Chris Barrow

This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.

I'm Chris Barrow, and in the early hours of Sunday the 22nd of March, these are our main stories. President Donald Trump has threatened to attack Iran's power plants if Tehran doesn't reopen the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours. In Israel, medical officials say at least 100 people have been injured after Iranian missiles hit two southern towns, one near a key nuclear facility. And the man who led the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US election, Robert Mueller, has died.

Also in this podcast... Campari. Compared to other drinks, Campari is one long holiday. The price of one of the ingredients of a Negroni cocktail has soared, but that's not necessarily good news for those who produce it.

President Donald Trump has threatened to attack Iran's power plants if Tehran doesn't reopen the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours. We'll have more in a moment on why the US hasn't already done the job itself. But first, to Israel. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa.

Se oli iranianin missailun attack on the southern town of Dimona, which is close to a nuclear facility. This resident described what he saw. I just dropped off my mum here at my grandmother's and I was about to turn round and I saw an explosion, a fireball that fell. My brother-in-law and I ran inside and began to evacuate people to an ambulance. Then the emergency services arrived.

Israeli officials say more than 100 people were injured in the attack on Dimona and another town in southern Israel. Iran, which earlier launched an unsuccessful attack on a US-UK joint military base on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, says the strikes on Israel were a direct response to a US-Israeli strike against its own nuclear facility in Natanz. I asked the defence analyst Jonathan Marcus how concerning these attacks on energy infrastructure are.

Täällä on ääniä siitä, mitä näimme sotilasta Ukrainaan, jossa oli tärkeä ukrainalainen nukleusalue, jonka russit pohjoisivat. Sen ympärillä oli usein tavoitteet, jotka toimivat nukleusreaktoreita.

are a very great concern in terms of the damage that would ensue if there was a serious strike against them. Clearly the Iranians, one assumes in attacking the Dimona area, know exactly what's there. It's no secret today. Anybody with Google Earth can find things on their home computer. We believe the Russians are giving a significant amount of intelligence to the Iranians as well. So they're sending a riposte to Israel. I think it is deeply concerning.

The question is, could Iran have these longer range weapons and perhaps more accurate and more longer range than we perhaps thought they had originally had? The Iranians have a number of missile systems that experts in the West have estimated have ranges of up to around 2,000 or so kilometres. It's been thought that certainly one of these systems, if it was given a much less heavy warhead, would have a substantially greater range. It's quite possible that it's this system that was fired

Diego Garciaan, ja se on noin 4000 kilometrin määrä. Se ei toki halua olla alarmista, mutta se voisi mahdollisesti tuoda joitain maailmanlaajuisia eurooppalaisia kaupunkia Iranin missiilille.

Do we have a sense of how much firepower Iran is likely to have left? Because the US has said that they estimate, I think it's around 77% of the capability has been degraded or is no longer available. The honest answer is we simply don't know. The Iranians have shown a remarkable robustness under a really very intense attack from US and Israeli air power.

They don't need to be able to launch hundreds of missiles every day. If they can spread a small number of missiles around targeting Israel, as they have done in the south of the country near Dimona, where the Israeli nuclear reactor is, if they can hit targets in the Gulf, if they can try and attack targets at much longer range, like Diego Garcia, they are keeping up the pressure, the tension, the strain, for example, on Israeli society, the fears and concerns of the

United States Gulf Allies, and indeed the long-range attacks could potentially worry America's European partners. So in a sense, you know, the Iranian arsenal is clearly hugely depleted, and the Americans claim great successes, but even with the relatively small remaining arsenal, the Iranians can keep up the pressure from their end.

In your assessment of this conflict so far, does any one side seem to have the upper hand, or does this have the hallmarks of a conflict like the Ukrainian one, which could be dragged out for perhaps many years to come? I don't think it's going to be dragged out for many years to come. I think it could potentially go on for some considerable time longer. The chief of the Israeli military has suggested that the war is roughly at its halfway point. That would suggest it could go on for three or four more weeks perhaps.

Meidän ongelma tässä on se, että israelilaiset ja amerikkalaiset eivät ainoastaan saa erilaisia tunteita siitä, mitä säästö on ja mitä he haluavat saavuttaa, mutta toisin sanoen eivät ne ole olleet olleet olleet olleet olleet olleet olleet olleet olleet olleet.

It's not entirely clear what the Americans want. In one sense they want regime change, but nobody seriously thinks that is going to happen in Iran any time soon. Of course we're dealing with a mercurial and unpredictable American president. Mr. Trump could announce tomorrow morning that Iran has ceased to exist and that the war is over.

It's not a joke. He could say something that extraordinary. I think it would be very difficult for the Israelis to continue if Washington decided to call a halt. But quite when that moment will be and what exactly the circumstances will be are unclear. And of course the other crucial question is, well, the Americans might say they're going to stop. Will Iran stop? Will it release its chokehold?

Jonathan Marcus. Mr. Trump's request for help clearing the Strait of Hormuz was an implicit acknowledgement that the US doesn't have the resources it needs to demine the crucial waterway by itself. Emma Salisbury is from the Foreign Policy Research Institute. She's been speaking to my colleague Owen Bennett-Jones.

Yhdysvallat oli erittäin hyvää sääntöpohjaisuutta koko koko kulttuurin aikana. Joten sääntöpohjaisuudet ovat olleet todella vahvia koko kulttuurin aikana. Kun kulttuurin loppu alkoi, Yhdysvallat, samoin kuin moni muu muu maa, käsittelevi sääntöpohjaisuudet, ja sääntöpohjaisuudet olivat yksi niistä. Sääntöpohjaisuudet käsitteleivät koko kulttuurin aikana, jolloin 2006.

Ja se oli, kun Yhdysvallat pysähti mine warfare commandista, joka oli keskustelullinen pointti heidän mine warfare kapabiliitinsa. Eli ne kapabiliitit pysähtivät eri puolilla Yhdysvaltoa, mikä tarkoittaa, että he eivät olleet keskustelullisesti organisoituneet ja he eivät ollut budjettiprosessissa vahvistuneita.