7am

This week Iran announced a new Supreme Leader. Mojtaba Khamenei is the son of the assassinated Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
But who’s really running the country now? We look into the heavily armed elite forces pulling the strings – the Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC.

Today, Iranian journalist and author Arash Azizi on what direction Iran’s elite armed forces could take the country.

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Guest: Iranian journalist and author, Arash Azizi
Photo: EPA
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On Sunday night, after Iran’s final game of the Women’s Asian Cup on the Gold Coast, protesters surrounded the team bus, banging on the windows and shouting “let them go”.
Later, five members of the Iranian squad broke away from their minders. By Tuesday, the federal government had confirmed they had been granted humanitarian visas.
The move followed days of concern about what the players might face if they returned to Iran, after several were denounced on Iranian state television for refusing to sing the national anthem at the start of the tournament.
The government says the same option remains open to the rest of the team, but for now they look set to return to a war zone.
Today, former Socceroo and human rights advocate Craig Foster on what this moment says about football’s failure to protect women players when they needed them most.

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Guest: Former Socceroos captain and human rights advocate, Craig Foster
Photo: AAP Image/Dave Hunt
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Independent MP Monique Ryan can remember a time in Australian politics when small breaches could cost a career.
Now she says we’ve been gradually conditioned to tolerate corruption and the loss of transparency in parliament.
Over recent years, there has been a marked increase in the number of lobbyists with access to Parliament House. Literally thousands move through the building, meeting politicians and staffers; often leaving little public trace of who they’ve spoken to and why.
Today, Independent MP, Monique Ryan on the thousands of lobbyists roaming the halls of Parliament House and the system she says allows them to influence, behind closed doors, the decisions that affect us all.

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Guest: Dr Monique Ryan, Independent MP
Photo: AAP Image/Lukas Coch
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Who should hold the power to decide how AI is used on our battlefields? That’s the question being debated after a face-off between the Pentagon and one of the world’s biggest AI companies.
Anthropic ultimately lost its contract with the US military after refusing to let its Claude program be used for mass surveillance of American citizens, or for fully automated weapons capable of killing with no human oversight.
But now that its rival, OpenAI, has stepped into the ring and cut its own deal with the government, what does that mean for how AI is used in our current wars – and the wars of the future?
Today, David Wroe from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute on tech titans, robodogs and whether AI should be used to kill.

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Guest: David Wroe, Australian Strategic Policy Institute
Photo: Xinhua/Sipa USA
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It’s been revealed this week that Monash IVF has paid millions of dollars in secret settlements, after two nightmare mixups saw women implanted with the wrong embryos – one of them giving birth to a stranger’s baby.
At least three families have now received compensation for the bungle, which was caused by human error.
But these mistakes – at one of the oldest and most reputable clinics in the country – have had devastating consequences that reach far beyond the affected families, damaging the confidence of anyone relying on fertility treatment in Australia.
In this episode, which first aired in June 2025, Ruby Jones speaks with writer and public health campaigner Hannah Bambra on why the IVF industry is so vulnerable to human error.

If you enjoy 7am, the best way you can support us is by making a contribution at 7ampodcast.com.au/support.

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Guest: Hannah Bambra, writer and public health campaigner
Photo: AAP Image/Dean Lewins
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.