Date set for millions of phones in UK to receive emergency alert test
Millions of phones will receive emergency alerts on 7 September in the second national test of the warning system.
Smartphones will vibrate and sound a 10-second siren at 3.00pm on the Sunday in a test of the alert, which is designed to warn of nearby threats such as extreme weather or terror activity.
Even phones on silent mode will light up during the alert, while a message will be displayed on the screen showing it is a test.
There are approximately 87 million mobile phones in the UK, according to officials.
The test will be the first since April 2023 and the government said it is part of plans to strengthen the country’s emergency preparedness. The Covid inquiry recommended that ministers test the Emergency Alert System in the wake of the pandemic.
Concerns have been raised in the past that emergency alerts can leave victims of domestic abuse at risk, by exposing those who have secret phones. But the government said it will run a public information campaign targeted at vulnerable groups to ensure they can turn the alert off on second phones.
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Pat McFadden said: “Emergency alerts have the potential to save lives, allowing us to share essential information rapidly in emergency situations including extreme storms.
“Just like the fire alarm in your house, it’s important we test the system so that we know it will work if we need it.”
Since April 2023, the system has been used five times, including during major storms when lives were at risk.
Alerts flashed up on 4.5 million phones in Scotland and Northern Ireland during Storm Éowyn in January, and was seen by 3.5 million people in Wales and the South West of England received an alert during Storm Darragh last December.
It was also used when an unexploded bomb from the Second World War was discovered in Plymouth.
During the last test, a slew of mobile phone users, including those on the Three network, complained that they had not received the alert.
The British Red Cross welcomed the test but called for “tailored and targeted advice for people, especially those who may be more at-risk” of how to respond in the face of an emergency.
Chief executive Béatrice Butsana-Sita said: “The real test will be how this translates into tangible action, down to community and household level, so that we aren’t just warned but prepared and everyone is ready to respond in an emergency.”
And the Centre for Long-term Resilience said the UK’s national preparedness is “being tested to an unprecedented extent”, and welcomed the government’s recognition of that.
Users will have to acknowledge the alert, which will include telephone numbers or links to government websites with further information, before they can access any other features on their phones.
The alerts will not work if phones are switched off or in flight mode, or if people opt out of the scheme, and it is estimated that they will reach about 90 per cent of mobile phones in a given area, via 4G and 5G phone networks.
Previous alerts have read: “This is a test of emergency alerts, a new UK government service that will warn you if there’s a life-threatening emergency nearby.
Alert systems have been used successfully in a number of other countries, including the US, Canada, the Netherlands and Japan, during incidents such as severe weather events.
Separately, the government confirmed it is conducting a pandemic preparedness exercise dubbed Exercise Pegasus.
Jury shown footage of ‘brothers in airport brawl with police officers’
A jury has been shown new CCTV and bodycam footage of two brothers allegedly assaulting police officers in a fight at Manchester Airport last year.
Mohammed Fahir Amaaz, 20, and his brother, Muhammad Amaad, 26, have been accused of attacking officers who were responding to an incident at a Starbucks in the airport’s Terminal 2 arrivals area on 23 July 2024.
CCTV footage shows Pc Zachary Marsden and Pc Ellie Cook, who were both armed, and unarmed Pc Lydia Ward approaching the brothers in the airport’s car park paystation after the incident.
The prosecution say Amaaz resisted as police tried to move him away from a payment machine to arrest him, and then his brother, Amaad, intervened.
They told the court on Monday that Amaaz threw 10 punches, including one to the face of Pc Ward that knocked her to the floor, and that Amaad aimed six punches at firearms officer Pc Marsden.
Amaaz is also said to have kicked Pc Marsden and twice struck firearms officer Pc Cook with his elbow, then punched Pc Marsden from behind and took hold of him before Pc Cook discharged her Taser device.
Amaaz is alleged to have assaulted the officers causing them actual bodily harm and is also accused of the earlier assault of a member of the public, Abdulkareem Ismaeil, at Starbucks.
Amaad, 26, is alleged to have assaulted Pc Marsden, causing actual bodily harm.
Both men, from Rochdale, Greater Manchester, deny the allegations.
Giving evidence in court, Pc Marsden said he approached the accused with the intention of escorting the suspect from the crowd and to arrest him outside where he would have radio signal.
He said he placed his hands on Amaaz’s left arm, but said he was “met with immediate resistance” and that he felt the suspect “clench his fists”.
Pc Marsden said he realised a change in plan was needed so decided to attempt to handcuff Amaaz, the man wearing the light blue tracksuit.
The officer said he then felt an “immense weight of pressure” to his right side and felt his Glock 17 semi-automatic pistol move across his leg and around his body, and feared someone was “trying to get his gun”.
He then described receiving “blows from all directions” from the second man, causing his glasses to be knocked off his face.
Pc Marsden said he managed to break free from Amaad and deploy his Taser against him before he felt a blow to the head from behind and someone on his back.
When he felt an arm “wrap round my throat” he told the court he believed there could be a third attacker.
He said, at the time, he had not realised his colleague Pc Cook had discharged her Taser at Amaaz as he held on to him. He recalled freeing himself before going down to arrest the man on the floor.
Prosecutor Paul Greaney KC asked the officer about suggestions that he stamped on Amaaz’s head. Pc Marsden denied this.
Pc Marsden told the court: “He (Amaaz) ignored my commands to put his arms around his back. His chest lifted off the floor and his head towards me.
“He was attempting to get off the floor. I needed to deliver one strike to the facial region to stun the subject.
“Using the soft-laced part of my boot I delivered a kick to the facial region, which would buy me valuable seconds in order to take control and hopefully dissuade the subject from trying to get up again.”
The trial continues on Tuesday when Pc Marsden will be cross-examined by the defence.
The Salt Path author accused of embezzling money before losing house
The Salt Path author has been accused of embezzling money from a former employer and inventing the reason she and her husband lost their home, which inspired their best-selling memoir.
In the 2018 book, which has since been adapted into a film starring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs, it is claimed that Raynor and Moth Winn undertook the 630-mile walk along the South West Coast Path after they lost their home following a failed business venture with a friend. The book also details Moth’s illness, when he was diagnosed with a fatal neurological condition, called corticobasal degeneration, also known as CBD.
It has now been claimed in an investigation by The Observer that Raynor and Moth Winn’s real names are Sally and Tim Walker respectively. Martin Hemmings, Sally Walker’s boss, and his wife Ros suspected Sally of stealing a large amount of money.
According to the report, Martin Hemmings, who owned an estate agency, noticed in 2008 that Raynor Winn had failed to deposit a significant sum in the bank. Ros Hemmings told The Observer: “So we brought all the books home and started working backwards through them. There was around £9,000 missing over the previous few months.”
It is claimed that after being confronted about the issue, Winn pleaded with Hemmings to repay the missing funds. Ros Hemmings told The Observer that her family had accepted Winn’s offer to repay the missing funds but that the false narrative depicted in the book had upset her.
Hemmings explained: “Her claims [in the book] that it was all just a business deal that went wrong really upset me. When really she had embezzled the money from my husband. It made me feel sick. In the end, I think it was around £64,000 that Raynor Winn had nicked over the previous few years.”
Once the allegations had been established, Winn was reportedly taken in for questioning and was sent home the same night. She was told to return the next day for a further interview but according to Michael Strain, the Hemmings’ solicitor, “she had vanished”.
To repay the money she allegedly owed, Winn reportedly borrowed £100,000 from a relative on the basis that her former boss would not pursue criminal charges. Hemmings says her husband agreed to the proposal and the police did not pursue any charges against Winn over the alleged theft.
Ultimately, the couple lost their home in a 2012 court case, after the couple failed to repay the loan from the relative. Winn claims in the book that the couple have been homeless since 2013 butThe Observer alleges that they have owned a house in France since 2007, although it is now uninhabitable.
The investigation by The Observer also raised doubts about Moth Winn’s condition, as life expectancy for someone diagnosed with the illness is six to eight years, according to neurologists.
Experts that The Observer spoke to told the publication that anyone living with the illness for more than 12 years would need around-the-clock care. According to The Salt Path, Moth has now been living with the condition for 18 years – but has no apparent visible symptoms.
In a statement given to The Independent, a spokesperson for Raynor Winn said: “Yesterday’s Observer article is highly misleading. We are taking legal advice and won’t be making any further comments at this time. The Salt Path lays bare the physical and spiritual journey Moth and I shared, an experience that transformed us completely and altered the course of our lives. This is the true story of our journey.”
The Salt Path, which was written by Raynor Winn, has sold more than two million copies since its release in 2018 and documents the couple’s 630-mile walk from Somerset to Dorset. It is described as a “life-affirming true story of coming to terms with grief and the healing power of the natural world”.
Labour donor ‘nervous’ about Starmer after winter fuel ‘fiasco’
The most high-profile billionaire Labour party donor has revealed he is “increasingly nervous” about the direction Keir Starmer’s government is taking.
John Caudwell – who switched allegiance from the Tories – also hit out at Labour’s winter fuel payments cut “fiasco” as well as the welfare rebellion, declaring that the party has done a bad job at telling the right story to the electorate.
The Phones 4u founder – who has a fortune of £1.58bn but has promised to give away more than 70 per cent of it – warned a wealth tax would be “very destructive” to growth, as he called on ministers to do more to bring investment into the UK.
The 72-year-old’s comments come as Sir Keir is reportedly facing another rebellion from his backbenchers over reforms to support for children with special needs in England, just days after he was forced into the humiliating climbdown on benefit cuts.
Mr Caudwell was previously a Tory backer for many years, donating £500,000 to the Conservatives ahead of the 2019 general election, making him one of the party’s biggest donors. But for last year’s election, he pledged to vote Labour for the time ever.
However, Mr Caudwell has now said he is in “despair of politicians”, The Guardian reported.
And despite being a prominent Brexit supporter, he said the urgent need to tackle the climate crisis is the reason he could never support Reform UK.
He also called on Labour to do more on net zero, describing schemes such as Great British Energy as “lacking in ambition”, although he welcomed green energy plans that the party has implemented.
He added that, despite his background in mobile phones, he fears social media and AI are a “disaster” for anxiety and said he is worried for a future in which AI fakes become the norm.
Speaking of Sir Keir’s party, the businessman said: “They’re just going to be tossed from pillar to post, that’s how it feels. I am becoming increasingly nervous about what Labour are doing and especially when they get into this mess over the welfare bill because it feels as though there’s anarchy within the party.”
However, he did say he welcomed some key changes from Labour, citing pension funds reform and planning changes.
Speaking during the launch of a report from his charity Caudwell Youth, he continued: “There seems to be a lack of that commercial intellect that we desperately need in government to make long-term right decisions…
“I despair of politicians in general. You’ve got to attract inward investment to create high-paid jobs and in technology, sciences and especially in the environment, since that’s going to be the absolute future of mankind.
“There’s so much we need to do and there’s so little we do, and that was the Conservative party before and now it’s the Labour party.”
However, he insisted he did not regret switching allegiance.
Mr Caudwell called on Sir Keir to be bolder in his second year leading the country. “I’d be a bit like a [version of] Trump who’s smart and who’s humanitarian,” he said. “And I’d force things through. You wouldn’t do any of the same things [as Trump], but it is what we need.”
However, he raised concerns that Nigel Farage would be “too much of a Trumpite” if he ever became prime minister. Mr Caudwell said: “That would not be healthy for Britain at all. But a lot of what he says makes a lot of sense to me. He’s able to talk very directly to people’s concerns.”
‘Full of rats’: Children facing almost-Dickensian levels of poverty
The Children’s Commissioner has warned some young people in England are living in an “almost-Dickensian level of poverty” as a new report reveals the “real hardship” facing some families.
Black mould in a bedroom and rats in a kitchen were among some of the examples given by young people for the commissioner’s review, as the government prepares to publish a child poverty strategy in autumn.
The latest official estimates, for the year to March 2024, suggest there were a record 4.45 million children living in poverty in the UK.
While some feel a sense of shame over their situation, Dame Rachel de Souza said it is “society at large and decision-makers that should be ashamed of the fact that children don’t have enough money”.
A multitude of campaign groups have said the government’s new strategy must contain a commitment to do away with the two-child benefit limit.
The limit, which came into effect under the Conservatives in April 2017, restricts child tax credit and universal credit (UC) to the first two children in most households.
Organisations working in the sector argue that 109 children across the UK are pulled into poverty by the policy every day and that an estimated 350,000 children would be lifted out of poverty immediately if it was scrapped.
But comments by Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson at the weekend have raised concerns the policy might not be done away with, amid financial pressures following the U-turn on welfare reforms.
Ms Phillipson said spending decisions have been made “harder” after the watering down of the welfare reforms.
Pressed on whether the chances of the benefit cap going are now slimmer, Ms Phillipson told BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg: “The decisions that have been taken in the last week do make decisions, future decisions harder.
“But all of that said, we will look at this collectively in terms of all of the ways that we can lift children out of poverty.”
Estimates for the cost of scrapping the policy vary, from around £2.6 billion to £3.5 billion by the end of this Parliament (2029/30).
Dame Rachel – whose office was commissioned to carry out its report to feed into the Government’s work in the area – said while there is “no quick fix to ending child poverty”, she feels it is “very clear that any child poverty strategy must be built on the foundation of scrapping the two-child limit”.
She added that a new approach is needed which “stops sidelining children’s voices”, saying that “only by listening to children, and acting in response, will we get close to solving those problems”.
The commissioner said in recent years she has seen a change in children’s comments, noting that issues traditionally seen as “adult” concerns “are now keenly felt by children, who see their parents’ worries and the struggles they face: the hours they work, the homes they live in and the ability to put food on the table”.
She added: “Children shared harrowing accounts of hardship, with some in almost-Dickensian levels of poverty.
“They don’t talk about ‘poverty’ as an abstract concept but about not having the things that most people would consider basic: a safe home that isn’t mouldy or full of rats, with a bed big enough to stretch out in, ‘luxury’ food like bacon, a place to do homework, heating, privacy in the bathroom and being able to wash, having their friends over, and not having to travel hours to school.”
While commending “some positive steps by the Government to get more money into families’ pockets”, she urged “bold, practical measures that break the link between a child’s background and their opportunities”.
The commissioner’s report, based on the experiences of 128 children across the country between January and March this year, noted a range of concerns including lack of access to quality, healthy food and living in cramped and poor conditions.
As well as calling for the two-child benefit limit to be scrapped, Dame Rachel urged a commitment to a so-called “triple-lock” for uprating all child-related benefits, reforms to ensure families are not being housed in temporary bed and breakfast accommodation for longer than the legal six-week limit, free bus travel for all school-aged children in England and better safety measures in areas with children in low-income families including increased street lighting, and more neighbourhood watch-style initiatives.
A government spokesperson said: “We are determined to bring down child poverty. We’ve just announced a new £1 billion package to reform crisis support, including funding to ensure the poorest children do not go hungry outside of term time.
“This comes alongside the expansion to free breakfast clubs, investing £39 billion in social and affordable housing, increasing the national minimum wage and supporting 700,000 of the poorest families by introducing a Fair Repayment Rate on Universal Credit deductions.
“As part of our plan for change, the Child Poverty Taskforce will publish an ambitious strategy later this year to ensure we deliver fully-funded measures that tackle the structural and root causes of child poverty across the country.”
When my friends were facing cancer, a community of people stepped up
When I was younger, I used to worry incessantly about my parents getting cancer. I’d lay awake at night, ruminating on what would happen to my brother and I if they did. Who would support us? Thankfully, both are still cancer-free, well into their seventies.
However, now that I’m a parent myself, I worry about my children. Many people believe that cancer only really happens to people in old age, but that’s just not true. One beloved friend’s daughter died of leukaemia in 2020, aged just five; an unthinkable horror that changed the lives of everyone who knew her and her family.
And with Macmillan Cancer Support reporting that almost 3.5 million people in the UK are living with cancer, I also worry about my friends – parents themselves, their lives touched by cancer. One friend sat me down in our favourite local café, our toddlers playing at our feet, to break the news that she was about to undergo a double mastectomy. We cried together.
Another friend, Sarah, a single parent to two teenage girls, was diagnosed with breast cancer the day before we heard that King Charles had cancer, and a month before the Princess of Wales, Kate Middleton, announced her own diagnosis in March last year. It seemed like cancer was everywhere.
As a result, Sarah put 2024 on hold – she missed her daughter’s last sports day and last concert at primary school and had to find a whole new way of co-ordinating family life.
“I’m lucky in some ways that my children are teenagers, so they are able to look after themselves to some degree – but I’m also a single parent, so there are some things that they can’t do, or struggle with, due to their age,” she tells me.
“I have even set up multiple alarms on our Alexa reminding them to put their packed lunches in their bags or leave for school, just in case I can’t get up.”
Sarah says she thought she knew quite a lot about cancer prior to her diagnosis, but now admits she “really didn’t”. She explains: “There are so many terms and procedures to understand – stages and grades, not to mention over 100 different chemotherapy drugs.”
Sarah tells me about the exhausting cumulative effect of chemotherapy, which she endured every three weeks during her cancer treatment: “After the very first lot, I slept for a few hours and felt much better pretty quickly. For my last rounds, I slept for 48 hours solid and even days later, I needed to have a nap in the middle of the day and was in bed by 8pm.”
Sarah’s now finished chemotherapy and, a year on from her diagnosis, is turning 50. She’s throwing a huge party to celebrate not only the birthday milestone, but getting over this “annus horriblis” – a year she couldn’t have gotten through without the people around her.
“People can do so much for us when we are unwell – and I am forever grateful,” she says. “I’ve been really overwhelmed by the support that my friends have given me; from ferrying around my children to and from after-school events and sleepovers when things get bad, to my 75-year-old neighbour mowing the lawn. One friend popped round with a huge pot of pasta sauce and I even had a gift box from a recruiter at work.”
What talking to my strong, resilient friends about their cancer journeys has made me realise most, is the power of community: for when we receive the worst news imaginable, what we need is people around us to see us through. A community of other women: friends, school mums, neighbours.
They had people willing to make them food, pick up their children, go shopping for them or to just sit with them and listen. They had support when they decided to raise money for cancer support charities, when they did fundraisers such as hosting a Macmillan Coffee Morning.
It takes a village to raise a child – and that village will be with you every step of the way when you need them most.
Find out how you can help raise vital funds by hosting a Macmillan Coffee Morning. Sign up now on the Macmillan website
Macmillan Cancer Support, registered charity in England and Wales (261017), Scotland (SC039907) and the Isle of Man (604). Also operating in Northern Ireland.
Watchdog claims Captain Tom Foundation probe has not impacted trust
Public trust in charities remains remarkably robust, even in the wake of high-profile controversies such as the investigation into the Captain Tom Foundation, new figures reveal.
The Charity Commission, the sector’s independent watchdog, reported that overall confidence in charitable organisations has “not been impacted and has remained stable.” This enduring faith places charities above institutions like banks, the police, and even the general public in terms of public trust.
While high levels of trust saw a marginal 1 per cent dip to 57 per cent this year, and low levels edged up from 9 per cent to 10 per cent, the Commission stressed that such minor fluctuations are not statistically significant, indicating a consistent level of public confidence compared to the previous year.
The daughter of pandemic fundraising hero Captain Sir Tom Moore and her husband were accused of “repeated” misconduct in a report published in November by the commission into the running of the foundation set up in his name.
Sir Tom became a household name in the midst of Covid-19, raising millions for NHS charities by walking laps of his garden in lockdown.
But separately, a £1.4 million book deal and an £18,000 awards ceremony appearance fee were among the financial benefits Hannah and Colin Ingram-Moore enjoyed through their family links to the Captain Tom Foundation.
The millions raised by Sir Tom and donated to NHS Charities Together before the foundation was formed were not part of the commission’s inquiry.
The commission’s report found a “repeated pattern of behaviour” which saw Mr and Mrs Ingram-Moore make private gains and which the watchdog said will have left the public feeling “misled”.
But, in annual research, the commission said average trust in charities has remained consistently high since 2020, with greater levels of trust among the public for charities than for banks, police, social services, the ordinary person on the street, private companies, local councils, newspapers, MPs and Government ministers.
Only doctors came out with a more favourable result, with 68% of the 4,092 people surveyed saying they had a high level of trust in the medical professionals.
The Captain Tom charity investigation was one of the main reasons people said they were aware of the commission, and the regulator said its handling of that inquiry appeared to have increased positivity towards the watchdog.
In its report, it stated: “While there have been high levels of awareness of the Captain Tom Foundation, overall trust in charities has not been impacted and has remained stable, maybe due to how the Charity Commission have handled the investigation.
“Focus group participants were balanced in their views, as while actions of high-profile charities could impact their trust, there was also a sense that it wasn’t fair to question all charities due to the actions of a few.”
Earlier this year a foundation spokesperson revealed the family had demanded Sir Tom’s name be removed from the charity, changing it from the Captain Tom Foundation to the 1189808 Foundation, reflecting the organisation’s charity number.
A commission spokesperson said: “Despite some high-profile examples of charity wrongdoing over the last year, these results suggest the public are well aware such instances are very rare.
“This points to the benefits all charities gain from effective, visible regulation, which gives the public confidence in supporting registered charities with their money and time.”
Overall, almost two-thirds of people (64%) of those surveyed said they believed most of the money raised by charities goes to the end cause, up 7% on the previous year.
The commission’s annual survey also showed that the proportion of people getting food, medical or financial support from charitable organisations has increased in recent years, from 3% in 2020 to 9%.
In this same period, the proportion of people donating to or fundraising for charity fell from 62% to 48%, with the commission noting that “households have felt the pinch”.
The proportion had already fallen below half last year, dipping to 47%.
The survey findings also suggested charities campaigning on issues either makes people more likely to support the organisation or makes no difference.
Charity Commission chief executive David Holdsworth said: “The data paints both a challenging picture and a hopeful one – showing a sector that continues to be a bedrock of support and community for people across the country as well as overseas, despite navigating unprecedented demand in an increasingly unstable global landscape.”
‘We don’t have any access’: Iran’s president backs Trump’s claims of damage caused by US strikes in interview
Iranian President Mahmoud Pezeshkian offered a rare moment of insight regarding the state of his country’s nuclear program over the weekend in an interview with Tucker Carlson that was published Monday.
U.S. forces struck three facilities across Iran associated with the development of nuclear weapons on June 22. The Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan sites were hit with an array of weaponry including “bunker-buster” bombs dropped by B-52 bombers with the capability of damaging or destroying underground targets. An initial intelligence assessment obtained by Reuters and other news outlets reported that the strikes only set Iranian development efforts back by months, but the White House and Defense Department have insisted that further assessments put the damage at a greater level than was initially reported.
In the lead-up to the interview’s publication, Carlson told viewers of his channel that he didn’t ask Pezeshkian about the status of the nuclear program and the country’s weapons development, given that he expected the Iranian government to be deceptive on the matter.
Still, the Iranian president offered a comment about the program’s fate offhandedly during the interview, telling Carlson: “the facilities there have been severely damaged, and therefore we don’t have any access to them, and we cannot see – unless this access is going to be [restored], we have to wait…to see how much they have been damaged.”
The admission that Iranian officials are apparently still unable to access the underground facilities targeted by U.S. strikes lends credence to the Trump administration’s assertions that heavy damage was done, potentially knocking them totally out of commission for the foreseeable future.
An initial U.S. intelligence assessment was leaked to the press and caused headaches for the administration as it claimed that Iran’s stockpile of uranium was not hit during the attack and that centrifuges at the three sites were mostly intact following the strikes.
Officials including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth angrily scolded reporters after publication of the assessment, which they blamed on an effort to make the president look bad.
A report from the Wall Street Journal in the days after the initial assessment’s leak detailed a separate assessment delivered to members of Congress by CIA Director John Ratcliffe.
According to Ratcliffe, the strikes were successful in achieving total destruction of the metals conversion site at Esfahan, which was Iran’s only known facility capable of converting enriched uranium into metal — a key final-stage process in production of a weapon, and a capacity that Iran will require years to rebuild.
International Atomic Energy Agency director Rafael Grossi told CBS News in late June that Iran could be producing enriched uranium again within a matter of months, explaining that the country’s nuclear program did not suffer “total” destruction. But the lack of a metals conversion facility could mean that the country is incapable of producing anything beyond a relatively unsophisticated weapon, unless it harbors a secret second site outside of Esfahan.
The Times of Israel reported one expert as saying that it was a credible possibility for Iran to have another hidden metal conversion site.
“It is clear that there has been severe damage, but it’s not total damage, first of all,” Gross said. “And secondly, Iran has the capacities there; industrial and technological capacities. So if they so wish, they will be able to start doing this again.”
NBC News reported in late June that experts believed the destruction of Iran’s air defense systems and continued efforts by Israeli intelligence to uncover hidden aspects of Iran’s nuclear capabilities would make keeping a site like Esfahan hidden a near impossibility.
“Iran’s principal challenge in pursuing a covert pathway is going to be keeping it hidden from U.S. and Israeli detection,” Eric Brewer of the Nuclear Threat Initiative told NBC.
“That’s the key challenge, because both countries, particularly Israel, have demonstrated an ability to penetrate Iran’s nuclear program.”