As he addressed the UN General Assembly on Wednesday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian criticized Israeli officials for pursuing a “Growther Israel” through aggression and coercion and presented pictures of the victims of the 12-day war.
Published On 24 Sep 2025
Published On 24 Sep 2025
The Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom claims that as Tehran has been working with Moscow to avert new sanctions over its nuclear program, that it and Iran have signed a memorandum of understanding over the construction of small nuclear power plants there.
At a meeting in Moscow on Wednesday, Rosatom’s CEO Alexei Likhachev and Mohammad Eslami, Iran’s top nuclear official, signed the deal. It was described as a “strategic project” by Rosatom.
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As Tehran aims to have 20GW of nuclear energy by 2040, Eslami, who is also Iran’s vice president, announced earlier this week in Iranian state media.
In Bushehr, in the southern city of Iran, one nuclear power plant is still in operation despite experiencing severe power shortages during high-demand months. It was constructed by Russia and has a 1GW capacity.
Following the UN Security Council’s decision on Friday to not permanently lift Iranian nuclear program, which means sanctions will be imposed on Iran by September 28 unless no significant agreement is reached in advance, this development comes amid looming sanctions against Iran.
Russia was one of the four countries that voted to prevent the sanctions from being reinstated.
Iran rebuffed the UNSC vote, claiming that the country’s cooperation with the UN watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), would “effectively suspend” the country.
The United Kingdom, France, and Germany – known as the E3 – launched a 30-day process to reinstate sanctions unless Tehran fulfills their demands in the middle of August.
Tehran has been accused of breaking its nuclear commitments by, among others, building up uranium stocks that are more than 40 times that are permitted by a 2015 nuclear deal, which Trump unilaterally withdrew from during his first term. Iran was given the option to enrich uranium up to 3.67 percent purity in the deal.
Iran claims in its defense that it only increased its nuclear enrichment after Trump withdrew from the deal and reinstituted sanctions against the nation. The US action is in violation of the 2015 agreement, according to Tehran.
The European trio has been accused of abusing the dispute resolution provision of the 2015 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which enables the application of sanctions through a “snapback mechanism.”
New sanctions, among other things, would freeze Iranian assets abroad, put an end to arms sales to Tehran, and stifle the development of ballistic missiles.
Iran has repeatedly defended its right to pursue nuclear energy peacefully, but it has repeatedly denied doing so. Tehran’s President, Masoud Pezeshkian, addressed the UN General Assembly on Wednesday, saying the country would never seek nuclear weapons.
Tehran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, declared on Tuesday that the US would not engage in direct negotiations with Iran, and that any negotiations with the US would be “absolutely dead ends.”
Published On 24 Sep 2025
A protest demanding statehood for the Indian Himalayan region of Ladakh erupted into violence as protesters threw stones at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) office and clashed with police in the country’s Himalayan region.
Hundreds of protesters were injured by police’s use of tear gas on Wednesday, according to police, who used tear gas. According to residents, some of the injured were in critical condition.
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Following the clashes, authorities in Leh district, the Ladakh region’s capital, ordered the assembly of more than five people.
Although no official figures have been made regarding the number of casualties, a local activist who has been on a hunger strike for the area’s border with China reported to Indian media that three to five people are alleged to have been killed by police gunfire.
“Many people have been injured, according to reports. Sonam Wangchuk’s statement on the Indian Express website was quoted as “we don’t know the exact count.”
The casualty statistics couldn’t be independently verified by Al Jazeera.
Youth organizations demanded the closure of Leh, which sparked protests.
The protests are a part of a larger movement in the region’s federally governed region that seeks a government’s right to make land and agricultural decisions independent.
When Ladakh’s government dissolved India-administered Kashmir in 2019, the region lost its autonomy. Since then, New Delhi has been in charge of the majority of the Muslim-Buddhist territory.
Protesters want Ladakh to receive special status that would enable the establishment of elected local authorities to protect its tribal regions.
The protests are fundamentally requesting Ladakh’s inclusion in the Sixth Schedule of the Indian Constitution, which gives local communities a voice in how the regions are run.
Wangchuk demanded restraint as he called off his two-week-long hunger strike. My “peaceful path” message today failed. I ask the youth to stop this absurdity. He claimed that this only serves to further our cause.
District Administrator Romil Singh Donk declared a ban on inflammatory speech, public gatherings, and demonstrations in a public notice.
Ladakh’s government has been accused of not responding to their concerns by activists and local politicians. Recent discussions between local politicians and New Delhi representatives failed to produce any lasting solutions.
On October 6, the next round of discussions is anticipated to occur.
In a speech at the UN General Assembly, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky criticized the UN and other international organizations for being too weak to stop wars in Gaza, Sudan, Syria, and Ukraine.
Published On 24 Sep 2025
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urges Israelis to prepare for a self-sufficient economy and acknowledges Israel’s growing isolation.
From a startup to “Super Sparta”
Israel has become a global economic powerhouse thanks to its high-tech sector for years.
However, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has now warned that it might soon be forced to become less dependent on trade and economically self-sufficient.
He referred to the new model as “Super-Sparta,” which references the ancient Greek city-state.
Netanyahu acknowledged that the country is facing global isolation in a rare admission of the effects of Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Many Israelis have been protesting his remarks, which has caused him to backtrack.
What does the tech deal between the US and the UK contain?
Published On 24 Sep 2025
Kyiv, Ukraine – United States President Donald Trump has abruptly shifted his view on the Russian-Ukrainian war by saying Kyiv could restore its borders.
For the first time, Trump said on Tuesday that Ukraine could win back the one-fifth of its territory it has lost to Russia since the 2014 annexation of Crimea and the Kremlin’s support to separatists and its 2022 full-scale invasion.
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“Ukraine, with the support of the European Union, is in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social network.
But political and military analysts are sceptical about his newfound conviction.
Trump’s words absolutely do not signal a U-turn, according to Volodymyr Fesenko, head of the Kyiv-based Penta think tank.
“Don’t consider Trump’s words as a signal to return to the 1991 borders,” he told Al Jazeera.
“They’re a rhetoric formula Trump uses to express sympathies, positive emotions towards Ukraine,” he said. “They’re a signal, a way of pressuring [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, in a rhetoric way so far.”
“There won’t be any revolutionary and sensational steps, no game-changer, no single decision that can change everything,” Fesenko said.
Trump has insisted that it is not Washington but Brussels and NATO that have to support Kyiv to return its territories.
“Trump thinks like a businessman. He sees and receives information that Russia’s economic situation is getting worse,” Fesenko said.
The combined effect of Western sanctions, slower domestic growth, soaring inflation, budget deficits and higher interest rates have hobbled Russia’s economy this year, cooling down its war-fuelled growth.
“Trump doesn’t want Ukraine to win the war. He wants the war to be over,” Fesenko said. “His goals didn’t change. That’s why he sends signals to Putin.”
In response to Trump’s post on Tuesday, the Kremlin said Russia has no choice but to continue the war and called the US leader’s comment “mistaken”.
“There’s a tug-of-war regarding Trump. For now, we tugged him towards us a bit. In August, in Alaska, Putin did,” Fesenko said, referring to the August 15 summit between Trump and Putin that broke Russia’s international isolation but did not yield any positive results for Kyiv.
Trump is pushing the European Union to apply more economic pressure on Russia, he said, adding that Washington may join Brussels later with coordination of sanctions and a boost in military aid.
Trump “won’t play on our side. He will help, yes – indirectly,” he said.
To fully help Ukraine, Trump will also have to change his ways, Ukrainian analysts said.
“He needs to invest more, talk less, but so far, it’s the other way around,” Lieutenant General Ihor Romanenko, former deputy head of the Ukrainian military’s General Staff, told Al Jazeera.
Trump’s U-turn does not reflect his personal assessment because “he isn’t capable of such an assessment. This is a realistic plan of someone on his team,” Romanenko said, referring to experts in the Pentagon, intelligence services or some members of the US Congress.
To make sure Ukraine fully uses Western aid, Kyiv has to do its “homework”, Romanenko said.
Steps include the “full and fair mobilisation” of all men of fighting age, the switch of Ukraine’s economy to “military mode” and full introduction of martial law, which may include harsher punishments for draft dodging and corruption, he said.
This could prove difficult because mobilisation and conscription efforts have been heavily criticised recently.
Meanwhile, Russia’s summer offensive is nearing completion.
“They didn’t succeed in what they planned, but they still have resources. We see how they advance,” Romanenko said.
In March, Putin claimed that the upcoming offensive may “finish off” the Ukrainian armed forces and Kyiv’s resistance.
In the east, Russia fully took over Luhansk, the smallest of the regions it still occupies.
It is aggressively advancing towards several key cities and towns in the neighbouring, much larger region of Donetsk.
“They won’t do it fast. Their forces aren’t what they used to be,” Romanenko said.
Russian forces have occupied about 2,000sq km (772sq miles) this summer, creating a springboard for their offensive in the autumn and winter.
They approached key strongholds in Donetsk or moved to encircle them, entered nearby Dnipro, and advanced in the southern Zaporizhia region, thus outlining the areas of fighting for the next six months, according to Nikolay Mitrokhin of Germany’s Bremen University.
Therefore, Ukraine will desperately need US-made HIMARS precision-guided rockets, armoured vehicles and Patriot air defence systems to protect Ukrainian cities and “hunt down” Russian warplanes dropping heavy glide bombs, he said.
And there is also a need for more F-16 fighter jets, even if they’re “obsolete and decommissioned”, to destroy Russian drones and missiles as well as 100,000 all-terrain vehicles to be used near the front line, he said.
However, even if Kyiv does get all of that, it’s “impossible to contemplate the return to the 1991 borders”, Mitrokhin told Al Jazeera.
The domination of drones makes the use of armoured vehicles impossible for major breakthroughs to regain territory, he said.
Another factor is the “low tactical skills of Ukrainian top brass”, he said, adding that Ukrainian commanders “have a very low level of responsibility for the lost weaponry and even the lost lives”.
He referred to the failure of Kyiv’s counteroffensives in late 2022 and 2023 that resulted in colossal losses of manpower and Western weaponry.
Ukrainian forces are capable of succeeding only in local operations when Russia “snoozes,” he said, referring to the liberation of the northeastern town of Izium in 2022 and its surprise advance in the western Russian region of Kursk in 2024.
Ukraine can successfully advance only in places without a massive presence of Russian troops, such as the strategic Kinburn Peninsula in the southern region of Kherson, where the Dnipro River flows into the Black Sea.