Inside Iran’s ‘impenetrable’ nuclear bunker
FT News Briefing
Forhecz Topher
4.4 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 16 June 2025
⏱️ 12 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Israel may not have big enough bombs to take down Iran’s most secure nuclear facility, and Nippon Steel’s bid to take over US Steel is finally moving forward. Plus, gold has surpassed the euro as the second most-popular reserve asset, and the UK’s overseas intelligence agency has appointed its first female chief.
Mentioned in this podcast:
Gold overtakes euro as global reserve asset, ECB says
Silver and platinum prices soar as investors seek ‘gold alternatives’
The nuclear mountain that haunts Israel
Donald Trump approves Nippon Steel’s $15bn takeover of US Steel
Britain’s overseas spy agency MI6 promotes ‘Q’ to be first female head
Today’s FT News Briefing was produced by Sonja Hutson, Ethan Plotkin, Kasia Broussalian, and Marc Filippino. Additional help from Alexander Higgins and Peter Barber. Our acting co-head of audio is Topher Forhecz. Our intern is Michaela Seah. The show’s theme song is by Metaphor Music.
Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We're Equinor, an energy company searching for better. Currently, we supply 27% of the UK's gas, |
| 0:07.0 | 15% of its oil, and we're playing our part in the UK's energy transition. In 2023, we invested |
| 0:14.1 | 20% of our global gross spend in renewables and lower carbon solutions. Today, our wind farms power |
| 0:20.0 | 750,000 homes, and we expect this to grow to |
| 0:23.3 | over 7 million UK households. We're an energy company searching for better. Equinor.com. |
| 0:29.0 | UK. |
| 0:33.5 | Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Monday, June 16th, and this is your FT News briefing. |
| 0:41.0 | Israel wants to take out Iran's nuclear program, but a mountain stands in the way. And Nippon Steel finally got the go-ahead to buy its American rival. |
| 0:51.9 | Plus, investors can't seem to get enough of a certain shiny metal. |
| 0:57.3 | Gold has had a historic rally in 2025, and even the most pro-gold bugs out there didn't really see this coming. |
| 1:06.6 | I'm Kasha Bursalian, and here's the news you need to start your day. |
| 1:20.9 | Music I'm Kasha Brousalian, and here's the news you need to start your day. Israel and Iran traded missile strikes over the weekend, escalating the conflict between the two. |
| 1:28.5 | Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said it'll go on as long as it takes to destroy Iran's nuclear |
| 1:34.1 | program. But that's kind of like facing Mount Doom, as my colleague John Paul Rathbone describes |
| 1:39.9 | it. He's been following the weekend's events, and he's here with me now. Hey, JP. |
| 1:44.8 | Hi, good to be here. So just explain the situation here to me. What makes Iran's nuclear |
| 1:50.5 | facilities so difficult to target? So Iran's nuclear program is what it's all about for Israel, |
| 1:57.9 | and there are two main ones that are militarily of interest. One is at Natanz, |
| 2:04.6 | which has been as a surface facility which has largely been destroyed. And there's another one at |
| 2:09.9 | Fodro, which is for Israeli defence planners akin to Mount Doom. It's buried deep within a |
| 2:15.9 | mountain about half a mile down. It's heavily guarded. |
| 2:19.4 | The mountain makes it difficult to strike at by bombers and fighter jets. It may even be |
... |
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