U.N

July 4 (UPI) — U.N. nuclear inspectors on Friday departed from Iran two days after the Middle Eastern nation suspended cooperation with the program and weeks after the United States and Israel bombed nuclear sites.

Rafael Grossi, the inspector general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, had aimed to assess the uranium-enrichment facilities and see whether alleged nuclear bomb efforts had been set back.

IAEA hasn’t reported the inspectors findings.

They remained in the capital, Tehran, during the conflict between Israel and Iran.

“An IAEA team of inspectors today safely departed from Iran to return to the Agency headquarters in Vienna, after staying in Tehran throughout the recent military conflict,” the U.N. agency posted Friday on X.

“IAEA Director General rafaelmgrossi reiterated the crucial importance of the IAEA discussing with Iran modalities for resuming its indispensable monitoring and verification activities in Iran as soon as possible.”

On Wednesday, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian signed legislation that halts cooperation with the agency, blocking oversight of Iran’s nuclear program.

Inspectors will not be allowed to visit nuclear sites without approval from Iran’s Supreme National Security Council.

Iranian lawmakers gave two conditions for resuming cooperation, according to state media. The safety of its nuclear program and scientists is secured, and an acknowledgment about its right under international law to enrich uranium.

The spokesperson for U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the Iranian law was “obviously concerning.”

“I think the secretary-general has been very consistent in his call for Iran to cooperate with the IAEA, and, frankly, for all countries to work closely with the IAEA on nuclear issues,” Stephane Dujarric told reporters.

Iran has been critical of a resolution on June 12 by the IAEA that accused Iran of non-compliance with its nuclear obligations.

This was one day before Israel attacked.

Iran and the United States had been engaged in talks for a nuclear deal. The U.S. used B-2 bombers to send missiles deep underground.

“We are for diplomacy,” Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Majid Takht-Ravanchi, told NBC News on Thursday, adding the U.S. government needs “to convince us that they are not going to use military force while we are negotiating. That is an essential element for our leadership to be in a position to decide about the future round of talks.”

President Donald Trump, who doesn’t want Iran to be enriching uranium, said that the U.S. bombing of three Iranian nuclear sites “obliterated” the program.

Grossi earlier said that Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium remains unaccounted for, and the program may have been delayed only a few months, and not years.

“It can be, you know, described in different ways, but it’s clear that what happened in particular in Fordo, Natanz, Isfahan, where Iran used to have and still has, to some degree, capabilities in terms of treatment, conversion and enrichment of uranium have been destroyed to an important degree,” Grossi said in a CBS News interview on Saturday. “Some is still standing. So there is, of course, an important setback in terms of those of those capabilities.”

Iran has contended its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes but the agency reported in May that Iran stockpiled about 900 pounds of uranium enriched to 60% purity, enough to build nine bomb. That’s up 50% since February.

In December, the IAEA said Iran was rapidly moving closer to the 90% threshold needed for weapons-grade material.

In 2018, Trump unilaterally exited the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and reimposed harsh sanctions during his first term in office.

In 2015, Iran reached a deal with the United States, Britain, Germany, France, Russia, China and the European Union.

July 2 (UPI) — The Iranian government has suspended cooperation with the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency until the security of Iran’s nuclear facilities and activities is assured.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian announced the suspension via state-run media on Wednesday after the Iranian Parliament passed a resolution ending cooperation with the IAEA on June 25, Politico reported.

The resolution requires the IAEA to obtain permission from Iran’s Supreme National Security Council prior to entering Iran, which will only be granted when “security of the country’s nuclear facilities and that of peaceful nuclear activities is guaranteed,” Iran’s state-run Mehr News Agency reported.

Iranian lawmakers also accused IAEA Director Rafael Grossi of Argentina of producing “politically motivated reports” of non-compliance with international agreements that lead to the June 21 U.S. strikes on three Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities.

Grossi is banned from entering Iran, which last week removed surveillance cameras from its nuclear sites.

Israel also attacked Iran’s nuclear program over a 12-day period and claimed 14 Iranian nuclear scientists died in targeted aerial strikes, according to The Hill.

Grossi on Sunday told CBS News Iran can’t ban the IAEA from inspecting its nuclear program and related facilities because it is subject to an international treaty.

“You cannot invoke an internal law not to abide with an international treaty,” Grossi said, adding that an international treaty takes precedence over a national law.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghachi on Sunday told CBS News Iranian leaders would need assurances that the United States would not attack Iran while its leaders negotiate with the IAEA while resuming its nuclear energy program.

Iran’s suspension of the IAEA inspections drew criticism from leaders in the United Kingdom, Germany and France, in addition to President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Trump and Netanyahu are scheduled to meet at the White House on Monday to discuss the situation in Iran.

Meanwhile, officials in Germany, France and the United Kingdom could impose sanctions on Iran for suspending the IAEA inspections.

Officials in the three nations on Monday in a joint press release condemned Iran for making “threats” against Grossi.

The Nuclear Forensics International Technical Working Group also met in Bologna, Italy, on Tuesday to discuss the scientific analysis of nuclear materials to deter “nuclear terrorism” and ensure public safety.

The ITWG has met over the past three decades to “make the world safer through the advancement of nuclear forensics best practices.”

June 29 (UPI) — Iran likely can resume uranium enrichment to make a nuclear bomb in a few months, despite damage to nuclear facilities by United States and Israel airstrikes, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog chief said.

Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said there was a “very serious level of damage” to the nuclear facilities during an interview with CBS News on Saturday.

U.S. President Donald Trump said U.S. airstrikes on June 21 “obliterated” the facilities, including Fordo, which is underground in a mountain. Initial intelligence assessments suggested that the strikes were successful but set back Iran’s program by months — not years.

“It can be, you know, described in different ways, but it’s clear that what happened in particular in Fordo, Natanz, Isfahan, where Iran used to have and still has, to some degree, capabilities in terms of treatment, conversion and enrichment of uranium have been destroyed to an important degree,” Grossi said. “Some is still standing. So there is, of course, an important setback in terms of those of those capabilities.”

He explained what remains.

“The capacities they have are there,” Grossi said. “They can have, you know, in a matter of months, I would say, a few cascades of centrifuges spinning and producing enriched uranium, or less than that. But as I said, frankly speaking, one cannot claim that everything has disappeared and there is nothing there.”

He wants International Atomic Energy officials to be able to return sites for an assessment.

“Although our job is not to assess damage, but to re-establish the knowledge of the activities that take place there, and the access to the material, which is very, very important, the material that they will be producing if they continue with this activity,” Grissi said. “This is contingent on negotiations, which may or may not restart.”

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who said the facilities were “seriously damaged,” posted on X on Friday that “Grossi’s insistence on visiting the bombed sites under the pretext of safeguards is meaningless and possibly even malign in intent.”

Israel was fearful that Iran was nearly ready to have a nuclear bomb within months, and began airstrikes on June 13. Israel relied on American B-2 fighter jets that can send bombs deep into the ground.

Earlier this month, the IAEA said Iran amassed enough 60% enriched uranium to potentially make nine nuclear bombs.

Under the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, nuclear deal, which was negotiated by Iran, the United States and the EU, Iran wasn’t permitted to enrich uranium above 3.67% purity, which is the level need to fuel commercial nuclear power plants. Iran also was not allowed to carry out any enrichment at the Fordo plant for 15 years.

In 2018, President Donald Trump abandoned the agreement among world powers, and instead reinstated U.S. sanctions in an attempt to stop Iran from moving toward making a bomb. Iran resumed enrichment at Fordo in 2021.

On Friday, the IAEA said radiation levels in the Gulf region remain after the bombings.

Grossi, citing regional data through the 48-nation International Radiation Monitoring System, said the “the worst nuclear safety scenario was thereby avoided.”

The main concern IAEA had was for the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant and the Tehran Research Reactor because strikes to either facility, including off-site power lines, would have cause some type of radiological accident felt in both Iran and neighboring nations, but “it did not happen,” he said.

Grossi noted that the airstrikes would have caused localized radioactive releases inside the impacted facilities and localized toxic effects, based on the roughly 900 pounds of enriched uranium Iran is thought to have had before the attacks.

Trump has said he would “absolutely” consider bombing Iran again if intelligence found that it could enrich uranium to concerning levels.

June 9 (UPI) — World leaders at a United Nations conference in France called for an end to ocean-plundering activity with a global agreement likely on the horizon.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres opened the UN’s third ocean conference Monday in Nice with over 120 nations and more than 50 heads of state taking part in the five-day gathering.

“The ocean is the ultimate share resource,” Guterres said to global representatives at the port of Nice. “But we are failing it.”

He said oceans are absorbing 90% of excess heat fro greenhouse gas emissions and buckling under the strain of overfishing, rising temperatures, plastic pollution, acidification, dying coral reefs and collapsing marine life.

The conference co-hosted by France and Costa Rica was focused on ratifying the 2023 High Seas Treaty, which required 60 other countries to sign-on to before it becomes a binding international law.

Rising seas, accordion to Guterres, could soon “submerge deltas, destroy crops, and swallow coastlines — threatening many islands’ survival.”

On Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron revealed that the milestone was within reach.

“The sea is our first ally against global warming,” Macron said in his opening speech.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said if the world neglects the ocean and its treated “without respect” then it “will turn on us,” she said, adding there will be “ever more violent storms” that ravage the world’s coastlines.

Last month, the European Union ratified the treaty.

“The ocean is our greatest ally, whether you live here in Europe, or anywhere in the world,” said von der Leyen.

The treaty sets a global commitment to protect at least 30% of the world’s oceans by 2030, and provides countries with meaningful tools and ways to create protected ocean areas and conduct evaluations of such things as the damage of commercial activities like deep sea mining to marine life.

The United States was not present at the meeting as a State Department spokesman said it was “at odds” with current U.S. policy.

Macron said 15 other countries have “formally committed to joining” in addition to the more than 50 countries.

“So that’s a win,” said the French president, at one point saying the ocean “is not for sale” in an apparent swipe at U.S. President Donald Trump.

Meanhwile, von der Leyen said Monday that Europe would contribute more than $45 million to the Global Ocean Programme.

“So I ask you all today: Please speed up ratification, because our ocean needs us to play (our) part,” she said.

May 31 (UPI) — Iran has increased production of highly enriched uranium, according to the United Nations nuclear watchdog, as the nation conducts talks with the United States on a nuclear deal.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said the Middle East country now possesses more than 408.6 kilograms, or 900 pounds, of uranium enriched to 60% purity as of May 17, according to a confidential report obtained by the BBC and Al Jazeera.

That’s a nearly 50% increase since February.

In December, the IAEA said Iran was rapidly moving closer to the 90% threshold needed for weapons-grade material.

This is enough for about 10 nuclear weapons if further refined.

Iran is the only non-nuclear-armed state producing uranium at this level.

“The significantly increased production and accumulation of highly enriched uranium by Iran … is of serious concern,” IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said.

IAEA concluded that Tehran conducted nuclear activities at three previously unknown sites: Lavisan-Shian, Varamin, Turquzabad.

And IAEA stated said it “cannot verify” the development of nuclear weapons, citing Iran’s refusal to grant access to senior inspectors and not answer questions about its nuclear history.

The IAEA board plans to meet in the coming days to discuss next steps.

Iran has long said its nuclear enrichment is for peaceful purposes.

“If the issue is nuclear weapons, yes, we too consider this type of weapon unacceptable,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a televised speech. “We agree with them on this issue.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saturday in a statement that Iran is “totally determined” to acquire nuclear weapons.

“Such a level of enrichment exists only in countries actively pursuing nuclear weapons and has no civilian justification whatsoever,” Netanyahu’s office said.

U.S. officials estimate Ian could produce weapons-grade material in less than two weeks and potentially build a bomb within months.

Since talks began in April, both sides have expressed optimism but are divided over key issues, including whether Iran can continue enrichment under any future agreement.

Two of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei‘s advisors — Ali Larijani and Kamal Kharazi — have suggested Iran might reconsider building nuclear weapons if international pressure mounts.

The IAEA findings could be a negotiation tool for Iran, Hamed Mousavi, professor of political science at Tehran University, told Al Jazeera.

“I think both sides are trying to build leverage against the other side,” he said. “From the Iranian perspective, an advancement in the nuclear program is going to bring them leverage at the negotiation table with the Americans.

“Enriching up to 60% – from the Iranian perspective – is a sort of leverage against the Americans to lift sanctions.”

He said the U.S. could threaten more sanctions and refer the situation to the U.N. Security Council for its breach of the 2006 non-proliferation agreement.

On Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump said he sees a nuclear deal with Iran that would allow the destruction of labs and inspections. Iran has rejected inspections.

He said a deal is “very strong, where we can go in with inspectors. We can take whatever we want. We can blow up whatever we want. But nobody getting killed.”

In 2018, Trump unilaterally exited the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and reimposed harsh sanctions.

In 2015, Iran reached a deal with the U.S., Britain, Germany, France, Russia, China and the European Union.

Some sanctions on Iran were lifted for limits on its nuclear development program.

May 21 (UPI) — The United Nations said no aid has reached people in Gaza in dire need of food and medical supplies, including baby food, despite dozens of trucks crossing from Israel into the strip after Israel ended its 11-week blockade.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told a press briefing in New York on Tuesday afternoon that none of the trucks Israel said had been allowed in during the day had gotten beyond a staging area on the Gaza side of the Kerem Shalom border crossing at the southeastern corner of the strip as Israeli authorities had not permitted U.N. staff on the ground to collect the aid.

He said U.N. humanitarian teams were sending in baby food, flour, medicines and nutrition supplies and other basic items through the Israeli border fence to the Palestinian side that needed to be distributed as a matter of urgency, “as we need much, much more to cross.”

“The Israeli authorities are requiring us to offload supplies on the Palestinian side of Kerem Shalom crossing and reload them separately once they secure our teams’ access from inside the Gaza Strip. Only then are we able to bring any supplies closer to where people in need are sheltering,” Dujarric said.

He said one U.N. team had to wait “several hours” for Israel to clear access to the Kerem Shalom area for nutrition supplies to be collected, but they weren’t able to bring them back to their warehouse.

“They were able to get into the area, but given the lateness of the hour, they were not able to bring the trucks out,” Dujarric said, explaining all movement needed clearance from Israel Defense Forces, routes needed to be agreed, and U.N. staff needed to ensure the general area was safe and contend with perilous, congested roads.

“We’re obviously thankful that some aid is getting in, but there are a lot of hurdles to cross and we haven’t been able to cross. Our colleagues have not been able to cross all those hurdles to get aid to where it’s actually needed,” said Dujarric.

He said even if the aid got through, it was “only a drop in the ocean” of what was required for the massive scale of the operation to meet humanitarian needs.

“The deprivation we are seeing in Gaza is the result of ongoing bombardments and blockade and recurrent displacement,” said Dujarric.

Israeli Prime Minister announced Sunday the aid blockade would be lifted immediately after coming under intense pressure from the international community amid warnings of an imminent famine, with Israel saying 93 aid trucks entered Gaza on Tuesday, up from five on Monday.

However, Netanyahu’s insistence Israel would allow only “a basic amount of food” to reach the population of Gaza prompted Britain on Tuesday to suspend negotiations with Israel on a trade agreement, slap new sanctions on West Bank settlers and Foreign Minister David Lammy to summon the Israeli ambassador to the Home Office.

“Humanitarian aid needs to get in at pace,” Prime Minister Keir Starmer told Parliament.

“We’re horrified by the escalation from Israel. We repeat our demand for a cease-fire as the only way to free the hostages. We repeat our opposition to settlements in the West Bank, and we repeat our demand to massively scale up humanitarian assistance into Gaza,” he said.

Israel hit back, saying the trade talks were already moribund and that Starmer’s administration was only hurting Britain with its actions and reminded Britain it was no longer in charge.

“The agreement would serve the mutual benefit of both countries. If, due to anti-Israel obsession and domestic political considerations, the British government is willing to harm the British economy — that is its own prerogative,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Oren Marmorstein wrote in a post on X.

He called the sanctions against West Bank settlers “unjustified and regrettable,” especially in the light of a deadly attack on a pregnant woman that had left her unborn child fighting for its life.

“The British Mandate ended exactly 77 years ago. External pressure will not divert Israel from its path in defending its existence and security against enemies who seek its destruction,” Marmorstein said.

The Mandate for Palestine was authorization granted to Britain in 1920 by the League of Nations, the forerunner to the United Nations, to administer then-Palestine in the wake of World War 1, which lasted until May 1948 when Israelis declared independence and the creation of the State of Israel.

The measures from London came a day after Britain, Canada and France on Monday issued a strongly worded rebuke warning Israel of “concrete actions” if it did not halt a major new military offensive in Gaza and lift restrictions on humanitarian aid entering the strip.

They also called on Hamas to “release immediately the remaining hostages they have so cruelly held since October 7, 2023.”

May 21 (UPI) — Activists, officials and defectors highlighted North Korean human rights violations at a high-level meeting of the United Nations General Assembly Tuesday, with many directly tying Pyongyang’s systemic abuses to its growing nuclear weapons and missile programs.

The meeting on the North’s human rights violations, the first of its kind held at the General Assembly, featured testimonies by two escapees who shared harrowing stories of oppression and implored the world to hold North Korean leader Kim Jong Un accountable.

“Silence is complicity,” said Kim Eun-joo, who was 11 years old when she fled with her mother and sister in 1999 to escape starvation in rural North Korea.

After crossing the Tumen River into China, Kim and her family faced years of human trafficking before finally making it to South Korea.

She pointed to North Korea’s military cooperation with Russia, particularly its deployment of troops to aid Moscow in its war against Ukraine, as a “new kind of modern-day slavery.”

“[The soldiers] have no idea where they are, whom they are fighting against or why,” she said. “Their lives have become a means for the Kim Jong Un regime to make money.”

Pyongyang has deployed around 15,000 troops to Russia, Seoul’s spy agency said last month. Some 600 of the soldiers have been killed and another 4,100 injured, the National Intelligence Service told lawmakers in a briefing.

Seoul and Washington also accused North Korea of supplying artillery and missiles to Russia. In exchange, Pyongyang is believed to be receiving much-needed financial support and advanced military technology for its own weapons programs.

Participants in the U.N. meeting highlighted the close link between North Korea’s human rights abuses and the regime’s growing arsenal.

“The regime preserves itself through producing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles,” Greg Scarlatoiu, president and CEO of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, said.

“North Korea is no longer just a Korean Peninsula threat. The DPRK is no longer just a Northeast Asian threat,” Scarlatoiu said.

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is the official name of North Korea.

“The DPRK is exporting instability to the Middle East and to Europe,” Scarlatoiu said. “And the root cause of this is the human rights violations that the DPRK perpetrates.”

North Korean Ambassador to the United Nations Kim Song condemned the meeting, calling it a “burlesque of intrigue and fabrication” staged by “hostile forces” including the United States.

Kim also slammed the invitation of the North Korean escapees, calling them “the scum of the earth who don’t even care about their parents and families.”

Elizabeth Salmon, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, told the General Assembly that North Korea has diverted resources toward militarization at the expense of human rights and basic necessities such as food, healthcare and sanitation.

“As the DPRK expands its extreme militarization policies, it exacerbates the extensive reliance on forced labor and quota systems, showing how peace, security and human rights are strongly interrelated,” Salmon said.

She added that North Korea’s border closures at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in January 2020 worsened its human rights situation, as Pyongyang used the isolation to enact brutal new laws restricting access to information from the outside world.

A 2014 landmark U.N. Commission of Inquiry report documented North Korean crimes against humanity, including torture, rape, execution, deliberate starvation and forced labor, that were “without parallel in the contemporary world.”

South Korean Ambassador to the United Nations Hwang Joon-kook echoed calls to more closely tie North Korea’s human rights violations to its nuclear ambitions, which he said were “deeply interconnected.”

“For far too long the DPRK’s human rights violations have been overshadowed by its nuclear threats,” he said. “Their nuclear program is sustained by systemic repression, forced labor, diverted national resources and total control of its people.”

Hwang called North Korea “a real-life version of George Orwell‘s novel 1984.”

“However, the DPRK’s horrendous crimes do not stop at the border,” he said. “If human rights violations are stopped, nuclear weapons development will also stop.”

May 13 (UPI) — Russia was responsible for the downing of a Malaysian Airlines passenger jet over eastern Ukraine that killed all 298 people on board in 2014, the U.N’s International Civil Aviation Organization ruled.

The ICAO Council voted that Russia had failed in its duties under the international laws of the sky in the shooting down of flight MH-17 after finding in favor of the Netherlands and Australia, both of which lost citizens in the tragedy, after they brought a case against Moscow, ICAO said in a news release Monday.

The council agreed that claims by the two countries were “well founded in fact and law,” saying Russia’s alleged conduct in the downing of the Boeing 777 aircraft by a surface-to-air-missile breached the Convention on International Civil Aviation, which mandates states “refrain from resorting to the use of weapons against civil aircraft in flight.”

ICAO said the finding had been reached after reviewing written submissions and oral hearings at multiple meetings of the 36-member-country governing council and that a formal document setting out the facts and points of law leading to its conclusion would be released at a future meeting.

Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong, in a post on X, welcomed the win in what she said was Australia and the Netherlands’ “historic case” against Russia, saying it was a significant step in their fight for justice.

“We remain unwavering in our commitment to the pursuit of truth, justice and accountability for the victims and their loved ones,” she wrote.

Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp said the ruling was a strong signal to countries around the world that “states cannot violate international law with impunity.”

In a joint statement, the two countries said Russia must now take responsbility and “make reparations for its egregious conduct” as required under international law.

“Our thoughts are with the 298 people who lost their lives due to Russia’s actions, incuding 38 who called Australia home, their families and loved ones,” the statement said.

“While we cannot take away the grief of those left behind, we will continue to stand with them in that grief and pursue justice for this horrific act.”

MH-17 was en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when it was shot down over Ukraine’s Donbas region, where Russian-backed separatists were fighting Ukrainian forces for control.

Britons, Belgians and Malaysians were also killed in the disaster but the majority, 196, were from the Netherlands.

In November 2022, a Dutch court trying two Russian nationals and a Ukrainian rebel fighter in absentia, found the trio guilty of murder and sentenced them to life in prison.

However, Russians Igor Girkin and Sergey Dubinskiy, and Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko, who were fighting for the pro-Moscow Donetsk People’s Republic separatist movement at the time, remain free as the Netherlands was unable to extradite them.

A Joint Investigation Team made up of experts from five nations impacted by the diasaster — Australia, Belgium, the Netherlands, Ukraine and the United States — later ruled after a eight year probe that there was “concrete information” that Russian President Vladimir Putin likely approved the transfer of the BUK missile that brought down MH-17.

However, the team said that while they had evidence of Putin’s role in signing off on the transfer of the missile to separatists, it fell short of the prosecutorial standard of “complete and conclusive evidence.”