Talks on nuclear programme complicated by US strikes, Iran says
The possibility of new negotiations with the US on Iran's nuclear programme has been 'complicated' by the American attack on three of the sites, a top diplomat has said.
Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi told state television that the attacks had caused 'serious damage'.
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The US was one of the parties to the 2015 nuclear deal in which Iran agreed to limits on its uranium enrichment programme in exchange for sanctions relief and other benefits.
The deal unravelled after President Donald Trump pulled the US out unilaterally during his first term.
Mr Trump has suggested he is interested in new talks with Iran and said the two sides would meet next week.
Mr Araghchi left open the possibility that his country would again enter talks on its nuclear programme, but suggested it would not be any time soon.
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'No agreement has been made for resuming the negotiations,' he said. 'No time has been set, no promise has been made and we haven't even talked about restarting the talks.'
The American decision to intervene militarily 'made it more complicated and more difficult' for talks, Mr Araghchi said.
Israel attacked Iran on June 13, targeting its nuclear sites, defence systems, high-ranking military officials and atomic scientists.
In 12 days of strikes, Israel said it killed some 30 Iranian commanders and hit eight nuclear-related facilities and more than 720 military infrastructure sites.
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More than 1,000 people were killed, including at least 417 civilians, according to the Washington-based Human Rights Activists group.
Iran fired more than 550 ballistic missiles at Israel, most of which were intercepted but those that got through caused damage in many areas and killed 28 people.
The US stepped in on Sunday to hit Iran's three most important sites with a wave of cruise missiles and bunker-buster bombs dropped by B-2 bombers, designed to penetrate deep into the ground to damage the heavily-fortified targets.
Iran, in retaliation, fired missiles at a US base in Qatar on Monday but caused no known casualties.
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Mr Trump said the American attacks 'completely and fully obliterated' Iran's nuclear programme, though Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Thursday accused the US president of exaggerating the damage, saying the strikes did not 'achieve anything significant'.
There has been speculation that Iran moved much of its highly-enriched uranium before the strikes, something it told UN nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that it planned to do.
Even if that turns out to be true, IAEA director Rafael Grossi told Radio France International that the damage done to the Fordo site, which was built into a mountain, 'is very, very, very considerable'.
Among other things, he said, centrifuges are 'quite precise machines' and it's 'not possible' that the concussion from multiple 30,000-pound bombs would not have caused 'important physical damage'.
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'These centrifuges are no longer operational,' he said.
Mr Araghchi himself acknowledged that 'the level of damage is high, and it's serious damage'.
He added that Iran had not yet decided upon whether to allow IAEA inspectors in to assess the damage, but that they would be kept out 'for the time being'.
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The Independent
20 minutes ago
- The Independent
Trump's birthright citizenship case heads to the Supreme Court. Their decision could reshape presidential power.
Donald Trump 's attempt to deny citizenship to certain children of immigrant parents is now in front of the Supreme Court. The justices, hearing oral arguments in a case against the Trump administration for the first time since he returned to the White House, will decide whether court orders blocking the president's executive order ending birthright citizenship can stand. Trump's order, among the first he signed when he entered office, aims to unilaterally redefine the Constitution and federal law by denying citizenship to certain children born to immigrant parents. But the administration is using the case to target what has become a major obstacle to advancing Trump's agenda: federal judges blocking aggressive executive actions. The government wants to reduce the federal judiciary's power to issue nationwide injunctions, cutting off one of the few critical checks and balances against an administration that critics warn is mounting an ongoing assault against the rule of law. But wait, this isn't about birthright citizenship? It is, and it isn't. The question at the center of the case asks whether three federal judges legally issued nationwide injunctions that blocked the order from taking effect. But a decision that limits court rulings against the president's birthright citizenship order opens a backdoor to begin stripping constitutional rights. 'Monica' is among several pregnant plaintiffs. She and her husband arrived in the United States from Venezuela more than six years ago. She is expected to give birth in August. It's 'impossible' for her child to get Venezuelan citizenship. There's no consulate where she could apply, and because she's seeking asylum, she cannot leave the country without being barred from returning, she wrote in court documents. 'Maribel' has lived in the country for 18 years after fleeing El Salvador. She and her husband have two U.S. citizen daughters, and she is pregnant with their third child, who she fears will not have the same rights to citizenship, 'and could even be subject to deportation, separating my family,' she wrote. The 14th Amendment plainly states, 'all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.' Under the terms of Trump's order, children can be denied citizenship if a mother is an undocumented immigrant or is temporarily legally in the country on a visa, and if the father isn't a citizen or a lawful permanent resident. Damning court orders from three federal judges — affirmed by three federal appeals court panels — have blocked the measure from taking effect nationwide. Trump — and conservative justices on the court — are eager to resolve questions about the scope of nationwide injunctions to remove judicial branch obstacles from implementing his agenda. Last year, Justice Neil Gorsuch said it's 'a question of great significance.' In 2018, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that 'if their popularity continues, this Court must address their legality.' Eight years later, they just might. Why does Trump want to end nationwide injunctions? More than half of the injunctions issued over the last 70 years were against the Trump administration, according to the Harvard Law Review, as Trump pushed the limits of his authority. Judges have blocked federal funding cuts and mass firings of federal workers, as well as Trump's executive order banning transgender service members from the U.S. military, among others. In Trump's first term in office, his administration faced 64 injunctions, compared to 14 injunctions against Joe Biden and 12 against Barack Obama The administration faced 17 within the first two months of his second term alone. Trump's allies have themselves relied on nationwide injunctions to do the very same thing they are now commanding the Supreme Court to strike down. Stephen Miller repeatedly deployed his America First Legal group to request nationwide injunctions against the Biden administration, and he often won. His group sought injunctions to strip temporary protected legal status for tens of thousands of immigrants and to end vaccine requirements for federal employees. Miller once claimed that 'defying a federal court injunction is an impeachable offense.' Now, he suggests they're unconstitutional. Critics accused right-wing legal groups of 'judge shopping' a lawsuit that challenged the government's approval of a widely used abortion drug, which was filed in a Texas district where the only judge was a Trump-appointed anti-abortion advocate. In 2023, Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk issued an injunction that caused chaos among abortion providers and pharmacists. What happens if the Supreme Court sides with Trump? A ruling that removes nationwide injunctions from the federal judiciary's toolbelt would impede efforts to hold the administration accountable for unconstitutional actions. Government attorneys argue judges should only be allowed to stop a challenged policy from impacting the plaintiffs who brought the case, not all Americans who could be impacted. A ruling that limits the scope of injunctions in this case could create an unconstitutional patchwork application of the 14th Amendment, where certain immigrant children are citizens in one state and not in another. That's 'nonsensical,' according to Mirian Albert, senior attorney with Lawyers for Civil Rights. 'It would just be chaos to try to implement that,' she told The Independent. Lawyers could then be forced to bring class-action lawsuits instead, Albert said. Legal scholars argue it would be virtually impossible to question nationwide injunctions without getting to the meat of Trump's attempt to redefine birthright citizenship. 'The difficult task in front of the Supreme Court is the line-drawing exercise,' according to former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance. A case challenging birthright citizenship 'is one of the strongest contexts imaginable for arguing in favor of permitting nationwide injunctions,' she wrote. 'Otherwise, there would be a patchwork quilt of citizenship creation, depending on the state in which a person was born.' 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The Guardian
21 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Rising poverty in conflict zones ‘causes a billion people to go hungry'
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Telegraph
31 minutes ago
- Telegraph
If Zohran Mamdani is the future of the Democrats, they're doomed
It would be easy to call San Francisco mayor Daniel Lurie the 'anti-Zohran Mamandi,' but that would fail to do the first-term leader justice. Sworn into office this past January, Lurie – like Mamdani – hails from a storied family, in this case the founders of the Levi Strauss denim dynasty. But that is where the similarities end. Lurie was elected to City Hall last November following nearly a decade of decay across San Francisco. Fuelled by the soft-on-crime policies of former district attorney Chesa Boudin, San Francisco – an urban jewel of technology and wealth – was close to becoming a failed state. Violent crime, open-air drug camps, hundreds of annual drug overdose deaths, a declining population base and desolate downtown plagued the city where I was born and raised. San Francisco's ills were akin to many large American urban centres: Philadelphia with its gruesome 'Tranq' crisis; the epidemic of deadly violent crime devastating Chicago. And, of course, Los Angeles – similarly battling an inhospitable mix of homelessness, drugs and criminality. But sized a mere 49 square miles (one-tenth that of Los Angeles), San Francisco's blight has felt uniquely acute and everywhere – all at the same time. Back in 2022, fed up voters ousted district attorney Boudin, whose laissez-faire prosecutorial approach directly led to the city's spiralling quality of life. Former San Francisco mayor London Breed attempted, honourably, to steer San Francisco back to sanity. But with a record 806 drug-related deaths in 2023 alone – and San Francisco's abandoned business core dubbed a 'ghost town' by major media – Breed lost to Lurie last November. Despite a lack of formal political experience, Lurie is hardly new to politics. His career has been shaped by public service, mostly leading large non-profits focused on tackling urban ills – often in association with scions of other local family dynasties. Lurie's flagship $500 million Tipping Point Community organisation, for instance, was established alongside the daughter of Financial Services billionaire Charles Schwab. The reliance on – rather than rejection of – the private sector for public good has been a key Lurie manoeuvre and stands in sharp contrast to Mamdani's platform. Indeed, much like former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg a decade ago, Lurie has tapped major corporations and philanthropists to fund ambitious city programs hit hard by San Francisco's $800 million budget deficit. Earlier this month, for instance, he set up an entire department, the San Francisco Downtown Development Corporation, to steer private funding to city projects. Lurie has also heavily leaned into San Francisco's abundance of visionary innovators, most notably – and understandably – in the tech world. OpenAI head Sam Altman helped lead Lurie's transition team after his election last year. Such schemes – and there are many – stand in sharp contrast to the economic expansion plan touted by Mamdani, which mostly relies on added taxes levied on New York's wealthiest residents and corporations. And not just any wealthy residents and corporations: Mamdani's own website describes his strategy as shifting 'the tax burden from overtaxed homeowners in the outer boroughs to more expensive homes in richer and whiter neighbourhoods.' Such taxes would then be used to pay for low cost basic services including housing, transport and child care, even groceries. In other words – DEI meets Socialism. If this is the future of the Democrats, they are doomed. The problem with Mamdani's plans is that they rarely benefit – or are even desired – by those for whom they are designed. How else to explain the mostly white, mostly affluent New Yorkers who voted for Mamdani this week. Poor people don't need cheap housing – they need quality housing. They don't want free subway services, but reliable – and never more so – safe public transport. This requires funding, which taxes would supply, but also know-how, supply chains, available workforces and long-term commitments. And these are best delivered by partnering with the private sector. Earlier this month, for instance, crypto billionaire Chris Larsen gave $9.4 million to fund a Real Time Investigation Centre for the SFPD. Investment in law enforcement is another key area where Mamdani could learn from Lurie. Last month the mayor announced that the SFPD would be spared the 15 per cent budget cut he's implementing across city departments. Lurie has also signed an executive order to add 500 police officers to the department by, among other strategies, re-hiring recently retired officers. Lurie's law-and-order focus appears to be working: this week the SFPD made 97 arrests in a single day in San Francisco drug dens – 'the largest one-day fugitive-focused enforcement in recent history,' according to the city. While Lurie boosts officer numbers in San Francisco, Mandani has pledged to slash them. In their place, he will create a Department of Community Safety that relies on social-service schemes – 'evidence-based strategies that prevent violence and crime before they occur,' as he has described it – to maintain public order. This is a city that has finally seen a decrease in spiralling violent crime numbers – precisely because of an increase in police patrols. In 2023, for instance, New York City experienced a 20 per cent rise in arrests, a five-year record according to NYPD Chief John Chell. San Francisco may be far smaller than New York City, but its challenges – rising costs, a decreasing tax base, middle- and upper-class population declines – are eerily similar. Five years after Covid decimated both cities' business bases, mayor Lurie appears to understand that fixing San Francisco requires, above all else, public safety and a robust private-sector. Zohran Mandani should pay attention.
