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Thursday,
January 23, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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USA not to act as mediator NEWS ANALYSIS
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Pakistan upgrades security at N-sites Advani discusses fight against terror with Emir
Racism victim wins case in UK Chinese bowled over by Bollywood
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USA not to act as mediator Washington, January 22 Pointing out that the USA had vital interest in having good relations with both India and Pakistan, US Ambassador to India Robert Blackwill said, “We are urging the Governments of India and Pakistan to discuss their differences directly. “We will not become a mediator. We have no blueprints to solve the differences between the two. You will not see any Administration officials getting of an airplane in either Delhi or Islamabad with a map case under their arm and saying how they can fix their differences,” Mr Blackwill said while addressing a meeting at the US Chamber of Commerce organised by the Indian Forum for Political Education and the India Business Council here last night. Admitting that maintaining good relations with Pakistan and India did present a “diplomatic challenge of some complexity,” he, nonetheless, said the Bush Administration did not want to determine Indo-US relations “through the optic of India’s relations with Pakistan.” The USA has a good array of issues relating to the new Indo-US bilateral relationship and multilateral affairs that have nothing to do with Pakistan. But tensions between India and its western neighbour do “concern” the USA as it had large stakes in the region which would be affected by that, Mr Blackwill said. Observing that both the USA and India were involved in a marathon war against terrorism, though on different fronts — the USA against the Al-Qaida and India against Pakistani-backed cross-border terrorism, he said “The USA does support India in many respects, including in our assistance (to ensure) that cross-border terrorism ends permanently.” “Our position,” he said, “has been that terrorism emanating from Pakistan should end permanently. This is an issue we talk with the government of Pakistan every week.” However, he said, “The Pakistan government does not look to Washington for leadership on such issues but decides its own priorities.” Mr Blackwill said India and the USA shared the same goal on Iraq that it should disarm as demanded by the UN Security Council. At the same time he pointed out that India has a special relationship with gulf nations and with Iraq, in particular.
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NEWS ANALYSIS Last October, when American media reported that Pakistan was a possible supplier of centrifuges for North Korea’s clandestine nuclear programme, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf stoutly denied the account with self-righteous indignation. More important, even the White House appeared to take the General at face value. But now it has come out that last June — full four months before the North Korean nuclear programme became public — the CIA had submitted a comprehensive report to President Bush and his top advisers, specifically mentioning that Pakistan had been sharing sophisticated technology, warhead-design information, and weapons-testing data with the Pyongyang regime since 1997. This sensational revelation has been made by investigative journalist Seymour M. Hersh in the latest issue of The New Yorker. He claims that the document made the case that North Korea had been violating international law — and agreements with South Korea and the USA — by secretly obtaining the means to produce weapons-grade uranium. In return, North Korea gave Pakistan missiles to more effectively deliver the warheads to the interiors of India. Pakistan sent prototypes of high-speed centrifuge machines to North Korea. And sometime in 2001 North Korean scientists began to enrich uranium in significant quantities. Pakistan also provided data on how to build and test a uranium-triggered nuclear weapon, the CIA report said. It had taken Pakistan a decade of experimentation, and a substantial financial investment, before it was able to produce reliable centrifuges. With Pakistan’s help, the North Koreans managed to “chop many years off” the development process. Hersh quotes a Pakistani official as telling him that his government’s contacts with North Korea increased dramatically in 1997. The Pakistani economy was in terrible shape and there was “no more money” to pay for North Korean missile support. So the Pakistani government began paying for missiles by providing “some of the knowhow and the specifics.” Pakistan helped North Korea conduct a series of “cold tests,” simulated nuclear explosions, using natural uranium, which are necessary to determine whether a nuclear device will detonate properly. Pakistan also gave the North Korean intelligence service advice on how to hide nuclear research from American satellites and US and South Korean intelligence agents. Pakistani centrifuges, according to an American intelligence official, are slim cylinders, roughly 6 feet in height, that could be shipped “by the hundreds” in cargo planes. But, he adds, “all Pakistan would have to do is give the North Koreans the blueprints. They are very sophisticated in their engineering.” And with a few thousand centrifuges, “North Korea could have enough fissile material to manufacture two or three warheads a year, with something left over to sell.” The document, known as a National Intelligence Estimate, was classified as Top Secret SCI (for “sensitive compartmented information”), and its distribution within the government was tightly restricted. Many officials in the Administration’s own arms-control offices were unaware of it. In the past decade, American intelligence tracked at least 13 visits to North Korea made by A.Q. Khan, who was then the director of a Pakistani weapons-research laboratory and is known as the father of the Pakistani nuclear bomb. Ironically, Pakistan’s nuclear programme flourished in the 1980s, at a time when its military and intelligence forces were working closely with the USA to repel the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. A US intelligence official lamented that the transfer of enrichment technology by Pakistan was a direct outgrowth of the failure of the USA to deal with the Pakistani programme when it could have done so. “We’ve lost control.” So, why did President Bush kept the dirty collaboration under wraps despite citing North Korea, along with Iraq and Iran, as part of the “axis of evil”? Apparently, this was done to keep its unrelenting focus on Iraq. This despite the fact that Iraq’s military capacity had been vitiated by its defeat in the Gulf war and years of inspections, while North Korea is one of the most militarised nations in the world, with more than 40 per cent of its population under arms. Whatever the motive, the end result is that not only has North Korea acquired awesome nuclear capabilities, but Pakistan, one of the Bush Administration’s important allies in the war against terrorism, is today considered by many US non-proliferation experts as the most dangerous country in the world. “If we’re incinerated next week, it’ll be because of highly enriched uranium that was given to Al-Qaida by Pakistan,” one of them is quoted as saying. The close ties between some scientists working for the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission and radical Islamic groups are well known. “There is an awful lot of Al-Qaida sympathy within Pakistan’s nuclear programme,” says an intelligence official. But then the USA has a long history of sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind. Pakistan’s relative poverty could pose additional risks. Earlier this month, a web-based Pakistani-exile newspaper opposed to the Musharraf government reported that, in the past six years, nine nuclear scientists had emigrated from Pakistan — apparently in search of better pay — and could not be located. |
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Pakistan upgrades security at N-sites
Islamabad, January 22 The announcement came after President Pervez Musharraf chaired a meeting of the Development Control Committee of the National Command Authority (NCA) - which overseas the Islamic republic’s nuclear programme — to review security. The “physical protection and custodial controls” at Pakistan’s nuclear sites and facilities had been recently upgraded, an official military statement said. “The NCA gave approval for further tightening of different defensive layers, enhancing physical security and ensuring the effectiveness of watertight safety of materials, equipment and technology,” the statement said. The NCA also adopted steps to improve “personal reliability programs” for people working in nuclear-related programmes. Scientists, engineers and military officers working in nuclear programmes are routinely screened every two years, according to a survey of Pakistan’s nuclear security by Italy’s Landau Network, an arms control institution. Pakistan is estimated to possess 25 to 50 nuclear warheads, according to Jane’s Defence Weekly. “Pakistan’s long-standing capability for achieving the highest levels of safety and security is adequate,” the military statement said. AFP
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Advani discusses fight against terror with Emir
Doha, January 22 The meeting on the second day of Mr Advani’s visit to the Gulf state came in the backdrop of India and Qatar coming out against any unilateral action on Iraq and agreeing on the need for a bilateral framework for fighting terrorism. Mr Advani and Qatar’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad Bin Jabor Al Thani had yesterday opposed any unilateral action on Iraq in what is seen as a significant statement in the context of gathering storm in the Gulf over Iraq. The Deputy Prime Minister was yesterday given a red carpet welcome.
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Racism victim wins case in UK London, January 22 Vijay Madara (29) was told to memorise a wiring sequence — black, brown, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, green, white — by saying “Black bastards rape our young girls but virgins go without.” In another instance he was referred to as “Paki-land, black lad, pimp, turn-your-skin-white” and “coon”. Further, when he tried to seek promotion he was removed from a course for becoming a roving maintenance engineer after his marks were purposely lowered and he was sent back to the production line. A panel said he had defied all odds to pass his examinations but his efforts were wrecked by the “disgraceful” behaviour of the management. Madara (from Derby) had joined Toyota in 1995 after graduating in business administration. Three years later he was accepted for an adult apprenticeship scheme after excelling in his post. The course was meant to last for three years but halfway through his manager Duane Daugherty sabotaged his progress by changing his marks. He had also been forced to take an exam again after being given wrong equipment during a test to reprogramme a computer. Despite being left to tackle a week-long series of virtually unstructured tests, he passed. It was then that Daugherty stepped in.
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Chinese bowled over by Bollywood Beijing, January 22 Cashing in on the pent-up demand for Bollywood-related shows, a Chinese culture and art company organised Bollywood Dhamaka in the cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Shenyang and Guangzhou and is now laughing its way to the bank as people thronged the venues to sway with Bollywood numbers. “The Bollywood extravaganza was received well by the Chinese people. All tickets were sold out in advance,” senior executive of Beijing Oriental Dragon Culture and Art Company Limited Zhou Yuan said.
PTI |
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