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Argos Media

BBC NEWS | South Asia | Holbrooke holds key India talks - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...7989071.stm

Pakistan US India Kashmir

shared by Argos Media on 08 Apr 09 - Cached
  • US envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke is holding talks in India on regional security issues. Mr Holbrooke and Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, arrived in Delhi after talks with Pakistani leaders in Islamabad.
  • Mr Holbrooke, along with Adm Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, have met Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee and foreign secretary Shivshankar Menon.
  • Analysts say India is uneasy with Mr Obama's strategy in Pakistan and Afghanistan and say it does not address New Delhi's concerns over what it calls Pakistan's backing of militants. There are concerns that the US is "tilting towards" Pakistan, an old ally, rather than India which has moved closer to the US in recent years. "The US is more receptive to Pakistan's concerns, which is worrying India," analyst Bharat Karnad told Reuters news agency.
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  • Some analysts fear that the US may push India to limit its presence in Afghanistan to "please" Pakistan. India is spending millions of dollars in infrastructure projects in Afghanistan.
  • Mr Holbrooke has denied that Washington wanted to become a mediator between the two neighbours. "That is not our job," he told reporters in Islamabad. He said the US was "not going to be involved" in mediating in the dispute over Kashmir.
  • Mr Obama has pledged substantial economic assistance for Pakistan - more than $1bn (£684m) annually over the next five years - but the money will depend on the army's performance against the Taleban and al-Qaeda.
Muslim Academy

Aung San Suu Kyi Myanmar - 0 views

muslim-academy.com/d-muslims-and-aung-san-suu-kyi

Aung San Suu Kyi Myanmar aung san suu kyi of myanmar

shared by Muslim Academy on 03 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • Muslim Academy on 03 Dec 12
     
    ROHINGYA MUSLIMS Rohingya Muslims are not intruders. They have been living in Myanmar, their residence, since birth. They are not terrorists. They are peaceful people. But they are experiencing the cruelest brutality. The innocent children of Rohingya Muslims are kidnapped and killed. There are thousands of Muslims who are poor and helpless. What is their crime? Their crime is that they are Muslims. They accept the truth of the world. They are submissive to almighty Allah who is our creator. Their crime is that they believe men must lead honest lives. For these crimes, they are supposed to be butchered. They are destined to be helpless. They have no right to live as others do. AUNG SAN SUU KYI Noble Peace prize is given to peaceful sages. Aung San Suu Kyi is the "daughter of peace". So, she decided to keep her side safe. She already said that Rohingyas are intruders. She had visited India recently. The world had been eagerly waiting to know her stand for a long time. She visited Europe and America after emancipation. Journalists wanted to hear something about her stand on the Rohingya issue. But, she didn't clarify the fact. She didn't want to tarnish her innocent image in the world. So, she decided to keep silent. But during her visit to India she clarified her stand. She blatantly stood against the right of Muslims of Myanmar who has been experiencing the cruel test of exodus.
Pedro Gonçalves

Pakistan ISI behind Mumbai attacks: India official | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...idUSTRE66D11720100714

India Pakistan Lashkar-e-Taiba

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 14 Jul 10 - Cached
  • India last year linked Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) with the attacks, saying the perpetrators were "clients and creations" of the agency.But Pillai's remarks are more direct and could find resonance in the foreign ministers' meeting."It was not just a peripheral role," the Indian Express newspaper quoted Pillai as saying. "They (ISI) were literally controlling and coordinating it from the beginning till the end."
  • India has blamed Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militants for the Mumbai attacks. It broke off a 4-year-old peace process with Pakistan, saying reviving the dialogue would depend on action against LeT and its chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed.
Pedro Gonçalves

India and Pakistan in first substantive talks since Mumbai | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...idUSTRE6682EA20100709

India Pakistan Kashmir

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 09 Jul 10 - Cached
  • Violent anti-government protests have swept India-controlled Kashmir for almost a month. The region is under an army lockdown.
  • In comments that could reverberate in the talks, Indian officials said the protests may have been incited by Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group that Delhi has blamed for the Mumbai attacks.
  • The meeting comes at a time when India has sent in the army to control weeks of violent anti-government protests in the Himalayan region of Kashmir, at the core of its dispute with Pakistan.
Pedro Gonçalves

Pakistan relying too much on China against U.S. | Reuters - 0 views

in.reuters.com/...idINIndia-58581920110802

China Pakistan US India

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 03 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • Islamabad makes no secret of its preference for China over the United States as a military patron, calling Beijing an "all-weather" ally in contrast to Washington's supposedly fickle friendship.
  • China is a major investor in predominantly Muslim Pakistan in areas such as telecommunications, ports and infrastructure. The countries are linked by a Chinese-built road pushed through Pakistan's northern mountains. Trade with Pakistan is worth almost $9 billion a year for Pakistan, and China is its top arms supplier.
  • China, like the United States, wanted Pakistan to help it control Islamist militancy. But it is frustrated by the chaotic nature of Pakistani governance, and its inability to control militants or militant-friendly elements in its security agencies.
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  • Pakistan's usefulness to China is only in South Asia, where it competes with India. But China has global ambitions; it is unlikely to sacrifice them for an ally that has proved a headache to the United States, which has its own deep relationship with China.
  • Being seen to take a provocative stand alongside Pakistan comes at a substantial cost, but provides little strategic benefit,
  • China, he wrote, does not want to push India deeper into the American orbit.
  • An escalation in Chinese aid to Pakistan would surely antagonise India, creating a new point of friction in the triangular relationship between Beijing, New Delhi, and Washington
  • China has also shown no sign that it is willing to shoulder some of the financial burden of propping up Pakistan that the United States has so far been willing to bear.
  • In 2008, when Pakistan was suffering a balance of payments crisis and sought China's support to avoid turning to the International Monetary Fund and its restrictive terms on a $7.5 billion loan, China provided only $500 million.
  • China may share concerns over Pakistan's stability, Venugopalan writes, "but it has preferred to let Americans bear the costs of improving the country's security".
  • "It is our misunderstanding if we think that we will team up with China if we are pressed by the United States," Rizvi said. "China and the United States have their own relations and they cannot compromise them for the sake of Pakistan."
Argos Media

In the Indian election, 700m voters, 28 days, 250,000 police: world's biggest democrati... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...dian-election-congress-polling

India Politics Sonia Ghandi Rahul Ghandi Priyanka Ghandi Congress Party United Progressive Alliance National Democratic Alliance Bharatiya Janata Party Third Front Lal Krishna Advani Kumari Mayawati Varun Ghandi

shared by Argos Media on 16 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Ever since the Congress party and the Gandhi family lost their grip on power in 1989 no single party has been able to run India. At the last election the Congress party took only 145 seats out of 543, with 26% of the vote. It took office by sharing power with partners.
  • Despite the arrival of coalition politics, turnout has remained stable at around 60% and poor minorities are more likely to vote than anyone else.
  • There are three main groupings: the United Progressive Alliance, dominated by the Congress party; the National Democratic Alliance, built around the Bharatiya Janata Dal; and the Third Front, centred on the Communists
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  • This means that, unlike in Britain or the US, the election will almost certainly not be dominated by a single personality. In an opinion poll this year for the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, a Delhi thinktank, no leader enjoyed 25% approval as a possible prime minister.
  • The most popular leader is probably Sonia Gandhi, president of the Congress party. Gandhi, 63, who was born in Italy, has proved an astute politician, winning the last election against the odds but refusing to become prime minister, knowing her foreign birth would become too hot an issue. Instead she appointed Manmohan Singh as prime minister, leaving him to formulate policy while she handled the complex deal-making involved in coalition building. She also brought in her son Rahul, 38, who has begun to rebuild the party. Her daughter Priyanka, 37, is a star campaigner who draws huge crowds but so far has not contested an election.
  • The Congress party, say pundits, is the favourite because it is in power and can point to tangible achievements. For example, it pushed through big pay rises for 4.5 million government employees this year, engendering goodwill in urban areas.
  • The elite applauded Singh for winning a knife-edge parliamentary vote last year in which he secured a nuclear deal with the US that allowed India to keep its atomic weapons and still be sold nuclear reactors.
  • Most important perhaps in terms of votes, the Congress coalition also set up the first social security scheme in India, guaranteeing 100 days of work to poor households in the countryside. Although the cost is estimated at 400bn rupees (£5.4bn) this year, it should bring in votes among India's 600 million agricultural workforce.
  • In the opposite camp is the Bharatiya Janata party, led by Lal Krishna Advani, 81. The party's pollsters say it should win votes based on three main issues: terror attacks, the dynastic politics of the Congress party and the appeasement of minorities, especially Muslims.
  • These three issues were fused in the uproar over speeches by Varun Gandhi, 29, the great grandson of India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Although a Gandhi, he has become a mascot for the BJP. In March the budding poet told cheering crowds in a marginal constituency that he would cut the "head of Muslims" (sic) and if anyone raised a finger against Hindus he would "cut that hand".
  • Another powerful line of attack is that India's economic growth, which has been at 8% for five years, never reached the ordinary man.
  • However, the real power lies with the regional parties. Congress and the BJP square up in only seven out of 28 states. In almost every other state, the contest boils down to one of the national parties facing a local politician.
  • The most important of these is likely to be Kumari Mayawati. Her dedicated cadre of untouchable workers and her wooing of the upper castes created an upset in 2007 when her party swept to power in India's most populous state, Uttar Pradesh. Her policies are claimed to be about social justice but in reality are designed to capture jobs through quotas for her supporters. Mayawati's victory in the northern state, which has 80 seats and is considered a bellwether of public opinion, was a political earthquake.
  • Analysts say Mayawati's significance is the possible emergence of a third national party. If the regional parties coalesce around her, said Mahesh Rangarajan, a political commentator, she could be the "fulcrum of a new power arrangement". If Mayawati gets 40 or more seats, "she is possibly prime minister", he added.
amita parmar

CORRUPTION  IN  INDIAN EDUCATION  SYSTEM by Sudipsinh Dhaki (Sudipsinh Dhaki) - 0 views

blogs.fanbox.com/corruptioneducation

US Iran Israel Russia Palestine EU North Korea China Nuclear Proliferation obama

shared by amita parmar on 08 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • amita parmar on 08 Aug 11
     
    CORRUPTION IN INDIAN EDUCATION SYSTEM India is a country where education is considered as scared. It is in India were all religion has its own belief in education. As India is a multicultural country with a number of religion present and number of languages spoken education is given importance in every religion.
Pedro Gonçalves

SPIEGEL Interview with Pervez Musharraf: Obama 'Is Aiming at the Right Things' - SPIEGE... - 0 views

www.spiegel.de/...0,1518,628960-2,00.html

Pakistan US India Afghanistan Taliban Pervez Musharraf Mullah Omar Military bin Laden

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 08 Jun 09 - Cached
  • SPIEGEL: Is Pakistan now paying for its earlier failures? Why didn't you eliminate the Taliban leadership when they came to Pakistan at the end of 2001 -- above all the so-called Quetta Shura, the Taliban's highest decision-making council, in the Pakistani city Quetta? Musharraf: The Quetta Shura never existed. Do you really think there is an assembly in a kind of a house where they come and discuss things in something like a regular consultation? Mullah Omar never was in Pakistan and he would be mad if he appeared there. He is much safer in Afghanistan.
  • SPIEGEL: Over the last eight years, Pakistan has received about $10 billion in military aid from the US. Apparently you didn't spend all that money on the war on terror -- some went to secure your eastern border with India. Is that true? Musharraf: Half of it, $5 billion, was reimbursed to us for services we had already rendered to the US. You have to understand how the Pakistan army operates: The divisions keep moving. If we buy new tanks for $250 million, then they will be deployed in Peshawar as part of the war on terror, but they will also go to the eastern border. But why do you care about that? Why, for heaven's sake, should I tell you how we spent the money? SPIEGEL: The American government would surely be interested in knowing. Musharraf: I also told the Americans that it has nothing to do with them. We are not obligated to give out any details. Maybe I should have said at the time: Ok, you want us to support you, give us $20 billion a year and don't ask what we are doing with it.
  • Musharraf: I do agree, they do not accept this war as their war. This has something to do with history. Please understand the reason, and you should blame the US for it. From 1979 to 1989, we fought a war with the US in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union. And we won mainly because of ISI. Otherwise, the Soviet Union could not have been defeated in Afghanistan. But then the US left us all alone with 30,000 mujahedeen brought by them. Even Osama bin Laden was brought by the US, who else? They all came to fight the Soviet Union. So, did anybody in Washington develop a strategy for what to do with these people after 1989? No, nobody helped Pakistan for the next 12 years until 2001. We were left high and dry, with 30,000 mujahedeen holed up, no rehabilitation, no resettlement for them. No assistance was given to Pakistan -- instead sanctions were imposed against us. Fourty F-16s, for which we had paid money, were denied to us. Four million Afghan refugees had also come to Pakistan. The mujahedeed coalesced into al-Qaida and our social fabric was being completely destroyed. This is why the people of Pakistan felt used by the Americans, and this is why Pakistanis dislike the US and this war.
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  • SPIEGEL: A few weeks ago, you visited New Delhi and said India and Pakistan have done enough damage to each other and that it is time to find a solution. Do you view yourself as as a future ambassador for peace between the two countries? Musharraf: If the Pakistan government wants me and if the Indians also trust me, then I can be of some use.
Pedro Gonçalves

SPIEGEL Interview with Pervez Musharraf: Obama 'Is Aiming at the Right Things' - SPIEGE... - 0 views

www.spiegel.de/...0,1518,628960,00.html

Pakistan US India Pervez Musharraf Research and Analysis Wing ISI Lashkar-e-Taiba Kashmir Swat Siraj Haqqani Baitullah Mehsud

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 08 Jun 09 - Cached
  • PIEGEL: Pakistan is in a major state of crisis. Close to 2.5 million people have fled the areas of fighting in the northwest and the Swat Valley. There are attacks almost daily. Is Pakistan on the verge of collapse? Musharraf: This is wrong. Nothing can happen to Pakistan as long as the armed forces are intact and strong. Anyone who wants to weaken and destabilize Pakistan just has to weaken the army and our intelligence service, ISI, and this is what is happening these days. Lots of articles have been written claiming that Pakistan will be divided, that it will fall apart or become Balkanized. I personally feel there is some kind of conspiracy going on with the goal of weakening our nation.
  • Musharraf: I won't tell you exactly because then you will ask me for evidence. I can only tell you that India, for example, has 16 insurgencies going on and nobody is making a big thing out of it. But the West always focuses on Pakistan as the problem.
  • Musharraf: I am totally against the term AfPak. I do not support the word itself for two reasons: First, the strategy puts Pakistan on the same level as Afghanistan. We are not. Afghanistan has no government and the country is completely destabilized. Pakistan is not. Second, and this is much more important, is that there is an Indian element in the whole game. We have the Kashmir struggle, without which extremist elements like Lashkar-e-Taiba would not exist.
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  • Musharraf: There are many Indian extremists who have links with extremists in Pakistan. So if the world is serious about combating terrorism, then don't leave India out. Originally, Richard Holbrooke was supposed to be the US special representative for all three countries, but the strong Indian lobby in America prevented that.
  • Musharraf: No, he is aiming at the right things. He is showing intentions of improving the dialogue with the Muslim world, which is good. He is right when he says that more forces must be deployed in Afghanistan. There is an intention of increasing funding for Pakistan, which is also good. But he also has to understand the reality in Pakistan and I am not sure he does.
  • Musharraf: One of the realities is that the Indian intelligence service RAW is interfering in our country. For example in Balochistan, our largest province bordering Iran and Afghanistan. One of the most brutal insurgents against our forces, Brahamdagh Bugti ...
  • Musharraf: ... he is sitting in Kabul, protected by the Afghan government and provided with weapons and money by the Indian intelligence agency RAW. He has his own training camps and sends his fighters to Balochistan where they terrorize people and damage the civil infrastructure. RAW is also interfering in the Swat Valley, I know that. Where do all these Taliban fighters in Swat get their arms and money from? From Afghanistan. The Indian consulates in Jallalabad and Kandahar only exist to be a thorn in the side of Pakistan.
  • SPIEGEL: Let us talk about the role of the ISI. A short time ago, US newspapers reported that ISI has systematically supported Taliban groups. Is that true? Musharraf: Intelligence always has access to other networks -- this is what Americans did with KGB, this is what ISI also does. You should understand that the army is on board to fight the Taliban and al-Qaida. I have always been against the Taliban. Don't try to lecture us about how we should handle this tactically. I will give you an example: Siraj Haqqani ... SPIEGEL: ... a powerful Taliban commander who is allegedly secretly allied with the ISI. Musharraf: He is the man who has influence over Baitullah Mehsud, a dangerous terrorist, the fiercest commander in South Waiziristan and the murderer of Benazir Bhutto as we know today. Mehsud kidnapped our ambassador in Kabul and our intelligence used Haqqani's influence to get him released. Now, that does not mean that Haqqani is supported by us. The intelligence service is using certain enemies against other enemies. And it is better to tackle them one by one than making them all enemies.
  • Musharraf: The Americans are hated in the country today. The US drone attacks, which we have been living with for months now, are most unpopular -- there is no doubt about it. Regardless whether they are killing terrorists, Taliban or Al-Qaida-figures or not, there are too many civilian victims. The deployment of drones has to be stopped.
  • SPIEGEL: The US military eliminated several high-ranking al-Qaida figures through drone attacks. What would be a possible alternative? Musharraf: We have to find a way or method with which the Pakistani army could conduct these attacks itself. There would immediately be much better acceptance amongst the populice and we would cause less collateral damage and there would be fewer civilian victims.
Pedro Gonçalves

Ad of the Day: Coca-Cola Tries to 'Open Happiness' Between India and Pakistan | Adweek - 0 views

www.adweek.com/...ad-day-coca-cola-149676

Coca-Cola India Pakistan Cola Diplomacy Branding

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 21 May 13 - No Cached
  • Cola diplomacy runs the risk of coming across as painfully naive by oversimplifying a complex issue that's tangled up in a long history of imperialism, religious conflict and nuclear stand-off, to name a few factors. Coke frames this powder keg of a problem as, on some level, simply one of miscommunication—because that's small enough that the brand can then frame itself as the solution. Sure, more understanding and common ground isn't a bad thing, and Coke takes some pains to temper the portrayal of its own success, erring on the side of aspirational everyman/everywoman voiceover platitudes throughout the spot (e.g., "We are going to take minor steps so that we are going to solve bigger issues.") But really, what the brand is taking minor steps toward is selling more sugar water in a way that isn't explicitly about selling more sugar water, and has at least the veneer of a higher purpose.
  • the social-media zeitgeist holds that doing good is good for business. Yes, a warm-and-fuzzy video like this has some entertainment value, and it's is certainly more palatable—and arguably more effective—than a hard-sell product spot. But doesn't distilling a geopolitical conflict into short-form branded content do more harm than good by trivializing it? Or if everyone just drank a Coke, would they really get along?
Pedro Gonçalves

BBC News - End of empire for Western universities? - 0 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...business-18646423

Education EU India China US Society OECD

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 11 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • The forecasts for the shape of the "global talent pool" in 2020 show China as rapidly expanding its graduate numbers - set to account for 29% of the world's graduates aged between 25 and 34.
  • The biggest faller is going to be the United States - down to 11% - and for the first time pushed into third place, behind India.
  • The US and the countries of the European Union combined are expected to account for little more than a quarter of young graduates.
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  • Across the industrialised world, graduate numbers are increasing - just not as quickly as China, where they have risen fivefold in a decade.
  • This changing world map will see Brazil having a bigger share of graduates than Germany, Turkey more than Spain, Indonesia three times more than France.
  • The UK is bucking the trend, projected to increase its share from 3% in 2010 to 4% in 2020.
  • "There are more students in China than ever before - but they still use Western mechanisms to publish results, they accept the filters," says Prof Mayer-Schonberger.
  • The maps also reveal how much Africa and South America are losing out in this new scramble for digital power.
  • "Each era has its own distinct geography. In the information age, it's not dependent on roads or waterways, but on bases of knowledge. "This is a new kind of industrial map. Instead of coal and steel it will be about universities and innovation."
Pedro Gonçalves

Analysis - Russia's wealth gap wounds Putin | Reuters - 0 views

uk.reuters.com/...equality-idUKTRE7BJ1AB20111220

Russia

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 22 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • The gap between rich and poor in Russia is a growing problem for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as he prepares to return to the presidency in an election next March.During his 12-year rule, as president and then prime minister, Russians have broadly speaking become wealthier than they were in the chaotic years following the collapse of the Soviet Union. But the citizen of Putin's Russia can easily lose even a modest sense of well being when confronted with the sometimes flamboyant ostentation of the rich.In Soviet times privilege was often a well guarded secret.
  • Many people cited the wealth gap in ditching Putin's ruling party in a December 4 election that cut its majority in parliament.
  • If a gap has widened between individuals, it is also evident between Russia's many poor regions and wealthy cities like Moscow and the booming oil heartland.
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  • Real disposable income has slightly declined this year, official data show, and the difference in income between the bottom 10 percent of the population and the top 10 percent grew by nearly one-fifth between 2000 and 2010.
  • As in other former Soviet republics, pensioners are among the worst off because they were too old to make the most of the opportunities offered by the free market that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.Moscow is home to 2.65 million retired people and some elderly people have taken part in the recent protests, although many more are young middle-class professionals.
  • The number of Russians who made the Forbes' list of the world's billionaires jumped from none in 2000 to 101 last year, with Moscow becoming the billionaire capital of the world.The average monthly salary in Russia, however, was only 21,000 roubles ($670) last year.
  • Dissatisfaction over income distribution played its role in United Russia's performance in the December 4 election. The party had its two-thirds majority cut to a slim majority after winning just under 50 percent of the votes cast.
  • Russia's Communist Party, which targeted hard-up voters in its election campaign, won almost 20 percent of votes and will have 92 representatives in the 450-seat lower house.
  • He still appears to have more support in the countryside, where disparities are probably less manifest, than in big cities such as Moscow and St Petersburg where bright lights and luxury boutiques contrast with grim suburban tower block developments."It is obvious that people are very unhappy with the display of wealth they see around them and with the lack of progress to ensure their lives are better
  • economists at Renaissance Capital investment bank in Moscow say that income inequality in Russia is adequate for gross-domestic-product-per-capita levels."Considering its wealth, the level of income inequality is far from excessive," said Ivan Tchakarov, a Renaissance Capital economist."In the BRIC universe (of emerging countries Brazil, Russia, India and China), Russia is only marginally more income-unequal than China and India, but far better placed than Brazil."China, however, with a population nearly 10 times that of Russia, had only 14 more billionaires last year, according to Forbes.
  • The poverty rate in Russia stood at 13.1 percent in 2010, according to the World Bank, affecting about 18.6 million people.
  • John Roemer, a Yale University political science professor, has said that switching from Russia's flat 13 percent rate of income tax to a progressive tax system would raise living standards for the population as a whole.
Pedro Gonçalves

FT.com / Asia-Pacific - Kyrgyzstan presses Russia to quell unrest - 0 views

www.ft.com/...5f-11df-942a-00144feabdc0.html

Kyrgyzstan Russia US India

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 15 Jun 10 - Cached
  • Kyrgyzstan on Tuesday held out the possibility of reviewing an airbase agreement with the US in an apparent effort to convince Russia to provide peacekeeping forces to quell unrest in the south of the country.
  • Mr Kazakpaev’s comments will harden speculation that Russia may be holding out for some sort of commitment to close the US base as a condition for its stepping in to put an end to the ethnic violence in the country’s south, in which more than 170 people have died so far.
  • “If Russia does not help, India might come . .  They are nearer [to Kyrgyzstan] and richer,” he said.
Pedro Gonçalves

BBC News - Obama's ambitious nuclear security summit - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8613810.stm

US Nuclear Proliferation

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 12 Apr 10 - Cached
  • Fresh from his success in signing a new strategic arms reduction treaty with the Russians in Prague, US President Barack Obama is hosting a nuclear security summit in Washington DC.With some 47 countries in attendance it will be one of the largest gatherings of its kind in the US capital since the late 1940s. This will be the third element in a nuclear season that began with this month's unveiling of the Obama administration's nuclear strategy, the Nuclear Posture Review. This identified nuclear proliferation - the spread of nuclear weapons and the danger that they might fall into the hands of terrorist groups - as now the key nuclear threat to America's security. That was step one. Step two was the meeting between Mr Obama and his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, in Prague that got the strategic arms reduction process back on track. Step three will be this week's Nuclear Security Summit in Washington. All three events are aimed at strengthening Mr Obama's hand as he heads into step four: the review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) scheduled for next month in New York.
  • The threat here is not only from governments with a desire to own nuclear bombs or nuclear-tipped missiles. A far more pressing concern comes from the potential nuclear ambitions of non-state actors or terrorist groups. Their goal may be to obtain a small nuclear device but equally they may just want to get hold of radioactive material to build a so-called "dirty bomb". This uses conventional explosives to spread radioactive material over a wide-area.
  • So the goal of this summit is to batten down the hatches on nuclear materials - especially the fissile materials that might be used in bomb-making, plutonium and highly-enriched uranium - but also the more widespread sources of radioactive substances that could be used for a "dirty bomb". President Obama's goal is to obtain agreement upon a plan to secure all such vulnerable nuclear material within four years. Much will depend upon the detail.
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  • The presence of Israel, India and Pakistan at this summit is fascinating. All three are believed to have nuclear weapons and none of them have signed the NPT. Israel's arsenal clearly has wider ramifications in the Middle East. India and Pakistan's nuclear rivalry is seen by experts as a serious concern given the huge conventional military imbalance between them. And Pakistan is also a major worry in terms of the security of its nuclear installations and materials. Having all three on board is an attempt by the Obama administration to extend the circle of nuclear security in new directions.
Pedro Gonçalves

Pakistan nuclear weapons at risk of theft by terrorists, US study warns | World news | ... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...nuclear-weapons-security-fears

Pakistan US Nuclear Proliferation Nuclear Weapons

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 13 Apr 10 - Cached
  • Pakistan's prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, assured Barack Obama the country has an "appropriate safeguard" for its arsenal, understood to consist of 70-90 nuclear weapons.However, a report by Harvard University's Belfer Centre for Science and International Affairs, titled Securing the Bomb 2010, said Pakistan's stockpile "faces a greater threat from Islamic extremists seeking nuclear weapons than any other nuclear stockpile on earth".Experts said the danger was growing because of the arms race between Pakistan and India. The Institute for Science and International Security has reported that Pakistan's second nuclear reactor, built to produce plutonium for weapons, shows signs of starting operations, and a third is under construction.
  • At their White House meeting on Sunday, Obama pressed Gilani to end Pakistan's opposition to an international treaty that would ban the production of new fissile material for nuclear warheads, plutonium and highly enriched uranium (HEU), but the Pakistani leader showed no signs of bowing to the pressure, US officials said.Pakistan's insistence that India reduces its stockpile first prevented talks on the fissile material cutoff treaty from getting under way in Geneva last year.
  • Both the US and Britain have declared themselves satisfied with Pakistan's security measures for its nuclear weapons, despite the rise of the Pakistani Taliban and other extremist groups. But yesterday's Harvard report said there were serious grounds for concern."Despite extensive security measures, there is a very real possibility that sympathetic insiders might carry out or assist in a nuclear theft, or that a sophisticated outsider attack (possibly with insider help) could overwhelm the defences," the report said.
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  • It also warned that weaknesses remained in measures Russia had taken in recent years to guard its nuclear stockpile, the world's largest.
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