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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Hei hei! Jos mä saisin valita, OP Koti myisi meidän kodin. Miks? Tää oli vasta mun neljäs esittely. Mä tunnen, että se pariskunta tekee tarjouksen. Ehkä. Jätä asunnonmyynti OP Kodin kiinteistönvälittäjän huoleksi. Saa tutkitusti parasta asiantuntemusta paikallisista asuntomarkkinoista. Tutkimuslähteenä Suomi tänään kiinteistönvälitystutkimus 2025.
OP Koti on hyvä valinta elämäsi tilanteisiin. This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Alex Ritson, and in the early hours of Monday 9th March, these are our main stories. The son of Ali Khamenei takes over from his father to become Iran's new supreme leader. Already, Mojtaba Khamenei's regime has renewed rocket attacks on Israel and across the Middle East.
The physical threat to oil supplies propels the price of a barrel of crude to above $100 for the first time in four years. Also in this podcast.
I know training can take long, but I think Ukraine is an absolute champion in doing things quickly and rapidly adapting. And that's exactly what we can teach our allies.
Ukraine's top experts in anti-drone technology who want to help Gulf states under attack from Iran. In theory, the supreme leader of Iran is chosen by God. In practice, it's a highly political decision, and the nation's hardline clerics, the Assembly of Experts, have picked the son of the assassinated Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Mojtaba Khamenei.
According to the Iranian authorities, his wife died in the attack that killed his father. Mojtaba Khamenei previously kept a relatively low profile and has never held public office in Iran. The announcement was made on state television. Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! Khamenei Rahbar!
The Islamic Republic's religious and political leaders have called on Iranians to pledge allegiance to the new supreme leader who is close to Iran's hardline revolutionary guards. President Trump previously said that Mojtaba Khamenei would be unacceptable as Iran's leader, and Israel has said it will target any successor.
The choice appears to signal that there will be no change in Iran's determination to resist US and Israeli attacks. Danny Danon, Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, gave his reaction. It really doesn't matter if it is the father or the son. You have to look at the policy.
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Chapter 2: Who is Mojtaba Khamenei and why is he significant?
like a dynastic succession like the Shah. You know, at the moment, the son of the late Shah, who's now a man in his 60s, is going around touting himself as a potential future leader, not with a great deal of success, it has to be said. Of course, outside Iran. So looking at the senior leadership of Iran has always been a lot of analysis mixed with a lot of guesswork.
And you can read analyses coming from very well-qualified people that completely contradict each other.
But what I would say right now is that I think one of the major questions is whether Iran will stick to this strategy that it's got of trying to hit allies of the U.S., trying to spread the war, trying to spread the pain or whether they will decide that they might need to try to make some kind of a deal.
But I think the kind of deal that the Americans would have in mind is not the one that they would want. And let's not forget, Donald Trump has said he needs to choose the Supreme Leader. Well, he didn't. And he wants an unconditional surrender. And that's something they won't give. So while both sides are locked in those positions, this goes on.
Chapter 3: What actions did Iran take following Khamenei's appointment?
Does President Trump have a plan and is it working? President Trump has oscillated all over the place in terms of his objectives, as stated by him. When he was being dismissive about Britain possibly sending an aircraft carrier to the Mediterranean... He said the war's been won.
He's also spoken about everything from a decapitated dictatorship like Venezuela to the fall of the regime to a whole new beginning for the Iranian people, though it's up to them to try and make it happen. I mean, he is going all over them. He gives every impression of being a guy who's making things up as he goes along.
Chapter 4: How has the conflict affected global oil prices?
I suspect that he had hoped that they would be able to move to a pretty swift victory after Khamenei was killed. And they didn't give a great deal of thought about what happens if that didn't do it, that Iran is not a one-man show and therefore that the war was going to go on. I think there is no evidence that they did a great deal of deep thinking about the future before they went into this.
Perhaps I'm wrong, but there's no evidence that's emerged that that is the case. Israel very different. They're much more clear-eyed about what they want, which is the destruction of the regime. Not necessarily its replacement by democracy, but the destruction of the regime. And I don't think they're that bothered if it leads to chaos in the country or even among its neighbors.
What they want is the regime to go because Netanyahu has believed for 40 years that Iran wants to destroy Israel, wants a nuclear weapon to kill Israelis. And he has been waiting for this day. as he said himself, for his whole career. So this, for him, potentially, he can see his lifetime's ambitions within sight. And he would argue, securing Israel for generations.
Again, it's a gamble, like Trump's intervention, so we'll see. Our international editor, Jeremy Bowen. The announcement regarding Moshtaba Khamenei is bound to annoy Donald Trump. The US President said he personally wanted to approve the next Supreme Leader, which has been ignored by the Iranian government.
Mr Trump told the Times of Israel newspaper that any decision on ending the war would be made with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. A seventh US service member has died in the war after succumbing to injuries sustained in an Iranian attack in Saudi Arabia last Sunday.
Our North America editor, Sarah Smith, gave her thoughts on how Mr Trump will take the announcement of the new Supreme Leader.
He had already dismissed him as a lightweight and said he would be an unacceptable choice to be the new supreme leader, while at the same time, President Trump was insisting that he should have a say in who the next leader of Iran is and that anybody who was chosen who hadn't been approved by him wouldn't last very long because he doesn't think this is somebody with whom he can do business.
And Donald Trump does repeat again and again, he wants to make sure that Iran cannot develop nuclear weapons anytime soon. but not for the next five years, next 10 years, ideally not for a generation. And that requires putting somebody in charge of Iran who isn't going to pursue a nuclear weapons program. And Donald Trump very much does not think that Mojhabab Khomeini is that person.
But it's difficult to say where we go next because of the very confused objectives that there seem to be from the U.S. administration, which when we hear from Donald Trump daily vary from destroying Iran's nuclear program and its conventional weapons capability to to complete regime change and demanding unconditional surrender.
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Chapter 5: What implications does Khamenei's leadership have for US-Iran relations?
And a few days ago, he was speculating that this conflict might last for four to five weeks. Some of the objectives he's talking about now would take considerably longer to achieve.
Sarah Smith. As the conflict grinds on, so do the ripple effects. In the last few hours, there's been a huge surge in the price of oil, while the stock markets in Asia are suffering more big losses. Trading was again suspended on South Korea's main stock exchange. Our business correspondent in Singapore is Nick Marsh.
Well, last week, the price of oil rose by about 20% in the space of a week. This morning, it's risen by 25% in the space of a morning, Alex. Things looked like they were starting to stabilise by the end of last week. Traders may be thinking, look, let's wait and see. Let's see what the weekend brings. It looks like they've seen enough.
I mean, we saw those dramatic images over the weekend of oil and gas depots in flames across the Gulf in Iran itself. You've got big oil producers basically saying, look, it's not worth producing all of this oil because it's not going past the Straits of Hormuz. Iran is still very much in control of anything that passes Hormuz.
Through there, I was just looking at Iraq in particular, oil production has gone down by 70% there in the space of just a few days. And then you had what, you know, Jeremy and Sarah were talking about there, you know, the naming of the successor of the Ayatollah, his son, another hardliner. no indication that this is going to come to an end anytime soon.
So trading here, reflecting that very much so, barrel of Brent crude, for example, now touching $115 a barrel, a really remarkable surge. And quite a stock market rout in Asia too. Yeah, unsurprisingly, just looking now, the Nikkei index in Japan down around 7%. The KOSPI in South Korea down around 7% as well. They had to put in an emergency circuit breaker to suspend trading there, actually.
The reason's very simple. About 90% of that oil and gas that's stuck near the Straits of Hormuz is bound for Asia. South Korea, for example, needs a huge amount of gas to generate electricity. China imports a lot of oil. Japan imports a lot of oil. Vietnam as well.
So when there's this big choke on the supply and this big spike in the price, it's going to really affect economies in this part of the world. So we're just seeing some more of the losses that we're seeing last week, and those ripple effects, like you say, are threatening to get bigger and bigger every day.
Nick, is this just short-term pain, or do the markets fear that the war in Iran is going to go on for some time?
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Chapter 6: What are the reactions from Israel regarding the new supreme leader?
One of 30, Israel said it bombed across Iran. The biggest attack in this war on the country's oil facilities. The lifeblood of its economy. Fire tore through the streets, towards shops and homes. Into ancient water channels. They're meant to irrigate the trees, cool the city, not burn it. Hassan had been heading to the depot at dusk when the first missile struck.
I turned the truck around on the street so it would be away from the danger. But then when they fired the first missile, two more struck right afterwards. Then the gasoline started flowing towards the residential areas.
Tehran was shrouded in toxic smoke. When the rain came, it was black too. Some residents spoke of their suffering in messages sent to the BBC's Persian service.
They have blown it up. Oil depot, Hissar and Pakistan areas. It was as if the night has suddenly turned into day.
The city is really covered in smoke. You can smell the burning. I can't see the sun. There is a horrible smoke. It's still there.
I'm very tired. I've been indoors the whole time. The port city of Boucher in the south was also targeted. Satellite images show the impact at its naval base, including a capsized vessel at its jetty. The airbase was hit too. Iran is still hitting back. Fragments of an intercepted missile struck Tel Aviv. The emergency services say eight people were injured in waves of missile barrages.
Some managed to get through, Israel's prized air defenses. But Israel and the U.S. say their campaign is succeeding faster than expected. And now there's a new target. State TV made the long-awaited announcement. Mujtaba Khamenei is Iran's new supreme leader. He assumes his father's mantle in his mold, a hardliner, close to the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards.
The man President Trump didn't want, the leader Israel says, is in their sights. The commander-in-chief in charge of Iran's existential battle.
Lise Doucette. Still to come in this podcast.
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Chapter 7: What challenges does Mojtaba Khamenei face as supreme leader?
That is no party dominating Congress. Now, that could be significant for whoever becomes the president of Colombia in the elections that are happening in late May. Because during the last four years, left-wing president Gustavo Petro, who had a very ambitious agenda of reform, he couldn't manage to pass a lot of these initiatives through Congress.
And presumably, the person who takes over could be facing a similar situation, given the initial preliminary indications of the elections in Colombia, where no party has appeared to gain a commanding advantage in Congress.
Yes, because President Petro still has hugely ambitious plans, really, before he leaves office in August.
Certainly. I mean, he proposed a very substantial number of social reforms, which to a large extent have not occurred. People, in realistic terms, are not expecting him to pass a great amount of them in the few months that he has left in office. What he has tried very openly to do is to make sure that a left-wing presidential candidate manages to succeed him.
You're mentioning that he is not allowed to run for office again, but the candidate who's favored by the government is a left-wing candidate called Ivan Cepeda, has promised to fulfill a lot of these pledges. And Petro is trying very ambitiously to promote the election of him.
He also, as you mentioned, he's talking about a constitutional reform that he claims would make it easier to implement all these ambitious reforms.
To what extent has President Trump and his threats against Colombia overshadowed these elections?
They have been certainly an important part of the electoral debate. Colombia has traditionally been a very close ally of the US. And many people in Colombia, particularly conservative Colombians, were shocked to see the level of confrontation that occurred at a political level. between Colombia and the U.S.
The conservatives, very quickly, they say that Petro was endangering Colombia's interests by fighting or presenting a confrontational attitude towards Trump, while Petro's followers, however, say that his position has been a position of defending ideals.
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