Rupee News

Nuclear collaboration between China and Pakistan

Share

Image via Wikipedia

Nuclear collaboration between China and Pakistan dates back to 1986, when both countries signed a Comprehensive Nuclear Cooperation Agreement on 15th September in Beijing. The salient clauses of the agreement included that China would construct four nuclear plants in Pakistan namely Chashma 1, 2, 3 and 4 by 2011. This agreement does not fall within the ambit of IAEA or Nuclear Suppliers Group, as China had signed the Protocol Additional to the IAEA Safeguards Agreement in 1998 and in March 2002 it formally completed the domestic legal procedures necessary for the Additional Protocol to enter into force to become member of Non-Proliferation Treaty. Since China had signed nuclear agreement with Pakistan in 1986, China is not under obligation to abide by the conditions laid down in NSG. Speaking on the sidelines of silver jubilee celebrations of the Fast Breeder Test Reactor (FBTR) and Radio Metallurgy Laboratory (RML), the Indian Minister of State for Science and Technology, Prithviraj Chavan said the other day that India had serious concerns about transfer of nuclear technology illegally to Pakistan.

After the news of Pak-China deal for supplying two more nuclear reactors, America had hinted that it would take up the matter in Nuclear Suppliers Group, but it did not dare do it because China could have opted out of the NSG. America’s double standards are obvious from its nuclear deal with India. After signing nuclear deal with India, the US had refused to ink similar deal with energy starved Pakistan. On October 1, 2008, the US Congress had given final approval to an agreement facilitating nuclear cooperation between America and India. The deal was first introduced in a joint statement release by the then President George W Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2005. The NSG had approved the agreement between the US and India on September 6, 2008. There is a perception that Indo-US Nuclear Deal has set the precedence and opened the door for any such deal in the future. In fact it has obscured the prospects of stopping Iran and North Korea from pursuing nuclear ambitions. If India, the primary proliferator could be given such a concession by the NSG, why Pakistan be deprived from it?

In June 2010, during Indo-US strategic dialogue, India told the US that it had serious objections to the proposed China-Pakistan nuclear deal. The US also expressed its concern about the deal after the additional UN sanctions were slapped on Iran with the cooperation of China, Russia and France. Before the plenary session of Nuclear Suppliers Group, the US state department spokesperson Gordon Duguid had said: “The US has reiterated to China that the US expects Beijing to cooperate with Pakistan in ways consistent with Chinese nonproliferation obligations”. India had expected that the said deal would be discussed at New Zealand in 46-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) meeting, which monitored such transactions. But that did not happen because all the decisions in NSG are made with consensus, and if one of the suppliers opposed or insisted on its stance, no agreement can be reached. In a statement issued at the end of its two-day plenary meeting in Christchurch, New Zealand, the NSG had only stated that its members “agreed to continue considering ways to further strengthen guidelines dealing with the transfer of ENR technologies”. International media however continues ranting that Pak-China agreement will be a violation of international guidelines forbidding nuclear exports to countries that have not signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) or do not have international safeguards on reactors. It has to be mentioned that India is not a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, yet it has been given exemption by the NSG on the recommendation and persuasion of the US, France and Russia despite the fact the NSG is not supposed to supply nuclear-related materials to the country that has not signed the NPT. Anyhow, China took the plea that agreement was inked before it joined the NSG in 2004, which, according to analysts, would exclude the Pak-China deal from the purview of any obligations to the NSG.

As clarified by Qin Gang, the spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry that “the nuclear cooperation between the two countries was for peaceful purposes and totally consistent with its international obligations and safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency”. Under the deal, China will export two nuclear power reactors to Pakistan at the cost of $2.375-billion. As regards Pak-China Nuclear Deal it is too well known that it was concluded in 1986 when China had neither signed the NPT nor become member of the NSG neither the member of Nuclear Suppliers Group.

It is common knowledge that India remained outside the international nuclear mainstream since it misused Canadian and US peaceful nuclear assistance to conduct its 1974 nuclear bomb test; refused to sign the nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, and conducted additional nuclear tests in 1998. Though India had been cut off from most US civilian nuclear assistance since 1978 and most international assistance since 1992 because of violation in 1974, yet it claims that India has excellent record as compared with Pakistan. Anyhow, India’s willingness to open some nuclear reactors for international inspection in return for the deal was not enough, as the agreement allowed it to keep its 8 nuclear reactors off-limits. It appears that hypocrisy, strategic interest and greed of the US and the West for approximately a couple of hundred billion dollars had been victorious, and international covenants and laws were trampled when the US Congress put its stamp of approval on the controversial Indo-US nuclear deal, and then the Senate had overwhelmingly voted a Bill paving the way for the implementation of civil nuclear deal between the two countries.

Since, America has created asymmetry in South Asia, and in the past it ditched its ally Pakistan after achieving its objectives, then Pakistan has every right to look for other options for its security. Naturally Pakistan’s first choice is China. Pakistan-China relations began in 1950, and Pakistan was among the first countries to break relations with Taiwan and recognize the People’s Republic of China. Later in 1954, Pakistan joined South East Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) and the next year Baghdad Pact which was renamed as Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) after revolution in Iraq.

But despite Pakistan’s joining defence pacts with the West, China valued Pakistan’s sentiments vis-à-vis snapping relations with Taiwan. On its part, China has helped Pakistan in variety of projects including Gwadar Port Project and Saindak Copper Project in Balochistan. Earlier, Machine Tool Factory of Karachi and Heavy Mechanical Complex at Taxila were also established with China’s help. China has extended full cooperation to make Pakistan self-reliant by providing know-how with a view to strengthening and ensuring territorial integrity and sovereignty of Pakistan. At the present Beijing and Islamabad are involved in joint production of JF-17 Thunder aircraft, which has the most sophisticated avionics. Above all, China considers stability of Pakistan as cornerstone of its foreign policy. Pakistan should never forget that. Sino-Pak nuclear collaboration News & Views Mohammad Jamil

—The writer is Lahore-based senior journalist.

Nuclear collaboration between China and Pakistan

Share

Israel's worst-kept secret revealed: Nuclear proliferation

Share

Israel’s worst-kept secret has finally been revealed.

Documents published in recent days show that Israel not only has nuclear weapons — something it has never officially acknowledged — but that it considered selling them to South Africa’s white minority government in 1975. The evidence — contained in Sasha Polakow-Suransky’s new book The Unspoken Alliance: Israel’s Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa — appears strong and credible.

But will it cause Europe and America to rethink their relationship with Israel? The truth is that Israel already enjoys such a privileged level of access to their key institutions that any rethink is improbable — at least in the short-term. One of the most important aspects of this relationship relates to how Israel interacts with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

In December 2008, then-Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni visited the headquarters of NATO in Brussels to sign an “individual cooperation program” with its member states. By hooking up Israel to NATO’s computer systems and facilitating its increased participation in the alliance’s missions, this agreement has helped give Israel closer ties with NATO and its 28 member states than any other country outside the club.

Within a few weeks of that agreement being signed, Israel launched a brutal offensive against Gaza, killing more than 1,400 Palestinians. The slaughter did not deter then-NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer from making a public gesture of friendship with the Israeli state. While the death toll in Gaza was continuing to mount, he visited Israel in January 2009 to celebrate “the growing depth both of our practical cooperation and of our political dialogue.” Even though Israel’s armed forces caused almost all of the deaths in that three-week assault and had unilaterally broken off a ceasefire with Hamas by attacking it two months earlier, he repeated the official Israeli narrative of blaming the violence on Hamas.

Over the past week, NATO has published a paper recommending an update to the “strategic concept” that underpins its activities. Partly authored by Madeleine Albright, the US Secretary of State under President Bill Clinton, this report “NATO 2020: Assured Security; Dynamic Engagement,” signals that the alliance is mired in a Cold War funk. As well as advocating that the US, Britain and France hold on to their nuclear missiles as long as these weapons “remain a reality in international relations,” it identifies the development of a missile defense shield as “an essential military mission.” This system is — if you believe the propaganda — supposed to protect the member countries against Iran, which is singled out as the state most likely to present a fundamental security challenge in the coming decade. Substitute Iran for the Soviet Union and the case for the system is almost identical to that put forward by US President Ronald Reagan when proposing his “Star Wars” initiative in the 1980s.

NATO has already signaled that Israel will be involved in the development of the defense shield (an Orwellian term, given that the project will probably only ratchet up tensions in the Middle East). Earlier this month, NATO representatives took part in an armaments conference in Airport City, a “business park” near Tel Aviv. Alan Berry, a senior NATO official, confirmed that he and his colleagues were studying Israel’s own military interceptors and had helped preliminary discussions about how Israel could take part in the defense shield project.

So far Turkey appears to be the only NATO member to have indicated there is an inherent double standard in seeking Israel’s assistance to ward off a perceived threat from Iran. Unlike Iran (and most other nations), Israel has refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, with the result that its nuclear weapons program has never been subject to international scrutiny. Ahmet Davutoglu, the Turkish foreign minister, is reported to have raised this anomaly with his NATO peers at a meeting in Tallinn, Estonia, last month, telling them that “no country should be exempted from joining this treaty.”

Meanwhile, Israel’s reputation for inventing some of the most technologically advanced weapons used in modern warfare is attracting an increasing level of attention from that other powerful club based in Brussels: the European Union.

Sources in the European Defense Agency (EDA) — a body set up following lobbying by leading arms manufacturers and dedicated to boosting military expenditure by EU governments — have told this writer they are particularly excited by Israel’s pilotless drones or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Many officials in the EDA regard the agency’s work on drones as its most important activity. In July, the EDA will participate in a major conference here aimed at convincing the public that these sophisticated spy-planes can help achieve such laudable objectives as protecting the environment.

This exercise bears all the hallmarks of what ecologists call “greenwash.” Far from being invented to save the planet, drones have been used in numerous attacks by Israel on Palestinian civilians, as well as by NATO forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Britain and the Netherlands are among the countries taking part in the war in Afghanistan to have signed contracts to buy or rent Israeli drones in recent months.

A spokeswoman for the EDA explained that while her agency keeps a close eye on Israel’s arms industry, there are no plans for a formal cooperation agreement with Israel. The same cannot be said for the EU’s multi-annual scientific research program, which has a budget of 53 billion euros ($66.7 billion) for the 2007-13 period. Israel is the largest foreign partner in this program and the country’s arms-makers are intimately involved.

To prove that it was committed to former US President George W. Bush’s “war on terror,” the EU has decided in recent years to include security as a theme within the program. Nearly 60 projects have been financed under this category, with Israel taking part in 12 of them. Motorola Israel, for example, is signed up to a project designed to help the detection of “intruders” to buildings or areas deemed of high economic value. Motorola has ample experience in developing the kind of surveillance equipment that will probably feature in this project: it has installed a “virtual fence” around a network of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. This “fence” uses thermal cameras and other sensory devices to pinpoint anyone — such as a Palestinian — who the Israeli authorities believe should not be allowed to enter settlements built illegally on Palestinian land in open violation of international law.

In another example of greenwash, Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) is playing a prominent role in the “Clean Sky” project, which is supposed to encourage the development of less-polluting aircraft engines. Far from being an eco-warrior, IAI is a top supplier of warplanes to the Israeli army.

Earlier this year, Irishwoman Maire Geoghegan-Quinn became the new European commissioner for science and research. When her spokesperson Mark English was asked if she has any ethical concerns about how EU-funded projects have been opened up to Israeli firms who have field tested their weapons against Palestinian civilians, rather than answering that question, he said that all of the EU’s research activities “maintain an exclusively civilian orientation.” He added: “our rules, however, do not preclude enterprises, which are also active in the defense industry — be they in the EU or in an associated country like Israel — from participating.”

It is deceptive for EU officials to claim that activities that involve arms companies are entirely civilian, especially when those companies hail from a highly militarized country like Israel and are directly implicated in the occupation and its attendant abuses of international law. As it happens, other officials have acknowledged that the EU institutions are preparing a blueprint for extending the scope of its scientific research programs into more hardcore military research.

Nobody should be surprised if Israel’s merchants of death and destruction will gobble up an even greater chunk of the EU’s research pie in the coming years. The only positive aspect of this ever-deepening relationship with Israel is that it helps shatter all illusions that the EU is serious when bragging routinely of its commitment to human rights.

David Cronin’s book Europe’s Alliance with Israel: Aiding the Occupation will be published later this year by Pluto Press. NATO’s Other Member State By David Cronin, 27 May, 2010, The Electronic Intifada

Israel's worst-kept secret revealed: Nuclear proliferation

Share

Maligning Pakistan: Why the Washington Post is rehashing old urban legends about “proliferation”

Share

Here we go again—an old story rehashed by the paragon of news veracity—the same newspaper that ran the story about the Iraqi WMDs multiple times. It is now in the forefront of war hysteria against another Muslim country. It is again repeating the same old story that was repeated a decade ago. The timing of this story is significant—it is being published while President Barack Obama is on his tour of Beijing.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Friday dismissed a media report about Beijing providing it with weapons-grade uranium and a blueprint for an atomic bomb and described it as an effort to divert attention from support being extended by “some states” to India’s nuclear programme. Foreign office spokesman Abdul Basit described the allegations made in an article in the Washington Post newspaper as “baseless”.

 ”Pakistan strongly rejects the assertions in the article that is evidently timed to malign Pakistan and China,” he said.
“This is yet another attempt to divert attention from the overt and covert support being extended by some states to the Indian nuclear programme since its inception and intensified more recently in stark contradiction to their self-avowed commitment to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,” he said.

Pakistan and China have “comprehensive and all-dimensional cooperation”, which includes civilian nuclear cooperation for peaceful purposes, Basit said.

“This has always been above board. Pakistan and China have always respected their respective international obligations and non-proliferation norms,” he said.

Citing an account provided by disgraced nuclear scientist A Q Khan, the Washington Post reported on Friday that China provided Pakistan enough weapons-grade uranium for two atomic bombs and the blueprint for a simple nuclear weapon in 1982.

The US state department dismissed the Washington Post sensationalism.

Washington, Nov.14 (ANI): The US State Department has said it has no specific concern about nuclear proliferation from Pakistan.

“We don’t have any specific concerns about proliferation per se specifically from Pakistan. We feel confident that the command and control of nuclear weapons in Pakistan secure,” The News quoted spokesman Ian Kelly, as saying.

The statement came hours after reports were flashed in the media about China providing weapons-grade uranium, sufficient for making two atomic bombs, to Pakistan in 1982.

The transfer of nuclear fuel was ‘part of a broad-ranging, secret nuclear deal approved years earlier by Mao Zedong and Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto that culminated in an exceptional, deliberate act of proliferation by a nuclear power,’ a US newspaper had reported.

The United States maintains that had information about illegal nuke transfers between Pakistan and China, but has never raised the issue in public.

The issue is expected to come up for discussion during President Barack Obama’s maiden Beijing visit next week. (ANI)Read more: http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/south-asia/us-has-no-specific-concern-about-nuclear-proliferation-from-pakistan_100274630.html#ixzz0WuFqU1Jr

The unsubstantiated Washington Post story is a rehash of old wine in new bottle type of reporting. It is this type of reporting about the Iraqi WMDs that led up to the frenzy of the war on Iraq.

In 1982, a Pakistani military C-130 left the western Chinese city of Urumqi with a highly unusual cargo: enough weapons-grade uranium for two atomic bombs, according to accounts written by the father of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program, Abdul Qadeer Khan, and provided to The Washington Post.

The uranium transfer in five stainless-steel boxes was part of a broad-ranging, secret nuclear deal approved years earlier by Mao Zedong and Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto that culminated in an exceptional, deliberate act of proliferation by a nuclear power, according to the accounts by Khan, who is under house arrest in Pakistan.

U.S. officials say they have known about the transfer for decades and once privately confronted the Chinese — who denied it — but have never raised the issue in public or sought to impose direct sanctions on China for it. President Obama, who said in April that “the world must stand together to prevent the spread of these weapons,” plans to discuss nuclear proliferation issues while visiting Beijing on Tuesday.

According to Khan, the uranium cargo came with a blueprint for a simple weapon that China had already tested, supplying a virtual do-it-yourself kit that significantly speeded Pakistan’s bomb effort. The transfer also started a chain of proliferation: U.S. officials worry that Khan later shared related Chinese design information with Iran; in 2003, Libya confirmed obtaining it from Khan’s clandestine network.

China’s refusal to acknowledge the transfer and the unwillingness of the United States to confront the Chinese publicly demonstrate how difficult it is to counter nuclear proliferation. Although U.S. officials say China is now much more attuned to proliferation dangers, it has demonstrated less enthusiasm than the United States for imposing sanctions on Iran over its nuclear efforts, a position Obama wants to discuss.

Although Chinese officials have for a quarter-century denied helping any nation attain a nuclear capability, current and former U.S. officials say Khan’s accounts confirm the U.S. intelligence community’s long-held conclusion that China provided such assistance.

“Upon my personal request, the Chinese Minister . . . had gifted us 50 kg [kilograms] of weapon-grade enriched uranium, enough for two weapons,” Khan wrote in a previously undisclosed 11-page narrative of the Pakistani bomb program that he prepared after his January 2004 detention for unauthorized nuclear commerce.

“The Chinese gave us drawings of the nuclear weapon, gave us kg50 enriched uranium,” he said in a separate account sent to his wife several months earlier.

China’s Foreign Ministry last week declined to address Khan’s specific assertions, but it said that as a member of the global Non-Proliferation Treaty since 1992, “China strictly adheres to the international duty of prevention of proliferation it shoulders and strongly opposes . . . proliferation of nuclear weapons in any forms.”

Asked why the U.S. government has never publicly confronted China over the uranium transfer, State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley said, “The United States has worked diligently and made progress with China over the past 25 years. As to what was or wasn’t done during the Reagan administration, I can’t say.”

Khan’s exploits have been described in multiple books and public reports since British and U.S. intelligence services unmasked the deeds in 2003. But his own narratives — not yet seen by U.S. officials — provide fresh details about China’s aid to Pakistan and its reciprocal export to China of sensitive uranium-enrichment technology.

A spokesman for the Pakistani Embassy in Washington declined to comment for this article. Pakistan has never allowed the U.S. government to question Khan or other top Pakistani officials directly, prompting Congress to demand in legislation approved in September that future aid be withheld until Obama certifies that Pakistan has provided “relevant information from or direct access to Pakistani nationals” involved in past nuclear commerce.

Insider vs. government

The Post obtained Khan’s detailed accounts from Simon Henderson, a former journalist at the Financial Times who is now a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and who has maintained correspondence with Khan. In a first-person account about his contacts with Khan in the Sept. 20 edition of the London Sunday Times, Henderson disclosed several excerpts from one of the documents.

Henderson said he agreed to The Post’s request for a copy of that letter and other documents and narratives written by Khan because he believes an accurate understanding of Pakistan’s nuclear history is relevant for U.S. policymaking. The Post independently confirmed the authenticity of the material; it also corroborated much of the content through interviews in Pakistan and other countries.

Although Khan disputes various assertions by book authors, the narratives are particularly at odds with Pakistan’s official statements that he exported nuclear secrets as a rogue agent and implicated only former government officials who are no longer living. Instead, he repeatedly states that top politicians and military officers were immersed in the country’s foreign nuclear dealings.

Khan has complained to friends that his movements and contacts are being unjustly controlled by the government, whose bidding he did — providing a potential motive for his disclosures.

Overall, the narratives portray his deeds as a form of sustained, high-tech international horse-trading, in which Khan and a series of top generals successfully leveraged his access to Europe’s best centrifuge technology in the 1980s to obtain financial assistance or technical advice from foreign governments that wanted to advance their own efforts.

“The speed of our work and our achievements surprised our worst enemies and adversaries and the West stood helplessly by to see a Third World nation, unable even to produce bicycle chains or sewing needles, mastering the most advanced nuclear technology in the shortest possible span of time,” Khan boasts in the 11-page narrative he wrote for Pakistani intelligence officials about his dealings with foreigners while head of a key nuclear research laboratory.

Exchanges with Beijing

According to one of the documents, a five-page summary by Khan of his government’s dealmaking with China, the terms of the nuclear exchange were set in a mid-1976 conversation between Mao and Bhutto. Two years earlier, neighboring India had tested its first nuclear bomb, provoking Khan — a metallurgist working at a Dutch centrifuge manufacturer — to offer his services to Bhutto.

Khan said he and two other Pakistani officials — including then-Foreign Secretary Agha Shahi, since deceased — worked out the details when they traveled to Beijing later that year for Mao’s funeral. Over several days, Khan said, he briefed three top Chinese nuclear weapons officials — Liu Wei, Li Jue and Jiang Shengjie — on how the European-designed centrifuges could swiftly aid China’s lagging uranium-enrichment program. China’s Foreign Ministry did not respond to questions about the officials’ roles.

“Chinese experts started coming regularly to learn the whole technology” from Pakistan, Khan states, staying in a guesthouse built for them at his centrifuge research center. Pakistani experts were dispatched to Hanzhong in central China, where they helped “put up a centrifuge plant,” Khan said in an account he gave to his wife after coming under government pressure. “We sent 135 C-130 plane loads of machines, inverters, valves, flow meters, pressure gauges,” he wrote. “Our teams stayed there for weeks to help and their teams stayed here for weeks at a time.”

In return, China sent Pakistan 15 tons of uranium hexafluoride (UF6), a feedstock for Pakistan’s centrifuges that Khan’s colleagues were having difficulty producing on their own. Khan said the gas enabled the laboratory to begin producing bomb-grade uranium in 1982. Chinese scientists helped the Pakistanis solve other nuclear weapons challenges, but as their competence rose, so did the fear of top Pakistani officials that Israel or India might preemptively strike key nuclear sites.

Mohammed Zia ul-Haq, the nation’s military ruler, “was worried,” Khan said, and so he and a Pakistani general who helped oversee the nation’s nuclear laboratories were dispatched to Beijing with a request in mid-1982 to borrow enough bomb-grade uranium for a few weapons.

After winning Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping’s approval, Khan, the general and two others flew aboard a Pakistani C-130 to Urumqi. Khan says they enjoyed barbecued lamb while waiting for the Chinese military to pack the small uranium bricks into lead-lined boxes, 10 single-kilogram ingots to a box, for the flight to Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital.

According to Khan’s account, however, Pakistan’s nuclear scientists kept the Chinese material in storage until 1985, by which time the Pakistanis had made a few bombs with their own uranium. Khan said he got Zia’s approval to ask the Chinese whether they wanted their high-enriched uranium back. After a few days, they responded “that the HEU loaned earlier was now to be considered as a gift . . . in gratitude” for Pakistani help, Khan said.

He said the laboratory promptly fabricated hemispheres for two weapons and added them to Pakistan’s arsenal. Khan’s view was that none of this violated the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty, because neither nation had signed it at the time and neither had sought to use its capability “against any country in particular.” He also wrote that subsequent international protests reeked of hypocrisy because of foreign assistance to nuclear weapons programs in Britain, Israel and South Africa.

U.S. unaware of progress

The United States was suspicious of Pakistani-Chinese collaboration through this period. Officials knew that China treasured its relationship with Pakistan because both worried about India; they also knew that China viewed Western nuclear policies as discriminatory and that some Chinese politicians had favored the spread of nuclear arms as a path to stability.

But U.S. officials were ignorant about key elements of the cooperation as it unfolded, according to current and former officials and classified documents.

China is “not in favor of a Pakistani nuclear explosive program, and I don’t think they are doing anything to help it,” a top State Department official reported in a secret briefing in 1979, three years after the Bhutto-Mao deal was struck. A secret State Department report in 1983 said Washington was aware that Pakistan had requested China’s help, but “we do not know what the present status of the cooperation is,” according to a declassified copy.

Meanwhile, Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang promised at a White House dinner in January 1984: “We do not engage in nuclear proliferation ourselves, nor do we help other countries develop nuclear weapons.” A nearly identical statement was made by China in a major summary of its nonproliferation policies in 2003 and on many occasions in between.

Fred McGoldrick, a senior State Department nonproliferation official in the Reagan and Clinton administrations, recalls that the United States learned in the 1980s about the Chinese bomb-design and uranium transfers. “We did confront them, and they denied it,” he said. Since then, the connection has been confirmed by particles on nuclear-related materials from Pakistan, many of which have characteristic Chinese bomb program “signatures,” other officials say.

Hans M. Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, said that except for the instance described by Khan, “we are not aware of cases where a nuclear weapon state has transferred HEU to a non-nuclear country for military use.” McGoldrick also said he is aware of “nothing like it” in the history of nuclear weapons proliferation. But he said nothing has ever been said publicly because “this is diplomacy; you don’t do that sort of thing . . . if you want them to change their behavior.”

A nuclear power’s act of proliferation
Accounts by controversial scientist assert China gave Pakistan enough enriched uranium in ’82 to make 2 bombs

By R. Jeffrey Smith and Joby Warrick Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, November 13, 2009

Warrick reported from Islamabad. Staff researcher Julie Tate in Washington and Beijing bureau assistant Wang Juan contributed to this report.

Maligning Pakistan: Why the Washington Post is rehashing old urban legends about “proliferation”

Share

Perfidious Treacherous Capitulation to the US

Share

| NEW YORK | RUPEE NEWS | July 30th, 2008 | Moin Ansari | It is a sad day for Pakistan when the PPPP government halted all efforts to oppose Indian gains in the IAEA. Pakistani nationalists are appalled. Shireen Mazari, herself marganilzed by the Zardari cabal is speaking up against the obvious capitulation and sellout.

 Despite numerous hiccups and tactical errors such as the sending of our old centrifuges to the IAEA, successive governments of Pakistan stood their ground on the nuclear issue – especially in terms of protecting our nuclear capability’s interests. For the first time we have now chosen to surrender on this count – for that is what happened on August 1, 2008, in the IAEA board of governors meeting where Pakistan showed its pusillanimity and abandoned its policy of at least seeking a vote in this body on the IAEA-India safeguards.This is clearly a first in our soon to be many compromises on the nuclear issue. A similar surrender in the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva on the Fissile Material Cut off Treaty (FMCT) will be next. So far we have been holding out against the US draft, supported by India, which contravenes the international consensus on the FMCT (as discussed in earlier columns) reflected in the Shannon Report of March 1995 and in UN General Assembly Resolution 48/75L. But now we should brace ourselves for the inevitable compromise if the prevailing decision makers and their advisers continue on their path of making Pakistan a loyal satellite state of the US.

The game plan that some of us had been pointing to for some time now has become abundantly overt. This plan rests on a three-pronged strategy at the macro level, with many off shoots at the micro level: one, weakening key state institutions and keeping the subjugated ones in that position with perhaps a facade of compromise if required; two, of aggravating the law and order situation beyond the tribal belt; and, three, of gradually and piecemeal compromising on our nuclear capability so that eventually the stability and credibility of the deterrence is destroyed which would then make it easier to rollback the whole programme.

Some of these strategies were being operationalised before February 2008, but clearly the Americans felt a double game was going on by the Pakistanis to preserve their national interests and hence the search for more reliable political partners. Certainly, Ms Bhutto on her return, albeit via the NRO, sensed the national mood and was embracing it as reflected in her visit to the Judges Colony and her commitment to the restoration of the deposed Supreme Court judges. Her tragic assassination not only traumatised the whole nation regardless of their politics, but it inflicted on this hapless nation a design for its destruction – not so much physically, although that may happen also if the US plan for balkanisation comes through in this region, but in terms of it being handed over to the US as a loyal satellite.

So let us see how the three-pronged strategy of the present rulers is being worked out. On the judicial issue, we now have the official statement of the law minister asking the deposed judges to take a fresh oath if they wish to resume their duties alongside the PCO judges. So much for the nation’s struggle for an independent judiciary. But that would be awkward for the rulers, both past and present, as well as the US, especially on the issue of the countless Pakistanis who have disappeared with many having been handed over to the US. Also, an independent judiciary offers protection against the ills of rulers and the NRO could also have become a point of judicial controversy. So, at best the judiciary can be allowed a veneer of independence – nothing robust or proactive.

As for weakening the existing strong state institutions, the case of the ISI is the most blatant one, although the army has been targeted also – despite the delinkage between the presidency and the military. Of course, the ISI has its share of negatives but if the rulers – one cannot use the word government here because one of the main rulers is outside of the government – really wanted to rectify the aberrations within this institution, they would have simply delinked the Internal Wing, which has been used by so many for internal political machinations. Instead, by seeking to put it under the Interior unelected adviser, more political fangs were being sought and, undoubtedly, as is happening elsewhere, the organisation would have been packed with “loyalists”. Worse still, by now creating ambiguity of where the civilian control of the ISI rests – since the old order has not been formally rescinded – uncertainty is being created which will impact the external functioning of the ISI while its controversial internal functions will increase rather than abate. Interestingly, it should be recalled that Rehman Malik and his UK-based security setup had close links with British intelligence.

Why target the ISI at this time and in this particular fashion? Clearly, this is a well-planned campaign being conducted in collusion with the US and India, with Karzai offering ground support. The US has strong reasons for targeting the military in general and the ISI in particular since it has been evident for some time that they were not falling in line with US demands and policy imperatives. That the CIA and ISI worked together since the first Afghan venture is now history. It would appear that the CIA wanted to continue in that fashion but some of its policies were threatening Pakistan directly such as seeking to stir up trouble in the settled areas of Pukhtunkhwa province. A look at the Serena Hotel, Swat’s guest book for the last two years will reveal interesting information especially regarding the Americans who visited there dressed as locals, speaking Pushto (a point that had been made in an earlier column), and were in touch with Fazlullah. According to official sources, militants in Swat even today are getting foreign funding and, even though foreign militants were eliminated during the first phase of the military operation in Swat, there is again a presence of foreign militants in the area.

It would seem the ISI was finally uncomfortable with some of the CIA goings on in Pakistan and was also up in arms against the new US ally in the region, India, so it had to be pilloried and undermined. Also, the increasing evidence that the US is using the Shamsi base against Iran, a friendly neighbour with whom we have no quarrel or conflict, could not be ignored. The ISI was also seeking to make more public the Indian ingresses into Balochistan and FATA and the continuing acceptance by the US and Karzai of terrorist groups operating in Balochistan from Kabul. So, all in all, the time was considered right to target the ISI – especially given the assumption that internally also some would welcome this given the disinformation and political history of this organisation. Of course, the fact that the ISI has a critical external role was not a concern for the rulers – in fact, that is the role that they along with the US were seeking to undermine in any case.

Perhaps it is time for the real US agenda within Pakistan to be revealed, especially their efforts to aid and abet extremism and militancy; and here the first and second prongs of their strategy coincide. We seem to have forgotten that the US first turned against the Taliban only when they rejected the UNOCAL oil deal in 1998, so if the ISI is guilty of having links with Taliban remnants, so is the CIA. Only the ISI won’t play ball with the CIA anymore and that is not acceptable to the US!

Finally, in terms of a phased surrender on the nuclear issue, along with the external dynamics there is a policy to undermine the development of our technical capabilities. According to a recent news report (The News, August 3, 2008), the government has decided to cut down funds for defence-related organisations under the Strategic Plans Division. Specifically, the cuts will be imposed on scientific research and development organisations and their personnel, so that will directly hit our future R&D in sensitive hi tech areas. If the state is short of funds, surely more useful cuts could be made in the general bureaucracy – both civil and military – as well as in the spendings of the prime minister, ministers and the presidency. Why hire ambassadors at large, resuscitate old bureaucrats and hire private planes for ministers when austerity is so essential?

Undermining our strategic R&D, and making it less attractive for the best to enter this field in the future, is part of a sinister design. We are finally on the path of being delivered to the US as a defanged and loyal satellite. The writer is a defence analyst. Email: callstr@hotmail.com. A deliberate capitulation to the US | Wednesday, August 06, 2008 Shireen M Mazari.

• UK pressures compliant Zardari into selling prime real estate in Kabul
• Why did Ghaddari refuse to buy Uranium from Kazakhstan?
• Khar accuses! Banazir’s will a fake?…plot thickens
• Transit Rights” MOU DOA: Zardari compliance rejected
• Is Haqqani treachery Zardari’s treason?
• Treachery: PPP cancels opposition to India at IAEA
• Perfidious Treacherous Capitulation to the US

Perfidious Treacherous Capitulation to the US

Share

Japan's double standards on Nuclear proliferation

Share

Noticias de Rupia | Nouvelles de Roupie | Rupiennachrichten | ??????? ????? | ???? | Roepienieuws | Rupi Nyheter | ??????? | Notizie di Rupia | PAKISTAN LEDGER | ???????? ????? | RUPEE NEWS | August 5th, 2008 | Moin Ansari | ???? ??????? | ????? ?????

Japan has been selling a “holier than thou” attitude for the best part of two decades. It has been preaching the anti-proliferation coolaid to Pakistan and the world. Now it is either agreeing to sell nuclear fuel to India or remaining silent on the subject and abstaining–in essence approving the deal that will accept India’s proliferation but will not accept Pakistan or Iranian nuclear programs.

NEW DELHI: Japan, a key member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), on Tuesday was non-committal on whether it would support India’s case at the 45-nation grouping even as it asked New Delhi to sign the NPT and CTBT.

After his talks with Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee who sought Japan’s support, Japan’s Foreign Minister Masshiko Koumura said Tokyo understands India’s energy needs but wants to be sure that Indo-US nuclear deal will not undermine non-proliferation efforts.
Mukherjee sought to allay the concerns, saying the Indo-US nuclear deal is “limited to peaceful energy programme” and asserted that New Delhi has an impeccable record on the non-proliferation front despite not being a signatory to the NPT.

Why is the West after Pakistani Nukes? They call it Self Preservation: They say a clandestine program for survival has been billed as “proliferation”. Some call it Nuclear proliferation. It started after WW2 to Britain, France, and to Russia, and China and then Isreal. Pakistan developed an India specific defense capability. After a decade, no threats to anyone!

Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee (R) with his Japanese counterpart Masshiko Koumura in New Delhi. (PTI)

“We seek cooperation of the international community… We are aware of Japan’s sensitivity. In view of that I reiterated our firm commitment to total disarmament and strict adherence to conditions of non-proliferation as enshrined in various treaties,” Mukherjee said at a joint press conference with Koumura.
He said though India is not a signatory to NPT or any other pact, India fulfils “all major conditionalities” required for non-proliferation.

Koumura, while noting that Japan is the only one to have suffered an atomic bomb, said his country needs to be sure that the Indo-US nuclear deal is “satisfactory” in the sense that it will further strengthen disarmament and not undermine it.

He said Japan would “join the discussions which will be held in future”, apparently referring to the August 21-22 meeting of NSG to consider waiver for India. PTI

5th Generation Su-35 spinoffs made in China as J-11s

Pakistan rapidly moving beyond basic JF-17 Thunders. The J-10s J-11s and newer versions of JF-17

J-11s

Nothing succeeds like success: Hataf, Ghauri, Babar, Abdali missiles

—————————————-
JF-17 Thunders: Designed, built and operationalized in a record time of 4 years. Custom built for Pakistani needs

Serial production of JF-17 Thunder expedited:30-50 per year to 100 per annum

Beyond the Pakistani made JF-17 Thunder Fighter Plane, Chinese made J-10s.PAF next acquisition the J-11s?

Pakistan defense based on missile nuclear deterrent Hataf, Shaheen Babar and Abdali

Hamza: Pakistan’s Augusta class Subs made in Karachi Pakistan’s 500 Al-Khalid tanks have been in production since 2001. Next generation tanks exported via IDEAS Pakistani made UAVs: Uqaab & Jasoos 3 New shipyards support Pakistani ship building & Frigates

Pakistan’s F-22 Frigates made in Karachi

Japan's double standards on Nuclear proliferation

Share

Why the media ignores Nuclear proliferation by India!

Share

The double standards are visible everywhere. Pakistan was sanctioned for a decade for pursuing nuclear technology. India is rewarded with a nuclear deal. The campaign against a Pakistani scientist continues. However the 250 bombs of Israel are ignored. Many countries were using the illegal arms network including India. Pakistan’s India-specific program was an attempt at self-presevation. India’s nuclear program is an attempt to achieve world power prestige. There is a huge discussion of the alleged proliferation from Pakistan, and no discussion of the proliferation by India.

India’s proliferation Thursday, April 24, 2008, Adil Sultan

The India-US Joint Statement of July 18, 2005, provided a framework to negotiate bilateral civil nuclear cooperation agreement between the two countries. India was offered preferential treatment by the US, which cited India’s “impeccable” non-proliferation credentials. The stated objective was the strengthening of the international non-proliferation regime. However, the US administration and the other supporters of the agreement have been unable to explain how this could be achieved.

India has a less than enviable non-proliferation track record. First of all, it is a not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) – a prerequisite for civil nuclear cooperation for any country. India is being offered nuclear cooperation by carving out ‘India Specific’ exemptions. According to Pierre Goldschmidt of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP), the August 2007 agreement for cooperation between the US and India concerning the peaceful uses of nuclear energy “would grant India all the benefits (and even more) that are specifically reserved, under Article IV of the NPT, for non-weapon States which are parties to the Treaty, without requesting from India any commitment…”

The US administration has also taken upon itself to bend the rules, unilaterally defining India as a “special case.” As for India’s non-proliferation credentials, it rejected the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and wants to keep its options open for the future as well. The 123 Agreement negotiated between India and the US puts no such obligations on India. India also promised to work together with the US to conclude the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT), but at the same time has been allowed to keep eight of the 22 facilities for military purposes. This means that these facilities would be working exclusively for producing fissile material stocks outside the purview of the IAEA safeguards. Thus India would not only be free to further develop its nuclear weapons programme, it would also receive from the US fuel supply assurances that have never been offered to any non-nuclear-weapon state.

India is also not a formal adherent to the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR). It does not support the US-led Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), and is yet to accord formal approval to the Container Security Initiative (CSI). It has also not implemented the US Mega-Port Initiative (MPI), does not support the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism (GICNT) and the Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI). India is a non-participant state to the Convention on Nuclear Terrorism and does not endorse the IAEA Code of Conduct on the Safety and Security of Radioactive Sources.

According to a news report the recent test of a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) by India is a result of joint collaboration between India and Israel. Defence News, quoting a senior official of the Indian Defence Research and Development Organisation reported earlier that “India has asked Israel for technical assistance on the development work,” and the range of the Sagarika’ SLBM would be increased from 1,000 km to 2,500 km.

In a recent incident exposing the less than perfect security arrangements for nuclear material in India, four kilograms of uranium, reportedly worth Rs50 million in the international market, was seized while being smuggled across the India-Nepal border crossing. The June 2006 issue of WMD Insights quoted an Indian newspaper as saying that nuclear smuggling is quite frequent from uranium mines located at Jharkhand in the north. Thefts from these mines were mentioned in some earlier US government reports dating back to the 1970s. More recent reports dealing with illicit trafficking in nuclear and radioactive materials suggest that uranium ore stolen from the Jaduguda mines in Jharkand has found its way to Nepal, headed for the international black market.

As Bob Einhorn, senior advisor at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington recently said, the India-US deal “will send the signal that the US – the country the world has always looked to as the leader in the global fight against proliferation – is now de-emphasising non-proliferation and giving it a back seat to other foreign-policy and commercial goals…. If the US is seen as changing or bending the rules when they no longer suit us, others can be expected to follow suit.”

The writer is an Islamabad-based defence analyst pursuing his doctoral studies at Quaid-e-Azam University Islamabad – adilsultan66@yahoo.com

Why the media ignores Nuclear proliferation by India!

Share

Advani: Peace process for "India Pakistan confederation"

Share

The purpose of the peace process is to form a confederation between India and Pakistan. This was stated by Indian leader Advani which represents the thoughts of the majority of the Indians and the Indian leadership.

The hawks in the Pakistani body politics understand that the “peace process” is a ruse to eliminate the Radcliff line and build the “Akhand Bharat” from Kabul to Raj Kalhani (a mythical land East of Bali, Indonesia. The US right now wants India and Pakistan together to confront China.

The doves in Pakistan don’t have a clue and think that the peace process will lead to peace and prosperity.

THE CHARISMATIC ZULFIQAR ALI BHUTTO WAS HATED IN WASHINGTON :  The youngest Foreign Minister of Pakistan, the mercurial Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was building Pakistani bridges with China. He wanted to close the US base in Pakistan, which he succeed in doing. President Johnson told President Ayub Khan  ”Bhutto must Go! Bhutto must Go!”. Soon thereafter Bhutto resigned a created the Pakistan Peoples Party.

The favourite slogan, the one that caught on during the May 1968 fête in France was “it is forbidden to forbid”. There is nothing to forbid the youth of Europe to reject both communism and capitalism. What will they build in the absence of both systems? Will their concept of building a new structure with a new philosophy mean willful self-destruction? This sounds insane but the youth of Europe is not insane. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto A letter from the Death Cell (2007)] p. 15  p. 20

BHUTTO’S UNIQUE BRAND OF ISLAMIC SOCIALISM APPEALED TO THE PEOPLE OF PAKISTAN: Bhutto was “Left leaning” and a Socialist. President Johnson wanted President Ayub Khan to fire Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. Bhutto launced a movement and forced Ayub Khan to resign. disappointed with the Americans after 1965, President Ayub Khan wrote a book called “Friends Not Masters” for America. Bhutto wrote a book called “Myth of Independence” in which he wanted to eliminate American influences on Pakistan.After 1971 Bhutto was elected Prime Minister and started Pakistan’s nuclear program.

“We badly need to gather our thoughts and clear our minds. We need a political ceasefire without conceding ideological territory.We need a ceasefire to bury dead thoughts and to overcome fatigue. The modus vivendi has to be honourable and above board. Both sides have lost or, should I say, neither side can win. During the ceasefire a combination of existing forces might create a new order or a new equation between existing forces. Whatever the formula, it cannot be evolved on the battlefield of the old or new cold wars. The new international order has to emerge through the demands of a Third World summit conference. The answer to the North-South conflict, which is more serious than the East-West conflict, has to be found honestly and with unimpeachable integrity. Genuine disarmament will not come on its own or by platitudes at special sessions of the United Nations on disarmament, although, I was among the first to propose such a conference eighteen years ago. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto A letter from the Death Cell (2007)] p. 15  p. 28

KISSINGER THREATENED BHUTTO: In May 1974 India exploded a Nuclear device which it called “peaceful”. Following India’s explosion, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto pledged to press ahead with Pakistan’s nuclear program.

“We will eat grass… “Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s Referring to financing the Pakistani Nuclear program. 

Insistence on Kashmir will do Pakistan no good: Advani By Nayyara Rahman

NEW DELHI, April 19: Senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party and leader of the opposition in the Indian parliament L.K. Advani has said that Pakistan’s insistence on describing Kashmir as the core issue “would not achieve anything”.

In an exclusive interview with DawnNews TV, Mr Advani spoke of communalism in India, his party’s role in national politics and the prospects of peace between India and Pakistan.

The BJP leader said although he encouraged the Composite Dialogue between the two countries, he believed that other issues, like information and commerce, should precede Kashmir. “Kashmir later,” he said.

However, he remained optimistic that although the Kashmir problem would take time to resolve, a day would come when India and Pakistan would form a confederation, to solve the issue.

In comments pertaining to the Agra Summit, Mr Advani said he was ‘incorrectly’ blamed for its failure by President Pervez Musharraf. Far from being the cause behind its failure, he said, he was in fact one of the architects of the summit.

According to Mr Advani, it was President Musharraf’s inflexibility that led to the summit’s failure. “Musharraf just would not admit that there is any such thing like terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir, or in Punjab, which has been inspired by him or his country. And he maintained that what was happening in Jammu and Kashmir or in other parts of the country… cannot be called terrorism. It is a ‘freedom struggle’ of the people of Jammu and Kashmir for their own freedom.”

Mr Advani stressed that cross-border terrorism was a serious bone of contention in the India-Pakistan peace process. While agreeing that militancy had decreased along the borders, he said it could be attributed to the Joint Statement reached by India and Pakistan, and was still there in the country. He was of the view that until this problem was dealt with, there could be no progress on the peace process.

When asked why diplomacy was not initially used to solve the Kargil crisis, he said that it was not diplomacy that resolved the issue, but intervention by the United States. He believed that it was a ‘war of a kind’ in which ‘Pakistan refused to accept its own dead bodies’ and implied that Pakistan had capitulated before the US while India had not.

The former deputy prime minister also spoke at length about his party’s communal image and its role in nationhood. He implied that religion was inherent in any democracy, since ‘religion is a considerable part of life’, and anyone not subscribing to the view could live in a ‘communist country’.

“The role of religion is not much. But it is considerable in life. In a democracy religion is important. In a communist state, it isn’t.”

He consistently denied accusations of playing the communal card, but was less successful in projecting a non-communal image of his party. When asked to comment about his support for Chief Minister Narendra Modi, after the ‘post-Godhra’ riots, instead of defending his actions he quoted the onslaught India’s Sikh community faced after Indira Gandhi’s assassination in 1984.

“They were not riots. Not a single Hindu was killed. About 3,500 Sikhs were killed. Congress said, ‘So what? When a huge tree falls, the earth is bound to shake.’

“How can I find fault with the [Gujarat] government then? I am bound to say that this is not fair to the Gujarat government and this is why I defend it.” Furthermore, he said, the votes spoke for themselves.

Responding to whether the Gujarat killings followed an ‘action-reaction’ logic to Godhra, he said he agreed to the suggestion to some extent.

When asked if Pakistan’s ‘Islamic Republic’ status bothered India, he said, “A theocratic state does bother us… it does.” But he insisted that Jinnah was inherently a secular leader, and had his 11th August, 1947 speech been implemented, Pakistan too would be a secular state.

Mr Advani said his party’s hard-line resolution on Pakistan following his 2006 visit to the country, was because Jinnah’s speech ‘was pushed beneath the carpet’.

The most striking moment of the interview, however, was when Mr Advani, in his own words, clarified his stand on Ayodhya for the first time. He said that while he stood by the Ayodhya Movement, and embraced it, he was saddened by the demolition of the Babri Mosque.

BJP’s subsequent electoral victory, he said, was because the Ayodhya Movement, and not the demolition, reflected the people’s aspirations. “I believe a temple should have been built at the site. But the demolition disturbed me.”

It would have been interesting to see how a mosque and a temple could have co-existed on exactly the same spot in Ayodhya.

Advani: Peace process for "India Pakistan confederation"

Share

Pakistan: Foreign Investment increases exponentially: $8 Billion from Qatar, Muscat

Share

The Pakistani Stock Market is the worlds fastest growing stock market in 2008. In 2007 despite earthquakes and elections the Pakistani Stock Market reached records heights. Qatari, Muscat, Saudi, UAE, Arab, Chinese, Malaysian, and other Asian investment in Pakistan is increasing exponentially. Western investment is also expected to increase with the new aid package with the USA. The FTA with China, the new plans in energy, defense, train, pipelines will further enhance the pace of growth. With UAEs Emaar heavily entrenched in Pakistan homes (pun intended), it is investing $28 Billion in building two islands near Karachi. Additionally other Arab investments are coming to totally transform Manora and the Hawkesbay area into a “mini Dubai”. The FTA with Malaysia and Qatar will bring new benefits to Pakistan by opening up ASEAN, UAE and Arab markets. With the Iran Pakistan pipeline in the works, and the Tukmenistan Pakistan pipeline being planned, and the $7 Billion package from the USA, Pakistani exports will increase dramatically. Pakistan is also ready to export Al-Khalid tanks and JF-Thunder fighter jets to friendly countries which is a boom to the export industry and also to the 2nd and 3rd tier manufacturers in Pakistan. The Pakistani IT industry is expected to reach $11 Billion within a few years. This baseline will improve the track to make it into a robust industry. An FTA with the USA has not been approved, but Pakistan is working on the plans to convince the Americans on expanding the Reconstruction Opportunity Zones (ROZ)  from the border areas, FATA to all of NWFP and Baluchistan. 

Now the latest news from Qatar and Muscat informs us that another $8 Billion will be invested in Pakistan. The exponential affect of these huge investments will further expedite the growth of Pakistan’s indigenous entrepreneurs and have a trickle down effect on increasing the growth.

Qatar, Muscat to invest $8 bn in Pakistan Updated at: 2040 PST, Saturday, April 19, 2008

ISLAMABAD: Qatar will invest 5 billion dollars in Pakistan while Muscat 2.75 billion dollars in various projects in Balochistan.

This was stated by ambassadors of Qatar, Jordon and Muscat during their meeting here with Federal Minister for Finance, Revenue, Economic Affairs and Statistics, Senator Ishaq Dar.

Hamad Ali Al-Hanzab, Ambassador of Qatar said that Qatar would be investing in all US $ 5 billion in Pakistan.

He said that Qatar has launched Islamic Taqaful Insurance Company in Pakistan and hoped that more investment would be made in the financial sector to tap Pakistan’s investment potential for the mutual benefit of the two countries.

The two sides also agreed to convene the meeting of Joint Ministerial Commission at the mutually convenient dates.

Dr. Saleh Ahmed Aljawarneh, Ambassador of Jordan proposed convening of the meeting of the Joint Economic Ministerial Commission and the meeting of Joint Business Council to increase economic cooperation between the two countries.

He informed the Finance Minister that Free Trade Agreement (FTA) wasexpected to be signed in August between the two countries.

The two sides also reviewed the cooperation in the fields of agriculture and railways. Possibilities of Joint venture in manufacturing of phosphate fertilizer was also discussed.

The Ambassador of Muscat, Mohamed Said Mohamed Al-Lawati discussed role of Pak-Oman Investment Company in promotion of economic cooperation between the two countries.

He said Muscat by financing various projects has been instrumental in accelerating development in Balochistan.

It was also noted that Pak-Oman micro finance is playing a positive role in poverty alleviation in Pakistan.

The two sides agreed to accelerate implementation of various projects in Balochistan costing around US $ 27.5 million being financed through grant from Muscat.

The two sides also noted positive development of purchase of 65 percent shares by Pak-Oman Joint Investment company of World Call shares, its interest in telecommunication and power sector.

The Muscat Ambassador also expressed the interest to develop tourism in Balochistan.

Finance Minister, Senator Ishaq Dar assured the envoys of his full cooperation for promoting increased economic cooperation

Pakistan: Foreign Investment increases exponentially: $8 Billion from Qatar, Muscat

Share

We loved Pope John Paul. This new one..what's his problem?

Share

 Mr. Gratzinger disliked by Jews, Muslims, and Protestants

Pope, Papa John Paul the 2nd beloved by Jews and Muslims

We would like to respond to the Pope’s recent message denigrating the prophet Muhammad and misinterpreting Islam and misunderstanding jihad (self control).

Papa John Paul. May God Bless his soul. He was a saint and did much for harmony among the religions.

1) John Paul II was the embodiment of the love of Jesus and he endeared people to him and Catholicism. Praying to the common God and joint prayers were a fantastic manifestation of our common humanity. Any other direction will alienate Muslims, Christians and Jews away from each other.

2) Arab armies never conquered or stayed in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, or Bangladesh, where 80% of all Muslims reside. Arab armies did reach the Indus, but Mohammad bin Qasim quickly withdrew. The conversions for a vast majority of Muslims (who now live in Asia)was by Sufis and traders and by example and because Islam was LOGICAL and simple…pray to one God.

3) In the 7th century, Arab armies comprised of less than 25,000 able bodied men as soldiers, out of a population of 50,000. It is a physical impossibility to spread Islam to millions with such a small army or by force of arms. Muslims could not have spread Islam through the sword from Arabia to Morocco and destroyed the Byzantine and Roman empires, if Islam did not have grass level appeal based on “Arianism” (unity of God), which was never actually eliminated even though Emperor Constantine had imposed trinity at the Council of Nicea in 325AD.

4) The idea of holy war or jihad (which is about defending the community or at most about establishing rule by Muslims, not about imposing the faith on individuals by force) is also not a Quranic doctrine. The doctrine was elaborated much later, on the Umayyad-Byzantine frontier, long after the Prophet’s death. In fact, in early Islam it was hard to join, and Christians who asked to become Muslim were routinely turned away. The tyrannical governor of Iraq, al-Hajjaj, was notorious for this rejection of applicants, because he got higher taxes on non-Muslims. Arab Muslims had conquered Iraq, which was then largely pagan, Zoroastrian, Christian and Jewish. But they weren’t seeking converts and certainly weren’t imposing their religion. http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/09/15/18311787.php 5) But there have been many schools of Islamic theology and philosophy. The Mu’tazilite school maintained exactly what the Pope is saying, that God must act in accordance with reason and the good as humans know them. The Mu’tazilite approach is still popular in Zaidism and in Twelver Shiism of the Iraqi and Iranian sort. The Ash’ari school, in contrast, insisted that God was beyond human reason and therefore could not be judged rationally. (I think the Pope would find that Tertullian and perhaps also John Calvin would be more sympathetic to this view within Christianity than he is).As for the Quran, it constantly appeals to reason in knowing God, and in refuting idolatry and paganism, and asks, “do you not reason?” “do you not understand?” (a fala ta`qilun?)http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/09/15/18311787.php

6) The idea of holy war or jihad (which is about defending the community or at most about establishing rule by Muslims, not about imposing the faith on individuals by force) is also not a Quranic doctrine. The doctrine was elaborated much later, on the Umayyad-Byzantine frontier, long after the Prophet’s death. In fact, in early Islam it was hard to join, and Christians who asked to become Muslim were routinely turned away. The tyrannical governor of Iraq, al-Hajjaj, was notorious for this rejection of applicants, because he got higher taxes on non-Muslims. Arab Muslims had conquered Iraq, which was then largely pagan, Zoroastrian, Christian and Jewish. But they weren’t seeking converts and certainly weren’t imposing their religion. http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/09/15/18311787.php
7) Did the Pope have selective amnesia about tolerating the holocaust, sprinkling holy water on the marching Nazi soldiers, directing the crusades, supporting the ethnic cleansing of native Americans, supporting conquistador invasions, administering the Spanish inquisition, encouraging colonialism to civilize the natives, and finding quotes in the Bible to support slavery.

7) Finally, that Byzantine emperor that the Pope quoted, Manuel II? The Byzantines had been weakened by Latin predations during the fourth Crusade, so it was in a way Rome that had sought coercion first. And, he ended his days as a vassal of the Ottoman Empire. http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/09/15/18311787.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Crusade

8) Emperor Manuel II Paleologos of the Byzantine Empire did not agree with the Vatican. He wrote the quote during the siege of Constantinople.
9) The propaganda against our prophet has been waged for centuries, and Muslims keep growing. The more they send crusades, the more Islam grows.

10) [2:62] Those who believe (in the Qur’an), and those who follow the Jewish (scriptures), and the Christians and the Sabians– any who believe in God and the Last Day, and work righteousness, shall have their reward with their Lord; on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve. ‘

11) This is one of the best responses that I have seen: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rj-eskow/spiritual-niggers-islam_b_29663.html

12) “As Politi points out, the underlying question now facing the Church is the following: ‘Does Ratzinger want to deal with the Islamic world as merely a cultural partner, or is he willing to recognise that Islam should enjoy the same status as Christianity?”(© 2006 dpa – Deutsche Presse-Agentur, http://news.monstersandcritics.com/europe/article_1202570.php/Pope_Benedicts_Islam_blunder_undermines_dialogue)

13) “Rather than rail at the pope’s characterization of Islam, Muslims might have responded as follows: “Excuse me, Your Holiness, but did we hear you say that you represent a religion of reason, whereas Allah is a god of unreason? Do you not personally eat the body and blood of your god – at least things that you insist really are his flesh and blood – every day at Mass? And you accuse us of unreason!”"

Regarding Benedict XVI’s statement that the characterization of the Prophet Mohammed did not reflect his “personal opinion”: In 1938, at the peak of Stalin’s terror, a Muscovite called the KGB to report that his parrot had escaped. The KGB officer said, “Why are you calling us?” The Muscovite averred, “I want to state for the record that I do not share the parrot’s political opinions.” (http://atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/HI19Aa02.html)

In one of the most conceited statements of the century, the Pope full of hubris said he was sorry because his remarks had been misunderstood. e said that deeply sorry” that Muslims were offended. This is not an apology, it is an indictment on Muslims who were unable to comprehend his message. Therefore the onus of the problem is on the Muslims still.

I miss John Paul 11 (papa) who did so much for Muslim-Catholic and Catholic-Jewish dialogue. Such grace, such beuty, such class. In spite of the fact that John Paul apologized to the Jews for the inquisition, but did not apologize to the Muslims for the Crusades or the inquisition, he was near and dear to Muslim hearts. Pope Benedict should not have made the remarks, and he needs to withdraw them, apologize properly and make restitution to Muslims around the world. He should also apologize for historical wrongs against Muslims, including, the crusades, colonialism, and the inquisition.

May God forgive the sins of the Pope and may he find enlightenment. God Bless him.
GreenPeaceIslam

We loved Pope John Paul. This new one..what's his problem?

Share

"Change Pakistan into Anti-Insurgency force":-Biden's Price for US AID

Share

Change Pakistan Army to Insurgency force:-Biden’s Price for tripling US AID

• 2943 and more than 3500 have been injured in the Afghanistan war
• 763 Pakistani soldiers died during the war of 1965 war with India
• On inadequate US Aid to Pakistan. Pakistan keeps hearing the “do more” mantra from ingrate “friends” who want to be masters.Pakistani Cheese for Western “Whine”

Joe Biden wants to triple the aid to Pakistan but it may be too little too late.Senator Jospeh Biden and other members of the US adminstration want to transform the entire Pakistan Army from a Defense force into an Anti-Insurgency force compliant to the wishes of the US goverment. For this Senator Biden and the Democratic Congress are willing to triple the Non-military aid to Pakistan. US again offers peanuts in aid. Reject and negotiate upThis means that Pakistan would be eneligible to purchase any more F-16s or ships or helicopters, unless the equipment is needed to fight Al-Qaida. Wish list of Pakistani people. Brookings finally realizes that Pakistan is not being taken over by the extremists. Invoice for Defeating terror, Securing Pakistani Nukes $150 Billion per annum.

Afghanistan-Pakistan forgotten by Joe Biden.The aid offered by Mr. Biden and the US Congress is not enough. It is inadequate and it has too many strings attached to it. Pakistan responds to Pentagon demands. Review Pakistan USA relationship.

On many occasions, Pakistan had requested predator drones, all terrain vehicles, AWACS and choppers for the border area. However this request was turned down. The Pakistan Frontier Constablary does not have adequate arms and still uses WW2 vintage equipment. A request was made to upgrade the FC and provide it with helipcopters. This was also denied. Selective amnesia of Americans. Pakistan is the most mistreated friend of America. The post Benazir era must be different

Mr. Biden has repeatedly made speeches about transforming the US-Pakistan relationship from a transactional relationship (Pakistan US Relations should be normal not transactional ) into a mutually benefiail long term strategic partnership. Pakistan US Relations should be normal not transactional. Mr. Biden than turns around and asks Pakistan to destroy the structure of its armed forces and change it into a anit-insurgency force. What he and others like him really want to do is to outsource the GWOT to the Pakistani soldiers. This would be a purely transactional relationship with based upon master to slave directions.

Pakistan has genuine defense needs. She lives in a difficult neighborhood, and she was dismembered by force of arms while the allies CENTO, SEATO and the USA stood by. America has to rethink India policy

As such, Biden proposes, the US should make it a priority to help Pakistan train and reorganise its military. He also believes that Washington must convince Pakistanis that it cares about their needs and not just for its own narrow interests. “That happens to be the best way to secure the support of the … for our priorities, starting with the fight against Al Qaeda and the fight for Afghanistan. If Afghanistan fails or Pakistan falls prey to fundamentalism, both countries will pay a heavy price. And America will suffer a terrible strategic setback. I believe it is still within our power to shape a different, better future,” the senator has said. By Khalid Hasan Daily Times

Hands off Pakistan is the slogan on the Pakistan news media. Pakistanis want to hear “Thank You” from the ingrate Americans. Nothing is good enough!

Pakistan-China-Russia:- An historic realignment

"Change Pakistan into Anti-Insurgency force":-Biden's Price for US AID

Share