live from london. this is bbc news. president trump hails the us attacks on iran's nuclear facilities as "bullseye" as he hints at the possibility of regime change in the country. at a un security council emergency meeting, iran accuses the us of "waging war" with the attacks. whilst in central tehran, iranians gather to protest against us and israeli attacks. and keir starmer talks to president trump and warns of a risk of the crisis spiralling beyond the region calling for iran to return to negotiations. plus the night sky like it's never been seen before - the first images are released from the world's

most powerful telescope. president trump has raised the possibility of regime change in iran, despite his administration insisting that was not the aim of its strikes on the country. at an emergency session of the united nations security council, iran condemned the attacks as 'blatant aggression.' it comes as american stealth bombers returned to base in the united states - after striking those nuclear facilities. the b2 planes were involved in a 37-hour round trip flight with multiple mid-air refuelings and a series of decoys. the un says the full extent of the damage is not yet clear. although in the last few hours president trump posted that

monumental damage was done adding "obliteration is an accurate term!" he said the biggest damage took place far below ground level ending his post with the word "bullseye!!!" at the united nations security council emergency meeting the iranian ambassador accused the us of waging war under an absurd pretext. the us envoy said "any iranian attack, direct or indirect, against americans or american bases will be met with devastating retaliation." at the same time president trump, in a post on social media, hinted at regime change in iran. he and the british prime minister, sir keir starmer spoke on the phone last night and agreed iran must never have nuclear weapons. it comes as one of the big questions is "will iran try to close the strategic strait of hormuz?" that would certainly have major economic, political and military consequences.

coming up we will look at what iran might do next. but let's start with that un security council emergency meeting. russia and china pushed for an immediate ceasefire - with beijing condeming the us strikes as violations of international law. iran's ambassador called them a 'blatant aggression'. noted state -- the state that has ever used nuclear weapons in two cities has now once again resorted to illegal fourth and waged against my country under the fabricated and absurd pretext of preventing iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. what a bitter and tragic irony. dorothy shea represents the us

at the united nations. she said that in recent weeks, iranian officials had intensified their 'hostile bluster and rhetoric'. the time finally came for the united states, in the defence of its ally and in defence of its own citizens and interests, to act decisively. the iranian regime cannot have a nuclear weapon. let us be clear. iran should not escalate. as president trump said, any iranian attack direct or indirect against americans or american bases will be met with devastating retaliation. israel's un representative said the us strikes had changed history. the united states, the leader of the free world, remove the greatest existential threat facing the free world. just like our operation this was not a war of choice, this action

was a necessity, a righteous act for the united states, for israel, for the middle east and for the world. but there were stark warnings from the un chief antonio guterres and the head of the nuclear watchdog, rafael grossi. from the outset of the crises i have repeatedly condemned any military escalation in the middle east. the people of the region cannot endure another cycle of destruction. and, yet, we now risk descending into a rathole of retaliation after retaliation. to avoid it, diplomacy must prevail. civilians must be protected. safe maritime navigation must be guaranteed. we must act immediately and decisively to halt the fighting and return to

serious sustain negotiations on the iran nuclear programme. we haven't window of opportunity to return to dialogue and diplomacy. -- we have a window of opportunity. if that window closes, violence and destruction could reach unthinkable levels and the global nonproliferation regime, as we know it, could crumble and fall. rafael grossi there. and the international atomic energy agency has called a crisis meeting today to discuss the risks posed to those nuclear sites in iran. president trump has hinted that there could eventually be regime change in iran. writing on his social media platform, truth social, the us president said:

following the us airstrikes on the iranian nuclear sites, mr trump insisted the us was not pushing to remove iranian leaders from office. with his thoughts on president trump's post - here's our north america correspondent, anthony zurcher. marco rubio, the secretary of state, jd vance, the vice president and pete hegseth the secretary of defense were on television here in the united states on sunday morning shoring the country that they were not interested in regime change and as you mentioned, donald trump came out without post on truth social that raise the question, the way he often does, a question not a statement, but raising the prospect of regime change. if you ask administration officials they will tell you that donald trump is the only one who speaks for donald trump and for the administration so if there was a concerted strategy this morning to downplay regime change, maybe donald trump just changed his mind and saw something on fox news that made him think that this was a more realistic

possibility and that he wanted to float out there to get a conversation started. iran and israel have continued to trade fire with military sites targeted from both sides. this is the scene live in tel aviv at the moment. a few hours ago sirens were sounding across central israel because of a missile launch from iran. it is almost ten minutes past seven in the morning there. the us has issued a world wide caution for americans saying the conflict between israel and iran could put those travelling or living abroad at an increased security risk. protesters gathered outside the white house to protest the us strikes on iran's nuclear facilities. they urged the trump administration to stay out of the region. one founder of the anti-war group code pink said they were terrified that this could become world war iii or a nuclear war. hundreds of protests also marched through new york's times square, many chanting "no

war on iran" to show their opposition to the us bombing of the three nuclear side in iran. many at the demonstration also criticised the close relationship between the us and israel. these pictures are from the greek capital athens. hundreds of demonstrators, many carrying red flags, banners and smoke grenades, marched to the us embassy in a protest organised by the youth organisation of the communist party of greece. whilst in israel, a number of landmarks were lit up in us flag colours. they included the parliament building, the knesset. tel aviv city hall lit up windows to display the us and israeli flag. while the stars and stripes were also projected on the walls of the old city of jerusalem.

discuss some of these latest developments. benjamin radd is a senior fellow at burkle centre for international relations which focuses on us foreign policy and other geopolitical issues. benjamin, good to talk to you today. the us president says that there has been monumental obliteration of iran's nuclear facilities saying that the us has hit the bull's-eye. what is your take on the last 24-hour is? we are seeing either members of the administration privately walk some of that back. there is no 100% confirmation yet that the fordo facility was completely obliterated, to use his words. we know that there has been significant damage and it can be further certain that the facility has been set back, capable of doing enrichment -- incapable of enriching but it

is way too soon to speculate or even discuss whether or not it has been completely dismantled and rendered inoperable. everyone is now waiting and watching iran in terms of its reaction or retaliation, as it says. it will wield, what you expect to happen next. the metaphor being used right now is that of an escalation ladder and at this with the us strikes a day ago we have gone up that ladder of escalation. iran now has the opportunity to make the next choice, do we de-escalate an dissent or go further up the ladder. we anticipate that given iran does not want to fight a two front war against two powerful militaries, the united states and israel, to against us forces directly or indirectly through proxy groups would bring the us into full open conflict. so i anticipate that maybe the response from iran will be measured, possibly closing the straits of hormuz or restricting traffic there,

and effectively putting a chokehold on one of the major maritime passageways. that may be a reasonable response from their perspective, one that demonstrates they resolve but does not take us far up the escalatory ladder. it would have an impact on oil prices low which are already spiking anyway in anticipation of what this means for disruption and it would have a big impact on the global economy as well. so if that were their action, what would be reaction from the us or others to that? the fact that it would have the reverberations of such a move would have global implications -- implications, i think that is what the iranians would benefit from, allowing other countries to come in and broker a deal so now the conflict is no longer between iran and the united states and israel but between the international community in the global oil markets which is something that gives iran leveraged given that it is both the largest suppliers of oil and natural gas to the world. so what we will see is a concerted effort by those nations, particularly

that rely on iranian oil or oil that is transported through the straits to come and broker a deal or to take a more active role in negotiating such as what we saw the europeans attempt to do not that long ago. unfortunately that did not yield any success but the effort being key here for the iranians believing they may get a better audience with european leaders than they could directly. what about china? marco rubio has called on paging specifically to help in this situation. china gets a lot of its energy from iran through that narrow waterway. absolutely. the chinese would be the others who would be impacted severely that waterway was restricted and again for the united states as many other nations as it can bring into this conflict, driving up the pain point, if you will for the united states and for israel, this is what it wants. it is no longer a bilateral or trilateral conflict but one that is now multipolar and to bring the chinese in, absolutely, would be key to

getting this resolved sooner rather than later and would take us to a stage of deescalation. and, briefly, you and i have been talking since, for attack israel over a year ago, how has this impacted the region? what it demonstrated after october 2023 from the israeli perspective is that it could no longer tolerate not just the existence of iran but a iran that was a threshold nuclear power. the idea being that if iran was a few months weeks or years away the fact that it could enrich beyond the permitted 20% uranium it was allowed to gave iran the ability to produce a dirty bomb and could accelerate its programme if it felt pressured to do so. so for israel i believe that very much its decision to act and act decisively came not long after october 2023 after the hamas attacks and realising it had

little time to spare before iran's programme and its ballistic missiles programme to reach the point

the us bombing of nuclear facilities in iran. the big question is what iran will do next. the iranian president said that his country won't be bullied - and that the us 'must receive a response' to its aggression. so what are the options now for iran's leaders? the bbc isn't currently allowed to broadcast from inside the country but the bbc has a persian service that reports on what is happening there. this report is from siarvash ardalan of the bbc persian service. in the centre of the crowd, iran's president, surrounded

by hundreds of party faithful... ..venting their fury at the united states. "what america did is truly unforgivable," says this woman, "iran is stronger than they perceive." but after last night's us attacks, the regime here is seriously weakened. so what comes next? the iranian supreme leader, ali khamenei, could swallow his pride and possibly save his regime, and the country, from further damage. or he could fight on and risk everything. domestic public opinion is now divided and confused. translation: the response must be firm and decisive. what's at stake here is the very identity of being iranian. translation: in my opinion, iran needs to engage in some

reflection and contemplation. as for the country's revolutionary guard, it responded by saying us military bases in the region are vulnerable, but they know retaliation would invite further us attacks. this is a state tv reporter who went to fordo. "i can't see much damage," he says. for now, it's america's word against iran's. weakened and humiliated, the iranian regime will struggle to retain its credibility and grip on power in the face of widespread discontent. siavish ardalan, bbc news. as we mentioned earlier sir keir starmer and donald trump have been speaking since the us strikes on iran. with me is our correspondent, aruna iyengar. she has the detail on that. can you tell us more about the conversation. the uk prime minister stopped short of endorsing the us action on

iran. but in some respect it may, the uk may be supporting it in some ways because if iran's nuclear programme is now put on the back foot and the uk definitely supports that, and there is a feeling here that the nuclear programme from iran is a320 national security, in the call last night between the us president and sir keir starmer they spoke about the grave risk posed by the nuclear programme to international security and they discuss the actions taken by the us bombings which they said was reducing the threats to international security. they agreed that iran must never be allowed to develop nuclear capability. they also discussed the need for iran to return to the negotiating table as soon as possible to make progress on a lasting settlement. that was the upshot of the telephone conversation between the two leaders. they also said they would agree to stay in close contact over the coming days and that reflects their relationship between the two countries. the white house has been talking about the

increased risk to americans who are overseas and those who are travelling, et cetera. is anything being said about threats to the uk at all? the uk was not involved in the us operation in iran but there is a prospect of british forces being dragged into the conflict if it escalates. this is due, as i said, to the close relationship between the uk and us as nato allies and also because the trade deal that was recently signed between the two countries and because of the so-called special relationship between the uk and the us. extra raf typhoon jets have already been moved into the middle east region and the uk defense secretary anton healey said that force protection is at its highest level following those us strikes. at uk bases across the middle east, personnel are on high alert for drone attacks as well as conventional rockets and missiles and asked about the threats to uk security, john healey said that already there was a substantial iranian activity in the uk such as

spying and cyber attacks. thank you very much indeed. just remind you we have a live page up and running at the moment with the latest on the conflict between iran and israel including analysis on the strikes by the bbc news website or -- will have a lot more on the impact on oil prices and the economy in ten minutes. let's bring you some other news now. bombing at a church in the syrian capital damascus. - the interior ministry said the attacker belonged to the islamic state group. the killings will be a blow to syria's president ahmed al-sharaa, who had promised to protect minorities after recent deadly sectarian clashes. the weight loss drug mounjaro will be prescribed by gps in england from today. it was previously available on the nhs only through specialist weight loss clinics, but patients will still have to meet strict criteria. and in basketball,

the oklahoma city thunder have won their first ever nba title, after defeating the indiana pacers in the finals. finally this half hour we're going to show you some extraordinary images of space now. to do them justice you'd need to see them across 400 ultra high-definition tv screens - because each one contains 3200 megapixels. they were taken by the world's newest and largest telescope, which is in chile - and has just released its first set of pictures. our correspondent ione wells went to the altacama desert to find out more. this is the night sky like the observatory, home to the most powerful new telescope in the world. the bbc was granted early access to see it up close before the images were made

public. it sits on a mountain in the chilean desert, very high, very dry, very dark. a perfect spot to watch the stars and that darkness is sacred. there is a whole engineering group dedicated to making sure that this is dark. it uses three mirrors together light from the universe and reflected onto a camera. capturing a lot of light is key to detecting faint objects like galaxies from billions of years ago. we want to go deep and observe things from far away which essentially means in astronomy that they come from earlier times. when i started working with this project i met with someone who had been working on it since 1986 and i was born in 1997. so it makes you realise that this is like an endeavour of a generation of astronomers. key to capturing these images

is the telescope's digital camera, the biggest ever made at 3200 megapixels is so high resolution could capture a golf ball on the moon. if you took your finger and held at arm 's reach and put it up to the sky potentially depending on where you are looking at, tens of thousands of galaxies will fit into that one little portion of the sky covered by your finger. imagine that over the entire southern sky. we get an unprecedented dataset not just of galaxies but are variable stars and near earth objects as well. it will take an image about every 40 seconds eight to 12 hours a night. what we have here is a polarised pair of merging galaxies. my laptop screen hardly does it justice but i hope that gives you a sense of scale of what we are looking at. documenting galaxies stars and a steroids as they move and change, capturing the distant past and present. to help scientists understand both what is in the

universe and where it came from. the design of the ribbon observatory has been driven by four science goals. the nature of energy and dark matter, exploring the transient optical is by and mapping the milky way. and what that really means is that we built a telescope that is the discovery machine. it will also be able to bring to light questions we have not even thought about yet and open up the unknown and that is probably the thing i am most excited about with the observatory. this ten year survey of the night sky is not yet begun but the telescope's first images have already excited scientists about the knowledgeable unlock. ione wells, bbc news next we have reaction on financial markets to the events over the weekend with the us striking iran's nuclear sites. earlier today oil prices were up over $81. brent crude has come back a little since then

but oil is still in a five-month high. i will be back shortly with business today.

now on bbc news, the latest business news from across the globe. as is today. reform is this today. oil prices rise sharply as investors weigh what the us and iran will do next. could the strait of hormuz be blocked, causing major turmoil to the global economy? i'm in the chinese city of tianjin. the us has asked beijing to step in and stop iran from closing the strait of hormuz. meanwhile in iran, people are suffering the widespread effects of this deepening conflict. we'll have detail on its economic state before and after.