, Manhattan Project physicist J Robert Oppenheimer said the advent of nuclear weapons had made "the prospect of future war unendurable". In 1953, by which time the US and the USSR had developed nuclear arsenals, then-US president Dwight Eisenhower proposed the creation of the IAEA as a means of curbing the "fearful trend" of an atomic arms race. For the past few decades, the core responsibilities of the IAEA have included the development of nuclear safety standards and ensuring compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. University of Melbourne public health expert Tilman Ruff — who helped establish the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), which received the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize — said the IAEA had been "sidelined and very likely weakened as a result" of the joint US-Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. "You can't bomb your way to nuclear non-proliferation and security and disarmament — it's got to come down to sustainable agreements that provide the same standard for all nations, that have integrity that all nations can trust," Dr Ruff said. The IAEA played a vital role in ensuring that, despite the limitations some countries put on its power, he added. After Israel launched its air strikes — but before the bombings by the US — IAEA director-general Rafael Mariano Grossi told the UN Security Council that attacks on Iran's nuclear sites "caused a sharp degradation in nuclear safety and security" in the country. Dr Ruff said it was clear Mr Grossi was "frustrated that the actions taken by Israel and the US have not been based on IAEA assessments". "He's worried that the IAEA now has much less access in Iran than it did before the attacks," he said. "Iran has again — as it has in the past — raised the prospect of leaving the non-proliferation treaty, which would set the whole thing back further." Back to top. The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, commonly known as the nuclear NPT, came into force in 1970. The treaty rests on two pillars — commitments by non-nuclear-armed states that they will not acquire nuclear weapons, and commitments by all parties to "pursue negotiations in good faith" for complete nuclear disarmament. Iran and the US are parties to the NPT, but Israel — which is widely suspected of having a nuclear arsenal but refuses to confirm or deny it — is not. Dr Ruff said that amounted to a double standard, which was in itself a threat to non-proliferation. "This is the absolute case of the pot calling the kettle black … When Israel is the only state in the Middle East that has nuclear weapons, about 90 of them, [and] has never joined the non-proliferation treaty," he said. "The biggest driver of proliferation is the failure of the nine nuclear-armed states to disarm." Dr Ruff believes the attacks on Iran could have the opposite effect to Israel and the US's stated intentions. The attacks could incentivise countries — including Iran — to develop nuclear bombs, because of the weapons' deterrent value. "Has this definitively dealt with Iran's potential to build nuclear weapons? No — and it may well have increased their resolve to do so, and diminished the international mechanisms that we have," he said. US political scientist John Mearsheimer made a similar assessment, describing America's bombing of Iran as a "hammer blow" to the NPT. "The message [to other countries] from what has happened in Iran is that you should have nuclear weapons," he said in an interview with Breaking Points. Following the US bombing of Iran's nuclear facilities, the IAEA's director-general said the treaty, which had "underpinned international security for more than half a century", was now "on the line". Back to top. The simple answer is: we don't know. There has been speculation that the joint intelligence facilities at Pine Gap near Alice Springs, or the Naval Communication Station Harold E Holt near Exmouth in Western Australia, might have provided the US military with intelligence to help it conduct the strikes. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has largely brushed off questions about this, saying the government will not canvass intelligence issues in public. Instead, he repeatedly emphasised that the US had acted "unilaterally" with the strikes. Earlier this week, former home affairs secretary Mike Pezzullo — who would have a good grasp of how these facilities worked — told the ABC it was "possible" the US used the facilities under the "full knowledge and concurrence" framework adopted by both countries. "It's hard to say from the outside but you'd have to think that to the extent that the Americans had a pre-existing concurrence from the Australian government to use those facilities for whatever purposes they deem necessary, it's possible [they did]," Mr Pezzullo said. "But I wouldn't want to speculate." Still, he said the fact the bombers travelled east from the US across the Atlantic to Iran, rather than west over the Pacific, meant there was probably "less scope" for involvement from the facilities in Australia. "On that direction of travel, there's the likelihood of lesser Australian potential involvement, but beyond that, I really wouldn't want to speculate," he said. Back to top. Israel and Iran both agreed to adhere to the ceasefire, but said they would respond with force to any breach. For now, it appears the strikes have stopped and the US has said it is set to hold talks next week with Iran about its nuclear program. Some analysts believe the ceasefire will hold because Iran has been weakened and needs an off-ramp. But the big question is whether long-lasting peace is possible. Ali Mamouri, Middle East studies research fellow at Deakin University, said Israel claimed to have achieved the bulk of its objectives for the war. But with the extent of damage to Iran's nuclear program not fully known, volatility remained. "Both sides could remain locked in a volatile stand-off over Iran's nuclear program, with the conflict potentially reigniting whenever either side perceives a strategic opportunity," he wrote in the Conversation. Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, said it was too early for any declarations of victory. He said talks between the US and Iran were necessary, but reaching nuclear agreements would be difficult. "It is far too premature for the Trump administration or other governments to be declaring some sort of victory," he told ABC Radio National. "Iran will be looking for assurances that it won't be attacked again by Israel or the United States and again, they will be looking for relief from the suffocating sanctions that have been in place." Iran has not yet confirmed that talks will be taking place next week. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told state TV that Tehran was assessing whether talks with the US were in its interest. Back to top. There are a range of predictions on what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could do next and what could unfold across the Middle East. ANU associate professor of law Hossein Esmaeili said a lot depended on various political factors. "Neither Israel nor Iran has achieved their goals over the past 12 days, and now is a time for talks and negotiation to work out a solution," he said. As a result of this, there has been "a kind of balance of power" between Iran, Israel and the US, which could help calm the conflict between the countries. "Iran did not wipe Israel off the map. Israel did not stop Iran's nuclear plans. What happens next depends on what happens now with Israeli politics," he said. This week, US President Donald Trump called for Israel to cancel Mr Netanyahu's corruption trial or grant him a pardon, describing the case against the Israeli leader as a "witch-hunt". Mr Netanyahu was indicted in 2019 in Israel on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust. He has denied the allegations and pleaded not guilty. Dr Esmaeili said Mr Netanyahu's next moves might depend on how long he could remain in power, and what happened if the corruption trial proceeded. For the time being, Dr Esmaeili said he was "hopeful" the ceasefire would hold. Back to top.
