A Scottish schoolgirl’s message in a bottle has finally received a reply more than 30 years later – after being discovered in Norway.

Alaina Beresford, from Portknockie in Moray, sent the message in 1994 when she was 12 as part of a school project.

It washed up across the North Sea where it was found by a volunteer cleaning up a Norwegian island – who then dispatched a postcard to the delighted sender to let her know.

Alaina told BBC Scotland News she could not believe her original letter was in such good condition after three decades.

Her handwritten letter had been sent in an empty bottle of Moray Cup, a fizzy drink produced in the north east of Scotland.

It said: “Dear finder. My name is Alaina Stephen and I am 12 years of age. I come from Portknockie and I am doing a project on water so I decided to send a message in a bottle.

“My teacher’s husband took them and dropped them in the middle of the ocean.

“When you find this message, please write back with your name, hobbies, where you found the message, when, and if you could, a little information about your area. Yours sincerely, Alaina Stephen. PS I come from Scotland.”

Now, 31 years on, Alaina has received a postcard from Pia Brodtmann, telling her the good news, with pictures of the find.

It said: “My name is Pia and I am from Germany. Today I found your message in a bottle on Lisshelløya, a tiny island around Vega in Norway.

“I am here for beach cleaning as a volunteer for four months and today we cleaned Lisshelløya. On the front of the postcard you can see our workboat Nemo and our sailboat Fonn, where we live. You can also see the area around Vega. I wonder when and where your teacher’s husband threw your bottle in the ocean?”

It added: “PS I am 27 years old and I like rock climbing and sailing a lot!”

Alaina, now 42, said she was stunned when she picked up the post and noticed the postcard addressed to herself.

“I’m at the same address,” she said.

“I did live in Buckie, and another house in Portknockie for a while, but moved back in with my parents.

“I couldn’t believe it, as I had sent it when I was 12 years old, 31 years ago.”

Alaina was able to find Pia via social media, and messaged her asking to send a photo of her letter.

“I was shocked when she did, I couldn’t believe how legible it was,” she said.

“I can’t remember actually writing the message, but I do remember it was a Moray Cup bottle, and that my teacher’s husband had dropped it into the sea when he was a fisherman.

“According to my message, I had done it as part of a project on water. It was when I was in P7.”

She added: “Pia and I have been keeping in touch and hopefully we will continue to do so.”

A photo of the Prince of Wales with another generation – this time of puppies – has been posted on social media by Kensington Palace to mark his 43rd birthday.

The picture, taken by the Princess of Wales, shows Prince William with their family’s Cocker spaniel, Orla, and three of her four recently-arrived puppies.

The message for Prince William was signed online “with love”, with the initials of Catherine and their children, George, Charlotte, Louis, and “the puppies”, plus a paw print emoji.

The picture was taken in Windsor earlier this month.

There was also a message online for Prince William from the official account of the Royal Family, saying “Happy Birthday to The Prince of Wales!”, plus some celebratory emojis.

An accompanying picture, of the prince sitting on a stone wall, was taken while he visited farmers and food producers on the Duchy of Cornwall – a parcel of land William now owns – in May.

Orla was given to the royal couple by Catherine’s brother, James Middleton, in 2020, shortly after the death of their previous dog Lupo.

The dog – seen walking behind William in the picture – gave birth to four puppies in May.

Spaniels are well known for their affectionate behaviour and the picture shows the puppies clambering around the prince.

In the puppy picture, the prince looks relaxed in a pair of jeans and trainers – an informal moment after recent showcase occasions, including Trooping the Colour and the Order of the Garter procession.

He also visited a project linked to his Earthshot environmental prize which creates a type of sustainable dye that can reduce the fashion industry’s use of harmful chemicals – so colours can really be green.

Catherine did not appear at Royal Ascot earlier this week, with royal aides saying she had to find a balance in how she returned to public events. In January, the princess revealed she was in remission after her cancer diagnosis last year.

On Friday, she sent out a message about her support for children’s hospices – saying they helped families who were “heartbroken, fearful of the future and often desperately isolated”.

And now her photo has marked her husband’s birthday.

While Prince William was born in mid-summer on the longest day of the year, his father King Charles has been praising those in Antarctica experiencing the shortest day of the year.

He recorded a special message for the BBC’s Antarctic Midwinter Broadcast, which sends a morale-raising message to scientists working in remote research stations in the depths of their winter.

The King praised the work of researchers tracking climate change.

Dame Esther Rantzen has appealed to the House of Lords not to block a bill giving terminally ill adults in England and Wales the right to an assisted death, after it was backed by MPs on Friday.

The Terminally Ill Adults Bill was passed by 314 votes to 291 in the House of Commons – but will need to go through the Lords before becoming law.

Broadcaster Dame Esther, who joined the Swiss assisted dying clinic Dignitas after being diagnosed with terminal lung cancer in 2023, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Their job is to scrutinise, to ask questions, but not to oppose.”

Critics of the bill, including Conservative peer Lord Shinkwin, say it could see disabled and vulnerable people being coerced into ending their lives.

This bill puts a price “on my head” and “the heads of so many disabled people” and older people, the prominent disability rights campaigner, who will get a vote in the Lords, told Today.

Some peers, including Lord Shinkwin, have indicated they will attempt to amend the legislation to introduce more safeguards.

Dame Esther, a prominent supporter of the bill, said she did not “need to teach the House of Lords how to do their job”.

“People who are adamantly opposed to this bill – and they have the perfect right to oppose it – will try and stop it going through the Lords.”

But she said the duty of peers was to make sure “law is actually created by the elected chamber, which is the House of Commons, who have voted this through”.

Even though MPs have approved the bill, peers in the Lords could stop it from becoming law by voting against it or not approving it quickly enough.

Under the proposals, mentally competent, terminally ill adults in England and Wales with a life expectancy of less than six months would be eligible for an assisted death.

They would need to make two separate declarations, signed and witnessed, about their “clear, settled and informed” wish to die, and satisfy two independent doctors that they are eligible and have not been coerced.

There would be at least a seven-day gap between each assessment.

The application would then go before a multi-disciplinary panel comprising a psychiatrist, a social worker and a lawyer.

If the panel approved the application, there would be a further 14-day “period of reflection” which could be cut to 48 hours if the patient is likely to die within a month.

Lord Shinkwin explained that, only a few months ago, he had been in intensive care and found himself in an “extremely vulnerable” state.

Had a doctor asked him at the time about assisted dying – which he said doctors would be allowed to do under the provision of the bill – he “would have felt under real pressure to do that”.

The Conservative peer said he had concerns that safeguards, such as those in the bill’s current form, could be eroded, as suggested they had been in other jurisdictions where assisted dying legislation had been enacted.

He added that some vulnerable groups – including older and disabled people – might feel they were a burden on “family, friends or society”.

“I have to say, as a disabled person, feeling you are a burden goes with the territory,” Lord Shinkwin said. “And I don’t want people to feel under pressure.”

Pressed about concerns that vulnerable people could be coerced into an assisted death, Dame Esther replied: “We have got this right.”

She said the bill set out a “rigorous” process. An assisted death would only be available to those with six months to live who chose to ask for help with ending their lives, and had that request approved by doctors and a panel of experts.

She added that that “disability will not qualify anyone for assisted dying, nor will mental disorder”.

Dame Esther said she was “deeply relieved” by Friday’s vote – though she noted it was unlikely to become law in her lifetime.

“At least I know that for future generations, if life becomes intolerable, unbearable, and they are terminally ill with six months or less to live, they will be able to ask for a pain-free, swift death.”

Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson, who will get a vote in the Lords, said that she had heard from “disabled people [who] are absolutely terrified” of the bill.

The former Paralympian told BBC Breakfast that it was the “job in the Lords” to go “line by line” to ensure all amendments were fairly debated, adding: “I do think there are a lot more safeguards that could be put in.”

The Commons vote in favour of the bill came after a debate that saw MPs tell their personal stories of seeing friends and relatives die.

It is likely, though not guaranteed, that the Lords will approve the bill later this year.

If that happens, ministers would have a maximum of four years to implement the measures, meaning assisted dying may not become available until 2029.

Conservative MP Danny Kruger, a vocal opponent of the move, said he hoped the Lords would either reject the proposed legislation or “substantially strengthen it”.

But Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, who proposed the bill, said she hoped there would be “no funny games” in the Lords, “because the process has been extremely thorough”.

The “close” margin in the Commons, Lord Shinkwin argued, shows that “many MPs would appreciate the opportunity” to look at the legislation again.

“If 12 members of Parliament had voted the other way, we would not be having this conversation right now.”

Any changes made in the House of Lords would also have to be approved by MPs before the bill could become law.

The legislation was approved with a majority of 23 MPs – less than half the margin of 55 in favour when it was first debated in November.

MPs were given a free vote on the bill, meaning they did not have to follow a party policy.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer backed the legislation, while Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch and Health Secretary Wes Streeting voted against it.

Tulsi Gabbard says Iran could produce nuclear weapons “within weeks”, months after she testified before Congress that the country was not building them.

The US Director of National Intelligence said her March testimony – in which she said Iran had a stock of materials but was not building these weapons – had been taken out of context by “dishonest media”.

Her change of position came after Donald Trump said she was “wrong” and that intelligence showed Iran had a “tremendous amount of material” and could have a nuclear weapon “within months”.

Iran has always said that its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful and that it has never sought to develop a nuclear weapon.

On Thursday Trump said he was giving Tehran the “maximum” of two weeks to reach a deal on its nuclear activities with Washington. He said he would soon decide whether the US should join Israel’s strikes on Iran.

Disagreement has been building within Trump’s “America First” movement over whether the US should enter the conflict.

On Saturday morning, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said his country was “absolutely ready for a negotiated solution” on their nuclear programme but that Iran “cannot go through negotiations with the US when our people are under bombardment”.

In her post on social media, Gabbard said US intelligence showed Iran is “at the point that it can produce a nuclear weapon within weeks to months”.

“President Trump has been clear that can’t happen, and I agree,” she added.

Gabbard shared a video of her full testimony before Congress in March, where she said US intelligence agencies had concluded Iran was not building nuclear weapons.

Experts also determined Iran had not resumed its suspended 2003 nuclear weapons programme, she added in the clip, even as the nation’s stockpile of enriched uranium – a component of such weapons – was at an all-time high.

In her testimony, she said Iran’s stock was “unprecedented for a state without nuclear weapons”.

Earlier this month, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) – the global nuclear watchdog – expressed concern about Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium, which can be used to make reactor fuel but also nuclear weapons.

Gabbard’s March testimony has been previously criticised by Trump, who earlier told reporters he did not “care what she said”.

The US president said he believes Iran were “very close to having a weapon” and his country would not allow that to happen.

In 2015, Iran agreed a long-term deal on its nuclear programme with a group of world powers after years of tension over the country’s alleged efforts to develop a nuclear weapon.

Iran had been engaging in talks with the US this year over its nuclear programme and was scheduled to hold a further round when Israel launched strikes on Iran on 13 June, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said targeted “the heart” of Iran’s nuclear programme.

“If not stopped, Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in a very short time,” Netanyahu claimed.

Israeli air strikes have destroyed Iranian military facilities and weapons, and killed senior military commanders and nuclear scientists.

Iran’s health ministry said on Saturday that at least 430 people had been killed, while a human rights group, the Human Rights Activists News Agency, put the unofficial death toll at 657 on Friday.

Iran has retaliated with missile and drone strikes against Israel, killing 25 people including one who suffered a heart attack.

“If this is true, all our troubles are over.”

A British businessman fast running out of cash, William Knox D’Arcy, is said to have uttered those words when he received a telegram from Persia, 113 years ago.

Oil had been discovered, after years of failed explorations under Knox D’Arcy, who had been granted the rights to hunt for the black stuff at the turn of the century.

For him, striking oil was to provide a second fortune after he’d made millions from Australian gold.

For the UK, Persia – later to become Iran – and for the rest of the world, it was the moment the Middle East’s financial and political fortunes became linked to the West like never before.

Knox D’Arcy’s cash problem might have been solved. But the troubles in the region were far from over.

This weekend, although ministers want to concentrate on their plans to make it easier to do business at home ahead of their industrial strategy being published next week, two big questions hang heavy.

What happens next in the hottest of conflicts in a vital region? And does the UK play a role?

Whether you like it or not, “it should matter, and it does matter” to the UK, according to one Whitehall source.

There is the fraught tangle of history. Not just the fortune from the first discovery of oil going into British coffers at the start of the last century.

But also the UK’s involvement in overturning the government in 1922, invading with the Russians during World War Two, backing another coup in 1953, then along with America, propping up the Shah until his exit in 1979, after months of turbulence and increasing protest against his regime. You can watch amazing archive of his departure here.

“We were all over them” for decades, one former senior minister observes.

Fast forward to modern times and successive governments have been deeply concerned about Iran’s ambitions to build a nuclear bomb.

There were efforts, particularly by the former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, to do deals that put weapons beyond reach. But there is acute worry now about Iranian activities in the UK itself.

Yesterday, seven men were arrested on suspicion of grievous bodily harm after two people were assaulted outside the Iranian embassy. The Met Police have said they believe the altercation happened between protesters supporting and opposing the Iranian monarchy.

Last month three alleged Iranian spies were charged for planning to commit serious violence against UK based journalists.

And the director general of MI5 said the UK has responded to 20 Iran-backed plots since the start of 2022, presenting potentially lethal threats here at home.

A source involved with an Iranian opposition group warned the regime, “has a massive network in the UK promoting terrorism and extremism – we’d never let the Russians get away with this… It’s happening on our streets”.

Ministers’ public focus is on diplomacy for now. As ever, it was a suggestion from US President Donald Trump that sent Whitehall into a spin. This time, the notion that America might help Israel take out Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The Foreign Secretary David Lammy jumped on to a plane to Washington. The government emergency committee, Cobra, convened. Everything went into overdrive before another update from team Trump.

Actually, he’d take a fortnight to think about it.

It left No 10 thinking, “everyone can take a breath – the two weeks and the volume of engagement means there is some tone of optimism – we’re just focusing on trying to calm things”, an insider said.

David Lammy spent more than an hour with Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, and Steve Witkoff, the president’s envoy, leaving with the impression there was still a chance for diplomacy, although the threat of America joining the military action is real.

It’s worth remembering there is deep disagreement in Trump’s party about whether to assist Israel or not.

As the foreign secretary was seeking information from his American hosts, the president had been having lunch with Steve Bannon, one of the foremost Make America Great Again (Maga) backers, who has been very loudly pressing Trump not to get involved.

Diplomacy then moved to Geneva, where Lammy and several European colleagues met the Iranian foreign minister. They repeated concerns about Iran’s nuclear ambitions and it breaking the international rules.

The talks finished with no fixed decisions on next moves or negotiations, but a willingness to try. Ultimately, the UK and European push is to keep talking, trying to stop the war spreading more widely. But some sources question whether this makes any difference.

“Europe is pretty irrelevant in all this,” one senior figure told me – and the American president even said it out loud.

“Iran doesn’t want to speak to Europe. They want to speak to us. Europe is not going to be able to help in this one, ” Trump said, dismissing the diplomatic discussions.

Other sources describe diplomacy as a “sticking plaster”, questioning how effective it can be when Israel is so clearly intent on breaking the status quo, and changing the shape of the region, hoping for regime change in Iran and stopping them creating a nuclear bomb.

The former senior official told me, “Israel think this is a once in a lifetime, it’s now or never… it doesn’t represent a long term solution, but if you are in Tel Aviv the obvious riposte is, ‘Yes, we’ll still be alive’.”

Another security source suggested the UK would not be relevant by taking a “preachy European position, like a teacher in a playground”, but could instead pursue “alignment with the Americans for our own hard interests”.

Aligning with America is so often a no-brainer for British prime ministers.

But a Labour prime minister aligning with Trump to bomb a country in the Middle East? That’s something else.

There is the practicality, “people in Whitehall will be very sceptical if thinking bombing Iran will yield any better outcome”, one former diplomat said.

Another source suggests the UK simply hasn’t done enough thinking in recent years about how to help Iran, a country of around 90 million people with serious political repression and economic hardship: “Britain doesn’t have a strategy or a plan for Iran. It looks at Iran through the point of view of Israel or Gaza but doesn’t look at it in its own right, so that’s a problem.”

If America were to get involved with British support in one way or another, what happens next?

The source said: “The Americans can go and attack Fordo (Iran’s nuclear facility that’s buried deeper than the Channel Tunnel), but if the Iranians lash out after, what then?”

Then, there is the legality. You don’t need me to remind you that the prime minister used to be an eminent lawyer.

Whether the UK was asked to allow American jets to use the British base at Diego Garcia, or help with refuelling planes on their way to any Iranian target, the government would want to be confident there is a solid legal argument that justifies the attack.

There is already a political row over publishing the advice with an understanding the attorney general has expressed concern.

For the uninitiated, this is a very well-worn political track. Opposition parties say legal advice must be published in full. Governments say no. Lawyers and politicians, who are not giving the actual verdict, argue about it very publicly.

In the end, international law is subject to all sorts of interpretation, what a former senior minister describes as “fungible” – in other words, it’s far from fixed.

There is already what one source described as “loose blabber” about the legal advice this time.

Ultimately, the politics of the moment normally comes first, and the prime minister of the day must decide.

The political backdrop for No 10 is risky. Labour contends with the mythology around Tony Blair’s decision to go into Iraq with George Bush, seen by many in the modern party as a disaster.

Any decision too to be seen to support Israeli military action stirs a long-standing streak of anti-Israeli feeling on the left.

Add that to profound concern about what is separately going on in Gaza right now, and it creates another flashpoint.

Pro–Palestinian candidates already swiped seats, and nearly took more from Labour in the general election.

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Highlighting the plight of Gazans is clearly not the same as objecting to Israeli or American action against Iran.

But issues can blur, and add to the volume of angry conversations inside the party about the Middle East.

The former senior minister, around during the Iraq conflict told me, “it would save us an awful lot of bother if you could get the Americans not to have our fingerprints on it”.

But, if the White House asks, “I’d swallow hard and say, ‘OK'”.

Can you imagine Sir Keir Starmer saying no to Trump to help stop Iran creating a nuclear bomb? Can you imagine Sir Keir stepping into a Middle East conflict if it can be avoided?

The answer to both can’t be the same. The White House has pressed pause while Trump mulls his options, but America joining Israel to destroy Iran’s nuclear programme remains an option.

The UK has huge interests in the security of Iran and the wider Middle East – whether oil, trade, intelligence, or military bases.

Those questions for Sir Keir might be real before too long.

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A superyacht has been raised from the seabed nearly a year after it sank off the coast of Sicily, killing seven of the 22 people on board.

Italian officials said the luxury yacht – known as the Bayesian – would be held up by a crane for a series of inspections requested by the public prosecutor’s office. It will later be fully removed from the water.

The Bayesian was owned by British tech tycoon Mike Lynch, who died in the incident alongside his 18-year-old daughter Hannah and five others.

Last month, an ongoing investigation found that Mr Lynch and the crew were unaware of some of the boat’s vulnerabilities – including that wind speeds of over 73mph could topple it.

Footage from the salvage operation shows the hull of the 56m (183ft) vessel – which looks badly damaged and covered in mud – being lifted up by cranes.

In some images, the ship’s name can be seen on the stern of the yacht as it is finally lifted above the water.

The vessel is expected to be taken to the nearby port of Termini Imerese on Monday, where Italian prosecutors investigating the sinking are based.

The Bayesian had been anchored off the port of a small fishing village, Porticello, when it sank in the early hours of 19 August last year.

Witnesses at the time recalled watching it disappear within “a few minutes” during freak weather.

Among the victims were Mr Lynch, 59, and his daughter Hannah; Morgan Stanley International bank chairman Jonathan Bloomer, 70, and his wife, Judy Bloomer, 71, who were all British nationals.

US lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife Neda Morvillo, and Canadian-Antiguan national Recaldo Thomas, who was working as a chef on the vessel, also died in the sinking.

Fifteen people, including Mr Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, were rescued.

A 66-year-old woman has been arrested on suspicion of murder after a 69-year-old was found fatally stabbed in her home in north London.

Emergency services were called to a report of an unresponsive woman at a property in Mornington Place, Camden at 18:00 BST on Friday, 13 June.

The victim, named by police as Jennifer Abbott, was found by her niece and neighbours. The neighbour said she had been left with tape across her mouth.

On Wednesday, the Metropolitan Police said a missing Rolex watch may be linked to Ms Abbott’s death.

Met detectives added that they were keeping an open mind about the possible motive for the stabbing and appealed for information about the watch which they believed was missing from Ms Abbot’s address.

The watch has a distinctive diamond-encrusted face.

The suspect remains in police custody after being arrested on Wednesday, the force added.

The 69-year-old, also known as Sarah Steinberg, was last seen walking her pet corgi in Camden on 10 June, before she was found fatally injured three days later.

A post-mortem examination gave the cause of death as sharp force trauma.

The victim’s family have been informed and are being supported by specialist officers.

Det Insp Barry Hart, from Homicide Command, Specialist Crime North, said: “This arrest marks a significant step forward.

“There are several lines of enquiry ongoing, and we are working hard to establish the exact circumstances of this incident.

“Locals can expect to see an increased police presence in the area while we conduct our enquiries.”

One neighbour, who did not want to be named, told the BBC Ms Abbott had recently confided to friends she was fearful living at her flat because of crime in the area.

“Jenny was having a coffee with [her neighbour] only last week, and was crying in the cafe saying, saying ‘I’m scared to go to sleep at night because of all the drug-taking activity that goes on’.”

Ms Abbott had told her neighbour that drug abusers had gained access to her block of flats and were using her hallway to use drugs.

The neighbour said: “I remember Jenny saying to me that she came out one day and they’re all standing in front of her door, cooking up their stuff, making the whole area a shooting gallery.

“She told me she came out and asked could she get by and the answer came ‘wait a minute, we’re not finished’.”

Israeli jets have bombed a nuclear reactor under construction in central Iran during a wave of air strikes on the seventh day of the conflict between the two countries.

The Israeli military said it targeted the Arak heavy water reactor’s core seal to stop it being used for “nuclear weapons development”.

The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed the reactor was hit and that it contained no nuclear material.

Spent fuel from heavy water reactors contains plutonium suitable for a nuclear bomb.

Iran – which says its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful – agreed under a 2015 deal with world powers to redesign and rebuild Arak so it could not produce weapons-grade plutonium.

The following year, the IAEA said Iran had removed Arak’s calandria, or reactor core, and rendered it “inoperable”.

The global nuclear watchdog’s latest quarterly report from late May said minor civil construction work was ongoing at the reactor, and that Iran expected it to be commissioned this year and to start operating in 2026.

The Israeli military said Iran’s government had “deliberately ordered [workers] not to complete the conversion… in order to exert pressure on the West”.

“The strike targeted the component intended for plutonium production, in order to prevent the reactor from being restored and used for nuclear weapons development,” it added.

Black-and-white aerial footage of the attack released by the military appeared to show a bomb hitting the domed roof of the reactor building and several large explosions from Arak, which about 250km (155 miles) south-west of Tehran and is also known as Khondab.

Daytime video broadcast by Iranian state TV showed two large plumes of white smoke rising from the facility. It also cited Iranian officials as saying that the site had been “secured in advance” and that there was “no contamination resulting from the attack”.

Satellite imagery showed a large hole in the reactor building’s roof.

Also visible were what analysts identified as destroyed distillation towers belonging to the adjacent heavy water production plant.

The IAEA initially reported that damage to the heavy water plant was not visible. But the agency later said it had assessed that key buildings at the facility were damaged, including the distillation unit.

The Israeli military also announced on Thursday that its fighter jets had struck a “nuclear weapons development site” at Natanz.

It is the location of Iran’s main plant producing enriched uranium, which is used to make reactor fuel for power stations but, if further enriched, can be used in nuclear weapons.

The first wave of Israeli strikes last Friday destroyed the above-ground part of Natanz’s Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant (PFEP), where cascades of centrifuges were enriching uranium, as well as electricity infrastructure at the site. The IAEA also found indications of direct impacts on the underground enrichment halls.

Rafael Grossi, the IAEA director general, told the BBC on Monday that the sudden loss of power at the underground enrichment halls was likely to have severely damaged, if not destroyed, the centrifuges operating there.

Four buildings were destroyed in a separate attack on Friday on the Isfahan Nuclear Technology Centre, he said. But very little, if any, damage was visible at Iran’s underground enrichment plant at Fordo, he added.

President Donald Trump is said to be weighing up whether the US should participate in a strike on Fordo because it is the only country with a conventional bomb large enough to destroy it. Sources told the BBC’s US partner CBS News that his mindset was that disabling the facility was necessary.

In 2018, Trump abandoned the nuclear deal with Iran, saying it did too little to stop its pathway to a bomb, and reinstated US sanctions that crippled the Iranian economy.

Iran retaliated by increasingly breaching the restrictions – particularly those relating to the production of enriched uranium.

In its quarterly report, the IAEA expressed concern that Iran had amassed enough uranium enriched up to 60% purity – a short, technical step away from weapons grade, or 90% – to potentially make nine nuclear bombs.

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, said on Friday that it was targeting the Iranian nuclear programme because “if not stopped, Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in a very short time”. He did not provide any evidence.

Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, said on Sunday that Israel had “crossed a new red line in international law” by attacking nuclear sites. He also insisted that Iran’s doctrine was “rooted in our belief in the prohibition and illegitimacy of nuclear weapons”.

Israel is widely believed to have nuclear weapons, although it neither confirms nor denies this.

The Israeli air strikes have also destroyed Iranian military facilities and weapons, and killed senior military commanders and nuclear scientists.

Iran’s health ministry said on Sunday that at least 224 people had been killed, but a human rights group put the unofficial death toll at 639 on Thursday.

Iran has launched hundreds of ballistic missiles at Israel in response to the air strikes that have killed at least 24 people, according to the prime minister’s office.

Long before India gained independence, one defiant voice inside the British Empire dared to call out a colonial massacre – and paid a price for it.

Sir Chettur Sankaran Nair, a lawyer, was one of the few Indians to be appointed to top government posts when the British ruled the country.

In 1919, he resigned from the Viceroy’s Council after the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in the northern Indian city of Amritsar in Punjab, in which hundreds of civilians attending a public meeting were shot dead by British troops. On the 100th anniversary of the massacre, then UK Prime Minister Theresa May described the tragedy as a “shameful scar” on Britain’s history in India.

Nair’s criticism of Punjab’s then Lieutenant Governor, Michael O’Dwyer, led to a libel case against him, which helped spotlight the massacre and the actions of British officials.

In a biography of Nair, KPS Menon, independent India’s first foreign secretary, described him as “a very controversial figure of his time”.

Nair was known for his independent views and distaste for extremist politics, and spoke critically of colonial rule and even of Mahatma Gandhi, the Indian independence hero who is now regarded as the father of the nation.

Menon, who married Nair’s daughter Saraswathy, wrote: “Only [Nair] could have insulted the all powerful British Viceroy on his face and opposed Mahatma Gandhi openly.”

Nair was not a familiar name in India in recent decades, but earlier this year, a Bollywood film based on the court case, Kesari Chapter 2- starring superstar Akshay Kumar – helped bring attention to his life.

Nair was born in 1857 into a wealthy family in what is now Palakkad district in Kerala state. He studied at the Presidency College in Madras, acquiring a bachelor’s degree before studying law and beginning his career as an apprentice with a Madras High Court judge.

In 1887, he joined the social reform movement in the Madras presidency. Throughout his career, he fought to reform Hindu laws of the time on marriage and women’s rights and to abolish the caste system.

For some years, he was a delegate to the Indian National Congress and presided over its 1897 session in Amraoti (Amravati). In his address, he held the British-run government “morally responsible for the extreme poverty of the masses”, saying the annual famines “claimed more victims and created more distress than under any civilised government anywhere else in the world”.

He was appointed public prosecutor in 1899 and writes in his autobiography about advising the government on seditious articles in newspapers, including those by his close friend G Subramania Iyer, the first editor of The Hindu newspaper. “On many occasions… I was able to persuade them not to take any step against him.”

He became a high court judge in 1908 and was knighted four years later.

Nair moved to Delhi in 1915 when he was appointed a member of the Viceroy’s Council, only the third Indian to hold the position.

He was a fierce proponent of India’s right to govern itself and pushed for constitutional reforms during his time on the council. Through 1918 and 1919, his dissent and negotiations with Edwin Montagu, then secretary of state for India, helped expand provisions of the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms which laid out how India would gradually achieve self-governance.

Montagu wrote in his diary that he had been warned “that it was absolutely necessary to get him on my side, for Sankaran Nair wielded more influence than any other Indian”.

A pivotal moment in Nair’s career as a statesman was the massacre in Jallianwala Bagh, when hundreds of unarmed Indians were shot dead in a public garden on the day of the Baisakhi festival. Official estimates said nearly 400 people were killed and more than 1,500 wounded by the soldiers, who fired under the orders of Brigadier General REH Dyer. Indian sources put the death toll closer to 1,000.

Nair writes in his 1922 book Gandhi and Anarchy about following the events in Punjab with increasing concern. The shooting at Jallianwala Bagh was part of a larger crackdown in the province, where martial law had been introduced – the region was cut off from the rest of the country and no newspapers were allowed into it.

“If to govern the country, it is necessary that innocent persons should be slaughtered at Jallianwala Bagh and that any Civilian Officer may, at any time, call in the military and the two together may butcher the people as at Jallianwala Bagh, the country is not worth living in,” he wrote.

A month later, he resigned from the council and left for Britain, where he hoped to rouse public opinion on the massacre.

In his memoir, Nair writes of speaking to the editor of The Westminster Gazette which soon published an article called the Amritsar Massacre. Other papers including The Times also followed suit.

“Worse things had happened under British rule, but I am glad I was able to obtain publicity for this one at least,” Nair wrote.

Nair’s book Gandhi and Anarchy drew the ire of several Indian nationalists of the time after he criticised Gandhi’s civil disobedience movement, calling it a “weapon to be used when constitutional methods have failed to achieve our purpose”.

But it was the few passages condemning Sir Michael O’Dwyer, the Lieutenant Governor of Punjab, that became the basis for the libel suit against him in 1924.

Nair accused O’Dwyer of terrorism, holding him responsible for the atrocities committed by the civil government before the imposition of martial law.

A five-week trial in the Court of King’s Bench in London ruled 11:1 in favour of O’Dwyer, awarding damages of £500 and £7,000 in costs to him.

O’Dwyer offered to forgo this for an apology but Nair refused and paid instead.

Reports of the depositions in the hearing were published daily in The Times. Nair’s family says despite losing, the case achieved his purpose of having the atrocities brought to public attention.

Nair’s great-grandson Raghu Palat, who co-wrote the book The Case That Shook the Empire, with his wife Pushpa, says the case helped spark “an uproar for the freedom movement”.

It also showed that “there was no point in having a dominion status under the empire when the British cannot be expected to deal with their subjects fairly”, adds Pushpa.

Even Gandhi referred to the case several times, writing once that Nair had showed pluck in fighting without hope of victory, historian PC Roy Chaudhury later pointed out.

After losing the case, Nair continued with his career in India. He was chairman of the Indian Committee of the Simon Commission, which reviewed the working of constitutional reforms in India in 1928.

He died in 1934 at the age of 77.

Through his career, Menon notes, Nair “bent all his thoughts and energies on the emancipation of his country from the bondage of foreign domination and native custom. In this task, he achieved as much success as any man, wedded to constitutional methods”.

Is this, some will be wondering, 2003 all over again?

In 2003 Britain joined the US in a highly controversial military campaign against Iraq in a quest to rid it of its supposed arsenal of “weapons of mass destruction”. These turned out to have all been destroyed years previously.

As America’s closest but junior ally, Britain is almost certain to be affected in some way by what happens now in the Middle East. If Donald Trump decides to commit US forces to help Israel eliminate Iran’s nuclear programme then what role will the UK be asked to play?

First off, Britain is very far from being a central player in this fight between Israel and Iran.

The UK, along with other G7 allies, has called for de-escalation, but Israel is unlikely to be listening.

This is not just because relations between Britain and Israel have recently soured after the UK joined other Western nations in sanctioning two Israeli cabinet ministers for inciting violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.

It is also because Israel had clearly decided that now was a window of opportunity to act militarily against Iran’s suspect nuclear programme and that the time for talking was over. (In an apparent snub to the UK, Israel reportedly did not inform it in advance of its attack on Iran, considering it “not a reliable partner”.)

But the UK still has a diplomatic role to play, together with its European allies who helped draft the 2015 JCPOA Iran nuclear deal that introduced intrusive UN inspections of Iran’s facilities in exchange for sanctions relief, until Donald Trump pulled the US out of the deal in 2018.

David Lammy, the foreign secretary, is in Washington meeting his US counterpart, and he will be heading to Geneva, Switzerland, on Friday to join his French, German and EU counterparts in talks with Iran.

The UK also has military and strategic assets in the Middle East and Indian Ocean.

Here’s how these could be involved.

This tiny, tropical Indian Ocean island base, jointly operated by the UK and US and now leased from nearby Mauritius, has a strategic significance out of all proportion to its size.

At 2,300 miles (3,700km) from Iran, it is a potential staging base for the USAF B2 Spirit heavy bombers.

These are the only aircraft in the world configured to carry the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) bomb. This 30,000lb (13.6 tonne) monster is sometimes referred to as a “bunker-buster” but that’s an under-estimate. Retired US Army General Petraeus referred to it this week as “a mountain-buster”. It is thought to be the only weapon powerful enough to penetrate deep underground at Iran’s suspect nuclear enrichment facility at Fordo.

If the US were to use Diego Garcia it would need permission from the UK. The Attorney General, Richard Hermer, is reported to have advised the UK government that any UK military involvement needs to be purely defensive in nature to remain within the law.

The B2 bombers have a range of nearly 7,000 miles, roughly the distance from their airbase in Missouri to Iran, and with inflight refuelling the US could, if it chose, bomb Fordo without using Diego Garcia.

The UK has two major strategic assets on this Mediterranean island.

One is RAF Akrotiri, currently home to a reinforced presence of RAF Typhoon jets. The other is the secretive Signals intelligence listening station on a mountain top at Ayios Nikolaos, known as “Ayia Nik”, and part of Britain’s Sovereign Base Area on Cyprus.

The British Army has also long used Cyprus as a base for its “spearhead battalion”, a rapid deployment force available for contingencies in the Middle East.

The RAF’s Typhoons are already engaged in Operation Shader, monitoring and occasionally bombing the Islamic State group (IS) and al-Qaeda bases in Syria and Iraq.

Last year, during a brief conflict between Israel and Iran, UK warplanes were reported to have helped shoot down incoming Iranian drones heading for Israel. But in this conflict an Israeli spokesperson told the BBC that no UK assistance has been sought or offered in doing the same thing.

The Royal Navy has had a small but vital role to play in keeping the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz free from sea mines.

This dates back to the 1980-88 Iran Iraq tanker war, where mines were deployed and the UK activated its “Armilla Patrol”. Royal Navy minesweepers were based in Bahrain, an asset much appreciated by the adjacent US Navy’s 5th Fleet HQ which surprisingly, has been weak on mine counter measures.

However, the UK’s vessels have been nearing the end of their working lives and the Royal Navy presence has been gradually reduced. This has contributed to the depressing assessment that should Iran decide to choke off the Strait of Hormuz, through which flows 20-30% of the world’s oil supplies, its effect would be considerable.

The Ministry of Defence says that one Royal Navy minesweeper, HMS Middleton, is now in the Gulf. “Royal Navy vessels in the Gulf are currently at sea”, it adds, “and have not been retasked to undertake combat operations”.

There is also a small, 100-strong UK military presence in Iraq and a port facility at Duqm in Oman.

Iran has signalled on several occasions that any nation that attacks it, or which it judges to have helped enable an attack, will be retaliated against, sometimes referred to as “blowback”.

Top of the target list would be the US bases up and down the region, as well as its naval ships at sea.

But in the event that the UK were to authorise the USAF to use its base at Diego Garcia for an attack on say, the Iranian nuclear facility at Fordo, then that retaliation would almost certainly include the UK.

In practice, this could include ballistic missiles fired at RAF Akrotiri but here in Britain the Security Service, MI5, will also be on the alert for any hostile acts by Iran that could include sabotage and arson carried out by criminal gangs.