Iran: The Latest24 Dec 2025

Photographing war, disease and nuclear accidents with Simon Townsley

On this week’s episode of Battle Lines Global Health Security, international photojournalist Simon Townsley joins Arthur Scott-Geddes and Sophie O’Sullivan to share his most memorable photographs of 2025.

From visiting mpox quarantine zones in Sierra Leone, to bat caves infected with marburg virus, Simon explains the value and pitfalls of ‘parachute’ journalism.

This year alone, Simon has traveled to Sierra Leone, Guyana, Sudan, Chad, Zambia, Honduras, Kazakhstan, and Burundi. He reflects on how the world has changed in his nearly 40 years of work, and why now people often mistake him as Chinese.

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/X5p4hvB_cSA

View Simon's images:

Guyana’s oil bonanza: Will the vast wealth it is generating ever trickle down?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/terror-and-security/guyana-oil-boom-wealth-inequality/

‘It’s all dead now... nothing will grow’: Fish and hippos dissolve in polluted acid river

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/climate-and-people/zambia-river-pollution-china-industrial-investment/

Inside the Red Zone: Sierra Leone’s terrifying mpox outbreak

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/inside-sierra-leones-terrifying-mpox-outbreak/

Atomic bombs destroyed their lives – now they want Russia to pay

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/terror-and-security/soviet-union-nuclear-testing-atomic-bomb-kazakhstan/

‘I poured gasoline then set fire to my clothes – the flames shot up my body’

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/women-and-girls/kurdistan-iraq-suicide-self-immolation-domestic-violence/

‘My child is gone... life is empty’: agony of Ukrainian mother collecting her son from the morgue

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/terror-and-security/child-gone-life-empty-agony-ukrainian-mother-collecting-son/

Producer: Sophie O'Sullivan

Executive Producer: Louisa Wells

Studio Operator: Meghan Searle

► Sign up to our most popular newsletter, From the Editor. Look forward to receiving free-thinking comment and the day's biggest stories, every morning. telegraph.co.uk/fromtheeditor

battlelines@telegraph.co.uk

@venetiarainey

@ascottgeddes

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Det här avsnittet är hämtat från ett öppet RSS-flöde och publiceras inte av Podme. Det kan innehålla reklam.

Avsnitt(350)

Trump’s five-hour blitz triggers Iran war escalation & Mossad’s secret plot exposed

Donald Trump has reimposed the US’s naval blockade on Iran and, for the third night in a row, launched a brutal five-hour blitz hitting Iran’s coastal defences. In retaliation, the IRGC has struck bac...

14 Juli 56min

Trump reimposes naval blockade & how China and Russia use Iran to bleed US munitions

The US-Iran ceasefire is in crisis following a violent weekend of escalation. From the IRGC damaging a ship in the Strait of Hormuz so badly that the crew had to abandon it, to President Donald Trump ...

13 Juli 36min

‘Bitter, weak and corrupted’: How Ali Khamenei ruined Iran

Four months after he was assassinated by Israeli and US airstrikes on the first day of the Iran war, former Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei has been buried in an elaborate funeral.But who was he b...

12 Juli 28min

Iran’s Trump ‘assassination plot’ revealed & America’s ‘protection racket’

The burst of strikes between Iran and the US has died down but the Strait of Hormuz has seized up, with shipping coming to an almost complete standstill on the southern non-Iranian route. On today’s e...

10 Juli 37min

Iran attacks more US bases after Trump strikes key Russia-China railway link

The US-Iran war has escalated significantly amid a second consecutive night of heavy American strikes on Iran and a furious response from Tehran.On today’s episode of Iran: the Latest, Venetia Rainey ...

9 Juli 31min

Trump ends US-Iran ceasefire after Tehran’s Strait of Hormuz oil tanker blitz

Donald Trump has dramatically declared that the US-Iran ceasefire is officially "over", calling Tehran an "evil cancer" during a fiery outburst alongside Nato chief Mark Rutte in Ankara, Turkey. He al...

8 Juli 27min

Trump at Nato: Give me Greenland or US will withdraw from Europe

Donald Trump arrived at the 2026 Nato summit in Turkey and instantly started taking potshots at his Nato allies, blasting them for not helping the US in the Iran war. On today’s episode of Iran: the L...

7 Juli 34min

Where is Iran’s new supreme leader?

Dead, disfigured by the war or hidden for safety - why isn’t Iran’s new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei at his own father’s funeral?It’s the million-dollar question as Tehran hosts the third day of a ...

6 Juli 35min