Search
AI-powered search, human-powered content.
scroll to top arrow or icon

{{ subpage.title }}

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks in a televised message, after the ceasefire between Iran and Israel, in Tehran, Iran, June 26, 2025.

Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS

What We’re Watching: Khamenei emerges from bunker, North Korea opens beach resort, & More

Iran’s leader reappears, but big challenges await

Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has finally emerged from his bunker, delivering a public video message for the first time since the United States bombed three key nuclear sites in his country last weekend. The Ayatollah claimed “victory” and sought to downplay the effects of the US strikes. His week-long absence had reportedly left many Iranians worried. He faces a myriad of challenges now, including reasserting his power in the wake of Israel’s wave of assassinations of top commanders and aides. He also will need to decide what’s next for Iran’s damaged nuclear program.

Putin and Xi to miss BRICS summit

In a week where the alliance between Europe and the US rebounded at the NATO summit, the premier Global South grouping appears to be trending in the opposite direction: Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin will skip the BRICS summit, which starts on July 6. Putin is wary of his outstanding war crimes arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court, while Beijing says Xi won’t go because he’s already met Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva twice in the last year. Brasilia sees this as a snub.

North Korea to open… a beach resort.

Looking for a last-minute summer get-away? Seeking a quiet spot that’s off the beaten track? The new Wonsan Kalma beach resort in North Korea might be just the place for you! Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un hopes the coastal enclave, formerly a missile-testing site, will help to boost tourism. The idea was born seven years ago, in part because of Donald Trump’s musings about the appeal of North Korean beaches. The resort will officially open on July 1.

By the way, it just so happens that GZERO’s puppet satire series PUPPET REGIME actually has a song about this – you can rock along on Instagram or YouTube.

Trump and Khamenei staring at eachother across an Iranian flag.

Jess Frampton

Will Trump’s Iran strategy actually prevent war?

The United States is ramping up its “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran.

In a letter sent to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in early March, President Donald Trump gave Tehran an ultimatum: reach a new nuclear deal with the US within two months or face direct military action – “bombing the likes of which they have never seen before,” as he told NBC News’ Kristen Welker on Sunday.

The letter proposed mediation by the United Arab Emirates (whose emissaries delivered the missive in question) and expressed Trump’s preference for a diplomatic solution. “I would rather have a peace deal than the other option, but the other option will solve the problem,” the president said.

Read moreShow less
Luisa Vieira

Iran’s leaders are asking for trouble

It’s impossible to predict when and where a wildfire will begin, but it’s easy to know when the ground is dry. In today’s Iran, the ground is ominously dry.

Read moreShow less

The suspected Chinese spy balloon drifts to the ocean after being shot down off the coast in Surfside Beach, South Carolina.

REUTERS/Randall Hill

What We're Watching: US-China balloon fallout, Iranian "amnesty"

As US shoots down Chinese spy balloon, China cries foul

If we'd told you a week ago that the recent US-China thaw would be upended by X, you'd have probably guessed X had something to do with Taiwan, US semiconductor export controls, or perhaps China's covert profiteering from Russia's war in Ukraine. Nope. It was all over ... a balloon.

Read moreShow less
Annie Gugliotta

The high price of isolation

Think it’s good to be the king? Consider for a moment the predicaments facing the small group of men (virtually all of them are men) who rule Russia, China, and Iran. Vladimir Putin and his accomplices, Xi Jinping and his functionaries, and those who make rules in the Islamic Republic all contend with a basic set of problems that obstruct vital flows of information within their respective countries. That creates serious problems for them — and for the rest of us.

Read moreShow less
Masih Alinejad Lives in Brooklyn. Iran Wants To Kill Her. | GZERO World

Masih Alinejad lives in Brooklyn. Iran wants to kill her.

Iranian journalist and activist Masih Alinejad has long been in Tehran's crosshairs, accused of being an agent of the United States.

She denies it. "I'm not an American agent. I have agency," Alinejad tells Ian Bremmer on GZERO World.

But the regime has continued to look for ways to target her, even from her home in Brooklyn.

Read moreShow less
Iran V. The Islamic Republic: Fighting Iran’s Gender Apartheid Regime | GZERO World with Ian Bremmer

Iran v. the Islamic Republic: Fighting Iran’s gender apartheid regime

Woman, life, freedom. Those three words have filled the streets of Iran since the ongoing women-led protests against the regime, the biggest since 2009, began last September.

How did Iranian women get here? How has the theocracy responded so far? And what might come next?

On GZERO World, Ian Bremmer speaks to Iranian journalist and activist Masih Alinejad, a sworn enemy of the Supreme Leader; it's widely believed that Iranian spies have tried to kidnap and assassinate her here in New York.

Read moreShow less
Bryan Olin Dozier via Reuters Connect

Podcast: After Mahsa Amini: Iran’s fight for freedom, with Masih Alinejad

Transcript

Listen: Iran is being rocked by its most significant protests since the Green Movement of 2009. Since September, hundreds of thousands of young and mostly female demonstrators have filled the streets of nearly every major city from Tehran to Tabriz, many discarding their headscarves at great personal risk to protest draconian societal rules and restrictions. The backlash from security forces has been brutal, though (except in the Kurdish region) the government has yet to send in the Revolutionary Guard.

Iranian-American journalist and activist Masih Alinejad joins Ian Bremmer on the GZERO World podcast to discuss. Where will these protests lead, and what are the geopolitical implications for the region, and for the West? Alinejad shares her views on the unprecedented unity among the Iranian protesters, her personal experience being targeted by the Iranian government even after moving to the United States, and why the Iranian men's World Cup team does not deserve sympathy.

Subscribe to our free newsletter, GZERO Daily

Latest