Mojtaba Khamenei named as Iran's new supreme leader

How do you update old systems without slowing your business down? It's not about modernization just to modernize. Or move AI from pilot to production. It's not the technology that's failing. It's the use case that you pick.

Find out how global leaders are turning enterprise change into real competitive advantage. Do it in a resilient way with speed and effectiveness. Follow resilient edge of business vitality podcast paid and presented by Deloitte. Check out our new episodes wherever you get your podcasts.

We focus on the part of the internet that most people don't know about. It's called the Dark Web. Undecava in the furthest corners of the dark web. US special agents are on a mission to locate and rescue children from abuse. Move it in our voice. From the BBC World Service World of Secrets,

the Darkest Web follows their shocking investigations. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get to a BBC podcast. This is the global news podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Alex Ritzon and in the early hours of Monday the 9th of March, these are our main stories. The son of Ali Hamenai takes over from his father

to become Iran's new Supreme Leader. Already, Moshtaba Hamenai'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.

“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-drome 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 hard-line clerics, the assembly of experts, have picked the son of the assassinated Iatola Ali Hamenai, Moshtaba Hamenai, according to the Iranian authorities, his wife died in the attack that killed his father. Moshtaba Hamenai previously kept a relatively low profile

and has never held public office in Iran.

The announcement was made on state television. 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 hard-line revolution regards. President Trump previously said that Moshtaba Hamenai would be unacceptable as Iran's leader, and Israel has said it will target any successor.

The choice appears to signal there'll be no change in Iran's determination to resist the U.S. and Israeli attacks. Danit Danon Israeli ambassador to the United Nations gave his reaction. It really doesn't matter if you did the father or the son.

“You have to look at the policy and the policy of this regime is the same policy”

to promote terror, to soar chaos, to acquire nuclear capabilities. So they can actually assemble it on the ballistic missiles. Anyone who's involved with this terror regime is the legitimate target. It will continue to target the LGC and all of those who collaborated with this regime. Shortly after Moshtaba Hamenai was named successor Iran again

fired missiles and drones at Israel and Gulf neighbours. The state news agency in Bahrain said at least 32 people had been injured in a drone attack. Iranian security chief Ali Larajani thanked the country's clerics for defying U.S. threats and selecting a new supreme leader despite the bombing of their council chamber in the war. I spoke to our international editor Jeremy Bowen and began by asking him if the timing of the assemblers

announcement is significant.

The thing to think about is, first of all, there is a man already running the war.

“Ali Larajani, who's the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, and he is being the key man.”

It appears anyway in the decision making. He's somebody who, in the past, has been seen as actually something of a pragmatist. The new supreme leader, Moshtaba Hamenai, will not have the same cloud that has far the built up over, well, so many years, practically 40 years. So, while no doubt he will have to try and referee between fictional disagreements

within the leadership, the leadership that's still alive. You know, as a question mark, the degree to which he will be told what to do by Larajani

So, we'll see if it makes any difference, we'll see, as you say, whether he lives.

“For the Iranians, and I realize that you can take this question more than one way, is here a good choice.”

I don't think they've got many good choices at the moment, whatever happens. They are in whichever way you look at it, the regime, the opponents of the regime, people who don't want to get involved in politics just trying to live their lives. Everybody in Iran right now is in a tremendously difficult position. Clearly, facing some of the greatest challenges that ever faced in their whole lives.

There are so many uncertainties about the way ahead of the moment, the Iranian strategy, recognising that, of course, they can't outgun the Americans and the Israelis. It's to spread the pain and hope that second and third order consequences, caused by attacks on Kuwait, with the UAE, or Qatar, or Saudi Arabia, or others, or on the oil industry through squeezing exports going out through the straight-up or moves.

There hope would be that they get to a place where Donald Trump will declare victory, while they still survive, and if they survive at the end of it, they will declare victory too. But that's quite a way of potentially you. I mean, we don't know because at the moment, no side is suggesting neither side is suggesting

that they want to buckle on this one. Much to add to how many is said to be a right-winger, although not many people seem to know a lot about him.

Well, he's never had an official position.

He's been talked about his potential Supreme Leader for some years,

“but I think they were wary about looking too much like a dynastical succession,”

like a dynastical succession, like Basha. 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, I'd side around.

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 US, 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, where he didn't, and then 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,

“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's going all over. He gives every impression of being a guy who's making things up as he goes along. I suspect that he had hoped that they would be able to move to a pretty swift victory after how many he 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 it's replacement by democracy, but the destruction of the regime. And I don't think they're that bothered if it's leads to chaos in the country, or even in its among its neighbors.

What they want is the regime to go, because Netanyahu is believed for 40 years that Iran wants to destroy Israel, wants the 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 Mosh Tabak, Aminai, is bound to an oil Donald Trump. The U.S. 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 U.S. 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.

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 again. He wants to make sure that Iran cannot develop

nuclear weapons anytime soon, but not for the next five years, next ten 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 much about coming any 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, very from destroying Iran's nuclear program and its conventional weapons capability

“to complete regime change and demanding unconditional surrender.”

So there is a lack of clarity around exactly what he wants to achieve. And we've even heard from him that he's thinking about putting U.S. troops into Iran, about putting American boots on the ground, in order to try and seize the stocks, piles of enriched uranium that there are inside that country.

So that yet one more thing he hadn't contemplated when he told us he had launched this action just over a week ago. 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 stabilize 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 streets of Hormuz. Iran is still very much in control of anything that passes 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 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 dollars of barrel, a really remarkable surge. And quite a stock market route in Asia too.

Yeah, unsurprisingly, just looking now the NICA index in Japan down around 7% the cost being South Korea down around 7% as well. They had to put in an emergency circuit breaker to suspend trading there. Actually, the reasons very simple, about 90% of that oil and gas, that's stuck near the streets 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, yet nam as well. So, you know, 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, you know, are threatening to get bigger and bigger every day. NICA, is this just short term pain, or does the market sphere that the war in Iran is going to go on for some time?

“Well, I think what we've seen this morning implies that, yes,”

the markets do feel that this is going to go on for some time. Things like I say, had calm down a little bit by the end of the week, but now, given the combination of factors that I outlined out earlier, it does seem that this is going to go on for quite some time, and don't forget, Alex, the longer that the price of oil goes up and the price of gas goes up,

the more likely it is that people are going to be paying much more for their petrol, but also much more for their food, because transportation costs become higher, even things like fertilizer becomes higher, everything in short becomes higher. NIC-Marsh in Singapore. The 56-year-old cleric, Mojtabba, Khme and IE,

takes over a nation still under heavy attack from the Israelis and the Americans. In Tehran, a huge clear-up operation is underway after an oil depot was hit by Israeli strikes on Saturday night. BBC Persian has been hearing from people in the Iranian capital about the attack. Their messages have been recorded by actors, as you're about to hear,

and this report from our chief international correspondent, Lestu said. Hell on earth, that's how someone living in this dark described it.

One of 30 Israel's said it bombed across Iran.

“The biggest attack in this war on the country's oil facilities,”

the life blood of its economy. Fire tore through the streets towards shops and homes. Inter-enching 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've blown it up. Oil depot, Hassan and Boristan 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 air base was hit too. Iran is still hitting back.

Fraigments 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. Most about how many is Iran's new supreme leader. He assumes his father's mantle in his mold. A hard liner.

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. Still to come in this podcast.

We are impatiently waiting to return. Personally, I would like to return to my country as soon as possible. And be with my compatriots and family. The war in Iran causes difficulties for the country's women's football team. We focus on the part of the internet that most people don't know about the dark web.

Undercover in the furthest corners of the dark web. U.S. special agents are on a mission to locate and rescue children from abuse. Move it now. From the BBC World Service, World of Secrets, the darkest web follows their shocking investigations. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get to a BBC podcast.

“How does a global automaker actually make AI work at scale?”

I'm Ashwin Patil, host of resilient edge, a business vitality podcast paid and presented by Deloitte. Discover how Deloitte, AWS, and Toyota reduced manual effort and reshap supply chain operations across the business. Available now, wherever you listen to podcasts. Hi everyone. This is Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway.

And we want to tell you about pivot our twice weekly podcast. That's like Kara, what a thrill it's a chance for us to break down all the big things happening in tech, business, and politics. Yes, and I keep you in check so people can make it through each episode, whether it's digging into a constant changes in the world of AI and social media or trying to keep up whatever the f*** Elon is doing. We're here to give you our take on all of that. Every Tuesday and Friday morning, we drop a new episode about some of the major stories of the moment.

And Scott is a prediction machine gazing into his crystal ball to tell you about where it's all heading. That's right. So if that sounds like a good time for you, especially Mr. That's right. You can follow us on your favorite podcast app to get new episodes every week. This is the global news podcast. Other news now, and President Zelensky has said Ukrainian drone experts will arrive in the Middle East this week to help Gulf states under attack from Iran.

He said they would be able to provide assistance immediately. Some air defenses in the region have struggled to cope with Iran's Shahi drones.

Our diplomatic correspondent, James Landell, is in Ukraine.

And has been to see the latest anti-drone technology the country has to offer. We're standing in a field in the middle of the Ukrainian country side, and it's a place where people come to test drones. And we've come to look at a drone called a bullet. They're putting it together in front of us. And it looks like a very strange weapon, a hybrid weapon, half quadcopter, drone, half plastic shell. And it's the latest technology, the latest design, that the Ukrainians have come up with, to destroy lethal Russian Shahi drones that attack Ukraine almost nightly.

The bullet's just taken off, rising on its four propellers. And then suddenly, which way it goes, it tips on its side, rockets away, and now it's just a small speck on the horizon. It's top speed is well over 300 kilometers an hour. This is one of Ukraine's newest and fastest interceptors.

The idea behind it is very simple. The pilots launch the bullet, and use a first-person camera simply to crash it into an incoming drone.

They're deadly, and the pilots know they could be just as effective against similar Iranian Shahi drones, causing havoc across the Middle East. This drone pilot, called Sign Draka, thinks Ukraine has much to offer.

“Honestly, we have enough work here, but we understand that this war is spreading across the world, and that Iran is an ally of Russia.”

So I think we could find the resources to send our instructors to train people who are fighting the same enemy. We've come now to the factory where the drones are made. There are rows and rows of men and women, soldering, assembling, fixing, sorting. And there are piles and piles of these drones. You really get a sense of just how relatively simple it is to make these drones and why they're so cheap. The Stanislav Grushin is co-founder of the General Cherry drone company. Are you surprised that it's taken this amount of time for the rest of the world to wake up to the importance of this?

Speaking honestly, I'm really surprised. It seems that every country is preparing to their bus wars, but not their ongoing ones.

“Have any countries come to you? Have you had extra demand requests in the last week?”

Yes, a lot of state agents from different countries from all over the world, not for them, just Arabic ones who are already facing the threat from Iran. They understand now how it may be. Their request is pretty high and very urgent. President Zelensky says Ukrainian experts will arrive in the Gulf this week to offer immediate help with drone defenses, but he's clear nothing should damage Ukraine's own, and he's looking to swap interceptors for more patriot missiles. Also about more than just selling drones, allies would also need training in how to use them. Victoria Huncho-Lock works for the Snake Island Institute, a defense think tank and believes Ukraine can teach the world a great deal.

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.

“Second is rapid integration of interceptors in the air defense because it is quite new for allies, just one thing important to remember is that it should be a partnership.”

Ukraine gives something, Ukraine needs something to return, right? We're happy to close the sky, but let's also close the sky over Ukraine. Finally.

The war in the Middle East poses risks for Kiev, rising oil prices, fueling rushes, war machine, distracted allies turning their attention elsewhere. But Ukraine's hard-won expertise in interceptor drones gives President Zelensky an opportunity, not just to win new friends and funds in the Gulf, but also to keep his war from being forgotten. James Lando. Colombia's left-wing President Gustavo Petro will soon be leaving office, but before he does so, he wants to rewrite the constitution. The outcome of legislative elections on Sunday could help him, although the result could also mark a right-wing comeback, a recent trend in other Latin American countries.

I got the latest from Lewis Fahado, BBC Monitoring's Latin America Specialist.

Results are kind of indicating a similar situation to what we had in Colombia the previous four years, 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 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, well, 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. He is not allowed to run for office again, but the candidate who is favored by the government is a left-wing candidate called Iván Sepera 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, is 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 overshadow 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 US. 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, and in the process he has become a voice of opposition to Trump when many other leaders in the region were obviously moving in a different direction.

This has gotten him respect from a sector of Colombian politics, which, as is the case in many other countries, is very, very polarized, and no one is expecting it to become much, much less polarized in the next few months.

Lewis Faraday, though more than two-thirds of the Earth's surface is covered by ocean less than 10% of the deep sea has been properly explored.

“But scientists in the Caribbean have discovered potentially hundreds of unknown secretures and a whole lot more by surveying almost 26,000 square kilometers of sea floor, Shanto Hartle reports.”

The waters off the glittering coastlines of Britain's overseas territories in the Caribbean have long been a mystery. The sea floor in this region is too deep and remote for divers to map it. Instead, scientists in Anguila, Turks and Cagos and the Cayman Islands used advanced cameras and sonar equipment to capture data at depths of up to 6000 meters. Working with British researchers, they collected more than 14,000 specimens over six weeks. Some of the more impressive finds include a fish with tubular eyes that point upwards to see the silhouettes of its prey, an eel with a glowing pink tail that flashes red to lure in food.

“And a dragonfish with a glowing rod under its chin. There was also a bright orange sea cucumber, initially thought to be the rare headless chicken monster species.”

As expedition leader, Dr. James Bell explains. "We still don't know what it is for the closest relative that we can find if it has been reported in the past with half world weight." But the discoveries didn't stop there. Using their data, the team made 3D maps of an underwater mountain range and surrounding the steep slopes were coral reefs. Well, coral reefs so deep that they appear to be unaffected by climate-related diseases plaguing the Caribbean. Things like ocean acidification and climate change, but also disease called stony coral tissue loss.

Both of those are causing huge problems, but in these kind of offshore more remote areas, those are apparently absent, and that gives us real hope for the future, and that's vital information. Scientists also found black coral that could be thousands of years old, making them some of the oldest ever recorded. And they were surprised to find a huge crater, a blue hole, that formed when a cave collapsed in woods.

A process that will take some time. "Shantle, heartle."

“Let's end this podcast with the war in Iran. The conflict has provided some difficult moments for the Iranian women's football.”

The Iranian women's football team taking part in the Asian Cup in Australia.

The players have just lost their third and final match of the tournament against the Philippines, and are now expected to head home.

Last week, before their first match with South Korea, they declined to sing Iran's National Anthem, a move that led to criticism at home. They were described by the Iranian state TV as "traders during wartime." Marzia Jafari, the Iran team coach, spoke to reporters after the final match. "We are impatiently waiting to return. Personally, I would like to return to my country as soon as possible, and be with my compatriots and family."

Our Australia correspondent, Casey Watson, was at the match on the cold coast.

After last week's silence, they sang and saluted. The football was almost incidental, politics took over. This was a chance for fans of the Iranian team to chant against the Islamic Republic, while also backing its players. There's growing concern that by choosing not to sing the Anthem last week, there could be repercussions for the players and their families when they returned to Iran. With three losses, Iran is now out of the tournament, but for the team's fans, the fight continues.

"What are you telling the women?" "Yes, we were telling them that if they want to stay in Australia, we would support them, but I think I'm sure of that.

“They're being threatened with their family safety in Iran. That's why they're used to answer back to us."”

"We're just here to support them. We can't do much to other than just chanting for them to be honest." The team has been put in very difficult situation here in Australia during a match was very little interaction with the supporters. One player, when receiving medical treatment on the sidelines, did blow a kiss to the crowd. To huge cheers, it was a bit of a statement. But at the end of the match, when the Filipino players were thanking their supporters, the Iranian team just walked out. As the players left the stadium, they became the silent stars in this drama unfolding in the rain.

The players returned to the hotel in the end, their fans thwarted in their efforts to stop them. The team's expected to fly out of Australia soon. Katie Watson on the Gold Coast.

“And that's all from us for now. If you want to get in touch, you can email us at [email protected].”

You can also find us on X at BBC World Service, use the hashtag global news pod. And don't forget our sister podcast, the global story, which goes in-depth and beyond the headlines on one big story. This edition of the global news podcast was mixed by Lewis Griffin and the producer was Daniel Mann, the editor is Karen Martin. I'm Alex Richardson until next time. Goodbye. We focus on the part of the internet that most people don't know about. It's called the Dark Web. Undercover in the furthest corners of the Dark Web, US Special agents are on a mission to locate and rescue children from abuse.

From the BBC World Service World of Secrets, the Darkest Web follows their shocking investigations. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get to a BBC podcast.