Iran is not seeking a nuclear weapon, despite UN assessments that Tehran has rapidly increased enrichment of uranium to levels sufficient to build several weapons.
That is the view of the US intelligence community in its Annual Threat Assessment, released on March 25.
“We continue to assess Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and that [supreme leader Ali] Khamenei has not reauthorised the nuclear weapons programme he suspended in 2003, though pressure has probably built on him to do so,” the report said.
“In the past year, there has been an erosion of a decades-long taboo on discussing nuclear weapons in public that has emboldened nuclear weapons advocates within Iran’s decision-making apparatus. Khamenei remains the final decision maker over Iran’s nuclear programme,” the document said.
US intelligence community view
The 31-page report represents the joint view of up to 18 US intelligence agencies, from the CIA – the US foreign intelligence service, to the Pentagon’s Defence Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, which monitors communications, and the National Reconnaissance Office, which operates spy satellites.
It could surprise observers listening to President Donald Trump, who has warned Iran to stop its nuclear research programme or face military consequences.
Israel has long threatened to bomb sites serving Iran's nuclear programme, which it views as developing a bomb, and has sought US assistance for what experts expect would be a days-long campaign of air strikes.
The report was published as Iran revealed more of its vast underground military infrastructure on Tuesday, some dedicated to protecting nuclear facilities from air attack, and some bases dedicated to housing drones and missiles.
Iranian state media showed a video of a subterranean “missile city” being toured by Maj Gen Mohammad Hossein Bagheri, chief of staff of Iran’s Armed Forces, and Amir Ali Hajizadeh, who commands the aerospace forces of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Iran has shown several similar underground bases in the past, housing drones, attack boats and even fighter aircraft including US-made F-4 Phantoms supplied to the US-backed regime of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in the 1970s.
Warhead challenge
The US assessment makes no estimate of how close Iran might be to a nuclear bomb, if it desired to develop one, only noting that Mr Khamenei is the final decision maker.
Clement Therme, a non-Resident Fellow at the International Institute for Iranian Studies, agrees with the US assessment.
“Since the beginning of the Iranian nuclear file on the international scene in 2002, Iran’s nuclear programme has been primarily about leverage – using its capabilities as a bargaining chip to extract concessions from the West while stopping short of weaponisation,” he said.
“Iran has a history of using nuclear advancements as a pressure tool in negotiations, particularly after the US withdrawal from the JCPOA (2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) in 2018.
“At the same time, Iran has accumulated significant technical know-how and stockpiles of highly enriched uranium, which shorten its theoretical breakout time. In other words, Iran is a threshold nuclear state: the decision to weaponise or not weaponise is not a technical one but a political one.”
The UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Iran could have material for several bombs if it chose, based on its calculations of Tehran's current stockpile of uranium enriched above 60 per cent. Nuclear bombs require uranium enriched to 90 per cent, but experts say the leap from 60 to 90 per cent enrichment is a minor technicality.
However, nuclear weapons are particularly heavy and it is not clear whether Iran could build a bomb small enough to be carried by a missile, a process known as miniaturisation that is regarded as a tough engineering challenge.
The reliability of an Iranian weapon – whether it would definitely explode if used – is also the subject of scientific speculation.
Most public knowledge about Iran’s weapons programme was released in 2018, when Israeli agents – or people acting on behalf of the Mossad intelligence agency – broke into a warehouse outside Tehran and stole a trove of documents from the nuclear archive.
The documents, analysed and verified by the UN and other experts, detail Iran’s efforts at Parchin, a huge military centre associated with missile research, in particular efforts to compress nuclear material with high implosive force, using shaped explosive charges.
According to the Institute for Science and International Security, the work was conducted in the early 2000s and may have been halted in 2003. The institute said that a document leaked in 2009 suggests that research to develop an “initiator” for a nuclear explosion may have continued.
Since then, experts have only been able to guess as to Iran’s true nuclear ambitions and whether large facilities, many of them inspected by the UN under the 2015 nuclear deal, could be hiding the full extent of its nuclear project.
The institute detailed the complexity of the nuclear detonator research conducted at Parchin in 2019.
“The timing of the explosion and resulting shock waves would need to be near perfect in order to create enough fusion to result in a spurt of neutrons, both in a reliable manner and at exactly the right instant. The experiment itself is very difficult to do,” the institute said.
“Until now, for the sake of the survival of the Iranian political system, the decision of the supreme leader has been not to weaponise Iranian nuclear activities while at the same time increasing its comprehensive nuclear activities and research programme to retain the option to seek nuclear weapons if the political calculus at the top-level decision making process of the Iranian state,” Mr Therme says.
In October last year, sources told US news site Axios that a round of Israeli strikes on Iran had hit facilities for “active” nuclear weapon research, without elaborating.
Despite the assessment that Iran is not pursuing a nuclear bomb, the US intelligence report says “Tehran will try to leverage its robust missile capability and expanded nuclear programme” to pressure the US, Israel and other opponents.
New UK refugee system
- A new “core protection” for refugees moving from permanent to a more basic, temporary protection
- Shortened leave to remain - refugees will receive 30 months instead of five years
- A longer path to settlement with no indefinite settled status until a refugee has spent 20 years in Britain
- To encourage refugees to integrate the government will encourage them to out of the core protection route wherever possible.
- Under core protection there will be no automatic right to family reunion
- Refugees will have a reduced right to public funds
Match info
Deccan Gladiators 87-8
Asif Khan 25, Dwayne Bravo 2-16
Maratha Arabians 89-2
Chadwick Walton 51 not out
Arabians won the final by eight wickets
Who has lived at The Bishops Avenue?
- George Sainsbury of the supermarket dynasty, sugar magnate William Park Lyle and actress Dame Gracie Fields were residents in the 1930s when the street was only known as ‘Millionaires’ Row’.
- Then came the international super rich, including the last king of Greece, Constantine II, the Sultan of Brunei and Indian steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal who was at one point ranked the third richest person in the world.
- Turkish tycoon Halis Torprak sold his mansion for £50m in 2008 after spending just two days there. The House of Saud sold 10 properties on the road in 2013 for almost £80m.
- Other residents have included Iraqi businessman Nemir Kirdar, singer Ariana Grande, holiday camp impresario Sir Billy Butlin, businessman Asil Nadir, Paul McCartney’s former wife Heather Mills.
Hunting park to luxury living
- Land was originally the Bishop of London's hunting park, hence the name
- The road was laid out in the mid 19th Century, meandering through woodland and farmland
- Its earliest houses at the turn of the 20th Century were substantial detached properties with extensive grounds
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Terror attacks in Paris, November 13, 2015
- At 9.16pm, three suicide attackers killed one person outside the Atade de France during a foootball match between France and Germany
- At 9.25pm, three attackers opened fire on restaurants and cafes over 20 minutes, killing 39 people
- Shortly after 9.40pm, three other attackers launched a three-hour raid on the Bataclan, in which 1,500 people had gathered to watch a rock concert. In total, 90 people were killed
- Salah Abdeslam, the only survivor of the terrorists, did not directly participate in the attacks, thought to be due to a technical glitch in his suicide vest
- He fled to Belgium and was involved in attacks on Brussels in March 2016. He is serving a life sentence in France
UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
So what is Spicy Chickenjoy?
Just as McDonald’s has the Big Mac, Jollibee has Spicy Chickenjoy – a piece of fried chicken that’s crispy and spicy on the outside and comes with a side of spaghetti, all covered in tomato sauce and topped with sausage slices and ground beef. It sounds like a recipe that a child would come up with, but perhaps that’s the point – a flavourbomb combination of cheap comfort foods. Chickenjoy is Jollibee’s best-selling product in every country in which it has a presence.
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
How green is the expo nursery?
Some 400,000 shrubs and 13,000 trees in the on-site nursery
An additional 450,000 shrubs and 4,000 trees to be delivered in the months leading up to the expo
Ghaf, date palm, acacia arabica, acacia tortilis, vitex or sage, techoma and the salvadora are just some heat tolerant native plants in the nursery
Approximately 340 species of shrubs and trees selected for diverse landscape
The nursery team works exclusively with organic fertilisers and pesticides
All shrubs and trees supplied by Dubai Municipality
Most sourced from farms, nurseries across the country
Plants and trees are re-potted when they arrive at nursery to give them room to grow
Some mature trees are in open areas or planted within the expo site
Green waste is recycled as compost
Treated sewage effluent supplied by Dubai Municipality is used to meet the majority of the nursery’s irrigation needs
Construction workforce peaked at 40,000 workers
About 65,000 people have signed up to volunteer
Main themes of expo is ‘Connecting Minds, Creating the Future’ and three subthemes of opportunity, mobility and sustainability.
Expo 2020 Dubai to open in October 2020 and run for six months
More from UAE Human Development Report:
Heavily-sugared soft drinks slip through the tax net
Some popular drinks with high levels of sugar and caffeine have slipped through the fizz drink tax loophole, as they are not carbonated or classed as an energy drink.
Arizona Iced Tea with lemon is one of those beverages, with one 240 millilitre serving offering up 23 grams of sugar - about six teaspoons.
A 680ml can of Arizona Iced Tea costs just Dh6.
Most sports drinks sold in supermarkets were found to contain, on average, five teaspoons of sugar in a 500ml bottle.
GAC GS8 Specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4cyl turbo
Power: 248hp at 5,200rpm
Torque: 400Nm at 1,750-4,000rpm
Transmission: 8-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 9.1L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh149,900
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Pad Man
Dir: R Balki
Starring: Akshay Kumar, Sonam Kapoor, Radhika Apte
Three-and-a-half stars
Tips from the expert
Dobromir Radichkov, chief data officer at dubizzle and Bayut, offers a few tips for UAE residents looking to earn some cash from pre-loved items.
- Sellers should focus on providing high-quality used goods at attractive prices to buyers.
- It’s important to use clear and appealing photos, with catchy titles and detailed descriptions to capture the attention of prospective buyers.
- Try to advertise a realistic price to attract buyers looking for good deals, especially in the current environment where consumers are significantly more price-sensitive.
- Be creative and look around your home for valuable items that you no longer need but might be useful to others.
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Brief scores:
Kashima Antlers 0
River Plate 4
Zuculini 24', Martinez 73', 90 2', Borre 89' (pen)
Miss Granny
Director: Joyce Bernal
Starring: Sarah Geronimo, James Reid, Xian Lim, Nova Villa
3/5
(Tagalog with Eng/Ar subtitles)
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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Company%20Profile
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FIXTURES
New Zealand v France, second Test
Saturday, 12.35pm (UAE)
Auckland, New Zealand
South Africa v Wales
Sunday, 12.40am (UAE), San Juan, Argentina
Silent Hill f
Publisher: Konami
Platforms: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC
Rating: 4.5/5
Tentative schedule of 2017/18 Ashes series
1st Test November 23-27, The Gabba, Brisbane
2nd Test December 2-6, Adelaide Oval, Adelaide
3rd Test Dcember 14-18, Waca, Perth
4th Test December 26-30, Melbourne Cricket Ground, Melbourne
5th Test January 4-8, Sydney Cricket Ground, Sydney
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
