Posted on 06/19/2007 4:43:36 PM PDT by DAVEY CROCKETT
Saudi King Says Middle East Crisis Will Affect The World
DUBAI, June 19 (Bernama) -- The Saudi king has warned of an impending "explosion" in the Middle East, saying that it will not only affect the region but will spread all over the world, the English daily Gulf News reports.
"The Middle East region suffers from the longest conflict in our contemporary history which is the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and Israel's occupation of Arab lands," King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz, said in an interview with the Spanish El Pas newspaper which was published simultaneously in Al Riyadh newspaper yesterday.
"At this point in time we are exerting efforts to solve this conflict, but we are witnessing an expansion of the crisis to include other countries like Iraq and Lebanon," he said.
"This makes the region replete with troubles that pose grave concerns for us. My fears are the fears of all reasonable men that the explosive situation will not be confined to the region but will extend to the whole world," he added.
The Saudi monarch yesterday began a five-nation trip that will take him to Spain, France, Poland, Egypt and Jordan.
King Abdullah also underlined the importance of solving the problem of Iran's nuclear programme peacefully in a way that guarantees all countries in the region to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes in accordance with the standards of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v3/news_lite.php?id=268361
(Excerpt) Read more at bernama.com ...
[I am getting too tired to check these, if they are as good as the Khan report, they should be checked out...granny]
http://www.wmdinsights.com/index.htm
This website presents a monthly publication intended to provide U.S. Government decision-makers, action officers, and analysts with timely and noteworthy unclassified information on international attitudes towards weapons of mass destruction and efforts to curb their proliferation. This product seeks to combine the skills and capabilities of subject matter specialists with those of foreign language experts to gain insights into issues that are shaping the proliferation landscape. Our goal is to assist our readers in planning for today’s issues and those that may be just over the horizon.
CDR Chris Bidwell
DTRA Program Manager
Leonard S. Spector Editor-in-Chief
Deputy Director (Washington, DC) Monterey Institute Center for Nonproliferation Studies
[2004]
http://www.isis-online.org/publications/southasia/nuclear_black_market.html
Uncovering the Nuclear Black Market: Working Toward
Closing Gaps in the International Nonproliferation Regime
By David Albright and Corey Hinderstein
Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS)
Prepared for the Institute for Nuclear Materials Management (INMM)45th Annual Meeting
Orlando, FL
July 2, 2004
In February 2004, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, considered the father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb, admitted that he had transferred sensitive nuclear technology to Libya, Iran, and North Korea. Dr. Khan’s statement was a significant breakthrough for international efforts to uncover a secret network involved in illegal trading of nuclear technology. His confession opened the door for US, IAEA, and other investigators to delve far deeper into which individuals, companies, countries, and specific technologies were involved in such sales. The network of sellers, middlemen, and manufacturers is very large, and it will take time uncover and break up the whole system. It is important to expose the full extent of the network so that it cannot continue on. In addition, a complete understanding of the way in which proliferators bought and sold equipment and information is vital to assessing flaws in current nonproliferation efforts, including safeguards and export controls. Such knowledge can lead to recommendations on how to improve the nuclear nonproliferation regime.
Introduction
During the 1990s, Libya set out secretly to acquire a gas centrifuge plant and all the associated equipment and materials. Libya sought a large centrifuge plant, sufficient to produce enough highly enriched uranium (HEU) to make roughly 10 nuclear weapons each year.
Libyan nuclear officials had little trouble connecting with a shady, illicit international procurement network. This network was largely invisible to the world’s leading intelligence agencies and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and well-acquainted with ways to evade controls established by the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) and national export laws. This black market network had already supplied Iran with gas centrifuge components and designs. The far-flung network emerged from Pakistan’s multi-decade clandestine effort to acquire nuclear weapons by illegally shopping the world for key nuclear and nuclear-related items.
This network is commonly called the “Khan” network, although this name may be misleading by focusing too much on the role of one individual, namely Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan’s gas centrifuge program. The network was international and relatively non-hierarchical. The key technology holders and several of its leaders were in Pakistan, including Khan. But many other leaders were spread throughout the world and located in Europe, Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, South Africa, and Malaysia. The network also depended on a variety of unwitting manufacturing companies and suppliers on many continents.
The network succeeded in operating in secret for several years before it was exposed through a series of actions by the United States, Britain, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). During the IAEA’s inspections in Iran during 2003, strong evidence emerged that Pakistani scientists and intermediaries were important clandestine suppliers of centrifuge designs and components to Iran’s secret gas centrifuge program.
The secret U.S. intelligence community penetration of at least one part of the Khan network led to the dramatic seizure in October 2003 of several containers of parts bound for Libya’s secret centrifuge program on the ship BBC China. After Libya renounced nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction in December 2003, U.S., British, and IAEA investigations learned many details about the activities of the network. These actions resulted in intensive pressure on the Pakistani government to conduct a thorough investigation. Once started, the Pakistani investigation led relatively quickly to Khan’s confession that he supplied gas centrifuge items to Iran, Libya, and North Korea. IAEA and national investigations continue to seek a full understanding of the network and the history and procurement activities of Libya’s, Iran’s, and North Korea’s secret gas centrifuge programs.
Turn-Key Centrifuge Plant and Bomb Designs
One of the biggest surprises about this network was its sheer audacity and scale. It intended to provide Libya a turn-key gas centrifuge facility, something typically reserved for states or large corporations in industrialized nations with full government support and knowledge. The plan called for the network to supply 10,000 centrifuges, piping to connect them together, detailed project designs for the centrifuge plant, electrical and electronic equipment, uranium feed and withdrawal equipment, the initial 20 tonnes of uranium hexafluoride, equipment to allow Libya to make more uranium hexafluoride, centrifuge designs, manufacturing equipment and technology to make more centrifuges indigenously, and on-going technical assistance to help Libya overcome any obstacles in assembling and operating the centrifuges in the plant.
If Libya had continued with its nuclear ambitions and the network had not been exposed, Libya could have succeeded in about 4-5 years in assembling its centrifuge plant and operating it to produce significant amounts of HEU. If Libya managed to operate all 10,000 centrifuges, it would have had a plant with a capacity of up to 50,000 separative work units (SWU).
Armed with the HEU, Libya would have known how to turn that HEU into nuclear weapons. The network provided Libya with information to build a workable nuclear weapon. Libya received almost all of the detailed nuclear weapon component designs, component fabrication information, and assembly instructions for a nuclear weapon. The few missing designs could have been provided by the network, or Libya could have developed them on its own in the several years prior to the start of the centrifuge plant.
The weapons documents appear to be information Pakistan received from China in the early 1980’s, including hand-written notes from lectures given in China. The design is reportedly for a Chinese warhead that was tested on a missile, has a mass of about 500 kilograms, and measures less than a meter in diameter. Although this design would not have fit on Libyan SCUD missiles, it could have been air-dropped or intended for a more advanced missile Libya may have sought. The design would have fit on Iranian and North Korean missiles.
As part of Libya’s abandonment of its nuclear weapons program, it voluntarily gave the United States, Britain, and the IAEA centrifuge design documents, centrifuge components, and nuclear weapons documents. Libya sent the gas centrifuge items and nuclear weapons documents to the United States for safekeeping.
Although questions remain about the exact involvement of Pakistani government officials in the network and the extent of senior Pakistani government awareness of the activities of A. Q. Khan and his associates in this network, the Pakistani government was not directing this network. It was essentially a criminal operation, a more disturbing and dangerous operation than if it had been a secret government-controlled effort.
Getting at all the Nodes of the Network
As of early July 2004, much remains to be discovered about this network before its operations are fully understood or its complete demise can be celebrated. It is necessary for governments and the IAEA to be persistent in investigating this case. If these investigations are not done thoroughly, the risk will be greater that a similar network could rise again from the remnants of the disbanded Khan network.
Identifying all the Key Players and Their Activities
The network was the creation of A. Q. Khan and his associates who sought to capitalize on the elaborate, highly successful illicit procurement network they had created to supply the Pakistani gas centrifuge program beginning in the 1970s. It had many manifestations over the years and involved many people from a variety of countries. Some international suppliers and middlemen had long working relationships with Khan and remained committed to the network for two or more decades. Some of these individuals had undergone official investigations and prosecutions in past years, yet they continued working clandestinely in this network.
The latest manifestation of the network, which focused on providing Libya with gas centrifuges, was coordinated by B. S. A. Tahir, a Sri Lankan based in Dubai and Malaysia. It represented the capstone of this multi-decade illicit procurement effort centered in Pakistan.
There was also a familial aspect to the network. Europeans who were involved in the 1970s or 1980s had sons that became involved with them in the 1990s.
Many legal investigations of members of the network have started. Momentum may in fact be increasing around the world to prosecute the key players in this network. But a critical task is determining all the players and their activities. The ultimate goal should be prosecuting them as fully as possible under both export control laws and laws banning exports to terrorist states, such as Libya. This process will likely take years.
Determining the Network’s Customers
Although Khan has admitted that he provided centrifuge items to Libya, North Korea, and Iran, little has been reported about other recipients of centrifuge or nuclear weapon assistance. Many details of Khan’s and his associates’ assistance remain unknown, particularly in regards to North Korea.
Although considerable information now exists about gas centrifuge assistance to Iran and Libya, far less information is available about the gas centrifuge assistance to North Korea. This deficiency has resulted from North Korea’s denial that it has a gas centrifuge program, the lack of IAEA inspections in North Korea, and Pakistan’s perceived reluctance to provide information about its nuclear dealings with North Korea.
A key question is whether Iran or North Korea also received nuclear weapon information. There is evidence of what appears to have been an early Khan effort in late 1990 to offer centrifuge help and nuclear weapons design information to Iraq. Iraq was not able to pursue this offer other than deciding to request a sample of the offer just prior to the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the start of which ended that effort.
Questions remain whether Syria was a customer for centrifuge or nuclear weapon assistance, although Khan has denied selling anything to Syria. There is also speculation about other customers, including Saudi Arabia, Burma, and al Qaeda or other terrorist organizations that were based in Afghanistan during the rule of the Taliban.
In any case, this part of the investigation is not finished. Determining all the customers and what they received will take considerable time.
Taking Stock of the Manufacturers of the P2 Centrifuge Parts
The network sold what the Pakistanis have called the P1 and P2 centrifuges, the first two centrifuges deployed in large numbers by Pakistan’s gas centrifuge program. The P1 centrifuge uses an aluminum rotor, and the P2 centrifuge uses a maraging steel rotor.
The components for roughly 500 P1 centrifuges that went to Iran in the mid-90s were, according to reports, from centrifuges that Pakistan had retired from its main centrifuge program. Members of the network were able to remove them in secret and sell them to Iran.
Libya received 20 of its P1s in that manner. Libya also bought about 200 P1 centrifuges from the wider network. At least some, if not all, of the components of the additional 200 P1s were made outside Pakistan at workshops under contract with companies in the network. Aluminum rotors, for example, were made in Malaysia.
The P2 centrifuges, which are more advanced machines, reportedly left Pakistan in much smaller numbers. The two that were sent to Libya, for example, were samples or demonstration models. One of the P2s that went to Libya was not suitable for enrichment with uranium hexafluoride gas. It did not have the final surface coating necessary to prevent corrosion by uranium hexafluoride gas.
In the case of Libya, the network focused on making P2 components outside Pakistan. The Libyans have stated that they placed an order for 10,000 P2 machines. Since each centrifuge has roughly 100 different components, this order translates into a total of about one million components, a staggering number of parts given the sophistication of gas centrifuge components. The network was assembling an impressive cast of experts, companies, suppliers, and workshops to make all these components.
The workshops that contracted to make components for the network typically imported the necessary items, such as metals, equipment, or subcomponents. After they made the item, they would then send it - either assembled or as a finished centrifuge component - to Dubai under a false end-user certificate. Then it would be repackaged and sent off to Libya. According to Mohamed ElBaradei, Director General of the IAEA, “Nuclear components designed in one country could be manufactured in another, shipped through a third (which may have appeared to be a legitimate user), assembled in a fourth, and designated for eventual turn-key use in a fifth.”
Based on information found in Libya, roughly half a dozen key workshops have been identified as making or doing final assembly of the centrifuge components. The network selected a workshop based on the type of centrifuge component needed and the materials and equipment involved in making those particular components. It remains unclear, however, if these are all the workshops involved in making components for Libya and other recipients.
The most well known workshop was located in Malaysia at a company called SCOPE. The parts seized on the BBC China were from SCOPE. SCOPE was also near the company that made the aluminum rotors for the 200 P1 centrifuges that Libya imported from the network.
The network contracted with SCOPE to make thousands of 14 different high precision aluminum centrifuge components for Libya’s order. The contract with SCOPE involved up to about 15 percent of the total number of components sought by the network for Libya.
Workshops in Turkey made the centrifuge motor and frequency converters used to drive the motor and spin the rotor to high speeds. These workshops imported subcomponents from Europe and elsewhere, and they assembled these centrifuge items in Turkey. Under false end-user certificates, these components were shipped to Dubai for repackaging and shipment to Libya. A container of at least some of these items was also on the BBC China, but it was not discovered by investigators after its interception. Eventually, the container arrived in Libya and was declared to the United States and the IAEA.
SCOPE did not make the P2 centrifuges’ maraging steel parts, which comprise the bulk of the rotating components in a centrifuge and are more difficult to make than the aluminum parts. A mystery is which workshop, if any, was contracted to make the sensitive maraging steel rotor and bellows. The network appears to have experienced trouble in finding a workshop to make these components, although one workshop may have tried unsuccessfully to make the maraging steel rotors. In the end, the network may have been unable to find a workshop to make these components, and Libya may have needed to make them itself. Libya may have initially intended to buy all the components overseas, but it may not have been able to do so in the end.
Libya also ordered from the network a sophisticated manufacturing center, code-named Workshop 1001, to make centrifuge components. The original plan called for this center to make additional centrifuges after the network delivered the first 10,000 centrifuges, either to replace broken ones or add to the total number of centrifuges. However, if the network had difficulty making a component for the original 10,000 machines, this center may have had to make that particular component.
Most of the machine tools, furnaces, and other equipment for the center came from Europe, particularly from or through Spain and Italy. The equipment was not on the nuclear dual-use list, but it was still adequate for use in a centrifuge manufacturing program, particularly because the network also supplied detailed manufacturing information for almost all the parts. The bulk, if not all, of this equipment was sent to Libya via Dubai.
Investigations of the supply chain of the network are unfinished. It is not known if all the key workshops and companies have been identified. Components may have been made but not delivered to Libya. Components may have also been made and delivered to customers other than Libya.
Retrieving Centrifuge Designs and Manufacturing Instructions from the Network
The key to the success of this network was its virtual library of centrifuge designs and detailed manufacturing manuals. A key task is to track down the members of the network with this kind of sensitive centrifuge information, prosecute them, and try to retrieve as much of this information as possible.
Although tracking down this kind of information can be difficult, the network may have helped by tightly controlling this information and not widely disseminating it. For example, the February 2004 Malaysian police report describes the activities of the Swiss national Urs Tinner at the SCOPE factory. Urs is the son of Friedrich Tinner, who earlier supplied Pakistan’s and Iraq’s secret centrifuge program in the 1980’s. Urs carefully controlled the centrifuge design information. He took it to SCOPE to program the machines to make the centrifuge components, but he made sure that others could not remove this sensitive information. When he finished working at SCOPE, he removed the information and took it with him.
The fact that the information may be in the hands of just a few members of the network gives hope that it can be retrieved. However, retrieving all the centrifuge information may not be possible, since copies can be made and hidden for years if desired. Thus, even if the retrieval effort is reasonably successful, this centrifuge information may form the core of a future network aimed at secretly producing or selling gas centrifuges.
Findings and Recommendations
A priority is preventing illicit networks like the Khan network and other nuclear smuggling using less elaborate methods. In addition, steps are needed to increase the probability of discovering undeclared nuclear efforts before they are as advanced as the programs in Libya and Iran.
The first priority is fully investigating and dismantling the Khan network. Investigations need to continue and intensify in a range of states, including Malaysia, Switzerland, Britain, France, Italy, Spain, UAE, Germany, South Africa, and Turkey. More information is needed from states that benefited from this network, particularly Libya, Iran, and eventually North Korea. In addition, Pakistan’s cooperation is critical. The Pakistani government has provided useful information to the IAEA and other governments, and it appears committed to providing more information. However, the Pakistani government should permit the IAEA, and perhaps other governments, direct access to A. Q. Khan and his associates involved in the network.
The successes of the Khan network should shatter any complacency about the effectiveness of national and international nuclear-related export controls to stop or sound an alarm about illegal nuclear or nuclear-related exports. The network was masterful in identifying countries that had inadequate national export laws yet adequate industrial capability for the network’s purposes. These countries were both inside and outside the NSG. Although many suppliers to the network did not know the actual purpose of the materials they provided or the parts they were contracted to make, they were often in countries where the authorities were unlikely to carefully scrutinize exports or encourage curiosity about the actual end use of an item. The companies themselves had little motivation — either from conscience or threat of punishment — to confirm the explanations they were given. The network also knew how to obtain for its illicit endeavors necessary subcomponents, materials, machine tools, and other manufacturing equipment from countries in Europe with stringent export control systems.
NSG efforts to stop illegal exports should be improved. The NSG should be expanded in membership to include states that, while not normally considered actual or potential suppliers of nuclear items, have advanced industrial and manufacturing infrastructures that can be exploited for the production of direct-use nuclear items, such as centrifuge components. The network operated in countries outside the NSG such as Malaysia that had little knowledge of nuclear technology or effective export controls but had high-tech industries eager to make direct-use nuclear items apparently oblivious or indifferent to the actual nature of the item. By expanding NSG membership, more countries will improve their export control systems and receive help from more experienced members that will reduce the chance of cases like SCOPE happening again.
In addition, NSG members should share more information about actual procurements among themselves and with the IAEA. Currently, NSG members share any denials of an export but not the approvals of key items. The IAEA does not even routinely receive the denial information. NSG members should share key approvals, and the IAEA should receive both the denials and these key approvals. Sharing of this information would help members of the NSG and the IAEA develop a better picture of a potential proliferant’s overall nuclear capability, potentially leading to significantly earlier warnings of undeclared nuclear activities.
Two recent initiatives aim to correct shortcomings in the current national and international export control systems. However, they do not go far enough.
The Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), which is credited with the seizure of the centrifuge components on the BBC China, usefully complements existing export control systems. PSI has improved the chance of interdicting WMD, ballistic missiles, and the means to produce them while such items are in transit to and from states and non-state actors of proliferation concern. However, it cannot alone fix the fundamental weaknesses of the current export control system exposed by the discovery of the Khan network.
The April 2004 UN Security Council Resolution 1540 fills a serious gap in existing WMD non-proliferation regimes that target only states and omit non-state actors. It is expected to make it harder for nuclear smuggling to occur. An immediate improvement is that all 191 UN member states must establish, review, and maintain appropriate effective nuclear and nuclear-related export controls. By applying to almost all states, this resolution helps fix some of the problems posed by the voluntary, limited membership of the NSG. However, the resolution has several problems. Some states may resist key provisions of this resolution, believing that the law should have been established through treaty negotiations. The law will likely be applied unevenly among states. Without extensive assistance, many key states will experience difficulties in enacting effective export control legislation, implementing it, and enforcing it.
Missing in the current system is an aggressive, intrusive verification and investigation organization that can provide greater confidence that states are implementing effective export controls, flag deficiencies in the export control practices, and detect illicit nuclear and nuclear-related procurements.
What is needed is a universal treaty-based system controlling nuclear export activities that is binding on states and includes a means to verify their compliance. Under such a treaty, countries would implement a set of nuclear and nuclear-related export control laws and criminalization procedures, similar in nature to those required by UNSC Resolution 1540. The agreement, however, would also mandate an organization to verify compliance, ensure the adequacy of those laws, and investigate illicit procurement activities. Signatories would inform this organization of all sensitive nuclear or nuclear-related exports, and it would have the mandate and legal rights to verify that the transactions are indeed legal. The organization would verify that a country’s declaration about its nuclear or nuclear-related exports or imports is accurate and complete.
The IAEA is a logical choice to undertake this role. It is already pursuing investigations of illicit procurement activities by Iran and Libya as part of its safeguards responsibilities under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). These investigations include taking inventories of all centrifuge equipment and components in Iran and Libya and verifying their accuracy and completeness, determining the suppliers and manufacturing activities of the network, cooperating with a range of governments on the activities of the network, receiving supplier information from member states, and meeting with Pakistani investigators. These investigations involve receiving more information from states than required by the Additional Protocol.
Libya, Iran, Pakistan, and other states have provided the IAEA specific information about nuclear and nuclear-related procurements. Armed with this information, the IAEA has more effectively conducted investigations into the Khan network and the procurement activities of Iran and Libya that are directly related to its safeguards responsibilities. In particular, the IAEA is in a much stronger position to make a determination about Iran’s and Libya’s compliance with the NPT and the steps necessary to develop confidence about the absence of undeclared nuclear activities or materials in these two countries.
Expanding the IAEA’s mandate by requiring states to report on a wider variety of exports would be a logical extension of current safeguards which place great emphasis on developing a broader picture of a state’s nuclear and nuclear capable infrastructure. This new mandate should be seen as part of implementing credible safeguards.
The Additional Protocol does require reporting of exports of direct-use nuclear items, but in practice nuclear smuggling networks would export those items illegally. States would often not know the true nature of those items and thus could not report them. Dual-use items with legal export licenses that often would be more likely on a routine basis to reveal undeclared activities are not reported to the IAEA under the Protocol.
In addition, a treaty-based system of export controls and verification would impose new requirements on all states, even those that have not implemented the Protocol. In any case, state declarations submitted under the protocol or as part of a new treaty regime should be broadened to include the export of dual-use items.
By more formally linking its safeguards system with export control verification and monitoring, the IAEA would be in far better position to assure the absence of undeclared nuclear activities and detect cheating in a timely manner. By performing a task that governments have been unable to do, the IAEA under such a treaty-based system would significantly increase U.S. and international security.
[Many articles to check out, nuclear and OBL]
http://www.isis-online.org/publications/
http://www.isis-online.org/publications/terrorism/intro.html
[To Transcript] [To Story] [To Images]
Al Qaeda Nuclear and Conventional Explosive Documents: CNN - ISIS Collaboration
Introduction
In November 2001, as the Taliban was fleeing Kabul, ISIS was contacted by CNN to help assess al Qaeda documents containing information about nuclear weapons.1 CNN Senior Producer Ingrid Arnesen had acquired many documents related to al Qaeda’s activities in Afghanistan on both nuclear and conventional explosives.
Over the next two months, ISIS staff translated and assessed these documents. The documents include: instructor guides on making conventional explosives; edited, mass-produced instructional materials; nuclear weapon documents; student notebooks; and information about the activities and plans of Pakistani nuclear scientists in Afghanistan.
ISIS President David Albright, with the assistance of ISIS Senior Analyst Corey Hinderstein and Arabist Ronald Wolfe, was able to decipher and analyze these documents. Many of these conclusions were discussed and expanded in the first half of January 2002 during intensive sessions with CNN producers and correspondent Mike Boettcher. A summary of many of ISIS’s findings aired on January 17, 2002 in a half-hour special report by CNN, and were further discussed on other CNN shows, including shows hosted by Wolf Blitzer and Aaron Brown. CNN subsequently published an in-depth report based on this story on the CNN web site and a gallery of images, which are reproduced on the ISIS web site.
1See, for example, reports by Aaron Brown and Christiane Amanpour
[Need to check the transcripts, links at url]
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0315-04.htm
Published on Tuesday, March 15, 2005 by Reuters
Pakistan Reviving Nuclear Black Market, Experts Say
by Louis Charbonneau
VIENNA — Pakistan has developed new illicit channels to upgrade its nuclear weapons program, despite efforts by the U.N. atomic watchdog to shut down all illegal procurement avenues, diplomats and nuclear experts said.
Western diplomats familiar with an investigation of the nuclear black market by the U.N.’s Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said this news was disturbing.
While Pakistan appeared to be shopping for its own needs, the existence of some nuclear black market channels meant there were still ways for rogue states or terrorist groups to acquire technology that could be used in atomic weapons, they said.
“General procurement efforts (by Pakistan) are going on. It is a determined effort,” a diplomat from a member of the 44-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
“This was discussed at an NSG meeting in Vienna last week.”
Nuclear experts said these channels involved new middlemen who had not played a role in earlier deals which came to light last year.
These are not the same people. They’re new, which is worrying,” said one Western diplomat.
Pakistan is subject to sanctions against its atomic arms program as it has not signed the 1968 global nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Pakistan first successfully tested a nuclear weapon in 1998 and remains under a strict embargo by the NSG, whose members include the world’s major producers of nuclear-related equipment, such as the United States, Russia and China.
A diplomat from another NSG country that is a producer of technology usable in weapons programs said his country’s customs agents were not surprised. “Our people are well aware of Pakistan’s efforts to upgrade its centrifuge program.”
Asked if Pakistan was using the black market to upgrade its facilities, Foreign Ministry spokesman Jalil Abbas Jilani said in Islamabad: “To be honest, I don’t have an update on that.”
“Pakistan’s nuclear capability is a reality which has to be reconciled, and obviously in order to maintain its capability Pakistan would make all the preparations,” he added.
An IAEA spokeswoman declined to comment.
The black market will be a major topic of discussion at the NPT review conference in New York in May, where IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei hopes to rally support for a plan to patch up loopholes in the pact against the spread of nuclear arms.
FRONT COMPANIES AND MIDDLEMEN
Being outside the NPT, like nuclear-armed India and presumed atomic power Israel, meant Pakistan had to buy on the sly.
This was why Abdul Qadeer Khan, the disgraced scientist who built Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program and whose role was revealed in 2003, set up a clandestine procurement network with front companies and middlemen who duped manufacturers across the globe into thinking purchases of sensitive dual-use items were intended for civilian purposes.
Khan later used this network to supply Iran, which says its nuclear program is entirely peaceful, and Libya, which got the same type of technology as Iran but said it was for a covert bomb program that was fully dismantled last year.
It was unclear if Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would bring up the issue during her visit this week to Pakistan, a key ally in Washington’s fight against global terrorism.
Non-U.S. diplomats and experts said Washington was not putting enough pressure on Pakistan.
“Some countries seem to have forgotten that Pakistan’s procurement is not legitimate,” said David Albright, a nuclear expert and former U.N. weapons inspector.
The diplomats said national authorities had intercepted some of Pakistan’s attempted purchases, including high-strength aluminum for gas centrifuges used to make atomic fuel.
Albright, who heads the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), a U.S. think-tank, said a warning was issued last year that Pakistan would be shopping globally.
“A European country gave out a warning about a year ago that Pakistan had funding to renovate its nuclear weapons complex and would use Malaysia as a false end-use location,” Albright said.
The IAEA began investigating Khan’s network in 2003 after it discovered Iran had enrichment technology identical to Pakistan.
Since that time, the IAEA and its member countries have been trying to shut down network of Khan, who remains under house arrest in Pakistan. The United States, Germany, South Africa and Malaysia have arrested individuals linked to the network.
While Khan may no longer be running it, Joe Cirincione, director of non-proliferation at the U.S.-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the black market was still alive.
“The network hasn’t been shut down,” he said. “It’s just gotten quieter. Perhaps it’s gone a little deeper underground.”
(Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom in Islamabad)
The Bioterrorism Threat by non-state terrorists
http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/research/theses/thompson06.pdf
Many articles:
http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/research/
Links:
http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/rsepResources/
Books:
http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/publications/
August 2007 articles:
http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/si/index.asp
Home:
http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/index.asp
Gay Russians claim bare-chested Putin as one of their own
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html? in_article_id=477089&in_page_id=1
When Vladimir Putin stripped down to the waist for the cameras, his muscled torso made headlines around the world.
And one week on, the ripples are still being felt in Russia, where he has become a sex symbol, the inspiration for men to start pumping iron, and the new darling of the gay lobby.
Few could have predicted the explosion of gossip and speculation that followed the publication of the pictures, taken while the president holidayed with Prince Albert II of Monaco in the Siberian mountains.
Yesterday, the Russian mass-market newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda published a huge colour photo of the barechested president, under the headline “Be Like Putin”.
The picture illustrated a guide to the exercises needed to build up a torso like that of the Russian leader.
The paper reported that women who visited its website posted comments on Putin’s “vigorous torso” and said they “were screaming with delight and showering him with compliments.”
Russian gay chatrooms and blogs were particularly intrigued by the photos.
Some claimed that Putin, by stripping to his waist, was pleading for more tolerance of homosexuality in Russia - where gays and lesbians are for the most part forced to remain closeted.
One satirical photo circulating on the internet jokingly compared the fishing and riding adventure to the movie Brokeback Mountain, a love story about gay cowboys.
The 54-year- old leader, who is married with two daughters, has long cultivated an image of machismo.
Well-known as a downhill skier and black belt in judo, he has appeared on national television driving a truck, operating a train, sailing on a submarine and co-piloting a fighter jet.
In contrast to his predecessor Boris Yeltsin, notorious for his drunken antics, Putin has established an image as energetic, sober and sharp-witted.
Political commentators have been trying to guess what kind of message these latest pictures might send, given that he has insisted he plans to step down at the end of his second presidential term next year - as required by the constitution.
One Russian radio talk show host speculated that the photos were meant to enhance Putin’s personal appeal to voters - a strong signal that he does not plan to relinquish power.
But Stanislav Belkovsky, head of the country’s National Strategy Institute think-tank, said the images were nothing more than an effort to reassure Russians that their leader can relax, and really is preparing for retirement.
Yevgeny Volk, who heads the Heritage Foundation’s Moscow office, said the political elite increasingly views Mr Putin as a lame-duck leader and that half-naked photos only strengthen the impression that he should not be taken seriously.
August 23, 2007 PM Anti-Terrorism News
(U.S.) Holy Land Foundation Trial - Fearing the Law They Face — by The Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT)
http://counterterrorismblog.org/2007/08/fearing_the_law_they_face.php
(U.S.) Prosecutor raises ‘Trojan horse’ theory in Seda case - Former U.S. head of al-Haramain fights for bail
http://www.mailtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070823/NEWS/708230319
(U.S.) Muslim group fights co-conspirator label in terror-funding trial
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/08/23/america/NA-GEN-US-Muslim-Charity-Conspiracy.php
(Afghanistan) Twenty-six killed in violence across Afghanistan - update
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070823/wl_nm/afghan_violence_dc_1;_ylt=AuWwyvEfkb.9u0b5_qRssXbOVooA
(Afghanistan) Three dead in Afghan bomb attack - near the town of Gereshk - update
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6960223.stm
Pakistan: ‘Talks with Taliban’ tied to energy needs - Turkmenistan, Afghanistan & Pakistan close to agreeing to new 2,200 km
gas pipeline
http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Security/?id=1.0.1229363578
(Pakistan) U.S. OK’d Troop Terror Hunts in Pakistan - U.S. military given broad incursion authority in 2004 without telling Pakistanis
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=3515989
(Iraq) Al-Qaeda suspects held after Baquba raid
http://euronews.net/index.php?page=info&article=438869&lng=1
(U.S. & Iraq) National Intelligence Estimate Casts Doubt on Baghdad Government, Official Says
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,294239,00.html
- Download new report here
http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/August_2007_Iraq_NIE_KJs.pdf
(U.S.) Report: Iraqi terrorists caught along Mexico border — American intelligence chief confirms ‘people are alive’
as a result of capture
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=57289
(U.S.) To thwart a nuclear terrorist, U.S. directing trade partners to inspect millions of containers
http://www.newspress.com/Top/Article/article.jsp?Section=BUSINESS&ID=565074042651281318
UK court denies bail for terror suspect — Algerian “U” - arrested on suspicion in planning attacks on Los Angeles airport
and in Strasbourg, France
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070823/ap_on_re_eu/britain_terror_suspect_1;_ylt=Ain7YK3gclsBvpPI_5Uta9AwuecA
(UK) Scotland: Student trained in terror in Edinburgh — Mohammed Atif Siddique trial update
http://news.scotsman.com/edinburgh.cfm?id=1341342007
(UK) Scotland: Terror trial hears threat claims — Mohammed Atif Siddique threatened to “blow up Glasgow”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/tayside_and_central/6960285.stm
(Lebanon) Cluster Bomb Kills Lebanese - Mine expert killed, 3 wounded from mine from last year’s war
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6871531,00.html
(Lebanon) Hezbollah exhibits ‘victory’ over Israel
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070823/ap_on_re_mi_ea/lebanon_hezbollah_museum_3;_ylt=Ak.zCfbXkjSBYy4OwxtwTWnagGIB
(Belgium) Pro-Hezbollah Group Will Demonstrate in Brussels on 9/11 — “against Islamophobia” - founder called 9/11 attacks
“sweet revenge”
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/2347
(Gaza) Two Kassam rockets fired from the Gaza Strip land in Sderot
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1187779146620&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Israeli strike in Gaza kills Hamas militant
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/articlenews.aspx?type=worldNews&storyid=2007-08-23T204220Z_01_L23774893_RTRUKOC_0_UK-PALESTINIANS-ISRAEL-AIRSTRIKE.xml
MEMRI Video: Hamas MP Fathi Hammad Threatens to Use Suicide Bombings against Abu Mazen
http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/1538.htm
Commentary: Jihad International — by Jacob Laksin
http://www.terrorismawareness.org/news/58/jihad-international/
Other News:
CNN airs ‘one of the most distorted programs’ ever — Documentary compares Jews, Christians to Muslim terrorists
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=57288
The purpose of action is to demand an objective and complete investigation into the act of terror in Beslan, as well as an end to mockeries inflicted on the victims by the procuratorship. The gathering will hold a memorial service for all who were killed in Beslan and in other acts of terror.<<<
Brave ones or damned fools.
I would be afraid to get involved in any protest right now, not with the way putin is showing his muscles.
But then I am not a mother who has already lost their most loved children.
I think you should start a Freeper Prayer thread for them on the days they will be active, they will need the extra protection.
As I stated, I have written many small details to help you understand the history of our struggle. As chairman of our organization, I am turning to you with a request for assistance in attending your conference. It is very important to us because the conference will touch on many questions extremely important to us. I hope that participants in conference find our experiences, our struggles over the course of the last eight years, useful in making decisions. Since our organization cannot provide any type of financial support, I humbly beg your assistance in financial and visa support.<<<
Another person, who has not given up the fight for rights.
Are there any victims in Russia who have not been abandoned.
If all these groups, could become one, maybe they would be safer.
I really fear that Putin will show his strength by ending the efforts of these who might point out some of the hidden flaws in his regime.
One Russian radio talk show host speculated that the photos were meant to enhance Putin’s personal appeal to voters - a strong signal that he does not plan to relinquish power.<<<<
Chavez in Venezuela got the laws changed, Putin will too.
you have mail.
ROFL!
Huuuuuge storms in Chicago - gotta sign off!
Thank you for checking in, I heard about part of it on the radio, but did not find a thread for them.
God will be busy tonight.
Stay safe.
I had been watching the NGO’s go down and see them in articles.
It is sad to watch a country slipping backwards.
Of course we are not that far behind them.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1885755/posts
Car carrying four men speeds past Customs entry in Port Angeles. (WA Ferry-again)
Peninsula Daily News ^ | 8-23-07 | Peninsula Daily News
Posted on 08/23/2007 10:26:48 PM PDT by NavyCanDo
PORT ANGELES - A car carrying four men reportedly sped through the U.S. Customs port of entry off the ferry from Victoria on Wednesday night.
The Port Angeles Police Department received a report through the PenCom dispatch center of the car failing to stop for inspection.
The car disembarked off the MV Coho at about 9:20 p.m. after the day’s last southbound sailing.
It reportedly raced past the checkpoint so quickly that nobody could determine a license plate number or even the plates’ jurisdiction.
The car turned left - or eastbound - onto Railroad Avenue from the port of entry, according to reports.
Police were looking for a four-door gray car or sport utility vehicle with four occupants, possibly Asian, headed east out of Port Angeles, said Sgt. Glen Roggenbuck.
Port Angeles police officers were unable to catch up with the vehicle and alerted the Clallam County Sheriff’s Department and State Patrol, Roggenbuck said.
No more information was available Wednesday night. A U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer at the scene declined comment.
Customs officers check all vehicles disembarking the Coho in covered lanes between the ferry landing and Railroad Avenue.
Citizenship verification is done by U.S. officials at the Coho’s Black Ball Transport terminal in Victoria before passengers and motorists board the 341-foot ferry.
Terrorist captured in 1999 On Dec. 14, 1999, Customs officers uncovered an al-Qaida-trained Algerian national, Ahmed Ressam, at the same Port Angeles port of entry.
A trunkload of bomb-making materials were found inside the rented sedan he was driving.
Ressam fled on foot, but was quickly captured by customs inspectors in downtown Port Angeles.
Ressam was tried in federal court and found guilty of plotting to blow up a terminal at Los Angeles International Airport with the explosives and gear in the car.
(Excerpt) Read more at peninsuladailynews.com ...
[more info in the article, post #1]
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1885749/posts
China searches for 8 kg of “missing” uranium
Reuters ^ | 08/24/07
Posted on 08/23/2007 10:03:21 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
China searches for 8 kg of “missing” uranium
BEIJING (Reuters) - Eight kg (17 lb) of radioactive uranium has gone missing in China, delaying the verdict in a trial of four men charged with attempting to sell it on the black market, state media said on Friday.
A court in Guangzhou, capital of China’s southern province of Guangdong, heard the four tried to sell the material, which can be used in making nuclear weapons, between 2005 and January 2007, the China Daily said.
The men were arrested in January after a potential buyer in Hong Kong reported them to the authorities, the paper said.
However, despite having the four men in custody, police were unable to locate the uranium.
“The men claimed it had been lost because it had been moved around so much between potential buyers,” the paper said.
A verdict had yet to be reached “as the court said the trial would continue until authorities tracked down” the uranium.
Under Chinese law, the illegal trade in uranium carries a sentence of between three and 10 years in prison. In exceptional cases, it can carry the death sentence.
“The radioactive substance uranium does not explode when it is in its raw state, but it is very harmful to people’s health,” Jiang Chaoqiang, director of the Guangzhou No 12 People’s Hospital, told China Daily.
“Therefore it needed to be found as soon as possible.”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1885757/posts
Russia confirms Soviet sorties over Israeli reactor in ‘67
The Jerusalem Post ^ | Aug 23, 2007 | DAVID HOROVITZ
Posted on 08/23/2007 10:34:41 PM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
Russia confirms Soviet sorties over Dimona in ‘67
By DAVID HOROVITZ
The chief spokesman of the Russian Air Force, Col. Aleksandr V. Drobyshevsky, has confirmed in writing for the first time that it was Soviet pilots, in the USSR’s most-advanced MiG-25 “Foxbat” aircraft, who flew highly-provocative sorties over Israel’s nuclear facility at Dimona in May 1967, just prior to the Six Day War.
Gideon Remez and Isabello Ginor, who co-wrote the recent book Foxbats over Dimona, which asserts that the Soviet Union deliberately engineered the war to create the conditions in which Israel’s nuclear program could be destroyed, on Thursday described this “extraordinary disclosure” as “official confirmation of the book’s exhibit A and the source of its title.”
continues and more info in comments.............
Is this the same as they are doing today, ‘selling’ Russian planes to our enemies, so they will have their emblems on them and not show as Russian when bombing us?
granny
http://russophobe.blogspot.com/2007/08/kasparov-warns-australia-not-to-sell.html
[hidden urls in article]
Friday, August 24, 2007
Kasparov Warns Australia not to Sell Nuke Material to Russia
Australia’s Bulletin magazine (analagous to the American Newsweek) reports on Russia’s insidious efforts to get nuclear fuel from Australia (we have commentary running on Publius Pundit about this topic and have written about it here before):
Australia will share blame if yellow cake sold to Russia ends in the wrong hands, ex-chess champion says.
One of Russia’s most prominent Opposition political figures, former chess champion Garry Kasparov, has warned the Howard Government that Russia cannot be trusted to use Australian uranium solely to power its domestic energy industry. In an exclusive interview with The Bulletin on the eve of APEC, Kasparov says Australia will have to accept moral responsibility if Russia on-sells the uranium to a rogue state or uses it for other non-civil purposes. “Should Australian uranium end up in the wrong hands ... Australia will not be able to act innocent or to claim ignorance,” he told The Bulletin. During the APEC forum meeting in Sydney next month it is understood the deal between the two countries to export about 2000 tonnes of Australian yellow cake annually (providing about one third of Russia’s imported uranium stock) will be signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin and John Howard. Russian investigative journalist Grigory Pasko, who was jailed in Siberia after revealing the Russian Naval Fleet had dumped nuclear waste in the Pacific, will also be in Sydney next week arguing that Australia must impose tougher safeguards on any uranium sales to Russia. The demand for uranium worldwide, particularly in energy-poor countries like India and China, has seen the share price for uranium companies more than double in the last two years. Australia now has more than 200 companies whose main business is uranium exploration. Australian Uranium Association chief executive Michael Angwin says spending on exploration is set to pass $100 million this year, up from $77 million last year. “There has been a ten-fold increase in the last four years,” Angwin says. The reason for the hype is simple. The ALP dropped its no-new mines policy earlier this year and close on its heels, the Federal Government flagged a possible expansion of the nuclear power industry in Australia.”There is a high level of confidence in the fact that Australia has a much more liberal framework for industry to operate in,” Angwin says
Download a copy of the full Bulletin interview here (courtesy of Robert Amsterdam).
As the Epoch Times reports, lawyer and blogger Robert Amsterdam is also sounding the warning call. Way to go, Robert! Pasko, Amsterdam and Kasparov is a formidable trio, to be sure!
“All Australians should be concerned about advanced talks to sell uranium to Russia,” wrote British Lawyer Robert R Amsterdam in an article published in the Herald Sun on August 20.
Defence counsel for jailed Russian millionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Mr Amsterdam cautioned the Australian Government over an expected uranium deal next month between Canberra and the Kremlin. “When negotiating the Russia-Australia Nuclear Safeguards Agreement, the Howard Government must consider the Kremlin’s track record,” he wrote. “Australia should be very careful not to rush into a deal without rigorous rules and safeguards relating to the use and enrichment of uranium and the development of nuclear technologies.”
As evidence of the regime’s attitude towards the nuclear issue he pointed out that the Kremlin imprisoned a journalist for reporting on Russia’s illegal dumping of nuclear waste in the Pacific Ocean. Mr Amsterdam also noted that; “When the United States and Europe wished to defend themselves against the possibility of rogue missiles from Asia, President Putin threatened to point Russian nuclear missiles at London, Paris and Berlin.”
“Moscow sells nuclear technology to Iran and has agreed to build a nuclear research centre in Burma,” he noted. Foreign policy in Russia, he stated, is governed with a firm hand. He gave examples of gas and oil pipelines to neighbouring countries being shut off and trade embargoes. In his article Mr Amsterdam also described the current regime run by former KGB agent Vladimir Putin. “By 2003, a powerful group of former intelligence and military strongmen had succeeded in taking control of Putin’s Kremlin power base,” he stated. “Democratic pluralists and market economists were pushed out or marginalised. Political opposition was crushed. “Most major news media were bought out. The country’s energy resources were brought under Kremlin control,” he wrote. “Neighbours are bullied and long-time business partners are extorted. Opponents are jailed, such as former Yukos oil company boss Mikhail Khodorkovsky, or killed. “A belief has taken root that Russia is entitled to assert itself aggressively and above the law if need be,” he stated. “No one is above the extortion tactics of the Kremlin and its selective application and misapplication of laws.”
It is also expected when Vladimir Putin arrives for the APEC meetings next month, along with a nuclear deal he will also sign an economic accord which The Age reports will allow for increased Russian investment in Australia, particularly in the mining and minerals sector.
Labels: cold war II, nuclear power, russia Thanks for reading La Russophobe
[see the old photos]
http://publiuspundit.com/2007/08/prague_summer_part_ii.php
Prague Summer, Part II
Filed under: Russia
image.jpg
From blogger Robert Amsterdam, attorney for Mikhail Khodorkovsky, comes this shocking observation:
Yesterday, when Putin’s chief of staff General Yuri Baluyevsky issued his frightening warning to the Czech Republic that the installation of a U.S. missile shield would be “a mistake,” many of us failed to notice the ominous anniversary that coincided. Thirty-nine years before on that exact date, citizens awoke to learn that their dreams of liberty were crushed as Warsaw Pact troops under orders from the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia to destroy the Prague Spring, killing about 79 people, wounding hundreds, and forcing Alexander Dubcek to sign the Moscow Protocols allowing for the occupation of the country. I was first made aware of this historically charged coincidence by the Italian newspaper Correire della Sera. So we can be sure that when the Russians talk tough of “mistakes” and urging what they believe to be Prague’s best interests, it is not difficult to see where the skepticism comes from - even if they are backing the highly respected former Czech PM Josef Tosovsky for the top job at the International Monetary Fund.
We are in a new cold war. Are we going to fight it now or . . .
Char-Prague-68.jpg
. . . wait until this happens?
These are worth reading:
The Rise of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
Author:
Lionel Beehner
June 12, 2006
[there are other articles on page/related]
http://www.cfr.org/publication/10883/
[A must read article]
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/08/the_revolution_in_transatlanti.html
August 21, 2007
The Revolution in Transatlantic Affairs
By Tony Corn
The return of both China and Islam in world history after a three-century-long eclipse has been the defining feature of the international stage since 1979.
In the first decade afterwards, the West was simply too focused on the “second Cold War” against the Soviet Bloc to ponder the meaning of the revolutions engineered by Den Xiao Ping in China and Khomenei in Iran. In the second decade, a victorious West, indulging in rhetorical self-intoxication, mistook the most recent stage of a century-old globalization process for the end of history and even geography.
Throughout the 1990s, this infatuation with globalization and a “time-space compression” in the virtual world led most Westerners to ignore the twofold epochal change taking place in the real world: the transfer of the center of gravity of the world economy from the Atlantic to the Pacific, with “three billion new capitalists” poised to put an end to three centuries of Euro-Atlantic economic primacy; and the rise of a “second nuclear age” in Asia and with it, the concomitant end of three centuries of Western military superiority.1
The year 2001 could have been an eye-opener but the West, too traumatized by the Islamist attack on America, failed to notice an equally important, if less spectacular, development: the creation by China of a coalition, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, including Russia and Central Asia as members, Iran as a silent partner, and India and Pakistan as observers. It took another five years for Western foreign policy experts to realize that this emerging SCO was, for all practical purposes, an OPEC with nukes, which had the potential to develop, over time, into a full-fledged “NATO of the East.”
At the NATO summit in Riga in November 2006, a little-noticed transatlantic revolution of sorts finally occurred when the Atlantic Alliance acknowledged that it would have to “go global” in order to remain relevant. Divided, America and Europe will fall; united, they can retain the lead. But all manners of “going global” are not equal, and the coming globalization of NATO is as much full of promises as it is fraught with perils.
Continued.............
[above articles are connected to this ]
http://publiuspundit.com/2007/08/the_shanghai_cooperation_organ.php
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) the Asian NATO?
Filed under: Asia
“The Iranian weekly Sobh-e Sadeq, the mouthpiece of Iranian Supreme leader Ali Khamenei circulated among the Revolutionary Guards, called on Shanghai Alliance member countries to accept Iran as a member. Iran’s membership, the paper said, would create a new regional strategic axis, to include Iran, Russia, and China - and this could reduce the West’s political, security, and economic maneuvering ability in the region as well as in Asia.” Trapped in the Middle East (basically America had a poor understanding of the tribal/feudal/religious type of conducting business of the Arab Muslims) the United States lost its stamina and to a certain extent lost direction. The result is that the Russian bear roars, Iran and Syria adopts the well known expression: “We must, indeed, all hang together or most assuredly we shall all hang separately” (Benjamin Franklin ); Venezuela and China will most likely take any opportunity to prove the United States that they too have the capacity of leading and changing the world. Which side will India and Pakistan eventually choose?
If you have the time I recommend an exceptional piece by Tony Corn, The Revolution in Transatlantic Affairs
More on SCO
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