United States President Donald Trump has claimed that a new nuclear deal being negotiated with Iran will be “far better” than the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which the US withdrew from in 2018 during his first term.On Tuesday, Trump extended the two-week ceasefire with Iran a day before it was set to expire, with hopes for a second round of talks in Islamabad, Pakistan.Key among the US demands is that Iran stop all enrichment of uranium.Iran has always insisted its nuclear programme is for civilian use only, such as for power generation, which requires uranium enrichment of between 3 percent and 5 percent. To build nuclear weapons, uranium needs to be enriched to 90 percent.In this explainer, we visualise what uranium is, how it is enriched and how long it could take Iran to make a nuclear weapon.What is uranium, and which countries have it?Uranium is a dense metal used as a fuel in nuclear reactors and weapons. It is naturally radioactive and usually found in low concentrations in rocks, soil and even seawater. About 90 percent of the world’s uranium is produced in just five countries: Kazakhstan, Canada, Namibia, Australia and Uzbekistan. Reserves of uranium have also been found in other countries.Uranium is extracted either by digging it out of the ground or, more commonly, through a chemical process that dissolves uranium from within the rock. Before it can be …
