I’m a statriotic Minnesotan, but after 12 years, the time has come: I’m going to become a dual citizen.

When I arrived at a bleak office building to take my ‘Life in the UK’ test – a necessary rite of passage before applying for citizenship – I was greeted not with a smile, but by being told to empty my pockets, stand spread-eagled, and await my ritualised once-over with a metal detector wand.

Once they had carefully checked both ears for hidden earpieces (I’m not kidding), I sat down to take the test.

Citizenship tests are a strange phenomenon, not because I object to them in principle, but because they force a country to arbitrarily decide what knowledge is necessary to be formally inducted into the nation.

But what’s most bizarre about them is that they often involve questions that native-born people couldn’t answer – a bit of a red flag.

One of the first questions I was asked: ‘What did Saint Augustine do after helping to spread Christianity to Britain?’ (The answer, which I got right: ‘Become the first Archbishop of Canterbury.’) Another question asked: ‘In Scotland, what’s the name of courts that deal with minor criminal offences?’ In England, these are known as Magistrates’ Courts, which I already knew, but it was only thanks to studying for the test that I got the answer right: ‘Justice of the Peace Courts.’

I have asked several native-born English people this question. So far, nobody has answered correctly.

Halfway through the test, I was reminded of the ongoing official role of the Church of England when I was asked to identify the day on which Jesus died. Kudos to those of you who know it’s Good Friday, though I’m not certain why that is necessary knowledge to be British. (Here’s a question that, for reasons unknown, wasn’t on the ‘Life in the UK’ test: Which two countries automatically give religious leaders seats in parliament? The answer: the UK and Iran).

Then, there was another issue: one of the practice questions for the test was factually wrong. It asked, ‘Which king first unified England?’ The answer they were looking for was Alfred the Great, but there’s a much stronger case to be made for Athelstan, Alfred’s grandson. (I decided it was unwise to bring this up at the test centre).

When I finished the test, a grouchy lady – I’d be grouchy in her shoes too, wanding people down with metal detectors and checking for earpieces in the world’s most lifeless office space – informed me that I had passed the test.

‘Did I get any wrong?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘The computer just tells me that you passed, which means you got at least 18 out of 24 right.’

This was the final ingenious flourish, to never let future citizens know the correct answers to questions about knowledge deemed essential for one’s ability to thrive in Britain.

Now, America’s immigration system is utterly broken, so I’m not in much of a place to critique Britain’s, but the British visa system is deliberately designed to be terrible.

Over 12 years, I’ll have spent roughly £13,000 ($16,500) on visas/visa appointments, which is crazy.

If you change the kind of visa you have, it resets the official clock on your path toward citizenship back to zero – ridiculous. And because of the scarcity of in-person appointments, I’ve done a bleak UK Grand Tour, taking trains to sterile offices in Croydon, Solihull, Sheffield, Maidstone, and Cardiff.

The experience of the ‘Life in the UK’ test is completely at odds with life in the UK.

After living abroad for 12 years, I see America’s strengths and weaknesses more clearly, just as I see Britain’s strengths and weaknesses more clearly as an outsider.

Life here in Britain has its problems – the cost of living crisis and the general decline post-Brexit are real and serious – but here are some tremendous strengths.   

Watch this space for Brian’s take on what’s great about Britain… 

This article was originally published on Brian’s blog site – The Garden of Forking Paths.

Dr Brian Klaas is Associate Professor in Global Politics, University College London. For more from Brian visit brianpklaas.com. His book Corruptible: Who Gets Power And How It Changes Us is out now, available from Amazon.

Mohammed bin Salman has admitted ‘mistakes’ over the killing of US-based journalist and critic Jamal Khashoggi.

In a wide-ranging interview with Fox News, the 38-year-old controversial Crown Prince said he was reforming the kingdom’s security system to avoid such ‘mistakes’ in the future.

‘It was a mistake. It was painful,’ the crown prince said, while insisting that ‘everyone involved’ served jail time. 

‘We try to reform the security system to be sure that these kind of mistakes doesn’t happen again, and we can see in the past five years nothing of those things happened. It’s not part of what Saudi Arabia do.

‘We take all the legal measurements that any country took… We did that in Saudi Arabia and the case being closed,’ MbS said.

Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist who wrote for the Washington Post and was critical of the Saudi government was brutally murdered on October 2, 2018, inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, in a case that sparked international outrage. 

Biden vowed to make Saudi Arabia a ‘pariah’ over the killing while campaigning for president in 2020 after multiple international intelligence agencies pointed to MbS’ involvement in the murder.

But he has since bowed to that reality, patching up relations with the Crown Prince while seeking his help in controlling oil prices and managing other regional issues.

The Biden administration released a declassified report by U.S. intelligence concluding that MbS ‘approved’ the operation that killed Khashoggi – but took no action against the crown prince himself.

MbS was also questioned about the possibility of Iran eventually creating a nuclear weapon, and he confirmed that if Iran were to begin building an arsenal, Saudi Arabia would seek to do the same.

‘We are concerned if any country getting a nuclear weapon: That’s a bad, that’s a bad move,’ he said. ‘They don’t need to get nuclear weapon because you cannot use it.’

When asked how he would respond to Iran securing a nuke, he said: ‘If they get one we have to get one’. 

That has worried nuclear nonproliferation experts, who say the U.S. granting the kingdom the ability to enrich uranium itself could fuel a regional arms race.

During the interview with Baier, MbS also said he doesn’t see an issue with a Saudi Arabian wealth fund injecting $2billion into Jared Kushner’s private equity – despite his family links to former president Donald Trump.

Six months after Trump left the White House in 2020, his son-in-law and former senior adviser Kushner secured a $2 billion investment from the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) led by MbS. 

When asked whether this created a conflict of interest – and if the royal family would pull the money should Donald Trump win re-election – MbS said ‘if it’s legal, what’s the problem?’

‘We look for opportunities in investment,’ he said. ‘We have a lot of investment around the globe with a lot of people with economic opportunity.’

On whether the $2billion would remain with Kushner even if Trump becomes president again, MbS answered in the affirmative. 

‘It’s a commitment that PIF have and when PIF have a commitment with any investor around the globe, we keep it,’ he said.   

Pushed on whether he recognized that this could create a conflict of interest, he said: ‘Saudi Arabia is so big, so I’m quite sure mostly any person around the world directly or indirectly you have something to do with Saudi Arabia. 

‘So if that can affect President Trump’s decision if he becomes a President, that means it can affect every president in the world and every person in the world’s decision. 

‘Because directly and indirectly they have some sort of interest in something to do with Saudi Arabia.’

The other major topic on the agenda was Saudi Arabia’s efforts to improve bilateral relations with Israel.

Saudi Arabia is discussing a major agreement with the United States to normalize relations with Israel in exchange for a U.S. defense pact and aid in developing its own civilian nuclear program. 

But the Saudis have said any deal would require major progress toward the creation of a Palestinian state, which is a hard sell for the most religious and nationalist government in Israel’s history.

‘For us, the Palestinian issue is very important. We need to solve that part,’ MbS told Baer.

‘We got to see where we go,’ the prince said. ‘We hope that will reach a place, that it will ease the life of the Palestinians, get Israel as a player in the Middle East.’

He also denied reports that the talks had been suspended, saying ‘every day, we get closer.’

The interview aired shortly after President Biden met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu while both were in New York for the meeting of the U.N. General Assembly. 

Biden raised concerns about the far-right Israeli government’s treatment of the Palestinians and urged Netanyahu to take steps to improve conditions in the West Bank at a time of heightened violence in the occupied territory.

Netanyahu’s office said the meeting ‘mostly dealt with ways to establish an historic peace agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia, which could greatly advance an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict and facilitate the establishment of an economic corridor to link Asia, the Middle East and Europe.’

Asked during the interview about working with someone as conservative as Netanyahu, Prince Mohammed said: ‘If we have a breakthrough, reaching a deal that gives the Palestinians their needs and (making) the region calm, we’ve got to work with whoever’s there.

The five US prisoners released by Iran today as part of a controversial prisoner swap have arrived in Doha to begin their journey back to America. 

The prisoners were flown first from Tehran to Doha on a Qatar Airways jet today. They were greeted on the tarmac at Doha Airport by the US Ambassador to Qatar, Timmy Davis. 

Only three of the five released US prisoners have been named publicly. They are businessmen Siamak Namazi , 51, and Emad Shargi, 59, and Morad Tahbaz, 67, an environmentalist who also holds British citizenship. 

The other two prisoners – a man and a woman – have requested anonymity, according to a statement released by President Biden this morning.

The female detainee was comforted by Davis today on the tarmac in Doha. All were imprisoned in Iran on unsubstantiated spying charges. 

In exchange for their release, the Biden administration not only released five Iranians jailed in the US, but officials also unfroze $6billion in seized cash. 

He has been widely panned for the deal, which many say sets a dangerous precedent for America negotiating with terrorists. 

Among the Iranian prisoners is Reza Sarhangpour-Kafrani, a dual US-Iranian citizen who was jailed in February for supplying the Central Bank of Tehran with computer equipment and technology through a front company in the UAE, and, who was caught obtaining equipment that could be used in missiles and electronic warfare. 

The deal has been widely criticized by Republicans who say Biden is paying ransom to terrorists by releasing the men and the funds, which were frozen in South Korea in 2018 by President Donald Trump.  

The Biden administration insists there are ‘guardrails’ on what Iran can spend the money on, but critics are now demanding to know how he or his administration will police how it is used. 

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi however said this week that Iran would decide how the money would be spent. 

Trump was among the first to criticize the agreement when details of it became public on 9/11, an ill-timed announcement that was widely panned. 

A female prisoner is also being released along with a fourth, unnamed male.

Namazi has been in prison since 2015, when he was arrested during a business trip and convicted of cooperating with a hostile government – the US. 

 Shargi was arrested with his wife in 2018 on unsubstantiated espionage charges. She was later allowed to return to the US. 

Tahbaz was also convicted of spying charges. He was left out of a previous prisoner swap brokered by former British Prime Minister Liz Truss. 

But they remain deeply divided on other issues ranging from Iran‘s nuclear program and its influence around the region to U.S. sanctions and America’s military presence in the Gulf.

Qatar, a tiny but hugely wealthy Gulf Arab energy producer, has sought to raise its global profile, hosting the soccer World Cup last year and carving out a role in international diplomacy.

The Sunni Muslim nation hosts a big U.S. military base but has also forged close ties with Shi’ite Muslim Iran.

Doha hosted at least eight rounds of talks with Iranian and U.S. negotiators sitting in separate hotels, speaking via shuttle diplomacy, a source previously told Reuters.

Under the agreement, Doha agreed to monitor how Iran spends the unfrozen funds to ensure the cash is spent on humanitarian goods, such as food and medicine, and not any items under U.S. sanctions.

The transfer of Iran’s funds has drawn criticism from U.S. Republicans who say President Joe Biden, a Democrat, is in effect paying a ransom for U.S. citizens.

The White House has defended the deal.

Ties between Washington and Tehran have been boiling since Donald Trump, a Republican, pulled the U.S. out of a nuclear deal between Iran and global powers when he was president in 2018. 

Reaching another nuclear deal has gained little traction since, as Biden prepares for the 2024 U.S. election.

As a first step in the deal, Washington waived sanctions to allow the transfer of $6 billion in Iranian funds from South Korea to Qatar. 

The funds were blocked in South Korea, normally one of Iran’s largest oil customers, when Washington imposed sweeping financial sanctions on Tehran and the cash could not be transferred.

Iran has the highest cost of happiness in the world, with its people needing a salary of nearly £200,000-a-year to be satisfied, a survey has revealed.

Researchers claim to have found the optimum sum of money that citizens in 173 countries need each year to be happy – with any amount above that having ‘no effect on an individual’s happiness’.

The findings, which also compare annual salaries in 29 British cities and towns, paint a stark picture of how the cost of living varies across the globe.

While Iran tops the list, with natives requiring some $239,700 (£191,906) to be happy, at the other end of the scale, those living in Sierra Leone only need an income of $8,658 (£6,931) to stay content.

Yemen is ranked second ($172,140/£137,817), followed by Australia, whose citizens need a princely sum of $121,191 (£97,026) to be happy.

The rest of the top ten country list includes Zimbabwe ($118,342/£94,745); Norway ($117,724/£94,251); Switzerland ($115,745/£92,666); New Zealand ($114,597/£91,747); Israel ($112,506/£90,073); Iceland ($111,908/£89,594) and the United States, with its people needing $105,000 (£84,064) to stay happy.

The study, by foreign exchange provider S Money, found that happiness is most affordable in Sierra Leone where happiness levels off with an income of $8,658 (£6,931). Just behind Sierra Leone is Suriname where a yearly income of $10,255 (£8,210) will keep misery at bay most efficiently followed by Madagascar ($11,355/£9,090).

The rest of the ranking includes Guyana ($11,707/£9,372); Sudan ($11,845/£9,483); Nicaragua ($11,941/£9,560); Colombia ($12,159/£9,734); The Gambia ($12,597/£10,085); Bolivia ($12,795/£10,243) and finally Ghana (10th, $12,949/£10,367).

The UK comes 18th on the overall list, with Britons needing an average of £68,404 ($85,440) per year to be upbeat.

However, for those living in the UK’s capital, London, happiness levels off at a higher salary bracket – $103,083/£79,524. London tops the price-of-contentment table for UK cities and towns, with Cambridge second ($96,971/£74,808) and Guildford in Surrey third ($96,276/£74,273).

Happiness is cheapest in Leicester, according to the study. There, $79,188/£61,117 per year is the saturation point for feelings of bonhomie.

Over in the U.S, Santa Barbara in California is the city with the highest cost of happiness – $162,721/£130,276, followed by Honolulu ($148,943/£119,251) and New York ($145,028/£116,116). Knoxville, Tennessee, is the American city with the lowest cost of happiness – $88,032/£70,482, with Cincinnati in Ohio ($93,398/£74,779) sitting just above it in the list.

How were the amounts calculated? First, researchers consulted a Purdue University study that analysed the relationship between happiness and income to discover the price of happiness in every country and select cities.

This study recorded the satiation point for Life Evaluation (LE) in U.S dollars for each world region.

S Money said: ‘Life Evaluation is a metric from the World Gallup poll that measures how good an individual considers their life to be. The satiation point of LE refers to the income point at which any further increase in income has no effect on an individual’s happiness.’

It continued: ‘The figures in the study grouped countries into world regions and quoted the satiation points relative to an American’s purchasing power. So, to discover the local price of happiness by country, we converted these figures back to local currencies using country-specific Purchasing Power Ratios sourced from the International Monetary Fund. Purchasing power ratios represent the number of units of local currency that are equal to the buying power of one US dollar in the United States.

‘Finally, we converted local currencies back into US dollars using current exchange rates given by Google Finance. This is the price of happiness.

‘In addition, the team calculated the price of happiness for select cities within each country by adjusting the country price of happiness according to the cost of living value for both cities and countries in indexes by Numbeo.’

DOES MONEY MAKE YOU HAPPY?

One Harvard study claimed that it’s not what you earn but how you spend it that leads to happiness.

Researchers said that buying experiences and fewer material goods will make you more content – as will paying close attention to the happiness of others.

For more information visit www.smoney.com.au/blog/the-price-of-happiness-in-every-country.

Police now believe Britain’s most wanted man is in Chiswick wearing a black baseball cap, t-shirt and dark bottoms as their search moves to west London.

The new information follows witness sightings of Daniel Khalife confirmed overnight, including calls from members of the public.

Officers remain in Chiswick and are now planning to carry out further intensive search activity today.

A police helicopter was deployed last night over Chiswick House and Grove Park amid the search. 

The Metropolitan Police said in a statement today: ‘We urge members of the public in that area to remain vigilant and call 999 immediately should they see Khalife, or if they have any information that could assist the search. 

‘Whilst we advise members of the public not to approach Khalife if they see him, we still assess that he does not pose a threat to the wider public.’

Former soldier Khalife, 21, who is alleged to have spied for Iran, escaped from Wandsworth Prison in a delivery van on Wednesday morning. 

The search for him remains a significant operation led by the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command. 

More than 150 of the Met’s counter terrorism officers and staff are working at pace around the clock to try and find Khalife. 

The Met is offering a reward of up to £20,000 for information that leads to the arrest of Daniel Abed Khalife, as detectives confirmed a sighting of him near Wandsworth Roundabout. 

CCTV shows the van after it left the prison but detectives believe Khalife had already made off by the time the footage was captured. 

Elsewhere, officers received a tip-off from a member of the public who said they saw a man fitting Khalife’s description walking away from a BidFood van that stopped near the south entrance to the Wandsworth Roundabout, at the top of Trinity Road, shortly after his escape. 

The man was then seen walking towards Wandsworth town centre.

Khalife escaped the Victorian jail by strapping himself to the bottom of a delivery lorry after leaving the prison kitchen in a cook’s uniform.

Elsewhere, a shop assistant also reported seeing ‘a tall, lanky dude with dark hair’, who he later claimed to recognise as Khalife from media images, enter a black coloured vehicle outside Wandsworth County Court – but police have not confirmed whether this sighting is of interest.

The witness, who was working at The Market – Putney Newsagents on Wednesday morning, heard a commotion outside the store, before seeing the man sprint across the street and get into a car on the other side of the road by traffic lights.

His manager told the Telegraph: ‘There was lots of beeping by cars and people were annoyed.

‘My friend, one of the workers at the shop, was in the shop on that morning, at around 7.30, and he went outside where he saw a man running into a black car. The man was some tall lanky dude with dark hair and there was a Bidfood van.

‘My friend didn’t see him getting out of the van but he saw him sprint across the street to the traffic lights.’

The Met Police has opened its UK Image Appeal website which allows people to submit any relevant imagery and video directly to the investigation team.

This could be CCTV, doorbell footage, mobile phone footage, or dash-cam footage.

Commander Dominic Murphy, who leads the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command, said: ‘This remains a fast-paced and dynamic investigation, but I want the public to know that a large number of officers are working extremely hard to locate Khalife.

‘We have now received more than 100 calls from the public, and we thank everyone who has contacted us with information.

‘The sighting near Wandsworth Roundabout could be very significant, and this is one of many useful lines of enquiry that officers are perusing.

‘We continue to urge the public to contact us straight away if they think they have seen Khalife or have information on his whereabouts.

‘We will continue to work closely with all our colleagues in police services across the country and other partners to trace Khalife and bring him back into custody.’

Officers continue to focus investigative efforts in London. This included search activity at Richmond Park overnight into the early hours of Friday, 8 September.

A nationwide alert put out on Wednesday has led to tightened security at ports and borders. 

The force has assessed that Khalife ‘does not pose a threat to the wider public’ but advises the public not to approach him and call 999 immediately. 

Former soldier Khalife, 21, was declared missing at 7.50am on  Wednesday. The Met was notified at 8.15am and took immediate action to track down a delivery van that had left the prison.

At 8.37, police officers stopped the van in Upper Richmond Road, near the junction with Carlton Drive. Officers spoke to the driver and carried out a thorough search. Police discovered strapping on the underside of the van.

Detectives believe Khalife was hiding underneath the van and used this strapping as part of his escape.

The force previously gave details of the route the van which they believe Khalife escaped on took after it left Wandsworth Prison, based on GPS data detectives had obtained from the vehicle.

As a result of further CCTV enquiries, it has been determined that the van took the following route upon leaving Wandsworth Prison. After reaching Wandsworth Roundabout, the van turned onto Swandon Way and the van remained on the road until turning onto Fairfield Street.

Khalife, who served in 16 Signal Regiment, whose motto is Find A Way Or Make One, is thought to have clung to the underside of the truck by fashioning straps out of the plastic covering on his cell mattress. 

Sir Mark told LBC of the escape this morning: ‘It is clearly pre-planned, the fact that he could strap himself onto the bottom of the wagon.’ 

He added a prison escape is ‘unlikely to be something you do on the spur of the moment’.

Asked if police are looking into whether it was an ‘inside job’, the commissioner said: ‘It is a question. Did anyone inside the prison help him? Other prisoners, guard staff? Was he helped by people outside the walls or was it simply all of his own creation?’

He called it ‘extremely concerning’ that Khalife is ‘on the loose’.

Asked whether he was surprised to learn that the terror suspect was in a Category B prison, Sir Mark said it did ‘seem odd’ on first inspection.

The commissioner said the hunt for Khalife is a ‘massive operation’ involving ‘well into three figures of officers’ as well as help from forces around the country and from the border force.

‘At the moment we are still really keen to get any reports from members of the public,’ he added.

It came as police chiefs involved in the Richmond Park search apologised to locals for the disruption.

The National Police Air Service tweeted: ‘To dispel some rumours that have been circulating. We were deployed to Richmond Park last night searching for escaped prisoner Daniel Khalife. 

‘Due to the size and complexity of the park this took a protracted period of time. Apologies for the noise.’

Meanwhile, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said there were questions about the ‘link between government austerity and this man escaping.’

He said: ‘There’s a question in relation to the medium and long term about the link between government austerity and this man escaping.

‘I know from my own experience, as the member of parliament previously for Tooting where Wandsworth prison is, (there are) big problems in relation to it being overcrowded and being a Victorian prison, lack of investment, lack of enough staff and those questions will need answering from the Government.’

Chief Inspector of Prisons Charlie Taylor said staff shortages at Wandsworth are ‘the source of many problems’ and that ‘in an ideal world’ the jail would be shut.

The prison’s performance has been rated a ‘serious concern’ and watchdogs issued a string of warnings about the jail in the year before the incident.

It comes as pharmacies have been urged to keep a lookout following suggestions that the ex-British Army soldier may have suffered burns to his face during his escape.

Former Scotland Yard detective Peter Bleksley told Sky News: ‘Clinging to the bottom of a vehicle, if it’s got a petrol or diesel combustion engine, it is a pretty risky thing to do, not only because of course you can lose your grip and fall on a roadway, but exhaust systems, which generally speaking run the entire length of a vehicle like that, get incredibly hot.

‘The slightest touch of that exhaust system will leave you with a vey unpleasant burn.

‘So I would suggest to anybody who works in a chemist or pharmacy or shops where medical supplies are sold – just keep your eyes out today if somebody comes in asking for advice on how to treat burns, and sourcing bandages… and the like.’

Elsewhere, CCTV footage today showed the van Khalife escaped under just 200 yards from the prison, with no sign of the suspect.

Questions continue to grow over how the suspected terrorist, who is alleged to have spied for Iran, was able to flee the Category B prison, where there have long been concerns over security.

An inmate who worked with Khalife in the jail kitchen revealed how they used to joke about jumping in a delivery lorry and driving off.

And another former prisoner revealed how staff were so overstretched they even asked him to help lead the roll call of inmates on his wing.

Meanwhile, a barrister and former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation said today it was ‘mind-boggling’ that Khalife was able to work in a kitchen with access to knives.

Jonathan Hall KC told Radio 4’s World at One programme Mr Khalife has been ‘charged with collecting information which might be useful to an enemy’ and that he should have been held in a higher security prison.

‘I would have thought someone charged with espionage should be held more securely…just based on what the authorities knew’

‘They knew he was charged with an offence under the Official Secrets Act, that’s a very serious offence… one would have thought that you would look at the advanced capabilities that might come with working for or having relations with a hostile state’ he said.

Mr Hall also warned against legislation to make all of those accused of terrorism to be placed in a category A prison.

‘I’d be worried if there was a reaction which said now every person suspected of terrorism should be categorised as a high escape risk’.

Fresh CCTV footage today shows the Bidfood lorry which Khalife used for his escape driving down a residential street just 200 yards from the jail.

There is no sight of the fugitive in the images, suggesting that he may have leapt off the vehicle immediately after it left the prison gates.

Scotland Yard revealed last night there was 65 minutes between it leaving the prison and being stopped and searched by police, meaning a huge number of possible places where Khalife might have slipped away. 

As investigators worked to unravel how he managed to pull off a Colditz-style breakout in broad daylight, more details emerged of the audacious escape.

Khalife, who police suspect used his military training to carefully plan his escape, began Wednesday morning by helping to prepare breakfast at the Victorian jail.

He turned up for duty dressed in his chef’s uniform of a white T-shirt, distinctive red and white chequered trousers and brown steel-toe boots. 

After serving breakfast to inmates and guards, he slipped out of the kitchen carrying makeshift strapping of some kind, which police have declined to describe in more detail. 

In the yard outside the kitchen building, a lorry from the wholesaler Bidfood was making a routine delivery of groceries.

When no one was looking, Khalife ducked under the sidebars of the lorry and positioned himself precariously beneath the truck’s underbelly, using the strapping to support his weight.

At around 7.30am, with the driver blissfully unaware of the stowaway, the Bidfood lorry was driven 250 yards along the road running along the inside of the 30ft perimeter wall famously scaled by Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs in 1965. Two internal security gates had to be opened to let it pass.

At 7.32am, the lorry carrying the former Royal Signals soldier rolled through the prison’s imposing Victorian gate into the open. 

It was waved past guards and CCTV cameras with another cursory inspection, with no one thinking to check underneath at any of the three security checks.

As Khalife clung on, just inches from the wheels and the spinning drive shaft, the lorry turned right on to residential Heathfield Road, then left, then left again on to the busy triple-laned A214.

Police have stressed there is no suspicion about Bidfood or its driver, and said they had been co-operating fully.

Officers either do not know or have not said at what point Khalife decided to leave his escape vehicle, or what he did next. 

But the truck embarked on a near four-mile route through Wandsworth Town and on to the South Circular A205 road heading west towards Putney.

Khalife had an 18-minute head-start before anyone even noticed his absence. He was declared missing at 7.50am, and prison officers launched an urgent search, but it was a further 25 minutes before the police were called at 8.15am – by now a full 43 minutes after he had sprung himself.

Metropolitan Police cars descended on the area, while the lorry driver was called by his company and ordered to turn around and return to the prison.

On a busy high street close to East Putney station, officers swooped on the Bidfood truck at 8.37am outside a coffee shop.

A business owner who witnessed the operation told the Mail: ‘The police were searching inside the van, underneath it, on the roof, in the cab, everywhere. 

‘At first there was one unmarked, black police car, then a van and about five police cars. They were using two dogs to search it, one inside and one underneath.’ 

He said the search lasted for two hours.

Scotland Yard Commander Dominic Murphy said last night: ‘We searched it, but we found no trace of him. But we did find strapping that meant he had been underneath.’ 

Officers were keeping an open mind as to whether Khalife was helped by accomplices, but Mr Murphy cited the fugitive’s ‘ingenuity’ and said: ‘We have some of the best military in world and he was a trained soldier.’ 

He said police officers believed Khalife – a ‘very resourceful individual’ – would have needed to plan his escape, rather than it being opportunistic.

Police refused to confirm or deny if they had recovered potentially useful CCTV during their trawl, but said there had been no sightings by members of the public, despite it being ‘a busy area of London’. 

It prompted speculation as to whether the fugitive could have arranged to be picked up by an accomplice in another vehicle.

A 17-year-old boy from Afghanistan who was rescued from a sinking dinghy alongside 38 others in a tragedy which killed at least four told authorities that French fisherman ignored their desperate cries for help.

The teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said those on board the vessel in the English Channel could see the dinghy passengers were drowning but ‘did nothing’.

The boy, whose uncle in Iran had paid people-smugglers 1,500 euros for him to make the illicit crossing from Calais in the early hours of December 14 last year, told police their boat, overcrowded with 46 people, appeared to ‘explode’.

The evidence was heard during the trial of boat pilot Ibrahima Bah, 19, who denies four counts of manslaughter and one count of facilitating a breach of UK immigration law by piloting the ill-fated small boat.

The dinghy had already been taking on water and one passenger was so scared he had performed last rites, Canterbury Crown Court, Kent, heard.

But the teen said the African driver of the home-built craft reassured them they would be saved if they continued into English waters.

In a police video-recorded interview played today in court, he described how the treacherous journey turned to tragedy.

‘Water was pouring into our boat. We knew that we were going to go down and there were French fishermen circling us, looking at us, ignoring us and doing nothing,’ he said, assisted by a Dari interpreter.

‘They could see we were dying and going down and they were doing nothing. We were still in French waters.

‘The African was saying: “It’s not very serious, we can still get to the other (English) boats where they could help us because these ones are looking and letting us die but we can get there”.

‘There was water everywhere and we were screaming, shouting and saying “We are going down”.

‘We kept screaming and asking: “Help, help, help”, but they were coming and looking and saying “No” and just going away.

‘The guy who was controlling the engine was trying to reassure us, saying: “Don’t panic, stay calm, we will do something. These guys are not doing anything but we can get to the other boats and they might help us”.’

The boy said they were ‘some distance’ into the crossing and described being in ‘no-man’s land’ as one Afghani tried to bail out the water.

But he told police he and the 45 others were ‘packed in’ the boat, which then collapsed into itself under the extra weight.

The 17-year-old said how the inflatable ring ‘exploded’ because there were ‘too many’ people on board. 

A total of 39 people were eventually rescued by an English fishing boat, the Arcturus, assisted by HMS Severn, lifeboat crews and the air ambulance.

The boy did not have a life vest and said he could feel himself losing sensation in his body as he held onto a rope in the icy water before being pulled onboard.

Bah, 19, was among those rescued. He faces four charges of manslaughter in relation to the four men who drowned. One has been identified as Hajratullah Ahmadi while the others remain unknown.

The court heard he accepts he drove the boat but denies all five offences.

At the start of his trial, jurors were told Bah allegedly joked to one passenger: ‘I will either take you there or kill you all’.

He later told police he had been assaulted and threatened into taking control of the inflatable in return for free travel by the Kurdish agents in charge of the human trafficking operation.

Those on board had paid thousands to make the trip, one as much as 8,000 euros, the court heard.

But prosecutor Duncan Atkinson said despite being untrained and unlicensed to pilot a boat, by law Bah had a duty of care to his passengers and that his actions amounted to manslaughter by gross negligence.

He said the risks of such a ‘a home-built inflatable made from low quality materials’ being put to sea were ‘present and obvious’.

‘The inflatable carried with it an obvious and serious risk to the life and limb of each of those on board,’ Mr Atkinson told the court.

‘Whilst the defendant, like the others, was a migrant seeking a better life in the UK, he had also, like those others, voluntarily consorted with the agents of organised crime who profited from that quest.

‘More than that, he accepted, in return for a free crossing, responsibility for his fellow passengers.’

The small craft, just 25 to 28ft in length, was neither ‘typically designed nor manufactured’ to undertake a journey in what is the world’s busiest shipping lane, said the prosecutor.

There was insufficient lifejackets, no safety equipment such as flares or a radio, no deckboards and was being navigated without lights and by mobile phone.

It was also carrying more than double its maximum passenger capacity of 20.

The Afghani teenager told police he had been in a Jungle camp in Dunkirk for about six weeks when he made the crossing, the court heard.

He had left his home in Afghanistan about 18 months earlier and reached France via Austria and Switzerland.

But he said he wanted to reach the UK to study and ‘make a better life’.

The crossing in December last year was his second by boat in a month, the first having failed when they got lost after spending 13 hours at sea.

He described how three Kurdish men drove the migrants in vehicles to the beach at about 1am, inflated the boat and then ordered them to carry it to the water.

The court heard they were punched, kicked and beaten for not hurrying up.

One of those beaten was an African, said the teenager.

‘This was human trafficking so you have to follow their instructions because if you don’t follow or fall behind or are slow, they beat you up,’ he explained.

Once the boat was in the water, the migrants scrambled for a position.

‘There wasn’t any space to move. All 46 were packed, squeezed to fit into that,’ added the boy.

He said the Kurds got the engine going and the inflatable set off.

Asked who controlled the engine during the crossing, he told police ‘one of the Africans’ but he never spoke to him personally.

‘Everyone was thinking of themselves. Everyone was praying to make it with our lives,’ said the boy.

He added that the agents had decided who was to drive, something the Afghanis would ‘shy away’ from.

‘They don’t give us any safety instructions on what to do or how to do things. Any instructions would have been given to the driver,’ he said.

The teen also told police it was ‘common knowledge’ that once in British waters migrants would be rescued, regardless of whether they were drowning or not.

Asked if the driver had any assistance from others on the boat he said: ‘They (the Kurds) would have given him which direction to take. There were other Africans there but I didn’t see any working as his deputy or helping him or assisting him.’

Jurors at Canterbury Crown Court were previously told to put any ‘bias, emotion, sympathy and prejudice’ aside while deciding the case. 

An intrepid traveller who picked up a stray pup last year is making his way across the entire world with his adopted dog in tow – all on top of a tall bike which has a built in trailer for his furry friend.

Alex Sidney is currently ‘bikepacking’ his way across the Middle East and has clocked up almost 7,000 miles after setting off from southeast England in January last year.

The content creator has crossed a total of 20 countries so far, taking in the sights from Switzerland and Croatia, through to Kurdistan and Iran.

Now with Nova by his side, having picked up his new friend along the way, Alex has continued to document the pair’s incredible travels together.

Today marks the 400th day of their tour since leaving home in January 2022, and Alex and Nova have no intention of stopping now.

Alex discovered his future companion on a bridge over the river Danube between Serbia and Romania six months after setting off on his travels.

The cyclist then tried to find her a new home before deciding to adopt her himself.

‘She was hungry and lonely and at risk where she was,’ Alex wrote on his social media at the time, ‘So I decided to take her on the tallbike, with the intention of getting her to the nearest town so that at least she could find food and not be at risk of falling off the bridge.

‘I didn’t expect her to make it across the border, being an undocumented stray, but by some miracle she did, after a bit of conversation.

After spending a bit of time with Nova, Alex fell in love with the sweet little pup and decided he couldn’t continue his journey without her.

‘We took her to the local vet and got her vaccinations, chip and passport, so I had to quickly think of a name – now I had to keep her,’ Alex explained.

‘So yes, Nova will be joining me on the tallbike, travelling across Europe towards Asia this year.

‘She is a devilish little dog, with tonnes of energy, and proves near to impossible to train, but after all she’s only a pup!’

Nova, a stray mixed-breed dog, has her own basket on his tall bike’s cargo area, where she sits back and enjoys the views as the pair travel across the world together.

When she’s not sat back enjoying the ride, Nova is scampering along beside Alex and his bike, enjoying the best walkies a dog could ever ask for.

Some of Alex’s followers hit out at the content creator after he posted a video of Nova trotting along beside him and chained to the bike by a lead.

‘She has a trailer, it’s not very visible in this video but it is there.’ he explained. 

‘She is trained to jump in or out whenever she wants… She is not being forced to run alongside the bike, she prefers to run because she is a puppy with too much energy.

‘She is not always chained to the bike like this. Usually she free roams, however when we are on a main road it’s best to have a leash so that she cannot mix with the other vehicles on the road if she chooses to run instead of stay inside the trailer.’

Alex originally from Italy grew up in the UK, and had always loved messing around with the mechanics of bikes. He decided to combine this passion with his sense of adventure to travel across the world.

2022 saw the highest number of executions globally for five years as Middle East nations see a surge in the use of the death penalty

• Amnesty International found Iran alone had put 571 people to death in 2022

By Rohan Gupta

Published: 05:48 EDT, 16 May 2023 | Updated: 14:47 EDT, 16 May 2023

Iran could make enough material for one nuclear bomb in ‘about 12 days,’ a top US Defense Department official warned on Tuesday, a dramatic fall from the estimated one year it would have taken while the 2015 Iran nuclear deal was in effect.

Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl made the comment to a House of Representatives hearing when asked why US President Joe Biden‘s administration had sought to revive the the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) deal.

‘Because Iran’s nuclear progress since we left the JCPOA has been remarkable. Back in 2018, when the previous administration decided to leave the JCPOA it would have taken Iran about 12 months to produce one bomb’s worth of fissile material.

Fissile material is material capable of sustaining a nuclear fission chain reaction, such as some uranium. ‘Now it would take about 12 days [to produce enough],’ Kahl, the third highest ranking official in the US Defence Department, told lawmakers.

‘And so I think there is still the view that if you could resolve this issue diplomatically and put constraints back on their nuclear program, it is better than the other options. But right now, the JCPOA is on ice,’ Kahl added. 

Another defence department official – Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Dana Stroul – described the Islamic Republic as a ‘global threat’, in particular because of its growing military alliance with Russia, whose armies are currently invading Ukraine.

‘We are now at a point where Iranian threats are no longer specific to the Middle East, but a global challenge,’ she told reporters on Tesday.

‘It is reasonable to expect that the tactics, techniques and procedures that the Iranians are learning and perfecting in Ukraine will one day come back to our partners in the Middle East, which is why we are increasing cooperation now.’

This corporation includes ‘intelligence sharing, understanding these networks and increasing our collective defensive capabilities so that we are prepared to counter these threats in the region,’ she added.

US officials have repeatedly estimated Iran’s breakout time – how long it would take to acquire the fissile material for one bomb if it decided to – at weeks.

None, however, have been as specific as Kahl was on Tuesday. 

But while US officials say Iran has grown closer to producing fissile material they do not believe it has mastered the technology to actually build a bomb.

Under the 2015 deal, which then-US President Donald Trump abandoned in 2018, Iran had reined in its nuclear program in return for relief from economic sanctions.

Trump reimposed US sanctions on Iran, leading Tehran to resume previously banned nuclear work and reviving US, European and Israeli fears that Iran may seek an atomic bomb. Iran denies any such ambition.

The currently administration in the White House has tried but failed to revive the pact over the last two years.

Kahl’s comments came as a report – seen by the Associated Press on Tuesday – said inspectors from the UN’s nuclear watchdog found uranium particles enriched up to 83.7 percent in Iran’s underground Fordo nuclear site. 

The confidential quarterly report by the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency distributed to member states likely will raise tensions further between Iran and the West over its nuclear program, particularly after Kahl’s admission.

That’s even as Tehran already faces internal unrest and Western anger over sending bomb-carrying drones to Russia for its war on Ukraine, and over its brutal crackdown on demonstrations over the death of Mahsa Amini.

The IAEA report only speaks about ‘particles,’ suggesting that Iran isn’t building a stockpile of uranium enriched above 60 percent – the level it has been enriching at for some time.

The IAEA report described inspectors discovering on January 21 that two cascades of IR-6 centrifuges at Iran’s Fordo facility had been configured in a way ‘substantially different’ to what had been previously declared. 

The IAEA took samples the following day, which showed particles up to 83.7 percent purity, the report said – just short of weapons-grade levels of 90 percent.

‘Iran informed the agency that `unintended fluctuations’ in enrichment levels may have occurred during the transition period,’ the IAEA report said. ‘Discussions between the agency and Iran to clarify the matter are ongoing.’

The IAEA report also said that it would ‘further increase the frequency and intensity of agency verification activities’ at Fordo after the discovery.

Iran’s mission to the UN told the AP that Massimo Aparo, a top IAEA official, visited the Islamic Republic last week ‘and checked the alleged enrichment rate.’

‘Based on Iran’s assessment, the alleged enrichment percentage between Iran and the IAEA is resolved,’ the mission contended.

‘Due to the IAEA report being prepared before his trip, his trip’s results aren’t in it and hopefully the IAEA director-general will mention it in his oral report to the board of governors’ in March.

A spokesman for Iran’s civilian nuclear program, Behrouz Kamalvandi, also sought last week to portray any detection of uranium particles enriched to that level as a momentary side effect of trying to reach a finished product of 60 percent purity.

However, experts say such a great variance in the purity even at the atomic level would appear suspicious to inspectors.

Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal limited Tehran’s uranium stockpile to 300 kilograms (661 pounds) and enrichment to 3.67 percent – enough to fuel a nuclear power plant. The U.S.’ unilateral withdraw from the accord in 2018 set in motion a series of attacks and escalations by Tehran over its program.

Iran has been producing uranium enriched to 60 percent purity – a level for which nonproliferation experts already say Tehran has no civilian use.

The IAEA report put Iran’s uranium stockpile as of Feb. 12 at some 8,289 pounds – an increase of 192 pounds since its last quarterly report in November. Of that, 192 pounds is enriched up to 60 percent purity.

Uranium at nearly 84 percent is almost at weapons-grade levels of 90 percent – meaning any stockpile of that material could be quickly used to produce an atomic bomb if Iran chooses.

While the IAEA’s director-general has warned Iran now has enough uranium to produce ‘several’ bombs, months more would likely be needed to build a weapon and potentially miniaturise it to put it on a missile. 

The US intelligence community, as recently as this past weekend, has maintained its assessment that Iran isn’t pursuing an atomic bomb.

‘To the best of our knowledge, we don’t believe that the supreme leader in Iran has yet made a decision to resume the weatherization program that we judge they suspended or stopped at the end of 2003,’ CIA Director Williams Burns told CBS’ ‘Face the Nation’ program. 

‘But the other two legs of the stool, meaning enrichment programs, they’ve obviously advanced very far.’

But Fordo, which sits under a mountain near the holy Shiite city of Qom, some 55 miles southwest of Tehran, remains a special concern for nations.

It is about the size of a football field, large enough to house 3,000 centrifuges, but small and hardened enough to lead US officials to suspect it had a military purpose when they exposed the site publicly in 2009.

Meanwhile, a top Defence Department official told the US House of Representative’s Armed Services Committee on Tuesday that Iran could make enough fissile material for one nuclear weapons in under two weeks if Tehran choose to pursue it.

‘Iran’s nuclear progress since we left the (deal) has been remarkable,’ Colin Kahl said. ‘Back in 2018, when the previous administration decided to leave the (deal), it would have taken Iran about 12 months to produce one bomb’s worth of fissile material. Now it would take about 12 days.’

Any explanation from Iran, however, likely won’t be enough to satisfy Israel, Iran’s regional archival. Already, Israel’s recently reinstalled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has threatened military actions against Tehran. 

And Israel and Iran have been engaged in a high-stakes shadow war across the wider Middle East since the nuclear deal’s collapse. 

Meanwhile Tuesday, Germany’s foreign minister said both her country and Israel are worried about the allegations facing Iran over the nearly 84% enriched uranium.

‘We are united by concern about the nuclear escalation on Iran’s part and about the recent reports about the very high uranium enrichment,’ Annalena Baerbock said. ‘There is no plausible civilian justification for such a high enrichment level.’

Speaking in Berlin, Israel’s visiting foreign minister, Eli Cohen, pointed to two options to deal with Iran – using a so-called ‘snapback’ mechanism in the Security Council resolution that enshrined the 2015 nuclear deal to reimpose U.N. sanctions, and ‘to have a credible military option on the table as well.’

‘From our intelligence and from our knowledge, this is the right time to work on these two specific steps,’ he said.